How to Start Your Healing Journey After Experiencing Trauma

Healing and putting your life back together after experiencing extreme trauma can be a daunting task. Sadly, many people become damaged for life due to unhealed trauma, while some others simply give up altogether.

We want to assure you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and to encourage you to investigate with us, how to start your healing journey and to embark on it. There might well be times when you are unable to face life and the outside world, but you can take things at your own pace. Just remember that you are not your trauma, and life will go on if you seek and accept help.

How to Get Started: The First 5 Steps to Healing Yourself

If you’ve experienced severe trauma, these are the first five things you should do to start your self-healing journey:

• Accept that the damage has already happened: Accepting this reality, and the fact that you can’t change it, is one of the most important steps in your quest for trauma energy healing. It enables you to start seeking help and investigate how to start your healing journey.

• Seek Support: we understand that you probably want to be left alone, but this is not the time to lock yourself away from the world. Even though it’s hard, try to reach out to family and friends, visit mental health professionals, and open up to them about your pain and struggles because this is how you heal.

• Practice Self-care: No one can help your recovery process as much as you can. So, start taking good care of yourself. Wear nice clothes, eat healthy meals, exercise regularly, practice healing trauma meditation, and practice affirmations like “I am not my trauma! I will overcome my trauma!”. Find the words that work for you and make them your mantra.

• Learn Coping Skills: even after you have started your healing journey, you will still occasionally feel emotional and physical pain. This is quite normal, as pain doesn’t simply vanish; it has to ebb away gradually as you start to heal. To handle those painful moments, it’s vital to learn some coping skills like journaling, consistent mindfulness meditation, and socializing. You will also benefit a lot from reading or listening to soul-lifting books on the Blinkist app, which will help with the healing process and might bring some moments of happiness.

• Set Goals: With the help of your mental health professional, set small, achievable goals for your recovery. You can also attach a reward to each milestone reached.

The 5 Stages of Trauma Recovery

It is said that grief comes in 5 stages, namely:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

In a similar vein, there are also 5 stages of trauma recovery, according to Judith Herman. In her book “Trauma and Recovery” she quotes the following:

1. Safety and Stabilization

When you’re traumatized, you will feel extreme distrust and might not feel safe within yourself and with others. The first stage of finding yourself again after trauma is to regain that feeling of stabilization, trust, and safety. This process may involve tackling practical issues like finances, housing, and employment, and learning coping skills to handle overwhelming emotions.

2. Remembrance and Mourning

When you are trying to figure out how to start your healing journey, it is important to know that recovery doesn’t mean total detachment from the thoughts of the trauma. Some people may wish to numb or repress that part of their lives forever, while others will bravely face their traumatic experience and the post-traumatic experience.

This phase of recovery entails recalling some of your losses, talking about them, and giving yourself the time to grieve and express emotions. You may do this with your therapist or recovery group. You may not have to spend much time in this phase, but it is necessary nonetheless because bottled-up or repressed emotions are harmful and dangerous.

3. Reconnection With Self and Others

Trauma makes you feel helpless and isolated, so, at this stage of recovery, you have to reconnect with yourself and others. Rebuild the lost friendships that are worth rebuilding, and create new ones.

4. Integration

At the fourth stage of recovery, the traumatic experience becomes a part of your life story. At this stage, you have become stable and safe, mourned everything you lost, and regained your friendships. Now it’s time to start regarding the pain as a part of your life and to integrate it into your life story, which you will tell others as one of the challenges you faced and conquered.

5. Moving On

Initially, it may seem impossible to move on from the pain you feel, but by following these steps, you will eventually succeed in moving past it. This last phase involves rebuilding your life and pursuing your future beyond the trauma. It involves going out, having fun, doing meaningful things with your life, and seeking fulfillment.

Looking Inside:

Holistic Trauma Healing With Self Love

When you are figuring out how to start your healing journey, it’s advisable to look inwards. Healing starts from inside the mind, spirit, and body. So, you need to start developing self-love and a genuine desire to heal.

This genuine desire will spur you on to work towards the process of recovery. It will also cause you to eschew self-hate, to forgive yourself and others, and to give yourself over wholeheartedly to the healing process. This practice of compassion will give you the healing energy you need to carry on even when a feeling of hopelessness sets in, and you lack the energy to continue fighting for your recovery.

Blinkist Insights to Help With Your

Self-Healing Journey

Reading can be a powerful tool to speed up your recovery. When you are considering how to start your healing journey, why don’t you use Blinkist to make that path a bit easier? Blinkist’s reading lists feature various carefully curated books that will re-energize your life and help to set you back on track. To make things easier for you, Blinkist has broken up the key points of these books into short podcasts that you can listen to on the go or while doing your meditation.

Start your free trial today and commence your journey toward healing and complete recovery.