Trauma is an unseen burden, spreading into your world and into your very self. Healing the wound is challenging, though with proper care and with proper guidance, it’s achievable.
Your mind is a complex system that can heal, fix, and even become stronger after a battle. By finding peace and effective ways to restore your mental health, you can empower yourself to reclaim your life.
Here are five powerful steps to heal your mind from trauma and bring you into a positive, promising future.
Practice Mindfulness Awareness
Mindfulness is being present, and in a powerful sense, it can be an anchor point for an individual healing from trauma.
When you’re traumatized, your mind will be regressive to the past or progressive to the future in fear of what’s coming. Mindfulness will bring your mind back to the present, and healing can occur there.
Smart small, with a few minutes daily, to focus on your breath, environment, or body awareness.
Over time, you will establish emotional strength, settle your terror, and be more capable of withstanding traumatic memories with greater dignity.
Seek Professional Support
Trained, licensed therapists, counselors, and trauma-sensitive mental health workers can guide you along the path of safety and help you learn how to work through your experiences.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and somatic therapy are highly effective for most trauma survivors. More new treatments have become integrated into trauma-informed care over the last few years.
Among these is ketamine therapy, which targets depression stemming from trauma and PTSD. Medically supervised therapy seeks to restore neutral pathways and achieve emotional rehabilitation where other modalities fail.
Reconnect with Your Body
Trauma will disconnect you from your body. You’ll be numb, hyper-vigilant, or won’t be able to even think about the possibility of feeling safe in your own skin.
Re-setting the disconnection is part of recovering. Yoga, tai chi, or dance therapy are all fantastic ways to return to your body and listen to what it’s trying to say.
Walking dissolves pent-up tension and reinstates a feeling of mastery for you. Stretching or walking outside in the fresh air can also put you in the here and now and remind your nervous system that all will be well in the moment.
Create a Supportive Environment
Having supportive people with you who are empathetic and sympathetic is one of the starts of healing from trauma.
Your support group, family, friends, or online forum can all be a haven where you can vent your feelings and share your loneliness.
Creating an open space means setting boundaries that help you maintain your peace. Throughout your healing journey, you’ll encounter certain individuals or situations that aren’t necessary for your well-being.
It’s perfectly okay to prioritize yourself and focus on the people and environment that truly support your healing.
Embrace Creative Expression
Creativity provides an avenue to convey feelings that cannot be precisely written.
With the written word, illustration, music, or another art medium, creative expression allows survivors of trauma to describe what happened to them in their terms, without restriction or criticism.
Art will expand your scope of the situation while allowing you to release stress. It helps you internalize the pain, which ushers in a more hopeful perception of everything. You don’t need to be an artist to benefit; the personal experience is what truly counts.
It helps you recognize that healing is not forgetting the scar but growing to survive it with strength and dignity.
Endnote
Healing from trauma has to be done patiently, compassionately, and with a desire to learn about the newly emerging healing mechanisms.
Being open to learning and ready to seek assistance will lead you back to a sense of safety and keep you hopeful. Remember that every step toward healing exercises enormous self-love and power.