Self-soothing Techniques for Feeling Safe Again
It is important for trauma survivors to learn self-soothing for the times when they feel threatened. Self-soothing alone can be one of the most critical steps for healing trauma.
The somatic techniques Peter Levine offers in this video can help traumatized people who struggle with sleeplessness or nightmares to self-regulate, any place, any time. They can also help to calm negative feelings and give a sense of boundary within the body.
How to Practice Self-Soothing
Self-Soothing makes couples better able to work on their conflicts as a team rather than as adversaries. It is important to let your partner know that you’re feeling flooded and need to take a break. It’s also crucial that during this time you avoid thoughts of righteous indignation and innocent victimhood. Many people find that the best approach to self-soothing is to focus on calming the body through deep, regular and even breathing, and muscle relaxation technique.
Simple Exercise to Ease Despair
Peter Levine shares a quick, simple exercise that can be used when you are feeling overwhelmed by despair.
A Practical Skill for Defusing Anger
Anger is a normal (and often necessary) emotion. But when tempers flare and rage ensues, your relationships suffer, your stress levels skyrocket, and reactivity simply takes over. Marsha Linehan shares a simple and practical skill on how to shift out of anger once the fuse is lit.
Key Tools for Working with Anxiety
Some degree of fear and anxiety is inevitable. But for clients with chronic anxiety, the intrusive thoughts and self-doubt can become crippling. Linda Graham shares 4 specific tools to help clients calm their nervous systems and manage anxiety — and these are evidence-based approaches rooted in Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory.
Strategy for Working with Anxiety and Depression
According to Steven Hayes, there is a gentle and effective approach to working with anxiety and depression. In this video, Steven Hayes shares this kindness-based approach, and how the power of secret acts of kindness helped one woman overcome her anxiety and depression.
Conquering Anxiety eBook
Sometimes things happen in the world that we have no control over. We can, however, work on how we react to unexpected crises. This Conquering Anxiety eBook gives you tips, practices, and strategies to help you tap into your internal calm.
Live Within Your Window of Tolerance
Healing from trauma is a journey. When we are triggered by reminders of past traumas, or we experience fear, overwhelm, or just lots of stress, our bodies naturally react defensively. We become “hyperaroused,” which is the automatic activation of fight, flight, or freeze defense responses. Alternatively, when there is no opportunity to escape the sense of being threatened or chronically stressed, the body may eventually collapse, going into a state of so-called “hypoarousal.” This quick guide: “Live Within Your Window of Tolerance” may help you regulating emotions, calming your body & reducing anxiety.
Self-Care Guide
Self-Care is defined as any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical growth; and activities that replenish us and nourish us to stay balanced in body mind and spirit, keeping us fit and resilient in times of physical or emotional stress. This Self-Care Guide may help you to reflect on your individual wellness.
Key Insight to Undo Years of Blame and Shame
When we have with difficult emotion, it can get expressed as self-criticism and self-blame – and that can lead to shame. And shame can trap us in unending pain and suffering. Dr. Paul Gilbert shares a quick and simple practice he uses to help clients understand how the mind works, and how that understanding can be transformative and healing.
A Mindfulness Exercise To Ease Patterns of Blame
For some of us, our go-to response to hurt or disappointment may be to find something (or more often someone) to blame it on. And when that blame is accompanied by anger and harsh criticism, it can wreak havoc on our relationships. Zindel Segal, PhD walks us through a mindfulness approach that can help us manage distressing emotions, instead of jumping right to blame.
How to Grieve Mindfully
Mindfulness practice is not meant to minimize pain or to convince people that everything is OK, but rather to help you recognize the reality of your circumstances, and to do so in a nonjudgmental and self-compassionate way. While there is no one “right” way to grieve, to actually grieve is essential for our ability to employ our human capacity to find a renewed sense of meaning. The Grieving Process elicits resilience.
Hypnosis to Sleep
This sleep hypnosis is spoken with voice only guiding suggestions, to encourage your total mind and body’s rapid relaxation into sleep. A completely dark screen and no background music, to help you focus upon the spoken words; your unconscious mind will receive all the positive messages, to allow you to drift into your most replenishing, night time’s deep sleep.
Healing through Self-Love Tapping
Tapping is a quick technique to heal trauma through increase self-love and self acceptance. Increasing self-love can result in happier relationships, work life and overall feeling of harmony.
Tapping to Reduce Anxiety and Stress
Healing Self and Relationship through Ho’oponopono
Ho’oponopono is a wonderful tool for self-healing and healing a fearful relationship.
- Step 1: Repentance – I’m Sorry. I’m taking responsibility for whatever I have done to you and myself. I am responsible for the issues in my life and I feel terrible remorse for my acting out and wrong doing.
- Step 2: Ask Forgiveness – Please Forgive Me. Say it over and over and mean it. Remember your remorse. You are sorry for creating this by being unconscious with yourself and your loved one for not being able to give your inner child and your loved one with the love, compassion, understanding and acceptance.
- Step 3: Gratitude – Thank You. Just keep saying Thank you to your loved one and your inner child. Thank you for bringing this up so that I can become conscious to give you the love you seek. Thank yourself for being the best you can be.
- Step 4: I Love You. I’m present now, I’m taking responsibility and I’m taking a conscious stand now by sending love to you and to my fearful inner child that craves love and to be loved.
Powerful Method to Build Heart-Mind Coherence
Gregg Braden shares two ways that you can begin to awaken the heart and brain connection. One technique enables you to connect with your heart to gain crystal clear answers on important questions. Another is a practice which shifts the conversation between the heart and brain to be in a coherent frequency. When they are in harmony with this frequency, you open a doorway to even more mystical abilities, including self-healing.