What an Amazing Goal for Trauma Healing

Summary

The website outlines the goal of trauma healing as achieving a balance between exploring and feeling safe, integrating language with bodily sensations, and reconciling past memories with present aliveness.

Abstract

The Trauma Research Foundation emphasizes the importance of balance in trauma healing, advocating for a pendulation between exploration and safety, language and the body, and past remembrance with present engagement. This approach encourages self-curiosity for psychological understanding but stresses the necessity of doing so safely to avoid emotional vulnerability that hinders healing. The article acknowledges the limitations of language in expressing the full impact of trauma on the individual, suggesting that therapeutic activities beyond talk therapy, such as yoga or creative expression, can facilitate healing by addressing the physical manifestations of trauma. It also highlights the brain's difficulty in distinguishing between past, present, and future, advocating for mindfulness and meditative practices to stay grounded in the present moment, thereby reducing the impact of trauma triggers.

Opinions

Trauma healing requires a delicate balance between exploring one's trauma and ensuring personal safety to prevent re-traumatization.
Language, while important for connection and problem-solving, is insufficient for fully conveying the impact of trauma; complementary therapeutic activities are necessary.
The physical symptoms of trauma must be addressed through body-focused therapies like yoga, exercise, or creative arts.
Mindfulness and meditative practices are crucial for maintaining a focus on the present and mitigating the brain's inefficient distinction between past trauma and current safety.
Emotional vulnerability and curiosity are encouraged, but only in environments where individuals are supported and safe.

To pendulate between states of exploration and safety; between language and body; between remembering the past and feeling alive in the present.

Balance, as described by the Trauma Research Foundation, is an integral goal for trauma healing. Specifically,

To pendulate between states of exploration and safety; between language and body; between remembering the past and feeling alive in the present.

Yes, to identify the psychology underlying our behavior and emotional health, it’s imperative we be self-curious. With this, there is growth, evolution, and solutions. But, equally important, is to explore safely, with the correct people at the correct times in the correct situations. To do so otherwise places us an in untenable emotionally vulnerable state, which is the opposite of healing.

So, do not repress. Talk and connect to others. Be emotionally vulnerable and curious. But do this — safely.

Language, while necessary for connection and problem-solving, fails us when traumatized. We can describe what happened to us, but words fall short when conveying to another how the trauma truly affected us. How it impacted us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way. Yet trauma sits in the body. We feel it in our chest, in our stomach, in our muscles, in our neck, and in our head.

Tell your story, safely, but recognize that words alone are insufficient. Something other than or in addition to talk therapy is where we might find healing. Pay attention to where and how in the body your emotions reside. Then engage in a physically therapeutic activity: yoga, exercise, drawing, writing, acting, singing, and so on. P

Our brain is inefficient when it comes to distinguishing between the present and the past. We worry about the future, even though there’s nothing we can do about it until it arrives. We ruminate on the past, all the while knowing we cannot change it. And our traumatized brain, when triggered, believes it is re-experiencing the trauma and offloads into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode.

Humans discovered long ago the value of remaining in the here-and-now. It’s calming as it reminds the brain to focus on the present rather than worrying about what might happen or dwelling on what came before. Identify and routinely engage in mindfulness, meditative, or breathing practices, such as exhale-focused breathing, progressive relaxation, non-sleep deep rest, grounding, and the like.

To pendulate between states of exploration and safety; between language and body; between remembering the past and feeling alive in the present.