Trauma’s impact can have a ripple effect in all aspects of life, often creating invisible roadblocks that may prevent you from moving forward with your life. But the journey to healing is rarely straightforward.
Healing requires you to do more than simply move on or forget that something negative happened. It’s about healthily processing these experiences, allowing your brain to release its hold over you so you can freely move on.
Understanding How Trauma Affects the Brain
As you embark on your healing journey, it’s key to understand how trauma affects your brain. The human brain is a resilient and beautiful thing. It has built-in systems that serve to protect you. When faced with trauma, these internal survival mechanisms kick in.
Your alarm system goes off, causing your amygdala to become hyperactive. Resources are being sent to priority areas, causing your prefrontal cortex, the place where logical thinking and emotional regulation occur, to become less effective. When the experience isn’t processed correctly, these stress responses carry on long after the trauma has ended.
Creating a Safe Space
Before you can dive into the deeper parts of healing, you must establish a sense of safety. Performing self-reflection will help you identify what safety means for you.
Creating safety can mean:
- Setting healthy boundaries to protect your energy
- Creating a calming environment within your home base
- Setting a routine to give yourself structure
- Turning to more spiritual practices, such as prayer or meditations on Scripture
- Finding a creative outlet to release negative energy and find control
Safety is an important first step because it’s the foundation upon which healing is built.
Building Skills for Long-Term Change
Developing practical skills that you can apply to daily life will help create lasting change.
Improving your emotional regulation will help combat your internal stress response more effectively. Instead of instantly reacting, you can learn to identify and manage emotions that are brewing and maintain control during high-pressure situations.
Addressing your communication skills will allow you to clearly express your needs and set boundaries when necessary. Effective communication will help reduce reactivity and prevent triggering situations.
Increasing your emotional intelligence (EQ) strengthens your ability to understand both your own emotions and those of others. This awareness will help you navigate personal and professional dynamics.
Finding the Right Path for You
Trauma is a highly personal experience. Finding healing won’t be a one-size-fits-all process. The experience you’ve had, your current circumstances, and your specific goals are all factors to consider.
The key to successfully moving forward is to identify where you’re getting stuck. Therapy can be a great tool to guide you along. A personalized approach may include exploring options like neurofeedback or EMDR.
Neurofeedback Therapy
IASIS Microcurrent Neurofeedback (MCN) is a drug-free, noninvasive therapy that gently restores balance to the brain and nervous system by sending gentle currents to the brain. By reducing stress and boosting feel-good hormones, it supports lasting improvements in brain health. While it may seem scary at first, having small electrodes attached to your neck and head, neurofeedback sessions are, in fact, calming and restful.
EMDR
Memories often become “stuck” in the brain, which, due to related trauma, cannot properly process the memory and keep you from recovering. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) uses bilateral stimulation (eye movements, taps, or sounds) to help the brain reprocess “stuck” memories so they become less overwhelming. Over time, the memories lose their emotional intensity and no longer feel retraumatizing.
Moving Forward
Healing from trauma is ultimately about releasing what’s holding you back so you can achieve the success and satisfaction you’re working toward. When your brain and body are no longer caught in old protective patterns, you can think more clearly and perform more consistently.
If you’re ready to get started, trauma therapy can help you identify your current roadblocks and get you on the path to healing. Book your first consultation with us to explore some options.