Plugged In

 

Earlier this month Alan and I had the privilege to attend the Empowered to Connect simulcast in beautiful Bozeman, MT. I would like to start by saying thank you to Sacred Portion, Show Hope, Journey Church and Encompass for bringing a message of hope and healing! This simulcast was a two-day event for adoptive and foster parents (dare I say biological parents, as well?) and those who work in the world foster and adoptive kiddos live in. It was amazing! I am so glad we attended, but trying to get the information was, well, not as smooth as I would have liked!

 

Don't hate on my note-taking skills!

ALL COMPUTERS ALWAYS WORK
So, it all started when I got this email about Empowered to Connect, based on the book The Connected Child by Dr. Karen Purvis out of Texas Christian University. So, I look at the email on my iPad and it says to follow the instructions on the attached flyer to register for this FREE event. I look at said flyer...no directions. I reply to the email, they send me another flyer saying thE info is on the flyer, I open it on my iPad...no directions...UGH...I reply one more time (a bit frustrated!) and they send me the link. This time, I'm on my computer, so I pull up the flyer to show a coworker so they could verify that the info was, indeed, NOT on the flyer...lo and behold, there it was. My iPad just wouldn't show the info!! Apple, you gotta fix that!

BOZEMAN IS BEAUTIFUL
Anyhow, I went back and forth trying to decide if it was worth it to take the day off and have someone sub for me and finally, I decided to go for it. I used up my personal day and Alan and I headed to Bozeman. One of the college girls I mentor even gave up her bed for us so we wouldn't have to pay for a hotel (thanks Court!). We get to The Commons, where the event was being hosted, and we had never been there before. Let me stop and say the campus was BEAUTIFUL!! Bozeman is great in general, but the views around The Commons, oh my! Bozeman is surrounded by six mountain ranges and is just so amazing, Alan said, "people must just wake up and say, 'I'm going to have a good day.'"

PLUGGED IN

There is so much I could say about the content of the conference. The speakers kept saying that it was like drinking water from a fire hose - and it was! I felt like someone energized me, gave me the skills and knowledge to be, at the very least, aware of the potential hard times ahead. It really was like being plugged in to the power source. They gave us a heads up on the way our brains and bodies function when they are in a survival state. There was so much to learn about how children from tough places operate, how the brains of kids who have been traumatized are always running on the amygdala, how our attachment style as an infant predicts how we will attach as adults 90% of the time!! This is researched-based stuff my friends, AND, biblically supported as well! So, friends, here's just one snippet of something we learned:

Children from hard places:

• Have different brains
• Have different bodies
• Have different beliefs
• Have different behaviors

Why? You may ask. Because if a child has been traumatized - even something like a difficult birth, even trauma during pregnancy - it can result in changes to the way the brain perceives the child's surroundings and circumstances; it affects the lens through which life is viewed - especially if it is never dealt with! Now, this isn't true of every kid who comes from a hard place, but Alan and I want to go into this with eyes wide open. Do you know that when the amygdala is on high alert the pre-frontal cortex (the part of your brain that everyone associates with being the brain) that does all the complicated processes and tasks is not operating? The brain is in this fight, flight or freeze state, almost constantly for some of these kids and if you don't address the amygdala, you can't get to the heart of the child! 

Okay - I need to not overload you all...we'll stop here and I'll do a part two soon.