Learning

The hope circuit is the name for an electrical circuit in your brain that lights up and connects the areas that make it possible for you to hope, dream, and imagine.

Whenever we spend time hoping, dreaming, or imagining, we are doing two very important things: shutting off the fear circuit and increasing neural connectivity to the hope circuit. Over time, this helps us rewire our traumatized brains and bodies so that we can experience more peace, happiness, and joy.

The communities and courses below represent a collective hope circuit.

It’s here because sometimes our own circuits don’t have enough juice. So, this is where we connect to support each other, create together, and rewire our brains along the way.

Tiny Little Joys Course

The Hope Circuit is a space for thoughtful conversations about grief, joy, trauma, and healing—where we explore how to find hope and meaning, even in life’s hardest moments.

Subscribe to join The Hope Circuit community for live virtual events, movie nights, Hope Lab conversations, and more! Multiple membership levels are available.

The Hope Circuit

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What are tiny little joys? Simple yet powerful memories designed to cultivate a habit of noticing and appreciating small moments of happiness in everyday life.

Tiny Little Joys is a 3-hour course on the neurobiology of joy and how to begin the practice of empowering tiny little joys to take shape in your day-to-day life.

Empowerment-Based Trauma Training: A Teacher’s Guide

The Empowerment-Based Trauma Training curriculum equips educators with tools to help students—and themselves—navigate emotions, reframe the trauma response as a strength, and build resilience.

Designed for all age groups, this curriculum introduces practical strategies for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and fostering connection in the classroom.

Rooted in four key principles, it empowers students to understand emotions as natural, adaptive responses and offers teachers a flexible framework to integrate these insights into their teaching. By recognizing emotions as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles, this curriculum helps create a more supportive and engaged learning environment.

Coming soon: full curriculum access.

• What is trauma? The latest science that undoes the stigmas of shame, blame, and humiliation
• Moral injury—having our basic sense of how the world should work overturned
• The truth about triggers—what they really are and how they can guide the healing journey
• Traumatic patterns—new findings to help break free from recurring habits and toxic dynamics
• Why we can always rewrite our inner narratives, no matter how much time has passed
• Finding a “relational home” for trauma—how we can help each other return to wholeness

In the Unbroken course, learn:

Unbroken Course

Dr. McDonald's profound new approach to healing trauma, grounded in a radical reframing of how we understand this nearly universal experience, was first introduced in her book, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong.

Alongside the groundbreaking work in Unbroken, this course explores misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology—and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body’s coping mechanisms to accelerate healing.

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