Maladaptive coping strategies, often learned from our parent-figures, give us a brief distraction or reprieve from the discomfort (say, by drinking alcohol at a wedding, as I did) or avoiding any emotional reaction (as I also did when I dissociated). Either of these attempts at relieving our distress, however, ends up in more disconnection from the

Coping with Our Traumas

It’s the evolutionarily driven gut instinct that helped keep us alive throughout human history and still speaks to us; it’s that feeling of the hair on the back of our neck standing up when we

Still, she rarely showed any emotion in relation to his loss. She remained composed, almost numb, when discussing him.

You are the thinker of your thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.

FUTURE SELF JOURNAL

brain scans reveal that we operate only 5 per cent of the day in a conscious state;

Most of us did not have parent-figures who were able to identify, let alone regulate, their feelings.

Egocentrism in childhood is a developmental stage in which there’s an inability to understand the difference between the self