Trauma

Trauma:

A deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may be associated with physical shock and sometimes leads to long-term neurosis.

Traumatic experiences can side-swipe us and push us off our course. Recovery is possible and can even bring about growth if we do the work. Trauma work is deep work that takes dedication to yourself.

Here are five things you can do for yourself to begin your journey through trauma;

1.      Accept yourself completely. Your inner self has probably been juggled around a bit and you may have forgotten who you were. Even worse, depending on the trauma, you may have been prevented by others to get to know yourself. Take the time to dig deep into the things that bring you passion and learn to love those things that make you unique.

2.      Work on identifying when you are stuck in cognitive distortions like all or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, jumping to conclusions, mind reading, and more. Step back from that type of thinking and take the emotions out. This can relieve you of reactive thinking that is not healthy.

3.      Do your self-care. Eat healthy, get realistic levels of sleep, drink plenty of water, take time to calm down, exercise, and talk to someone that listens without judgement.

4.      Develop a healthy social circle. If you know what brings you passion and you go out into the world and do those things you will find others that like the same kinds of things. Look for others that have those same passions and check your energy levels after spending time with them. If they bring your energy up, try to spend more time with them. You become like the five people you hang out with the most.

5.      Remember that healing is a process and your traumatic experiences aren’t going to get better overnight. f it is too much to deal with alone find a therapist you can feel comfortable with to talk it through.

If you need some support give me a call

Karen Van Acker LPC