Trauma Aware Care

As humans we are extremely adaptive and any response from our being is there because it allowed us to survive in some way. Even the most frightening and unsettling feelings are protective responses that are trying to keep us safe from danger.

Sometimes our system can become overwhelmed and the fight/flight or dissociative responses that emerge don’t have a chance to be completed and the tremendous amount of energy that is mobilized for survival does not get discharged. In these cases, these states can become chronic and feel disruptive and unhelpful.

It can be hard to know what to do or how to support ourselves when we are experiencing big feelings and sensations, or feeling numb and incapacitated. This can be challenging, exhausting, and overwhelming. If this feels resonant for you, you are not alone.

When we look at these responses from a trauma-informed perspective, it might allow us to hold more compassion for ourselves, see the strength in our coping strategies, and tend to...

The healing community teaches and offers grounding practices that are not always trauma-informed.

Often there isn’t much choice. There might not be an awareness of the nervous system. Teachers might employ mindset work and spiritual bypassing techniques in the hopes that folks will power through or transcend their discomfort.

If you are someone who has experienced trauma, you might struggle with these techniques and practices, and without a trauma-informed practitioner, you might internalize the challenges you experience. You might feel like a failure. You might feel hopeless. You might feel like you are doing it wrong when big feelings or sensations come up, when you feel agitated or panicked or trapped and you don’t feel more grounded.

If you have tried meditation, breathing practices, spiritual rituals, earthing, affirmations – and you were promised they would be grounding and bring you peace, and they did not — this is not your fault. You might just not have...

If you feel like you need someone else or something else to feel grounded, you might also feel like you are co-dependent, weak, even needy. In a world where we are told again and again to self heal, to heal alone, to draw solely from our own strength - it can feel vulnerable to need another being as we heal. But part of the truth is that co-regulation is grounding.

When we are with another regulated nervous system, another being who is in their center while attuned to our needs, there is comfort there. Think of a loving friend, your pet, a wonderful therapist or practitioner who holds space alongside you. There is an alchemy in these connections that can soothe our own nervous systems and help us to regulate in times of distress.

Co-regulation can also happen in nature. This is part of the reason that some folx find healing in the woods, by the water, and in the mountains. The earth is a master of regulation, reaching always for equilibrium. We have a lot to learn from that and can be...

Grounding is a way of reminding our being and our nervous system of the safety or resources within our reach.

Grounding can look different for different people. What works for one person might not work for you.

What works for us in one moment might not feel supportive in another, so we might need a variety of tools.

Grounding can involve trial and error, and can take practice, compassion and patience.

If you haven't found a grounding practice that works for you, that doesn't mean it does not exist. Maybe you just haven't found it yet.

Sometimes you need a different teacher, sometimes you need a more compassionate container, sometimes you might need more choice or a trauma-informed approach.

We share all about grounding in our trauma-informed course, Find Your Ground. We'd love to have you on this journey with us!

If we experience complex trauma & chronic pain/illness, sometimes the advice or responses we get can feel invalidating.

We might have heard that every single chronic pain symptom or condition is because of our trauma.

We might have heard that we just need to do emotional, psychological or mindset work to "clear" our symptoms or conditions, or that our condition is "all in our head".

We might have been to practitioners who denied any correlation between our chronic pain/illness and traumatic events, even if we feel this connection.

We might have seen practitioners who refused to take the emotional and mental components of our chronic pain/illness into account in sessions or treatment plans.

It can feel incredibly healing and supportive to be validated in our experience of chronic pain/illness & complex trauma.

We might want to be supported, heard, and believed for what WE know is true about our experience. We might want to hear: yes,...

For a long time I felt afraid that if I didn’t remember everything that happened to me then I wouldn’t heal, but I also felt really afraid to remember everything.

Since becoming a therapist that works primarily with trauma, and continuing my own journey without remembering everything, I’ve learned that remembering can look a lot of different ways and that remembering everything is not necessary.

The reality is that sometimes our body remembers what our mind cannot. We feel these memories in the form of sensations, anxiety, or just a general sense that something bad happened.

Sometimes trauma happens when we are so little that we don’t have words or a framework yet to make sense of it. Instead it informs our very conception of ourselves and the world.

Sometimes to survive what has happened we dissociate so completely that we don’t remember what happened in a clear and concise narrative. Trauma memory can be stored differently from regular memory.

We...

In our culture we often think of healing as linear, ascending and as having an end point. This model can often leave us feeling stuck, broken or like we aren’t moving fast enough.

I visualize healing as a many layered and circular process that can occur much more slowly than many would have us believe.

We may find ourselves circling back to things that we thought that we had resolved and feel frustrated because it can feel like we are returning to the beginning.

Yet, we are never going back to the same place we came from. Each time we return there are new resources, a newfound resilience, a shifted perspective and different things that we are feeling and accessing.

Sometimes it will feel like healing is the last thing on our minds, but sometimes that is exactly what is happening beneath the surface. Something is settling or integrating. We are finding our own unique way outside of prescriptive norms or the path that was set out for us.

On the...

The mainstream rhetoric around what we label “addiction” often centres around genetics and self control and focuses on cognitive and abstinence based treatments. The role of trauma is rarely mentioned or acknowledged.

There are many layers to addiction and we must look at all the biological, social, psychological and spiritual factors. Each case is unique and there is no one size fits all solution. But an overall acknowledgment of the correlation between trauma and addiction within the medical model is critical.

Many addictive behaviours offer a reprieve from painful and overwhelming sensations and emotions. The ability to distract ourselves or soothe ourselves in times of overwhelm can be a vital resource and isn’t always a bad thing. Many substances and behaviours aren’t inherently addictive. It is our acute and frequent need for relief from pain or discomfort that leads to the addictive relationship. Any time there is a relationship with a substance or...

On struggles with sleep

If you are finding it a struggle to sleep or rest, you are not alone. During times of stress, crisis, and trauma, rest can be a coping tool and it can also feel quite out of reach. It can also feel unsafe and difficult to sleep for survivors who are navigating complex trauma. Insomnia, broken sleep, trouble waking easily in the morning and nightmares are all common.

If our nervous system is activated, we might find it hard to downregulate when it’s time for bed. If we are feeling unsafe and uncertain in the world and our environment, it might feel too unsafe to sleep. If big feelings and old wounds are re-emerging, these might come up when we are trying to fall asleep, once we aren’t distracted by the busy-ness of our day.

We cannot force ourselves into sleep but we can weave little rituals into our day to support us to prepare for sleep and allow rest to feel more accessible. 

You know best which rituals and rhythms are soothing for...

It’s very common for survivors to doubt their experience.

They may question:

Was it really that bad?

Am I mis-remembering?

Did I imagine what happened?

This is an understandable response because our systems (both familial and societal) work to gaslight us and make us feel like what happened, didn’t.

Also to connect with the gravity of your trauma can feel scary, overwhelming and heartbreaking. Minimizing our experience may be a way to protect ourselves from these intense feelings and also from a community that cannot hold our grief and fear.

In case you need to hear this,

I believe you.

I trust you.

It was not your fault.

You deserve to be protected.

You deserve care.

Your feelings are valid.