When trauma isn't ‘post’ traumatic stress but ongoing, how do we heal?

Are you dealing with trauma? PTSD? Complex PTSD? ADHD? Feeling overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world?In this PTSD awareness episode, trauma therapist Eve Menezes Cunningham shares some of her personal journey from PTSD diagnosis to healing, and uses the Feel better. Be better. Do better method to support you in navigating personal and collective trauma.‘Instead of being consumed by hate, his hope was that Israelis and Palestinians and Christians could live in peace and harmony. And he created this school, Hope Flowers.’ Eve also reflects on an interview she did 20 years ago with, Ibrahim Issa, the son of the Hope Flowers School founder in Jerusalem regarding ongoing traumatic stress.About this podcastFeel Better Every Day! Learn from  the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:•          Feel better (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)•          Be better (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and•          Do better (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)Thanks for listening or watching.New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.Want to work with me?• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc  • While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.Want to connect with me on social media?You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and tell me what you want to ask or say:YouTube @evemenezescunninghamSubstack @evemcBluesky @eveimcTikTok @evemenezescunninghamInsta @evemenezescunninghamFacebook @FeelBetterEveryDayAnd if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.Chapters(0:03 – 0:45) Welcome and purpose of the podcast(0:46 – 2:12) Sole to Soul Circle and resources for healing(2:13 – 4:05) PTSD diagnosis and the power of language(4:06 – 6:28) Ongoing trauma: A story of hope from Jerusalem(6:29 – 8:36) Global crisis, collective trauma and marginalised communities(8:37 – 10:32) Self-care in the midst of ongoing trauma(10:33 – 12:14) Feel better. Be better. Do better: Rest, regulation and compassion(12:16 – 12:41) Grounding with what resonates: Feel, Be, or Do better(12:42 – 13:20) Healing through love, protest, and the ocean(13:21 – 14:00) Upcoming Circle content and community nourishment(14:00 – 14:36) Next week’s themeResourcesHope Flowers School article: https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/content/news/teaching-peaceDisclaimerThe content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.Thanks for listening. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.Full transcriptHi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday, I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself. That's that highest, wisest, truest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself.I do this to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from. You can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com and you can, if you're interested in taking a deeper dive each week for the Sole to Soul Circle, which you can join, there are bonus interviews and deeper dives into the practices that have come up through that week's episode from that week's theme.This week, it’s grounding practices to support trauma recovery.And you also get immediate access to a rich archive, including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey. You might also find the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing of interest. And there are book bonus videos and other self-care coaching resources for trauma, ADHD, and all sorts of areas at selfcarecoaching.net. Today's episode is for PTSD awareness.And with everything that's going on in the world, it's like, much as I know that PTSD, its inclusion in the Diagnostic Statistics Manual and the DSM, it was life-changing for so many people, myself included, when I got a PTSD diagnosis back in 2008. It was after a house fire, and it gave me the language to help me understand my complex PTSD from very early childhood. It helped me learn to heal.It helped me learn to ground and resource and to end up becoming a trauma therapist. And I love my work because I love that there are so many ways in which we can heal. And I'm also aware, I keep thinking of an interview I did, like when I was newly freelance, 2004, it appeared in Nursery World, a UK magazine for nursery people, in 2005.And I just found a link, I will link to it in the show notes. https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/content/news/teaching-peaceBut I never forgot this man I spoke to in Jerusalem. He was the son of Hussein Ibrahim Issa.His name is Ibrahim Issa. And he ran the Hope Flowers School in Jerusalem. I'm not going to cry.I'm not going to cry. They are bringing together, since his father's work as a Palestinian born refugee who had lost everything after World War II, instead of being consumed by hate, his hope was that Israelis and Palestinians and Christians could live in peace and harmony. And he created this school, Hope Flowers, where all three religions and people of no religion were educated.And they were being bombed, like this is back 2004, 2005, when I was interviewing him. They didn't know one week to the next, like I think a wall had just been destroyed a week earlier. And I said something about PTSD very naively.And he just said, really sadly, it's not post, this is ongoing, the children, they're tiny, tiny children. And it was ongoing. And of course, with everything that's happening in the world, I'm doing my best focus on the people who are working towards building peace and healing and trauma recovery for everyone rather than endless cycles.But I thought there's no point doing something about post-traumatic stress as if you've survived the trauma. And that's all you have to worry about, just focus on the reflection, the healing, the all of it.I think everyone is traumatised right now, I don't want to name any situations, because I don't want to be triggering anyone.But at the same time, it's having to navigate life at different levels. And I know that marginalised communities have had to deal with this for so much longer, ongoing onslaughts to the right to exist, and then having to be professional at work, having to like wanting to bring their dreams into reality.And I thought rather than doing an episode on post-traumatic stress disorder for post-traumatic stress disorder awareness, I would just name it and just encourage you, however you're feeling, whatever global situations or local situations.I really don't want to name local things and global things in case that's not something that's making you cry at the...