Emotional trauma clouds our perception.

Trauma, loss of a job, a death, or life itself can create shame, anger, or helplessness. These feelings obscure the healthy aspects of the self that are crucial to helping us through the experience.

The ability to tolerate the negative feeling—which I call holding—and at the same time stay connected to the self, is what determines resiliency.

At our very core, we are loving, caring, complex beings— a difficult concept to remember on a daily basis. Years of taking in the hurt of life, whether physical or emotional, makes it difficult to believe in our goodness (which in no way denies our capacity for cruelty).

If people can be challenged to RISK trusting themselves—and risk seems to be the important notion here—then they are on the road to building a healthy connection to the core self. This is no small feat, for it is remarkable how wed we are to the voices of negative self judgment.

It has been my experience in life and as a therapist, over and over again, that the true challenge to living a more satisfying life is this huge risk to believe that we are good, and NOT a compilation of all the critical, judging, unkind stories that we tell ourselves. — Carole Palmer

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