These 3 Harmful Personas Block Resilience
It’s a wet, chilly night in Mendocino, California. The tiny, enchanted town, perched with quiet confidence atop the rocky Pacific shoreline has all but shut down for the eve. A few local “misfits and mavericks,” as they are affectionately called, dim the lights in their shops, turn the “Open” sign to “Closed,” and step out into the meandering fog. In the distance, stands a large, cream-colored building, like a prettied-up version of one used on the set of Little House and the Prairie. …
There’s a good reason why “Think happy thoughts” or “Just get over it” doesn’t work for some types of of trauma, like moral injury and other forms of adversity.
“It’s late and dark somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. Our mission has just gone from bad to fucked up. An intelligence disaster — out of date information, ignorant militia fighters, one in particular who has seriously betrayed us.
You know what betrayal feels like? Like you’re being held down and forced to swallow a big, steamy pile of dogshit — or horseshit, or pigshit, or whatever shit is the most disgusting around. …
Weltschmerz describes the gut punch we get from realizing that the world keeps falling short of our expectations. What this means for your mental health.
And so, here we are again. An everyday town, with everyday people, going about their everyday activities, suddenly transformed into a scene of terror and mass casualties. This time it’s Boulder, Colorado, the “Happiest City” in the U.S. — “nestled between the mountains and reality.” An urban-suburban utopia, it’s been called. And now it’s paradise lost.
One of the survivors on scene in the aftermath said vacantly to a news camera, “Boulder feels like a bubble and the bubble burst and that’s heartbreaking. To think that people died today … It doesn’t feel as though there’s anywhere safe anymore.” He…
How to cultivate moral resilience instead
“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is a centuries-old proverb inspired by a Japanese carving that depicts three monkeys, each with a hand covering eyes, ears, and mouth, respectively. In the West, the phrase has come to be associated with turning a blind eye to something that is legally or morally wrong, but the original meaning was that a person should always avoid evil, including in deed.
But what do we do when we find ourselves in a situation where “evil” is unavoidable? When we can’t stop seeing or hearing it, or else are powerless to prevent…
Some things are just sad
Five words was all it took to break through the blockade that surrounded my heart, freeing it to feel legitimate pain and eventually inspiring it to let go:
Some things are just sad.
A wise friend said this to me over dinner six months after I, at age 33, had suffered two unexpected and rare heart attacks in one week. The sadness he was referring to was not only the malaise that surrounded my subsequent loss of health, heart function, and confidence about life as I had known it. …
While the terms “panic attack” and “anxiety attack” are used interchangeably, they’re not the same. Here’s what you need to know about each.
I was eight years old when the wrecking ball of doom came a-swinging. One minute I was riding my Huffy Sweet Thunder down the road, speed lifting my pigtails, adrenalin twisting the handlebars as I launched off the curb, bravado daring me to let go, as if to say, “Hell ya, I’m omnipotent.” And the next moment, invincibility took a digger. I landed with a face full of dirt and a mouthful of blood, heart on fire, trembling like a newborn in the cold, drenched as if I had just gone swimming. …
The everyday magic of noticing in a society consumed by distraction and productivity.
There is no better balm for the soul than quiet (or maybe a giant hug). But in an era of white noise, who has time for the soul when it’s all but impossible to think, feel, see, and listen. We’re tethered to devices, distracted by doomscrolling, in a panic to post, and beeps and buzzes turn us into Pavlov’s dog. …
Turns out humans are designed for it through the “diver’s reflex”.
Anxiety makes us feel “hot under the collar.” But evolution has provided a mechanism to help cool us down. Enter the “diver’s reflex” — or the mammalian diving response, the body’s physiological response to acute submersion in cold water.
Scientists have long known that aquatic mammals, such as seals, whales, dolphins, and otters can override basic homeostatic reflexes that keep an organism in optimal functioning in order to survive for long periods under the ocean’s surface. But it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century, when an Italian air force lieutenant named Raimondo Bucher took a bet that he could free-dive one…
Surprising ways the ‘yuck factor’ affects our brains
It turns out that you don’t need a thick self-help book in order to “change your thoughts.” All you need is a bottle of — wait for it — fart spray. Not a big vial either, just a small whiff of “real fart” smell. This is according to David Pizarro, professor of psychology at Cornell University, who investigated whether the smell of something disgusting could affect people’s judgment.
Pizarro’s experiment builds upon a growing body of research that shows disgust, once labeled the “forgotten emotion of psychiatry,” is far more influential in shaping our beliefs, bonds, and behavior than previously…
11 Things to do — and NOT do — to ensure that your relationship lasts when loss or adversity strikes.
Many of us have been there — the awkward moment when someone we care for is deep in despair. Maybe their eyes are red and wet, or their shoulders are rounded and shaking. Maybe their chest is heaving through shallow breaths or their head and neck are limp, as if all hope of resurgence is lost. Maybe the cloud of preternatural silence has settled in, leaving them empty and mute.
And there we are, between stimulus and response. We wonder what to say or what not to say. We worry about having nothing to say or saying the wrong thing…
Michele DeMarco
Award-winning writer, therapist, clinical ethicist, and researcher specializing in moral injury. I talk about the stuff many won’t. micheledemarco.com
