My high school senior.

When she was born and breastfeeding every two hours, 24-7, and I couldn’t shower or read the Sunday paper anymore, I’d ask aloud, “when is she going off to college?” 

Now the time is coming and I’m crying in anticipation. 

Driving her to or from school, I hold her hand because I will miss doing this next year. 

This is the year I teach her everything I can before she takes flight. 

It is my job to take her to the mountain top and let her fly. 

Next year, God-willing, she will fly away to a college on the other side of the country. I look forward to watching her do what she came here to do. 

I am proud of the person that God sent me to raise.

Even Jesus Got Hangry

I love that Jesus was human. It makes him relatable. And a real role model. 
An old friend once told me that he tried to be like Jesus but found he couldn't. 
When I read this passage about Jesus in a clear state of hangriness, I felt validation, self-acceptance, relief, and no excuse not to be like him - because he was supremely human. 

From Matthew 21:18-22 (NIV):                   

¹⁸Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.  

¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it. “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.              

²⁰When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.             

²¹Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.  

²²If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

He was hungry. He made the fig tree wither for not bearing fruit. I've been there. 

My daughter has a therapist who understands my daughter's plethora of feelings - big and small. My girl told her therapist about an incident in which I got hangry with her (yelling at her through the streets of downtown). I contend there was a context for this (including my daughter's incalcitrant behavior). Alas, if this is the worst story she can come up with to tell her therapist about me in her lifetime - I'll take it! 

I also note (and love because I relate) that his hungriness colors how he expresses himself. He had previously told his disciples about their potential mountain moving powers:

From Matthew 17:19-20 (NIV): 

19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” [They are wondering why they were not successful in their attempt to drive out a demon in a boy since Jesus had already given them authority to do so in Matthew 10:1 ] 

20He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Not only is Jesus hungry, but he has already said this to them before! The first time he said they can move the mountain from here to there. The second (and hungry) time, he says they can tell the mountain to go throw yourself into the sea! My daughter says this must be an old timey way of saying, "Go f--- yourself!"

Over and over again, Jesus teaches, preaches, and heals. Ample evidence to inspire faith, hope, and love. When are we all gonna believe already?

Growing Up is Sexy

Maturity is
sexy
and powerful.

Complaining, blaming, and walking around as if you are a victim is not attractive, unless you are trying to attract a surrogate-parent. Grown-ups don't need (or wanna have sex with) surrogate-parents.

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame them, it will not change you. -Wayne Dyer

Grown-ups want to date, play, and work with other grown-ups.

At any age, maturity means taking 100% responsibility for your life.

"...There is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live...If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings - everything!" -Jack Canfield

Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses. -George Washington Carver 

Are you willing to give up all your excuses?

"...you have always had the power to make it different, get it right, to produce the desired result...You have control over only three things in your life - the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take (your behavior)...You either create or allow everything that happens to you." -Jack Canfield

Journeying

When I left my job to start the PhD program at UCLA, one of my co-workers said to me, "many are called but few are chosen." To me, her words and the wistful look in her eyes implied that she too had dreams of going back to school. My concern with her remark is the idea that you could hear the call and not be chosen. I don't believe that the Universe puts a desire in our heart to mock us. I believe we are all called and it is our decision to muster the courage to start the quest, to dare our hero's journey or to refuse.

The only thing that gets in the way of what we are meant to do is our own fear. Indeed the point of the journey is to overcome our deepest fear. Nothing and no one can stop us, even though they try - like crabs in a bucket who don't know how to get out but try to figure out how to pull you down.

The road is not easy - be prepared for the requisite tests, ordeals, and enemies. Know that there will also be mentors, allies, and rewards. And of course, the climax and resolution of Act III, with a renewed sense of who you really are.

Note (8/3/18): I read the whole story about "many are called but few are chosen." It's from a parable about a wedding feast prepared by a king. The king sends servants to invite the guests but the invited refuse to come. Then the king sends servants to street corners to invite anyone they can find. Now the wedding hall is filled with guests. The king notices a man who was not wearing wedding clothes and throws him out. Jesus ends this parable saying, "For many are invited, but few are chosen." My take on this story (and my strength is not in understanding parables, poetry, or dreams) is that many are invited, but we decide if and how we show up. We can refuse the call by not showing up physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Then we can't say it is elitism or velvet rope exclusion at play. It is us and it is our call.

Lyrics to Hey Jude

Hey Jude
The Beatles

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

Hey Jude, don't let me down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey Jude, you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder

Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah yeah
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney 
Hey Jude lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC


Just because it needs to be said and remembered. And sang. Like really loud with lots of others. 

Love like that

Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.

From Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift: Poems by Hafiz (1999), p. 34.

Truth Opened

Freud presented a paper in April, 1896 to the Society for Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna on the sexual abuse of his female patients by their fathers as the etiology of hysteria. Patients had told these stories to psychiatrists before, but Freud was the first psychiatrist who believed that his patients were telling the truth.

Freud hoped his paper would disturb “the sleep of the world.” However, according to Freud, his paper was “met with an icy reception from the asses.”

One of his colleagues reacted, “It sounds like a scientific fairy tale.”

Freud wrote to a friend saying, "They can all go to hell."

Initially, Freud felt that it was important for him to risk his reputation and ridicule in order to present his findings. After all, Freud's patients had shown courage in his office by confronting the pain of what happened to them in childhood.

Less than two weeks after he gave the paper, he wrote to a friend saying: "I am as isolated as you could wish me to be: the word has been given out to abandon me, and a void is forming around me."

Unfortunately, Freud later dismissed his patients’ disclosures as the fantasies of hysterical women who invented stories. The women betrayed again.

He said patients had been deceiving themselves and him: “. . . I was at last obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only fantasies which my patients had made up.”

In 1905, Freud publicly retracted his theory that hysteria in women was caused by early childhood sexual abuse. Instead, Freud developed a victim-blaming story, a myth, to explain away the trauma - he termed it the "feminine Oedipal Complex," later referred to as the Electra complex - that girls completed with their mothers for their fathers affection.

Now, over a hundred years later, we know the truth.
Truth is the beginning of all discovery and recovery.


For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Luke 8:17. 

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32

Peer-Reviewed Publication #3

Number 3 is magical because tenure (promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor) requires three peer-reviewed publications, or as the college dean who hired me said, "at least three."

This paper is dedicated to the work I had the privilege of doing at Harmony elementary school in South Los Angeles, under the visionary leadership of Mr. Robert Cordova (aka, Mr. C). My work in schools continues to inspire my research questions.

I tell students who are nervous about doing the research projects required for their master's degree, research is not about being good at math. If you can be curious, then you can do research.

As my mom used to say, "Thank you, Yesus!!"
Amen, amen, and amen to that.

Second Peer-Reviewed Publication

I have been working on this paper since the fall of 2011, while in my third year of the PhD program at UCLA.
Despite positive reviews from faculty and a "revise and resubmit" response from the first journal that I submitted it to, I could not get it published until now.
I must have submitted this paper - unsuccessfully - to nearly half a dozen journals.
Feeling discouraged, I told my daughter about this paper. I didn't know if I should give up on it or not. She asked me, "Mom, do you believe in what you wrote?" I said, "yes!" So I kept working on it.
Then I sent a draft to my colleague, Dr. Martinez. He said I should not give up on it.
The difference between success and failure is not giving up.
I am grateful that I had the emotional and instrumental support that I needed to finish it.
I am grateful to my mentor, Reevah Simon, for teaching me these parenting skills - they saved my personal and professional life. I am a better mother and social worker because of what she taught me.

Connecting the Dots Dream

Since elementary school, I have wanted to be a writer.
Most of my life, I have wanted to make a difference for the most vulnerable among us.
Now I am working on an "expert declaration" for a class action lawsuit on behalf of detainees.
It is the most important piece of writing of my life and most of my personal and professional experiences have led up to this.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Steve Jobs 

If you believe that dreams can come true, then you are right.
If you believe that dreams cannot come true, then you are right.
What do you choose to believe?

"Neural WiFi"

"One writer compared mirror neurons to 'neural WiFi' - we pick up not only another person's movement but her emotional state and intentions as well. When people are in sync with each other, they tend to stand or sit similar ways, and their voices take on the same rhythms. But our mirror neurons also make us vulnerable to others' negativity, so that we respond to their anger with fury or are dragged down by their depression...trauma almost invariably involves not being seen, not being mirrored, and not being taken into account. Treatment needs to reactivate the capacity to safely mirror, and to be mirrored, by others, but also to resist being hijacked by others' negative emotions."

From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Parents, Children, Trauma & Neuroplasticity

"During disasters young children usually take their cues from their parents. As long as their caregivers remain calm and responsive to their needs, they often survive terrible incidents without serious psychological scars."

"...early explorations shape the limbic structures devoted to emotions and memory, but these structures can also be significantly modified by later experiences: for the better by a close friendship or a beautiful first love, for example, or for the worse by a violent assault, relentless bullying, or neglect." 

From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Notice, Feel, Be Here

"No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality...It is so much easier for them [people who have gone through the unspeakable] to talk about what has been done to them - to tell the story of victimization and revenge - than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience...Our scans had revealed how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be 'there' and did not know how to be 'here' - fully alive in the present."

From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Our two brains

Left-brain

• rational, logical
• images of past trauma deactivate the left hemisphere of the brain
• does all the talking
• linguistic, sequential, and analytical
• we know the left hemisphere has come online when children start to understand language and learn how to speak. This enables them to name things, compare them, understand their interrelations, and begin to communicate their own unique, subjective experiences to others.
• remembers facts, statistics, and the vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. 
• deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. Without sequencing we can't identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. 

Right-brain

• intuitive, artistic
• images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain
• emotional, visual, spatial, and tactual
• the right half of the brain carries the music of experience. It communicates through facial expressions and body language and by making the sounds of love and sorrow: by singing, swearing, crying, dancing, or mimicking. The right brain is the first to develop in the womb, and it carries the nonverbal communication between mothers and infants. 
• the right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth - the way things are. 

The two halves of the brain speak different languages and process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways. Under ordinary circumstances, the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, is disabling.

From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

Trauma Healing & Autonomy Restoration

"...four fundamental truths:
(1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being;
(2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning;
(3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and
(4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children can feel safe and where they can thrive."

Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score.

Love, loss & facing the truth

"Semrad taught us that most human suffering is related to love and loss and that the job of therapists is to help people 'acknowledge, experience, and bear' the reality of life - with all its pleasures and heartbreak. 'The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves,' he'd say, urging us to be honest with ourselves about every facet of our experience. He often said that people can never get better without knowing what they know and feeling what they feel."

Bessel van der Kolk writing about what he learned from his great teacher, Elvin Semrad, in the book, The Body Keeps the Score.

My "Student Evaluations of Faculty" Results

After every semester, I get to read what students thought about our time together.
Usually comments are very positive and encourage me. Sometimes there is one that is just mean.
This semester was awesome - teaching the right class makes a difference!
Here's an original that made me smile :)

"Dr. Acuña worked it - put her thang down, flipped it, and reversed it. Best professor for that class."

I'm going to really review comments for themes, but I already know that I am happiest (and so are my students) when I teach classes that I love. SWRK 601 & 602, here I come!!

Trauma ℉u©❄︎s with our Imagination

From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk...

There is a well-known psychological test known as the Rorschach or ink blot test. When people look at these cards of meaningless blots of ink, what they see tells a lot about how their minds work.

Veterans may see traumatic images in these ink blots and experience flashbacks - seeing the same images, smelling the same smells, and feeling the same physical sensations they felt during the original event.

The most alarming response to the ink blot test is, "This is nothing, just a bunch of ink," because the normal response to ambiguous stimuli is to use our imagination to read something into them.

Now Bessel waxes poetic:

"The five men who saw nothing in the blots had lost the capacity to let their minds play...they were not displaying the mental flexibility that is the hallmark of imagination. They simply kept replaying an old reel.  

Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word - all things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities - it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of the mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach (p. 17)."

Self-Mastery after Trauma

Still reading, The Body Keeps the Score, by Van Der Kolk and taking notes...

How do you become the master of your own ship after trauma? Van Der Kolk has been studying and treating trauma for over 30 years. He summarizes what he has seen work:

• Talking
• Understanding
• Medications can dampen hyperactive alarm systems in the body
• Having physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness, rage, and collapse that are part of trauma

I love the sound of that treatment plan. 

It's okay to talk about it - make sense of it and sort out feelings. It helps to create a coherent story -with a beginning, middle, and end - with lots of details about the good, the bad, and the horribly beautiful. 

Storytelling helps to develop an understanding and empathy for self and others. Sharing or reading stories is powerful because you start to see patterns and commonalities. There are common reactions to stress and trauma. Instead of judging or feeling out of control, you develop an acceptance and understanding of yourself and others - it can bring peace.

Medications are more stigmatized and feared than alcohol, pot, and street-level drugs. How did that happen? I am not afraid of taking advantage of anything and everything that is safe and good for my well-being, including medication that calms by hyperactive alarm system. I like sleeping soundly. I like being at peace in my own body. I like not reacting to everything like it's an emergency. I like screening what I want to focus on and put my energy and attention to - it makes me feel in control and not helpless.

Most intriguing is the idea that having physical experiences that directly contradict the feelings associated with traumatic events can help recovery. It sounds like what Peter Levine talks about in Waking the Tiger. Summarized brusquely, he asserts (based on his work with clients) that when the body freezes in a traumatic event, it later needs to follow-through with the movement in order to recover. This idea about having physical experiences also reminds me of how healing it is for some survivors of tragedy to set up a foundation and pursue social justice goals as a means of recovery.  Sometimes we just gotta do something to counter and challenge the feeling of helplessness. Seeking justice (and not revenge) can be an antidote for the rage.

Regaining self-mastery is the ultimate goal of trauma recovery. Addictions of all kinds are a short-cut to soothe the pain of trauma memories. Unfortunately, the side effects of addiction are feeling out of control and shame, which is farther away from self-mastery and recovery.