Trauma Training Tip Oh glorious Spring! Here in the mid-Atlantic the flowering and blooming come wave upon wave. Daffodils, tulips, forsythia, dogwoods, red buds, cherries, apples and peaches just keep flowing and flowering. They push through cold and dense earth to emerge with full color and rich expression and the fruits of a new year.  The energy of Spring is emblematic of the Sympathetic nervous system and the Wood Element in Chinese medicine. The Wood Element mirrors the Sympathetic Nervous System. It supports us to orient to challenges or threats, strategize solutions, mobilize necessary resources and implement an action of …

Trauma Training Tip It’s Wood Season – and so nature is supporting me to consider the dynamics of conflict and conflict resolution and polarization and community. How do we support ourselves and our loved ones to walk towards each other, so that ultimately we can walk with each other? I’ve realized that I can get confused about who I should stand in opposition to – and I make mistakes about who is “the enemy” and who is truly my companion. The Wood season is the season of the sympathetic nervous system, the part of us that is always available to protect and …

Trauma Training Tip The Northern hemisphere has transitioned through the nadir of Winter’s darkness towards the time of Spring’s greater light. In the cosmology of Chinese medicine, Yin has met its depth and is turning to Yang. The sap has started to awaken and rise in the trees. It’s a potent time of transformation. Those who live in countries that celebrated the Chinese New Year on January 22nd have welcomed the year of the Yin Rabbit – who will emerge on February 4th. (If you are interested in more info – check out CT Holman’s free presentation on the year of the Yin Rabbit, on the TCMAcademy …

Trauma Training Tip Each of the 5 Elements has a sense organ that is called forward during its season. For the Water Element, it is our ears and our capacity to hear. Why are the ears and our capacity to hear resonant with the Water? On perhaps the most superficial level, the outer ear is shaped like the kidney, the yin organ of the Water Element. On a deeper level, the emotion associated with the Water Element is fear. When we are afraid, we may be challenged to listen with curiosity – we may find ourselves orienting our listening to …

Trauma Training Tip It’s winter! The time of year associated with the Water Element, the emotion of fear, the signal initiating our self-protective response, and our capacity to find safety and distinguish discomfort from fear. In Chinese medicine, the Water and its organs, the Kidney and Bladder, have a resonant relationship with the bones. The bones play a very important role in our survival response. First off, they protect our internal organs in the event of physical trauma and support our mobilization response to move and escape danger. Those small bones in the ears also mediate hearing, a critical aspect …

Trauma Training Tip Here in the mid-Atlantic, most of the leaves are off the trees. Snow has already fallen in Northern states. The stillness of Winter is almost palpable. We are in the death phase of the agrarian calendar, the time of the Water Element. Winter can be a harsh season. Archetypal questions about our very survival lurk in our unconscious minds – do we have enough food or fuel stored away? How long will it last? Naturally, fear is the emotion associated with Winter. It is that fear that provides the signal for threat in our Self Protective Response. …

Trauma Training Tip Leaves are turning, the air is crisp. Fall is here.  The Lung and the Colon are organs associated with the Fall and the Metal Element. The spirit of the Lung is called the Poor the Animal Soul. It gives us the capacity to feel animated in our essential animal nature – in our bodies. Cultivating this felt sense is a critical tool for healing the impact of traumatic stress. The gift of the Fall in the Self Protective Response is to help us “Awaken Arousal” to a sense that “something is amiss” – it’s an embodied knowing. An …

Trauma Training Tip Autumn. The air becomes crisp and clear. The loss of light inhibits chlorophyll production – and allows the inherent beauty of the leaves to show. Like the trees that show their splendor, we too aresupported to see and know our value – and own essential, gem-like nature. The Metal Element’s organs are the Lung and the Colon. Metal represents both the beginning and the conclusion of all aspects of creation. We measure the beginning and ending of a life with the Lung’s function – it carries our “first” and our “last” breath.   In the Tao of …

Trauma Training Tip August. Peaches. Tomatoes. Zucchini that won’t stop. Sticky. Hot. Dense. Lightning bugs. So many bugs. Nothing like it. Our Taoist teachers named five seasons rather than four, and called the fifth Late Summer. It is a time of the harvest. A time to focus on the Spleen and Stomach and their important role at the center of our existence. For thousands of years, Chinese practitioners have observed and treated digestive issues with nutrition, herbs, energy medicine, and awareness, all of which recognize the process of digestion as being central to life itself. It turns out Western science concurs. …

Trauma Training Tip I’d like to open this month’s News ‘n Views with a heartfelt shout out to everyone who is feeling called to be especially kind-hearted, open-hearted, tender-hearted, kind, compassionate and loving – even in small ways. It matters and you matter. While I firmly believe, I have to believe, that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King has taught us, I also have to say, this chapter of our nation’s and our world’s story – well, it’s been rough. The law of yin and yang alongside the clinical observation that there is …