How To Heal From Trauma

In this talk, I share what has helped me personally and what I have found useful when supporting people therapeutically. This includes professional support, daily meditation, mindfulness, somatic awareness, psychoeducation, writing, exercise, martial arts, community, and learning to understand the different parts of ourselves shaped by trauma.

I also discuss the reality that healing is rarely linear. New layers emerge, old patterns become clearer, and progress is often better measured through functional improvements such as sleeping better, working more, socializing, and feeling calmer in everyday life.

Finally, I explore the possibility of post-traumatic growth and finish with a simple grounding practice to help return attention to the present moment and remind yourself: I am here now, and this moment is safe.

Note: This is general information drawn from lived and professional experience, not individualized therapeutic advice.

Transcript

How do you cope with PTSD? Great question. The first response is that anything that I say here is general, Broad advice. Not directed specifically at your situation. Okay? I can speak to what has worked for me and what has worked when I work with people with PTSD or complex PTSD in a therapeutic context, Broadly speaking. The first one would be to seek professional support and guidance from a qualified and competent therapist. I know that that may not be the best answer, But when you are dealing with things in the past, And just for context, PTSD and Complex PTSD is how we have responded to things that happened in our life that were too much, That were overwhelming, That was not safe. Bad things happened, Either a big bad thing once, Or many bad things often, Or a combination. This leads and has led to feelings of confusion, Identity, Roles shifting. It can lead to feelings of triggers, To overwhelm, To dysregulation to dissociation to a whole variety of down the line mental health concerns, Anxiety, Depression. A whole variety of things. And the support of a competent therapist, I think, Is a must. Because you're treading on things internally that can pop up, A trigger can make us feel like we are back there. And they've done brain scans, And when people are remembering these events, The memory parts are activated, But also the vision and the hearing in the here and now parts of the brain activate. So it is a very real and scary experience to be triggered. And we need to be guided through it. So that's the caveat to all of this. The way that I have learnt to process and heal from my complex PTSD and PTSD is through a variety of different practices done daily. Daily meditation. Daily meditation, I can't stress that enough. Returning to the here and now. Returning to the here and now. My mind wants to wander into the past or worry about the future. It's like, No, We are here now and we are safe. Mindfulness in particular, As a base practice. This is what is happening. Not what happened back then. Not what happened back then makes me tell about what I think might happen in the future. It's like, No, This is what is happening now. Constantly returning myself back to the present moment. Another thing that I find great value from is somatic awareness, That is mind-body connection. Trauma makes us out of our body, Makes us not want to be in our body, Makes our body feel unsafe. The body keeps the score. So a mind-body connection, Feeling the feelings in the body, Safely, Once again, Very slowly, With the support of a therapist, Is good for me. And that has led to the practice of intuitive guidance. Finding where in the body I'm holding onto these things, The past parts that have gone through those traumas, And acting as my own loving inner parent or guide or therapist, Offering that part of me a space to express, To feel, To explore. And I do that quite often. I've also found great value in. Significant amounts of psychoeducation. I read and study a lot, And that led me to study psychology when I was young. I did an undergraduate of psychology, And now I'm doing a Masters of Counselling. I'm working as a therapist. I'm not saying that's the solution, But for me, It's like I really want to understand this and therefore to help people that have also gone through it. I find that sharing and exploring and helping really does help. The more knowledge I get, The better I am able to help others and better able to help myself. I was a teacher. When I teach the things that work around this space, It helps me to heal. I learn through teaching. I found great benefit from writing. I am a poet. 90% of my poetry is dark, Is me expressing this sadness, All of these complex inner feelings, Trying to understand. I say that I write poetry to, From, Or about the paths within. Those paths that dealt with all of that stuff, It's an expression of that. So the poetry is dark, It's sad, But it resonates at least with myself and with people who have experienced similar stuff. I also have found significant benefit from daily exercise to get myself physically strong to overcome any damage that arose. But particularly I have trained martial arts my entire life. And more specifically, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is a way to know that I am safe within my body and it is also a exposure therapy. You put yourself in similar situations safely and you learn to overcome it with community, With friends, With regularity. And it is deeply therapeutic. Finding people that have gone through similar events and talking to them, Normalizing that inner space. I'm saying a lot because it is a lot. And it's constant work. I've said it before but I'll say it again, Learning to recover is like battling the multi-headed hydra. You address one thing, You deal with it. And then you find there's more, There's more, There's more. All these more subtler things. When you discover more aspects that the trauma or the neglect or whatever you're dealing with has brought up, It's like, Oh my God, I've got to go back again. But the good thing is, It's like an upward spiral. You're getting closer to healing, Ever closer every day. You know that's like, Okay, This is just the next thing I'm going to deal with. And although it's shocking and annoying and saddening, And you discover more. You learn that it's like, Okay, I'm getting closer. I judge healing as a functional improvement. Am I able to work more, Sleep better? Socialize more. Be calmer in my day, Etc, Etc. That's how I know I'm moving towards help. Towards healing, Towards growth. The final thing I would suggest would be to work out what is a construct of the trauma, What is a result of it, And what is a separate different diagnosis that could be interlinked with it. I'm actually in the process now of going to see a psychiatrist to get a formal diagnosis for ADHD. Because that is an aspect that runs in my family and some of the symptomology that I face. It's like I've been addressing the trauma stuff for quite some time, And yet there's all of this other stuff that isn't quite. Addressed by it. So then I'm curious, It's like, Okay, I've been doing this work literally for years now. Maybe there's something else, Maybe there's a neurodivergent aspect that I'm not aware of, Or some other condition. So I took it all to the psychiatrist and it's like, Okay, Maybe there's an ADHD component that's feeding off it as well. So if I can address that side of things, Then that will help me to address the trauma as well. Do you see how we use it all? So the summary is broad strokes. Find what works for you, With the support of a therapist. Commit to the daily work, And know that you can heal. Other people have healed, And you can too. The final final thing, And I learnt this through my studies, Is there is something known as post-traumatic growth. There is a percentage of people who go through something, And they come out the other side of it. It's hard to say enhanced or better, But they've found meaning and purpose because of it. And that is incredible. I would consider myself to be that. Stuff happened, But it's put me down a path of meditation instruction, Of a lifelong martial artist, Of becoming a therapist and doing all of these things that I'm feeling amazing. I don't want that stuff to happen. I never wanted it. But I'm improved because of it. And I'm not saying you need to go down my path, Obviously, But you may find that healing leads to a higher place, Post-traumatic growth. And to know that that's there and possible is the hope. I am healing, And other people can heal, And you can heal and grow and thrive also. Finishing on that hope, Yeah? So I just want to finish. Tying up this little talk with a brief grounding activity, Because when we talk about these things, It can be activating. What I want to highlight is this one, Two-finger method. Hold your finger up in front of you and turn your attention towards it. Just look at it. Then find a distant point in the room, The furthest away point you can find. Look at your finger. Look at the point in the room. Look at your finger. Look at the point in the room. Look at your finger. Look at the point in your room. And take a slow, Deep, Sighing breath. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm and remind yourself, I am here now and this moment is safe. This brief looking with the fingers, The changing of the eye distance with the slow calm breath and the reminder of I am here now and this moment is safe is a very quick and easy way to ground yourself. The eyes shifting close and far helps us to ground us in the moment. And also the slow calm breath and the cognitive reminder. So if now or at any time you find yourself in that state, Reground.