Restoring Resilience Making Warriors Whole Again

The Three Types of Resilience

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:47:48 -1000

What is PTSD? Your FAQ’s about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Sat, 9 Oct 2010 19:33:24 -1000

Q: Are you wondering if you have PTSD?
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions. If your questions aren’t answered here, please e-mail me.
If you feel you might have PTSD, it is important to get help as soon as you can. What follows is not medical advice. It is an educational page to present some guidelines, to understand that if you are experiencing PTSD, you are not alone!
Q: “What is PTSD?”
A: PTSD means Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some veterans experience it, not all do. Some might experience just a few symptoms described below (see symptoms), others might experience a lot of these responses. PTSD is a spectrum, meaning you can have a little or a lot.
Q: “Who experiences PTSD?”
A: Veterans and people near combat situations (even as a cook!) may experience PTSD. Medics often suffer just as much as people on the front lines! But veterans are not the only people who suffer. Domestic violence, rape, child abuse, violent crimes, or other long-term stressors can cause PTSD. Not all veterans experience PTSD. Some who suffer will feel symptoms soon after challenging situations. Others might not feel symptoms until months or even years later.
Q: ”Is PTSD a mental illness?”
A: No. PTSD is a reaction to extreme stress. Veterans who were in long-term stressful situations may develop symptoms, which is the brain trying to regain balance after a very imbalanced experience. PTSD is a sign that the brain is trying to heal, but doesn’t know how.
Q: “What are some of the signs of PTSD?”
A: Depression is one of the indicators, although not all people who are depressed have PTSD. Some signs of depressed people who may have PTSD are:
1) Strong feelings of helplessness and a sense of dejection -- a feeling and belief that things will never get better and that you can’t do anything to make things better.
2)   Low self-esteem, which means feeling really down on yourself. Feeling like you don’t have the goods, skills, abilities to succeed. You don’t believe that you have what it takes to pick yourself up and go on.
3)   Feeling unresponsive to others, not wanting to play or engage with others, even friends and family. Feeling that you can’t connect with others.
4)   Feeling emotionally constricted, as if you can’t express your thoughts and feelings. Unable to share what is going on inside.
Q: “Are people with PTSD suicidal?”
A: Not everyone with PTSD is suicidal, but people with PTSD may be having suicidal feelings and thoughts. For this reason, it is important to get help if you are having these thoughts or feelings, or know someone who is. Talk to someone right away, because the sooner you get help, the easier it is to deal with the situation.
Suicidal feelings fall along a range from someone thinking about it occasionally, to someone who is planning to take that action.   Someone who has the means to kill himself, such as a weapon or pills, plus is abusing alcohol or drugs is a serious risk.
Some signs to watch out for are: isolation, self destructive behavior, anger outbursts, or quiet internal rage, sudden inexplicable outbursts of strong emotions, wildly irresponsible behavior with finances, getting into hopeless fights or other erratic behavior.
Also, someone who is experiencing “Survivor’s Guilt,” which is being plagued with feelings and thoughts such as: “How/why did I survive when others didn’t make it…?” These are all warning signs. Not all of them need to be present for the person to be experiencing PTSD.
Q: Are sleep disturbances a sign of PTSD?
A: Often people with PTSD will have sleep disturbances. Not just occasionally, but regularly. They may have trouble going to sleep, staying asleep, or may be haunted by memories, nightmares or intruding thoughts. They may be having flashbacks of traumatic events. They may be afraid to go to sleep because that is when the thoughts, sensations and even smells can haunt them.
Some of the intruding memories involve replaying combat situations, trying to find an alternate outcome. This is like being tortured every night. Some PTSD sufferers sleep excessively – which I believe is an indicator that the brain is exhausted.
Getting good sleep is essential to healing from PTSD, and those having sleeping problems need to speak to a health care specialist for recommendations on how to get a good night’s sleep. It is very difficult to recover from PTSD if you are not sleeping well. Make sure the room you are sleeping in as dark as possible, and free from noise.
Q: Does having intense anger mean I have PTSD?
A: Everyone has anger. People without PTSD have angry moments. But if the anger is feeling out of control or causing negative consequences at home or at work or in public, and if intense angry outbursts have occurred more than once, then this is a warning sign. If you are at risk for hurting people you love, you need to get help BEFORE an incident occurs, if possible. There is no punishment for thinking about harming someone, so this is the best time to seek help.
Sometimes people with PTSD will take out their rage and frustration on inanimate objects or property, or even hurt themselves. Self-inflicted injuries are warning signs. But it is also important to know that not everyone who is feeling intense anger actually shows it.
Some people bottle up their rage inside. If you are starting to scare those around you, that is a sign that your rage level may be too high. Often people with PTSD can’t even explain about what or why they are angry. It is almost as if the anger was having them – rather than that they have an angry feeling. It may feel like being possessed with unwanted emotions.
Q: “I feel like I might have PTSD – I just want to go off by myself. Like be a hermit. Isn’t that a good idea?”
A: Many people who have been traumatized want to go off and isolate – like a hurt animal, to lick their wounds. It is completely understandable, especially since you don’t feel you can trust yourself or your reactions, even to children. But isolation is part of the problem. It is not the solution.
You might need some down time, like an afternoon or evening to chill out, but if you are isolating on a regular basis, and just wish “everybody would leave me alone,” this is a warning sign. If you feel you are isolating because no one can understand what you are experiencing, you need to talk to someone who does understand, someone you can trust. If the first person you talk to, a chaplain, a counselor, or a buddy doesn’t understand you – keep looking for someone who does understand. Isolating from friends, family and partners is a strong indicator of PTSD, especially if this is new behavior.
Q: “I feel numb. I am not angry. I am not feeling anything…I just think I’m dead inside.”
A: Sometimes people who have experienced extreme stress have a fear of losing control over their emotions. They try to stuff everything down, keeping it all inside. People around them describe them as cold, aloof, and uncaring. But really they are doing the best they can to hold it all together. Numbness is not really an absence of emotion. It is the piling up and tight contracting of emotion. It is a powerful energy tightly contained in a small space. But when we have been overwhelmed by too much input, the brain may be so tired of all the feelings that it turns down the awareness level, leaving the person feeling numb.
This is understandable. But it is not the best long-term strategy, because it keeps you separated from good feelings and connections with people.   Give yourself time, take it slowly…and as soon as you can, start to reconnect to the people you care about.
Q: “I don’t like my thoughts – something triggers me and all my thoughts keep going back to that day…”
A: People with PTSD often suffer with intrusive thoughts and flashbacks that interfere with sleep and waking life. Any everyday thing can trigger these memories. Smells in particular can trigger memories because the sense of smell is most connected to memory. So the smell of diesel fuel, or urine, or cooking smells, decaying smells – can trigger a flood of unwanted memories.
Sudden sounds, unexpected noises are very jarring for people who have been in combat or have suffered extreme stress. This is the natural startle response that we see in babies, but for people with PTSD it is harder to recover from these bursts of noise. Even a popcorn maker or car backfiring can trigger a stress response.
For some people there are visual triggers, such as trash in a place where it shouldn’t be – which reminds them of an IED. Or seeing a dead animal in the road. There are numerous triggers. It is good to understand which are the ones that trigger your re-stress reactions, for two reasons; one is so that you can do your best to avoid exposure to them (but this may not always be possible) – but the second and most important reason is that when you are triggered you want to do a mental process where you literally talk yourself back down to a calm response.
How to calm yourself down.
There are three steps to calming yourself down from the trigger. First you name the trigger. Let’s say it is the sound of a baby crying intensely. You remind yourself that this is causing a “trigger-response” – then you pay attention to the sensations in your body (which might be causing neuro-arousal).
This is a mental body scan. Feel the tightness in your chest or stomach, for example.   Breathe into the tightness. This is a very important step, so don’t skip it. It puts you back in present time and present sensation. It grounds you back in this moment. Then you remind yourself where you are (right here and now). “I’m home. In Hawaii. With my wife.” Or wherever you are, fill in the details and focus as much of your energy as you can by directing your brain to right here and now.
Trauma keeps the brain locked and returning to the past. It pulls you like a magnet. But every time you re-direct your brain back to the present moment you loosen the grip the past has on you.
Review of the Three Steps to Handling Triggers:
1)   Name the trigger. See, hear, smell it. This brings it into the conscious mind, (where it is less dangerous) and takes it out of the unconscious realm where it has more control over your reactions.
2)   Do a body scan. Feel what is happening in your body. Breathe into the tight areas. Feel them soften with your breath. Feel your feet on the ground. Wiggle your toes. Direct your energy and awareness down into your toes, away from the brain.
3)   Ground yourself in the present moment with at least two specific sensory details. What is happening now? What do you see? What do you hear? What colors are around you? Where are you? What does the ground feel like here? Present-time body awareness reduces the grip of trauma.
This process is simple, but it takes discipline. You have to take back control of your brain by directing your thoughts back to this moment. It works! But not always the first time you do it. It takes multiple repetitions. It isn’t something you just do one time. You need to do it whenever you feel triggered.
I highly recommend the two different Tapping Techniques on the Resource page of this site. These are self-help methods that bring relief from PTSD.   These techniques really work for most people!   I believe you will feel better if you try them!
Q. Survivors’ Guilt: “Even though everyone tells me I did nothing wrong, I still feel guilty. Why did I survive and my buddy – three feet away from me – didn’t. My mind keeps replaying that day…”
A: Often people with PTSD are haunted by past events. They can’t stop the memories from re-playing in their mind as they try to imagine an alternative outcome. “If only I had done…” Or “If only I hadn’t…” these thoughts can drive anyone insane!
The bottom line is you did the best you could in the situation. It is the situation that is insane, not you! When we are faced with life and death situations we do the best we can. Only someone who has been in a similar situation can understand that.
When you are sitting back home and imagining what you could have done differently – of course it is easy to see other choices now. Anyone could imagine better choices from the comfort of home. But at the time, in the crisis situation, you did your very best. You have to understand that in order to move on with your life.
Torturing yourself with “I should have’s…” is an endless loop of suffering. And frankly, you’ve suffered enough!
Q: “I can’t stand it when people walk too close behind me…it makes me nuts.”
A: The “Startle Response” is common among people who have PTSD or suffered intense or prolonged stress. This means that you are “on edge” and anything can trigger it, even something ordinary like waiting on line at a movie theater. Having someone walking close behind you can send off alarms in your brain.
Even though you know consciously there is no danger, your brain interprets it as if it was just like a situation where there was real danger. This is because the brain is still running on alert. You feel like anyone could be a potential threat. You have to work with your mind and body’s “four-alarm fire” reactions.
Read the question above about Triggers. You have to begin to take back control over your brain and nervous system by learning how it operates. The first step is to understand that your brain is trying to heal. It is trying to make things right. But it doesn’t know how to do this, so you have to help. Try the Tapping Techniques on the Resource page of this site.
Q: “I drink to numb the pain. What’s wrong with that? Nothing else works.”
A: Having a drink or two to enjoy yourself and others’ company is fine. But drinking to numb the pain only works as long as the alcohol is in your system, then it comes right back. Overuse of alcohol or alcohol and drugs puts you at greater risk for accidents, harm to yourself and others.
Almost all suicides among veterans involve alcohol and drug use. If you or someone you know is over-using alcohol and/or drugs, they need to get help from a trained professional as soon as possible. This is a high-risk factor and shouldn’t be ignored.
There are better ways to handle the pain, memories and guilt – ways that can actually clear the memories from the brain and allow you to go on with your life.
Q: “My wife says I am not the man she married. She says they sent another man home in my body.”
A: If you have not experienced PTSD it is hard to understand it. There are so many symptoms and behaviors that just seem weird to people who are not suffering. To make matters worse people with PTSD have a hard time relating to people – even people they love.
It is hard to express feelings that are so intense – and may even sound crazy – to those who haven’t experienced what you have experienced. Ideally you would find someone you can trust who you can talk to and unload some of the mental burdens you are carrying.
You will start to feel better if you find someone you feel comfortable talking to. If the first person you talk to isn’t the one for you, it’s like dating, talk to someone else, and someone else, until you find someone you can open up to.
There are people who can understand what is going on inside your head. What you are experiencing is typical of people with PTSD, and there are people who are trained to help you.
Your wife is right in one sense, you have changed. But you can change again, for the better, as you begin to heal. Focus on what you love about her. Begin to express positive feelings like simple affection, appreciation toward her. This will bring you away from the haunting of the past, and bring your mind into the present again.
This is a process, and doesn’t happen overnight. But it will.   If you can slowly begin to open your heart to love, that will heal you. Love is the most powerful medicine in the world. You have to go slowly, like a virgin, you have to learn how to love all over again.
Q: “I just can’t focus. My concentration is trashed. I didn’t used to be like this before. I hate it. I am home from my fourth deployment.”
A: Feeling confused, spaced-out, disorganized, easily rattled and unable to do two things at once (when you used to be able to) are signs of PTSD. So, you could say it is the “new-normal” for people with PTSD. You are going to have to be gentle with yourself about this. Beating yourself up about it is not helping.
People with TBI (traumatic brain injury) or PTSD, often report that they get really “over-amped” very quickly if they have to do two many things at once. Multi-tasking is not good for people with PTSD! This is not a permanent condition, but it is frustrating. You are not losing your mind. Make sure you seek medical attention if you suspect TBI.
Some tips for people with PTSD for handling tasks around the house are:
1)   Try to do only one thing at a time.
2)   Put all your attention on one task at a time.
3)   Protect your focus. Try not to let it get split – even by other competing sounds – even conversation, if it is stressful for you.
4)   Minimize triggers or distractions such as noise, if you can.
1) If you are overwhelmed by the prospect of large tasks, breaking it down into simple steps – or segments of time. For example, your wife wants to clean out the garage. You might agree to just do an hour a day.
2) Don’t try to do big tasks all at once if they are overwhelming you. Just thinking about the magnitude of energy needed may paralyze you. You can get started by agreeing on how much time you can manage in any one session. It might be fifteen minutes.
6)   Talk nicely to yourself.   Quietly give yourself pats on the back for any progress you make.   Rather than focusing on how much work is left undone, focus on what you have accomplished. It’s like looking at the glass as half full.
7)   Find pleasure in the task. This might be the hardest of all if you have been suffering a lot. But feeling good is actually the path back to wellness. It is the antidote for feeling bad! It sounds simple, but it is true. Finding simple pleasures begins to open your heart back up to what is good in the world. Your heart is what will heal your brain!
Q: “I think my husband might have PTSD. What are some of the physical symptoms? He has had five deployments.”
A: PTSD is a spectrum of responses to stress. Your husband may have a few or a lot of symptoms – or show hardly any on the outside. Here is a list of common physical symptoms others have reported.
Some Physical Symptoms of PTSD:
Rapid pulse * Insomnia * Pounding Heart * Dry Mouth * Dehydration * Feeling you can’t breathe * Feeling like nothing is real * Physical weakness or dizziness * Tightness in Stomach or other digestive problems * Trembling, nervous tics * Clenching of jaw * Pain in neck or lower back * Migraine headaches * Inability to sit still or focus * Easy and constant irritation * loss of appetite or compulsive eating * Feeling hyper- vigilant * Depression * Lack of interest in sex * Extreme focus on sex * Extreme Behavior * Adrenaline junkies * Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Be sure to read:
Top Ten De-Stressors that Restore Resilience.
Please post your comments or e-mail me YOUR question.
Genie Joseph, M.A.

Your Zombie Brain

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:06:02 -1000

There is a saying that the first casualty of war is innocence. If that is true, then the path to making warriors whole again involves reclaiming and restoring an important element of innocence which is a basic enthusiasm for life.   Enthusiasm for life or optimism is a great method to restore resilience and happiness. As a returning warrior, the sooner you can connect to your enthusiasm for life the sooner you will recover and feel whole again.
Where do you store your memories?
It is not simply circumstances that cause trauma. It is how those traumas are filed in the brain. We can’t undo what we know or have seen and experienced, but we can control how those memories “sit” in our brains. Are they stored in a file called: “I did the best I could under the circumstances”? If they are, then those memories form some of the texture of our character. In a way these memories feed us with the wisdom of experience.
But if those same memories are stored in a file called “I didn’t do well,” or “I performed badly,” or “I should have done more,” then those memories can haunt us. Then we start walking around as if we have Zombie Brains. Zombie Brains are filled with incomplete or broken memory chains. The memories keep replaying in an effort to close a loop or be fixed. Whether a memory is stored in a part of the brain where it can “rest” or in a part of the Zombie Brain where it replays constantly, depends on how and where it is filed.
Feelings of guilt can cause a loop in the brain to be created where thoughts on a certain topic cycle around and around. This is because the brain doesn’t feel finished with this situation and keeps trying to go back to get it right. You have to teach your brain to let go. The Zombie Brain doesn’t always know what is the past. Sometimes it has be shown where to file events, so it can rest.
We have seen that two people can go through the same set of experiences and have different reactions. This has nothing to do with being a good or bad person, or with being brave. It has to do with a faulty filing system. One person can go through a very scary or horrific event and come out saying: “Wow, that was intense! What an adventure!” And the next person going through the exact same experience comes out saying: “I was a coward,” or “I should have done it better.”
Your Zombie Brain
PTSD is a form of inner mental torture. The recurring guilt, thoughts, fears, and other feelings don’t let you rest. They disturb your sleeping and waking thoughts. These are like zombies of the mind. They don’t know they are done, so they keep wandering around, trying to steal your attention. They are searching for a sense of closure, but the traumatized brain is bruised and tired and has run out of RAM and so has trouble getting closure.
You’ve Suffered Enough!
The Act Resilient Training Program teaches students how to get closure through learning how to re-store memories. This doesn’t mean forgetting. You can’t and shouldn’t forget something that is signifcant. But you can learn to store those memories in a mental compartment that doesn’t cause you any further suffering. It is enough to have suffered from the events. You don’t need to re-suffer every day.
Many military people come home carrying a heavy load. The boots may be on the ground, but it as if they haven’t fully arrived. The body is back, but important parts of the soul may have been left downrange. Once this is recognized, you can begin to literally pu yourself back together and burry your zombie brain.
You Must be Present to Win
Zombie Brains feed on the past. So you need to stop feeding your zombie brain. The best way to do this is to literally come into present time and connect with the people and things around you right now. As best you can, connect with the people who are here today, even if you don’t always feel like it. No matter what is going on inside, do your best to “Love the ones you’re with.” This will help draw you like a magnet into present time. We can only enjoy life if we are in present time, not haunted or hanging out in the past. As the saying goes, you must be present to win -- at life.
Feeling like a Foreigner in Your Own Home
Human beings are pack animals. They like being connected to others. When you are downrange, you may have had such a tightly knit connection with your battle buddy and your unit – it is such a deep bond – forged in the daily reality of life and death.
Then when you return to garrison, even though you may love your family, it is hard to replace that kind of connection and return to civilian relationships.   The routines of everyday life may feel confusing, foreign, trivial, and bizarre. It may be hard to fit back in – even with your own family. You may feel like you don’t belong. Or you may think they don’t need you or that they did fine without you. You may feel like a foreigner in your own home, and it sounds like everyone is speaking some other language – even if they are using English words.
This is normal.
Many returning warriors feel this. It is normal to feel this because you have been living in a different reality. You are not alone if you are having these feelings. It helps if your loved ones understand that your body may be home, but not all of you has arrived yet. It makes it easier if they recognize that you are not fully back online yet. Take it slowly, take small steps. Re-entry is a process!
The Love Alphabet Game.
Want a quick lift? Play the Love Alphabet Game. You can do it inside your head where nobody can hear you, or out loud with a friend or loved one, or with your children if they are old enough to know the alphabet.   To play the Love Alphabet game you make a list of all kinds of things you love, starting with each letter of the alphabet (okay, you can skip the infrequent letters Q,X,Y,Z)   The idea is to break the pattern of negative thoughts by replacing them with positive thoughts and feelings. It is like distracting a child from playing with something dangerous by replacing their attention with a fun toy.
So the game might go like this” “A – I love apples. B - I love baseball. C- I love cats. D - I love dessert.” And so on until you get to the end of the alphabet. Chances are you will feel better by the end -- if you allow yourself to really connect to the words you are saying. Feel your love for each item. If not, repeat it and do a second round. Keep saying the words “I love…” each time. It builds your love muscle! And it builds the energy and good feelings. If you really can’t feel love for anything, start with “I like...” Or “I’m grateful for ....” Do it everyday. Do it a couple of times a day if you are having a bad day. I know its a simple little game, but it works, and it’s cheaper than alcohoI. I promise you it has worked for EVERY student I have given it to who did it for 30 days.
Focus on Who and What You Love
Put your attention on the people, places, things and activities you enjoy and love. This takes you out of your internal state and gets you reconnected with people and activities that are meaningful to you. It doesn’t happen overnight. But it does work! I promise.
When you re-connect to anyone and anything you love, this is your life line. Because Love heals! This will help you come back into your body and into your life! Be patient. You’ll get here.
Thank You.
Thank you. Thank you…. In case no one has said that to you! Thank you!
Genie Joseph, M.A.

Memory & PTSD Getting Unstuck

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:01:15 -1000

The Past Haunting the Present
One disturbing aspect of trauma is the unwanted return of memories, thoughts, sounds and images.   It was hard enough to experience traumatic events the first time – but now you’re re-experiencing those bad things all the time. The past is now haunting the present. Intruding memories flood the mind. They are triggered night and day, and can interfere with the quality of sleep. It can make you feel crazy, as if your brain is out of control.
How Do You Store Your Memories?
The difference between a “bad” experience and one that is traumatic may be the difference in how the memory is stored. For example, two people may experience the exact same situation, and one is able to overcome the effects of it, while the other experiences enduring stress and distress.   This has nothing to do with weakness, lack of bravery, intelligence levels – it is simply due to the differences in their resilience level. The person who is not traumatized has a full Resilience tank going into the stressful situation. The person at risk will be someone with a Low Resilience Tank level.
How memories are stored is one key factor in resilience levels being high or low. A non-traumatized brain will have greater “plasticity” or flexibility. In other words, flexible brains can release unwanted memories more easily. When a person has experienced a high degree of stress, such as emotional, physical or mental pain or trauma, the brain can become stuck or less flexible, and the memories get caught in a groove. (Read blog entry “The Power of Spontaneity” for further discussion.) In the Act Resilient Program, we learn how to “unstick” the brain by increasing brain flexibility.
Why Does the Brain Get Stuck?
If a situation isn’t resolved – for example, because you feel guilty about what you did or didn’t do, it can continue to replay in your mind. Feeling unresolved feeling such as “I should have done more” or “I should have done something different” – can cause the brain to keep replaying aspects of the incident. The brain gets stuck on unfinished business – like a walking, talking “Evil Post-it Note” stuck to your forehead. It keeps nagging you to either fix the situation, or handle it differently if you can.
If you can’t do anything to fix it, because it is over and gone, it is essential to learn how to let it go.   You can’t let go of the memory -- in the sense that you can’t “un-remember,” but you can let go of REPLAYING the memory. Not constantly replaying a negative memory is essential to mental health – especially if you can’t fix the actual situation. Letting go is like taking your hand off the “replay” button in your brain. This allows the brain to “unstick.” The games we play in Act Resilient are all designed to teach the brain HOW to let go.
Close the Loop – Release the Pain
Take the simple factual sentence: “Mary is gone.” Whether or not that is a traumatic statement has to do with how it is perceived and processed, and long-term, how it is stored in the mind. If you know where Mary is, let’s say you know she has gone to the store to get milk and will be back in twenty minutes, the words “Mary is gone” do not cause any stress. It doesn’t become a traumatic memory because it is a closed-storage-loop of information. The brain doesn’t have to do anything more about it, so it goes into a “safe-storage” zone and causes no distress.
But if you don’t know where Mary is, or whether she will be back, or if she is alive, then the same simple words “Mary is gone” reverberating through your brain will cause pain and stress. In this case, having a closed-loop of accurate information (Mary is getting milk and will be back) allows you to not replay the words “Mary is gone” over and over. But if you have an open loop, through lack of information, guilt or self-recrimation about what you did or didn’t do, or unresolved feelings – you could create a situation where your brain gets stuck. Then you start continually replaying thoughts and memories in an effort to close the loop, but those memories only cause you pain.
You Can Learn to Let Go
If you have experienced intense suffering or trauma you may feel that you can’t let go. It is as if you have an open loop that is looking for closure. This is simply because no one showed you how to run your brain. If you don’t know where the computer on/off switch is, you won’t know how to turn it off – but once somebody shows you, it is a click away. Releasing unwanted memories is not as easy as a click, but it can be done. With practice and diligence you can learn how to close those open loops in your brain. Just understanding and believing it is possible is half the battle.
Explore the “Emotional Freedom Technique” in the Resource section of this site. This is a powerful and effective method that you do for yourself that can really help you get on with your life.
Act Resilient Works
The Act Resilient program uses Improvisational Comedy and Emotional Flexibility Training skills to restore brain plasticity. It does not require students to reveal any information that they don’t wish to share publicly. It is not therapy, but it is therapeutic in that it helps restore the natural resilience and enthusiasm for life. Act Resilient helps students come back to the present tense, which is the only way pleasure can be experienced once again. Act Resilient is a lot of fun and helps revive the willingness to live fully!
Genie Joseph, M.A.
Please read my other Blog Entries

Spontaneous Power Your Secret to Resilience

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:17:18 -1000

Restoring Resilience through the Right Brain
There are three types of resilience (see my blog entry: “The Three Types of Resilience.”) The third type, Learned Resilience can be highly restored, or using the metaphor of a tank, can be completely refilled through the activation of the parts of the brain that restore natural resilience. Children are naturally resilient because they have this part of their brain turned on full force. Using imagination, play, creativity, spontaneity, intuition, inspiration and a sense of connection (the so-called Right Brain functions) we can quickly bring these parts of the brain back online that restore our natural resilience and enthusiasm for life. Reconnecting with your right brain spontaneity is like reconnecting with your personal power and joy.
Your Right Brain
Everything we do in the Act Resilient Program is designed to re-integrate the Right Brain. The Right Brain is a metaphor for the parts of your brain that lead to optimism, creativity, spontaneity and inspiration. If we tune up the right-brain, we bring back those delightful childhood qualities that re-ignite our natural resilience. This is why Improv Comedy and the games we play in class lower stress and increase resilience as a natural by-product of putting people back into their right brains.
Your Left Brain
Metaphorically speaking, we talk about the left brain as being the domain or logic, language, details, critical thinking. We need both to function properly in the world. You couldn’t balance a check book or remember how to do simple tasks without your wonderful left brain. The problem in our society is that we have become so left-brain dominant, that our right-brains have taken a back seat and become somewhat dormant. We don’t even know how to turn them back on. This is why we need a class to re-connect with this natural part of ourselves. Once we do bring our right brain back online, the benefits – feeling better – feeling like you are back in your own skin – are immediate and dramatic.
Learning to Unstick Your Brain
One could say that in PTSD, the brain has gotten stuck. A past experience intrudes upon the present, keeping the person in a kind of mental lock down. Unwanted memories flood the brain – (with or without the old triggers present), even though the situation that caused the trauma is not present. PTSD is like an old phonograph album where the needle is stuck in a certain groove and can’t stop until someone picks up the needle. Improv comedy and the other types of games we do in Act Resilient is picking up the needle. This is because in order to do Improv, you have to be in the present moment. All the warm-up games we do are designed to put you in the right brain. They bring your entire focus to the present moment –away from the pain -- and the result is the brain starts to get out of lock-down.
Learning To Drive Your Own Brain
When a person has experienced extreme stress or trauma, it is as if they are not fully in control of their own brain. The past is intruding, driving the brain down paths that don’t feel good. Without the right skills and training, the person feels like they have no control over their thoughts and feelings – because they don’t. The good news is that a few techniques that we use in Act Resilient will quickly make you feel like you can take back control over your own brain. It takes discipline, but over time you will learn how to “drive your own brain” – towards what you do what. You learn how to direct your thoughts towards what makes you happy – and away from what causes pain and stress.
Why Act Resilient Works
Act Resilient works by restoring our natural resilience through reconnecting the right brain, which is like the positive side of your personality. Some students have described the class as “I feel like I died and went to kindergarten.” This is because we are reconnecting you with your child-like sense of play. This naturally reconnects you with your joy and passion for life. Very quickly you will be inspired to make choices that lead to greater happiness for you and for everyone you love.
Genie Joseph, M.A.
Please visit our other Blog entries to read more about Act Resilient.