EFL Equipped for Life
Counselling, Coaching and Educating
Trauma-Informed Care
Don’t let the past trauma or stress take over your life.
With the correct help, you CAN start living again.
When we suppress traumatic stress or any emotions, they will find ways to manifest when we least expected. For example, a person who is suppressing stress can be extremely sensitive, irritable, anxious, impatient and can burst out in anger easily.
Research also reveals that traumatic stress increases both mental and physical health risks.
What is trauma
The psychological and emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing, or disturbing is called trauma. Trauma is not a frightening or upsetting event that took place sometime in the past. Most recent scientific evidence confirms that when the traumatic event is over, the impression left by the experience can become imprinted on the mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how people continue to manage life.
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Trauma never affects two people the same way. It is vital that we treat each case individually and understand their unique needs.
There are various reasons why people respond differently to the same event. Previous experience, age, culture and beliefs, current issues, race, gender, location, and language can characterise one’s post-traumatic stress. People are often trying to forget the event, hoping it may help to deal with the impacts of trauma. Understanding that the trauma is how our body and mind have responded to the event, or series of events, is important when developing coping skills. The stress of trauma can have a vast impact on our overall health, and it’s common to experience a wide range of psychological symptoms. These include intrusive thoughts, worry, difficulty sleeping, trouble focusing, bouts of crying, blame or self-judgment and lack of satisfaction. The effects of trauma also can cause intense emotion such as extreme emotional fluctuations, unhappiness, anxiety, loneliness, anger, and irritability.
Trauma can affect one’s beliefs about the future due to loss of hope, fear that life might end unexpectedly or early, or anticipation that normal life events may not be possible (start or manage current relationships, ability to enjoy life, keep employment or good health) If you suffer from any of the above and affecting your quality of life, seek help today.
Types of Trauma
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Emotional trauma: Rejection, emotional abuse and emotional neglect.
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Complex trauma: Exposure to multiple traumatic events.
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Early childhood trauma: Generally refers to the traumatic experiences that occur to children aged 0-6.
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Medical trauma: Psychological and physiological responses of children and their families to single or multiple medical events.
Childhood Trauma
Research has revealed the powerful and positive effect of caring relationships have on the neurobiology of the developing brain. Equally, lack of affection and positive connection, abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, and other adverse childhood experience, has a significantly negative effect on the development of the emotional structure and chemistry of the brain. These effects can continue throughout life causing grief and turmoil in every area of life. However, through extensive research effective care and support are made available today for restoring impacts of childhood trauma. If you like to know more books a free consultation today.
The most common form of childhood trauma is found to be Neglect.
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Neglect doesn't necessarily mean intentionally abandoned.
There are different types of neglect such as:
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Physical.
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While we were young, we are not able to regulate the nervous system, we do not have the capacity to soothe ourselves to calm ourselves down. Children learn coping skills from their environment whether it is a healthy way of coping or not. While we are young, we are not able to regulate the nervous system, we do not have the capacity to soothe ourselves, to calm ourselves down. Children learn coping skills from their environment, whether it is a healthy way of coping or not. It is common for children to develop unhealthy, damaging coping skills and carry them into adulthood.
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Emotional.
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Medical.
This type of neglect can happen due to trauma parents or the caregiver themselves going through. It is not uncommon during the death of a loved one, separation, financial hardship, and many other complex circumstances one or more of the above needs may not be met. If this occurs long enough it is most likely to result in neglect sometimes unbeknown to the parents. Sadly the children at an early age cannot explain what they are experiencing, so the feelings and anxiety they feel get stored in their brain/limbic system, also known as the emotional brain. Extensive research in this area has revealed a vast number of adults suffer from ongoing stress and chronic illness as an impact of childhood trauma.
How can childhood trauma affect adulthood?
While we were young, we are not able to regulate the nervous system, we do not have the capacity to soothe ourselves to calm ourselves down. Children learn coping skills from their environment whether it is a healthy way of coping or not. It is common for children to develop unhealthy, damaging coping skills and carry them into adulthood.
I have worked with many adults who experience emotional struggles that impact the quality of life and they cannot seem to understand why. When they are able to identify the underlying cause from the past, there is a shift in the perspective of the issue. Then a new journey towards a happier life begins.
Research has revealed the powerful and positive effect of caring relationships have on the neurobiology of the developing brain. Equally, lack of affection and positive connection, abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, and other adverse childhood experience, has a significantly negative effect on the development of the emotional structure and chemistry of the brain. Traumatic stress leads to significant changes in brain structure and function that cause the victim to continue experiencing stress. These effects can continue throughout life causing grief and turmoil in every area of life. However, through extensive research effective care and support are made available today for restoring impacts of childhood trauma. If you suffer from the trauma of any sort seek help today.
Be Mindful
"I have not been given a spirit of fear, but of the power of love and sound mind"
Book of Timothy
Mindfulness for a balanced nervous system
Although we are aware when we are stressed, some of us used to be on the go exhausted/frazzled, hard to remember what it feels like to have a balanced nervous system
( clam and able to focus) When our nervous system is stuck in the hyperarousal state (worried and stressed) for a long period of time can lead to numerous health issues.
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In today's fast phase world there is constant external stress. If we are internally battling ongoing stress also we forget how to stop and breath.
If this sounds like you, click on the link to learn simple but effective mindfulness exercises easy to apply. Help reduce the toxicity of stress in your body.​
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If this sounds like you, try practising following mindfulness exercises to help reduce the toxicity of stress in your body
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Awareness.
Focusing on your body and how it feels as you move will help regulate your nervous system. When your mind tries to take you back, try not to fight the thoughts, instead notice the sensation of your body. Feel your feet on the ground. Breath in gently and imagine the breath filling you belly, now breath out slowly as you can. Try to focus on breading out, and the sound of your breath. Practice breathing for a couple of minutes,
Praying and meditating can help increase mindfulness.
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Movement.
Walking is great while noticing your feet hitting the ground, try to move your arms and legs in a rhythm. Feel the wind on your skin. Move your eyes left to right and in reverse gently and notice what you see. If you are sitting somewhere, notice the weight of your body sinking into the chair and gently breath. If you are standing not possible to walk at the time, notice the feet touching the ground, wiggle your toes and notice the feeling in your shoes and what it feels like.
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Sensory input.
Listening to music is great! Smell something pleasant and hold something in your hands and focus how it feels, the texture etc. pat an animal, If you are in a place you got nothing handy, grab your keys and feel the texture of plastic and metal in your hand. Use your own imagination, the idea here is to bring yourself to the present moment.
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Notice internal shift
Notice if your muscles feel tense or painful? If your stomach feels tight, cramped, or aching? Notice if you are clenching your jaw and your hands.
Notice your breath
If breathing seems to be shallow? With one hand on your abdomen, one hand on your chest. Observe your hands rise and fall as you take each breath.
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Notice your breath
If breathing seems to be shallow? With one hand on your abdomen, one hand on your chest. Observe your hands rise and fall as you take each breath.
FIGHT
Have a tendency
to fight?
Attributes look like:
• Having a wave of sudden anger or frustration that is inconsistent with the severity of the issue.
• Wanting to prove your
the point, getting defensive even though you know you’re wrong, you hold
your ground anyway and find it hard to admit
fault).
• Anger becomes intense and your volume goes high, become
aggressive (This can look like rage)
FLY OR FLEE
Have a
a tendency to flee.
Attributes look like:
• Pay no attention at all the situation or pretending it didn’t happen.
• You might feel like you really need to get away, you feel that if you start over then things will
change, which may show up as thinking
about moving (or moving) away from
situations, cities, jobs, relationships, etc.
• walking away from a conversation and doing
your best to avoid any and all confrontation.
• Getting busy and preoccupied with
something that’s completely the opposite of
the situation at hand – you will start do something totally unrelated to the situation set this cleaning more tidying up.
FREEZE
Have a tendency
to freeze?
Attributes look like:
Finding it hard to express anything, feeling of going completely blank.
•Wanting to be isolated lack of desire for any social activity
• Hoping if I avoid long enough not think about the issue will go away
• Completely forget a stressful (or traumatic)
the situation even happened… when someone
asks you about it you might say “what are
you are talking about?” (And you really do have
NO recollection of the incident).
• Having time pass without much awareness,
be it for minutes, hours, days or years.
Our survival responses are governed by the autonomic nervous system to keep us safe and out of harm. The three survival instincts are known as Fight, Fly and Freeze. Without these instincts, we cannot defend ourselves from danger. However, we are not supposed to stay in these modes for an excessive amount of time.
Practising mindfulness can help us to keep our nervous system regulated and manage stress better.
