Healing From Childhood Trauma With IFS & Self-Compassion

In this first lesson, you will learn about two key concepts: attachment and temperament. All babies are born ready for secure attachment with their caregivers, but if that is not possible for any reason, you may have developed an insecure attachment style. This will have affected your ability to form close relationships – especially romantic ones – throughout your life. You will also learn about temperament and why these lifelong personality traits shape the degree to which painful childhood experiences affected you. The experiential practice in this lesson is Compassionate Breathing, which will help you calm and soothe your nervous system and painful feelings like stress, anxiety or upset.

The second lesson introduces some more key concepts from the schema therapy model, that of core developmental needs and Early Maladaptive Schemas, or just schemas for short. Core needs are the emotional nutrients that every child needs to flourish and thrive. When these needs are not met for any reason, you will have developed painful schemas in your brain, which have a powerful impact on how you think, feel and behave. You will also learn about childhood trauma and emotional neglect, what we mean by those terms and the kinds of wounding they can cause, especially to a highly sensitive, developing mind and body. Crucially, as you move through the eight days you will learn that this wounding can be healed, with the right kind of trauma-informed love, support and guidance. Today's experiential practice is a four-part Self-Compassion Meditation, which is designed to help you first calm, soothe and steady yourself, before connecting with your Inner Child and sending them warm, compassionate energy and support.

This lesson helps you understand some key concepts from neuroscience about your brain and nervous system, in a simple, jargon-free manner. It's crucial to understand how your amygdala, called the 'guard dog' of the brain, can become over-active if we experience trauma, leading to hypervigilance, emotional reactivity and a constant background sense of threat and unease. You will learn about the prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for rational thought and calming more emotional parts of the brain, as well as beneficial qualities like mindfulness and compassion. And you will be introduced to the concept of 'neuroplasticity', which is both fascinating and hopeful, because it means that your brain can be moulded and changed over time, a crucial part of healing from trauma. Today's experiential practice is designed to help calm your amygdala and create a sense of safety and security – it's called the Safe Place Imagery and is a powerful technique for helping you feel calm, safe and peaceful.

In today's lesson we focus on understanding your nervous system and how it can become dysregulated by childhood trauma. We also look at the linked survival response of fight-flight-freeze, which is key to understand when you are healing the legacy of traumatic experiences. What commonly happens when we go through traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, is that one branch of our nervous system – the sympathetic – becomes dominant, leading us to feel high-energy states like anger, stress and anxiety throughout the day. You will learn how to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn helps you feel calm, safe and at peace. The experiential exercise today is Colour Breathing, which offers a fast, effective way to de-stress and feel more grounded, stable and in control.

This lesson introduces the concept of 'multiplicity of self' – meaning you are not just a single self but have many subpersonalities, or parts. It takes you through the IFS model, including young, wounded parts (exiles) and the parts who try to stop them being hurt again (protectors). You will also learn about Self, the rich, healing resources inside that is kind, compassionate and loving. Self-energy is the healing resource you need to overcome childhood trauma, or any other kind of painful early experiences. The experiential practice today will guide you in developing compassion for your Inner Child, even if that feels a bit blocked or hard to access at first.

In this lesson, you will learn all about self-compassion and how to develop this crucial skill, even if you struggle to treat yourself kindly right now. Drawing from Dr Kristin Neff's research into self-compassion, and her Mindful Self-Compassion course and practices, you will learn how important self-compassion is for your mental and physical health. It's also a key resource for trauma healing and dovetails perfectly with Internal Family Systems therapy, which you learned about in the last lesson. In today's experiential practice, the Compassionate Friend Meditation, you will meet a wise, kind being who will offer you advice and support for anything you may be struggling with. This practice will also help you feel calm, safe and at peace.

This lesson focuses on the Inner Critic, because it's a crucial part of trauma treatment and healing. Viewed through an IFS lens, the Critic is actually seen as a protector – hard to grasp if you Critic is loud, harsh and relentlessly negative! But you will learn that although the Critic does cause a lot of problems inside, it doesn't mean to – it's almost always trying to either motivate or protect you in some way. And IFS offers the unique opportunity to get to know, understand and then transform your Critic so it becomes an internal ally, not an enemy. Today's practice is the Fire Drill Meditation, which will help you begin to engage with your Critic from Self, in a calm, steady and confident way.

In the final lesson, the previous seven days' teaching is summarised and brought together. There is also a focus on post-traumatic growth – how you can flourish and find health and happiness in your life, even after childhood trauma. This holistic lesson details the many things you can do to improve your mental and physical health, from building a regular yoga and meditation practice into your life, to getting good-quality sleep and eating a healthy diet – both of which are increasingly understood to be essential for every aspect of your health and wellbeing. The final practice, Imagining a Happier Future, will help you envision and build the kind of life you want, now and in the future.