Guidance on healing

Healing trauma

For those of you who need the how, here are steps for healing trauma. Many of us have a wealth of knowledge about the why, but not the how. Also, you need to address both your bodily trauma and cognitive distortions. While there are many or enough tools to address this, they are scattered everywhere and people may not know where to begin.

What does healing trauma involve?

It is basically identifying and meeting unmet needs from childhood, and living a satisfactory life that comes from a healthy emotional baseline.

Healing comes with knowing yourself and what you want, understanding what you do and its impact on your life; why you do it, and how you can achieve what you want or what is in your best interest. You then seek the who, what and when.

Healing is intentional. It is a commitment. When you address your trauma initially, the work is intense. As you heal and beyond therapy, you will still need tools for self-management and to self-parent just like you would parent a child in your care. We have needs until the end of life. However, with tools we can navigate challenges and meet our needs in healthy ways.

Concepts I found helpful include:

1. Emotional intelligence . I do not belive you can heal trauma without emotional intelligence.

Components

1. Self-awareness - Emotional awareness

2. Self-management- Emotional regulation

3. Motivation - What is your why? Root cause analysis.

4. Empathy - Social awareness

5. Social skills - Relationship management

2. Stoicism is the underpinning theory for most therapeutic practices and a quality life. I live by the dichotomy of control which allows us to take responsibility for our lives. It minimises focus on others to blame or accuse, which can stunt growth.

3. Self-love

Without self-love you cannot demonstrate an example by which you are loved. There is a book entitled Becoming the one by VZM on Amazon which lists around 28 self-love components. It teaches you self-love in and outside romantic relationships.

Simply put, use five love languages and five senses.

4. Existential Well-being

Four dimensions of existence need to be addressed and not one of them needs to be left out.

Physical- The body and environment

Social - We cannot thrive without our connections. We are here because of others and thrive because of others.

Psychological- The most neglected

Emotional and mental existence.

Spiritual- We are more than flesh and blood. We cannot touch or see the air we breathe.

5. Finally to understand your trauma, you need to explore inner child work. It starts with who am I, and explores significant events in your childhood. Again, a toolkit is on Amazon.

I understand the confusion of going from one concept to the other. I therefore created a tool containing tools from all these concepts to address four areas of existence.

The concept is called Love on three levels.

It also includes a self management tool called SIFTSEM which can help you heal and answer life questions. Used daily for 30 to 60 days SIFTSEM helps improve your relationship with your body, reduce mind-body gap and also helps you familiarise yourself with your triggers. It minimises emotional dependence and helps you become more self-reliant as well as being able to ask for help in a healthy way.

I advocate daily practice for self-commitment and to develop new healthy habits. We eat daily, we socialise daily,we need to address our emotions and spiritual dimension daily too.

Love on first level

Trigger management

1 First thing you need is to improve your emotional baseline using self-care daily practices/rituals.

2. To manage triggers during or post or experience the moment.

3. To reflect on your behaviour post trigger and learn to act differently in future.

4. To evaluate your previous solutions and adjust them accordingly.

5. To maintain or sustain the improved baseline.

When you are triggered

Assess your trigger score

What are the exacerbating factors?

Is there a history from a relationship with the person or who triggered you?

Are you hungry, stressed?

Have you been practising self-care? If I do not practice self-care I can easily get triggered.

1. Sit with your discomfort or if you are busy or at work, excuse yourself briefly, do a brief soothing ( hug, hand on heart, soothing words, cathartic shake).

Ensure you address trigger later as if you are still experiencing it to avoid repression. With time you can SIFTSEM really quickly.

What is your distress scale from 0(calm) to 10 (very distressed)

Sensations, images, feelings and thoughts.

Identify root cause.

When triggered, your past trauma( unmet need) is brought to the surface by something in the present. You need to address both by creating solutions to :

1. Soothe your nervous system right now. Use five love languages and five senses to calm yourself.

The dichotomy of control.

Apply reframes and role reversal.

2. Create intermediate solutions relating to both unmet needs and the situation that triggered you. These include reaching out to the second level( immediate circle) and also what you might do on the second level and love on third level.

3. Create long term solutions to continue intermediate solutions and evaluate them.

Assess your trigger scale post evaluation.

Second level

Express a boundary or contact your immediate circle for a brief share or to do something to feel good. Avoid too much venting. Give and receive love.

Share interests.

Third level.

There are others out there struggling with difficult life experiences. Support them too. Give your gifts to avoid inward focus.

I will share more and explore one of these components at a time