5 Tips to Aid Your Trauma-Healing Journey
Along the path to healing from trauma, there are points where you may get stuck. At the beginning, you could feel too scared or hurt to even start the journey. Once you’ve begun, the pain might put you in emotional distress. Whatever point you’re at, this article will give you tips and guidance to better cope with trauma. You are more resilient than you think, and it is 100% possible to completely heal from trauma and continue to live a meaningful life.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional response to events that make a person feel threatened, helpless and extremely distressed. The event can happen once or occur over an extended period of time. Trauma temporarily hinders a person’s ability to function well in their day-to-day lives.
Symptoms of Trauma
As a result of trauma, survivors may experience chronic stress, fear and anxiety throughout their lives. Other trauma symptoms include:
Shock and denial: Trauma survivors can have trouble processing their emotions or believing what has happened by repressing their memories.
Apathy: Numbness is the brain’s way of shutting down due to extreme emotional trauma and coping with events that are too difficult to feel.
Withdrawal: Bouts of depression and high sensitivity commonly result in reduced social interaction with family and friends and lowered participation in activities you previously enjoyed..
Exhaustion: The emotional reactions to trauma are draining and cause a lack of energy and motivation.
A change in appetite: When combined with other factors, a shift in eating habits can indicate a shift in one’s normal mental state.
Sleeping more or less than usual: Problems such as insomnia are common in trauma survivors, though some people are compelled to sleep more as a form of avoidance.
Effects of Trauma
Trauma can impact the body in many ways. Physically, it can lead to:
Chronic fatigue due to insomnia
Increase in discomfort, such as occurrences of headaches and nausea
Increased heart rate
Weight loss or gain
Because trauma responses can go on for some time, the symptoms can take a toll on one’s mental health as well. Trauma can cause depression and anxiety or worsen ongoing mental illnesses. It can affect one’s interpersonal relationships with those close to them. A lack of motivation may make it difficult to perform well at work.
For some, the body’s response to trauma and the emotional impacts do not gradually go away. It can incapacitate a person’s daily life to an extent where it is disabling. In this case, the trauma may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD. Complex PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that lasts for months or years. PTSD is characterized by triggers that bring back painful memories of trauma, and it causes chronic dysfunction and strong physical and emotional reactions.
Mental health issues caused by trauma are diagnosed by a professional. If you suspect you are suffering from the aftereffects of trauma, it’s best to seek help. At the same time, it’s safe and useful to get into some healthy practices alongside therapy that can move your inner trauma-healing journey at your own pace.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt, a SolTV Founding Creator and licensed clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of practical experience, helps clients determine what’s causing trauma. Then, she teaches healthy techniques and coping skills to manage it. If you are in emotional distress, these coping mechanisms can be especially helpful to reduce stress and anxiety:
1. Remember that recovery happens in stages
Processing trauma requires working through a lot of your baggage, digging through your past and coming face-to-face with painful memories. Don’t expect quick results—that kind of mindset will make you feel worse when you hit inevitable stalls or obstacles in your journey. Generally, there are five stages to trauma recovery. They are:
Pre-trauma characteristics: the traits held before beginning the healing process
Rumination: processing and accepting the pain within
Event centrality: a turning point when you make a decision about going forward with your trauma
Control: taking active steps to cope with your trauma symptoms
Mastery: adjusting to life post-trauma. At this stage, your trauma no longer controls you. This is the end goal of trauma treatment.
If you’re reading this article, you are most likely at stages one through three.
2. Don’t isolate yourself
While it may be tempting to withdraw from social interactions when you are in mental pain, isolation is not beneficial to recovery. Spending time with your friends and family will remind you of your support system and help you to heal.
Another option is to join a support group for trauma survivors. Being with a group of people who are all experiencing what you’re going through can make you feel heard. It may even inspire your recovery.
However, if you don’t feel comfortable talking about certain things while you’re recovering, it’s totally fine to set boundaries and connect with others while protecting your mental health. When you’re spending time with loved ones, be sure to let them know if there are any topics you aren’t ready to discuss.
3. Take care of your body.
Because of the mental and physical side effects of trauma, it’s so important to maintain healthy habits. Exercising regularly can boost your mood by releasing endorphins, which relieve pain and stress. Also, getting a good amount of sleep—about 7 to 9 hours a day—and avoiding drugs are ways to reduce the stress, depression and anxiety associated with trauma.
4. Practice healthy coping skills
In a series of videos, Dr. Feinblatt provides effective and achievable techniques to cope with trauma. “Dropping anchor,” the “spiral technique,” “neutral affirmations”—if you haven’t heard of those before, learn about them here. The coping mechanisms Dr. Feinblatt teaches are applicable to everyday life and will be an invaluable aid to your healing journey.
Dealing with trauma doesn’t have to be daunting. In Dr. Feinblatt’s videos, you will learn to identify the roots of your trauma and the coping skills you can use to manage it, plus quick and simple calming techniques to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress along the way. If you’re looking to improve your mental health, enroll now in Dr. Feinblatt’s Masterclass, “Coping Skills: The Missing Step In Your Trauma Healing Journey.” This recorded masterclass + live Q&A session will assist you in starting or continuing your trauma healing journey by teaching you the coping skills you need. Trauma recovery expert Dr. Feinblatt will share some of her most effective coping skills with you so you can finally get the healing you seek.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt, a Sol TV Founding Creator and licensed clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of practical experience, helps clients determine what’s causing trauma. Then, she teaches healthy techniques and coping skills to manage it, the second step in overcoming burnout.
In a series of videos, Dr. Feinblatt provides effective and achievable techniques to cope with trauma. Dropping anchor, the spiral technique, neutral affirmations—if you haven’t heard of those before, learn about them here. The coping mechanisms Dr. Feinblatt teaches are applicable to everyday life and will be an invaluable aid to your healing journey.
Dealing with trauma doesn’t have to be daunting. In Dr. Feinblatt’s videos, you will learn to identify the roots of your trauma, the coping skills you can use to manage it, and quick and simple calming techniques to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress along the way. If you’re looking to improve your mental health, enroll now in Dr. Feinblatt’s Masterclass, “Coping Skills: The Missing Step In Your Trauma Healing Journey.”