In this episode of All About Nothing, we welcome special guest Mariah Rooney. When there is trauma, neglect, violence and differentness, often family is lost one way or another. With Mariah we discuss families lost and found, new models created, and a wide world outside the box of what sorts of attachments are possible.

Thanks for joining us!

While we are all inundated with grief, horror, shock and injustice, I thought we might look for a ray of light. Here in San Francisco, I awoke to a rainbow spectrumed search light across the sky in honor of Pride weekend. It was a wonderful way to start my day.

The child of neglect, will readily default to a stance of “nothing matters.” It is a natural way to feel in a lonely world of disconnection. And a feeling we are up against as we strive to be more connected and to heal.

This week’s video is about the benefit of little shots of positive into the “field,” into the world. Even small things we can do to shine a bit of light. And often it is easy!

This one is a little shorter than usual. But next week you will get a long one! Meanwhile, keep it positive!

It is summer here in the US and a time of many comings and goings. Vacations, summer camps, and young adults graduating and launching for the lucky (I won't talk about all the involuntary departures...)

It is often a time of trauma activations for survivors of trauma and neglect. Loss is the core of neglect trauma, so real or imagined, or even what are in real time short interludes of absence, can stimulate the survival terror of rejection, abandonment, or the desolation of "simple" absence. But I also have a message of hope, about a little guy who seemed to be truly gone, but through intention, care and loving, and knowledgeable action, found its way back.

It's Pride Weekend here in San Francisco. Happy Pride to all!

In this episode, we have a special treat. Akillah Wali, who I met at the Boston Trauma Conference, will join us, and bring humor and fun to what is most often painful and difficult work.

Hope you will enjoy it, while also growing your hippocampus!

I shamefully realized after recording the video, that it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but not everywhere! My one-person psychology at work: the whole world is me! Oy vey. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be getting colder and darker, but nonetheless, a good time to curl up with a good book.

In this episode, I recommend three recent to me, really good reads, that broaden our focus on trauma and neglect to encompass more reminders, and are also relevant to recovery, as well as inspiration. Attachment and loss are important parts of each, that they are truly ubiquitous human experiences, whether or not they are the focus, as is the perennial question of what matters? I recommend them all.

Happy reading (or listening if you prefer, all three are available in audio,) whether it be summer or winter in your part of the world.

Do you ever despair when once again revisited by old ghosts? When parts of you that you thought you had worked through long ago, rear up again, as powerfully as ever?

Although I hate and avoid the word "triggering," it can in fact feel like being shot again, by an age old "enemy."

Does it make you wonder "what is wrong with me?" Or, is all this therapy "not working?"

Well, even those of us who have worked on our trauma for years and decades (or what seems like millennia!) have these episodes.

This video was shot in my hotel room in Boston on my last day, so housekeeping would not be coming. The bed was unmade, and I wondered if I should actually film this with an unmade bed in the background. Not too professional, right? Well I decided to tell it like it is, to be real, as this video is in fact about "dirty laundry," showing the unsavory, disheveled parts to reassure you, even we old-timers have our moments!

Thanks for your interest in Nothing!

In his masterwork, The Archaeology of Mind, neuroscience luminary, researcher and animal lover Jaak Panksepp wrote that a brief interlude of tickling of his lab rats, and a single bout of rat "laughter", activated a neurochemical and affective change in the little creatures, and even sprouted new neurons in their little hippocampi! And as we know, their brains are a lot like ours.

In this video, we make a brief visit to the world of play, so elusive or missing in the world of neglect, and discover that there is actually even a brain region designed by nature to mediate what is in fact a vital function.

And of course the redundant discovery, that if you, like me, thought you were "missing that gene”, it is not your fault. Again, something was missing.

Thanks for joining us for episode 14!

Hope to see you in Boston!

In this episode we discuss the neglected topic of aging: the aging body, the aging brain, sexuality as we age.

Another of those seemingly taboo subjects that it seems there is no one to ask, or no one reliable, and one might be too shame or afraid to tell. Perhaps you can be slightly more aware of what to expect, and what is quite normal and expectable than I was!