Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue

Image Cicely Mary Barker

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Happy February…

Deep sleeps the Winter,
Cold, wet, and grey;
Surely all the world is dead;
Spring is far away.
Wait! the world shall waken;
It is not dead, for lo,
The Fair Maids of February
Stand in the snow!

~Cicely Mary Barker

Hello and sending best! I am looking forward to February and the Celtic celebration of Imbolc. My husband and I like to make all our candles for the year around this time. It is so fun meting the wax, adding fragrance and pouring our mixture into little containers. Sometimes we use old tea cups and sprinkle in dried rose petals or other dried flowers. Making candles is easy. You can find lots of full kits on etsy here.

Secondary Trauma/Compassion Fatigue

It's not been an easy start to the year for many of us. I encourage everyone to practice as much self care as possible. Therapists and other health care providers learn about secondary trauma and compassion fatigue as part of their training. These are things that everyone should know about now because even if we don't work in these fields we are vulnerable to both. It has been nearly a year now that we have been dealing with the changes and stressors related to the pandemic. We are all on a spectrum of loss, change and transformation. Secondary trauma or compassion fatigue can happen when for extended periods of time we are hearing about, witnessing or helping someone who is experiencing trauma or distress. Some symptoms are exhaustion, irritability, having persistent feelings of not doing enough or being enough and disturbed sleep. The good news is, if we are experiencing any of this - there is a solution.

1. Name our symptoms as compassion fatigue or secondary trauma

2. Avoid optional sources of re-traumatization like the news or social media

3. "Empty out." This looks different for different people. Some possible ways to empty out are:

• spend an extended period of time in nature

• take time off work

• take a break from screens and immerse yourself in the elements (air, water, fire and earth)

• develop/deepen a prayer and meditation practice

Let me know if there are other resources, rituals or tools you recommend!

Simple Solstice Ritual

Image Hannah Green MFT

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Happy Winter!

I am hoping each of us has a chance to replenish, renew and recharge during these long winter nights. The light is returning! After the winter solstice on the 21st of December we will be ushering in the longer days once more. For many of our ancestors, this has always been a time of deep reflection, gratitude and celebration. This solstice is very unique ~ an opportunity to things differently and perhaps find a new way of safely celebrating and remembering what is important to us.

I know it is tough to keep the faith during such big challenges and changes. I am reminding myself...
It is ok to grieve.
It is ok to not have all the answers.
I can choose to trust the process.

I am sending deep gratitude to each of you for being part of my life and my practice. We made it!

Image Upsplash

The following is a simple solstice ritual that I love:

• Get a candle and a lighter.

• Turn out all the lights and sit...either by yourself or with loved one(s).

• Experience and greet the darkness.

• Reflect on how you have grown and changed this year.

• Ask yourself...what am I bringing out of the darkness and into the light? (This could mean...what am I bringing into awareness, compassion and acceptance and/or what gifts and abilities am I bringing into the forefront.)

• Say "I am bringing _________ out of the darkness and into the light" as you light your candle.

• If you are by yourself just reflect quietly on the candle's light.

• If you are gathered with others, listen and watch the light grow as each candle is lit.

New Tori Amos Christmas Album :)

Recovery and the Holidays

Image Eric Muhr

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Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all of you a safe, happy holiday.

I recently had a great time talking with Annie Schuessler on the Rebel Therapist Podcast. Her podcast has been a source of inspiration to me over the years. I talk about the Embracing the Shadow Women's group, my morning practices and staying away from burn out by channeling creativity. Hope you enjoy!

Listen to Me on the Rebel Therapist Podcast

Art: A little fairy indulging by Omar Rayyan

I feel the pull to consume more around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Plus, who on earth has done enough spiritual practice to stay present and grounded during a family dinner ~ let alone through an entire holiday season? The old coping mechanisms can come down the chimney during the holidays as well...

During my first sober Christmases I often thoroughly enjoyed walking around with a bottle full of Christmas colored M&M's and taking liberal swigs of sugary goodness. I would fill a glass coca~cola bottle with these little chocolate pearls and loved feeling their silkiness fall into my mouth as I tilted the bottle back. After all, I wasn't drinking alcohol and I was so grateful for that.⁠
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I thought of myself as Buddy the Elf, on a happy diet of sugar and celebration. Those were good years in early sobriety. They were necessary years. I wouldn't change them. ⁠
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It seems however, that years of therapy, recovery, magic and building awareness through a plethora of mind expanding modalities has slowed (not eradicated) my unconscious consumption.
⁠
I had a hungry little girl inside me...that had never had enough....enough love, enough attention...so I fed her well. Really well.

And I still do...but it is more conscious now. ⁠I am able to taste sweetness in many things, including a more conscious relationship with food.⁠ Feeding her "well" has new meaning.
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I don't have to get stomach aches from celebrations with the precious little girl inside me.⁠
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I sincerely hope my reflections don't come off as discouraging or shaming of anyones enjoyment or reveling this season. I once bought 20 Tartine eclairs to share with my graduate class! Enjoyment and celebration with food was and still is a core value.

I am writing this though for all those who are bringing consciousness into their relationship with imbibing and consuming, wether that consciousness resulted from a happy and miraculous insight, through hitting a painful bottom or through painstakingly being willing to pause and feel a moment of seemingly perilous discomfort...only to find out....a craving passes. ⁠

I am writing this for those who commit to pausing before reaching for an old coping mechanism and ask: Is there anything really wrong with this moment? When we pause and ask the question, sometimes we find out:

This moment is enough. I have enough. I am enough.
⁠
Rewiring the pleasure center of my brain to enjoy the dopamine available from a nutritious meal, a calm connection, a fresh morning walk is a gift I am so grateful for.

I no longer drink spirits but I drink in Spirit as often as I can. I find spirit in this moment, the moment I almost missed in my endless quest for enough.

Perhaps this anomalous 2020 holiday season will give me a unique opportunity to pause and experience this moment and appreciate the abundance within it.

I do not regret the years of imbibing large amounts of intoxicants and sugars. The associated dopamine rushes were the training wheels for the grounded ecstatic experience of recovery...and provided the necessary relief at the time. ⁠
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I am so grateful for another sober Thanksgiving and am looking forward to a more conscious enjoyment of bountiful, beautiful food. ⁠
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Enjoy! Love to all.

I've Got This Song On Repeat

Scorpio and the Art of Transformation

Image Andreas Selter

Happy New Moon

How are you holding up?

This month I am focussing on the art of letting go in order to be reborn.

I am wishing you the best and hope that despite the heaviness of this year your heart is finding some hope and lightness. Loss and change has been a major theme for all of us one way or another this year.

I have watched so many people make brave choices in the face of uncertainty, handle loss with grace and express their deep feelings with courage and vulnerability. I have watched changes quickly catalyze in the wake of the pandemic and seen people let go and allow these changes. As a result I've seen many of these changes bring them deeper into alignment with their values and needs. Priorities have changed.

I have seen people get married, get divorced, lose their business, start a business, deepen their relationships and spiritual practices and transform their lives in ways they thought they would do...someday...but the time was now. I am in awe of the transformation that has occurred: both internal and external.

With all change comes loss and letting go.

November is a month of transformation. We see the leaves falling to the ground and the earth letting death release the deadwood so that once again Spring can bring new life.

Scorpio, the Art Nouveau Astrology Oracle Deck

November corresponds with the Scorpio archetype ~ the archetype of the death rebirth cycle. Scorpio corresponds with the Death card in the Tarot major arcana. (see image below). These archetypes remind us that death is part of rebirth and that the two seeming opposites are in fact one phenomenon. This beautiful poem by Sri Aurobindo the Indian sage captures this truth:

Life, death, - death, life; the words have led for ages Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed Two opposites; but now long hidden pages Are opened, liberating truths undreamed. Life only is, or death is life disguised, - Life a short death until by life we are surprised. ~ Sri Aurobindo

I am embracing November as a time to consciously let go in order to transform.

These are some questions I am asking myself:

• Is there anything that feels like “deadwood” and am I ready to let that go?

• What are my boundaries?

• How am I letting go and reducing stress by utilizing my boundaries?

• What is dying and what is being reborn as a result?

• What am I realizing it is time to let go of and how do I feel about letting it go?

• What old ideas about myself am I ready to let go of ?

Janine Roth's book below is a beautiful story of letting go. She describes the gut wrenching experience of loosing 30 years life savings and the ensuing painful but enlightening process that followed. She models in a very real way how to dig deep and find the willingness to step into loss as a portal for transformation and reminds us we don't have to wait for big losses, we can start embracing the fact of impermanence and change now.

This time of year calls us to slow down and let go...wishing you the very best this November as you navigate your own changes, transformations, deaths and rebirths.

Love to all.

Favorite book this month: Lost and Found: One woman's story of losing her money and finding her life b

Death Card Radiant Rider Waite Tarot Deck

Happy Halloween

Image freestocks

HAPPY FULL, BLUE MOON HALLOWEEN!

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Time for stews, marigolds, thieves oil (recipe below), communing with ancestors of blood or creative lineage, dark chocolate and whatever connects you to this special time of year.

Our bodies are getting the message to slow down and to connect with what replenishes and grounds us as we head towards the earth shadow time and "holiday season." Our culture may give us the message to speed up, make obligatory plans, spend money, eat food that doesn't make us feel good....but a deeper voice whispers in the cool air and rustling, golden leaves.

Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

This Sturgill Simpson album is medicine.

Image Lisa Hobbs

THIEVES OIL

This is a favorite fall recipe that is also very timely given our more frequent cleaning, wiping and disinfecting this year. As we go towards colder weather, boosting our immune system with rest and good food is so important and this thieves oil can add another layer pf protection and support.

The Historic Folklore of This Famous Remedy

According to folklore thieves oil dates back to the year 1413 during the time of the Bubonic Plague. 

During this time four thieves were captured and charged for stealing from the sick and dying.  The thieves never contracted the plague, despite the close contact with victims of the bubonic plague.

The men were eventually captured and the judge was so intrigued by how these men had stayed immune to this terrible disease, he told them if they shared their secret he would spare them their punishment.

The Thieves told the judge their secret: they were perfume & spice merchants unemployed due to the plague. They had prepared an essential oil recipe that when applied to their hands, ears, temples, feet & a mask over their mouths, kept them safe from infection.

Since then this concoction became known as "thieves oil." has been used to sanitize, relieve inflammation and diffused to clear phlegm and airborne pathogens. 

This versatile blend has become popular due to its now well-known anti-bacterial, anti-fungal & anti-viral properties.

I like to use it to clean surfaces and in my diffuser. 

TO MAKE THIEVES OIL: 

Blend essential oils of: 

LEMON
EUCALYPTUS
CINAMON
CLOVE
ROSEMARY

Mix the essential oils together and shake well. I add drops to almond oil for rubbing on my hands and feet and add to water for diffusing or cleaning surfaces. 

Enjoy!

Image Cover of Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Here's what women are saying about Embracing the Shadow Women's group...

"I loved the feeling of community and sisterhood! I realized I am not alone on my journey, not alone in my struggles. I am really excited about Group Work now, and its potential. I also greatly appreciated having tangible exercises, books and resources to work on! Hannah did great at creating a safe container where magic can happen.Hannah was great at including everybody in the group, and giving us all chances to share.
~ Embracing the Shadow Participant

"This was my first experience in a women's group. I felt a strong sense of support and a safe space to explore aspects of myself that I sometimes view as shameful or "bad'. I have felt better this month than I have in a long time and I attribute a majority of that to my participation in this group. I'm taking away some positive habits such as writing down my dreams and pulling a tarot card. I've also developed friendships rooted in exploration of self and mutual respect"
~ Embracing the Shadow Participant

"The group gave me a container to focus and wonder. It was helpful to hear others talk about their experience and to notice what felt similar and different.
The prompt to pull a card or image each day brought me into deeper connection with my new deck, and it was really fun. I loved having the FB group to share images and thoughts - more opportunities to see synchronicities between us. I loved the focus and holding of the group. Thank you! I liked the opportunity to share something creative for the closing ritual. I get excited about bringing songs into more of my spaces. Loving sharing that part of me more."
~ Embracing the Shadow Participant

Sound good?

Learn More Here

I understand that it's always a little scary going into the unknown and into the mists....but the women of Avalon can inspire us to rely on our intuition and bravery to make the crossing. If you feel the call, please join us! Start the journey by clicking the link below.

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PS: Here's some of the details...

• Embracing the Shadow focuses on a monthly theme where we explore specific tools and practices to advance our growth. We combine traditional psychology and western mysticism (the tarot, Jungian psychology and more) for potent insight and transformation.

• Embracing the Shadow focusses on fostering Carl Jung called Individuation which means conscious awareness of wholeness and the connection with the Self.

• Embracing the Shadow currently costs $175/ month which is less than one therapy session!

• You can participate in Embracing the Shadow from anywhere in the world.

Embracing the Shadow includes:

• Self Study: A PDF outlining that months focus that includes resource materials, suggested practices and optional reading

• Community: Participation in a lively forum

• Connection: Two live zoom meetings: One for diving into that months readings and practices and one for deeper group process. We meet 2 Wednesdays a month at 6 pm.

• Bonus: The occasional additional meeting in nature when possible

PPS: If you are a past client and have seen me for either individual or couples therapy I would love to reconnect with you through Embracing the Shadow.

APPLY TO EMBRACING THE SHADOW WOMENS GROUP

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