Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.
NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” and “share” this post everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)
@karenkmmonroy “What if you are not as broken as you
keep telling yourself? What if you have
everything right now that you need?”
Six Standalone Tweets to Ponder
@LisaKiftTherapy “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
@Tamavista “What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” ~ Saint-Exupéry
@rcinstitute “TruthfulTuesday: the only way to be empowered is to have full grasp of the truth.”
@karenkmmonroy “When the ego hears ‘accountability’ it thinks reckoning/judgment. Spirit thinks fuel for the life I want.”
@TheNaturalVet “When asked if my cup is half full or half empty, my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.” ~ Sam Lefkowitz
@CarePathways “Living involves tearing up one rough draft after another.”
Linked Tweets
Holidays
@therapynews The holidays are a happy, carefree time for everyone, right? Not necessarily…
[SEO: “One of the most common sources of family stress are, the judgments that are, often expressed surrounding your life choices.” The author poses two choices. The first is to speak up, as an autonomous adult: “point out a behavior, state how it affects you and then ask for change. Clearly, one statement over a holiday dinner table is not going to break through years, maybe even generations, of harmful family dynamics, but it is a start.” The second choice is to consider therapy to help you develop strategies for managing the impact that your family’s behavior has on you. (My opinion: if you’ve gone through years or generations of harmful family dynamics, spontaneously speaking up without a lot of forethought and objective counsel is most likely counter-productive.) A lot of family dynamics do fall somewhere between the extremes, so the advice in this article may be of help.]
@SarahEOlson2009 4 Steps to Decrease Emotional Vulnerability at the Holidays
[SEO: “In order to reduce your vulnerability it’s important to understand what triggers an emotional response and to generate strategies to manage the emotions that might occur during the holidays.”]
@goodthingZ One Powerful Word: A Simple Approach to New Year Resolutions
[SEO: I like this. Instead of making a list of resolutions which fall by the wayside around January 4th, the author suggests that you choose one powerful word or phrase to focus upon intently throughout the year. “Your word might be eminently practical. Or it might be creative. It might be light-hearted. Or it might be laser-focused. It simply needs to be the perfect word for you.” She offers a list of questions by which to discover your word; a list of words and phrases to get you thinking about it, and suggestions of how to “unleash the power of your word”.
I want to focus on “movement”. Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, I want to create steady movement. What is your word?]
The Rest of the Best
@DrMarsha An introduction to Neuroplasticity — The Brain Can Change Itself
[SEO: Neuroplasticity refers to how “we are constantly adapting and growing, and every stimulus we receive changes the way our brain functions on both a conscious and unconscious level. And it is now through brain scanning and dissection that we know this to be true.” Research increasingly points to the fact that we can change how our brain is hardwired. “It turns out that the ego, motivation, and love are critical factors in achieving the benefits of brain plasticity. One of the most powerful techniques to attain this state lies in meditation.”]
@MichelePTSD Phases of Healing PTSD — Desire and Commitment
[SEO: On healing PTSD: “We have to really desire it, and we have to know that there will be phases of it. I’ve been thinking more about the similarities between learning to dance and PTSD. Actually, the processes (and you could substitute learning any activity here) have similar phases.” This is an older post that is first in a series.]
@SarahEOlson2009 Sleep Deprivation May Ease Fearful Memories (via Psych Central)
[SEO: It’s interesting, and may make some sense of the puzzle of memory for some people, but it’s never been true for me. I have sleep deprivation *because* of the fearful memories, and they don’t ease a bit. Do you find this article to ring true for your own experience?]
@goodthingZ 5 Ways to Keep Your Mind Fit
[SEO: “The picture of a human as a holistic entity is breaking through today. More and more people recognize that we are more than our body, that we consist of several parts which are all equally important. There are mainly three parts that we focus on, body, mind and soul. It´s also common knowledge today that all three of these parts need stimulation for us to feel as good as possible. Body exercise is training the body and the muscles, while soul exercise is for example meditation. What this article is about is mind exercise, how we can increase our mind fitness.”]
@psychcentral Banishing Body Shame: An Extreme Form Of Negative Body Image
[SEO: The article ties much of body shame to childhood abuse/trauma. “When we grow up to have shame-based beliefs about our essential being, we then have more difficulty managing the ups and downs that come with life. We are more likely to develop instincts encouraging us to flee, rather than be present, and preferences to block out emotions because we don’t know how to soothe hurts or manage pain. Remember that feelings of shame live in the body and get stored there. Shame can evoke strong urges to shrink ourselves and disappear, or it can produce high levels of agitation and irritability, making it incredibly uncomfortable to be in the present moment. Behaviorally, shame gets reflected in patterns of withdrawal, secrecy, avoidance, deception and self-destruction. It handicaps our ability to get strong in interpersonal relationships and sets us up for dysfunctional ones.” The article continues with specific self-help strategies to overcome body shame.]
@MentalHelpNet Anxiety Therapy
[SEO: The post author finds Mindfulness-based therapy to be “the most direct and effective approach for helping people change the underlying patterns of emotional and cognitive reactivity that sustain the emotional suffering of anxiety and depression. … The main theme in Mindfulness Therapy is … learning to recognize your patterns of habitual negative thinking, beliefs and emotions and then responding to the inner suffering with mindful-awareness, choosing to care for your inner pain with full and immediate presence. This is mindfulness: not resisting or avoiding your pain, not thinking about your pain or trying to analyze it, and not becoming overwhelmed by it, but instead learning to form a relationship with it based on acceptance, friendliness and genuine caring, or love.”
@MichelePTSD Breathing is a natural stress reliever — are you making use of this free resource?
[SEO: From NPR, you can listen to or read this story. “As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.”]
@mnt_psychology Mindfulness-Based Therapy Helps Prevent Depression Relapse
[SEO: Discussion of research results: “Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy appears to be similar to maintenance antidepressant medication for preventing relapse or recurrence among patients successfully treated for depression, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.”]
@goodthingZ Helping a Significant Other/Spouse Heal from Loss or Trauma
[SEO: “The book ‘Healing Together: A couple’s Guide to Coping with Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress’ has a wealth of insight for spouses who have experienced a natural disaster, a serious injury or accident, violence, loss of a loved one, war service, or other kids of trauma. It also provides some guidance on when professional assistance may be needed.” The article discusses how trauma which impacts either one or both partners also impacts the relationship, and lists “recovery steps” to cope with that impact. It also discusses “psychological first aid”, which must be given in the early stages following trauma to provide a sense of connection, safety, and support.]
But I do.]
