​Humans are social creatures that thrive on spending time with others in friendship, family, work, and romance. These connections provide happiness, love, fulfillment, and a lot of opportunities in jobs and general safety. That said, the modern era makes it easy to become disconnected and feel alone, even when there are tens of thousands of people around us to interact with. On the upside, all of those people want friendship just as much as you do. 

Friendship can take on many forms. It can simply be workers or fellow students you see on a daily basis, an online pen pal from across the planet, your sweetheart, or a childhood connection.

Since people change, so does friendship. Someone you dislike may become a lover one day, and many friends will become strangers. This makes it very important to keep in touch with all levels of friendship rather than only those you like the most, and to keep meeting new people as well, because you never know what the future holds. Making friends is an art that anyone can become good at, but it takes practice and time.

Friendship: For Awkward, Cynical, and Strange People is a short mini zine guide to making friendships and what to be careful of in the process. At our Etsy shop you can read the 14 essential tips for free in the images or pick up a physical copy for $3 USD. If you're feeling lonely or want some suggestions on how to become a closer and better friend, check it out!  

Trauma: How to Heal from Trauma and Feel Safe in the World is an empowering mental health mini zine that gives a basic overview of trauma and available therapies. This is a great booklet for people living with depression, mental illness, or PTSD wanting to learn tools for self love and mental wellness.

Available for purchase on our Etsy Shop or read for free below. If you'd rather read the transcribed text, scroll to the bottom of this post.

The One Minute Happiness series is a growing collection of mini zines that explore different topics in coping with anxiety and depression by providing empowering insights into various areas of mental health. They include Happy Healthy Checklist, Happy Healthy Eating, Happy Healthy Habits, Happy Healthy Suffering, Soulular Potential, Forgiveness, Trauma, and Your Highest Form. Read them all for free on our Etsy Shop.

www.sageliskey.com
www.facebook.com/radcatpress
www.instagram.com/sage.liskey/

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Transcribed text from Trauma - How to Heal from Trauma and Feel Safe in the World

Introduction
In many people, coping with depression and building a fulfilling life involves recovering from trauma. Trauma is caused by mildly to substantially stressful events embedding a pattern of fear, anxiety, and depressed emotions on a person when exposed to stimuli (triggers) related to the initial event. Without proper support, these patterns can consume our well-being, relationships, career goals, and happiness for life. 

You can learn more about alternative mental health and the science of happiness at www.sageliskey.com

Please note that while the information contained herein is researched and has worked for me, I am not a medical professional and none of this is meant to be medical advice. As such I do not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented and disclaim liability for errors and omissions. 
The front cover is a digital collage created by Sage Liskey.

Causes and Symptoms of Trauma
Anyone can be traumatized, and it is most common in military personnel, victims of physical, mental, and sexual abuse, and survivors of severe  injuries and car crashes. Breakups and the loss of loved ones can also result in trauma. These events form a trigger in which any stimuli that reminds the brain of previous trauma causes the flight or fight response to activate, creating an immediate sensation of danger, even in completely safe environments. Symptoms include depressed feelings, flashbacks, rapid changes in mood, nightmares, memory and sleeping problems, various psychological disorders, and avoiding any stimuli (triggers) similar to a stressful event including sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and lighting.

Treating Trauma
Trauma is completely treatable but therapy is often necessary in order to help guide the brain away from irrational thoughts and provide tools for the traumatized to work with. Some trauma therapy slowly reintroduces trauma triggers in a safe environment where the mind can acclimate to knowing those stimuli are in fact normal and safe. A person may be able to go through this process themselves by engaging in visualization practices (lucid dreaming can work too), using virtual reality, watching videos, or otherwise slowly reintroducing a stimuli. If you cannot afford a therapist, there are a number of free online communities to help, books such as Complex PTSD by Pete Walker, and affordable group trainings such as Holistic Peer Counseling and Solsara that incorporate methods of trauma healing.

Medications for Trauma
Medications such as anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs can be used to relieve the symptoms of PTSD, but typically do not lead to a cure. An exception can be made for certain psychoactive substances. While illegal outside of research settings, studies into psychedelic-assisted therapy, especially with MDMA, has allowed users to complete PTSD treatment much sooner than usual and in some cases find relief when no other methods worked. Note that the dosage, environment, and location are carefully crafted by therapy professionals and differs considerably from recreational use of these substances. You can learn more about the latest research by going to www.maps.org and keep up-to-date about legalization efforts.

Trauma Therapy
There are a variety of trauma therapies that may be utilized to help stop symptoms and allow clients to resume a normal life. Not everyone reacts the same and some therapists are bad, so try several. Typically therapists will utilize a combination of these techniques. Here are a few of them: 

Exposure Therapy: Exposes a person to stimuli related to their trauma, slowly convincing the mind that the trigger is safe. 

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Uses a combination of tactics, including exposure therapy and fixing distorted beliefs by teaching people ways of replacing negative or incorrect thoughts with objective reasoning – “all dogs are bad” vs. “some dogs hurt people out of fear, and I can learn how to avoid that.”

Trauma Therapy, Continued
Somatic Experiencing (SE): This type of therapy is based on the idea that trauma is energy that got trapped during a stressful event in particular body areas. SE explores an individual's present and past emotional states surrounding a traumatic experience and finds ways of helping them express that emotion in such a way that it is released. This can take the form of yelling, crying, dancing, or any directed energetic outburst after exposing the traumatic memory.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Part of this surprisingly effective treatment simply has the patient follow a moving object with their eyes while vocally remembering details of their traumatic experience. 

Do you feel stuck? Like there's so much more to life but it's out of your grasp? We live in a society that constantly pushes us down and away from who we truly wish to be, and it sucks. It perpetuates sadness, depression, discrimination, and the living of a unfulfilled existence, but there are ways to transcend that place.   

Your Highest Form is a short guide available here to read for free that explores how to escape the matrix and discover true purpose in life. Included are guided questions and practical tips to help uplift and transcend your current life narrative as well as challenging unhealthy cultural norms into which you were born. This is radical and alternative mental health at its best, connecting simple steps with a spiritual edge to unlock who you truly wish to be. Read below in images or scroll further down to see the transcribed text.  

Copies of Your Highest Form are available for purchase on the Rad Cat Press Etsy Shop for $3.00. Help a friend in need! 

If you liked this guide, check out my other free reads over in Books and Zines or reading the other mini zine articles in the one minute happiness/happy healthy series. 

Follow me at: 
www.facebook.com/radcatpress
www.instagram.com/sage.liskey


Transcribed Text:

Introduction

The human race is more complicated than ever; each person is a synthesis of the many cultures, traditions, beliefs, ideas, technologies, artworks, mistakes, advancements, and histories that have existed prior to this moment in time. There is great wisdom and power available to us in this ancestral knowledge, and if used mindfully, may help us unlock our highest forms of mind, body, and soul.

Please note that I am not a medical professional and none of this is meant to be medical advice. As such I do not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented and disclaim liability for errors and omissions. Thank you for reading.


Identifying Your Highest Form

Ask yourself these five questions: 

What have I always wanted to do? 

Who do I look up to? 

What experiences in my life have made me the happiest? 

Who would I be if I didn't live within a capitalist society or had to worry about money? 

What am I capable of when I am absolutely confident in my words and actions? 


​
Identify The Obstacles To Becoming Your Highest Form

While our highest form is more available to us than ever before, there are also more obstacles and distractions to overcome. These can include loneliness, money, addictions to media and drugs, location, depression, trauma, culture, separation from ancestral ways, lack of meaningful purpose, and upbringing. Just as each person has a different highest form, each person also has different obstacles to overcome. Diligence in transforming these obstacles is essential to finding your highest form.


Dealing With The Obstacles:

simplify your life, join a community, find a therapist to help you identify and overcome trauma and depression, meditate away obsessive thinking and find power in silence, change your diet and make sure your body is well-nourished, learn a trade or empower your communication and confidence through school, locate yourself closer to people working on personal growth and healing, find supportive and nurturing friendships, stop watching television, stop playing video games, join a support group to break away from alcohol and narcotic usage, challenge yourself to do uncomfortable things (may be easier with the assistance of classes or a therapist),


Dealing With The Obstacles, Continued:

set aside a small amount of time each day to pursue your dreams, start your own business, find a guru, seek out a transformative experience at a multi-day music, arts, or spiritual festival such as Symbiosis, Burning Man, or The Oregon Country Fair, exercise and dress in a way that feels empowering, learn how to believe in yourself, write down your dreams, meet all your basic needs (sustenance, safety, love, empathy, rest, community, creativity, freedom, and purpose), travel, take a chance, try something bizarre and scary, become spiritually grounded, believe in something beyond yourself, stop putting up with unhealthy friends and ​work environments!


Continuing Forward

Your life is a piece of art and you are an artist. You are always capable of change, rising to new, unforeseen experiences and opportunities. Sometimes vulnerability and putting yourself through uncomfortable situations is necessary to making motions toward transformation, but there is always an opportunity for becoming closer to your highest form.

You can learn more about the science of happiness with free downloads and articles at www.sageliskey.com or by reading my books, The Happiest Choice: Essential Tools for Everyone's Brain Feelings and You Are A Great and Powerful Wizard. Good luck!

Happy Healthy Checklist is an illustrated mini-zine that offers 14 helpful reminders for taking care of yourself when dealing with anxiety and depression. Read the images below or skip to the bottom for a text transcription of the whole guide. If you want a more in-depth read check out the free Condensed Edition of The Happiest Choice available for download on our books and zines page.

Physical copies of the Happy Healthy Checklist are available in our Etsy Shop or check out our Books and Zines for more empowering and motivational guides. My other mini mental health guides include Happy Healthy Suffering, Happy Healthy Habits, and Happy Healthy Eating.


Transcription

This guide is  derived from The Happiest Choice: Essential Tools for Everyone's Brain Feelings. You can learn more about my book and the science of happiness at www.sageliskey.com

Please note that while the information contained herein is researched and has worked for me, I am not a medical professional and none of this is meant to be medical advice. As such I do not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented and disclaim liability for errors and omissions. 


1.   Deal with any situation causing your mental suffering and constructively communicate anything that needs to be said.

2.   Avoid triggering foods and substances, especially inflammatory ones.

3.   Get outside to nature or someplace you haven't been for awhile.

4.   Breathe deeply, meditate, and live in the present moment.

5.   Create something.

6.   Take some time for yourself and enjoy one of your hobbies.

7.   No direct sun exposure? Take vitamin D daily.  

8.   Eat a nutritious meal with anti-inflammatory foods.

9.   Go socialize or put yourself in a social environment.

10.   Schedule for the day and week ahead.

11.   Get enough sleep or take a break from work.

12.   Seek out a calming environment.

13.   See a therapist.

14.   Call a support line like the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255

This 6 page mini-booklet is available at www.etsy.com/shop/radcatpress along with other empowering mental health reminders.