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  • Home
  • About Judy
  • Where Have I Been?
    • A&E Intervention
    • Ark Interventions
    • Right Turn Radio
    • Speakings
    • What have People Said? (Reviews)
    • Conferences
  • Awards
    • Behavioral Healthcare Champion
    • ACATA – Administrator of the Year Annual Award
  • Blog
  • Contact
Judy Crane

Wounded Spirits

2/26/2014

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Sometimes I look over and see just a hint of a wistful breath, coming from her mouth,  a longing in her eyes to be connected, to be loved, to be part of, to be like the others. Sometimes I can feel the yearning for her tribe, to be protected and taught how to BE. An overwhelming desire to be held, to be rocked, to be nurtured, to be Mothered and cared for. And often anger or depression follows.

Those are my people.

So often the eyes are distant, aching eyes and young, so young and wounded or so old and wounded, but never their chronological age. Sometimes I believe they are “old souls” who have experienced so much and been wounded to their very core. And sometimes they are like children, frozen in emotional, developmental time, the victims of events beyond their power. The healing sometimes comes too late, the damage is so severe, but for those that we can touch with love, caring, compassion and patience, the healing will come.

Those are my people.

Is there someone in your circle who is lonely and alone most of the time, or has “ADHD” or behaviorally challenged, or suicidal, depressed, anxious,  often socially inept or bullied, drugs, alcohol, self-harming (cutting or burning) or eating disorders, (anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating), pornography or sex addiction, compulsive behaviors of all types. Anger and rage, sometimes seen as oppositional defiance.

Those are my people. Those are the children of trauma in grown up bodies.

Trauma is a big and frightening word, but in reality trauma is those events or systems that create a real or perceived possibility of death or harm. That is the standard definition, however, I believe trauma often is more subtle then that. Words hurt in a way that do incredible damage especially  when supported by actions and behaviors that reinforce the message of the words.

Listen to the voice in your mind what are the things that you say to yourself, the “Inner Critic” may very well be more cruel and judgmental to yourself then you would ever be to anyone else.

Secrets in the family, that unspoken energy that is felt but never voiced. My people keep those secrets of what happened, who harmed them and those stories they tell themselves as an explanation for the events that have wounded them.

The families of my people, as most families, are secret keepers. The secret is to protect someone or a reputation or a way of life. Often, when the secrets are finally told, the pieces to a puzzle fall into place. Many times the acknowledgement of the secrets is followed by a “huge cleansing breath”; it finally makes sense.

Here is an example, Carol at 42 was in treatment again, crack and alcohol and other drugs, Any other drugs and men. There was always a relationship.

She was born to privileged family, Nana ruled the family. Carol “felt” lost and unloved most of life. Nana was cold to her, verbally abusive, dismissive, and she alienated Carol from the rest of her family. This began. When she was very young.

Carol tried to avoid the pain even in treatment by “acting out.” Some clients “act in” but almost everyone experiences relapses in behavior while in treatment to avoid re-experiencing the pain.  No surprise and a juicy therapeutic opportunity.

What we discovered was that Carol already had the puzzle pieces, had found her parents marriage certificate dated AFTER her conception. Well in her rigid, fundamentalist, Southern grandma’s world Carol was a bastard child who created a moral dilemma for the family and consequently all Of grandma’s rage and disappointment was loaded onto The poor little girl. And that poor little girl never understand why she felt shame and never understood that it was not hers to own. And all the drugs or men would ever change that.

Now the healing could begin; the puzzle pieces were falling into place.

So when my people experience daily verbal abuse from someone who is supposed to love and care for and protect them, the message becomes so clear and so ingrained in the spirit of the child.” I am unlovable, defective, broken, worthless, a throw away.” So many damning beliefs. When that is ingrained in the spirit of a child, without help they bring that baggage with them into adulthood, into all their choices, into all of their relationships.

When my people experience early childhood medical problems it affects them the same way sexual abuse would affect them. Intrusive, a betrayal, violent, being restrained. being poked and prodded with strange objects, the loss of protection from their caretakers, enormous, unexplained pain, their body has betrayed them and so has everyone in their lives…that is their perception even when parents are doing everything possible to love and support, that is how it “feels”

It is important to know that as we move forward with our exploration of the effects of untreated trauma we must repeat this mantra:

“There is no right or wrong, good or bad, we are looking at “what is” and every person involved has a different perception of “what is”.

We often meet with families to discuss a triggering event or series of events and ALWAYS each family member has a different experience of the same event.

If you want to test this, go to a family dinner and bring up the topic of something you all experienced and have every one describe what it was like for them: you will be amazed at the sensory experiences, the different emotional landscapes and the judgment around those events.

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The LONELIEST Heart

2/19/2014

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Could the Beatles be right? “All We Need is LOVE”

From the first breath we need, crave, ache, cry for love, connection, nurturing, life fulfilling attachment, for our needs to be met. More than that, we will wither away and die without attachment to another; our Mother, Caregiver, the source of our life and if our body doesn’t wither away, surely our Soul does, our Spirit.

We hear the songs, the poetry… We will die for love, fight for love, walk miles for love, throw ourselves on a grenade for love, give up all that we have for love, swim the oceans for love, give up our Soul for love.

It is the juice of Country songs.

Look into the eyes of a newborn, there is a question, a searching for the truth, “will you care for me? Will you love me? Can I trust you?” It is Instinctual, built into our Survival tool box; babies are cute and cuddly, wonderful to hold, we coo and babble and make fools of ourselves for those little bundles of joy.

That is a survival mechanism hard wired into our humanness, into creation.

However, let me tell you a story, perhaps several stories in blogs to follow. They may resonate for you, they may take your breath away, they may make you cry or question the basic nature of humanity, they may give you pause but they will ALL offer hope and healing.

Be aware, these are stories of love and hope and spiritual connection, of grace and courage and dignity, these are stories that may make you cry and laugh and celebrate and perhaps find your own connections and purpose.

So please allow me to give you this gift, of love, belonging, acceptance and purpose…the basic needs of every human spirit.

Not an uncommon story- a little boy, 4 years old, he and 2 older brothers, 6 and 8 years old abandoned by a single mom taken by child protection, separated and left to the foster care system.

We read it in the newspapers, see it on the news. So sad! And we move on.

Well, like all such children, that abandonment becomes the most devastating trauma, the separation of siblings painful beyond understanding. As trauma is measured, abandonment and neglect far outweigh all others, even the most violent of traumas.

The message is clear. You are nothing, zero, you are a throw away child, you have no value, not worthy of time or attention OR they are battered daily with the messages….”I wish you weren’t born, you ruined my life, you are stupid, fat, worthless, lazy, ugly, helpless” and a litany of other messages that become ingrained in our conscious and our spirit and drive all future choices and behaviors. If you can unravel the trauma story all the behaviors and choices make sense…follow me and I will show you.

For one little boy, let’s call him Jacob, the message created a craving for love, for nurturing, for caring, a hunger for human touch that overwhelmed his whole body.

Can you relate? “Skin hunger ” is an ache for touch, not sexual touch but loving, connecting touch, touch that validates our worth. Infants die without touch. Adults wither without touch, rage without touch, become depressed or anxious or seek touch, any touch, in unhealthy, dangerous ways.

For Jacob, the little boy it was a craving as intense as any addiction.

He was taken into a Catholic orphanage with other boys cared for by lay caretakers of the church. Sexually abused between 4-7 by a male caretaker. This attention gave the message you are special, even though it was brutal and came with so many other negative messages; it was attention that Jacob craved.

Jacob was 7 year old and very ill with pneumonia and was taken to the hospital where the nurses really, really cared for him. Bathed him, fed him, touched him, talked to him, listened to him, comforted this little boy in ways he had never experienced before. They showed basic care and concern as would any good human being- Jacob was “hooked”.

There were many, many trips to the hospital. Much care and concern by the nurses and doctors. Everything felt like love, he had nothing to measure it against.

The Medical folks could not understand the bruises, the clotting, and the wounds on his legs. It was unfathomable that they could be self-inflicted but for Jacob the tradeoff was worth the pain. His need for love, attachment, connection was so huge that for many, many years he purposely hurt himself, beating his legs with hammers and bats and creating wounds and clotting that brought him repeatedly to the loving arms of the Nurses.

When we met Jacob, a large strapping man of 28, it was very clear how physically he had damaged himself and how emotionally and spiritually he had been damaged by others.

So this man- 6 feet tall, built like a stevedore – reacted in every other way like a 7 year old broken, wounded and very needy little boy.

The healing of Jacob and any other Jacobs requires clinicians to be loving, compassionate, empathetic, non-judge mental, patient and most of all to “listen” and “witness”. The process of trauma resolution is often slow with many steps forward and back, like a Magical dance.

Next week, we will talk about the Dance of Trauma resolution in its many forms. Sometimes a Cha Cha, sometimes a Waltz, sometimes a Quick step or a Tango but always, always a partnership and often with many different partners. I look forward to discussing the steps, the healing of Jacob and others.

Blessings, Judy

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Shine On

2/12/2014

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I am in awe of Marianne Williamson’s grasp of the Soul and Spirit and I offer you this gift…….

OUR DEEPEST FEAR by Marianne Williamson from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a Child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel Insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give othersI  permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Someone asked me yesterday:

“What is the message that drives you?”. I ask that question of people all the time in my work. I help people to find that answer in order to change the path and direction of their lives by finding the “lie” in the message that has given direction to their lives, if there is a lie.

I have often said that my message was….” You will never be good enough”. Which is a message/ driving force for many, many people. However, yesterday I responded….”No, no, the real Message was:

“Who do you think you are?!!” 1st AND “You will never be good enough” 2nd

Now logically I understand that my Mother was raised that way, with that message as well.  Seeing her at 85, I can see how much of her life and dreams she gave up or diminished in service to that message. A message delivered over generations by well meaning, fearful people.

My father, would tell me “you can do anything you want, even things that boys can do that girls are not allowed to”. This was the 1950-60s. We were 4 sisters, I was the oldest and he offered me that gift of confidence and hope. However, he only embraced that message for himself in his dreams and he had plenty of dreams. He was unable to translate that into his living, breathing life and it showed in his actions in his life.

It was watching my mother and father fall so far from their potential that was confusing. They lived in their own fear of their darkness and in their own way tried to protect me from my “light”…. “Who do you think you are?!!!” said with rancor from their parents, a kind of “how dare you reach for the stars.”

The thought of that really makes me sad because so many of us have operated in this life exactly like someone was standing over us with that shaming, pointing finger….”Shame on you!”

Those incongruent messages have played tug of war with my Spirit for many years, and the events of my life continued to support the push/pull of the messages. And I know I am not alone in this place.

Victim/Victor, Brilliant/Impaired, plain/ordinary, beautiful/ugly spectacular/ embarassing, graceful/clumsy, mature/immature, good/bad….it’s enough to make a child a little confused and unsettled. What is the truth and who do I trust to tell me the truth?

Well, I hope that as we move along together on this journey that we can become together a community, a TRIBE of Healing.

A long time ago, someone said to me, “We are not bad people trying to get good, we are wounded people trying to Heal.” that has become my Mantra.

WHERE ARE YOU IN YOUR LIFE? WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE? WHAT ARE YOUR DREAMS and WHAT ARE YOUR FEARS?

Marianne Williamson is a visionary, a healer and a talented teacher with a huge and deep depth of character. She has taken her history and turned into a life changing, world changing opportunity.

Nelson Mandela has used this brilliant and insightful “Deepest Fear” as part of his inauguration speech. Like-minded and kindred spirits intuitively grasp the truth of this inspiring paragraph.

What are the behaviors of yourself and the people around you that keep you in a place of fear, confusion, anger, uncertainty, flight, and sadness? What secrets are you or the people around you keeping because of fear, shame, remorse, guilt or a myriad of other reasons. When we bring those secrets to light they lose their power!

If you could talk about your pain to another trustworthy Person, could you heal and move on to your Light?

This is what I know, As Oprah says.

Everything, every event of our life, no matter how insignificant or momentous, affects the way we vision ourselves which affects the way we live our lives and what we believe about ourselves, from Conception to Death. Even more significant to this whole, is what is the history, the beliefs and the messages of the generations before us? And what do we offer the generations that follow us?


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Tree Of Life

2/5/2014

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The assignment of doing a Family Tree has long been used in Addictions to determine various addictions, codependency and family traits of the addict. You know, Hero child, mascot, scapegoat, codependent, comedian, plumber, parentified child. I made up the plumber role, but in my house that was an important skill to have. My father was a plumber and often left at least 1 part of the job undone or incomplete.

As it turns out a Family Tree is incredibly important to understand the width and breadth of Intergenerational trauma, as well.

In a study done by (Blanco, Levine & Kline, 2007) they were able to “trace a 5 generation account of the effects of violence on subsequent generations in South America that can be mapped onto the history of Indigenous Australia.” As I present their findings I think you will be able to see how this can be extrapolated to Native Americans and Indigenous people every where; with Aparteid and Slavery in the US. Also given any historical trauma how we could extrapolate behaviors, i.e. Consider the possibilities with children of the Depression and generations of soldiers and their families, sexual abuse survivors over the generations.

  1st Generation: “Conquered males were killed, imprisoned, enslaved or in some way deprived of their ability to care for their families.”

  2nd Generation: “Many men overused alcohol and/or drugs with resultant loss of cultural identity. Various cultures dealt with this issue in different ways;incarceration, confined to the reservation but in every case  solutions/treatment was not provided.”

  3rd Generation: “Increase in spousal abuse, domestic violence, the breakdown of the family unit.”

  4th Generation: “Trauma begins to be re enacted and directed at the spouse and child; signifying a serious challenge to the family unit and societal norms.”

  5th Generation: “In this generation, the cycle of violence is repeated and compounded, as trauma begets violence through increasingly severe violence and increasing societal distress.”

So let’s look at other Family trees…my father grew up during the depression, extremely poor, often without food in a family of 12 children, only 6 lived to adult hood.

My father in law grew up during the depression as well, the only child of a single Momma, an immigrant from Italy.

The difference In the “Money Messages” and behaviors were very, very different. My father in law had an extremely intense work ethic, saved everything. In the basement were #10 vegetable cans filled with buttons, nails, screws, safety pins, aluminum foil; He saved everything…just in case. He and my mother in law had life and health insurance on everyone, just in case there was another financial disaster.

My father’s attitude was different in that he had a strong work ethic, but sometimes just “took off”… Just in case! It was very difficult for him to have a boss. He almost always worked for himself. He was a plumber. When he would have big payday he would celebrate and spend  frivolously on the family…just in case there would be another financial disaster. Our financial life was very insecure…very good or very bad never “just right”.

I was the oldest child and had enormous shame about our poverty, I hated being dependent on anyone. I worked from the time I was 11; the first in my family to go to college; all of my children have graduated from college and are professionals. I am a “Dreamer” and I dream big.  I have been very Blessed that our Inter-generational trauma, including addiction, has been intervened on.

My in laws were always secretly secure, protecting the family but always “crying poor” as my mother in law used to tell me; that’s family business.

The issues are NEVER about money; they are about fear, insecurity, shame and guilt, grief and loss and low self-esteem.

If I can offer some wisdom that I have discovered working with families…telling the story, answering questions, describing family history is so valuable to healing. In the beginning it may be unsettling, may create angst and fear, however, there is incredible enlightenment when puzzle pieces fall into place.

I worked with a family, the son an alcoholic who had been sexually abused by a neighbor, and his sister had as well. This young man relapsed several times…everyone in the family worked with a therapist and attended every family week. I worked with them at least 30 hours as a family. We were at the last session, the last 15 minutes and Mom turned to us and said, “I need to tell 1 more secret. I was molested by my father, your grandfather.” Gasps all around the room. Mom continued, and said, ” my brother, your Uncle was also molested and I used to protect him by putting myself in front of him. This continued for 5 years.”

The family was astounded, Dad exploded, “that explains our intimacy issues after 40 years.” The daughters shared, ” that explains why our Uncle has emotional problems.” And our client described the quiet shameful sexual energy that overwhelmed him when his sexual abuse happened and how big the secret became.

So I hope we can help our families to  heal these wounds and stop the Intergenerational trauma one generation at a time. One secret at a time, creating a Family Tree that shelters and embraces the Family.

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    Judith T. Crane

    My whole goal is to help you. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly with any questions. 

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