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Beyond the Cliff | Laura van Dernoot Lipsky -Watch this Video, if you are in a profession that is about caring for others.



#LauravanDernootLipsky #TraumaStewardship #Vicarioustrauma #Self-Care


Laura van Dernoot Lipsky is the founder and director of the Trauma Stewardship Institute and author of Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others. She has worked directly with trauma survivors for 28 years, including survivors of Laura van Dernoot Lipsky , and acute trauma of all kinds, and natural disasters. Laura has been active in community organizing and movements for social and environmental justice and has taught on issues surrounding systematic oppression and liberation theory.


Trauma Stewardship:
How do we reduce clinician burnout? What helps people develop resiliency so that the important work they do in the world isn’t hindered by vicarious trauma and their own lack of self-care?

The cumulative aspect of ongoing exposure to suffering and trauma is largely ignored in health care, criminal justice, and other fields. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky believes that a deeper understanding of trauma exposure and the tools to navigate systems will enable people to do their work better. In this TED talk, she says:

“When humans are exposed to suffering, hardship, crisis, the trauma of humans, other living beings or the planet itself, there is a cumulative toll… Over time, what you are exposed to affects your entire worldview. It is incredibly seductive with the volume and intensity of suffering on the planet today, it is tempting to become numb. It is critical that we continue to strive, to cultivate our capacity to be present… We have a shared ethic of doing no harm, and if you are numb, you will not be able to gauge if you are doing harm.

With the magnitude of suffering at play on the planet right now, we are in desperate need of folks who have the where-with-all and who have the courage to be present. From that place of presence, it is possible to aspire to do no harm, it is possible to transform whatever trauma arises, and it is possible to continue to work to dismantle the systematic oppression which is causing such a legacy of suffering. From that place of presence, it is possible to metabolize whatever arises in life…and integrate it, so that over time it contributes to your awakening: deeper compassion, vaster humility, and we are able to come up and out of narrow places. From that place of cultivated presence, we remember that it is possible to create and to sustain an ability to be truly transformative.”

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