Harvesting Happiness Talk Radio

Originally published in The Huffington Post

When PTSD transfers from the battlefield to the home, this disorder quickly becomes a family affair. So set an extra plate at dinner tonight; PTSD is joining you.

One of the things I hear time and time again is that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an isolated condition. If you think that’s true, you’re not alone; I used to be one of those people. But when I began working with veterans, I discovered something profound: PTSD affects every person in the sufferer’s life, from spouses to children to extended family to friends. Secondhand trauma is real, and if it lingers untreated, can be just as scarring as having PTSD yourself. For children, the exposure to PTSD is especially toxic.

Children who see their parents struggle with PTSD typically respond one of three ways. Some take on the role of the rescuer, taking on a parental role to compensate for their parent’s difficulties. Other children begin to withdraw when they stop receiving the emotional support they need from mom or day. For a third group of children, the result is secondhand trauma. Through this process, the parent’s horrors become the child’s horrors, and child lives out his parent’s legacy of suffering. Secondhand trauma robs children of their youth, creating a lasting heritage of doubt, mistrust, and a fear of reliving the hurt one’s parent has endured.

Any of these three scenarios can damage a child’s emotional development. That’s why it’s so important to include the entire family in a veteran’s PTSD treatment. By encouraging an open dialogue among family members and their loved one with PTSD, behavioral therapists such as myself can help happiness become part of the healing process. Children can learn to create joy in spite of the challenges by rediscovering playful moments and using that happiness to reengage with the present. As families struggle to regulate amid PTSD, it’s essential that they talk about their feelings and allow space for this joy to creep back in.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

The New Year is here. For most of us, that means we’re in full-on resolution mode, seeing the year ahead through rose-colored glasses and a prism of unbridled opportunity. Vows to curb our consumption of carbs, pursue our passions, and spend time with the ones we love abound, as we leave 2012 in our dust. As we have bid adieu to 2012 and greeted 2013, let’s take a moment to reflect on the reality of the last 12 months through our veterans’ eyes.

Our veterans had another tough year. Their unemployment hovered well above the general population’s joblessness rate, with 1 in 10 of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans out of work as of November. Our warriors continue to be stigmatized by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that now grips nearly one-third of our veterans. The military sex abuse scandal at Lackland Air Force Base has resulted in more than 40 women coming forward with heartbreaking stories of unwanted sexual advances by their instructors.

But by far the most devastating issue facing our military personnel is suicide. New data shows that more active-duty soldiers committed suicide than died in combat in 2012. It’s a tragic testament to our society’s shortcomings in treating PTSD.

These issues make each day a hurdle for our veterans, whether the calendar reads 2012 or 2013. But as we jump into the New Year, I propose a different kind of resolution — one that’s not about losing weight, accelerating our climb up the career ladder, or traveling to foreign shores. This year, let’s finally give veteran health care the attention it deserves. Stopping veteran suicide, unemployment and sexual abuse all starts with PTSD. By striving to provide holistic, stigma-free care for our warriors, we can take a large step toward helping them heal their invisible wounds.

Let’s make their priorities our priority. Let’s make 2013 the year of the veterans.

By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

What do Madonna, Matthew McConaughey, and Jennifer Aniston have in common with our veterans?

Yoga. With this celebrity fitness secret now going mainstream, even our veterans are hitting the yoga mat. Why? To treat their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s the latest proof that, sometimes, a harmonious brain-body connection is the best medicine.

With more than one-third of our veterans suffering from PTSD, it’s clear that the go-to therapies — pills and prescriptions — aren’t solving the problem. But interestingly enough, research shows that trauma-sensitive yoga, which uses breathing, stretching and meditation, can help calm the portion of the brain that gets hyper-aroused during a stress episode — no medication required.

If you’ve ever practiced yoga or meditation, this probably doesn’t surprise you. Yoga has been known to have a cathartic effect, unlocking a person’s repressed emotions. And in the case of PTSD, it can help a person shift his or her focus inward, away from the stress and trauma, by triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. Yoga isn’t a substitute for warranted medical care, but it is an integrated, evidence-based strategy that will help people cope, heal, grow and thrive.

In my day-to-day work with veterans, I have seen firsthand how a three-prong Brain-Body-Breath approach helps them turn post-traumatic stress into post-traumatic growth. Here’s how holistic PTSD therapy works:

Brain

The first step in treating PTSD is to help an individual communicate emotions in a safe, constructive way. After engaging in talk therapy, counseling and peer groups, I begin to see our warriors develop constructive tools for grieving and expressing their emotions.

Body

Another crucial aspect of overcoming trauma is to be at ease with one’s body. Through practices such as trauma-sensitive yoga, individuals can train their bodies to use relaxation and awareness as tools when turmoil or stress arise.

Breath

Through proper breathing and mediation, individuals with PTSD can learn to become rooted in the present moment, which will help them overcome PTSD-related trauma episodes that often occur without a moment’s warning. Meditation can also improve a person’s stress release, mood and ability to relax.

This trifecta of wellbeing keeps myself and the veterans I work with balanced, joyful and able to persevere no matter what curveball life throws. This integrated, holistic approach to healing helps PTSD sufferers turn their trauma into growth. And here’s the best part: The only side effects are peace of mind, happiness, and a more centered view on life.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Economists and the media tell us we have just come back from the precipice of the “fiscal cliff.” I posit that we are on the verge of an even more serious crisis, “The Emotional Ledge,” a result of allowing ourselves to believe everything we see, hear, feel and think. This impairs our ability to self-regulate and undermines our emotional and physical safety, well-being, sense of self and happiness.

Like other dystopian authors, Aldous Huxley held a pretty bleak view of society. In A Brave New World, his future looks something like this: We live to consume. We’re brainwashed by advertisements and institutions that make us feel as though we’re free, even as they wipe out any originality and creativity in us. We lack meaningful relationships. We live in a society where art and religion are four-letter words, but where science reigns supreme. Science controls how we live, when we die, and what we look like; we’re all born in labs, adjusted to be exactly how society wants us to be.

Some aspects of this dreary dystopia seem farfetched (after all, we’re not all born in laboratories, and most of us still value deep connections with our fellow humans). But there’s also some fitting forecasting at play here: Our society is becoming more preoccupied with consumption, and technology has begun to rule many of our lives. And advertising and media do play a strong role in how we humans think about the world, which can threaten our originality — if we let it.

Huxley’s view of the future doesn’t have to be our future. Yes, the world is imperfect. There are a lot of negative forces at play. But with the right attitude and approach to life, we can avoid making Huxley’s terrifying vision of society our reality. It’s time to embrace the United States of Amazing.

What is the United States of Amazing? This is no saccharin-sweet view on life, and it’s not a Pollyanna perspective. It’s the art of swallowing the bitter pills that come from life’s disappointments and choosing happiness as a vitamin regime. So, with 2013 right around the corner, I urge you to explore this brave new world with these Emotionally Intelligent tools in your arsenal:

• Might
• Gratitude
• Kindness
• Passion
• Empathy
• Amusement
• Inquisitiveness
• Curiosity
• Transparency
• Vibrancy
• Authenticity
• Love
• Bravery
• Courage
• Creativity
• Compassion

The outcome is always unknown, but by applying the United States of Amazing viewpoint to your journey, you’ll find the future looks brighter than it does bleak.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22 is a witty, ironic discussion of the double binds our WWII troops faced due to the military bureaucracy. But here’s the thing: More than 50 years later, this double-bind hasn’t gotten any better. The term Heller coined to describe “no-win” military policies can still be used to describe many of the situations our veterans face as they return home from war. The latest Catch-22 for our heroes? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stigma in hiring.

In a recent New York Post piece, numerous veterans describe this Catch-22 in blatant terms: If they disclose that they suffer PTSD, the New York Police Department won’t hire them. But if they hide their PTSD from the military (and the NYPD, which receives the military’s medical files), veterans run the risk of losing their health care if the condition gets more severe.

One veteran said he passed the NYPD entrance exam in 2006, before his tour overseas. When he developed PTSD from the fighting and admitted it to the military, they shared that information with the police department. NYPD then disqualified him from serving on the force.

This is where PTSD stigma has gotten our veterans.

Although it’s understandable for a police department to require mental health screenings for officers who may have to use deadly force, that doesn’t change the fact that our veterans are in a devastating double bind. Our veterans still face dire jobless rates,and often turn to addiction or self-harm when they have nowhere else to go for help. Seeking help should be seen as honorable, courageous and an important step in taking care of one’s health; but because of the stigma surrounding PTSD, a veteran wears a scarlet letter as soon as he or she divulges any PTSD symptoms. It’s time for stigma to stop trumping our veterans’ strengths and virtue.

One way to decrease these ill feelings toward PTSD, a condition affecting nearly one-third of our troops is to ramp up public education efforts. Our veterans and their families aren’t the only ones who need to understand what it means to live with this condition; employers and other civilians are a big piece of the puzzle. When we teach employers and the public to understand and accept PTSD as a treatable condition, we are helping our veterans slowly break free from this stigma.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Our nation has had a heartbreaking few days. The tragedy at Sandy HookElementary School has left Connecticut, the United States and the world overcome with grief. As the nation struggles to provide solutions amid this latest instance of death and destruction, gun control has dominated our discourse. But I propose we focus on the person holding the gun, not just the gun itself. Mental illness can’t be taboo any longer.

Sandy Hook, Aurora, Columbine and other mass shootings are analyzed time and again as isolated events, but there are a few traits these tragedies typically share. One of these is mental illness in the gunman’s medical history. Although nothing is confirmed yet in the Connecticut massacre, there are reports that Adam Lanza may have suffered from Asperger’s, and these have taken over the media. All this speculation brings up two issues: How do we ensure that individuals who need help receive it? And in the wake of such tragedies, how do we protect mentally ill individuals from facing even more stigma than they already do?

The answer to both is integrated wellness.

Stigma follows mental illness like a shadow. Studies have shown that this stigma, whether through verbal slurs, job discrimination, or inadequate health insurance coverage, deters people from seeking out the help they need to turn their trauma into growth. With 26.2 percent of Americans suffering from mental illness each year, and 6 percent living with one classified as severe, it’s time to approach this issue with compassion, humanity, and an open mind.

Stigma-free care for the mentally ill isn’t about prescribing pills. It’s not about getting them back to a predetermined “normal.” It means taking an overarching approach to wellness that addresses an individual’s needs on an emotional, physical and mental level. Treatment is offered without judgment or expectations, instead letting the individual’s needs guide the process. Stigma is left at the door.

Another way to reduce stigma is simply to develop new, compassionate tools for accepting others. With kindness, empathy and good social connections to guide us, we can diminish the stigma and approach others with a non-judgmental, understanding heart. You’ll be surprised how many problems this new approach to acceptance will solve.

A perfect mental health system won’t prevent every mass shooting from occurring, and neither will the most stringent gun control laws in the world. But by working together to reduce the stigma toward mentally ill individuals, we can give people the treatment and acceptance they need. And that will make the world a safer, happier place for all of us.