Do You Often Feel Uncomfortable, Nervous and On-Edge?
You may feel like you are always on guard and hyper-vigilant. Do you experience intrusive flashbacks or imagery of the traumatic events? Maybe you are extremely sensitive to light and sound. Have you experienced new physical symptoms such as headaches, digestive disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, PMS, asthma and/or neck and back problems? Do you have difficulty sleeping, or find yourself woken by nightmares or night terrors? Maybe you feel as though you can never find rest. Do you wish that you could live a healthier, more peaceful life and feel greater control over your mind, body and emotions? If you answer yes to some of these questions, you many benefit from trauma life coaching Tucson AZ.
A single traumatic event, as well as a long-lasting period of traumatic events, such as those that can occur in childhood, can have lasting effects on your physical, mental and emotional well-being.
You may have been struggling with hyperactivity and reduced ability to deal with stress. Perhaps you have abrupt mood swings, which make you feel increasingly out of control with your emotions. Maybe you startle easily, even when there is no real danger present. You may feel you have trouble trusting others, which makes it hard to form strong bonds or cultivate loving relationships. You might wonder if you can even fully trust yourself.
You Are Not Alone in Your Experience of Trauma
“Trauma is a Fact of Life. It does not, however, have to be a Life Sentence.” (Peter Levine, from Waking the Tiger)
Many people face a trauma at some point in their lives. A traumatic event is a situation in which the body and mind experience a break in their protective boundaries to safety. There are many consequences when this intrusion occurs. The body reacts profoundly in trauma. It tenses in readiness, braces in fear, freezes and collapses in helpless terror. When the mind's protective reaction to overwhelm returns to normal, the body's response is also meant to normalize after the event. But, when this restorative process is thwarted, the effects of trauma become fixed and the person becomes traumatized. These fixated reactions can stay stuck in the body for decades, surfacing when something triggers the implicit memory. Then, you can begin to experience strange symptoms that nobody seems to understand, such as those mentioned at the top of this page. Thankfully, there is a way to release these trapped feelings.
Trauma Life Coaching Can Help You Find Relief and Healing
The effects of trauma can be diminished or stopped. With the help of an experienced therapist and sessions of Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy (SE.) you can begin to feel whole.
The path to this healing involves unleashing the thwarted trauma energy, which is “raw, latent survival energy.” The body and mind have held the original traumatic experience inside the nervous system and connective tissue.
In fact, the trauma experience can be held in any part of the body: bones, organs, muscles, fascia, and ligaments. While the body innately wanted to escape, or get safe at the time of the traumatic event, it could not. When this energy is released through somatic work, the body can return to balance. In 25 years of psychotherapy practice, I have witnessed undeniable success when somatic trauma work is coupled with cognitive and emotive therapy. These three together form a complete, cutting edge trauma therapy.
In a safe, comforting environment you can process the deep, sometimes new sensations and feelings as they arise. I will encourage you to look around the room slowly, making contact with external reality. Then, when you feel ready, you will be encouraged to explore inner physical sensations. This is where the implicit memories of traumatic events are stored – in the nervous system, and through the sensations of the body. By accessing these sensations, you can begin to release your trauma.
During trauma life coaching sessions, you can’t do anything right or wrong. I will not judge you or put any pressure on you to find answers. You can have as much time as you need to experience sensations, feelings, and thoughts. The body wisdom and deep healing mechanisms, in my opinion, do not care about time, or right or wrong answers. In 25 years of psychotherapy practice, I have seen undeniable success when somatic trauma work is coupled with cognitive and emotive therapy.
One of my clients had nightmares for many years, could not sleep without another person in room (usually her boyfriend), was very hyper-vigilant and had panic attacks. After she came to see me, the nightmares have changed into mostly positive dreams of personal growth and challenge, like making decisions clearly and confidently, which she had not been able to do in a long time.
Now her panic attacks are rare, and when they do come, she has tools that she uses successfully. These tools include the techniques needed to observe her physical and mental symptoms with curiosity rather than fear. She is curious to see what the next interesting experience her body will bring to her, which if monitored with an experienced somatic trauma therapist, can lead to body wisdom, not fear.
Discovering what the fear was about at its root helped her to minimize her hyper-vigilance, as her body and mind felt the terrifying sensations subside. She can sleep some nights without her boyfriend when he travels. With our trauma therapy work, her symptoms continue to diminish.
With trauma life coaching, you can restore your capacity to experience life with confidence and not be overwhelmed by your emotions. It is possible.
Isn't Trauma Life Coaching Expensive and Time-Consuming?
The symptoms of trauma can be so debilitating and painful.
Consider all the time, money and energy that have been lost while you have been managing these difficult symptoms (and just managing, not even stopping the symptoms.) Consider the relationships and opportunities that may have gone by. Consider the preciousness of life, which is short, and whether or not you have been living fully. Consider how lonely and isolated you may have felt because you have so much to manage on your own. Through trauma life coaching, you can restore your ability to feel present and powerful in your life.