Trauma-Informed Libraries

In Alphabreaths, children will learn their ABCs and the basics of mindfulness through playful breathing exercises. Breaths like Mountain Breath and Redwood Breath will connect them with nature, while breaths like Heart Breath and Wish Breath will help them remember to fill their heart with gratitude and send good wishes to others. Simple, playful, and with delightful illustrations, Alphabreaths is the perfect introduction to mindfulness and breath awareness.

"Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society." --Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies. A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller. Trauma is a fact of life. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments--from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga--that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity.

A step-by-step guide to developing mental health disaster plans, assisting communities to act on long-term resilience and recovery. As disasters continue to increase in severity and number, with 16% of survivors identified as potential PTSD victims if they don't promptly receive care, this book is a critical read. Chapters outline how to prepare, develop, and implement a trauma-informed collaborative process that prioritizes lasting emotional wellbeing along with survivors' short-term needs. The manual demonstrates how to form this partnership through effective communication, assess those individuals at greatest risk of distress, and deliver trauma-specific treatment. Readers will appreciate the book's practical, user-friendly approach, including case studies, checklists, and follow-up questions to better define goals. Cutting-edge treatment interventions are included along with basic information on trauma's impact on the brain and the types and effects of human-caused and natural disasters to help readers make sound planning decisions. Accessible to mental-health providers, community leaders, organizations, and individuals alike, Disaster Mental Health Community Planning is a Road Map for anyone interested in delivering a trauma-informed mental health supplement to their community's medical disaster preparedness and response plan.

Introducing mindfulness into the lives of our children and teenagers is perhaps the greatest gift we can offer. Mindfulness builds emotional intelligence, boosts happiness, increases curiosity and engagement, reduces anxiety and depression, soothes the pain of trauma, and helps kids (and adults) focus, learn, and make better choices. Growing Up Mindful helps parents, educators, and counselors learn how to embody and share the skills of mindfulness that will empower our children with resilience throughout their lives. With more than 75 accessible exercises and practices, along with adaptations for the individual needs of a wide range of children and teens, this inspiring guidebook brings you road-tested insights and tools. Growing Up Mindful invites you to "embark on something incredible and world-changing" as you join the growing community of adults bringing wonder, curiosity, and reflection back into childhood and adolescence.

So many books, websites, apps and podcasts claim they contain the secrets to finding happiness. But rarely are they backed by research or real tools - instead just anecdotal fairy tales that work for a select few.The Happiness Toolbox is here to help, by providing you with science-backed exercises to change your life. An interactive journaling format helps you learn how to choose happiness by adding simple habits into your daily life - putting you in a love-lasting and fulfilling state of mind.Key skills for everyday happiness:- Gratitude- Compassion- Mindfulness- Savoring- Optimism- Forgiveness

Psychotherapist and trauma survivor Jasmin Lee Cori offers new insight into trauma-related difficulties (including PTSD, depression, substance abuse), provides self-care tools, candor about therapy and medications, and addresses spiritual issues. While there are many different approaches to healing trauma, few offer a wide range of perspectives and options. With innovative insight into trauma-related difficulties, Jasmin Lee Cori helps you: Understand trauma and its devastating impacts; Identify symptoms of trauma (dissociation, numbing, etc.) and common mental health problems that stem from trauma; Manage traumatic reactions and memories; Create a more balanced life that supports your recovery; Choose appropriate interventions (therapies, self-help groups, medications and alternatives); Recognize how far you've come in your healing and what you need to keep growing. Complete with exercises, healing stories, points to remember, and resources, this is a perfect companion for anyone seeking to reclaim their life from the devastating impacts of trauma.

"People of color have endured traumatic histories and almost daily assaults on our dignity. We have prayed about racism, been in denial, or acted out in anger, but we have not known how to individually or collectively pursue healing from the racial trauma." As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.

"Illuminates the very heart of social justice and how it might be approached and nurtured through mindfulness practices in community and through the discernment and new degrees of freedom these practices entrain." --from the foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn   In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are so deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. When conflict and division are everyday realities, our instincts tell us to close ranks, to find the safety of our own tribe, and to blame others. This book profoundly shows that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. Through the practice of embodied mindfulness--paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way--we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our own biases, and become less reactive when triggered.   As Sharon Salzberg, New York Times-bestselling author of Real Happiness writes, "Rhonda Magee is a significant new voice I've wanted to hear for a long time--a voice both unabashedly powerful and deeply loving in looking at race and racism." Magee shows that embodied mindfulness calms our fears and helps us to exercise self-compassion. These practices help us to slow down and reflect on microaggressions--to hold them with some objectivity and distance--rather than bury unpleasant experiences so they have a cumulative effect over time. Magee helps us develop the capacity to address the fears and anxieties that would otherwise lead us to re-create patterns of separation and division.   It is only by healing from injustices and dissolving our personal barriers to connection that we develop the ability to view others with compassion and to live in community with people of vastly different backgrounds and viewpoints. Incorporating mindfulness exercises, research, and Magee's hard-won insights, The Inner Work of Racial Justice offers a road map to a more peaceful world.

A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field. Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains--but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited--that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn't Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health.

Help your child cultivate real, lasting confidence! In Kid Confidence, a licensed clinical psychologist and parenting expert offers practical, evidence-based parenting strategies to help kids foster satisfying relationships, develop competence, and make choices that fit who they are and want to become. With this guide, you'll learn that self-esteem isn't about telling kids they're special. It's about helping them embrace the freedom that comes with a quiet ego-a way of being in the world that isn't preoccupied with self-judgment, and instead embraces a compassionate view of oneself and others that allows for both present awareness and personal growth. When kids are less focused on evaluating and comparing themselves with others, they are freer to empathize with others, embrace learning, and connect with the values that are bigger than themselves. If your child is suffering from low self-esteem, you need a nuanced parenting approach. Let this book guide you as you help your child create unshakeable confidence and lasting well-being.

Does the idea of living with clarity and objectivity fascinate you? Do you know the way to make that happen? Have you heard about the concept of mindfulness? Do you want to know in detail about mindfulness and meditation? This book will explain to you the concept of mindfulness meditation. It will also explain the ways in which you can make mindfulness a way of your life. Most of us want peace in our lives but don't want to pay the cost of slowing down. This is a misconception that a mindful life is a slow life and this book will try to break it. It will also explain that cultivating mindfulness in everyday life is possible and practical. In this book, you will find: The basic elements of mindfulness, Clarity between what mindfulness is and what it isn't, Physical and mental benefits of mindfulness, Various mindfulness meditations to help in stressful emotional situations, Pillars of mindfulness meditation, Practical everyday activities to make mindfulness a habit.

A little squirrel announces that he was once very, very, scared and finds out that he is not alone. Lots of little animals went through scary experiences, but they react in different ways. Turtle hides and gets a tummy ache, monkey clings, dog barks, and elephant doesn't like to talk about it. They need help, and they get help from grown-ups who help them feel safe and learn ways to cope with difficult feelings. This story was written to help children and grown-ups understand how stress can affect children and ways to help them.

Get on the path to a calmer life with fast, easy, mindful meditations and exercises that work. From finding your breath to feeling grounded, these practice-based exercises make integrating mindfulness into your routine easy. With over 75 essential meditations--that take between 5-20 minutes from start to finish--Practicing Mindfulness is an approachable way to apply mindfulness in your day-to-day life. Reduce stress, improve mental health, and stay present no matter what the day holds when you practice mindfulness.

In every spiritual tradition, we find teachings on the virtues and qualities that we most want to pass on to our kids--such as generosity, kindness, honesty, determination, and patience. Today, a growing body of research from neuroscience and social psychology supports these teachings, offering insights into cultivating these virtues in ourselves and in our families. Raising Resilience is a practical guide for parents and educators of children from preschool through adolescence, detailing ten universal principles for happy families and thriving children.Bridging the latest science with Eastern wisdom to explore ourselves and share with our children, Raising Resilience is an accessible resource to help each one of us and our family members, "evolve and grow into our best selves."

Most of us at some point in our lives will be struck by major traumas such as the sudden death of a loved one, a debilitating disease, assault, or a natural disaster. Resilience refers to the ability to 'bounce back' after encountering difficulty. This book provides a guide to building emotional, mental and physical resilience by presenting ten factors to help anyone become more resilient to life's challenges. Specific resilience factors such as facing fear, optimism, and social support are described through the experiences and personal reflections of highly resilient survivors. These survivors also describe real-life methods for practicing and benefiting from the resilience factors.

These days it's hard to count on the world outside. So it's vital to grow strengths inside like grit, gratitude, and compassion--the key to resilience, and to lasting well-being in a changing world. With his trademark blend of neuroscience, mindfulness, and positive psychology, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson shows you how to develop twelve vital inner strengths hardwired into your own nervous system. This practical guide is full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples, and insights into the brain. Warm, encouraging, and down-to-earth, Dr. Hanson's step-by-step approach is grounded in the science of positive neuroplasticity. He explains how to overcome the brain's negativity bias, release painful thoughts and feelings, and replace them with self-compassion, self-worth, joy, and inner peace.

Sherman Smith saw the most terrible thing happen. At first he tried to forget about it, but soon something inside him started to bother him. He felt nervous for no reason. And he started to feel angry and do mean things, which got him in trouble. Then he met Ms. Maple, who helped him talk about the terrible thing that he had tried to forget. Now Sherman is feeling much better. This gently told and tenderly illustrated story is for children who have witnessed any kind of violent or traumatic episode, including physical abuse, school or gang violence, accidents, homicide, suicide, and natural disasters. An afterword by Sasha J. Mudlaff written for parents and other caregivers offers extensive suggestions for helping traumatized children, including a list of other sources that focus on specific events.

What is trauma? How does it change the way our brains work? And how can we overcome it? When something traumatic happens to us, we dissociate and our bodies shut down their normal processes. This unique comic explains the strange nature of trauma and how it confuses the brain and affects the body. With wonderful artwork, cat and mouse metaphors, essential scientific facts, and a healthy dose of wit, the narrator reveals how trauma resolution involves changing the body's physiology and describes techniques that can achieve this, including Trauma Releasing Exercises that allow the body to shake away tension, safely releasing deep muscular patterns of stress and trauma.

Do you sometimes feel as if you exist only to satisfy others wants and needs, but never your own? Is your physical, mental and emotional health suffering as a result? Everyone loves a people-pleaser. But if you're one of them, you often end up feeling violated, ignored, disrespected, and disconnected-from life and others. Silently enduring the ongoing and relentless invalidation of who you are and what you want will reliably wreak havoc on your health and the health of your relationships. So, are you ready to put less "Yes" and more "You" in your life? In "When It's Never About You", psychotherapist, Ilene S. Cohen, uses real-world examples and activities to help you take a systemic look at people-pleasing.

Jennifer Cohen Harper, Little Flower Yoga founder, author, and mindfulness and yoga expert (and parent), has created another unique resource to help children embrace their full potential.Yoga and Mindfulness Practices for Children Card Deck offers over 50 activities to support health, well-being, empowerment and an improved capacity to navigate the many stressors of life without becoming overwhelmed. Beautifully illustrated by children's yoga teacher, Karen Gilmour, coupled with easy-to-read instructions.Divided into five elements, Connect, Breathe, Move, Focus and Relax, this card deck is a comprehensive yet accessible tool kit for children themselves, as well as for parents, teachers, clinicians and others interested in helping support self-awareness and increased personal power in young people.

40 pages of different species of cat to help seniors with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Perhaps trigger a memory of an encounter with a cat or bring about happy memories with a pet the person may have had in the past. In order to not cause stress to the reader, this book does not mention or contain anything to do with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Featuring: A colorful, glossy cover, 40 pictures of cats, 8X10 size.

The most trusted guide for caring for persons with Alzheimer's disease, memory loss, and dementia disorders-now revised and updated with practical and legal advice and compassionate guidance for families and caregivers. When someone in your family suffers from Alzheimer's disease or other related memory loss diseases, both you and your loved one face immense challenges. For over thirty years, this book has been the trusted bible for families affected by dementia disorders. Now completely revised and updated, this guide features the latest information on the causes of dementia, managing the early stages of dementia, the prevention of dementia, and finding appropriate living arrangements for the person who has dementia when home care is no longer an option. Comprehensive and compassionate, The 36-Hour Day is the only guide you need to help your family through this difficult time.

This is one of a series of picture books for seniors with no text, specifically formatted for those who enjoy looking through a book yet struggle with reading. If your loved one is offended by being given children's book and finds heavy, hard-cover books difficult to hold, this is the answer. With the goal of providing visually appealing books that boost self-esteem and pride in book ownership, there are no words on the cover or inside that mention this is geared for seniors, adults with reading troubles, Alzheimer's patients or other. With the needs of the senior in mind, this picture book of birds is a square 8.5 x 8.5 soft cover book (perfect for holding) with vivid, full-color photographs, located only on the right side (to provide visual stimulation without causing one to feel overwhelmed). Photos of delightful birds in their natural habitats from around the world provide a unique scene on the turn of every page. Unlike bird guidebooks and others that fill the page with descriptions that can snag up a senior who has trouble with reading, this book focuses only on the photos themselves.