Continued 🌻

Keep reaching.
This is what healing looks like.
Let it become so very alive in that intertwined spine.
Stand tall. Tall, soft and free.
Together.

When you go to offer it kindness and rest, and it recoils?
It is not broken.
It is not bad.
It is not betrayal.
It is merely bruised.
...tender, scared and small.
It's learning to trust you; you are, too.

A bruise only hurts a moment.
...then drifts after the gentle touch of your helping hand.

You can turn around.
And disarm.
You're on the same team. ...as you always were to be.
Your body did nothing wrong.
It was just given faulty instructions and raised on inhospitable lands.
It doesn't know how to breathe in a garden.

You can also learn more about unmanaged dissociation broadly - what it may look like, other tools you can try in the meantime, and more. We also fully support therapists making this available to their clients. Healing tools should be for everyone! Happy charting!

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To learn how to use it, when its most appropriate, and tips for when you’re stuck - and to download your own fillable PDF version(!) - head to our complete article here:
beautyafterbruises.org/blog/15minchecksheet

What are survivors to do when their best symptom management skills just aren’t cutting it, they’ve lost a sense of agency or control over their lives, and/or a higher level of care is on the horizon? One useful tool exists! It's called a 15-minute Grounding Checksheet!

Therapy services haven't always, historically, been safe rooms for complex trauma survivors to exist exactly as they are. We can reduce those compound injuries and provide support they've always deserved.
Prove they were right to speak.
..maybe even bump up the volume.

As professionals, loved ones and even strangers, our presence matters. Listening with compassion, belief, and attuned emotion—not blank detachment or abject horror—can help survivors write new endings to their traumatic memories.

... more shattered and shamed than before.

But survivors are NOT the crimes that have been done to them. They are not too much, too damaged, or too dirty. Their stories are not too heavy to hold.