A fact of life is that what is built or formed can be damaged or broken. Think of a dropped crystal glass, a tree branch that snaps off, a bike wheel that gets bent or a cliff of ice that falls away from a glacier. Some material items can be fixed, and some will remain imperfect or changed.
Those of us in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL) can similarly correlate material aspects of our humanity. When we suffer a cut, our skin can regenerate; when we break a bone, it can mend to become strong and whole again.
The human spirit mirrors the material world in that it too can be affected by outer forces that can alter its state. However, it transcends material traits in that it has unlimited potential to heal from what it may have endured.
Unlike the branch that snaps and falls to the ground, forever separated from the tree, a broken human heart can gather its pieces wherever they might be perceived as lost and return to being complete, often with even greater resilience.
Healing from trauma is possible for all of us when we care for ourselves with openness, awareness and love.
Life can be truly unfair. Crisis, conflict, abuse or violence can cross our path and rearrange how we think and feel, affecting our peace and stability, as well as our health.
By stealing our sense of safety, trauma can make us feel uncertain of who we really are. We become consumed by the feelings, thoughts and memories of the traumatic pattern or event.
To cope, we may develop trauma responses such as escaping through pleasure or self-medication; living in a state of denial, leaving untreated symptoms to interfere with us; or seeking approval from others to achieve self-validation.
Different people process and react to different events in different ways. One person's trauma might last for weeks; another's might remain for decades. In either case, what we most long for is a return to a personal safety that only we can define.
In supporting our clients from Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville, we've seen how trauma can impact a person's daily life and inner being. Above all and most important, we've seen how many of them have reconnected with themselves by remaining open to healing and growth through trauma therapy.
The journey to reconnecting with the self and reclaiming hope includes important steps such as the following.
Ensuring personal safety and defining what it means
Our sense of safety is ours alone. In reconnecting with ourselves, we need to learn where our safety has been compromised. This allows us to move into that area, help to heal it and re-establish proper boundaries.
We might achieve this through person-centered somatic therapy in which we "listen" to what our body requires from us. We might also engage in calming strategies as well as methods for regulating our responses to our trauma-based emotions and memories.
As we increase the bond with ourselves, our calm strength will gradually reveal itself to our family, friends and ultimately the wider public. We will also find that we can break away from what we considered our old life as we continue unhindered into our new life.
Embracing our new life might mean limiting or ending contact with individuals or situations that have not been healthy for us. Evaluating our relationships is central to defining and ensuring our safety.
Allowing ourselves to grieve
If we suffer an injury such as a broken bone, we can feel frustrated in that we understand we have lost healthy function of that bone for a time.
The same holds true about our emotions. When we experience trauma, it is common to feel a sense of sadness or grief. A part of us recognizes that a deeper part of ourselves has been changed and may not serve us in the same way until it is fixed.
As we recover from trauma, part of reconnecting with ourselves is allowing ourselves to mourn without becoming stuck in our grief. We need to be gentle and patient with ourselves and permit space to express what an experience has done to us.
If that means we cry because of our pain, so be it. Grief is the organic healing of an emotional injury. Through healthy, healing grief we free ourselves from dampening damaged feelings that then can seek temporary or unhealthy ways to cope.
When we grieve in the way our spirit intends, we already begin our approach to our post-trauma future in which we reclaim our sense of personal agency.
Keeping a close eye on shame
A common impact of trauma is that it leaves us with wounds caused by something beyond our control to prevent. Because it was outside of our control, we may not always be able to achieve the reparation we need with the trauma source.
With so much pain and nowhere proper to direct it, we might then turn that pain inward, where we cast the blame upon ourselves. That in turn can develop into shame, anxiety and an increasing sense of failure and self-doubt.
Although they are often instinctive, we must avoid such tendencies. We need to recognize that when we start to feel shame, it is our way of directing our pain at an easy but misguided source of blame. It also obstructs healthy grieving that can restore our sense of safety and control.
Healing from trauma takes focus, effort and time, but the rewards can sustain for a lifetime. This is especially true when you remain connected to a support system of trusted, positive people who care about you and what's best for you.
At Empowered Life Therapy, we help to nurture connection with the self by promoting a growth mindset and an inner ear for what our body and spirit want to say to us.
The brain has amazing power to heal through neuroplasticity. That is the brain's ability to re-form synaptic connections, particularly as they concern brain function impacted by trauma and intense chronic stress.
Healthy, meaningful trauma therapy might also include somatic therapy, which looks to join the mind, body and spirit through body-based psychotherapy. It blends talk therapy with activities such as dancing, breathing and meditating to train the body to release the stress and tension it stores.
Just a few other approaches through trauma therapy can be:
person-centered therapy
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
cognitive processing theory (CPT)
dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)
acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
With more awareness of the brain, the nervous system and the body's inner sensations, clients from Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville can move toward mindfulness in the moment and away from the anxiety and hypervigilance that are often responses to trauma.
Trauma therapy at Empowered Life Therapy is here to support you in removing the barriers to the clarity and peace of mind you deserve. We truly care about helping you live your best life.
To find out more about how we can support you as your "trauma therapist near me" for Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL), call us today at (630) 842-6585 or complete our contact form
Kasey Huff