Healing Through Trauma (a Step and a Journey)
What the Brain Does When We Experience Trauma & Stress
The human brain is a unique and complex organ. Our brains naturally have a way of processing information so that as we go through our days, we can grow and develop as human beings. This natural way of processing has a way of storing information to grow while not being bogged down by all of the stuff that we don't need. It helps to think of this in terms of how our bodies digest food. When we eat something, the body naturally digests the food, taking in the nutrients we need to live our lives and getting rid of what we don't need. When we eat something that doesn't sit well with us, the body gets rid of that too. When we experience something traumatic or something continuously stressful, our brains have difficulty processing the information. We might go into a fight, flight, or freeze mode of survival, which results in the information not being processed in the same way if we had felt safe. In short, trauma and ongoing stress disrupts our life... rolling with the punches of life impacts us until we feel so bruised we can't get up in quite the same way.
After the punches have subsided and the bruises have healed, we are still left with unseen marks. How we see the world and our role in it may shift (our perspective). How we interact with others might turn and change (our behavior). How the roller coaster of day-to-day life impacts us differently (our emotions and reactions).
How Therapy Can Help When Facing Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety
This is often when I experience people reaching out for help in the form of therapy. When it feels like there is nowhere else to turn and they know something has got to change or give, the "normal" way of coping with the unseen bruising from life has become overwhelming. Because of this, people often enter into therapy because they are looking to feel seen and heard. They are looking to know on a deep cellular level that they are not alone and not "crazy". In this sense, I find it helpful to normalize the very real fact that trauma and stress are damaging. No one walks into life and asks life to hand you situations of trauma, strife, grief, and stress. No one asks for these experiences. And our responses to these experiences, our shift in perspective, behaviors, emotions, and reactions, are normal in the face of abnormal life events. I repeat, these are normal reactions to events that are not normal and are outside of our control.
How EMDR Therapy Can Help, What We Know and What I Have Seen
The brain is complex, and science is still attempting to understand it with mysteries. With the research that is out there, we know that EMDR helps; however, we are somewhat limited in knowing exactly why it helps. Here is what we do know. The eye movements that mimic REM sleep help the brain process traumatic and stressful memories to help the person who is remembering them feel less charged when thinking of the memory and find new ways of thinking of the event they are processing. After successful processing, I have heard people in groups and in individual sessions of EMDR describe feeling less stressed like a weight has been lifted, or like the memory just feels less sharp and hurtful.
Find Healing for Stress, Anxiety, and Trauma that is Right for You
Whether through talk therapy, equine therapy, yoga, church, community, EMDR, or a mixture of all, it is essential to find what healing feels right for you. Healing does start with a single step, and it continues to be a journey. Trauma and stress didn't build up overnight and won't be disassembled in a day. Give yourself time, compassion, kindness, and persevere in the healing journey. Find the people you need by your side to help you carry on when healing becomes difficult because you deserve the best healing journey you can give yourself at the end of the day. You deserve to feel whole. If you are looking for a therapist to work with, reach out today for a free consultation.
