Jul 7, 2015 | Children, Emotional Wellbeing, Health, Play Therapy, School, Sleep, Trauma
I don’t watch much TV, but yesterday I caught 2 interviews that moved me.
The first was a politician in local government who had taken up the cause over the last 2 years, of numerous people who had been sexually abused as children.
The second was a firefighter – one of the first responders to the London Underground on July 7th, 2005.
Q : What could these 2 men living at opposite ends of the country, have in common?
A : Both of them were in a state of post traumatic stress as a result of the work they do.
So often we think of ‘trauma’ as being connected with things that happen in personal lives. Maybe abuse…or being a direct victim in a horrific life-threatening experience.
We understand that the military are exposed to traumatic situations in their ‘day job’ when they head to the front line. Sadly, many people still think PTSD is only really associated with war veterans.
However, there are so many professionals doing jobs that require them to put themselves in the line of life-threatening danger… Or require them to deal with horrific scenes…. Or get their heads around the details of the worst of society.
The TV interviewer made some comments about people not really thinking of a politician developing PTSD and co-morbid depression through his work. And maybe there are many other jobs that people don’t think could lead into the muddy pit of PTSD…
For example, would people outside of education think that those working closely with families and children in main-stream schools could be at risk of secondary trauma?
Infact, do those INSIDE those very same, local, down-the-end-of-my-road, mainstream primaries have any concept of how this is increasingly becoming an occupational hazard?
As anyone who has heard me speak about this will know…Secondary Trauma, or Vicarious Trauma is real and powerful.
Flashbacks, poor sleep, altered moods, increased aggression, depression, tension, trouble concentrating, relationship break downs, addiction, not being able to switch off and be fully present away from work, needing to talk over and over about things, or not speaking at all, are just a few possible symptoms.
Child & family support workers, mentors, inclusion teams, TAs, LSAs, teachers, heads, deputies, child protection officers, therapists… anyone who gets close to children and families and their stories, are all at risk.
The impact of trauma is huge – some are calling it an epidemic in our time.
Around the world, military are increasingly being prepared: being educated, being helped to build their resilience and being equipped with tools to reduce the impact of trauma on their bodies and minds BEFORE they go to the field.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London.
It’s a wild and ‘out-there’ kind of thought I know, but wouldn’t it be amazing, as part of the positive legacy of that and all the other events that have taken or altered so many lives here in UK, for all workers in jobs where they are at risk of secondary trauma, to get the education they need to be fully aware and the equipping with tools that really work, to help them be ready and to minimize their risk of developing PTSD from their day-job?
‘You can say I’m a dreamer…. ‘
…but it feels like the right thing to do.
The honoring thing for employers to offer,
….and the wisest economic decision too.
I’m proud to be working with schools choosing to journey in this very direction. It’s a start!
May 2, 2015 | Children, Emotional Wellbeing, Health, Inspiration, Real Life Stories, School, testimonial, Uncategorized
That feeling of getting through a day in school with all the usual demands?
That feeling of getting through a day in school with all the usual demands AND feeling like you are coming down with (or already have) something?
You might be interested to read this – sent in from one of the SLT teachers who had asked for CHEW recommendations to support her health.
I’ve been taking the products you recommended to me back in December for 4 months.
And I’m happy to report I’ve got through a twelve week term with only one sore throat 🙂
(Decquacaine and Chloraseptic usually got me through the day when my tonsils started reacting but I haven’t needed any. My one episode of a sore throat lasted a day and went after gargling with salt water. Brilliant!)
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It’s very unusual for me not to have sore throats, ear aches and streaming colds through the term – and we have had a particularly awful term of school bugs!
.
- Slapped cheek,
- hand, foot and mouth,
- shingles,
- whooping cough,
- scarlet fever,
- flu,
- tonsillitis and
- chicken pox to name but a few. [Ed – a few??!!]
- With a really nasty D & V bug going through school as well as
- the usual viral and
- bacterial infections
….the immune systems of our staff and children have taken a battering.Â
So I’m pleased and relieved to be able to say that I haven’t been ill this term 🙂
Since I’ve been dutifully taking my nutritional products I’ve managed to avoid any time off work, and haven’t had to ‘push-through’ at work either.
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Our school has recently academised and gone through a very stressful time of change for the staff which should also have taken it’s toll on me… But I appear to be the only member of staff who hasn’t had a day off since then. Hmmm… Go figure!
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So I just wanted to thank you for your recommendations and let you know I will continue to take these nutritionals and enjoy the consequences!
.
Feb 13, 2015 | Health, School, TRE, Uncategorized
” I was a teacher for 25 years…and you couldn’t be in your body as a teacher…you had to cope. “
A lovely lady said this to me on the last day of the TRE module in London that I was assisting at last week. She had been on a 3 day adventure of mind and body – learning why she had developed so much physical pain (mostly in her back and neck) and what being ‘grounded’ and ‘in her body’ really meant. What it meant from a neuro-physiological perspective and what it meant for her – in her felt experience – in her body!
It is an interesting thought that being ‘not in her body‘ – her way of describing a state of dissociation from her body – had been the only way to cope with the stress of being a teacher for 25 years. Being constantly on alert for what might happen next in the classroom, trying to perform to her best and communicate and connect with the children she worked with each lesson of the day, always trying to climb the never ending slippery slope of admin, and keeping up with the physical, emotional and mental stress of working in a ‘team’ of other adults, some of whom she found really hard to get on with.
The combinations of these stresses had her body in survival mode, and if you can’t fight it or ‘flight’ from it, the only other option is to freeze in it. However, freezing physically was not an option…so she established a default ‘dissociated’ state from which to operate from.
The thing is as we spoke and she described it to me I knew there were so many others who would be in total agreement with her. Life is stressful. Teaching is stressful…and children are better than NASA at detecting adults stress on their subconscious ‘radar’. Faster than a speeding bullet they can become aggressive or avoidant to keep themselves safe…and do aggressive or avoidant children make a teachers life a tad more stressful by any chance??!!  The viscous cycle has to be unlocked we agreed… And she had just discovered her proverbial key…in the most gentle and profound way.
What I loved was how open she was to the adventure of allowing her body to tremor and release the deeply held years of tension. She physically looked different even just after 5 sessions, her shoulders were lower, her face was softer and more open, and her eyes more sparkly.
TRE is an amazing tool, and I am just so grateful I discovered it when I did. Being able to use it to calm and ground my own body; turn off my internal stress state and release tension has been a joy for me over the last few years. I think the bigger joy now is sharing it with other people. Who else wants/needs to learn?
Jan 22, 2015 | Emotional Wellbeing, Health, Real Life Stories, School, Trauma
Last week, following another Understanding Trauma course I ran, I had several conversations with attendees who confessed to me that at some point in the sessions they had stopped listening to me and started counting. That was fine by me – what they were really saying was they could relate to what I was talking about; there were things they had experienced in their own life that fell into the category of ‘trauma’ and they were owning it…some of them for the first time.
The thing is that none of these ladies let slip anything during the evening: they were focused on being professional, listening, learning, talking or counting! These confessions happened afterwards and 1:1. So as well as them going home with a fresh realisation of having experienced trauma in their own lives – and the impact it might still be having, they also went way with the impression that the only other person who knew trauma from inside experience, in that room was me.
And this is a pattern.
People often come up to me after an event I am running, or training in their school (even if it’s not specifically about trauma – go figure!) and say “can I have a word?”
What I want to let you all know is this : it is not just the children who have been through trauma and are still living in bodies and minds that have not yet processed those experiences. Even though it might feel and seem like it, YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE.
The percentage of staff in all sorts of schools, and at all levels of leadership, who are still living with the impact of trauma in their own lives is (in my experience) significant.
This is good news and bad…
- If we can remember what it is like – we can have more empathy for the children and parents we are working with.
- If we can own what has happened to us, and process it, what may have dominated our past can loose its power in our present and becomes used, at our choosing, for good in our future.
- When we take time, commit to and invest in our own healing (which doesn’t have to mean talking about it), life not only becomes more fulfilling for us, we each become a beacon of hope to others (big and small) who are still living in the shadow of trauma.
However,
- If we don’t acknowledge what has happened to us then trauma will affect our bodies, and over time can lead to all sorts of physical problems.
- Trauma that happened to us as a child will keep us locked in unhealthy relationship patterns, unable to discern the truth of who we are and what is right and fair and good in how we should treat and be treated as adults.
- Trauma impacts brain function. Trying to hold it together working in a school, especially with management responsibilities becomes harder than hard, and yet we daren’t let anyone else know we are struggling to keep afloat.
Trauma can change you. Yes.
Trauma does not have to be a life sentence.
I celebrate, honour and respect every one of the school staff who have spoken to me about this in the last few months; well done for finding your voice and reaching out to own your story: the first step is always the hardest.
I celebrate and honour and respect each of the staff I have worked with individually as they journey into their healing and wholeness; it takes courage to step out of your isolation, ask for help and embark on your journey from surviving to thriving – an adventure that requires courage and tenacity: you are stronger than you think.
And I honour and respect everyone of you who may find encouragement and hope through these words, to know there are people out there who get it, get you: you are not alone.
Dec 11, 2014 | Children, Emotional Wellbeing, Health, Play Therapy, Resources, School, Uncategorized
Overwhelm
Burnout
Compassion fatigue
Stress
Exhaustion
Crazy
I have heard all these words in the last few weeks as I have spoken with a variety of professionals working in and with schools. So many children are struggling. The need is still huge… and that may or may not change anytime soon.
For those who resonate with this, then there are some good questions to ask yourself and really, slowly and honestly answer:-
- Why do I feel like this?
- What do I secretly want to do/ achieve?
- What can I actually offer?
- How will I know when I have made a difference?
- How many children / families will I make a difference to before I consider I have done a good enough job?
For many people – especially those that really care about children, and are really good at their jobs (teacher, therapist, family support worker, mentor, senior staff, etc etc) – the sense of “I could help so many more….” which is often internalised as “I should help so many more….” is a real threat to mental health and emotional well-being.
This gremlin lurks at the door of our subconscious and holds hands with the ever present ‘not enough’. Sometimes it stands on the shoulders of ‘professional failure’ sometimes it giggles and whispers with ‘going to be found out’.
I have been there on occasion in the past – I can relate. However, there is something I think that is really, really powerful in helping breakthrough the sense of inner (and sometimes outer) ‘I’m not doing enough’ that is often at the root of these feelings.
Asking yourself this question- ‘what is my part to play?’
We care. We want to change the world.
Some people want to save the world – or at least all the children in it…
Is it possible that we can save the world?
Is that our role?
Is that our remit?
Coming back to clarity of what each of us is called to be and do can really help. Understanding our unique purpose gives us power to know the things we are responsible for and the things we are not. We can set boundaries around our behaviour and our own gremlins and show them clearly the areas we can hold ourselves accountable in.
And we can consider the biggest story of the season – 
 the one being played out all over the country at the moment – the story that some would say is actually the one that is about starting to save the world.
The Nativity.
What would have happened if the Wise men weren’t free to travel and respond to the times because they were also trying to be inn-keepers?
What if the shepherds tried to be more pensive and inwardly reflect on things as Mary did?
What would have happened if Mary or Joseph weren’t content to just make a journey and deliver a baby but felt they should also rush over the hills to spread the news to the villages?
The story is bigger than any single one of them. They each had a unique part to play.
We still do today…
In this bleak mid-winter we can all be wise (wo)men…and….(be ok to) do our part.
Dec 11, 2014 | Emotional Wellbeing, Food, Health, Real Life Stories, Uncategorized
One of the children I used to work with, was part of a family of 5. Through regular contact and updates with both parents I had a clear sense of the bigger picture they were all living with.
So imagine this :
- going through multiple traumatic experiences as a family – and still struggling to re calibrate from those…whilst also
- having one child who has a life- threatening condition, which means they could just stop breathing at any time whilst also
- having another child who is really struggling with school because not only does he have PTSD, but the topic for the term is a constant reminder of the trauma he went through …
That is way more than enough for most families – or parents to cope with. But that wasn’t all…
- One of the parents – Dad – who was big and strong, would just collapse.
It happened with no warning – and despite multiple trips to the doctor and hospital, tests of all sorts (including blood and brain scans) meant that there was no clear reason why.
Imagine the impact of that situation on the family : on the mum, who was smaller in frame and could not catch him or lift him once he had collapsed and blacked out…who was now living with more anxiety wondering if today was another day when it was going to happen again.
And the impact on the children … Who had to stand by and see their big strong dad ‘out for the count’ on the floor, the panic in their mum, and the ambulance people come and take him away.
A simple comment I made in a meeting one day led to a deeper conversation which led to 1 change in his lifestyle. From that day on this Dad made the decision to stop drinking fizzy drinks. No cans, no bottles, and nothing that said it was ‘diet’ anything.
He reported to me within 3 weeks he had not collapsed once. He was amazed. Before that he had been collapsing 2-3 times a week.
Several months later I checked with him again – he was still fizz-free and still no collapsing since that 1 change…and now his doctor was amazed.
He understood in a powerful way the havoc that the crazy sugar levels, and artificial sweeteners like aspartame were having on his body.
The kids were drinking a lot less fizz too now…
Some people refer to fizzy drinks as pure poison. I have to agree. You will have your own opinion.
I also believe that changes a parent makes to improve their health ALWAYS has a positive impact on the rest of their family.
We understand that the military are exposed to traumatic situations in their ‘day job’ when they head to the front line. Sadly, many people still think PTSD is only really associated with war veterans.
