How past experiences shape who you are?
Past experiences shape us in positive and negative ways. There is no doubt about it. For a high school young woman, getting in a car accident on the way home from her prom dance is a trauma. Her dress is covered in glass shards. A major car accident changes her life for ever. Not to mention, her body may be injured, her friends may have died, and she can’t continue to play varsity field hockey. Then, five years, later, she is driving home from a college dance, in a party dress, and has a panic attack. Essentially, this is her first trauma flashback. The dance and her dress were PTSD flashback triggers. She may not realize that riding in the car after leaving a dance in college is a trauma memory from her high school past. Ten years later, she is a mother and driving her two year old daughter home from a birthday party and experiences another flashback.
What is another example of trauma?
On the other hand, a young man wakes up to get ready for school and wonders why the house is just a little too quiet. His parents have run out for groceries and he is home alone. Quickly, he realizes that his little brother is unconscious and he is now calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance for his brother. This is a trauma that leaves a lasting impact on his future life. For the weeks following, he has trouble concentrating at school, gets stomach aches, issues with insomnia, and is socially isolating in his room. He may be afraid to leave his brother home alone from that trauma onwards. Ten years later, he is a new father and experiences a panic attack and PTSD flashback when check on his young son. His son is a reminder of what happened with his brother.
What are signs you may benefit from trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
When you have a PTSD or trauma flashback, you may feel unsafe. At first, you may note even know what is happening in your body. You have hyper arousal, your heart rate increases, and you start crying. To note, trauma means that you experiences things differently now than you did before the trauma event. As well, survivors of trauma may elicit a variety of symptoms, including flashbacks, dissociation, moods shifts, and anxiety. Furthermore, after trauma, you may notice changes in thinking patterns that influence the way that you are perceiving yourself. After trauma, holistic trauma therapy helps children and adults understand themselves, their feelings, and feel safe the world around them.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult to start in holistic, polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
What is polyvagal theory?
Polyvagal theory is all about restoring your body’s optimal, natural health and restoring resilience. Your body responded to the trauma experience you went through in a correct way. Right now, your body still feels like you are in that through though. Furthermore, polyvagal theory describes how your body reacts to trauma and stress.
How does polyvagal theory play a role in trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
Learning about polyvagal theory can help you understand your body. You can have compassion for yourself. Essentially, your autonomic nervous system is responsible for your social behavior and connection to others. Polyvagal theory states that your mind is always noticing if an environment is safe or if you are in danger in any situation. After trauma, studies show that your body has difficulty restoring calm and peace.
Learn to trust your intuition in polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut
Poly vagal theory states that your body naturally knows what to do when you face stress. Essentially, under stress, your body will push blood to your muscles. So, if a big lion or cougar is chasing you, you can run away. That is the flight response. If you were being chased by an angry dog, you would run as fast as you could away.
Understanding your flight response in trauma counseling
Flight responses kick in when you experience a trauma trigger. For instance, a child who feels guilty about lying may run away from a parent teaching them to take responsibility. This child’s flight response kicks in because they are looking to avoid confrontation. In a more severe PTSD reaction, a persons flight response might kick in after physical, sexual, or spiritual trauma.
Learn about your freeze response in PTSD counseling
Another response to experiencing trauma is a freeze response. A freeze response means that your body immediately freezes, like a raccoon in headlights. No matter if you try to move your body, it will not move. Most commonly, victims of sexual abuse and rape often have a freeze response from their trauma. Because an aggressor is larger and bigger, they physically realize they cannot run, so the freeze response kicks in to help them survive. For instance, an adolescent with school anxiety has a panic attack while entering the school in the morning. During their panic attack, they cannot talk, they start crying, and they literally cannot take one step further. A freeze response is very common when it comes to fears.
What is a fight response when it comes to polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
Another trauma response is fight. A fight trauma response is one where someone gets physically aggressive, punches, kicks, or yells. In some situations, a persons body has a fight response ingrained from childhood. If a child is seeing fighting, watching parents in domestic violence situations, and sees parents who are angry outwardly towards members of the family, a child can develop a fight response. For instance, military members and veterans commonly experience fight responses. After experiences in combat and war, their body is trained to fight. Thinking about how you first responded to an original trauma can help you understand how your body is currently responding to stress and trauma.
What is co regulation as a part of trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
When it comes to co-regulation, PTSD therapy can help you understand what that means. First of all, Wisdom Within Counseling focuses on regulation. This is your body‘s ability to calm it self when you feel intense emotions like anger, fear, loss, or anxiety. Some people, feel anger, and they just keep getting more and more angry without the ability to calm themselves down. Anger is a trauma response. Therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling can help with this trauma response. Ideally, from trauma focused counseling, you can move between a range and a variety of different emotions from anger, to sadness, to loss, joy.
What happens after someone has PTSD?
Some people struggle to move between these different emotions fluidly and flexibly. In PTSD therapy, you will experience what is called co-regulation. Co-regulation is when your therapist has a calm nervous system. In counseling, your body learns to remain calm from watching your therapist be calm. Your therapist will take deep breath‘s and and model relaxation. Even when you talk about past painful experiences, you can watch your therapist remain relaxed. Watching your therapist be calm and content will help you learn how to remain calm. This is called co-regulation.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult to start in expressive, polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
How does trauma impact couples in counseling?
Couples therapy in Mystic, Connecticut helps married couples develop co-regulation with each other as well. In couples counseling, your therapist can teach you how to cope regulate. Couples that need to regulation skills are ones that become very heated, angry, yell, and escalated.
What happens when couples get into high conflict fights?
Let’s say your spouse is having anxiety and panic, do you become anxious or angry too? If so, coagulation would be beneficial for you. Typically, one person in a relationship should always be able to remain calm, grounded, and relaxed. Couples run into problems when one person in the relationship becomes angry or upset and the other person in the relationship and mirrors that emotion, such as more anger or upset. Then, two people in a relationship are not emotionally regulated and highly escalated with anger. This creates a high conflict fight and fears of abandonment.
When couples get into high conflict fights, it is usually because both people have trauma histories and they are triggered.
When your heart rate is elevated, blood is pulsing through your muscles, and you feel angry, it is important to pause. However, couples struggle to pause because they both want the lsat word. So, Mystic, Connecticut couples therapy can help you and your spouse learn to calm yourselves down. You can learn how to talk about what is underneath the high conflict fight. For some, this pertains to having a troublesome childhood, having emotionally neglectful parents, or enduring sexual abuse that is causing you to feel triggered. Couples therapy can help you learn how to express your needs in a calm way. When you are yelling, your partner is not able to listen to you or hear you and they might get triggered more easily. Marriage counseling can help you learn to listen and co-regulate with the guidance of a professional trauma therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling.
What can you do today to start your trauma healing using polyvagal theory?
Right now, one thing that you can do to calm your nervous system and use poly vagal theory is to simulate your vagus nerve. Hum or sing! But, breathing skills are great too. Now, your vagus nerve runs along your spinal column and provides your brain with signals about safety and danger. However, you do not have to see a growling dog or a giant lion to feel in danger. Your body might send a signal that you are in danger if you are running late to work. As well, you might feel like you are in danger if you have too much caffeine, which over stimulates your adrenal glands.
Notice your breathing to heal from trauma and PTSD.
So, one of the best things you can do to calm your vagus nerve and incorporate polyvagal theory into your life is to notice your breathing. Anytime you can, breathe more slowly. Focus on lengthening your inhale, pausing for a moment when you’re completely full, and slowing down your exhale. As you breathe more deeply, notice how your belly moves and where your skin touches your clothing. As well, think about expanding your sides and stretching your ribs farther away from each other as you breathe. Did your rib cage puff out as you inhaled? As you inhale, bring your breath into your low belly and puff out your low back.
Then, focus on exhaling longer than you did for your inhale.
Anytime and anywhere you always have control over your breath. Your breath can be like a secret weapon when it comes to overcoming a PTSD flashback. In trauma specialized counseling, your PTSD therapist will teach you how to notice your breath. Further, breathing skills help you with emotional regulation. By taking a deep breath, you actually promote your rest and digest responses. When you are in your rest and digest response, you feel social, friendly, and safe.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult to start in holistic, polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
On the other hand, when you are in a trauma response, your breath will be shallow, your mind will be worried, and you’ll feel like you are in fight, flight, or freeze.
You may also be noticing that you have emotionally shut down because you feel unsafe, when your breathing is shallow. In the moment when you feel unsafe, that is the time to use your breathing techniques to shift your nervous system back into emotional safety. Remember, it will be important to practice your breathing techniques to encourage yourself to learn these when you are calm. This way, you can utilize them when you feel stressed out more easily because you have practiced them when you are calm. By incorporating polyvagal theory into your daily life, you can overcome traumas like sexual assault, intimate partner violence, bullying, OCD, fears, or panic disorder.
What is holistic PTSD therapy about?
You can start to understand that your body is naturally healthy and is responding to danger the way it should. By breathing deeply, you stimulate your vagus nerve. When you calm your nervous system, you are starting your healing journey after trauma.
How can meditation support holistic trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
One way that the team at Wisdom Within Counseling offers poly vagal theory is through mindfulness meditation. After an intense a session where you have released a lot, your trauma therapist in Mystic, CT will teach you about meditation to calm yourself down. When you are telling a story that has a lot of painful emotions like betrayal and sadness involved, you might feel like you are reliving that story.
You might feel like you are right back in that horrible experience of your life as you are talking about it five or 10 years later.
Polyvagal theory helps your body realize that you are safe and calm even though you are talking about a painful memory. More so, meditation can help you feel safe in your body. As well, mindfulness meditation helps your nervous system learn that you are safe in your therapist office. Your mind and body can start to become more in tune and you can start to live a more balanced life.
Meditation can help you have a quiet time for yourself to become aware of what your body needs.
Your body might be giving you signals through pain or through discomfort that you might be ignoring. Meditation gives you that quiet space with the comfort of your therapist to center your nervous system. You might notice that from sessions when you meditate that you are more calmer for a few days afterwards. If you are a person that typically struggles with anger management issues, meditation might help you. As well, meditation is also a lifelong coping tool that you can use outside of session to reduce anger and process losses.
Meditation helps you take back the power over your trauma story.
From meditation, you can create a safe place for your mind if you are feeling a variety of trauma symptoms. In mindfulness meditations with your therapist, you can learn breathing techniques to slow down your heart rate. As well, you can teach your children guided meditation and relaxation skills and teach them what you are learning in counseling.
Your Mystic, Connecticut therapist can give you a relaxing space to learn how to create the feeling of security within yourself outside of your counseling session.
How can you break free from the legacy of trauma and focus on healing?
Incorporating polyvagal theory into your holistic counseling experience as one of the best ways to break free from the trauma legacy. Right now, you might feel like you are overwhelmed, hurt, sad, and mad. However, there is hope and healing after trauma from holistic counseling in Mystic, Connecticut. You might be fueled with anger, jealousy, or sadness and you want relief. Polyvagal theory can help you learn about your body‘s natural and intuitive wisdom. You can learn to trust your body and your mind once again.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult to start in holistic, polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
From holistic trauma counseling in Mystic, Connecticut, you can gain self-confidence, a positive perspective, and make more clearheaded decisions.
Poly vagal theory allows for you to regulate your own body. In a good way, you can learn that your body is magical, healthy, and positive. Counseling can help you learn to love and accept yourself after trauma. You can learn about your nervous system and start to understand yourself in a more positive, nurturing, gentle, loving way. Furthermore, you can learn about your vagus nerve and how you can stimulate your vagus nerve to calm your nervous system.
Yoga, art, drama therapies, music, and holistic expressive arts support confidence and positive self-love
Why try polyvagal theory and trauma therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
At Wisdom Within Counseling, we use a mixture of holistic art, yoga, music, and outdoor sessions alongside drama therapy. As trauma specialists, these creative therapies help your body shift into a safe place. Expressive arts in therapy help you move out of fight, flight, and freeze, which are trauma responses. As well, painting, drama therapy an improv, yoga, and meditation all provide a calming affect. This calming affect engages your parasympathetic nervous system and helps you learn how to live free from trauma.
How do expressive arts in therapy provide more effective trauma recovery?
By lowering your fight, flight, or phrase responses, you start to train yourself to live from a more balanced and calm place. At Wisdom Within Counseling, you can work with an art therapist that helps you use clay. Or, you can use glitter gel pens, acrylic paints, and watercolors to express what is on the inside. Art therapies greatly help people who have survived a physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Art therapies and drama therapies are known for relaxing your nervous system. So, painting or doing improv helps you feel safe, even if you are sharing a story about a painful life event. Art, yoga, music, and nature therapies also help children and adults express trauma. A child will not be able to talk like an adult can. So, child centered play therapy is how children feel safe when they are overstimulated by trauma.
We would love to help your family thrive using creative expressive arts to overcome trauma and PTSD.
