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Keep Calm, Andante On

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Grief Families Relationships Anxiety Trauma Recovery Self Care

CommunityHealing #peace #findingcenter #DogIsLove #connection #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: November 18, 2024

The term “Andante” is a musical tempo. An Andante is a moderately slow, gentle pace. If you listen to the beginning of Carl von Weber’s "Andante e Rondo" you can hear what I mean. Notice how it just keeps rolling on, with a lilt here and lilt there? That’s Andante. 14 years ago, a different kind of Andante came into my life in the form of floofy little rescued “accidental” Lhasapoo. Since my daughter and I are both musicians we wanted to give him a musical name. We decided on Andante, and called him Dante for short. He has always just kept rolling on with a little lilt step here and there. That’s our Dante...

Tune Up

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Managing Emotions Trauma Recovery Anxiety

#Resilience #identity CommunityHealing #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: November 13, 2024

Not so long ago, we were all forced into a relationship that took precedence over many of our human relationships, including our relationship with ourselves. This relationship demanded the energy that belonged to other relationships, much like an affair. We all had a kind of forced affair with a pandemic. Just like we do in long term relationships with humans, we made compromises in order to do it well. We let go of things we like to do, the way we dress and spend our leisure time; The things that define and distinguish us. Now that we have broken up with the pandemic, (hopefully for good,) it’s time to reassess the things we’ve given up.

Givers, Takers, Transactionalists and Unspoken Rules

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Families Holidays Managing Emotions Parenting Self Care Trauma Recovery

#Takers CommunityHealing #Resilience #relationships #connection #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: November 1, 2024

Have you ever thought you had one kind of relationship with someone only to feel burned as you discover they had a totally different understanding of what you were to each other? Let's get up under some of those disconnects and offer a different way forward.

Guest Appearances by Grief

By Tiffany Sankofa

Grief Trauma Recovery Managing Emotions

#DisasterTrauma #HurricaneRelief #CommunityHealing #Avoiding PTSD #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: October 14, 2024

"When we lose everything; When our stability is literally washed away, there is no help that will seem like enough... Trauma and grief are most often entwined. As such, in the aftermath of disasters, most of us do some iterations of Jack Worden's "Four Tasks of Mourning..."

SPECIAL EDITION: Hurricanes, Trauma, Epigenetics & Healing

By Tiffany Sankofa

Trauma Recovery Managing Emotions Anxiety Grief

#DisasterTrauma #HurricaneRelief #CommunityHealing #Avoiding PTSD #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: September 29, 2024

It can be a tall order to stay informed about traumatic events like the recent hurricane, determine how we can be helpful, and not become traumatized in the process. Click here to find out more!

Healing v. Cure

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Families Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

#relationships #connection #community #OrganicLiving #SankofaUnboxedCoaching #SankofaCounselingMD

Posted: September 17, 2024

“We are cured when we no longer have disease. We are healed when we are restored to community.” (Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona ) Cured? Most religious faiths have some sort of tradition around asking their understanding of the Divine to heal people of this or that...

Tell Me a Story, Part 3

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Families Trauma Recovery Self Care Managing Emotions

#StoryAndIdentity #TellingOurStories #StoriesWeTellOurselves #ThePowerofStory #HealingThroughStory CommunityHealing

Posted: September 4, 2024

Psychiatrist, Neurologist and Lakota-Cherokee descendent, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, defines “healing” (as opposed to “cure,”) as being reconciled to community and to self. Storytelling in both Lakota and Cherokee traditions does exactly that. Stories remind us of what is true, support that healthy story of who we are, and remind us that we belong to something greater than just ourselves...

Chocolate Chip Cookies & Resilience

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Managing Emotions Trauma Recovery Anxiety

#Resilience #Resiliency #BeautyFromAshes #Innovation #OrganicLiving #Chocolate

Posted: August 15, 2024

“To questions of life, chocolate gives an answer articulated in many chunks and flakes.” (Fabrizio Caramagna) Do you like chocolate chip cookies? Scotch tape? Do you like listening to music in your car? From the Ashes Toll House Cookies and their chocolate chips were invented...

Trauma & Identity

By Tiffany Sankofa

Trauma Recovery Managing Emotions Grief Self Care

Posted: July 30, 2024

“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.” (Peter Levine) Trauma Steals Imagination ME: Do you feel like drawing today? KID: Ok. ME: What do you want to draw? KID: I dunno. What should I draw? ME:...

Balancing Worlds

By Tiffany Sankofa

Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 4, 2024

“What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” (George Eliot) Customer NonSupport I’ve had countless conversations about how “customer support” has dramatically deteriorated in the last four years. It’s maddening. While it was not uncommon to find ourselves...

Unboxing Bodyism, Part Two

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: April 11, 2024

“ I'll never try to give my life meaning By demeaning you But let me just say for the record I did everything that I could do I'm not saying that I am a saint I just don't want to live that way I will...

Unboxing Bodyism, Part One

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: April 3, 2024

“God help you if you are a big girl, But too skinny is also your doom, Cuz everyone harbors a secret hatred, For the skinniest girl in the room; “So squint your eyes and look a bit closer I'm not between you and your ambition,...

Hope from Knowledge

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: February 13, 2024

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” ( Anne Lamott) A Room with a Desk When I...

Healing, Step Two: Apologize

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: November 7, 2023

“We must apologize for the hurts we’ve caused.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) Today we look at step two of Edgar Villanueva’s “Seven...

Healing, Step One: Grieve

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: October 31, 2023

“We have to stop and feel the hurts we’ve endured.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) As promised, this blog is the first installment...

The 7 Steps to Healing

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: October 25, 2023

“Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony.” (the 14th Dalai Lama) I Went to a Conference and a Book Broke Out So there I was, watching the replay of a trauma summit segment, and this guy, Edgar Villanueva, started saying all of these things...

An Open Letter to the Not Good Enough Child

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: August 14, 2023

One of the most common repeated themes I’ve come across in a quarter century as a therapist is the childhood-instilled belief that we are Not Good Enough. In the limited scope of a child’s experience, the child assumes that the “big nostril people” know more...

Black History

By Tiffany Sankofa

Holidays Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: February 14, 2023

None of us are free None of us are free None of us are free; when one of us is chained, None of us are free. (Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Brenda Russell) NOTE: When a Person of Privilege celebrates the accomplishments of People of Color...

The Transformational Power of Life Mission

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: November 2, 2022

“If we aim at nothing, we are sure to hit it.” No More Therapists I got some interesting feedback when I ended a blog the other week with the idea that increased community empathy would likely lead to a greatly reduced need for therapists, and...

Seeing What We See

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: September 8, 2022

“Trust yourself; You know more than you think you do.” (Anonymous) Seeing and Not Seeing As I mentioned in my last blog, ( “Why We Vacate” ) I recently spent some time at a very special cabin in the woods, ( Moonridge Cabin .) One...

Listening First

By Tiffany Sankofa

Grief Managing Emotions Trauma Recovery

Posted: July 6, 2022

“Listen to the wind; It talks. Listen to the silence; It speaks. Listen to your heart; It knows.” (Native American Proverb) “Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” (Anonymous) Letting Go of Linus’ Blanket As more and more painful and difficult things happen in...

Growing Up the USA: From Reactive to Responsive

By Tiffany Sankofa

Holidays Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 29, 2022

Being reactive and screaming might feel cathartic in the moment, but sustainable change is born out of centered responsiveness. Inde-WHAT-ence Day? It’s interesting to me that we are about to celebrate another “Independence Day,” right on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that goes...

A Father’s Prophecy

By Tiffany Sankofa

Holidays Managing Emotions Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 14, 2022

“Love involves a peculiar, unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” (Diane Arbus) This Is Us Let me start by saying that I am one of those people; The ones who cried every week at the TV show, This Is Us , and are feeling ridiculous...

The Power of Loving (…and the Lovings that made it happen)

By Tiffany Sankofa

Holidays Managing Emotions Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 9, 2022

On June 11, 1967, I was seven and a half months old. On June 11, 1967, my husband, Amari, was six and a half years old. On June 11, 1967, “interracial marriage” was illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia and 20 other states. If Amari...

Practicing Wild Kindness (in the midst of turmoil)

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 1, 2022

I have a cousin who is a school-based Social Worker and Peaceful Parenting Coach, (>shameless plug< ** Confluence Parenting, LLC.) He’s married to a dedicated, creative, tenacious public school Math teacher. They are also parents to two totally awesome young boys. As hard as the...

Why Bunnies Don't Get PTSI

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Trauma Recovery

Posted: November 3, 2021

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” Helen Keller How We Traumatize We humanfolk think we are SO smart! And yet, that very thinking gets in our way and makes things worse all the time! When people go...

When the Whole World Has PTSD

By Tiffany Sankofa

Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: July 2, 2021

“Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again - we are survivors. If you are here today, you are a survivor. But...

The Other F Word

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: April 19, 2021

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis B. Smedes) Nice idea That’s a nice idea, isn’t it? It’s right up there with the quote attributed to St. Augustine, “Harboring resentment is like drinking poison and waiting...

Normal?

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: March 30, 2021

“Normal is just a setting on your dryer.” Erma Bombeck What is this…. Normal? I hear a lot of talk about “going back to normal.” People are getting vaccinated, some things are opening up, (many prematurely, as evidence by the consequent numbers, but ok,) schools...

What’s Your Butter Worth?

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: March 16, 2021

“None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.” (Benjamin Whichcoat) The butter battle Imagine that you go to the grocery store. On the shelf, you see two packages of butter. The package on the left is in pristine condition, shiny and bright....

What I learned in therapy: Owning my spirituality in 2021

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: January 27, 2021

“Purposefulness is one of our most potent antidepressants.” (Tiffany Sankofa) When you think you’re walking in one direction, and then… Retirement was a year away. I started seeing Tiffany to help me transition to what I called a “life-giving retirement.” To tell the truth, I...

2020 Vision: A gift wrapped in barbed wire

By Tiffany Sankofa

Grief Holidays Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: December 30, 2020

“Grief always comes bearing gifts. Unfortunately, they are sometimes wrapped in barbed wire.” Seeing clearly Welp… To be fair, I really did believe that 2020 was going to be a year of focus and clarity. I wasn’t wrong. I really wish it had been delivered...

Pieces of Peace (When it all falls to pieces)

By Tiffany Sankofa

Grief Holidays Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: December 21, 2020

“You find peace, not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” (Eckhart Tolle) There’s that internal locus of control again Well thank you, Eckhart Tolle. Frankly, there are an awful lot of circumstances of our...

No Matter What

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: November 2, 2020

“Have a great day… No matter what.” Why suffer? I have been known to close texts and email exchanges with, “Have a great day… no matter what.” It seems that many people think I’m trying to be cute. I’m actually supporting a much, much more...

Weary

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: October 27, 2020

“Sleep doesn’t help if it’s your soul that’s tired.” (Arabian Proverb) PUT YOUR MASK ON I’m watching people slip. When the pandemic “shelter in place” first began where I live in Maryland, most people were very compliant. We stayed home. We ordered our groceries and...

The Table is Round: Lessons from “Mamala”

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: October 20, 2020

"In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders." - Sheryl Sandberg The Psychology… not the Politics Fair warning: This blog is about the other week’s Vice-Presidential debate, but it’s not about election politics. I thought you should know that...

6s and 9s

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: September 25, 2020

[caption id="attachment_6052" align="alignnone" width="618"] (Illustration by Jazmyne Craig and Tiffany Sankofa) [/caption] “I accept chaos. I’m not sure chaos accepts me.” (Bob Dylan) What month is it? I’m going to share an embarrassing story with you. It’s only fair – people share their embarrassing stories...

Healing Community Trauma

By Tiffany Sankofa

Managing Emotions Relationships Trauma Recovery

Posted: June 11, 2020

I've been doing trauma work clinically for over 21 years. The arcs of personal trauma and community trauma are, not surprisingly, entirely parallel: There comes a time when we are strong enough, well-enough endowed at every level that we can boldly refuse our Perpetrator's definition...

Finding Your Pando

By Tiffany Sankofa

Self Care Trauma Recovery

Posted: October 8, 2018

There is a colony of 47,000 Quaking Aspen trees located in Fishlake National Forest, in Utah that have been gauged to be around 80,000 years old. 80 ---- > THOUSAND years! (See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree ) for more information and pictures. It's beautiful!) These trees have been...

Why We Don't Report Sex Crimes

By Tiffany Sankofa

Blog Trauma Recovery

Posted: September 21, 2018

I have worked with sexual abuse and rape survivors throughout my nearly 20 year career as a psychotherapist. I am currently working with a number of survivors who are being triggered by the latest Catholic church abuse revelations and the vitriol public fury fest over...