The Power of Threes
by Dr. Kixx Goldman

HAPPY NEW YEAR & DECADE – It’s the 20s again.

They say the New Year is a time for reflection.

How many of you are serial book readers? And how many of you, as in musical chairs, circle between two or three or more? What category are you in?

The other day it struck me that I’m hopping between three books–what’s more, their topics and genres seem unrelated. This prompted some musing about the power of threes. Not having knowledge of Numerology, I did a little research. I wasn’t thrilled when I read the negatives about “Number 3s.” I chuckled when I learned they tend to be somewhat scattered, unfocused, and impulsive.

Though I have to claim some ownership of these, I choose to identify more closely with the positive attributes: A balanced Number 3 represents an upbeat, expressive, creative, playful, inspiring, and uplifting energy…perhaps even childlike in nature.  Whoa, creative and playful, I’ll take those!

With this positive frame in mind, I recalled the three seemingly unrelated books I’m reading to see if I could find a common thread: “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma” by Peter Levine, “Better Than Me: Three Generations of Inner Strength” by Albert Quihuis” and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I began by considering at Peter Levine’s main thesis in Waking the Tiger. Levine says, “Contrary to popular belief, trauma can be healed and he believes in taking immediate action after trauma (for example, not stifling it with drugs). The essence of his approach is to employ a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. This is the opposite of what we frequently dwell in: a rehashing and retelling of the traumatic experience.

At that point, I thought of Albert Quihuis’s book about the three generations of strong women, and remembered Veronica’s grandmother, Manuela, and how she took immediate action to pull up stakes and begin a new life after the trauma of her husband’s shooting death.

The connection of Gatsby with the others was not as immediately intuitive until I remembered that ultimately, main character, Nick, dealing with the trauma of his experiences in New York, what he thought he wanted isn’t what he needs. He decides that, as a westerner, he is unsuited to eastern life, and returns to the Midwest.

Granted, there is much more that could be said about each of these books but not within our scope here.

So, what did emerge from my search for possible relationships between these three books I’m reading? It comes under the heading of healing trauma, which coincidentally? is one of the main themes in my recently published book, “Speak from Your Heart and Be Heard.” When I finished writing and had it edited last spring, healing trauma was a major theme that surfaced. Like the characters in my short stories, we can find the courage to transform difficult and traumatic life experiences and reclaim our power through speaking our truth. Speak from Your Heart and Be Heard offers the reader a guided tour of unique and powerful approaches to healing trauma.

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Speak From Your Heart and Be Heard: Stories of Courage and Healing is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle and some independent bookstores.

Warm thoughts,
Kixx Goldman