Thanks again to Tom Price for this information. Tom is founder of Interfaith Veterans Workgroup, a Delaware non-profit focusing on addressing veteran suicides in Delaware.
Below is a summary from a recent Aspen Institute event. The first ‘lesson’ pertains to veterans and reinforces what we at Mindful Veterans Connection have been saying about ways veterans can heal from their military experiences and traumas:
Lessons for Changemakers from #WeaveThePeople MAY 17, 2019 • SOPHIA RIVERA-SILVERSTEIN & BEN BERLINER
To survive on the battlefield, the Army teaches soldiers like Dylan Tete how to ignore pain. When he left Iraq and moved with his family to New Orleans just before hurricane Katrina, Dylan relied on that same training for his next battle, building FEMA housing in devastated communities.
When he found himself struggling to connect to the pain of his fellow community members, it became clear that his training was now working against him. “I had effectively turned this body off in order to survive again,” he said. This led Dylan down path of a crippling sense of isolation, and it wasn’t until finally seeking treatment at the VA when he “learned how to turn this body on.” There is a whole set of tools on the table for healing trauma…. See the short (less than 2 minutes) video here: bit.ly/2ZslAjE
We recognize this advice as pointing towards MBSR, Mindfulness and all modalities of treatment which enable a combat veteran to become more whole after the traumas of war -- the core and theme of our website, www.mindfulvets.net.