Jeanne, I agree.  When I heard about MM's accident, I immediately felt that it wasn't a coincidence.  I strongly sensed he's feeling the stress of what's happening around him, lost his bearings and fell.  I really liked your description "struggling from the surge of opposition."   He's been so drunk on his own power, that he's considered himself invincible.  Has he ever been challenged in this way?  I don't think so, but maybe @yogagirl can shed some light on it.

It's all fun and games until the pitchforks finally come out for you. Things don't change, until they do.  Then it's hard to remember how we ever lived a particular way. Texas is about the flip (if not in 2020 then very soon).  Their gerrymandered map is turning on them. Hoisted by their own petards. And once that happens it's hard to imagine how the GOP can win.

There's change in the wind folks!

About 1/2 hour ago while I was making dinner, I experienced how it would feel when T. is out of the WH.  It came out of the blue.  Very strange ... I felt like it had already happened.  For a split second I believed that it had -- I even said to myself "thank God."  The feeling of relief was accompanied by an exhale -- the way you'd feel after being told that your cancer was gone.  I smiled, even though I felt exhausted.  You know that your body is weak and your immunity has been compromised, but you're going to be okay.  You're so thankful that you've come through it.  More importantly, you're going to take the time to take care of your body -- be very mindful of how you eat, what you think, your emotions.  You recognize the life lesson.  You'll no longer take anything for granted.

Even though he's still occupying the WH, I still have that "future" feeling.   It feels like the ground is shifting.  

I pray that bright future you're feeling is already cresting around the corner as we speak, @deetoo. And this:

May Tsar Trump be the first and last of his kind this country ever has to see. 

@vestralux, I believe so.  These sensations tend to happen for me when I'm busy doing something else.  I had such a feeling a few months before I met my husband.    

In this situation, it was different -- it felt like the body sensations of our entire country.  Very strange, but good.  It also felt fragile ... a "picking-up-the-pieces" feeling.  Like we hand to handle this with care.  

For over a year now, I have had the feeling that the Democratic Candidates should not run their campaign on the fact that Trump will end up being the candidate they will be facing in the General Election.  That feeling has not changed.  During each debate I watch and each candidate interview I see, my inner voice says, these candidates are "running" against Trump, but Trump is not really going to be the person they need to focus upon.   

@rowsella

This is so lovely! I’m glad your son is excited about the topic of trauma; I’m reading more about it, how even the most “minute” bullying can affect our brains; and yes, it’s passed down. 

Tell you son to look for the book “The Body Keeps The Score.” Excellent resource on the effects of trauma. 

Greetings from Ky.  @Deetoo MM was challenged in the last election by Allison Grimes who is now our Secretary of State.  She ran a good campaign and was neck in neck with him in the polls UNTIL the Koch's dumped a couple of million onMM and he went full bore hatemonger on her.  Even at that she only lost by a slim margin.  I agree wiht Jeanne he is feeling unstable.  Don't forget he is an eighty year old man who doesn't want to quit and doesn't know what else to do.  He has more money than God, especially now from the Russians, but what does he do with it.  The only time I've heard anything about his daughters is when they opposed him on the Kavanaugh appoinment.  Someone said at the time his son-in-law won't speak to him.  He is a very cold man.  A friend of mine used to travel through DC for her job regularly and on FRiday afternoons when he was in the airport he was huddled in a corner with his aids and was totally unaccessable to the public.  That is how he always is.  He has no personality at all and by all accounts is mean as a snake.  The only ones who defend him are the very rich in Kentucky who benefit from his dishonesty and those who just don't know any better.

After the rally this weekend his campaign released a photo of a lawn with tombstones on it.  The names on the stones were Amy McGraph, Allison Grimes, Judge Merrick and socialism.  They were posed right in front of Kentucky Farm Bureau insurance banner.  There is also a photo of seven young white men in "Team Mitch" teeshirts groping a cardboard cutout of AOC that is quite disgusting.  MM is taking a beating on this and so is Ky Farm Bureau.  This is the kind of scum MM is known for.  He wasn't in favor of Moron when he was elected but once he was introduced to the money from Moscow he is full in.  '

I still think he tripped over a bag of money!

@rowsella, what you've posted is so insightful.  Self care is really important.  What you're doing for yourself made me smile.  How are you feeling overall physically and emotionally, since you've made some of these choices?

I'm so glad that you brought up the issue of trauma.  I believe we're all experiencing a collective trauma, in addition to any survivors of abuse who are being retraumatized by his presidency.   I'm grateful that there's so much more information available now on trauma.  They've found that talk therapy, while helpful, has its limits in that area.   They're now using more body-centered therapies, such as EMDR,  somatic experiencing, and sensorimotor (the latter of which was very helpful to me in my own therapy).  All of it is geared towards healing the brain and nervous system.  @pacosurfer -- I agree, The Body Keeps the Score is a wonderful book. 

@yogagirl, thanks for the update.  Has there ever been another time when such a large group of people has railed against MM at a rally, as they did this weekend?  Interesting and sad about his daughters and son-in-law.  I saw the tombstone photo -- really low-life, disgusting.  

I wonder...I’m in the 26th month separation from my twin flame. I am starting to think that Trump, while obviously horrible, had to come here to make us reveal and heal all of our trauma. 

If it weren’t for him, we’d be still going along...pretending everything is okay. For me, I need to let it all go. Let all the fear and trauma and anger from my life go so I can make room for my twin flame.

Trump is forcing this healing. Much like vomiting forcing your to expel the dangerous poison that is in your body 

Hi Rowsella!

I read about that study last month too, not the article you posted but a different on e about the study.  I found it quite insightful.  I also was encouraged that it appears a positive, enriching environment can change the effects on the traumatized subject.  That is hopeful news for all, including our traumatized migrant children and those who are victims of shootings and other devastating events.  We as a society have a responsibility to develop and provide as much care to her heal those who have experienced trauma.  It is a moral obligation.  Of course stoppingthe trauma before it happens is also imperative. 

I love how you are making positive impacts to your daily routine and sharing them with us.  It is inspiring.   Thanks for checking in with everyone here.   Welcome back.

Yogagirl, thanks for the MM and Kentucky updates.  I had no idea about the tombstones and the Ky Farm Bureau.  Shocking!

@deetoo As far back as I can remember this is hte first time. Usually the crowd is pretty tane maybe a little heckling is all.  But since Moron, Moscow Mitch and our idiot govenor who I will refer to as Moron light.  The two terms prior to this last we have had a Democrat governor.  Actually there are more registered Dems in Kentucky than Reps.  But we had a balance of Congressmen.  Pretty even on both sides.  Since the last election in 2016 it tipped to the Reps.  Many consider us a Southern state and bigotry is in full force.  Now I don't think that is so true.  Many people have figured out MM is a greedy money hungry SOB.  It has been more previlent then in past years..  Although many in the state didn't like Obama because of his race, they did appreciate he was a good man.  It started with the "no child left behind" legistation that MM co-sponsored with George W at the end of his last term.  As soon as W was gone MM refused to fund the bill and it died.  That didn't go over really well with our strong teachers union.  Now that he has back-stabbed the coal miners, hopefully things will change.   

Happy birthday, lovely @rowsella! I was delighted to see your post, for so many reasons.

You wrote: "If there is nothing that more characterizes the human condition in these modern times, I think addiction is it."

I wholeheartedly agree.

And I believe that our compulsive obsession with short-term opiates (e.g., food, reality tv, sex, etc.) and amphetamines (e.g., money, validation, video games, et al) are what they've always been: the spiraling consequence of suppressed development. When human beings are allowed and encouraged to develop, grow, and evolve, and this process is unimpeded, at some point, they naturally stop searching outside themselves (either to the mother/caretaker or to sources in the material world) to help regulate their emotions and energies. The healthiest people you know, psychologically speaking, tend to be folks who eat clean and take care of their bodies. They're generally sober or sober-adjacent. They want to live well on the planet and aren't conspicuous consumers. They don't struggle with co-dependence or toxic relationship patterns. I could keep going.     

It's our birthright to be able to actualize innate human capacities for both stillness and movement; we never need to become parasitic of others. But just as individuals are far and away more likely to struggle with addiction, disease, and early death when they have a history of developmental trauma (see the Advanced Childhood Experiences study, or ACEs), I think the reason we're seeing such an explosion of imbalance and addiction (and autoimmune diseases, etc) lies with generations of unhealed historical and collective traumas. I've said the same here many times, I know.

We're all living in a traumatized field of energy, but it's ours. We are it. No one did it to us—not the patriarchy, not the colonialists, not the Christians or Muslims or Flying Spaghetti Monsters. Not even Trump. He's risen to the surface, like every other authoritarian leader in the world right now, because the toxicity in the collective has become so potent that the developmental decay (or just evolutionary delay) that it represents could no longer stay hidden and suppressed. It's time to face it.

I didn't read the particular link you shared, but I'm very familiar with Dr. Isabelle Mansuy's work in epigenetics and the multigenerational transmission of trauma. In case that article isn't about this, here's something cool and important I think: Her teams "traumatized" male newborn mice by separating them periodically from their mothers for short periods of time in the first two weeks of life. They were then allowed to grow up 'normally' within their social groups. But as they grew, the males showed PTSD-type behaviors (agitation, fear, isolation), continuing through adulthood.

When the males were bred, the researchers followed their children and grandchildren. In this species, males do nothing to help care for their young (and don't stick nearby), so their progeny aren't exposed to their behaviors. But the researchers found that the children and grandchildren of the traumatized males, both males and females, strongly expressed the same PTSD-type behaviors as their original forebear. This suggested that epigenetic markers (for traumatized effects) are passed down via sperm. It's a significant finding for a lot of reasons, not least what it may (or may not) mean for human children, even where fathers were never present. [It goes without saying that mothers have a great deal of impact.]

I was taking a quick break from work just now and while I was cleaning, a couple of things sort of hit me. Not sure what to make of them. The first is a vision, the second is more of a weirdly hopeful feeling. I hope someone else (hi @BlueBelle!) might concentrate on them and see what comes up.

First: I saw Nikki Haley standing in a room beside a dark-haired GOP Congressman. It felt like they were accepting an offer to step up together as the Republican primary candidates in 2020. (Trump wasn't in the vision, so I'm hopeful that means he isn't in the running!) I don't know who the man was; I only saw Nikki Haley's face, but I sensed him. So, I just went through photos of all the GOP senators and representatives, and a few feel like possibilities, but I'm just not sure. They were Tom Cotton, Todd Young, Mike Turner, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio, and Mitt Romney. Maybe Mark Meadows? (Please god no.) ... As I write this, part of me wonders whether the man I sensed isn't a DC outsider who happens to hold enough influence to feel like a statesman. Hmm... 

Second: It's hard for me to believe this will happen under Trump (I don't), but I suddenly wonder whether we might just see relatively bipartisan movement toward common sense gun legislation by the end of 2020. (Strike while the NRA is weak, people!) This feeling is almost certainly inspired by the fact that my mother—who's a lifelong gun advocate (to put it astonishingly mildly), a card carrying member of the NRA (for real), ferociously anti-immigrant (etc... use your imagination), and (if it even needs to be said) a Trump supporter (she's the lady base, y'all)—told me yesterday that she's decided that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines should be outlawed.

?[<-- cannot possibly do justice to the shocked expression I'm still wearing today]

@vestralux

Could it be Paul Ryan? I've had visions before that I've seen him back in front line politics. Ryan is VP or in a White House role.   I know he's retired and no longer a Congressman, but i think he's very influential in the Republicans.  'Power behind the throne', I'm hearing as I'm typing this. 

Hi Vestra! I think you may have explained this better than me - I probably got it wrong as I was going on memory of a conversation with my son and did not review the article before posting the link and it is probably more correct because you cannot attribute the behaviors to "learned" or nurture-- it is entirely genetic. Trauma alters the genome.

I personally have to come to grips with my own addictive behavior. Internet, junk food, tv... I lost my brother to heroin last November. My father was an alcoholic. Both my parents were addicted to nicotine and that killed them.

Agreed that Trump is a reflection of us as a nation. Whether he obtained his office by cheating or not, that whole "winning is everything" American "competitive spirit" is consistent. I voted for Hillary Clinton and while I thought she was qualified and would have been a better president than Trump by every measure, there is still the fact that she also had a pragmatic/incremental approach and I doubt she would have been able to effect much change with the Legislative House dominated by the Republicans. I am torn about foreign policy. While I desire peace, would it really be possible in the current global cycle/pattern we are in now? I am not convinced that isolationist policies (which are a choice-- to do nothing) are always the right thing. After all, look at WW2-- if we had stayed out of it, Britain would have fallen (well, they were flat broke). I am still so ashamed that we turned ships full of Jewish children away.

Wow-- your Mom said that? I can only imagine you looked up for pigs in the air! It is stuff like that which gives hope for humanity. However, don't be surprised that listening to 12 hours of am Republican Talk Radio aka brain-washing, she may come up with a different angle to it all. I found that innate common sense among some friends of mine was often abandoned later once the propaganda/talking points were pushed from all quarters.