Active trauma memory - a memory that gets triggered, is intrusive, and is invariably painful - will disturb your state of mind, your focus, your ability to be productive, and any sense of hope for the future you may still possess. Put simply, it alters your present perspective on life, and never for the better. Pushing back against such an assault well may seem impossible, but that does not have to be the case. One management tactic of proven value that almost anyone can use is the practice of cultivating a sense of gratitude.

We know that trauma affects the brain. Science has proven that. Yet, have you ever had someone say to you any of these things: "PTSD isn't real; it's all in your head." "Just get over it already!" "Only veterans get PTSD." I speak all over the country about PTSD symptoms. Mostly, these audiences are comprised of civilians: survivors, caregivers and healing professionals. Sometimes, too, there are people who have no PTSD connection but have been invited to hear the presentation. Inevitably, whether it's before the presentation has started or after it has finished, someone addresses me to say some variation of one of those three things (on a really awful day, all three!). Why don't people get what it means to struggle with PTSD?

Living in the chaos of PTSD symptoms and post-trauma haze can make you very self-centered. Know how I know that? I used to be like that! It's hard to cope on the inside and still be sensitive to others on the outside. Heck, it's tough to be miserable and do anything that would make someone else happy. One U.S. Marine + One Guitar = Big Impact When was the last time you did something nice for someone else? Last week, on Changing Direction, I interviewed U.S. Marine, Markus Fox, about how his guitar and music helped his platoon during a particularly difficult night in Iraq. They had lost the first two casualties since their deployment and the platoon was very upset. Markus took out his guitar, sat on the back step of a truck and invited the other soldiers to pull up their stools while he played a tribute to their fallen brothers. The results of this simple, selfless act during a time of trauma were enormous. Still, there are a couple of problems with the PTSD self-centered lifestyle. Let's take a look...

Radical acceptance means complete and total acceptance of something, accepting reality, and is a key component of Dialetical Behavioral Therapy. Yesterday, I listened to an interview with Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). If you aren't hip to the help DBT can offer, you might find some new ideas here.

I'm here to tell you that trauma affects your brain. Even so, have you ever had someone say to you any of these things: "PTSD isn't real; it's all in your head" "Just get over it already!" "Only veterans get PTSD"? I speak all over the country about PTSD symptoms. Mostly, these audiences are comprised of civilians: survivors, caregivers and healing professionals. Sometimes, too, there are people who have no PTSD connection but have been invited to hear the presentation. Inevitably, whether it's before the presentation has started or after it has finished someone addresses me to say some variation of one of those three things (on a really awful day, all three!). Why don't people "get" what it means to struggle with PTSD? Why can't they understand that trauma affects the brain as well as the mind?

Loss is an immense landscape for those living with psychological trauma and its consequent posttraumatic stress. Not always clear and obvious to us, because we can be good at avoiding painful facts, the pain of the stress itself further distracts us from what we will, in healing if not before, come to know: something was taken from us, and it won't be regained easily, if at all.

It's a common worry: If I heal PTSD symptoms, and then experience another trauma, will PTSD return? I've been thinking about that question a lot lately. I hear it often from the survivors I coach, and also from the enormous PTSD community in which I participate. And now, I'm thinking about it for an even more personal reason: Two weeks ago I almost died in a trauma eerily reminiscent of my original, PTSD-creating experience.

Anxiety, whether or not it develops into PTSD or another anxiety disorder, pulls us off course, again and again. It sets us up to crash through life from one crisis to another and makes us less productive - all of which increases our stress level. In spite of this, you can fairly quickly organize your anxious mind and have less crisis and more "plan" in your daily life. I'll show you how.

Last week, I wrote about what happens when we don’t forgive, and why it might be a good action to take in PTSD recovery. If you’ve come to the conclusion that you might be ready to forgive, the first roadblock to this might be not knowing how or what to do. This week, I’m following up with a very easy process that sets you on the path to forgiveness in a way that maintains your power, safety and control.

PTSD and suicide thoughts (plus how to shift them) is a topic of frequent discussion in any community of survivors struggling with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Really, how could it not be? We're asked to live inside a mind that feels crazy and a body that behaves in ways out of our control. At some point, it's reasonable for anyone to just want to be set free. Of course, suicide is always the wrong answer. Every day, we learn more about PTSD recovery and how to heal, which means that there is always hope for feeling better. In fact, with the many approaches now available for healing work recovery is more like a Choose Your Own Adventure than ever before. It took me 10 modalities to reach the end of PTSD symptoms. If I had given up and given in to the dark PTSD suicide thoughts a whole life would have been lost that really has been more than worth living.