“The roots of resilience….are to be found in the sense of being understood by and existing in the mind and heart of a loving, attuned and self-possessed other.” – Diana Fosha

The quote above is from a fascinating book I am reading called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk…..although I have been exposed to much of the material both professionally in my training and experienced it before my very eyes in my household – this book’s ability in summarizing all of the research on trauma together has been captivating. I try to teach many of our educators that a child’s body does not “knowingly” react and defy them or disrupt their classroom, it is their body’s auto-pilot of fear and reaction that has (most of the time) little to do with their actual teaching or personality. It is also helping me pinpoint some troubling timelines for my own kiddos and how their body remembers way before their brain does the traumas that live inside of them, have stolen pieces of childhood from them, and show up often during very inconvenient times if our lives.

April – as soon as April 1st hits and we start talking about WonderBOYs birthday, his behavior and mood plummets. His little body reacts with nightmares and impulsive sadness around thinking about his own birth and grieving the loss of a relationship with his bio mother.

June – this month is a hotbed of triggers for both WonderGIRL and BraveGIRL. The end of school is terribly sad for WG even though in recent years, summers are filled with joy and memories, the true imprint of terror and abandonment after school gets out remained steadfast in her bones and blood.

This month also marks the anniversary of BGs parents’ death and finally this year, she is realizing the impact this has on her. I am hoping and praying she will engage more in her grief and trauma counseling so that we can heal some of these wounds before she is out on her own navigating these triggers alone.

So we hold on through these rough seasons and look forward to the next. We pinpoint what their bodies are doing to them and reassure them they are in a new and safer place, free of fear and violence. We (okay just me) dive deep into reading and researching trauma so I can best prepare them for healing and prepare our schools to be healing environments. We stick together, we sometimes choose aggression over compassion, we get through the day, and then we start all over again tomorrow.