Red Willow Learning Center

Nourishing the Human Capacity for Resilience, Optimism, and Hope.

Blog Posts

Creating a Safe Place for Veterans Dealing with Military Trauma

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by Roy Savage, HTOP Coordinator

For many veterans, the battles do not end when their service concludes. Military trauma—whether from combat, training, or the burdens of military life—can follow them home, manifesting as invisible wounds that shape their relationships, careers, and daily lives. These experiences can leave veterans feeling isolated, misunderstood, and reluctant to share their struggles. That is why creating a safe place for them begins with one simple but powerful act: listening to understand.

Listening to understand is different from listening to reply. It means entering a conversation without judgment, without rushing to provide solutions, and without minimizing what the veteran has endured. Too often, well-meaning friends or family members try to “fix” the problem quickly, when in truth, what most veterans need is to be seen, heard, and validated. By offering patient, compassionate listening, we build trust and give veterans permission to speak openly about what they carry.

A safe space is not defined by walls, but by presence. When veterans know they can speak without fear of being dismissed or stigmatized, they are more likely to take the courageous step of sharing their stories. That safe space can be a living room, a coffee shop, or a community group—it exists wherever empathy and respect are practiced. Creating it requires humility: acknowledging that we may not fully grasp their experiences, but we are willing to learn and to simply stand with them in their journey.

Ultimately, listening to understand is an act of service in itself. It honors the sacrifices veterans have made and helps restore their sense of belonging. In a world where many feel alone with their pain, offering a safe place through genuine listening can be the first step toward healing, connection, and hope.

Moving Mindfully Through Pain

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by  Mari Hodges, MScMed (Pain Mgmt), TPS, M.AmSAT, AAPTA
Therapeutic Pain Specialist & Certified Alexander Technique Teacher

We know that movement and physical activity are good for us, and for almost anyone experiencing persistent pain, movement is positive. But if moving hurts, it’s hard to get very motivated to move. When movement is accompanied by pain, why would you want to?

Moving mindfully can help us to live more easily with persistent pain and bring back more control over life when it’s been taken away by pain. Mindful movement means being present in your body and your surrounding space in the moment as you move. Mindful movement is a dialog with your body. It means not shying away from movement and not doing too much.

So how do you do it if you have persistent pain?

First, I believe it’s helpful to think about why you would, because our beliefs play an important role in how we feel and what we do about how we feel. A key thing to know is that pain and injury (or tissue damage) are not the same thing. Pain in its normal role keeps us from doing too much, but in many chronic pain conditions, that function goes awry. Persistent pain typically involves hypersensitivity of the nervous system such that things that won’t damage us hurt. Knowing that pain doesn’t necessarily mean damage can help us to re-engage with physical activity.

The next thing to know is that movement can actually help reduce pain, while continually reducing movement will likely make it worse over time. Physical activity improves our health and positively influences our metabolism as well as sleep, mood, beliefs and quality of life. These things all make us more resilient to chronic pain.

It doesn’t mean that we should plough through pain, come what may, though – that’s where mindful movement comes in.

For me, to move mindfully means paying attention not only to pain, but also to non-pain related sensations, thoughts and relationships. For example, we might pay attention to breath, qualities like smoothness or ease, the way that we use our eyes, or the wholeness of our body. We might think of moving through water or noticing ease. We might explore spaces and contact with the ground, air or other. We might also consciously choose to release muscle tension, lower our center of gravity or nonjudgementally observe ourselves.

Including these kinds of things in our awareness as we move may help us in ways beyond what “mindless” physical activity can. It is likely that moving mindfully improves our mental maps of the body, the clarity of which is also linked to chronic pain. It can help us to have greater choice in how we direct our attention and how we move, expanding our mental and physical options. A mindful movement practice may help us discover that we can have more choice!

Another benefit is that we may actually become aware of ability to move without pain. Our brains tend to focus on experiences that confirm our expectations of pain. When we are fully present in our movement, we’re more able to notice when we are actually moving with ease.That increases our expectations of ease and safety, as well as future experiences of ease and safety.

There are many kinds of mindful movement practices – Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, forest bathing, tai chi, yoga, and some kinds of dance, among others. Each has its perspective on moving mindfully and can help with increasing awareness, reducing fear and easing into movement safely. Mindful movement practices tend to take things slowly, giving us time to find safety within and to reflect.

Other physical activities like walking, swimming – even housecleaning! – can be done mindfully to help us move more easily through life. And while it can be tempting to listen to music or a podcast or watch a video for distraction while doing physical activity, we benefit from being present to what we are doing.

Chronic pain can keep you from doing things that would actually help with becoming healthier, more resilient and more comfortable in your body. If movement is challenging, a guided mindful movement practice can be helpful to get you feeling safer and more comfortable with movement.Developing a personal mindful movement practice can help us to reflect on how to move more easily through life.

Staying Present, Staying Sober: A Daily Mindfulness Practice for Recovery

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by Mary Beth Barba

Recovery is not just about breaking free from substances—it is about reclaiming the ability to be fully present with ourselves and our lives. Mindfulness offers a daily anchor, reminding us that healing is not about perfection but about showing up with awareness, even when it feels uncomfortable. Those who walk this path in Mindful Recovery demonstrate incredible resilience, choosing each day to face themselves with honesty and courage rather than numbing or escaping.

Our participants practicing mindfulness are building healthier relationships—with themselves and with others. Through the gentle practice of pausing, noticing, and breathing, they’ve been learning to set boundaries to protect their well-being and nurture their growth. They have discovered a new capacity for self-compassion, recognizing that setbacks do not define them but rather become part of a larger story of strength. This ongoing practice has transformed not only how they relate to their own struggles but also how they show up in the world—with authenticity, care, and a deepening sense of connection.

In many ways, mindfulness in recovery has been a daily act of bravery. It is the quiet but powerful decision to choose presence over avoidance, compassion over criticism, and growth over stagnation. It affirms that the path to staying sober is not just about avoiding what harms us but about embracing what heals us—awareness, kindness, and the unshakable strength found in the present moment.

From Combat Stress to Inner Stillness: How Veterans Are Using Mindfulness

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by Amy Friedman

While I don’t personally know what the stress of combat entails, I can imagine why the veterans that I meet with keep coming back to sit together in meditation week after week. I have had the privilege to share Mindfulness Meditation with veterans every month for the past six years. Many have returned on those Thursday afternoons to learn ways to manage their stress response, create non-judgmental awareness, and absorb a community of support. Some have come out of curiosity or a recommendation from a friend. They return because it helps them navigate life’s ups and downs and find ways to slow down enough to respond versus react.

It is here that we spend time together in shared silence and stillness, absorbing sensations, settling thoughts, sifting through emotional states, and practicing coming back to the present moment again and again. A practice that is simple but certainly not easy. We learn how to use mindfulness to calm the nervous system and create alternatives for choice to emerge; choices based on empowerment and agency versus fear and caution.

At the end of each session, we share our insights and what is present in our hearts and minds. I am repeatedly reminded of the gift of sharing mindfulness in a community setting. The veterans share their applications of these practices to aid in sleep, relationships, family situations, and with body ailments. Like one veteran said this past month, “that practice felt just like putting on a perfectly fitting baseball glove,” it heals and meets them exactly as they are.

The Power of a Growth Mindset

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by Kathy Mangan

“Perhaps it is time to level set the mindset.  Even though some confuse “growth mindset” with terms such as grit and effort, that is not the case.  Effort is involved but it isn’t just about effort.  Far more than effort, your mindset is about your access to support and your repertoire of strategies to help you solve problems.  Effort is your means to an end, not the end.  The end is that learning is improving.” (Dweck, 2015.)

Carol Dweck, one of the foremost authorities on fixed and growth mindsets really helps us understand the power of thought as it pertains to trauma resilience.  The way we view the events of our lives matters.

Dweck acknowledges that there is probably no such thing as a PURE growth mindset.  We are mix of growth and fixed mindsets.  We, at the same time, believe that we can improve through effort and learn strengths and abilities and also that are abilities are just what they are.

Those of us with a fixed mindset see intelligence as static.  This sets us up for feeling threatened by the success of others, to avoid challenges, to give up easily, to ignore feedback and to expect reward without any effort.  On the other end of the spectrum, those of us with a growth mindset see intelligence as something that can be developed.  This opens us up to embrace challenge as opportunity, to be inspired by the success of others, to put in the effort required to retrain our brains and to use feedback as guidance to help us grow.

The great news, once you recognize where you fixed mindset patterns of thinking are, you can begin to shift them.  Exploring your relationship with “what if I fail?”, accessing the those in your life who support you and actually listening to them, recognizing that you do have choice, and then acting on the choices that you identify are key to getting started.

Benefits of Yoga for an Aging Population

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by Harriet Alterowitz

How would it feel to have better sleep, smoother breathing, a less sluggish body and a general feeling of well-being? Recent research on yoga and meditation among our older population continues to be promising in proving that with a few simple additions to our daily routines we can become more vital, more energetic, and also bring a sense of calmness and contentment to the mind.

The research is revealing that yoga and meditation don’t just help us relax or keep us flexible; these practices also influence memory, lifespan, and immunity. Yoga influences the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (calms/steadies) and reduces activity in the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight/freeze). This means that when we practice yoga and meditation we experience a reduction in the stress hormone, cortisol. The result: yoga and meditation can create change at a molecular level in the cells of our bodies!

In addition, regardless of age, the essential element is how often you practice and not how seasoned you are. Even more good news is that it’s never too late to get started and start reaping the benefits!

Before I started practicing yoga, I worked as a Personal Trainer at The Women’s Club Fitness Center in Missoula, MT. In my mid-forties I noticed that my otherwise strong body was beginning to develop ever more frequent strains and sprains. As a dancer, I’m intimately familiar with discomfort, especially after a hard workout. But this was different. To my uneducated mind, the best solution seemed to be to work harder, stretch deeper, keep going and “push through” the discomfort. Wrong decision! Really, really wrong!!!

“Don’t believe everything you think.”

– Robert Fulgham

When that ill-informed decision made things worse, I decided to take a yoga class. My mind was so busy that I could hardly focus on the teacher’s words! Since the movement was slow, it gave my mind all the space it needed to reflect on the past and peer into (or overthink) the future. At that point in my life, I had no conception of “mindfulness” or “centering.” I just liked to move my body.

Fast forward ten years and I’ve fallen in love with yoga. I can’t wait to learn more—to attended seminars, workshops, teacher trainings, all sorts of programs to deepen my love and knowledge of this transformational practice. I have become a lifetime student of yoga and, better yet, I’m also in a position to teach others; to lead people on the path of staying healthy in body and mind and to tailor the practice to the aging process. All of us are aging; I’m in my 70’s now! All of us are facing the life changes and challenges that are a part of the process.

“Trust yourself first.”

– Judith Hansen Lasater

As we age our joints become stiffer. We lose muscle mass and function. Our nervous system slows. Yoga for Healthy Aging moves the joints and exercises the muscles in a mindful and healthful way. We learn techniques to stabilize the breath and regulate the nervous system. We learn to quiet the critical thoughts and welcome self-supporting, progressive relaxation.

Here are some things I’ve heard about yoga:

  • I could never do THAT!
  • I’m too fat.
  • I’m too busy.
  • I’m not flexible enough.
  • I’m not strong enough.
  • My balance is terrible.
  • I’m afraid I’ll hurt myself.
  • And many, many more.

And here are some things research into the benefits of yoga has shown and which I believe:

  • Yoga offers tremendous benefit to our aging population.
  • Yoga is for (almost) everyone of every age and body size, when done with appropriate modifications and props.
  • Yoga changes the brain so that we become less fearful and anxious and more relaxed and confident.
  • Yoga makes us stronger in both body and in spirit.
  • And many, many more.

Yoga for Healthy Aging classes teach traditional yoga movements in sequences with instruction given at multiple levels. You pick the level to practice. You always have the option to do less or more. This practice tones the body without pressure or competition. It’s your practice at your level. Will everyone find the same love of yoga that I have? Maybe not. Will everyone reap the same benefits and is everyone physically capable of practicing yoga? No. But the vast majority of people, when provided with careful, informed instruction, can practice a form of yoga at any age and at almost any level of physical ability. Of course, the practice of yoga, like our bodies and minds, will change as we age. Mine certainly has. But I invite you to see the positive changes it the former can bring about in the latter.