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trauma Archives | Healing Trauma Wounds

April is Prevent Child Abuse Month

April is Prevent Child Abuse Month

This article comes from the American Society for the Positive Care of Children (American SPCC). I thank SPCC for allowing me to reprint this article.

Beyond Abuse Prevention: It’s more than physical

Trauma and abuse can take many forms including physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, neglect, exploitation, and more. When we speak of child maltreatment, we normally first think of physical abuse, but the shocking truth is that neglect is the number one form of child abuse in America.

What signs should parents or other caregivers notice to identify the various types of abuse? 

Every individual responds different to the trauma of abuse, but these are some common indicators to look out for:

  • Physical Abuse: Unexplained bruises, welts, burns, or other injuries
  • Emotional Abuse: Overly adoptive behaviors including inappropriate adult behavior and Inappropriate infant behavior
  • Physical or Emotional: Behavioral extremes including aggressiveness, withdrawal, frightened of parents, and afraid to go home
  • Sexual: Pain or itching in genitalia area or bizarre, sophisticated, or unusual sexual behavior or knowledge
  • Neglect: Consistent hunger, poor hygiene, inappropriate dress, and consistent lack of supervision, especially in dangerous activities or long periods

Create safe spaces for your children to communicate big feelings with you. It’s important that you validate their feelings for the small things, so when big things happen, they know you will be there for them.

When should I report abuse?

Familiarizing yourself with the signs and symptoms of a child’s maltreatment and recognizing it is essential to prevent a child from further abuse and harm and allow them to begin the process of healing.

Any Mandated Reporter will tell you that when in doubt, report. 

For lots of people, reporting can feel scary because we don’t want to be the cause of children being removed from their homes. The intake professionals at your state agency are highly trained, and it will be up to them on how to move forward in a way that is safest for the child, which does not always include family separation.

It’s also important to note that potential signs of abuse that are connected to neglect may sometimes be indicators of poverty rather than negligence. In these instances, homes are full of love but lack the resources to provide the way that they would want. Rather than reporting abuse, in this case, consider asking if the parents are receiving all the public benefits available to them in your area, so they can more fully provide a home where children are well fed, clothed, and rested.

When parents have necessary resources and knowingly deprive children of their basic needs, unfortunately that is considered neglect. There is a drastic difference between a family-unit that is filled with love and care, versus a situation that deprives children of their basic needs. It’s important to be mindful of the nuances of circumstances. However, ultimately our number one priority must be the safety of the child. It truly takes a village to raise happy and healthy children.

Let’s lift people up if we can, and become advocates and safe havens for children who need us most.

What if I realize I have been unintentionally causing my child harm?

Realizing when our parenting has its own imperfections that may impact our children is a huge step in healing families. Nobody is perfect. It is never too late to acknowledge our own traumas to adjust our individual parenting styles to better meet our and our children’s physical and emotional needs.

The best thing parents can do is to educate themselves on their ACES in combination with evidence-based parenting styles to build tools to create positive environments that raise children to be happy, healthy, and well-adjusted adults. Self-awareness takes time, patience, and a lot of giving grace to yourself; but you’re not alone!


Alexis Acker-Halbur is an award-winning author and medical miracle. Child abuse made her seriously ill and put her in harm’s way many times. She survives and shares her experiences and tools with women and men who are or have been traumatized.

More About Why We Lie

More About Why We Lie

Hello Wellness Seekers:

In November of 2016 I wrote a post titled, “Why I Lied.” This post continually receives the most comments of all time. I’m happy that it proves to be helpful to me and my readers.

An Essay Blows Me Away

Today, I read a new article that delves into “why we lie” even deeper. Published in last week’s TIME magazine is an essay titled, “How Secrets Keep Us Sick,” by Sarah Levy, the author of Drinking Games. In her essay, Ms. Levy says:

“There’s research that shows that primates evolved the tendency to tell lies to maximize survival, and  2018 study in Memory and Cognition explains [how] false denial can serve as a coping tool for managing shame and guilt.” Levy states, “I was dreadfully uncomfortable in my own skin and desperate to be someone, anyone, else. It seemed natural to alter the truth when my own reality was painful.”

My Reaction

After reading this statement, I was thrown back to the years I lied. Knowing it was a coping tool to survive my abusive father, I feel no shame or guilt. Some may say “it’s just another denial,” but truth be told, I needed this tool to keep living. I believe in the truth now more than ever, and I see how lies can prevent additional abuse and punishment.

Unfortunately, we don’t know this when we’re young and being abused by a “supposed” loved one, because our brains were not developed enough for us to say, “You’re hurting me,” or “Stop touching me.” An abused child’s lament.

My Advice

If you know a child who lies, find out what’s happening to this child. You may save this child’s life.

 ______________________________
Alexis Acker-Halbur is an award-winning author and medical miracle.
Child abuse made her seriously ill and put her in harm’s way many times.
She survived and shares her experiences and tools with women and men
who have been traumatized.

Think Beyond Your Genes

This article comes from Bruce Lipton’s newsletter, Think Beyond Your Genes. I reprinted it here so you can read what’s happening in our evolution. Some parts may seem creepy, but I can say Mr. Lipton has been right-on on a number of occasions. I hope you enjoy this article as it may change how you think about our future.

Hello Dear Friends, Cultural Creatives & Seekers Everywhere,

Evolution in Process

Crisis ignites evolution. The challenges and crises the world faces today are
signs that change is imminent. We are about to face our evolution. Evolution is a participatory event. It is up to us to change our perceptions of “doom and gloom” into something more positive and encouraging. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said so eloquently, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. To change the world, we must change ourselves first, and furthermore we are being called upon to come together in community and share in a positive vision for humanity as well as Mother Earth.

As practiced in most energy psychology modalities in changing beliefs, it is vital that we focus on what we want, rather than what we don’t want. With that being said, it is also in our best interest to fully understand the crisis we face if we are to learn from it and cultivate a more sustainable reality.
On November 8, 2022, the date of the last U.S. election, I made a life-changing decision… I stopped keeping-up with the news. This life-enhancing behavioral change was done for two main reasons: 1] The new news stories are the same as the old news stories, ones I have heard for decades. The stories remain the same, only the names of the principal characters and their countries of origin have changed. (OK, fact check: I occasionally read the headlines of articles … but do not delve into the text.). 2] Not having any ability to personally change these global issues, why would I waste my valuable life-energy by getting engaged-in, but not being able to respond to, the global chaos we are experiencing.
With all the stories of war, violence, hatred, catastrophes, health crises, etc., I have noticed a complete lack of information on the impending 6th Mass Extinction Event. NASA scientists emphasize that we are facing an “irreversible” collapse of industrial civilization within the next couple of decades. They place the blame on unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution (i.e., 1% of the
population has more wealth than the remaining 99%.)
This extinction story is profoundly important for all of us! Science has recognized that human behavior has precipitated the collapsing of the web of life. Civilization-induced stresses are creating environmental catastrophes that are straining the environment and threatening human extinction. One of the biggest contributors influencing the collapse of civilization is global climate change, erratic weather patterns that are destroying environments and ecosystems around the world.
Climate change is a natural product of the Earth’s evolution, occurring in cycles over thousands of years. However, today, industrial civilization has exacerbated the situation by upending the harmony and balance of Nature . Human behavior has polluted the air, the seas, and the soil, pillaged the Earth’s resources, engaged in cutting down the rain forest, and destroying millions of acres of Nature replacing them with unsustainable monocropping.
Some people question, “Can human civilization can actually upset the Earth’s
ecosystems?” The answer of course is an absolute YES. Sixty years ago during my high school geography class, we were studying the great seas separating Eastern Europe from Western Europe. They were the Aral Sea, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea (illustrated in the map below). To memorize these names, I used a mnemonic, referring to them as the “A-B-C Seas.” However, from satellite images shown below, over 95% of the Aral Sea has disappeared. With the loss of the Aral Sea, fish that fed millions of Europeans, the cities that arose to service that industry, as well as the seaside spa resorts have also disappeared. Considering that data, then Secretary-General of the U.N., Ban Ki-moon, described the drying up of the Aral Sea as one of the planet’s most shocking disasters.
Aral Sea Map
What happened to the Sea? Once the world’s fourth-largest “lake,” the Aral Sea shrunk because the rivers that fed it were largely diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region. What now remains of the once-robust fishing economy are fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, with camels standing near the hulks of stranded ships. Furthermore, when the sea began to dry, layers of highly salted
sand left behind were carried by winds as far as Scandinavia and Japan.
Aral Sea 2
Signs of the Evolution
Evolutionary change will only start when we become active participants and stop our fruitless wait for some hero to arise and save us … for we are the heroes we have been looking for! Everyday, human “imaginal cells” are creating order out of the impending chaos. Evolutionary actions at the local level are increasing at a logarithmic rate, and frequently unrecognized by the media.
So, while it appears that nothing is happening on the surface, below there is a
groundswell of change that is about to erupt. This evolutionary upheaval is predicated on the rise of community. A small, yet wonderful, example of communal evolution on the local level was provided in the news story of a New Zealand retirement home that won a sustainability award. They created over 100 gardens on their property. The food fed the members of the home, as well as many others in the neighborhood. The garden work provided a meaningful existence to retirees, enhanced their health and, in fact the health of the community and the environment.
Amid the current global chaos, a new world is emerging like a Phoenix from the ashes, a world based on love rather than fear (based on love rather than fear) and we are its co-creators. We are, each and all, active participants in what will amount to be the greatest of human adventures, for we are on the threshold of an incredible evolutionary event … the emergence of a new super-organism, Humanity.
Dear friends, keep your hearts and minds focused on the beautiful future that lies before us!

With Love and Light,
Bruce

 _____________________________
Alexis Acker-Halbur is an award-winning author and medical miracle. Child abuse made her seriously ill and put her in harm’s way many times. She survived and shares her experiences and tools with women and men who have been traumatized.

 

In the Beginning There was Chaos

In the Beginning There was Chaos

In the Beginning There was Chaos!

There was nothing but darkness—absolute blackness. No light, no sound, no energy. There were only eternal nights without stars. Many theories have tried to explain the beginning of our universe, so I will begin with explaining the top three: the big bang theory, evolution, and the story of Adam and Eve. These theories lead to my belief that our universe began in trauma and we have come to the decisive moment.

We consider the Big Bang Theory the leading explanation for how our universe began. Through the multitude of discoveries in astronomy and physics, scientists believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Somehow, a spark was lit and chaos began. Lightning, explosions, the birth of pristine stars and planets all began at once. Asteroids slamming into each other created atoms of fury and life. The first new day of the universe had begun, but in its wake was destruction and pandemonium. Some scientists believe it took over 13.8 billion years to get where we are today, and our universe is still growing through chaos.

Evolution (also known as the theory of natural selection) is one of the fundamental keystones of modern biological theory. According to an article published on June 7, 2019, by the National Geographic Society:

“The theory of [evolution] natural selection, comprises of organisms who produce more offspring than can survive in their environment. Those that are better physically equipped to survive, grow to maturity, and reproduce. Those that are lacking in such fitness either do not reach an age when they can reproduce or produce fewer offspring than their counterparts. We sometimes sum natural selection as ‘survival of the fittest’ because the ‘fittest’ organisms—those most suited to their environment—are the ones that reproduce more successfully, and are likely to pass on their traits to the next generation.”

Survival of the fittest states that the weak ones die or are devoured by the stronger. “Only the strong survive” is a traumatic proverb.

In the Bible, Adam and Eve are the first human couple created by God on the sixth day of Creation, and are the ancestors of all of humanity. In the perfect setting of the Garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve they could eat any of the fruit in Eden, but forbade them from eating the fruit on the Tree of Knowledge. Satan transformed himself into a serpent and enticed the couple to eat the fruit. This resulted in God’s banishment of Adam and Eve from Eden. He sent them into a world of hostile beasts, poisonous reptiles, and dangerous weather, casting them into trauma.

Whatever theory you choose to believe, trauma started from our very beginning of time and is a well-known concept of biology and science. Even in religious sectors, they cannot deny that it thrust Adam and Eve into trauma.

This research has led me to the belief that all traumas began at the moment a spark flew and ignited our descent into suffering and pain. With trauma living in our cells, bones, organs, and muscles, it is no wonder why we have a conundrum of ways to treat trauma. Medical professionals use medication, psychiatrists use talk therapy and drugs, and religious orders use prayer and exorcism. All are trying to eliminate the effects of trauma, so much so that healing has become a billion dollar business in America.

I am convinced we can do better. This is why I created Your Moment of T.R.U.T.H. (The Road to Unresolved Trauma). We do not need to spend billions of dollars to heal from chaos and trauma. Put your money in the belief that you can, and will, eliminate stress and depression. The key is to focus on yourself and find the fuel to cope, and even wipe away, your doubts. Believe in healing—it is in your hands.

You can purchase my book and workbook by clicking here.  YMT is available on Kindle.

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Alexis Acker-Halbur is an award-winning author and medical miracle. Child abuse made her seriously ill and put her in harm’s way many times. She survived and shares her experiences and tools with women and men who have been traumatized. 

10 Rules to Refuel Your Health During the Pandemic of War

Hello Wellness Seekers:

Have you ever thought that war is a pandemic? Since the beginning of time, man has used war to show off their power and greed. Even the Catholic church produced its “holy wars” to change people’s religious beliefs. Like COVID-19, we need to stop the wars in our world—now!

To change this war pandemic, we must first look at ourselves and cultivate healthy attitudes and hope. Here are some tips you can make sense of a better tomorrow—starting today!

  1. Cultivate a peaceful surrounding in your home and community. Pick up garbage along the road, keep your sidewalks clear of snow and ice, and always say ‘hello’ to and smile at your neighbors.
  2. Alleviate stress and depression by reducing your exposure to bad news in the newspapers and on radios. There is so much trauma in our world that escaping the unhealthy effects can lead to depression, stress, and anxiety. To overcome these conditions, see your doctor or counselor for help.
  3. Eliminate the alcohol and drugs you use to ease your pain. This results in addiction, and in my view, this is just as bad as war. While your body is trying to maintain your health, drugs and alcohol can have dramatic and detrimental lifelong effects on your mind, body, and spirit.
  4. Apologize for the mistakes you make. Can you imagine what would happen if Putin apologized to Ukraine for the devastation and human lives that are lost each day? We could usher in a new day. Putin will never do this because he views it as a loss of his power.
  5. Change your attitude. This may seem impossible, but we can do this. We have so many issues with race, sexual orientation (don’t say ‘gay’), religion, females vs. males, poverty, and so forth. This just fills our lives with more stress and anxiety.
  6. Let men know that women and children are not property. They are human beings created in equal partnership. Men have no right to abuse women and children. Our justice system must stop the sexual and physical assaults that happen every day. Sexual abuse is a pandemic across the globe.
  7. Find comfort in reading uplifting books, movies, and podcasts. There are plenty of avenues to clean your soul with happy and hopeful messages.
  8. Become a role model for everyone you meet. We’re all looking for people who can raise our spirits and morale. You can do this! We can do this!
  9. Stop the negativity. Negativity spreads like wildfire and is difficult to squash. Be your own best friend and give this kindness to others.
  10. Make every day your best day—ever! You can change our world by becoming the person you have always wanted to be. Laugh, sing, dance, raise your voice in joy, and never give up! You are the cure to all the world’s evils.

I implore you to take these rules seriously. Your voice can lead others in their voicesand we’ve got a lot to say. Join me in this movement to stop all wars.

Thanks a million!

__________________________________

Alexis Acker-Halbur is an award-winning author and medical miracle. Child abuse made her seriously ill and put her in harm’s way many times. She survived and shares her experiences and tools with women and men who have been traumatized. To order her book, Never Give Up: Break the Connection Between Stress and Illnessclick here, or her newly published fictional novel, THE BEAR: In the Middle of Between click here.