Creating Good Harbors

A journey of unknowns

There are less than 60 days left in 2016, and soon another year will descend. I always feel reflective this time of year: looking back at my intentions for the year, relishing in the goals that I accomplished, reexamining the ones that I missed, wondering if there is time to cram in and complete another one before the end of the year (dieting at the holidays … no thanks).

But this year has been one of accomplishment for me. After four long years of sitting on my “to do” list I finally finished and published my first book, Garbage Bag Suitcase. When I originally convinced myself to actually finish the book two years into the process, I had one simple goal: Change one person’s life for the positive. That was it. But, as publication loomed closer, I began to have doubts. I worried that the book would be misunderstood, that others wouldn’t relate to it, that I would be judged, that I had shared too much, or even worse — that no one would read it.

The night before its release, I remember lying awake in my bed, excited and petrified. It was completely out of my control.  During the book release and in the eight months since the book came out, I’ve pinched myself every morning. I can’t believe I was chosen for this amazing journey.

Every day I receive emails from individuals affected by the book in positive ways:

• ·      a social worker who was considering leaving her job, but read the book and realized that if she left she would just be one more person on a long list leaving “her” children behind;
• ·      a former foster who found solace in knowing they weren’t alone and decided to reach out for help before ending their life;
• ·    a foster parent convinced that they should give up their license, finding new insights and understanding to the complex issues facing the children in their home.

I asked for one email; I received 100s. Then …  something else started to happen.

While out promoting the book, I found myself spending a tremendous amount of time educating and talking about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study and its findings with average, everyday people. I was watching light bulbs go off and I knew that others were just as intrigued as I was. I developed a short workshop from the information, and again, more light bulbs.

It was fantastic and wonderful, but under it was a hint that things weren’t quite right. I suddenly starting hitting a wall and hearing lots of comments like “we understand trauma,” and, “our workers are already trauma informed.” I was excited by the idea that several agencies and groups might have already done the work, but suspicious when I asked a follow-up question: “That’s great, what are you doing differently?”

Blank stares ensued. The organizations had spent lots of time listening to educational material on trauma and its effects in webinars and in person, but that hadn’t changed anything within their organizations. Meeting after meeting, I was listening to folks who, with all good intentions, wanted to make changes within the community, yet couldn’t figure out how to turn the information into implementation and skills for the workers.

Complex problems, even more complex organizations, lots of unintended consequences and short-lived results were becoming increasingly the norm, and I wasn’t willing to accept it. I remember exactly where I was when I realized something BIG had to change:  another meeting, a conference room with about 10 people in attendance — all of whom hold more degrees and education than I do. The discussion was focused on becoming a “trauma-informed community.” Lots of great conversation — it always was. And then I asked, “What are we going to DO? What are our action steps?”

There was silence, and then suddenly the conversation moved on, as if the question had never been asked. I knew in that moment that something had to change. Dr. Cathy Fialon approached me afterward and we ended up having a lengthy conversation about organizations needing skills that could be used immediately to translate trauma information into trauma-informed care for implemented and sustained change.

Together we developed a trauma-informed model that addresses the needs of organizations and can be used immediately for change. Traveling the country, we are always surprised by the positive response of our work, and how groups finally feel that there is something for them to DO when it comes to understanding trauma.

For me, as I reflect and get ready to begin thinking about my 2017 goals, I am giddy. I NEVER thought that this crazy idea of writing a book would allow me to meet and talk with so many wonderful people. I never thought it would move people to share their stories with me. I never thought that I would have the privilege to partner with someone with a PhD, to deliver educational content that could immediately change the lives of children effected by adversity, and I surely never thought that people would care about what I had to say.

With that, I can’t wait to write out my 2017 goals, because I know that I will meet some of them, I will fail on others, but more importantly my world will be opened by opportunities and chances I never could have dreamed of. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

Shenandoah Chefalo is a former foster youth, and advocate. She is the author of the memoir, Garbage Bag Suitcase, and co-founder of Good Harbor Institute an organization focused on ensuring sustainable, implemented trauma care within organizations and individuals. You can learn more about her and her work at www.garbagebagsuitcase.com or www.goodharborinst.com

A Year to Find Out. Can Living Alone Help Heal Trauma?

A YEAR TO FIND OUT

Can living alone help heal trauma?

I have never really been good at relationships. Intimacy scares me, and trust is something that is earned. When I travel now, speaking about the lasting effects of my trauma and the scars of the foster care system, I spend lots of talking describing how difficult it can be to have a relationship with me.  “You have to do lots of the heavy lifting, because I’m just not going to,” is what I think.

People are often confused by this seeming contradiction. I’ve been in a relationship with my husband for nearly 20 years now. How is that working? He will be so happy that I’m saying this publicly, but he really does a lot of the heavy lifting in our relationship.

After I aged out of foster care, I was on my own. Alone. I spent numerous evenings locked in my small apartment pondering the world, my life path and how I was ever going to escape. I didn’t have money for luxuries like cable; I didn’t even own a television. No cell phone (they hadn’t been invented). No roommate to offer a distraction. I had a few jigsaw puzzles I had picked up at a garage sale — and my own mind. 

When my now husband asked me out to a movie, I had a panic attack about how I was going to pay for it. Living alone in that apartment taught me lots of lessons, but the most important was how to quiet my mind and to be okay in my own presence. Not a real skill it seemed at the time, but it gave me lots of time to work through some things and find the courage and strength to problem solve on my own.

After I got married and we had our daughter, I remember driving with my husband and telling him that no matter what happened, I just wanted our daughter to spend at least one year on her own sometime as an adult.  Whether it was during college, or before she got married, she needed one year to live on her own, to gain real independence and to not rely on any other person for her needs, wants or explore her own desires.

He never really argued about it. Over the years I would tell him stories of finding my own Christmas tree, cutting it down myself, loading it into my tiny car, and even dragging in into my apartment — all by myself. It was a huge accomplishment and I loved that I didn’t need anyone to help me. That independence gave me the strength to overcome some of the most difficult times in my life.

Without those lessons, which I learned within those four walls, I would not have been able to get to a place where I could quiet the voices in my head, and make the necessary and difficult decisions to allow myself to move forward from my trauma so I could be alive in the present moment to find what feeds my soul.  Doesn’t everyone deserve that chance?

Shenandoah Chefalo is a former foster youth, and advocate. She is the author of the memoir, Garbage Bag Suitcase, and co-founder of Good Harbor Institute an organization focused on ensuring sustainable, implemented trauma care within organizations and individuals. You can learn more about her and her work at www.garbagebagsuitcase.com or www.goodharborinst.com

Comfort in Chaos: Understanding Trauma Brain

Comfort in Chaos

Understanding Trauma Brain

I make no bones about it, as a foster child, I don’t think I was an easy person to get along with and I certainly wasn’t trying to make bonds or connections with those around me. I went into foster care at the age of 13. My life prior to entering the system was one of immense dysfunction, and I had practically raised myself. My mom was rarely around, and when she was it was usually to tell me that we were moving.  We moved over 50 times and I went to more than 35 schools in my life before the age of 13. Chaos had become my normal.   

In learning to “cover” for my mom’s actions, and watching my mom talk her way out of almost any situation, I had learned a valuable skill over my early life . . .lying.  It had become a valuable skill and had saved me numerous times from severe punishments.

I had thought foster care would be a positive solution to the life I was living. What I found was more of the same. Loneliness, isolation and depression followed me into care. I had become disconnected from my feelings and accepted that I was unable to love and was unlovable myself.  I continued past behaviors and found no solace in the families that took me in.

I ultimately aged out of the system at 18, turned loose onto the world without any real connections to other people. When I hit the college campus, a feat I wouldn’t learn was remarkable until later, I made a pact with myself to never talk about my past with anyone. I was a good liar and because of my skill I kept that promise for over 20 years.

I spent those years, hiding the past, keeping myself at arms length from any real relationships and doing the one thing I was knew I was good at, “lying”. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found myself in what I now refer to as “trauma brain.” Going to that comfortable place in my mind of Fight, Flight, Freeze or Appease.

Chaos was comfortable for me. When things in my life were going well, I looked for and caused chaos for myself so I could feel “comfortable.” I of course didn’t realize, at least consciously, that I was doing it; until I started to become increasingly unsettled with the life I was living. I had a good job, managed to get married and had a child, but I was only comfortable in the unknown and I wanted to change.

For most of my life, I chalked up my behavior to the idea that I was just “crazy.” It was a concept that I was comfortable with, and I had known it was only a matter of time until I turned into my “crazy mother.” At the time, I was working in a law office, and I was watching clients with similar tendencies. I had wondered about their past and when I started to ask, I was surprised by how many of them had been former foster kids. I had always assumed there were very few of me, and the numbers appearing in my office was off putting to say the least.

Flash forward. In an effort to find peace in my life, I initially turned to self-help books. I found a little relief, but often found myself going back to old habits. I started to realize that hiding my demons was only making me more depressed, and more disconnected.

I tried everything, more books, journaling, yoga, meditation, and hiking. Physical exertion was having an impact, but it only lasted a few hours, and then I was back in mind, returning to old habits. Finally, I realized that I had to tell my story. I wrote Garbage Bag Suitcase and began diving into understanding trauma and its effects on the brain.

The research began turning me onto new books, and suddenly I understood my “trauma brain” in a whole new way. I wasn’t “crazy” my brain was just programed to constantly be in Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease mode, and this knowledge changed everything for me.

I recently heard Dr. Cathy Fialon explain trauma brain as a sledding hill. When you go sledding the path becomes worn, and when you go down how you gain greater speed. The well-worn path is easy, and comfortable. However, if you take your sled over a few feet to a part of the hill that hasn’t been used, it is difficult to slide down, you can’t gain momentum, and you often start and stop a lot. It takes time, she explained, to break in this new path and make it enjoyable for sledding.

I understood exactly what she meant. My learned reactions as a child had become the well-worn sledding hill. It was easy for me to go down that road, regardless of the effects. But, when I started working on myself (i.e. taking my sled to a new hill) it was difficult. Don’t get me wrong, while I’m still working on breaking in my new path, every once in awhile I like to take a spin on the old one.

That is “trauma brain” retraining ourselves, and oftentimes those we care about, how to break in a new way of thinking. I am thrilled to say, that I have a new career that allows me to help others recognize their trauma brain and the trauma brain of those around them, to help themselves and other heal in a brand new way. We all deserve to try out a new place to sled.

Shenandoah Chefalo is a former foster youth, and advocate. She is the author of the memoir, Garbage Bag Suitcase, and co-founder of Good Harbor Institute an organization focused on ensuring sustainable, implemented trauma care within organizations and individuals. You can learn more about her and her work at www.garbagebagsuitcase.com or www.goodharborinst.com

Reaching the Fourth "R": Schools and Classrooms can make all the difference

Healing Trauma in the Classroom 

I am very excited to bring you my first guest blog. In full disclosure, I met Cathy Anther-Fialon, at a webcast on a seminar regarding building trauma informed communities. It won't be hard for you to understand that we immediately hit it off. Up until that point I had been working in my community, primarily isolated and the progress was slow. After out interaction, we have been able to move our community forward, together at a more rampant pace, which is good for my own mental health and well-being. 

Schools teach. Schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. But what happens when a child can’t learn what is taught? What can a teacher do with a child who can’t learn? Classrooms have steadily been growing. In these larger classrooms of 25+ it is nearly impossible for a teacher to dedicate the individual attention a student in distress may need.

But why wouldn’t a child be capable of learning? When a people experience adversity or toxic stress their brain, in an effort to be protective, signals the body to fight, flight, freeze or submit. This is a life saving response when confronted with immediate danger like an angry bear while out hiking on a trail.

In childhood if the adversity or toxic stress is within the family or immediate environment the brain acts just like there is an angry bear present. The child’s brain goes into its evolutionary fight, flight, and freeze mode. In childhood the brain experiences a period of unparalleled growth and development, which means the brain, can actually develop in a way that fight, flight, freeze or submit become the programmed response. When a brain is responding to danger in fight, flight, or freeze mode other parts of the brain actually shut down.

When danger is present, the brain does not take time to strategize, access executive level functioning, or consider options. Also, under these conditions the brain signals the body to release hormones to aid in the danger response. These chemicals bathe every cell in the body, priming them to respond to danger. They impact hunger and digestion. They impact eyesight and smell. The body becomes hyper- vigilant.  Now imagine, if a brain develops under these conditions to the point that these conditions become the brain’s norm. These children cannot learn, because a brain experiencing danger is not in the position to learn new information- organizing and interpreting the new information with executive functioning skills. The brain is instead stuck in a mode of constantly scanning the environment for the next threat. This trauma brain syndrome is experienced by millions of children in classrooms across the country every day.

There are two solutions to help children learn and escape the negative impacts of trauma brain syndrome. The first solution is prevention. Prevent childhood adversity. Prevent childhood trauma. However, many times the adversity is not preventable or the risk of adverse circumstances is not known to those who can offer support to prevent. The second solution is to build resilience (The Fourth “R”) Help children reach a place of resilience. According to a leading researcher Emily Werner (1995), resilience is the ability to achieve positive life outcomes despite risk and the ability to rebound from adversity with strength. Harvard’s Center of the Developing Child Supportive Relationships and Active Skill-Building Strengthen the Foundations of Resilience (2015), details how resilience is built in children.

To reach resilience a child needs one, not two or three, but only one, positive, stable, adult relationship. Only one. There are other factors which contribute to resilience, but the most important and most successful is for a child to have access to one, positive, stable, adult relationship.  This adult relationship does not have to be a parent. It can be any adult.

Reaching the fourth R- resilience can be accomplished at school. How can a teacher, with an over-crowded class, be the stable, positive adult relationship for each child? How can an overburdened teacher offer the kind of personal relationship needed? It doesn’t have to be the teacher. The connection can be offered by a classroom volunteer, a bus driver, a cafeteria staff person, any adult in the school environment.

The adult needs to be consistent, positive, and needs to regularly reach out to listen to the child and share conversation with the child. So, with dwindling budgets, over-crowded classrooms, low staff salaries, what if school staff can’t dedicate enough time to develop a positive, stable relationship with every single child? The solution begins with the community.

Schools offer opportunity for community members to volunteer, in fact, they welcome volunteers. Helping children reach resilience prepares them to weather any kind of adversity they may experience. It allows a child to avoid the negative impacts of a trauma brain and have the ability to learn. A resilient brain can access executive functioning. A child with the ability to learn has a greater possibility of becoming a healthy, happy, productive adult adding to the greater community in a positive way.

I offer a thank you to all of the school staff across the nation dedicated to helping children reach resilience. Thank you to all of the school volunteers. You do make a difference. Your time and energy is building our future community. Let’s agree every child deserves to have access to at least one, stable, positive adult in their life. Let’s agree to make this happen.

Cathy Anthofer-Fialon holds a PhD in human services. She has previously worked in domestic violence victim/survivor advocacy, with the juvenile justice system, and in higher education. She currently dedicates her time to educating others about the lifetime impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and inspiring resilience.  

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