Many people are not ready to admit they’ve experienced trauma. Some run at the sight of the word, thinking it’s a term new-age spiritualists throw around in discussions they have regarding raising their low vibrations higher. To others, acknowledging their trauma feels like putting a flashlight on something they want to keep in the dark. For many, recognizing trauma is affecting them can feel like telling themselves a sad truth. Trauma makes people feel broken and uncomfortable. And often it steers them to time travel backward, dredging up painful memories. However, one’s life can improve substantially by intentionally healing trauma.
Here are five tips to get you started with your healing journey.
1. Accept that You Have Experienced Trauma
It’s time to acknowledge the trauma. You know what happened. You don’t need validation from anyone else to know the truth. What you do need is to admit the truth to yourself. And not blame yourself for the truth. This is an important first step. Unfortunately, it’s not the easiest step to take. But it’s often the step needed to find relief from the trauma. This is an act of acknowledgment, not of self-sabotage. Self-blame, guilt, and other disserving feelings have no place here even if you feel something was partially or entirely your fault. If you don’t accept that the trauma happened, you can’t naturally expect to understand how you’ve been affected by it. And that means you won’t overcome the effects you’re currently experiencing as a result of it.
2. Seek Help and Support to Acknowledge Your Trauma
Perhaps you feel you can’t accept the trauma on your own. In that case, the services of a therapist or coach or the listening ear of someone you really trust that is also supportive and non-judgemental can come in handy. Mental health professionals are required to keep your discussions with them confidential by law. Be selective about who you decide to share this sensitive topic with. And refrain from sharing it with people who may directly be involved with the trauma.
There are other options for acknowledging your trauma, as well. One option is posting anonymously on an online mental health professional forum just to get it off of your chest. Another option is journaling. Write out your acknowledgment in a journal or somewhere you can have privacy, then throw it away. Also, you can try a support group or hotline, as well. Keeping your trauma unacknowledged can result in you behaving destructively, suffering in silence, and much more. And you don’t deserve that. Give yourself the opportunity to heal.
3. Be Proactive about Healing
Think of healing primarily as an independent practice. Not only is it a form of self-care and self-love, but it symbolizes the beauty of you having the capability of providing yourself with “medicine”. The only person that can help you truly heal is yourself. Don’t misinterpret that to mean a mental health professional can’t assist you with healing. It just means they can’t force you to show up for appointments or do the activities they may assign you. You are fully responsible for doing the actual work.
The key phrase here is “your trauma”. This journey is all about you and nobody else. You should have full agency when it comes to your healing. The only person capable of knowing what feels right or wrong for you is you. You don’t have to stay in a constant state of distress, because that’s what living with unhealed trauma feels like. Take the initiative to heal, and watch your life begin to heal in more ways than you thought possible.
4. Set Realistic Expectations for Healing Your Trauma
Approach your healing with realistic expectations. No, sharing what happened isn’t going to make all the pain associated with the trauma disappear. It’s possible that you may find that someone you thought you could trust might not respond to your truth in a positive or expected way. Nevertheless, remember that the pros far outweigh the risk of not acknowledging your truth. Also, realistically, you may never understand why something happened or why it had to be so painful. Unfortunately, some wounds don’t close. Still, you can heal open wounds completely or a tiny bit by accepting that which you can’t change.
Healing is a non-linear process. We can’t control when traumatic experiences may occur or when someone’s shirt will remind us of a person we loved that we’ve lost. Certainly, there will be reminders of our trauma as we live on. But we must learn to be okay with this because we can’t control it. Outrunning all of our triggers isn’t possible.
5. Do Healing Activities
Healing should be holistic- involving your mind, body, and soul. Spending time in nature can lower blood pressure and stress hormone levels, reduce nervous system arousal, enhance immune system function, increase self-esteem, reduce anxiety, and improve mood. Also, it can reduce feelings of isolation. Regular physical activity not only improves your quality of life, but it can also decrease depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress. There are several other types of activities that can feel healing such as engaging your creativity.
Likewise, building a spiritual practice can benefit you after you’ve experienced trauma. It can make you feel connected to the world and to others. Dissociation can occur after being traumatized, and having a spiritual practice can help with it. Moreover, a spiritual practice can help you feel calm and in control of your life, while enabling you to feel gratitude for life and empathy for others. Thankfully, you don’t have to be religious to build a spiritual practice, regardless of what some claim. Like healing, spirituality doesn’t look a certain way. Whatever feels comfortable to you works so long as it’s not harmful.
If you’ve been in denial about your trauma, now’s the time to be honest with yourself about it. Don’t continue to pile things on top of it in hopes that it will go away. The cold, hard truth is that it won’t. Things will manifest from the unresolved trauma. Additionally, don’t think you have no one to turn to about your trauma. Seek help and support and give yourself the luxury of healing. You deserve it.