Amber Mountain in Northcote, Victoria | Community organisation

Amber Mountain

Locality: Northcote, Victoria

Phone: +61 3 5968 1283

Address: PO Box 692 3070 Northcote, VIC, Australia

Website: http://ambermountain.com.au/

Likes: 324

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25.01.2022 The next theme we are focussing on is courage. According to the Collins English Dictionary, "Courage is the quality shown by someone who decides to do something difficult or dangerous, even though they may be afraid." Or from Oxford Living Dictionaries: "The ability to do something that frightens one". The etymology of the word courage is "Middle English (denoting the heart, as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ‘heart’. The most important thing for... us about courage is that it involves fear, and this implies a level of vulnerability that we are only just beginning to recognise, or re-discover in the West. So, courage is not acting without fear, but rather acting despite fear. We all face choices every day that call for courage. Please share with us your own experiences with courage ... when have you acted with courage? ... when have you observed someone else be courageous? ... what does courage mean to you?

24.01.2022 Hi everyone! We've been working on our Social Media Strategy and have developed the following vision ... "Providing access to information, creating room for dialogue, making space for reflection, building community and joining with global efforts to move toward healing." This whole project for us is about much more than our own work. Amber Mountain aims to share new and genuinely innovative ideas on therapeutic and trauma-informed practice. We seek to make connections, and ...build a community of practice. We also seek to shift our current thinking and to explore much needed new paradigms. We look forward to sharing this journey with you on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. Love and peace Faorligh and Tracie

22.01.2022 Our second theme is courage ... our founder reflects on this aspect of our platform here at Amber Mountain ....

21.01.2022 Its finally here ... our website!!! And here's what we need from you: we need you to send the link to anyone you think might be interested. Particularly those of you who Manage teams, or work in teams where your colleagues might want to do training in trauma-recovery or leadership, or for any of you who need a day of self care! We are particularly trying to let people know about our training in July (which is coming up soon!). Thanks for your help with this, and for your ongoing support ... love and peace, Faorligh and Tracie x https://ambermountain.com.au

20.01.2022 More thoughts on courage ....

19.01.2022 It has been an amazing start to Amber Mountain and we are so appreciative of the support and encouragement we have received. The website will be up and running shortly but if you have any inquires in the mean time please don’t hesitate to contact us. #ambermountain #ambermountainmelbourne #developmentaltrauma #neuroscience #caringforthewounded #selfcare #training2019 #traumatraining #hopeforhealing #relationshipsthatheal #supervision #consultation

18.01.2022 HOPE As a beautiful comment on social change and movement towards a kinder, more just society, where healing is optimised, we at Amber Mountain wanted to share this lovely post by The Lucy Daily. Whatever your experience with the election, may we all remain hopeful that, together we can create a better world for future generations x

18.01.2022 Message from our Founder ... on our current theme: HOPE

18.01.2022 HOPE One of our longer term dreams at Amber Mountain is to provide Equine Therapy as an option for young people in our communities who have experienced trauma. Our founder, Faorligh has a young horse that she is training up for this purpose. He is a beautiful Fresian, called Dochas. For those of you interested in this new and growing field of therapy for trauma survivors, Meggin Kirby (in Gestalt Journal of Australia and New Zealand, 2010, Vol 6 No 2 Pages 60-68. 2010, GANZ...) describes the power of this intervention .... Horses are beautiful, strong and gentle animals. They are both prey animals and herd animals and offer an exquisite combination of sensory and feeling awareness, and fullness of contact. Horses can provoke strong images and feelings, deep yearnings, projections, transference, and profound embodied experiences in many people. As Freeman (2009) states "horses live the essence of Gestalt" in their natural capacity for awareness, contact, congruency and organismic self regulation. These capacities are incredibly potent for many people out of touch with their own sensitivity and immediacy of experience. People challenged by patterns of incongruence (for example, having an inner experience of hurt that is disconnected from or covered by a bodily or behavioural pattern of holding/tensing and smiling), receive immediate non- judgemental feedback by the horses. Because horses are prey animals they are tuned to the inner experience of those around them so as to keep them safe from predators. If a lion, full in the belly and needing a drink from the water hole, approaches, the horses sense the lion's intention, and continue grazing with awareness. If that same lion is hungry and stalking, the horses respond by fleeing to safety. Incongruent humans who approach are responded to by horses with either confusion or stress, or, they respond to the inner experience, rather than the behaviour that is presented. These are the gifts they bring to the therapy process. Kohanov and McElroy (2007) in The Way of the Horse suggest that we can explore the wisdom of non-verbal, non-predatory, heightened sensory and extrasensory being that horses embody. Specifically Linda suggests that learning about a horse's way of being honours and speaks to trauma survivors, people who feel powerless and sensitive people who feel betrayed by our aggressive, disconnected and mechanised culture. Linda describes how horses model strengths of cooperation over competition, relationship over territory, responsiveness over strategy, emotion and intuition over logic, process over goal, and the creative approach to life. "When we respectfully climb on their backs, walk beside them or sit in their presence, these animals interrupt the hypnotic effects of our own human conditioning giving people unusually efficient access to forms of healing, perceiving, and relating". (Kohanov & McElroy, 2007, 206)

17.01.2022 COURAGE Laura Beveridge inspires us with her courage. May we take her example and re-commit to supporting all of the most vulnerable children in our community to reach their potential, and to feel loved ...

15.01.2022 Capturing the illusive but critically important function of hope in our lives ... may we all have hope, create hope, give hope, and hold hope for ourselves and for each other

12.01.2022 Always a privilege to deliver training in order to support people in their learning and honor their commitment to walking life with young people who have experienced significant developmental (and often ongoing) trauma. . #ambermountain #ambermountainmelbourne #developmentaltrauma #neuroscience #caringforthewounded #selfcare #training2019 #traumatraining #hopeforhealing #relationshipsthatheal

12.01.2022 HOPE We are spending the next little while focussing on themes: initially the five platforms of our work: hope, courage, stability, curiosity and story and then other aspects of therapeutic life story work and broader community building and healing efforts. Our current theme is hope and we found this beautiful description from Michelle Obama ... we love it when hope takes on a life of its own!

11.01.2022 We came across this thought provoking podcast of Maria Popova of brain pickings speaking with Krista Tippett. https://www.brainpickings.org On the relationship between critical thinking and hope: "Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, and hope without critical thinking is naivety" Please share with us your thoughts on hope and critical thinking ...... https://onbeing.org//maria-popova-cartographer-of-meaning/ See more

09.01.2022 One step at a time #ambermountain #ambermountainmelbourne #developmentaltrauma #neuroscience #caringforthewounded #selfcare #training2019 #traumatraining #hopeforhealing #relationshipsthatheal #courage #youvegotthis #onestepatatime

09.01.2022 Wherever we work we seem to be supported by beautiful cuddly creatures. Although it was a productive day, one of us may have been a little distracted at times. . #ambermountainmelbourne #ambermountain #productivity #pettherapy #developmentaltrauma #neuroscience #caringforthewounded #selfcare #training2019 #traumatraining #hopeforhealing #relationshipsthatheal #traumarecovery #youcantgivewhatyoudonthave #leadership #cultivatingcuriosity

07.01.2022 We’ve reached 300 likes/followers on our little page! Thank you all for your support, for your commitment to vulnerable children and young people in our communities and for your belief in us and the work we are doing. Onwards ... Please remember to like and share our posts whenever you can so we can reach more people and build a stronger community x

07.01.2022 HOPE Maintaining hope can often be a challenge, particularly in the face of significant suffering, that of friends and family, our own, and the array of reasons within our broader global village to feel hope-less. Being proactive in building (and re-building) our hope can help us all to be better able to hold hope for each other (and for our clients for those of us working directly with trauma). Journaling, writing, inspiration cards, can all help to ignite hope in us and to keep the flame of hope burning brightly. What do you do to maintain hope in what can a times seem a hope-less world? How do you creatively manage your thoughts and actions when life gets tough? We look forward to hearing from you .....

05.01.2022 A great piece on alternative paradigms and how important it is what we use as our frame of reference ... much of what we value is immeasurable ... how do we ensure that we still attend to these vital aspects of life ....? Please tell us what is immeasurable to you ....

05.01.2022 COURAGE Thanks Van Badham for this great shot of the statue of Millicent Fawcett a leader in the suffragist movement, unveiled last year in London. We love the notion that courage calls to courage everywhere. Courage can be a unifying force, a core element of our human experience #vanbadham #equality #courage