David Treleaven, PhD is a writer, educator, and trauma professional whose work focuses on the intersection of trauma, mindfulness, and social justice. He is author of the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing published by W. W. Norton, which was a #1 New Release on Amazon.

He trained in counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, received his doctorate in psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is currently a visiting research scholar at Brown University.

He currently teaches with generative somatics, an organization that engages in trauma healing with social justice organizers, and is donating 60% of proceeds from his book to three social justice organizations that are challenging the social conditions that perpetuate trauma.

00:00:49 – Sean Fargo introduces David Treleaven and trauma-sensitive mindfulness
00:04:40 – Opening words from David
00:06:46 – The focus of David’s work
00:10:26 – Short mindfulness practice led by David
00:16:30 – Two different impacts that mindfulness meditation can have on trauma
00:26:00 – David offers his definition and conceptualization of mindfulness
00:26:50 – The spectrum of trauma
00:29:14 – Four ways that traumatic stress can occur
00:30:03 – Three categories of post-traumatic stress
00:35:03 – Four Rs of trauma-sensitive mindfulness
00:37:40 – Example of trauma-sensitive practice for yoga teachers
00:43:05 – A guiding question: Is the practice I am offering creating more safety and regulation or more unsafety and deregulation?
00:46:57 – Participant question: How can we best support someone who we know has trauma in their history?
00:54:01 – Can we support people through trauma-sensitive mindfulness while still working through our own trauma?
01:00:48 – Body scans in trauma-sensitive mindfulness practice
01:01:30 – 4-minute trauma-sensitive mindfulness exercise
01:09:25 – Respecting people’s strategies for safety
01:14:34 – Trauma is like Medusa
01:23:08 – Applying the brakes in mindfulness practice
01:31:16 – Offering different anchors to choose from
01:39:10 – Short guided mindfulness exercise for trauma
01:44:50 – Participant question: What is the link between trauma and dark night experiences?
01:53:47 – The sweet spot between creating safety and working with difficult material