Occasionally, in life we get to experience some traumatic events. Everyone has a different coping mechanism for them, and they process it accordingly. Say you lost your best friend to a brutal hit and run accident, and have been having flashbacks of the event. That’s trauma. It’s a sign you need to seek help. In this blog, we will discuss how to heal from past trauma in five ways.
How to Heal From Past Traumas in 5 Ways
Learn how to heal from past traumas in the following five ways.
1. Don’t Isolate Yourself
For starters, you need to stop being too hard on yourself. When people undergo extreme trauma, they tend to isolate themselves to process it. Up to a certain point, it may be healthy to get some personal space to clear your head and process your emotions. But beyond that, it can be downright destructive. You need to reach out to friends and family to let them know how you are feeling. There is a good chance they may be going through something similar and discussing it will help you process the pain better. When you open up the lines of communication, you are essentially trying to make sense of the pain. This is an important step in learning how to heal from past traumas.
2. Get Therapy
Undergoing a traumatic event is not easy. It cripples you with stress, and you feel extreme grief, fear, and sadness or depression. If you feel like even a month after the traumatic event you are unable to get by in daily life, that’s a sign you need to seek professional help to learn how to heal from past traumas.
3. Join A Support Group
Joining a support group is a great way to learn how to heal from past traumas. These groups help you by offering constructive and practical information. Often, members of these groups are going through similar challenging experiences and can help you by teaching you effective coping strategies based on their experiences. In addition, hearing about others having similar issues can help you feel less alone and remove the stigma associated with your situation.
4. Face Your Trauma & Stop Denying it
A major part of the healing journey for most people is that they need to reach a point of acceptance. They need to first accept themselves the way they are, and then accept what has happened. This means that whenever their memories of the traumatic even surface, you will learn to be okay with that, because you have accepted it. Your feelings need processing and channeling – not avoidance – if you want to learn how to heal from past traumas. Face what has happened, don’t deny it anymore if you already have, and then try to look at it from a different perspective.
5. Get Moving: Exercise & Meditate
One of the best ways you can learn how to heal from past traumas is to move your body. For most people, exercise does the trick. When you stretch, walk, and jog, you process your hormones in a healthy way. Exercise lowers the levels of stress hormones in your body like cortisol and adrenaline, boosting it self-healing ability. But don’t overdo it. Take rest when you need to, otherwise you will suffer from a burnout.
Some people don’t like to do heavy exercises. They tend to prefer meditation over it. And there’s good reason for that. When you focus on your inhaling and exhaling, you help your mind relax, and that relaxes your body in return. It is a technique of deep healing that has been practiced since ancient times, by monks and other spiritual people. You can take it up spiritually or do it just as a practice. Either way, it is very therapeutic and is particularly helpful as the deep breathing sessions help you feel relaxed.
The Final Word
Trauma can affect a person physically, mentally, and emotionally. In some cases, the trauma can be long-lasting, making it difficult to function in daily life. During this time, it is important to take care of oneself and to find moments of hope.
After you go through a traumatic life experience, it is crucial to find ways to help yourself. These methods range from seeking professional help to joining a support group. But most importantly, it is important to take things one day at a time. This is because the process of healing is not linear and will look different for each person. The most important step towards healing from trauma is taking care of yourself. You need to get enough sleep and eat healthy. Also, it is important to engage in regular exercise. You can also practice mindfulness and relaxation techniques.
If you prefer reading more about it, learn how to take back control of your life in the book “Let’s Heal: Queens and Kings” by author Aala Coax.