The front lines of social justice leadership are often stressful places to stand. The causes, the people, the issues, ask a lot of us. They ask the best of us when we’re standing in historic trauma fields – looking to find ways to transform the system, transform the situation, and heal ourselves. We’re looking for the inspiration, the break through into new paradigms that serve our communities.
The NEAR Sciences offer a new paradigm that helps both at a personal level, at a community level and at a systems level. The NEAR Sciences are: Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACE’s (Adverse Childhood Experience), and Resilience.
What the neurosciences are saying is trauma and patterns of toxic stress are deeply imprinted often across generations. Epigenetics shows our DNA is changing based on our environment in the first few years of life. It also says our brains can heal and we can radically shift how we PERSONALLY respond, and how our COMMUNITIES and SYSTEMS respond to toxic stress or stress related “triggers.”
In Washington State there is a 15 year effort underway to reduce trauma in communities generation to generation informed by the NEAR Sciences. … Continue Reading...