Are you frozen with the news about politics, discrimination, or the breakdown of environmental care? Maybe you’re quick to get angry or panic? Maybe you keep falling into unhealthy relationships. Or maybe you’re constantly exhausted. These feelings, thoughts, and behaviors—and many more—are examples of what trauma can look like in our lives, even among people who don’t know they’ve experienced any.
In THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAUMA: Break Patterns, Build Resilience, Restore Joy (Llewellyn; June 2025; $16.99 Trade Paperback Original; 240 pages; ISBN: 978-0-7387-7929-4), Dr. Lisa Collins, Ed.D with a Foreword by Cyndi Date, draws on her expertise as a trauma practitioner and her experience as a trauma survivor. In today’s climate, Dr. Lisa can help your audience build inner strength, find calm, peace, and light during these tumultuous times. In the book, she unfolds three progressive healing levels:
Level 1: Body Sensations—Tuning in to where and how trauma is stored in the body, including stomachaches, headaches, insomnia, fidgeting, loss of appetite, hypervigilance, and recoiling at being hugged. Dr. Lisa also sheds light on how trauma triggers our nervous system to take over and respond by either fight, flight, fawn (I need you to like me), or flock (I need the comfort of others).
Level 2: Mind Patterns—Bringing awareness to how our thoughts, belief systems, and behaviors are affected by unhealed trauma. The first step is paying attention to any thoughts in your head that are unkind, bullying, or judgmental. “Think about that nagging voice that is the critic,” Dr. Lisa urges. “Whose is it? If the voice is not saying you are amazing, it is not your voice.” So, talk back! When those hurtful thoughts arise, pause and say to yourself, That is not true, Stop it, or I take that back. Then, write down a positive thought to replace it.
Level 3: Positive Reconnection of the Body, Mind, and Spirit—Integrating a new understanding of the physical, emotional, and mental impacts of trauma into regular self-care and new avenues of wellness. To bring all the learning, doing, and healing together, Dr. Lisa offers self-reflective and self-care tools, including affirmations, controlled breathing, and muscle testing, as well as a process for working through forgiveness of those who have traumatized us, which serves as a doorway to more profound spiritual connection.
About the Author:
LISA COLLINS, Ed.D., is an author, teacher, assistant professor, Strategies for Trauma Awareness Resilience (STAR) trauma practitioner, racial healing leader, Conscious Freedom Life Coach, organizational consultant, and medium. Her acclaimed TEDx Talk, "Healing from Racial Trauma," has garnered over 6,000 views and chronicles the healing modalities resulting from her research. She also authored Love of Light and hosted a podcast, Love and Light with Dr. Lisa. She makes her home in Portland, Oregon. Learn more at LisaYCollins.com.