“After Katrina hit I received mops and a bucket from a disaster relief organization. From The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, I got my life back.”
Mindy Milam, LCSW, New Orleans
Most relief organizations focus on the physical: providing supplies, water, shelter, food and medical assistance — and rightly so. But where there is physical trauma — whether it affects our body or our possessions — there is also emotional distress. And with emotional distress, especially in extreme situations, if you can’t cope, nothing else matters. Relieving emotional stress is the key. By lowering levels of stress, we can think more clearly — vital in a crisis — and we can relax our bodies, to express caring and give and receive love more fully.
The Center for Mind-Body Medicine is called upon in virtually every instance when crisis strikes. During the past several months we’ve responded to tragedies in our own backyard: on the East Coast after Hurricane Sandy, in Connecticut after the December Newtown tragedy, and in Boston most recently, after the marathon bombing. In each case, we had not budgeted to respond, but you can count on CMBM when there is a crisis.
- The CMBM faculty organized and ran 11 trauma relief workshops for more than 200 Sandy survivors in New Jersey and New York thanks to the help of CMBM graduates.
- The CMBM team consulted with Newtown, CT clinicians multiple times since February, meeting with over 50 clinicians, family members and community health providers.
- Our founder and director Dr. Jim Gordon met with clinicians at the Children’s Hospital in Boston to teach them mind-body skills in preparation for their work with 2000 school children in the aftermath of the Boston bombing.
You can help us continue to be there in a crisis — especially for those in our own backyard. There are plenty of organizations that can give you a mop, but not many that can give you your life back.
