In the world of post-trauma, triggers can dictate the flow of daily life. Triggers are psychological stimuli that draw survivors back to a traumatic experience in various ways. They can be dramatic or subtle. They come out of nowhere. And they can ruin a day or longer for both the survivor and those around them.

To understand, we first must be honest with ourselves. We can’t will the effects of trauma to disappear. We can’t be “better” than it. We can’t ignore it either. Instead, we have to admit its power. We have to be willing to confront it. We have to commit to allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.

“How did you know you were at your low point?” I was asked while seated on a stage in front of 120 people.

While being very familiar with the emotional effects of trauma, I realized that I had never really understood its biological impacts, that there are actual changes to the brain that explain my feelings and behaviors. Trauma wasn’t just a “thing” to “get over.” My brain had actually changed. But that didn’t mean my situation couldn’t also be changed.

What do you do when every turn seems to be the wrong one? You do the “next right thing.”

Feeling like you’re simply surviving? It can be something worth celebrating.

Ever felt like you were pulled down into the bottom of a deep hole unexpectedly?

Ever felt like you were pulled down into the bottom of a deep hole unexpectedly?

In most instances, the goal of hand washing dishes is to do it as quickly as possible so that we can move on to other, more charming, activities. Washing dishes is often thought of as a chore and an inconvenience. But does it have to be?

YOU ARE HERE. The sign at the mall tells us that. We are all in a specific place in a specific moment in the present. A reason puts us in that moment but the reason doesn’t have to define our next movement.

I was reading a travel blog recently in which the author posed an interesting thought: What if the search for happiness is actually the wrong path to be taking? The assumption he made was that happiness is really just a shadow of something else.

Are you in a season of life where it seems that only uncertainty lies before you? Are you afraid? In a panic? I challenge you to think about the bus to Buga and your own life.

If you want to change anything about your life, you can do it!

I recently wrote about discovering this simmering anger inside of me, like a pilot light that never extinguishes. As a result, I’ve been delving into anger and came across some interesting information worth digesting.

I recently decided to don courage disguised as a pair of sneakers and visited a Twin Cities salsa dance studio to learn how to do more with my feet than just walk.

I have been angry about a lot of things. It started with my father’s slow and steady disappearance from my youth and continued with my mother’s sexual assault during my teenage years. I had the ability to cope with those situations until the I-35W Bridge collapse in 2007 when that ability was lost.

An innocent encounter on an airplane led to an email that shook me to the core.

I have never prayed for a season like this autumn. The traces of my prior engagement wore this summer like wet socks – grievously uncomfortable, and never allowing my mind to unhinge itself from their condition. I’d forgiven myself for my own misgivings during those three-plus years and set my gaze not on the next relationship but the sole purpose of self-development.

Four years later, the winds, now fierce, have shifted again. It’s been a summer storm of loss: the 10-year anniversary of the collapse is very much a reminder of what was before and also what has been lost since: a marriage and now a fiancée who I used to joke with about Taylor Swift’s song, “Are We Out of the Woods?”

The brain is this amazing, marvelous, brilliant yet fragile thing we take for granted. We ride bikes and motorcycles without helmets and don’t give it a passing thought. Our teenagers play tackle football because it’s a sport and their friends do it. When we injure our brain cells, new ones don’t replace them; the brain must find a way to reprocess or we just “can’t” anymore.