Resiliency Within

Veterans Dr. William Cross and Dr. Mark Dust, represent different generations and different wars. They will share their sacred journey from their service in Vietnam and Iraq to their return and what they learned about life and healing along the way.

Dr. Brooke Ellison was on Resiliency Within on March 20th. Her interview was so inspiring to so many we wanted her back. She agreed to continue to share perspectives about disability and advocacy that she eloquently describes in her latest book, Look Both Ways. After a nearly fatal run-in with a car at age 11 that left her paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe on her own, Brooke Ellison went on to graduate from Harvard, write a memoir, earn master's and doctoral degrees, and teach policy and ethics as a tenured professor—all the while navigating the world as a woman with ventilator-dependent quadriplegia. Brooke tears off the cloak of invisibility around disability not only to champion the rights of the blind or the mobility-impaired but to make a far more earth-shattering claim: what she's experienced—having to relearn how to live—differs from what every human being endures only in a matter of degree. We are more alike than we are willing to see. Brooke's transformation is "an amplified version of the kinds of adjustments we all need to make when we have undergone an unexpected and, often, undesired change in our lives."

Dr. Ilene Naomi Rusk has a trauma-informed science-based approach to brain health and optimal longevity. She's developed a user-friendly way of using a functional medicine approach to help prevent Alzheimer's and improve cognitive health. Dr. Rusk focuses mainly on helping her patients build stress resilience, and she focuses on numerous lifestyle pillars of brain health. These lifestyle pillars, like sleep, diet, and movement, and how we engage with them, can directly affect how we think and feel. Learning to tend to our nervous system, healing traumas, and building emotional and behavioral regulation can help expand our capacity to deal with the challenges and hardships we inevitably face. She combines many trauma healing modalities, such as ancestral archaeology, brainspotting, and somatic techniques, into her biological and spiritual model. Feeling greater emotional resilience can help us connect with experiences of greater freedom and joy and improve the health of our relationships regardless of our circumstances. Being a mother has greatly informed her service work as an international humanitarian worker and community health educator.

Ask a youth involved in Juvenile Justice how they feel and the response you will most likely hear is "I feel disrespected." The default response from the system is often along the lines of "You don't know what respect is." And thus sets off an often vicious downward spiral. It doesn't have to be this way. Ask a youth how you might show respect, and the entire conversation shifts: respect and trust have room to grow. Together trust and respect become an anchor creating a bridge between youth and staff. A bridge between the anger/despair of their present and the resilience to construct a different future. While working for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, I taught youth meditation, introduced them to their own nervous systems, and helped youth discover the dignity and resilience that is their birthright. The Office of Behavioral Health has introduced empirically validated treatments for emotional regulation and aggression replacement. Dr. Jackson introduced the Community Resiliency Model to the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice. Other systems provide milieu-based treatments that integrate treatment and staff support. Juvenile Justice does not have to be a continuing source for retraumatizing the youth we are paid to serve. Why is it so difficult to change an organizational culture that is expensive and doesn't work?

Cammie Wolf Rice, the Founder & CEO of the Christopher Wolf Crusade, recently released her book, The Flight, on September 18, 2022, Christopher's birthday. Cammie will share her journey after her son's death and the innovative initiative she created in response to her son's lost 14-year battle with opioids. She will share the mission of the Christopher Wolf Crusade (CWC) and how it is dedicated to ending the opioid epidemic by focusing on prevention. CWC has a new in-hospital position called the Life Care Specialist, and she will update us on the progress that has been made since her first appearance on Resiliency Within. She will share details of CWC's strategies to help end the opioid epidemic. Cammie has called Atlanta home for over two decades and serves on several local committees focusing on substance misuse and prevention. Cammie is also the Board Chair for Usher's New Look Foundation and Board Member for the Cambodian Children's Fund and the Hope Movement Coalition.

Award-winning author and thought leader Dawson Church, Ph.D., blends cutting-edge neuroscience with intense firsthand experience to show you how to rewire your brain for happiness. Dr. Dawson will talk about his book, Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy In Bliss Brain, famed researcher Dawson Church digs deep into leading-edge science and finds stunning evidence of rapid and radical brain change. When we cultivate these pleasurable states over time, they become traits. We don't just feel more blissful as a temporary state; the changes are literally hard-wired into our brains, becoming stable and enduring personality traits. The conclusions of Church's research show that neural remodeling goes much farther than scientists have previously understood, with stress circuits shriveling over time. Simultaneously, The Enlightenment Circuit—associated with happiness, compassion, productivity, creativity, and resilience—expands. During deep meditation, Church shows how the 7 neurochemicals of ecstasy are released in our brains. These include anandamide, a neurotransmitter that's been named the bliss molecule because it mimics the effects of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. It boosts serotonin and dopamine; the first is an analog of psilocybin, the second of cocaine. He shows how cultivating these elevated emotional states literally produces a self-induced high.

Dr. Jamie Gamboa and Brian Stefan, MSW, of Spotlight on Suicide (SOS) return to discuss the Suicidal Ideation Toolbox (SIT), which contains accessible skills for helping professionals and everyone who experiences deep suffering and suicidal thoughts. Everyone experiences thoughts of suicide (whether they be passing and/or passive thoughts or more active thoughts) at some point in our lives, but many of us are not equipped with the tools to handle it. That's not your fault! People have been afraid to even say the word suicide for a long time. But times are changing! SIT skills are intended to increase resilience by fostering connection— with ourselves, our bodies, our communities, and our values— at times when we feel most disconnected. Just like the toolbox you may have in your homes, the SIT toolbox contains tools for a variety of needs. Sometimes you need a skill for an immediate crisis, while other times, you might have a more persistent relationship with suicidal thoughts and need support in coexisting with them. Sometimes you might need to tell the story of why you want to die by suicide with a caring, nonjudgemental person. Other times you may need support in reconnecting with your resilience so you can stay warm and dry, even when wandering in the wilderness.

Ned Bachus's novel is about Sarah Goins, a college professor with a thriving career and close-knit academic community who is eager to draw her boyfriend, Mike Flannagan, deeper into her world. But Mike, a groundskeeper at a local seminary, resists, instead keeping her at arm's length as he struggles to come to terms with a past haunted by loss. Late one night, Mike crosses paths with Domenic Gallo, a neighborhood barber who has been injured in a mugging. As Mike helps the elderly man, Domenic tends to his own painful history, and the two strike up an unlikely friendship built around mutual understanding of each other's grief. When outside forces drive Sarah and Mike further apart, Sarah seeks out Domenic in an attempt to salvage her floundering relationship. A series of crises and secrets threatens the fragile balance Sarah, Mike, and Domenic have created, and soon the trio find themselves grappling with the meaning of family and class, loyalty and faith. Mortal Things is a powerful reflection on the ties that can bind or break us.

Implementing trauma- and resilience-informed systems in rural communities offers its own set of challenges and awards. Many rural communities lack the resources of their urban cousins, yet connection to available resources can be more easily obtained. This is what makes the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) such a good fit for rural areas. It provides a resource that costs very little and can be obtained by a next door neighbor, a church clergyperson, or a coach's assistant. First 5 Mendocino introduced the model to the county in 2016 and was fortunate to have practitioners availabe to serve victims of the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018. First 5 Mendocino continues to be the lead agency presenting the model to partner agencies serving homeless and foster youth, educators, and health practitioners throughout the county.

My guests, Audrey Stillerman, MD, and Bridget Gavaghan will discuss the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative (the Collaborative) and the Center for Collaborative Study of Trauma, Health Equity, and Neurobiology (THEN). The organizations have been working for over a decade to transform organizations and systems through trauma-informed, resilience-building, and healing-centered policies and practices. A cross-sector movement to prevent trauma and promote thriving across the lifespan, the Collaborative places the impact of childhood experience on wellbeing at the forefront of the equity agenda in Illinois. It leads trainings, advocates for policy change, and translates research for the public, policymakers, and partner organizations. The Collaborative convenes a working group of Chicago hospital representatives championing trauma-informed transformation within their systems. In 2021, the Collaborative released an Action Plan to Address Childhood Adversity in Illinois ("Action Plan") developed through a multi-sector strategic planning process with leaders and community members across the state. The Collaborative is now leading efforts to implement the Action Plan. THEN is a virtual non-profit of clinicians, educators, researchers, and activists pursuing Health, Equity, and Justice for all. THEN works to transform health care and health professional training. THEN designs and delivers curricula that translate the science connecting life experiences and health into prevention and healing theory and practice, with a particular focus on individual patient care.