Reconnecting with Daily Rhythms: Finding Balance with Your Body’s Natural Cycles
If you’ve experienced trauma in childhood, it can be very difficult to cultivate a sense of safety and security. You always feel a bit “off kilter.” One gentle approach to feeling more grounded is to reconnect with life’s daily rhythms—like your natural sleep, eating, and rest patterns. Particularly in times when life has been anything […]
What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
While some difficult childhood events leave long-lasting scars, not every one of them do. ACEs, short for adverse childhood experiences, are among these. These are the situations or circumstances that could undermine the foundation of your early years, sometimes in ways that follow you long beyond childhood. Understanding ACEs helps us to make sense of […]
Standing Your Ground: A Simple Meditation to Cultivate Stability and Ease Anxiety
Have you ever felt like you’re floating, unsettled, or just can’t shake that anxious, jittery feeling? Having a sense of stability, of being grounded, is difficult for a lot of people, particularly those who’ve experienced trauma in the past. In particular, childhood complex trauma can cause long-term anxiety, making it difficult to achieve stability and […]
Using Food to Calm the Nervous System: Basic Daoist Principles
You know how difficult it can be to feel settled, grounded, and calm if you’ve dealt with trauma, anxiety, or simply overwhelming stress. Right on your plate, food is one of the most effective tools for supporting the nervous system. Food in Daoist nutrition is more than just fuel; it’s a means of balancing the […]
Why the Daoist Internal Healing Arts are So Effective for Healing Childhood Adversity & Complex Trauma
If you’ve experienced childhood trauma, you’re all too aware that it doesn’t only live in the past. Often, in ways not immediately clear-cut, it influences your feelings, thoughts, and manner of life in the present. Many people who’ve suffered childhood complex trauma battle with issues like emotional ups and downs, chronic anxiety, and a sense […]
Addiction Isn’t Just About Substances: It’s a Pattern of Behavior
Most people immediately imagine a certain substance—alcohol, narcotics, maybe even cigarettes—when they hear the word “addiction.” It’s really not all that surprising. Addiction is often defined by society’s attachment to a specific substance, hence many conversations about recovery center on that drug—getting clean from alcohol, stopping narcotics, giving up smoking. But suppose I told you […]
From Hollywood to Healing: My Journey to the Daoist Healing Arts and Childhood Trauma Recovery
Life occasionally sends us in unanticipated directions. For me that road started in Hollywood. But it finally found me in a very different field, one anchored in healing, compassion, and ancient wisdom. Now a Daoist internal healing arts educator, my focus is help others learn how to apply these time-tested practices to recover from the […]
Understanding Addiction: More Than Just a Physical Disease
Alcoholism, or addiction, is like a disease that just shows up out of nowhere. So you may have heard in Alcoholics Anonymous or other recovery circles. Everything’s fine one day; then, you’re fighting an overwhelming need to drink or use. It seems to be some sort of invisible force sneaking up on you. Although this […]
Could Subtle Childhood Experiences Be Affecting You Now? Exploring the Hidden Impacts of Covert Trauma
What sort of images first come to mind when you consider the term “trauma?” For many of us, our first thoughts are of major, clearly defined events—things like physical abuse, neglect, or major accidents. But suppose I told you trauma isn’t always that obvious? Sometimes it’s woven throughout our life in ways so faint, so […]
How Childhood Complex Trauma Affects Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
Trauma isn’t “in your head.” Childhood complex trauma imprints on the body, reshapes the mind, and thins our sense of spirit. This map shows what changes, how the pieces connect, and why that awareness jump-starts healing. When discussing trauma, one could easily believe it’s only a psychological or emotional problem. Trauma, particularly the complex sort […]