This is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods: A Practical Guide for Healing Past Intergenerational Stress and Trauma by Ernest Ellender PhD
Many of your adult struggles are likely tied to painful childhood experiences!
During prolonged periods of chronic stress, family traumas, or dysfunctional family dynamics, your young brain likely created deeply ingrained physical and mental habits to help you survive. Unfortunately, these habits and core beliefs work against your adult life and relationship goals.
Even if you did not directly experience adverse childhood experiences like abuse or neglect, you have likely felt the harmful effects of intergenerational trauma (also known as generational trauma or transgenerational trauma) from your family, which can be inherited as genetic issues or passed along through skills deficits and dysfunctional relationships. When these ancestral issues go unaddressed, we hand them down to the next generation. Natural responses to childhood stress can include:
Chronic anxiety symptoms
Unhealthy, chaotic, or toxic relationships with self & others
Survival-based thinking (short-term, defensive, distrusting)
Personal or family substance abuse (or addictions like gambling, sex, work, porn)
These perfectly normal reactions to childhood stress do not automatically go away when you grow up! Recovery is challenging but quite possible through focused self-education and therapy as trauma survivors empower themselves with critical new skills.
This book presents 20 key concepts for comprehensively thriving past your stressful childhood. Each chapter explains a key concept before offering realistic drills (trauma workbook exercises) to develop healthier mental and physical habits that will help you self heal your past trauma and ultimately thrive! Many trauma recovery workbooks focus on two to three of these issues in depth but leave out many important concepts. Here are just a few of the 20 rules:
Trauma lies are just that…LIES
We must slow down to speed up
Practice treating yourself in a self-loving and self-respecting fashion
We are responsible for the decisions that we are aware of
It’s us against trauma world
This encouraging and reality-based guide was authored by Ernest Ellender, PhD, who has worked directly with trauma survivors from all walks of life since 1995. He combined insights from his clinical psychology doctorate education and career with training methods from his martial arts career (Jiu-jitsu black belt instructor) to create this comprehensive and effective curriculum for healing from childhood struggles.
Clients benefiting from this curriculum have included those struggling with mental health instability; men and women in codependent and dysfunctional relationships; single parents wanting to do better for their children; divorced parents struggling with healthy co-parenting; clients diagnosed with C-PTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder), ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depression, or dissociative disorders; clients whose prior therapists were poorly trained in trauma and CPTSD treatments; and parents who want to strengthen their family to prevent or minimize the impact of future traumas.
Following the guidelines of this book will lead to…
More control, stability, and confidence in yourself
A daily life free of toxic shame!
Empathic and mature self-care skills
Advanced self-advocacy and communication skills
Healthier, mutually supportive, and deeply engaged relationships with loved ones
The ability to articulate, set, and enforce healthier boundaries with both loved ones and toxic individuals
A lifestyle of healing and healthy pursuit of long-term goals
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