JOIN YOUR NEXT LIVE WEEKLY COACHING SESSION!
Dec. 30, 2022

Healing from Trauma and C-PTSD: Tips and Strategies for Finding Peace and Recovery

In this episode, I speak about the process of healing from trauma and C-PTSD and discuss the importance of seeking professional help, the challenges that come with healing from trauma, and strategies for managing and overcoming them...
See show notes at: https://www.thinkunbrokenpodcast.com/the-process-of-healing-from-trauma-cptsd-and-trauma-healing-coach/#show-notes

In this episode, I speak about the process of healing from trauma and C-PTSD and discuss the importance of seeking professional help, the challenges that come with healing from trauma, and strategies for managing and overcoming them. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to take the first steps towards healing and finding peace in the aftermath of trauma. Tune in now to learn more and start your journey to recovery.

************* LINKS & RESOURCES *************

Learn how to heal and overcome childhood trauma, narcissistic abuse, ptsd, cptsd, higher ACE scores, anxiety, depression, and mental health issues and illness. Learn tools that therapists, trauma coaches, mindset leaders, neuroscientists, and researchers use to help people heal and recover from mental health problems. Discover real and practical advice and guidance for how to understand and overcome childhood trauma, abuse, and narc abuse mental trauma. Heal your body and mind, stop limiting beliefs, end self-sabotage, and become the HERO of your own story. 

Join our FREE COMMUNITY as a member of the Unbroken Nation: https://www.thinkunbrokenacademy.com/share/AEGok414shubQSzq?utm_source=manual 

Download the first three chapters of the Award-Winning Book Think Unbroken: Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma: https://book.thinkunbroken.com/ 

Join the Think Unbroken Trauma Transformation Course: https://coaching.thinkunbroken.com/ 

@Michael Unbroken: https://www.instagram.com/michaelunbroken/ 

Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@michaelunbroken 

Learn more at https://www.thinkunbrokenpodcast.com

Support the Podcast: Become a listed sponsor!

Follow me on Instagram @MichaelUnbroken

Learn more about coaching at https://coaching.thinkunbroken.com

Get your FREE copy of my #1 Best-Selling Book Think Unbroken: https://book.thinkunbroken.com/

Transcript

Here I am alive at Last and I'll savor every moment of it, the taste of ink, the used.

Confronting the past is the gateway to Healing.

There is a powerful shift that begins as soon as you decide, you are going to do, whatever it takes to become healthy. The choice and becoming healthy is built into the mindset and actions that you move towards. The definition of healthy is whatever you want it to be.

If you choose to do the work and begin the process of addressing your past, you will gain a better understanding of the impact of your trauma why you are stuck in the vortex and how you can start owning your story. When you choose to address your past, you are going to have, to be honest with yourself and the people in your life.

As mentioned before some people will not understand the changes you are going through becoming honest and vulnerable with yourself is the only way to truly begin to heal and this may mean addressing traumatic experiences you do not want to recall. I don't know that every person must uncover every bit of their past but for me, that was the only way I could fill the process of change occur.

Being vulnerable with yourself will feel very uncomfortable and at times, you may even feel like you are coming out of your own skin, and that's because you are, you are shedding the old you bit by bit.

Being vulnerable also means, holding space for yourself to make mistakes, notice feelings, and emotions, and make new discoveries about yourself without judgment. When this happens, it's important that you remind yourself that you are stepping into the darkness and you will find the light.

The more uncomfortable you are the better because there's growth in discomfort. If you are always within your comfort zone, you will never learn anything about yourself confronting and taking ownership of your past is incredibly difficult, but at some point, you have to ask yourself.

What are you willing to do to take your life back?

Considering options for when, where, and how to start your journey can create an avalanche of questions, which may leave you more perplexed than the trauma itself was so many modalities and theologies around healing trauma it's easy to get lost in the shuffle and quit before you even begin.

To be able to effectively navigate the path you are stepping onto. You have to know why you are walking onto it. You have to ask yourself, why do you want to heal? What is it that you need or desire? Why are you willing to step into parts of yourself that you have never fully understood? Why are you willing to do the most uncomfortable and difficult thing you will ever do?

Being able to know and articulate you're why is invaluable.

Your why will become your source of strength and clarity in those moments when you feel that you can't keep going and that is why early in the book, you wrote about what your why is?

Being able to identify my why was simple because I had always known what it was. When I was a child I promised myself that I would never become like the people who brought me into this world that I would always do whatever I could to live proud of myself.

It wasn't until I realized that my trauma experiences had impacted me so deeply that I could see that I was rationalizing, my poor life choices and was totally off course. I have continually recalled my promise and my why when this journey fills its most bleak.

Now that you have a “WHY,” you must figure out the when, where, and how subjectively and contextually, this is even more difficult than figuring out why. The endless options at your fingertips can certainly lead to analysis paralysis, and the struggle of deciding, which is the best option for you. The simple solution to figuring out, which modality is best will only come through experimentation.

I find that what works best for one person may not work for another. I get a measurable release out of writing and talk therapy. You may find results in yoga, meditation, and turning your journey more inward. I will always suggest talk therapy as a first-line step towards healing because the efficacy of the practice is not only well documented in studies, scientific journals, and clinical trials, but also from countless first-hand experiences shared amongst millions of people around the world.

The power of a therapist is not anecdotal. I have found such great insight in therapy because I was able to layout a scenario or thought pattern and have my thoughts reciprocated back to me and then create an understanding of causation. What I mean by this is that when I told my therapist about certain behaviors or patterns that I saw in my life like watching porn when I am dissociated and anxious, he reciprocated my feelings and understanding of self without any judgment.

Therapy helped me understand why so many behaviors around my anxiety and depression or coping mechanisms that I had created in an effort to be avoidant of things that needed my attention and to self-soothe that said the most important thing I have experienced in therapy is simply being heard.

I am very analytical and need to be able to find the underlying reason for everything, through therapy I was able to decode that my present behavior as a result of my past experiences.

In addition, the communication with an unbiased third party, allowed me to figure out that A plus B equals C in countless experiences of my past and present. This is also held true for me and my time in men's group therapy, AA, NA, EMDR, and CBT. I found an incredible reassociation of my body and mind through other less traditional modalities.

It was in yoga that I found the baseline of my meditation practice. I started with DDP Yoga, shout out to Diamond Dallas Page, at over 340 pounds I was far too embarrassed to step foot inside of a yoga studio.

Being obese for a second time was far more embarrassing than the first and with DDP Yoga on DVD, I could freely move within the confines of my townhouse living room.

Concentrating on individual parts of my body as I flowed, I slowly began to integrate a sense of control over myself that I had not previously known in time and practice I moved into a studio and began Bikram Yoga and eventually 90-minute hot Power Yoga, which took me years to build up to when I started, I could barely hold a pose for more than five or six seconds.

I have also experienced incredible physical healing that came with massage therapy and healing touch. I have tried every massage modality that I could find from shot sue and Rolfing to trigger release and facial release.

One of the more difficult battles I had to face and heal was the physical pain that was stored in my body. Not to mention the huge fear of intimacy and nonviolent touch my body held the trauma of hundreds of beatings, fights, and untreated injuries, which had me feeling like I was 100 years old instead of in my late 20s. I viewed my journey to finding the right massage therapist in the same way that I viewed seeking the right mental health care for myself.

It was only through a process of elimination that I was able to find the right practitioners. The bodywork, I had done has played a pivotal role in reconnecting my body and my mind. Those first few visits, left me feeling even more disconnected and shut off from my body.

I was still in a place of protecting myself from touch in the same way that I did when I was young. As a child, I would take myself out of my body to escape the pain being inflicted upon it, but I knew that to continue to move forward I must allow my brain and body to coexist in a healthy way. It took months of constant work to get me to a place where I could tolerate the touch of another human being and that is still an area where I put my focus.

You will find through your own experimentation and practices how to reintegrate the brain and body connection and what modalities are best suited for your journey. The best thing you can do for yourself now is to spend a little time researching different options that you feel would be best suited for your lifestyle and where you are heading in your healing practice.

Once you have an idea of where to start then start I have shared a couple of examples of the modalities that were most beneficial to me, to highlight a simple point. If I would not have taken the first step and try to anything at all, my life would be much different than it is right now. I hope you find encouragement in the idea that there is no right or wrong way to start your journey.

You may try 10 different ways of approaching healing before finding one or two that really aligned with your path. It's okay if healing takes longer than you thought. The goal is to continue to work towards health no matter what.

The only thing you must do is start.

When it's all said and done this journey is ultimately about finding self-love.

Think Unbroken is about getting out of the vortex and taking your life back and you can't do that if you hate yourself.

Everything you do from this point forward is about learning to hold space to treat yourself with love and kindness like tapping into your potential. It is up to you to choose self-love.

Michael UnbrokenProfile Photo

Michael Unbroken

Coach

Michael is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, speaker, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma.