Tag: Trauma

The Impact of Trauma on your Mind and Body

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We carry our experiences with us 〰

Trauma is not just a category of experiences, it is also about our response to those experiences. An ongoing stressor can be a traumatic experience, as can the betrayal of trust in a relationship, a physical accident, or suddenly losing someone important to you. There is a broad range of events that are typically considered to be traumatic. It essentially refers to a wound.

We all have wounds.

What matters more than the event is how your mind and body responded to it both in the moment and afterward. If something from the past keeps popping up in your present-day life, it’s a good sign that the memory wasn’t properly processed or encoded like your other memories.

The degree of danger or intensity in an experience does not mean that someone will end up with PTSD. Humans all over the world experience awful, stressful things all the time, and not all of them continue to struggle with it. So why is that?

For a moment, think of humans as pots of water. We all start off with a different baseline of water (this relates to our biological predisposition and generational trauma). Then, life happens and water gets added. Throw in some heat, and the pots will start to boil over. Humans are similar. There are things that serve as buffers for us, that can help protect us from the unavoidable difficult parts of being human. So, maybe in this metaphor that would look like someone present in the kitchen attending to the pot. There is nothing wrong with a pot of water that boils over. It is just a result of the capacity and the events that unfold.

Trauma + your Mind

Trauma creates changes in how your mind responds to stress, and it also changes the functioning of your midbrain (amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus). Trauma can impair the functioning of your limbic system; which is involved in our emotional and behavioral responses, memory storage and retrieval, motivation, and learning. It can also impair our HPA axis, its role is to manage the effects of stress as well as our metabolism, immune system, and autonomic nervous system.

So, what does that mean?

It means that after experiencing a single or multiple incident(s), or on-going stressors your brain adjusts accordingly. In order to protect itself, the brain breaks up pieces of stressful memories instead of fully processing them. This is why you notice things we call triggers or flashbacks. Details like colors, sounds, smells, or images that are similar to a part of the fragmented memory will create a response as if the past experience were happening again in the present moment. On the flip side, trauma can also impair your ability to remember traumatic memories or important parts of the memory. These are normal changes in response to stressful and difficult experiences. Your brain does what it needs to in order to survive, not necessarily in order to return to your previous way of being.

You may notice yourself either being over-reactive (feeling on edge or overwhelmed) or under-reactive (numb and disconnected). Difficulty navigating heightened emotions, having a hard time getting in touch with positive emotions, or increased feelings of shame, guilt, self-blame, and despair are common emotional experiences.

Your mind’s perception of yourself, others, or the world around you often changes. You may notice yourself having a hard time feeling calm or resting. That is because your mind has been primed, or overly prepared itself for impending danger. This can show up as feeling on-edge, startling more easily, and feeling overly sensitive to your environment. Or the other end of the spectrum, this can be experienced as shutting down easily, feeling detached from yourself or disconnected from your environment, or feeling like you’re living in a fog.

“Let’s say you always considered your driving time as “your time”—and your car as a safe place to spend that time. Then someone hits you from behind at a highway entrance. Almost immediately, the accident affects how you perceive the world, and from that moment onward, for months following the crash, you feel unsafe in any car. You become hypervigilant about other drivers and perceive that other cars are drifting into your lane or failing to stop at a safe distance behind you. For a time, your perception of safety is eroded, often leading to compensating behaviors (e.g., excessive glancing into the rearview mirror to see whether the vehicles behind you are stopping) until the belief is restored or reworked. Some individuals never return to their previous belief systems after a trauma, nor do they find a way to rework them—thus leading to a worldview that life is unsafe. Still, many other individuals are able to return to organizing core beliefs that support their perception of safety.” (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2014).

Another difficulty may show up in your relationships, especially if you’ve experienced relational trauma. This can look like pulling away from friends and family, difficulty trusting, avoiding people in order to avoid reminders of your experiences, or for fear of burdening or negatively impacting others.

Trauma + your Body

Our entire being operates through systems and these systems are interconnected. So, just as trauma leaves its mark on our minds it also impacts our physical body as well.

“Diagnostic criteria for PTSD place considerable emphasis on psychological symptoms, but some people who have experienced traumatic stress may present initially with physical symptoms. Thus, primary care may be the first and only door through which these individuals seek assistance for trauma-related symptoms. Moreover, there is a significant connection between trauma, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and chronic health conditions. Common physical disorders and symptoms include somatic complaints; sleep disturbances; gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neurological, musculoskeletal, respiratory, and dermatological disorders; urological problems; and substance use disorders.” (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2014).

The nervous system is one of the links between our minds and our body. Your nervous system’s primary job is to constantly scan your inner and outer environment for cues of safety or cues of danger. Trauma can result in encoding neutral cues, or even cues typically encoded as safe, as dangerous. Which can mean that you may logically understand that you are safe, or that you are in a situation where nothing is wrong, but your body may be telling you the opposite.

Our bodies are always sending us signals and attempting to communicate with us, we just may not always understand what it’s trying to say. I’ve seen a quote floating around lately that says; listen to your body when it whispers, and you won’t have to hear it scream. If you’ve experienced something traumatic, your body also holds these memories mostly in its muscles and fascia. That is, until it can be released. For some, this presents itself through pain or muscle tension.

“The majority of the body’s systems are adversely affected by trauma. Specifically, there is a significant disruption to gastrointestinal functioning, the cardiovascular system, immunological functioning, the reproductive system, the musculoskeletal system, neuroendocrine functioning, and finally brain structure and functioning. Not only are these systems broadly affected by symptoms, but the risk factors for development of future medical disease are exponentially greater following exposure to trauma” (D’Andrea, et al., 2011).

Let’s talk about healing 〰

Healing our wounds happens in waves.

Some trauma healing happens just by getting ourselves to a state of stability. We want to hone in on increasing feelings of safety first. With any traumatic experience, we had needs that didn’t get met — things that shouldn’t have happened or things that should have and didn’t. In order to do the deeper processing, we need to feel safe and rooted enough to go there.

Some trauma healing happens through re-connecting. Re-connecting with your body, re-connecting with your sense of self, re-connecting with others. We can use the mind-body connection to help reconnect you in to your body and your memories with tools to help support you in the moments when things feel too much.

Finding practices that help you feel safe, connected, and embodied are a good place to start.

The next wave of healing entails going deeper. This is best done with a trauma-informed therapist. Brainspotting, parts work, somatics, and self-compassion is my favorite combination when working with trauma. In order to allow your brain to reprocess these memories and allow your nervous system to regulate, we need a tool that allows us to go beyond our conscious awareness of these wounds.

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If nothing else, know this. Your mind and your body are always trying to do the best they can for you and if you’ve experienced trauma all these symptoms are just signs that will take us exactly where we need to go. Healing is possible, I promise (:

You Deserve To Heal From Your Trauma

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I know you may not believe me when I say this, but please consider the following:

What happened to you was not your fault.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t.

And you can fight me on this. I don’t know you and I don’t know what happened after all. But I do know why someone would want to name themselves as the culprit for their own pain.

I know because I do it, too.

It is a coping mechanism. It is far easier to cast stones in our own directions than to admit we are in far less control of our lives than we want to be. And that sometimes, the people we trust do not have our best interests in mind or that sometimes life is terribly and utterly unfair.

So, we go inward and point fingers at our reflections. We see our faces in the lineups. We truly believe that if we are able to blame ourselves for all of those terrible things that happened to us, we can then avoid that hurt from ever happening again. It is a means of trying to control both the narrative and the future all at once. But mostly, it’s a matter of self-protection.

And yet, this method is insufficient. Because the pain is still there, isn’t it? And maybe that is because we are taking accountability for what was never our fault in the first place.

Healing from the traumatic is difficult enough without blaming ourselves for it. The truth of the matter is that we deserve to heal from our trauma. We must stop carrying the blame on our tired shoulders. We need to remember that what we went through does not define us. We are not our worst moments, we are not our haunting, and we are not our shattered pieces.

We deserve to move on. We deserve to take our power back. We deserve to get better. We deserve to heal from our trauma.

And I hope we give ourselves the chance to do so.

When You’re Healing From Past Trauma, Remember To Show Yourself Compassion

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I know that dealing with past trauma can be really tough. It’s hard when memories and feelings that you thought you had moved past come back up, but it’s important to remember that you’re not alone in this. There are ways to manage your trauma and take care of yourself in the process.

First things first: it’s important to acknowledge and validate your feelings. Don’t try to suppress or ignore them. Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling and know that it’s normal and okay. It’s a big step to recognize that you’re feeling overwhelmed and to take the time to process your emotions. When they come to the surface, when the tears are flowing, let them come. By doing this, you’ll be able to understand and identify your triggers better, which will help you in the long run.

Self-care is crucial too. Taking care of your physical and emotional well-being can make a big difference in how you feel. This could be as simple as going for a walk, eating nutritious food, getting enough sleep, or practicing mindfulness. Make time for activities that bring you joy and relaxation. And don’t hesitate to reach out to a trusted friend or family member for support. Talking to someone who cares can make a huge difference, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Working with a mental health professional can also be incredibly helpful. They can provide a safe and supportive environment to process your trauma and help you develop coping strategies. They can also offer tools to manage triggers and reduce the impact of your trauma on your life. A therapist can help you work through your feelings and experiences in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way, which can be incredibly healing.

It’s also important to be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for not being “over” your trauma yet. Treat yourself with the same compassion and understanding that you would offer to a friend. Remember that healing takes time and effort, and it’s okay to take it one day at a time.

Additionally, it’s important to understand that everyone’s healing journey is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Don’t compare yourself to others or feel like you need to be at a certain stage of healing by a certain time. Trust the process and be patient with yourself.

Finally, don’t forget to celebrate the small victories. Maybe you’ve made it through a trigger without panicking, or you’ve talked about your trauma for the first time with someone. These victories, big or small, are worth celebrating and can give you the motivation to keep going.

Dealing with past trauma can be challenging, but with self-compassion, self-care, therapy, and support from loved ones, it is possible to heal and move forward. Remember to be kind to yourself, take it one day at a time, and always reach out for support when you need it. You got this!

How To Mend The Adult Problems That Were Caused by Your Childhood Trauma

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Trauma is like an earthquake to our nervous system, an intense rumble in our core that shakes us with anguish for years. Our emotional wellbeing can be one of many casualties, along with our sense of confidence, trust, and our ability to feel safe. Every time we experience trauma, we risk irrevocable ruin. Sometimes, we hear the echoes of that ruin late at night, when sleep is too distant to reach. Sometimes it tugs at our gut when we least expect it, when we swear we were fully healed.

Childhood trauma can be the most detrimental of all, and can stem from any sort of caregiver neglect, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, or household challenges such as death or divorce. It doesn’t discriminate and can take a significant physical toll on the body as an adult. The trauma inflicted in our developmental years can impact so much of how we live, such as the way we cope with stress, regulate our emotions, and connect with others. It chisels from the inside out, manifesting in the form of drug addiction, sleep disorders, memory loss, learning difficulties, aggression, abusive relationships, OCD, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and harrowing PTSD flashbacks.

If you’re a victim of childhood trauma, that doesn’t mean you need to keep reliving toxic cycles or driving away good things and good people. There’s an old quote by American educator Randy Pausch that goes, “It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand.” What this means is that just because you were born into abuse, poverty, or absolute mayhem, that doesn’t mean you can’t rise above it. The challenges will be there, but that just means the victories will be even more fulfilling. Here’s how you can break the cycle once and for all:

Feel your feelings

There’s nothing more disruptive to the healing process than resisting our emotions. It is always healthiest to process our feelings (sadness, remorse, fear, resentment, anger, humiliation) when they first happen to avoid them getting trapped in our body and then saluting us again years later. Unfortunately, societal pressures can block this flow of emotions and cause us to repress what we are feeling until long after we should be moved on from the initial trauma. Remember, not every stab wound needs to scar. 

Face your demons

This one is perhaps the most brutal, but also the most necessary. And if you’ve been wounded by trauma, you most certainly have demons. If you can’t face the darkest parts of yourself, then healing is nothing but a pipe dream. We’ve all experienced shame throughout our tender histories, but that doesn’t mean we need to possess that shame forever. Acknowledge your traumas rather than try to deny their existence or minimize their impact. They are an important part of who you are today, and though they may be painful in their remembrance, they are there to help prepare you for what’s next. You are not responsible for your childhood trauma, but you are responsible for accepting it for what it is and using it as fuel to let it transform you into the best you can be.

Forgive, forgive, forgive

Never underestimate the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness has very little to do with the individuals we are forgiving, and everything to do with ourselves and letting go of stale, toxic energy that is holding us back from becoming the person we’re meant to become. Grudges are not only cumbersome cargo, they also wreak havoc on our physical wellbeing over time. Don’t forget to forgive yourself while you’re at it.

Accept help from others

One of the worst impacts that trauma can have on us in the long-term is our relationships with others. It can cause us to throw emotional barriers in front of those we love. It can cause us to spill poison from our mouths whenever someone tries to lend a helping hand. Speaking to a therapist or even just a willing friend can offer perspectives that differ from our own. It can allow us to be heard without judgment rearing its ugly head. It is through this empathetic exchange that we may be offered an ideal solution or, at the very least, be given permission to talk through the debacle so that we don’t feel so hopelessly alone. Sometimes all a heart needs to heal is the company of another.

Access the mind-body connection

Since trauma leaves its remnants in our mind and body, tapping into our mind-body connection can prove extremely effective. This includes everything from yoga and meditation to cognitive behavioral therapy or somatic therapies like EFT and EMDR. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of talk-therapy that focuses on rewiring the brain’s thought patterns and false beliefs instilled by trauma, whereas EFT and EMDR are body-based therapies that focus on releasing trauma through movement and other forms of nonverbal expression. There are also plenty of experiential therapies to explore, such as music, drama, art, wilderness, or animal-assisted therapy. No two people will respond the same way to therapy, so it’s worth trialing a variety of approaches. Remember, if you give your mind and body love, they will love you back.

The healing journey is never linear. It’s messy. Confusing. It backtracks. It hurts. But in the end, it’s always worth the trouble of opening the floodgates of your emotions, of dismantling old beliefs, of letting people in, of forgiving those who hurt you most, of locating the sad inner-child within you and loving him or her anyway. Because if you do, you will not reverse your history, but you will rehabilitate your present and your future. If you do, you will not eliminate your pain, but you will forever strengthen your ability to manage pain, until eventually turning it into progress. Trauma doesn’t always start with us, but its effects can most certainly end with us.

Read This If You’re Still Trying To Heal From Your Trauma

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Trauma is the deep wound that creeps up on you out of nowhere. It’s the hurt you think you got over but still says hello from time to time. It’s the fear, the panic, and the crippling anxiety that something terrible might be around the corner, because that’s the thing about trauma—it’s the thing you never thought would happen. It is nights spent crying and mornings that remind you of the past. It’s the joy tainted by deep-seated pain that has made your heart its home. It’s the fear of enjoying something good. Trauma shocks you and leaves you with all kinds of questions. It leaves you confused about how the world can be so cruel? It’s this element in your life you want to shake off but can’t unsee or unlearn. It happened.

And perhaps you will never shake it off. Perhaps it’s a terrible truth that you have to learn to live with. Sometimes we can’t sugarcoat it. Yes, we can try to work around the narrative, and we can try to heal, or we can try to justify why the world can be cruel and unkind. But maybe the pain doesn’t necessarily completely go away. Trauma often has long-lasting effects. It’s the thing that you don’t have to succumb to but rather have to fight against once you know its effect on you. Fear of abandonment? Anxiety attacks? Anger? You name it. You’ll have to work around it and I am so sorry you encountered a trauma in your life. It takes a lot to stand and face the pain. Traumatized people are all around us. 

But don’t lose hope yet or ever. Yes, you’ve experienced something heartbreaking, but you can also be the person to make sure that what happened to you never happens to anyone else. You can try to make the world a safer place and a kinder place. You can try to minimize the pain. I know your pain cripples you but trust me, when you play a role in making someone avoid the pain you felt, you’ll feel like you weren’t a victim, and you’ll set your heart free. You would be doing the opposite of what happened to you. You’d be making others feel safe, held and cared for. You’d make the world a less traumatic place. Your pain doesn’t have to drown you. Your pain can stir change. 

On that note, I believe there is a way to heal and that is by having something beautiful happen to us. Something unexpectedly soothing. Just like the trauma threw us off balance, something beautiful can restore it. I believe we can heal when something heavenly happens to us, something that almost feels like a dream. At least then we can say that the world is not only cruel but it can also be very kind. And it’s true the world has both, but we have to have experienced them to believe it. My wish for you is to experience something extremely wonderful that will restore your faith in humanity. But until then, start by doing that yourself, and there I think you will find what your heart needs. There I think you will set your heart free. There you’ll untie the knots in your heart.

10 Key Concepts Of Resonant Healing

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What are the 10 Key Concepts of Resonant Healing?

There is plenty of advice out there about how to heal from trauma and bring more self-compassion into our lives however we don’t often learn WHY we get blocked and how we can use that information to inform our healing.

The 10 key concepts of Resonant Healing are the foundational neuroscience concepts for healing. Understanding these 10 concepts gives us a scaffolding of understanding to stand on as we observe our challenges, and gives us a clear path to heal.

Concept #1: Resonance |  Concept #2: Self-Warmth  |  Concept #3: Neuroplasticity  |  Concept #4: Default Mode Network  |  Concept #5: Left and Right Hemispheres  |  Concept #6: Body-Centered Awareness  |  Concept #7: Vagus Nerve |  Concept #8: Traumatic Experiences Are About Loss of Accompaniment  |  Concept #9: Time-Travel Empathy  |  Concept #10: Circuits of Emotion + Motivation

Dive into the 10 Concepts of Resonant Healing

Concept #1: Understanding Resonance

Did you know that our bodies actually vibrate with emotion? And that each emotion has a different vibration? This insight comes to us through the work of Jaak Panksepp and his research into the mammalian circuits of emotion and motivation.

To truly understand resonance, we must understand that our bodies ACTUALLY vibrate with emotion. Anger moves us in a different way than sorrow. We are taken into emotional states that have qualities that are recognizable to other humans… as long as those humans are not stopping their vibrations in response to others.

There’s a diagnostic tool we can use to see where our own resonance is blocked: begin to notice when and why we step out of relationship (with ourselves, and others) and when we cannot be in the fullness of a particular emotion. For example, if we start to grieve and immediately become angry, this means we are unable to resonate with grief, and we have learned that it’s easier for us to respond with anger, rather than feel grief.

One major way humans stop their own resonance is shifting into the left-hemisphere. We do this when there is not enough capacity for self-regulation to be with the particular emotion that you, or another person is feeling or expressing. When we have emotions that we cannot resonate with, when our bodies can’t hold it in resonance, we shift out of relationship in order to care for our systems, to not get “flooded” with an emotion that we don’t want to feel.

Concept #2: The Healing Power of Self-Warmth

Have you ever noticed little humans (or even non-human mammals) who carry tiny stuffed animals or blankets with them everywhere they go? This is often a strategy for little ones to get an additional level of warmth that they aren’t receiving from their primary care-givers. If humans have failed us completely, it is often small non-human animals (including stuffed animals or inanimate soothing-objects) that can support us in having some sense of togetherness, warmth, and affection.

Certainly, we can receive warmth in other ways–whether from animals, plants, experiences of the divine–yet the experience of receiving warmth from humans is hugely important in order for our skull-brains to develop the unshakable self-warmth of secure attachment, through building fibers of attachment in the brain.

In the western world there are many religious traditions and that tell us that self-warmth is selfish or sinful. We are often encouraged to project warmth outward, as compassion for others or for the world, but warned that we shouldn’t turn “too much” of this warmth toward the self.

In my humble opinion, there is an absence of understanding in western culture about how deeply harmful loneliness is for humans, and how important it is that we learn to cultivate warmth for ourselves. I call this nervous system state of not receiving enough warmth, and not having internalized a loving resonating self-witness, “alarmed aloneness.”

Understanding how and why human brains need warmth is a key reason why resonant healing works to repattern our nervous systems toward kindness and resilience.

Self-warmth is about the integration and internalization of experiences of affection, presence, understanding, and kindness that come to us from others. If we haven’t received this as young ones, we can build it ourselves through cultivating our resonating self-witness.

Concept #3: Neuroplasticity is Real

Why is understanding how the brain works important to healing? Because neuroplasticity is the foundation for hope. And for faith in neural change and healing. Neuroplasticity has a number of elements – it is the science that shows us that neurons can find brand new connections between their branches, new receptors for neurotransmitters, and there can be strengthened connections through practice.

Our brains can actually change; we can grow our capacity for self-warmth and resonance, no matter how old we are, no matter what our genetic predisposition, and no matter how broken we feel. Neuroplasticity is real.

Concept #4: The Default Mode Network

Scientists are still discovering the secrets of the default mode network, but we know for sure that the DMN is responsible for integrating new experiences. It’s a bit like a tailor that stitches together our sense of self: who we are and how we are related to each other socially, it tells us the story of who we are. The DMN is our “inner voice” — the voice of the DMN is essentially our sense of self being reflected back to us as a voice that tells us about ourselves, what we’ve forgotten, how we have erred, etc.

The DMN is hugely affected by trauma. The more a person has experienced trauma, the more shaming and self-critical our default mode network becomes. Psychologists sometimes refer to this kind of self-criticism as “negative self-cognition” and we now know through fMRI brain scans, that this voice becomes critical through experiences of trauma. We are not born that way, our experiences of trauma can make our brains more critical and difficult to be with.

Surprisingly, the DMN is actually trying to help us. It tries to sew us together so we know how we experience ourselves in the world, based on what we’ve learned about who we are and what we deserve. It tries to keep us safe, to never be surprised again, to never make mistakes again.

Learning how to heal a cruel and fragmented DMN through resonance is a key concept to building a more cozy brain. But first, we need to understand that we make sense. Our DMN attacks us because it’s trying to help, but it needs to learn new stories.

Concept #5: The Left and Right Hemispheres

For the left hemisphere, other living beings are tools instruments. For the right hemisphere, people are souls, each holding knowledge and wisdom, and what is important is how the collective moves and holds each of our unique voices.

The left-hemisphere cares most about what we are getting done. Checking off our to-do list.

The right hemisphere cares most about how we are received and connected to others. How many other people in this room are connected to me? How can I contribute and belong in this complex ecosystem?

A key piece of understanding the differences between the hemispheres is in body-centered awareness – we find enormous treasures and meaning when we witness emotion through the body. Another reason we pay attention to the body, is that that’s how we know we are in the right hemisphere. The integrated body map lives here in the right-hemisphere, it has the capacity to decode the messages that are coming, to give them emotion words, and to understand a little bit of the deep-longings that are at the seat of deep emotion.

The left hemisphere has little ability to connect action and consequence on its own. Emotions are just inconveniences, they get in the way, they give us stomach aches, they are immaterial and just need to stop. Until it is introduced to the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere doesn’t know or understand the great gifts our emotions and bodies can offer us in accomplishing our dreams.

We have choice in how we live and perceive the world to whatever extent we have received resonance.

Moving into the right hemisphere is only possible to the extent that we receive resonance. This is why resonance is so KEY in healing trauma.

Concept #6: Body-centered Awareness

There are several reasons why we might have our bodies closed. We can learn this habit from our parents. And/or from really difficult things that have happened to us and have contributed to our default mode networks becoming lacerating, which then can prevent us from accessing our body’s sensations. 

(As an aside, this is why constellations are so beautiful, we get to be somebody else, but in our own body, allowing our bodies to safely experience intense emotions that are not ours. Like doing body-centered awareness push-ups!)

Concept #7: Understanding the vagus nerve

Perhaps you’ve heard of polyvagal theory, the work of Stephen Porges, fight-flight-freeze—etc? The vagus nerve is a huge bundle of nerve fibers that runs from our pelvie to our head and controls much of our lived experience and our perceived sense of safety and belonging, especially in terms of how we relate to other humans.

The term “ventral vagal” refers to the state of our nervous system that we are in when we have a sense that we are safe and we matter. Especially in western cultures, we tend to believe that the brain in the skull is all-knowing and in charge, controlling everything, including knowing when we are safe or not. But actually, only 10% of the vagal nerve fibers run downward; 90% of the fibers run UP to the skull brain from the body, giving us critical information about the world and what is safe (and what isn’t.)

What this means is that we can’t actually tell ourselves what to feel. We can be present, decode, hold and resonate with what to feel, but we can’t tell ourselves to be happy, when we are sad. If we’re neutral, in social engagement, relaxed and self-regulated, we can actually invite ourselves into a different state of consciousness. But not when we’re activated.

When we bring resonance to our experience of emotions, then transform the brain, we begin to structure our brains for – letting the body know, your message has been received.

When we have a neuroception of safety in our vagal nerve, our body shifts – we see more clearly, we hear more clearly, we decode, understand and we have a sense of both physical and emotional safety. Emotional safety is required for full functioning of humans. Understanding how the vagal nerve works is key to having compassion and understanding for experiences of fear, fight and flee, and freeze that occur without the thinking brain.

Concept #8: Trauma is about loss of accompaniment

Trauma isn’t not necessarily a house fire, an earthquake, a car accident, it’s not necessarily abuse or neglect. What determines if something is trauma is to what extent we are accompanied by warm-understanding during or after a traumatic experience.

Trauma leaves traces in the brain because memories that are difficult—-those that create alarm and are not resolved, where we move through social engagement into immobilization—remain as trauma-knots in human memories. The amygdala has the power of super-glue with memory, and when it grabs a trauma memory, it keeps it forever in present time! It keeps it here in the present in order to preserve our lives and make us safe. It wants us to learn from our experiences so it keeps them fresh, creating bubbles of trauma, the hell of the mean default mode network.

Understanding trauma means understanding that it’s not the event itself that creates trauma. It is how alone we were in it.

Concept #9: Time-traveling with Resonance

When we have traumatic experiences where we are not accompanied, the amygdala super-glues everything about the experience together and stores those memories in present time. It does this so that those experiences of terror/fear will help us to NEVER experience that thing again. Trauma is our brain’s way of trying to keep us safe by remembering all the times we didn’t feel safe so that we can avoid them again in the future.

While this is a hellish thing, to be always present with our feats from the past, this means that the DMN is eternally available for resonance. This is very hopeful! When we are resonating with experiences from the past, time-traveling with empathy to our younger selves, we are bringing resonance and self-warmth, leveraging neuroplasticity to change and organize the right hemisphere, create more body-centered awareness,and moving our vagus nerve into social engagement, so that we become the full people we are.

We can’t really know ourselves until we experience ourselves in a neuroception of safety. Moving knots of memory from implicit, amygdala-held memories, to explicit, hippocampus-held experiences, we’re able to time-stamp and contextualize the things that we have lived through.

Concept #10: Circuits of Emotion and Motivation

Understanding emotional circuitry is a huge piece of beginning to untangle the webs of trauma that keep us stuck. 

When Grief And Trauma Try To Break You Down, Let Them Break You Open

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If there is one thing I could impart to you it would be this; when life becomes unbearable and all you want to do is close down and shut the world out, when grief and trauma do everything in their power to break you, let them break you open instead. Fight to stay cracked wide. Let it in, everything. You cannot imagine the bounty that is on the other side of the mountain. Our greatest lessons are in the shit. Our biggest blessings are on the other side of fear. There will be times, many of them, when you fail at this. And to that I say good. Do so spectacularly. Do it thoroughly and with conviction. The greatest warriors get beaten down and they get back up and they don’t hide their failures. They turn them into fuel and ferocity. They use it to stoke their fire until it is a blazing inferno.

So let it all pour in. Let it fill every bit of you until you could burst with it. Let it devour you whole. Let it light you ablaze and let it burn everything down. And when you are nothing but smoldering ruin, rise from the ashes like the phoenix you are. Reforged and battle born. You are tempered steel now. You have more bend in you than break. Life does indeed have the power to crush you, but only you get to decide to remain dust or be remade. I hope you choose transformation. I hope you choose the sacred alchemy of your soul. I hope you lean into all of it. I hope you learn just what kind of warrior lives in you. And should life grant us the gift of crossing paths, I hope to see a tempest looking out through your eyes.

Read This If You Can’t Stop Reliving Painful Memories

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Pain can manifest in many ways, and it can rob you of your health. Perhaps somewhere along the way, you had a relationship that didn’t work out. Maybe you were disappointed by someone, or you concealed traumatic events deep down in the psyche of your mind, until one day, your body shut down. You’ve done all the research and steps for self-healing, and you feel worse by the day.

You eat healthy, exercise, and outwardly do all the right things for a healthy body. Why can’t I recover quickly? Why are my symptoms getting worse by the day? Inside you feel defeated and depressed. How many things can God strip me of before I say, “I can’t take it anymore, this is not fair!” 

It is then when you are at the end of your rope that you ask the question, “What are you trying to teach me?”

For me, it took a gradual ladder of physical pain to realize that this is a pattern for me. My body reacts by shutting down when I am stressed or keeping deep-seated hurt inside of me. How do I recognize this and move forward? How do I release the trauma of my past? Now that I understand how holding on to people or past events can hold energy in my body in a negative way, how do I begin the journey of healing?

I think I just did. I admitted that even though I believed I released and let go years ago, I hadn’t. 

Things were not progressing for me as they should. I struggled financially, I struggled in relationships, and I struggled with self-worth. 

Somewhere along the way, I believed that love was associated with pain and heartbreak. I must be feeling vulnerability, fear, and anguish deep inside. I handled that pain somehow, but more in the ways of disassociation.  

I recognize now that I need to clear the fear of intimacy, pain, and betrayal on a cellular level. That message that love means pain is no longer accepted. I am moving through anger and resentment. I am moving through sadness, embarrassment, and fear. I am releasing all those negative memories that are holding me hostage. It is my God-given right to be loved, and I have so much love to give.  

I deserve that joy; I can handle the pain if it happens. 

The joy is worth the risk. I have learned things from past experiences. I am allowing love and the need to block it or hide away from it. I am allowing love to find me.

But first, I need to acknowledge the pain. The events that have taken place were hard, I wish they never happened. The experiences continue to play over in my mind. These memories tend to be triggering and I relive the pain. Why do I keep doing this? A part of me says, if I rewind and play one more time, maybe I will figure things out? Maybe, I am just looking for clues hoping to remember something important and then it will be safe to let go.

All these reasons why I can’t be done with it? It’s like my tape recorder reliving the upset feelings. What I have learned is that I am clearing this need to relive or be triggered by these memories. 

It is unfortunate what happened, it sucked, but it’s in the past, and I got through it. The proof is that I am still here no matter how horrible it was.

I am setting myself free to feel peace. I choose to love, honour, and respect myself. I am revealing the truth of my pain; I am walking through that hurt to see the value in myself. I am understanding that it is okay to feel pain and then release it to allow love to come forward.  

We are magnets to our thoughts and vice versa. 

Our minds can hold on to traumatic events that cause obstacles in our trajectory to move forward. There may be times that you feel like giving up; dig deep through the mental and physical anguish. Allow yourself to be quiet and ask the question, “What are you trying to tell me?” There will always be an answer once you quiet your mind.  

Be kind to your past hurt. Do not drive over it, drive through it – acknowledge it and feel the feelings associated with the experience. Then let go. It’s okay to let go – you have much more life to live with happiness waiting for you. Believe!

Some Unsolicited Advice For People Who Give Unsolicited Advice About Mental Health

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If you have a mental illness or are in recovery, you’re likely not a stranger to unsolicited advice. I know it’s something I hear a lot, so I get how overwhelming and frustrating it is, which is why before I go any further, I want to ask you a question. Why is unsolicited advice unhelpful to someone with a mental illness or a person with substance abuse challenges?

  • Unsolicited advice is more for the person advising the person needing support for their mental health, according to Verywell Mind. 
  • Unsolicited advice oversimplifies complex conditions like trauma, addiction, and a mental health diagnosis.
  • Unsolicited advice is patronizing, invalidating, and can be traumatic, making a person feel worse and ashamed of themselves. 

As you can tell from the above points, unsolicited advice is more harmful than helpful. A big reason is unless a person has lived experiences with things like a mental health diagnosis or an education in psychology, understands trauma-informed care, or has experienced adverse childhood experiences. It isn’t easy to understand how complex these challenges and similar ones are. It takes years to understand mental illness, substance abuse, or anything related to psychology or mental health, for that matter. 

I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t support a person; I’m trying to say you first need to learn how to support someone, and even though supporting a person can be tricky, it is possible. A great way to start is by keeping the following questions and tips in mind when supporting someone.

Why does a person’s language and beliefs around mental health and substance abuse matter when giving advice?

The average person doesn’t realize the complexities of living with a mental health condition or substance abuse issues. Otherwise, I hope they wouldn’t be telling people things like “Why can’t you just quit?” or “Go for a walk” and other helpful statements. Like my favourite one: “Isn’t everyone a little ADHD?” Those forms of advice and microaggressions are toxic and cause a person to feel things like shame and disempower a person. 

When you speak like this, you’re telling a person who is likely already nervous and hesitant about doing things like taking medications or seeing a therapist and other forms of support that those options aren’t helpful. You’re also invalidating their experiences when you downplay or mock a person. I get how everyone has an opinion, but it’s time people realize opinions aren’t facts. Those stigmatized opinions negatively impact the person on the receiving end more than you realize. 

Instead of focusing on unhelpful opinions and beliefs, my best advice is to try focusing on educating yourself with the help of peer-reviewed sources and asking questions to people like doctors, pharmacists and therapists, and other professionals. Otherwise, your inaccurate beliefs and opinions can stop or scare a person from receiving much-needed medical care, dramatically decreasing their quality of life. 

How can you make a person feel validated and that you care about their issues, challenges, and diagnosis?

You can start by advocating for a person who wants to see a psychiatrist or takes medications instead of making them feel bad for seeking professional help. While telling them things like there’s no shame in taking medication or seeking professional help and respecting their boundaries around getting treatment, seeing a therapist, or going to a 12-step program. 

You can also own your incorrect words, attitudes, and behaviours. Yup, that’s right—owning those things and learning healthier, more medically accurate beliefs. I know admitting you’re wrong isn’t fun, but it shows you care and respect that person enough to properly educate yourself and take a better approach to support them. 

When you do things like this, you’re telling someone they matter, and as a person with mental health challenges, I can tell you this simple step can mean the world to someone. Another thing you can do is advocate for them to get treatment and positively talk about seeking professional help instead of saying things like it’s a weakness or makes you a burden. 

That’s why it’s important to realize what we say and even what we post, share, and like on social media can send a message to someone that you think they matter. But unfortunately, it can also indirectly send a message that you don’t think mental health challenges are valid, making a person feel even worse causing them to suffer in silence instead of getting the help they deserve.

It’s time people started focusing on building others up instead of tearing them down before they don’t understand what certain people have been through in their life. Lastly, below are a few ways advocating for seeking help for mental health professionals is beneficial to someone from Healthline and my personal experiences. 

  • Just because you’re a parent or friend doesn’t mean you know more than a mental health professional trained in CBT, ACT, medications and medication adherence, and other helpful interventions. Professionals also have in-depth education in diagnosing mental illness, trauma, and other healthcare resources.
  • Don’t shove their past challenges or mistakes in their face because doing so does nothing but shame a person and make them feel worse. Also, if a person is getting annoyed at you for disrespecting their boundaries around seeking help for their mental health, that doesn’t mean you’re a snowflake or overly sensitive. It means that you’re putting your message. It means that you’re interfering in something that you have no right to interfere with, plain and simple. 
  • Seeing a mental health professional is great for empowering us to gain a healthy understanding of our emotions and reframing our inner dialogue.
  • Just because a celebrity, health guru, or influencer posts something about mental health doesn’t mean that that advice should be taken over the advice of a qualified mental health professional.
  • It’s better to be non-judgmental and compassionate and give us a safe place to share our thoughts, feelings, and struggles instead of judging us for those things.

Here’s Why It’s So Important To Name Your Trauma

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What is trauma? Trauma is anything that splits your life into a before and an after.

When trauma finally registers as what it actually is, and you allow yourself to acknowledge and name it, you will start to see the ripples that your traumatic experiences have cast throughout your life. You will begin to identify behavioural patterns within yourself, as well as chain reactions that all link back to specific moments in time.

Trauma and demons have one thing in common: naming them gives you power over them. Identifying them within yourself is the first step to exercising them, freeing yourself of their influence as well as the chains that bond you to the shadows of your past. You cannot heal what you cannot name. Once you name your trauma, you might even find the courage to share your experiences with others, helping them name and heal from their own.

One thing I have learned upon naming my own trauma is that the only power I seem to have over the bad things that have happened to me is how vulnerable and open I am willing to allow myself to be in the retelling of them. Sometimes, you have to take back the power your trauma holds over you by finally letting yourself talk about it. Sometimes, you have to heal loudly in order to heal thoroughly. Though there are some things that you may never fully heal from, speaking or writing about the experiences and shedding light on the ugly parts of the healing process and coping mechanisms picked up along the way can help lessen the load for yourself, as well as someone else. When the truth hits the air, it tends to weigh less. It becomes easier to carry, especially when other people who can relate make you realize you don’t have to carry it alone. I think that’s why I write. To let go, but also to give others in similar situations something to hold onto.

Please trust me when I say that your story and experiences are so important, and you will impact and save so many people as you choose to share what you have been through. So, name your trauma, because once you identify it, you will understand that it is an entire entity that is separate from you. Name your trauma so that someday, you will be able to give it a proper introduction to other people who need to hear about it the most. Name your trauma so that others may find the courage to name and heal from their own.