By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
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The Winter Solstice – known as the longest night – has opened the way to the coming light.
 
From this moment, each day will become a few seconds longer and each night a few seconds shorter, as our planet’s Northern Hemisphere twirls closer to the sun.
 
The Winter Solstice, which we popularly call the first day of winter, is the holy day of our ancestors, one not burdened with the hurry and commercialism of our modern Christmas Day. The solstice only asks that we pause and look to our relationship with the sun, the light, the dark, and other great powers beyond our comprehension.
 
**Our ancestors celebrated** the “fire” festivals to acknowledge the rebirth of the sun, and these festivals are found in variations throughout the ancient world. 

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
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Nearly 10 months into this experience of the 2020 pandemic in the United States and around the world, there's a lot of profound writing and evocative art coming from writers and artists.

They ask us to consider our experience of the pandemic as something that is more than terrifying, although it is certainly scary, and one that allows for deep change to happen on multiple levels.

This prose poem from Kitty O'Meara has been making the rounds online, become widely shared and  truly a viral phenomenon. O'Meara is a former teacher and retired chaplain who lives near Madison, Wis., and penned this writing to work through her own anxiety: 

Here is the poem:

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Beyond multiculturalism education and cultural competency, we discover a new phrase – that of decolonizing therapy. This important movement demands that we explore how we can begin to include the trauma of oppression within our healing and helping sessions and dismantle the often-unconscious structures of racism that permeate the field of mental health as we know it.

This “decolonizing” trend is related to the larger decolonizing movement, which is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby a nation establishes and maintains its domination on overseas territories, and speaking up for social justice and inclusion. Within the educational context, for instance, this means confronting  the colonizing practices that have influenced education in in the past, and which are still present today; in application, this would include diversifying  materials and content, teach to learning outcomes that address power and social justice and design assessments that allow diverse students to demonstrate mastery in diverse ways.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

One of our dearest illusions in the workings of the brain is the belief that, “It can’t happen here.”

Too frequently, and in too many ways, we come to learn – actually experience – that it can indeed happen here. The latest place of this lesson is the medium-sized Midwestern city of Kenosha, Wis., which has been everywhere in the news because of what happened two weeks ago today. 

Sadly, the community is the place where Jacob Blake, an apparently unarmed Black man was shot seven times in the back at extremely close range by a police officer while Jacob's three children watched from the back seat of the car that their father was trying to enter.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Prayers are powerful. We know this. Studies have actually proven that prayer makes a difference in people’s health and well-being. I like to refer to the book Prayer is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer by Larry Dossey, which documents how prayer has been steadily gaining interest in the traditional medical establishment.

Dossey, who is a physician, takes a look at promising data, as well as the skeptics, delving into  questions as why doesn't prayer always work – and if prayer simply creates a "false hope." He has gone on to write several other books to muse and document the science and controversy of premonitions and the shadow side of prayer.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Today is Juneteenth, which celebrates the day in 1865 when enslaved black people in the United States won their freedom after centuries of uprisings and struggle. It is also a time to look more deeply into our nation's history. 

In these times, we are invited into challenging conversations about racism and white privilege and how they impact our lives, the health of our communities and the structure of our society.

As a white human, a psychotherapist and an educator, I am committed to not only speaking out for justice and equality but also to examine my own hidden prejudices and blind spots, and I am encouraging others to examine their own.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Earlier this month, I was asked by Jenelle Janci, an editor and reporter at LNP in Lancaster, Pa., to comment on mental and emotional health related to the re-opening of the United States as we suffer and navigate the continuing effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. She excerpted some of my thoughts in today's article here, and I’m sharing the full interview below:

How are feelings of anxiety and other mental health issues around reopening different than what people might have experienced at the beginning of the stay-at-home order?

It’s easier to manage a difficult experience when we know there’s an end to the experience. With this pandemic, the stay-at-home order may be modified and eventually lifted, but the Coronavirus hasn’t gone anywhere. We are still asked to face this highly infectious virus with lots of uncertainties.
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People’s anxieties may focus on different parts of this collective experience. Some may feel anxious about their health and worry about 

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

People,  please don’t make fun of people who are scared. People are scared, and people who are scared respond in a variety of ways, and in this case, one of them is panic buying and another one is hoarding. They are attempting to protect themselves, and we do not know what other personal or family traumas may be reactivated within – which can contribute to unusually high levels of fear.

That said, this is apart from the fact that some people may be also shopping for elderly family, friends and neighbors as well as themselves, for group homes or other group settings, or people who may otherwise not have means or funds to get out and shop or are health compromised, or people who are using their available funds now, because they may be without jobs in a few weeks.

One of the best things that we can do for each other is to steady ourselves and support each other to stay calm, alert and present and to validate others’ feelings, even if they are not their own feelings, and encourage people to make wise decisions for themselves, their health and their communities. I have decided that I will be staying indoors for the next two weeks and working from home and reevaluate my plan at the end of the two that time.

 By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

You may have lots of feelings about the coronavirus, the new virus that causes a respiratory infection. I know that I do. It is easy to fear what we don’t know, and judging from reports of people emptying shelves of toilet paper and antiseptic supplies and the sharing of my own clients and others I work with, there is a lot of fear and tension out there.

As a health professional in my corner of the world, I am charged with the responsibility of protecting my clients and caring for myself.  I also strive to act as a role model about how to act and respond at times of stress.

I’ve already altered several of my habits, such as washing my hands much more frequently and thoroughly and practicing how to refrain from touching my face, a key way that the virus spreads. I'm also touching elevator buttons, door handles and other public places with my scarf, paper towels or tissues instead of my fingers.

First, breathe and stay calm.

The regular flu – influenza – kills thousands of people each year.  However, fear seems to travel faster than the actual virus and we are challenged to take practical steps to protect ourselves and our community while staying calm and alert.

Then, can we look at the virus with a curious eye? I like this meditation that I found on YouTube that nudges me to move away from fear and towards curiosity.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Here's a wonderfully personal -- and wry -- film story about the families, love and generations,  as told by a new father of a boy child. The "Orders of Love" in the title refer to the ideas and observations of Bert Hellinger, the innovative family psychotherapist from Germany who developed an extraordinary new way to understand how family systems operate.