600 Podcasts and Counting...
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Joanna Macy: We Belong: Hope, Choice, and Our Relation...
Dr. Joanna Macy is an ecophilosopher, activist, and Buddhist scholar who has been at the forefront of movements for social justice and environmentalism for more than five decades. She founded the Work That Reconnects Network and has written many books, including World as Lover, World as Self. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Joanna about hope in times of chaos and dissolution, as well as how hope is something we do rather than just feel. Joanna and Tami discuss apathy as a refusal to face the inevitability of suffering and why the state of the environment can be especially heartbreaking. Finally, Tami and Joanna talk about our relationship with the earth as a natural birthright—one that is actually the source of all our energy and joy.
Being Witnessed In Grief Is A Powerful Balm For Healin...
Dear friends,
Two days after my cat, Hedda, died in 2016, my friend Francis sent me a sketch with a note “from” Hedda that read, in part, “P.S. I love you more than tuna.” Through my tears, I thought that would be a great book title. I had a clear vision: an illustrated gift book that people would give to friends, family, colleagues, or clients after the loss of their cat. A step beyond a sympathy card, this would be the first “empathy book” for adults grieving the loss of a cat.
Inspired in part by Eckhart Tolle and Patrick McDonnell’s Guardians of Being and Charles M. Schultz’s Happiness is a Warm Puppy, P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna offers comfort and inspiration through New Yorker-style drawings and simple, evocative language. My goal was to make it heartfelt without being cloying.
Every year, six million Americans and Canadians must say a final goodbye to their cats—buddies who leapt into their hearts as kittens, purred away heartbreak through multiple breakups, snuggled by their side in homes large and small, and occasionally deleted folders of work by stretching out on a warm keyboard.
“Pet loss” is considered a disenfranchised form of grief; it’s not culturally sanctioned. We don’t have any universal rituals for this grief, like sitting shiva or holding a wake. This often leaves the bereaved feeling isolated and misunderstood, which compounds the grief and makes healing more difficult.
People grieving companion animals have a need to be seen, their grief validated. Being witnessed in grief is a powerful balm for healing.
Friends of those grieving companion animals are often at a loss for ways to show their support. P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna gives all of us the opportunity to make a profound impact with a simple gesture.
When Francis sent me the sketch and note, I felt seen. Francis’s gift acknowledged the bond I’d had with Hedda and my grief at her death. The present tense of the note also reminded me that Hedda was still with me, even if I couldn’t see her. That was significant in terms of helping me heal, and that’s the comfort I hope P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna will provide to other cat lovers.
Sounds True has created a lovely video preview for P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna. I hope you’ll check it out below.
Ultimately, I hope this book will benefit the world in multiple ways: for the recipient, witnessing and healing; for the giver, a tangible action they can take to help another; for Best Friends Animal Society, to which I’m donating 10 percent of my proceeds, contributing to their work of keeping pets in the home. This includes helping low-income people connect with resources they need to feed, train, and care for their companion animals. And of course, I hope this will benefit Sounds True and their work in the world, which is quickly becoming more needed than ever.
Take care,
Sarah Chauncey
Elizabeth Stanley: Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
Elizabeth Stanley is a Georgetown University professor and the creator of Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, an approach taught to thousands in civilian and military high stress environments. A U.S. Army veteran with service in Asia and Europe, she holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, and MIT. She is the author of the book, Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Elizabeth Stanley about her 8-session online course, Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training: A Trauma-Sensitive Online Course to Build Resilience and Thrive During Stress. They also discuss why MMFT is a practice we can all benefit from; the value of expanding our “window of tolerance”; the relationship between personal agency and trauma; the “thinking” brain versus the “survival” brain; when stress becomes trauma; the importance of recovery from stressful situations; and more.
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Wendy Strgar: Sex That Works
Wendy Strgar is an award-winning entrepreneur, writer, and the founder of the renowned organic personal care product company Good Clean Love. With Sounds True, she has published Sex That Works: An Intimate Guide to Awakening Your Erotic Life. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Wendy about Sex That Works—particularly the insights it draws from Wendy’s work as a sexual health educator and her own 30 years of marriage. They talk about the most common obstacles to achieving personal sexual harmony and what it takes to keep a long-term relationship sexually satisfying. Wendy describes her own journey to the creation of Good Clean Love and how she discovered her calling as a “loveologist.” Finally, Tami and Wendy discuss what is to have a healthy fantasy life and why true sexual freedom is taking responsibility for one’s own needs. (66 minutes)
Sara Avant Stover: The Portal of Heartbreak
Heartbreak is a universal human experience. Yet we often lack the vocabulary and the skills needed to move through heartbreak wisely. This was certainly the case for Sara Avant Stover, whose decades of spiritual practice and deep inner work could not prepare her for the “serial heartbreaks” that upended her life. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with the author of Handbook for the Heartbroken about the challenges of navigating loss in a “heartbreak-illiterate” society.
Discover how our most painful experiences can become a gateway to personal empowerment and healing, in this practical conversation on: taking on a disposition of tenderness; the impacts of cascading losses; entering the depths of our pain; the metaphor of the tightrope over the chasm; moving from self-judgment to self-acceptance; how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helps us during heartbreak; the quiet “soul” powers our pain can open us to; grief; supporting the heartbroken; rituals for letting go; the midlife initiation; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
A Compassionate Approach to Recognizing Trauma Bonding
The theory of attachment styles became popularized in the last 15 years; now trauma is (finally) getting recognition from the mainstream. But most of us aren’t yet clear about the very deep connection that exists between trauma and certain attachment styles. This is where the concept of “trauma bonding” comes into play.
What is trauma bonding?
Trauma bonding happens when we get attached to someone who is often neglectful or abusive (physically, emotionally, or psychologically), but is also occasionally kind. When we’re attached to someone like this, we typically explain away their bad behavior, claiming “they had a hard day” or “it was my fault they got mad at me.” Rationalization offers us a semblance of protection from seeing the reality of the danger and inequality in the relationship.
It’s common to form a trauma bonding pattern when one of our parents or partners is erratic, abusive, or absent. But often the template of trauma bonding gets applied to many of our relationships.
Signs You Have a Trauma Bond
If you’re in a trauma bond relationship right now, you may make dramatic or sudden life changes or even great sacrifices for the sake of the relationship to the detriment of outside friendships, family, and your autonomy.
Even if the original, harmful relationship is now a thing of the past (e.g., you moved out, you broke up with the manipulative partner, or your former abuser has died), the trauma bonding pattern may remain embedded until you learn how to consciously uproot it.
Signs this trauma bonding template is still present can include:
- Emotionally caretaking others while your own needs and desires are swept under the rug
- Acting as if you continually need to prove your worth to others (and yourself)
- Avoiding being authentic or open because it feels like too great a risk
- Feeling frustrated, exhausted, hypervigilant, or unsupported in relationships due to perceiving pressure coming from others
- A pattern of feeling disempowered around coworkers, a spouse, or family members
What Causes Trauma Bonding?
When we experience stress and feel (consciously or unconsciously) we’re in danger, our sympathetic nervous system activates the “fight or flight” response. As long as that circuitry is activated, we’re not able to plan for the future or assess risks very clearly; our nervous system gets locked in survival mode to get through the stress. In other words, it’s not your fault that you can’t see what’s going on.
The challenge is heightened because of the intermittent reinforcement that characterizes trauma bonds: we receive occasional comfort or love in the relationship, which is sprinkled on top of the typical abuse or neglect. Like other forms of intermittent reinforcement, it’s an addictive combination to be exposed to, and one that hampers our ability to understand we’re being mistreated.
Because we focus so intently on the positive reinforcement we experience from time to time with our abuser, we contort ourselves psychologically to try to get the love as often as we can. Once this pattern is established, it is naturally hard to stop engaging it—again, because of the way our nervous system developed. Getting outside support to stop the cycle is an act of strength and wisdom.
Should You Break a Trauma Bond?
If you’re in clear and real danger, it is most important to find a way to safely remove yourself from harm. Over the longer term, the best approach is learning to create healthy relational boundaries so as not to form or reform trauma bonds.
Once you start to become aware of the trauma bonding pattern operating in you, you can recognize and address the behaviors it causes. You can uncover and listen to your buried needs and wants, and reclaim your personal power and freedom. Doing this can help you shift your nervous system out of past trauma bonding tendencies and toward new possibilities, including nurturing mutual relationships with people who are interested in your happiness and will support your thriving.
To find out more about healing traumas (including trauma bonding), please check out The Healing Trauma Program, hosted by Jeffrey Rutstein, PsyD, CHT.
