What happens when someone who has always known that they wanted to be a mother—that they were born to be a to mother—has a deeply traumatic birth? How does it impact how she views herself, her child, and processes her new role as mother? For Kari Azuma this led to postpartum depression and “a full blown identity crisis.”
What happens to a child whose world is shattered, who loses her family and foundation in an instant? How does a person whose formative years are shaped by trauma and violence recover, let alone create a beautiful family and community of healing? The brave, wise, and beautiful Iman Gatti shares her journey of how the deep, decades-long work of healing her own trauma ultimately led her to helping other women heal themselves.
Kimberly Ann joins me to talk about the experience of childbirth and the crucial postpartum period, when time to heal is a necessity, not a luxury.
How do you work your way back after experiencing the severe trauma of a great loss? What if that trauma was wrapped up in living through an armed conflict, either as a victim or aggressor? And what if a culture of violence was the only life you’d ever known? The people of Colombia have been endured armed conflict since the mid-1960’s, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other guerrilla movements began fighting for influence in the country. In 2010, Natalia and María Adelaida López founded Dunna: Creative Alternatives for Peace, to introduce basic poses to both the poor, mostly rural victims of the conflict and the guerilla fighters who once terrorized them. The yoga classes have proven to reduce the symptoms of PTSD and equip locals with the tools to heal themselves. Today Natalia shares the science behind yoga’s ability to heal, the similarities among victims and aggressors of the conflict, and her surprise at people’s capacity for change.
Tamsen Webster, the Executive Producer of the oldest and one of the largest locally organized TED talk events in the world, is self-described as “pattern-driven,” and likes to have a plan. Today, we talk about her journey into parenting, and how her ideas for pregnancy (and even marriage) were very different than reality.She dove into her first pregnancy with a plan: she would have a natural birth and breastfeed her baby, as the research suggests. But nothing went according to plan. Even her work was wildly different than she expected when her boss changed while she was on leave. Tamsen shares her challenging parenting journey, admitting that having her sons “knocked her sideways,”—and that she unexpectedly became an entrepreneur as a result.