Healing Everyday Traumas: Free Yourself from the Scars of Bullying, Criticism and Other Old Wounds

Take Back Your Power: How to Overcome Procrastination, Low Self-Esteem, Negative Self-Talk, and Self-Defeating Behavior

When you throw a pebble into a pond, you can see the ripples long after the pebble has vanished from sight. It's the same with our experiences. Many seemingly small events in our lives—finding out that your best friend spread rumors about you, being criticized by a teacher in front of the class—are actually forms of everyday trauma. They can cause ripples that are felt far down the stream of time—even when you don't remember what caused the ripples in the first place. These events can have profound effects on your thoughts, feelings and behaviors even many years later.

One of the major consequences of everyday trauma is the formation of the critical voice, that nagging, judgmental little "imp" we give free rent to in our heads. As you'll learn in the book, we create this part of ourselves in early childhood to be a helper. Unfortunately, as we grow up, the critical voice stays a child—so it tries to solve our adult problems with childlike solutions. Instead of helping, it often winds up making our difficulties even worse.

Dr. Lynn Karjala is a licensed psychologist with over 30 years of experience in treating trauma. While working with some of the most severe cases of PTSD, she made an important discovery: milder, "everyday" distressing events can cause the same pattern of symptoms as PTSD, but scaled down into much more subtle forms. Because the effects are not as obvious, people often brush them off and minimize them by asking, "Why am I making such a big deal out of this?" without realizing that what they're experiencing are actual symptoms of trauma.

Who is this book for?

• You are motivated to make a positive change but just can't seem to make it happen
• You have trouble speaking up for yourself because of low self-esteem or lack of confidence
• You have feelings of shame, guilt or failure you haven't been able to shake, no matter how much you've accomplished
• You have memories of being criticized, rejected, bullied or betrayed that are still painful years later
• You find yourself getting upset or angry without understanding why
• You begin to make progress and then sabotage yourself

• learn creative, easy-to-use techniques to heal these everyday traumas
• take your power back from your critical voice
• repair the impact of everyday trauma on many areas of your life, such as low self-esteem, trust issues, grief and loss, procrastination, avoidance, shame and guilt, parenting issues, and self-defeating behavior
• deal more effectively with difficult people
• and live a more joyous and productive life.

Dr. Lynn Mary Karjala is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Roswell, Georgia. In addition to her general practice, she has specialized training and extensive clinical experience in the treatment of trauma in all its forms. She also trains other clinicians in the use of both conventional and innovative approaches to therapy and has given many presentations on these topics in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.Before going into clinical practice, she was a university professor, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on child, adolescent, and life-span development and the psychology of death and dying. She lives in Roswell with her husband of 37 years and assorted dogs and cats.