Author: Patrick Dougherty

Visualization Ritual for Moving Through Social Despair and Collective Trauma

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This is one simple way to help you begin to move through social despair and collective trauma. While this is written in the most direct and simple way possible, it is very nuanced, with layers of complexity, and if you use it, try to give yourself time to feel into it and try and understand it as best you can. Then please adapt it in any way that works for you.

 

Step 1: Physical Posture

Sit comfortably, drop your consciousness into your body by becoming aware of the volume of your body, your breathing and any sensations you are … Read More

Moving Through Heavy-Heartedness – A group ritual

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Event helps February 28, 2017
First Universalist Church

Moving Through Heavy-Heartedness
A ritual to name what is in our hearts, transform it, and find hope for change.
Although each of us comes with different understandings and experiences of this new administration, and what it means in our lives, for many of us, this is a time of heavy-heartedness. Some of us are hanging onto hope by a thread; some live in real fear. Some wonder how the oppressive frameworks lived day in and day out are only now being recognized. Some of us are sensing this as a time of … Read More

Navigating through these dark times and not losing our light.

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Navigating through these dark times and not losing our light.

4 tips for helping you move through Collective Trauma and Social Despair back to an active engagement with life.

Collective trauma and social despair, like personal trauma and despair, can easily disconnect us from what is meaningful in our life and diminish our hope for the future. Now that the reality of the Republicans taking over the country and dismantling so many of the structures of human rights and environmental protections, we have to care for ourselves, in ways most of us have never had to, so we stay … Read More

Responding to and Moving Through our Collective Trauma

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(Originally published Nov 17, 2016)

RESPONDING TO AND MOVING THROUGH OUR COLLECTIVE TRUAMA

Collective Trauma is a blow or tear to “the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairing the prevailing sense of community.” For many of us Election Day was a deep tearing of the fabric that we imagined bound us together as Americans.

It will be so important in the days, weeks, months and years ahead to respond to and MOVE THROUGH the waves of emotions stemming from the collective trauma so we don’t get stuck in an emotional quagmire and

… Read More

4 Tips for Coping with Collective Trauma

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(Originally published Dec 11, 2016)

4 Tips for Coping with Collective Trauma

Collective trauma, like personal trauma, can easily disconnect us from the places of connection that make our life meaningful and diminish our hope about the future. So when you find yourself experiencing a collective trauma, like many of us are after the elections here in the US, it is important to remember there are four actions we can take to help mitigate the impact of the trauma.

1. A daily meaningful connection with another is the primary treatment. And by meaningful connection I don’t mean sharing our

… Read More