RESOURCES
Trauma
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and Developmental Trauma
Trauma and traumatic stress create an experience that effects both body and mind; when we react to trauma, we do it with the primal part of our brains that controls the fight, flight, freeze response and oversees the body response. When this happens, situations that seem pretty safe can create huge emotional reactions that do not seem to fit the situation at all.
Yoga
Traumatic memories do not fully process through all regions of the brain, including the part of the brain responsible for language. A fight, flight, freeze response is most often felt rather than spoken. Yoga helps to calm the body that experiences these reactions.
Dissociation is a brain’s survival response when stress seems unmanageable. Everyone dissociates to some degree or another. In its mildest form dissociation might be “spacing out” during a meeting. On the other end of the spectrum are dissociative disorders like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Dissociative Amnesia. Learning about your dissociation helps in learning how to stay present.
Nature Therapy
Self Compassion
The root of self-compassion lies in understanding that when trauma responses are activated, it is as if your brain and body are experiencing the event for the first time, at the first age you can remember being hurt in this same way, usually in childhood or adolescence. At trauma activation, your brain and body become childlike again, and this young part of you needs compassion, understanding, and a sense of safety.
Groups and Co-Regulation
The polyvagal theory describes the workings of the nervous system and how safe groups and relationships can co-regulate an activated nervous system. Co-regulation is an essential part of therapeutic work.
Co-regulation in groups and relationships
When the nervous system feels safe, we are able to learn self regulation, express emotions, understand experiences, and connect. At the heart of traumatic experiences is a disrupted sense of safety.
Mindfulness and Meditation
On January 22, 2022 the world lost a great teacher of mindfulness, compassion, and peace in the passing of Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. He dedicated his life to teaching the Western world the tenants of mindfulness. Science has caught up with ancient teachings and shown that mindfulness helps create the awareness of the present moment, skills of self-regulation and grounding. However, it should be noted that sometimes returning to the body can feel very unsafe. If this is something you struggle with, staying grounded and mindful in the body is a practice that requires both self-compassion and safety.
Below are some videos of Thich Nhat Hahn’s teachings:
EMDR
EMDR therapy is an effective and well supported tool for healing, endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
A critism of EMDR is that it is still undetermined HOW EMDR works, yet, study after study shows that it DOES work.
Dangers of EMDR Therapy: Side Effects, Myths, & Misconceptions
““Life is available only in the present moment.”
Thich Nhat Hanh