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Thursday, March 31, 2016. I found this in my email box this morning from the most incredible blog website of scientific curatorship – Surface Your Real Self – this important post:

What is epigenetic inheritance?

This 2016 review by Eric J. Nestler, a well-known and well-funded researcher, entitled Transgenerational Epigenetic Contributions to Stress Responses: Fact or Fiction? concluded:

“Further work is needed to understand whether and to what extent true epigenetic inheritance of stress vulnerability adds to the well-established and powerful influence of genetics and environmental exposures in determining an individual’s susceptibility versus resilience to stress throughout life

There is growing evidence for at least some contribution of epigenetic regulation—perhaps achieved by miRNAs—in mediating part of the ability of parental behavioral experience to influence stress vulnerability in their offspring.”

The reviewer applied the terms involved to exclude behavioral mechanisms. The extent of what is “epigenetic inheritance” seemed to be lost in the process.

For example, his own 2011 research Paternal Transmission of Stressed-Induced Pathologies was cited for evidence that:

“Adult male mice subjected to chronic social defeat stress generate offspring that are more vulnerable to a range of stressful stimuli than the offspring of control mice.”

Please click here to read more!  This is MUST-KNOW information! — What is epigenetic inheritance?

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I have summed up my take on this blog over the years = For humans > We are created with the potential to be in nearly all cases PERFECTLY HEALTHY AND HAPPY!

We are also created to endure, survive, and when any aspect of the environment we are born into – primarily signaled by the condition of health and happiness in MOTHER – is less than ideal, her condition signals to her rapidly developing offspring the quality of the world SHE lives in so that her offspring can utilize every creative force possible to adapt to those conditions.

(I believe that post-birth mother communicates the state of her well-being to her offspring via the quality of her interactions with her little one.  Mother has TO BE AVAILABLE to her little one in order for healthful world qualities to be conveyed to young one.  The existence to the offspring of the ABSENCE of the PRESENCE of MOTHER communicates all by  itself – and in BIG ways – that there is something WRONG with the world environment the infant has been born into, and that conditions of scarcity and deprivation are in existence.  Physiological development WILL be altered for such a little one as it prepares to live a life in a less-than-optimal world whose existence has been communicated in every way by these deprivation conditions.  We seriously need to quit fooling ourselves about these facts, and epigentic factors absolutely DO work to translate all traumas to little ones.) (Healthy loving grandmothers, aunties who know their mothering stuff can replace mothers except for breastfeeding needs in the first 1-2+ years of little one’s life.)

The phrase in my mind this morning = “The onrushing gales of destiny….” (in a prayer written around 1870)

Along with these words comes the knowledge this morning that there are at present nearly 7.5 billion humans alive on this planet.  What goodness do we each add to life today?  What negativity do we choose to eliminate – for good?

We are in this life together – with all life.  There are answers to our problems if we are willing to be mature enough to pay attention to them.  What important lessons will we learn individually and collectively today?  It’s out choice.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

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Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Saturday, March 19, 2016.  I am now old enough, having lived almost to my 65^th birthday, to talk about things in terms of “many years ago,” and be accurate!  (This includes my not only surviving my own childhood, but also having survived these past nine years past advanced, aggressive breast cancer.)

So I can say it was three decades ago that I participated myself through a version of what I today embellish past the original “one part” into my “three parts” (maybe even four parts) process I describe today.

Because I am a craft person, and because I so enjoy creating things in 3-dimensions, and because I like to handle supplies, materials and objects, this little suggestion involves a supply list!

Any version of this will do – so experiment!  However, I suggest:

3 old fashioned recipe boxes (large or small)

LOTS of old fashioned index cards to fit into your boxes

Pens, markers, pencils, crayons – whatever!

NOW!

There are all kinds of ways you can label and/or decorate your boxes.  Paint on them, decoupage them, tape and glue things onto them, mark on them, label and name them – or not.

NOW, the important part!  Into #1  box will go all the “negative” harsh, painful, etc. statements that appear in your mind.  Start with the first one that appears once you are ready to begin this venture.  Number that card somewhere with (1), and off you go as you continue to write each one down on a card, number it in order, and stick it in its “old stuff” box.

Now – the trick here – is that once one of these wicked thoughts (all having come from some abuse in your earlier life) comes into mind you do NOT write it down when it comes back again.  Soon you will know when it shows up that a thought has its own card already.  You can choose, then, what you want to do with these repeats, these reruns.  Take its original card out and spend a little time noting this resurrection if this is helpful.  Make some kind of note, date or something, that keeps track of when it appears again – whatever you want – whatever seems natural and useful to you.

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NOW – in a 2^nd box write down on a card super positive thoughts when THEY appear in your mind, going through the same process as just mentioned for repeats of these thoughts, as well.  These are encouragements, positive affirmations that fit for you, things people say to you on a given day, etc.

You can even title these card boxes and their collections like “SUPER POOPER” and “SUPER DUPER,” – whatever seems to work for you!

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Box #3?  Ah Ha!  Completely NEW STUFF!  Into this box you begin to number cards (I would suggest dating all cards in all boxes) that express thoughts that make you happy NOW and might even seem brand new – thoughts that are connected to what you want to DO next – however close or far away that period of NEXT might be.  These cards are from your creative, continually growing and evolving own inner soul self!

These cards are NOT about gaining material things UNLESS such a thing be connected to a self-desire that has an activity-of-new-life component.  Want to dance?  What to sing, make music, join a band?  Want to take or teach a cooking class, improve your kitchen?  Your garden?  Want to hike or travel or swim or skydive?  Want to write, perform, run for office?  Be an ice cream vendor?

Who cares WHAT you write on any of these cards?  YOU DO!!

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Truthfully, I only imagine boxes 2 and 3 – because I only so long ago availed myself of box 1 – and it was FANTASTIC!!!  While before I had felt that if I were to make an ongoing list of negative (horribly so) things that had been said to and about me in during the 18 years of my so-abusive childhood the list would be unending – like the porridge from escaping the magic pot in the fairy tale whose overflowing sticky muck swallowed up people, homes, villages and entire country sides – and COULD NOT BE STOPPED!

Not so.  It actually did not take very long before every single repeating hopeless (awful statement about me from my mother), thought (and feeling) had been recorded.  Every horrible condemnation.  All those mental repeating ugly statements (including feelings attached to them and generated by them) had been recorded!

Tidily.  Respectfully.  There they all were in their little box – with all repetitions noted as they seemed to matter to me – until after only a few short months they whole process became simply BORING!!  I clearly now KNEW what was in that #1 box, kept there safely I will admit for a few more years until one day I simply burned the cards and reused the box to keep record of art techniques that interested me.

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Only vaguely have those discarded statements ever returned specifically to my mind, so thoroughly did I work this process out at the time – way back then.  I KNOW the process I went through to fight back against them, and THAT process was so empowering that what was on those cards matters less to me than the flies I have swatted and killed over the years of my adulthood.  What was Mother’s I have given to her.  What is mine – I honor and cherish in the very best ways I know how to.  I no longer live by that mad litany.

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Some people might call box #2 “A Mommy Box” as they end up putting in there cards that document, each on their own card, statements mothers (and fathers if we call this “A Parent Box” – or if you have a missing father, or a crummy father – another “Father Box”) – so that these missing elements can be tracked, accumulated, reckoned with, healed – whatever needs to be done to incorporate positive elements and components that feed and sustain instead of hurt and erode.

An expanded version of this process can include the creation of a separate notebook, a larger file, and/or a scrapbook that will hold awards, newspaper clippings, great representations of anything you feel represents the greatness of YOU and of accomplishments you find happiness-making!!

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Part of what I like about these kinds of processes is that they “materialize” things that matter – in a manner that recognizes these aspects of life.  What might seem on the negative side to be unending and overwhelming and hopeless – is not!!!

So does some version of this seem fun or useful?  Give it a whirl!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

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Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Saturday, March 19, 2016.  What follows is a series of simple thoughts scribbled on the pages of a yellow pad of paper at the beginning of this day.  (Words in parenthesis are the afterthoughts.)

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Inner assurance that we belong

And are a part of something bigger

Than we are

A kind of “joining with”

And “joining up”

And “joined to”

(That we exist as wonderful entities at all)

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Someone notices

Someone to notice what we

Like and enjoy and are good at

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Noticing what we are trying

To learn and do and figure out

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To affirm and guide and encourage

Give us tips and oh-so-gentle and loving age-appropriate little lessons and instructions on how to do what attracts us –

When we are little

Our tender little hearts and minds

Our thoughts.  Our tiny fingers.

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These tiny little links from the outside of us, alongside us, right with us, linked to

Each precious individual self

We are NOT just little bodies

We need help to grow our self – for our selfhood to be born

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This precious process takes TIME.  Children’s time does not run along with the giant gears of adults’ time

Little ones are “there within” in those moments when a fresh new tip of grass pops out of thawing soil

When and where a new spring leaf POPS out of its tiny wrapped sheaf of potential green

At the first-ever glimpse of the tiniest burst of a flower bringing forth its OWN color

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Owning of objects can NEVER compare with owning one’s unique inner self

What do I like?  What attracts me?  What tickles my interest, curiosity, desire to learn, to do, to practice?  (And ultimately to GIVE?) (key words:  experiment and explore; the magic and creativity of life; feeling safe in a universe of infinite positive potential both within and without; confidence, competence, increasingly happy autonomy)

Who is in my world to notice?  Who can I call to my side to praise me, to acknowledge my trying?  To praise my tiny efforts?  And in these ways to encourage me to grow Grow GROW?

(Who is there in my world to take authentic interest in my existence?)

(And who protects my sacred space within which I am blossoming forth from any intrusions that harm me?)

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Nobody needs to NOTICE a leaf being born for it to open.  Tiny new tips of pines simply sprout from within the main body of a tree and there they are!  In existence where before there was empty space.

But for a new human being?  Ah!  No!

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We need more than cycles of light and darkness.  More than light, water and physical nutrition to bud, blossom, bloom and grow.

We DO need others to watch us.  To share directly the focus of the time of their life with us during the time of our life as we are newly just being born with every one of our heartbeats.  With every breath we take.  With every blink of our little eyelids.

Or?

Will we be, in direct correspondence to the deprivations caused by the lack of caring others’ attention, be lost to ourselves?

And there is no greater loss in the universe than this one.

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How do we foster being kindly awake and aware of ourselves and then to others in this world when there was nobody there paying necessary attention to our growth processes every step of the way especially during those stages of our life from conception to age 5?

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(And certainly when those to whom our care was entrusted were not there to help us but instead greatly harmed us along every step of the way through our childhood, especially during the earliest months and years of our life?)

(And certainly, I would note, in today’s world with too-busy parents and so many tiny lost people being herded in groups through their 10-11 hour days in daycare?)

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

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Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Tuesday, March 15, 2016.  First – here’s a poem written 700 years ago by Hafiz that a friend sent to me this morning:  My Sweet, Crushed Angel

My friend told me “You are an angel” – which of course I do not FEEL.  But – that is really what this beautiful poem is all about!

She next sent me this poem – Aimless Love by Billy Collins

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Now – this – something another friend of mine discovered and sent to me.  I do not have a printer so I have to ask yet another friend to print this for me so that I can post it on my wall (I told her I don’t need this in color):  I LOVE pictures!

An ACEs Roadmap to Resilience – great visual of 23 steps to introduce a community to the powers of the CDC ACE trauma healing paradigm.  Personally, I believe there are ways to BEGIN to introduce ACE information that do not need to include vast amounts of money.  It begins with TALKING with other people!!

Which brings me to this link (again) –NOW is the time there are finally versions of the Paper Tigers movie for purchase by institutions as well as for screenings:  PURCHASE INFO HERE

Today I called to speak with the librarian of the small Arizona town that I call home about helping to add Paper Tigers to their collection.  The librarian will research the information I provided on ACEs, on Paper Tigers, and on the variety of licensing options available for institutional purchase of this movie.

I am hoping one library can buy it for the lowest $75 rate AND be able to circulate the DVD.  I hope to hear back from the librarian soon!  Please consider letting your local library along with school districts, universities – in your town/area about this film!!

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I would say today that I live in a very stinky part of town!  Yes.  I do.  Along with everyone else that happens to live anywhere south of the city’s dump.  Which is thawing out.  Which has not been turned, it seems, or buried since the ground froze here last fall.  And – then – here comes the slow moving perfect north wind.

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I was having a pleasurable breakfast with a friend this morning.  I was listening ardently to her talk about her life, her childhood – I am an ardent listener, not skilled in blocking what’s coming – sometimes – what I am going to react to with all my being.

My friend was speaking of great painful traumas when she was 11.  She spoke of having that history reawakened 24 years later.  She spoke of her amazement how things can be “put away somewhere” – and then BOOM!!!!

When the BOOM came – she FELT LIKE she needed to be wrapped tightly in a blanket, rolled up in one, held in some safe person’s arms – so that she could cry and cry and cry and cry

I say FELT LIKE – because there was nobody to do this for her

Dare I say – Of course not?

Well, all was going OK for me as the caring ardent listener until something RIGHT THERE in my friend’s story – and without warning — my stomach churned – and out the door of the restaurant I had no choice but to run.

I never saw it coming.

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Then there was someone else I know….  An email about an idea I have related to community ACEs healing….  An idea I am evidently not only  firmly passionate about, but also extremely sensitive to “rejection” about.

Shamed.  In essence I heard “What a dumb person you are to have such a dumb idea!”

OK.

Shame happens.  Now I feel even MORE shame that I felt SHAME in the first place and then more shame that I reacted to that shame – got hooked – responded back….

Oh.  Great.

“My Sweet, Crushed Angel” – Within.  Without.

There is no perfect way to be human.  There is no perfect way to heal.  This.  Life.  Stink and all.  What an ordinary kind of magic.  What a miracle life is.  For all of us.  No exceptions.

I would like to BE better.  I would like to DO better.  That’s why there’s prayer.  That’s why there’s another day.  And forgiveness.  And apologies.  And tenderness.  And love.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Thursday, March 3, 2016.  I have found another essay written by Prentice Mulford 127 years ago in his book – Thoughts Are Things  (mentioned in my recent post)– that I like very much.

Mulford wrote hundreds of essays.  He would have made a terrific blogger in today’s world!  However, his words written on paper have survived into this future while I doubt many bloggers will be able to have that happen to their words.  We write in an invisible world, one that I suspect Mulford certainly was guessing about during his lifetime.

I find it delightful to take some of Mulford’s words off of paper and place them here in this post today.  I think this would make him chuckle.  He appears to have been that kind of practical man!  Here he reminds us of the organic nature of being alive, and of the value of the seasons whose processes we cannot escape, even if we should want to.

And most of all in this chapter Mulford reminds us to be GENTLE and KIND to ourselves!  Sounds like self-care and self-soothing to me!

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From Muldord’s chapter, The Healing and Renewing Force of Spring —

“Your body is acted on in its growth and changes by the same laws and elements which govern the growth and enter into all other organized bodies, such as trees, plants, birds, and animals.

“In the early spring of every year, there comes and acts on this planet a force from the sun which affects all organized forms of life – trees, birds, animals, and, above all, man.  Man’s being the highest, most complicated, and most powerful mental organism on the planet, absorbs the most of this power and will absorb far more in the future, and to far greater advantage than at present, as he learns to place himself in the best states to receive it.

“This force causes the increased movement and circulation of sap in the trees, which commences as soon as the sun of the new year acts on them.  The sap is a new life to the tree, from which later comes its buds, blossoms, and fruitage.  The inflowing of this unseen sun-force gives the tree power to draw new supplies of nourishing elements through its roots from the earth.  It gives it power also to cast off any dead leaves remaining of the last year’s crop which have hung on during the winter, as you may see in forests of oak or hickory.

“This force acts also in the later winter and earlier spring months on animals and birds, especially if in their wild or natural state, causing them to shed their last year’s coats of fur or feathers.  But this casting off of old visible matter is but a relatively small part of the change going on within them.  There is also a casting out or shedding of old invisible matter throughout the bird or animal’s entire body.  It goes off through the pores or other passages in various forms, some visible, others invisible, and is succeeded by new elements within, as the new fur, hair or feather is grown without.

“Your body is governed by the same law.  During the later winter and earlier spring months, you are “moulting.”  You are casting off old, dead matter, and taking in new, providing you give this force opportunity to act on you to the best advantage, by ceasing to be active either with mind or body when they call for rest, as do birds and animals during their moulting period, or process of casting off the old elements and receiving the new.

“The Indian called February and March the “weak months,” recognizing, as he did, being a closer observer of nature than we, the tendency to sluggishness and inactivity in animal and man, which always prevails when this power is recuperating, and renewing any organized body.

“The most perfect crystallizations out of mineral element come of the solution kept most free from agitation.  Your body is governed by the same law in this spring renewing and recrystallizations of it elements.  To receive thee fullest benefit of the healing and renewing element of spring, you should rest whenever you feel like resting, whether it be the middle of the day or the middle of the night.  If you keep the body or mind at work against their inclination – if you force your muscles to exertion through mere strength or will – if you work with either mind or body to the verge of utter exhaustion, not knowing how depleted you are of strength until your work is over, as thousands on thousands do and are compelled to do, through our unnatural system of life and the arbitrary demands of “business,” you prevent this healing and recuperative power from acting to its fullest extent on the body.  You prevent the new element, which is renewing the tree and causing the buds to swell, from assimilating with your body.  You hold on to worn-out element which should be cast off as the oak has cast all its dead leaves before the winter is over; you carry, then, this dead element, a “dead weight,” about with you, instead of the new and upward rising life….

“If you will but entertain this idea of spring’s renewing force respectfully, though you cannot believe it thoroughly at first, you will receive much help by such respectful entertainment; for if you do not kick a live truth out of your mind when it first presents itself, it will take root and live there, and prove itself by doing you good.

“In the kingdom of nature, we find periods of rest constantly alternating with periods of activity.  Trees rest during the winter.  The circulation of sap is sluggish.  There is no creation of leaf, blossom or fruit.  Wild birds and animals after the summer breeding season, do little save eat and sleep.  Some animals and reptiles sleep during the entire winter.  Even soil must rest to bring the best crop….  When man recognizes the fact that he cannot use his body year after year, from the budding strength of youth to the age of forty or fifty under such a full, unceasing pressure of nerve or will power without great injury, and when he does recognize the fact that through placing himself oftener in restful and receptive states, as do tree, bird, and animal in their natural state, he will then, through receiving far more of this element, enjoy a far greater health of body, elasticity of muscle, vigor and brilliancy of mind.  He would also have other senses and powers awakened within him, whose existence is still doubted by most people.

“Possibly you say, “But how can I carry on my business and earn my bread if I so lay my body up for nature’s repairs?”  We answer, “The laws of man’s business are not the laws of nature.  If nature says ‘Rest,’ and man says ‘Work,’ and will work or must work, man always gets the worst of it.

“If you are in conditions of life where at present it is impossible to give yourself needed rest and you feel thoroughly the need of such rest, you may rely upon it that your persistent desire, your prayer, your imperious demand that you shall have opportunity to receive and profit by nature’s restoring forces, will bring you in some way the opportunity to so profit by them.  When any need is thoroughly felt, the thought and desire coming of such feeling  is itself a prayer – a force which will bring you help and take you out of injurious surroundings and modes of life.  We repeat this assertion often.  It needs frequent repetition.  It is the mainspring of all growth and advance into a happier and more healthful life….”  (Thoughts Are Things, pages 87-95)

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame