After I started speaking again—following two weeks on a bed of ice in a medically induced coma—I was told that some of my first words were in Spanish. For the eight weeks prior to my coma, I had been working at a mission organization outside of Ensenada, Mexico. Upon returning home to the Bay Area…
Joy of feeling free
The JOY of climbing to the top!!!! I was so full of joy after I auto-belayed down. I did it! I actually wasn’t expecting to get to the top. I remember thinking half-way up, this is amazing that I got this far, and I think I’m gonna belay down now. But then I kept scanning…
How Hope Might Help Us
Hope was an amazingly brilliant option then, and it might also be an amazingly brilliant option now. While I’m reflecting specifically on my personal trauma recovery, I think many of us are bewildered by the amount of darkness and suffering in our world (personally, locally, nationally, globally). Of course sometimes even if we take the…
The Gift of Compassion
Each July, my body reminds me that August is the month when I lay half dead on the side of the road after my car rolled seven times off the 101 freeway. Even this July—14 years out— part of my body tenses up as it implicitly remembers the pain and trauma it went through in…
Finding A Good Path Forward In the Midst
When my community and world have been on fire, I’ve needed to adjust my expectations, for one, as well as try to honor the needs of myself and my family. One evening in February, when my youngest was asleep by 7pm (which rarely, if ever, has happened), I had a moment of stillness and creativity…
Interview with Hello Darkness
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by the YouTube channel Hello Darkness: Stories that Transform. In the interview, I share: It was such a special experience, and an honor to do. I hope it’s encouraging!! Here’s the interview if you’d like to listen: Warmly,Robyn Feature Image: This was a recent “glimmer moment”! I took…
The Start of My Healing Journey
I haven’t shared this information here, but doctors said I had a 3% chance of surviving the multiple extreme injuries from my rollover car accident in 2011. At the time, I didn’t know this—nor did I know that I’d make a full recovery years later. During the years of recovery— when so much was unfamiliar,…
Learn these skills to emotionally help us, now: the Help Now Skills
Maybe you need a nervous system reset? Seems like many of us do right now. In addition to the election, there are many individual and world stressors that might be bumping us outside our Resilient Zone in this moment). Try this! Push your hands against the wall. Pushing our hands against the wall is actually…
Available For Joy in the Midst of Pain
I got to speak at Westmont College earlier this month! I shared my trauma story as well as two of the things that helped me be available for joy in the midst of pain. It’s been through the deeper pain that I’ve been able to experience greater joy. The two things that I shared are:…
How Lengthening Movements Helped Me Heal
Bessel Van Der Kolk says that for healing to happen after trauma, we need to feel ways and do things that “directly contradict the helplessness, rage and collapse that are part of trauma, and thereby regaining self-mastery” (The Body Keeps the Score, page 4). Even though my body underwent huge trauma after being collapsed in…
Indelibly both/and
Pain and joy oftentimes live right next to each other. And that’s my experience of the month of August: August is the month where I endured the most pain and trauma that I’ve ever experienced in my life. And it’s also the month where I’ve grown to stand in awe of how much healing and…
Grow in Being Less Reactive: Guided Inspiration
Imagine being way below the ocean’s surface, peering up (especially on a hot day like today!). The oceans’s surface could be still and serene, like this feature image. However, it could very well be choppy and wild– depending on all sorts of reasons. But from the depths of the ocean, you’re unaware and unaffected by…
Let our Internal Resources Strengthen Us
Resources can regulate us. They can make distressing things a little more bearable. They can help our nervous systems sink into relaxation (whether momentarily or for a sustained period of time). They can help us when we are totally dysregulated (ie. and not in control of our emotions at all). They can also help us…
Relearning to Walk
Come with me to the carpeted hallway of my parents’ house, 13 years ago. It’s honestly amazing that I can’t remember if I was wearing my pink eye patch or whether I’d already graduated to “prism” glasses (because I had felt so embarrassed for wearing an eye patch and having a crossed eye). Though there…
Make Room for the Possibility of Light–Join Me!!
Where do you see light? Could be sprinkles of light or an outpouring of metaphorical sunshine and delight. I’m fully aware that depending on all sorts of things, it can be easier or harder for us to see light alongside the darkness. So my new idea is this!: I’m gonna post where I see light…
Celebrate When We Make Effort to Take Care of Ourselves
I exclaimed to my husband one night, “Way to take care of yourself!” And, though I was hoping he would laugh a little, I was also genuinely joyful in my praise of his effort to take care of himself. (For those of you who know me well, you can probably envision my wide-open eyes, outstretched…