Welcome to Vera’s Blog!

Recently, I shared a social media video about one of my favorite quotes about trauma: “Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you.”

Why do I love this quote by Dr. Gabor Maté so much?

Because it underscores that trauma isn’t about a past event (e.g., physical assault or accident) or, in some cases, a past experience that unfolded over a period of time (e.g., abuse, neglect, or war). Instead, it’s about how your body and mind responded to the past event or experience and how they CONTINUE to respond to it even today.

That’s the thing about trauma—it isn’t just a memory of the past that you can’t “let go of.”

It’s a lingering internal wound that can “reopen” and cause pain and distress whenever a trigger in your environment unconsciously reminds you of it.

The challenge, though, is that the distress you experience might be more than just the type of momentary pain or...

You might know from your own personal experience that the wound created by a traumatic event isn’t something that exists solely in the mind. It can also be present in the body.

That’s why when you’re consciously or unconsciously reminded of a traumatic event from your past, you might not just feel panicked or become hyperaware of your surroundings. Instead, you might also notice that your muscles have tensed up, your breathing has become rapid, your palms feel sweaty, and your stomach feels like it’s in knots.

So if trauma can reside in both the mind and body, what does this mean for treating it and healing from it?

Many therapies that are used to help people heal from trauma acknowledge the mind-body connection in trauma. But they’re what we call “top-down approaches.” This simply means that the therapy uses a client’s cognitive skills to access and process traumatic memories and the feelings associated with them. The idea is that...

Why can it be so challenging to heal from trauma (especially when you don’t have the right tools and support)?

As I mentioned in a recent post, one key obstacle is that many of us aren’t aware of how common trauma is and that we may very well be carrying it around ourselves. And of course, when you don’t know that you’ve experienced trauma, it’s pretty hard to address it and heal from it.

But another big obstacle is that we often have an oversimplified understanding of why traumatic events continue to affect our lives long after they’re over.

You see, many of us tend to think that if trauma is affecting our happiness, life, or relationships, it’s because the traumatic event was so jarring that we can’t stop thinking about it and we’re constantly distracted by it. As a result, we might think that if we just tell ourselves to stop thinking about the traumatic event, we’ll “get over it” and be able to move on with...

In my last post, I shared 6 signs that your stress or exhaustion is burnout and not just everyday fatigue.

When clients come to me showing these signs, my first step is to help them understand that they aren’t just tired, lazy, or unmotivated. Because as I mentioned in that last post, the signs of burnout can be very subtle. And as a result, many of my clients come to me because they feel “stressed,” “emotionally exhausted,” or “unfulfilled,” and they have no idea that what they’re really experiencing is burnout.

Recognizing that you’re experiencing burnout is very, very important. Because if you think that you’re just stressed, tired, or “in a funk,” you might try to make yourself feel better by doing things that help with everyday stress or general tiredness. And as you’ll learn below, these strategies won’t do the trick to help you recover from burnout. So if you aren’t sure whether the...

Sometimes people recognize the importance of self-love for the first time when they hit rock bottom.

If you’ve been part of my community for some time, you probably know that this is what happened to me.

Years and years ago, I was in the process of divorcing my ex-husband. But it wasn’t just the divorce that I was dealing with. My visa status was also up in the air, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep living in the US. I felt devastated, hopeless, and completely lost.

In my situation, there were tangible stressors—divorce and immigration issues—that I was dealing with. But the real reason why I felt so hopeless at the time was that I had lost myself in my marriage and hadn’t made the effort to prioritize my needs. In other words, I hadn’t taken the time to build and nurture a relationship with myself. And I learned this the really, really hard way by truly hitting rock bottom.

The truth, though, is that in many cases, the signs...

No matter who you are and where you live, this is a challenging time. We’re all dealing with a lot of uncertainty and fear of the unknown. And unfortunately, that can often be the perfect recipe for bringing up negative emotions.

After all, if you don’t know what the future has in store for you, you might feel anxious or stressed. And if you’re constantly stressed, it’s easy to get triggered by people or events and end up feeling irritated, angry, or sad. This doesn’t just make it hard to feel happy day-to-day and satisfied with your life. It can also compromise your relationships by making you more irritable and more reactive when interacting with your partner—even if your negative emotions have nothing to do with them.

I know this all too well because it’s something I experienced when my marriage ended and I spent months wallowing in sadness, self-pity, and shame. My emotions definitely affected me and how I felt about myself. But they...

The holidays have been over for only about a month or so. But even if you had time to relax and gear up for the new year, you might not be feeling like your best self right now.

This makes sense. After all, you might be feeling the effects of Earth changes and the energies of the full moon. And on top of all that, there’s still a global pandemic to deal with!

So just like what I hear from my clients, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that you’ve been feeling less than stellar these days. For example, you might be…

• extra stressed because you’re going crazy while working from home and trying to supervise remote learning for your kids at the same time
• feeling burned out from always worrying about everyone else’s needs and putting your own on the backburner
• less motivated to chase your dreams because the pandemic has affected your life in big ways and you don’t know when your luck is going to turn around
• especially emotional because...