Healing Trauma as a Christian Mama

This episode talks about emotional flashbacks and we go over Pete Walkers 13 steps of what to do when you have an emotional flashback

Emotional flashbacks are intense emotional states activated by past trauma (e.g., fear, shame, or feeling unsafe). 

Emotional flashbacks may be hard to recognize. They can happen suddenly and it can be hard to pinpoint what caused them.

Emotional flashbacks are not typically visual or auditory. This means they can be harder to detect, and you may not know that what you’re experiencing is an emotional flashback. You might blame yourself for these feelings or think that you’re overwhelmed or emotionally dysregulated for another reason.

Psychotherapist Pete Walker who talks about this a lot says “Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions (‘amygdala hijackings’) to the frightening circumstances of childhood. They are typically experienced as intense and confusing episodes of fear and/or despair – or as sorrowful and/or enraged reactions to this fear and despair.”

This exercise is a great exercise if you are thinking about going on a healing journey or your already in one but are feeling stagnant or stuck plateaued.

Its a very simple exercise that helps you look at what does the future hold if you DO change and heal and what will it take. It also looks at the flip side, what are the hard parts of change and healing and where will we self-sabotage our own efforts and stand in our own way even though we do WANT healing.

A life time line is a tool to help us organize all the experiences we've had in our life and give us a starting point for what to work on in our healing.

It can help us see why some experiences impacted us more because of other things we had going on or happening at that same time.

It gives us a birds eye view of our life and can be a helpful tool to use in our therapy or coaching sessions

This week's episode is about creating a safety plan for yourself. Even if you never use it, it can be so beneficial to have this because we really cant predict whats going to happen in our lives and its better to be safe than sorry.

In the episode, we walk through 4 simple steps to have in our safety plan to keep it simple but effective.

Check out my social media to get a visual look at this safety plan!

https://www.instagram.com/healwith_danielleelizabeth/

https://www.facebook.com/Danielleelizabethcoaching/

This was an exercise I learned from my counsellor in the depths of my own healing journey, she called it inner healing prayer.

In this episode I go over two different ways to do this.

The first is to use the exercise to invite Jesus into past trauma's and wounded areas.

The second is to use it to help in day to day experiences that happen in real time.

Either way, this is a powerful way to bring Jesus into your healing journey.

If you try this exercise, I would LOVE to hear how it went so please feel free to share any stories with me!

A genogram is an important tool for self-awareness, personal development, and relationship development. It can reveal how a person’s experiences today make sense in the larger context of their family-of-origin and past experiences.

A genogram can give you insight into the many different things that have happened in your family, such as negative family dynamics and family struggles, like divorce, death, and broken relationships. It also can help you understand why these things might have happened.

Sometimes more insidious traits can be passed through generations. Sometimes there's a genetic predisposition to addiction or depression. Other times, unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving are passed down socially, through example

Genograms provide a way for us to examine these patterns. They bring a family's strengths and weaknesses out into the open. Genograms set the foundation for nurturing generational strengths and overcoming weaknesses.

Great Article about Genograms:

https://www.olivemecounseling.com/blog/genogram

The trauma egg is a great tool to utilize to help gather information about things you've experienced and insight into your upbringing. In this episode I go through the process of completing the trauma egg and why each part of it is important for our healing journey

This episode I share 3 external tools I use to help with my anxiety.

*None of these are paid ad's or products where I get anything from so this isnt a sales pitch, I truly use these tools on a regular basis and want to share my experience with each for you.

The first is loop earplugs. These have been lifesavers for me as a busy mom of 4 who gets unbelievably overstimulated by noise. I get very angry and have bad mom rage when Im triggered by noise so I live in these most of the day and they have changed my life forever. I had no idea noise was such a trigger for me until I found these and saw the difference they have made.

The second is the Calmigo. It is a little device that helps regulate your breathing when you are starting to escalate. My kids love this more than I do now and reach for it regularly when they are dysregulated.

The third is a new device Ive started to use called the CalmCarry. I dont fully understand how it works so this is more me explaining how its helping me versus explaining how it works, all I know is it does work! I got it to help with my sleep and Ive been pleasantly surprised with how much its helping. Ive started using it during the day as well to help with anxiety and overwhelm and it helps during the day too! I also have found it very helpful while I travel because I am not a good flyer and used this on my last few flights and it helped!

Links to each product:

Loop Earplug

https://community.loopearplugs.com/s/danielle.f.22

Calmigo

https://calmigo.com/products/2020-calmigo-smart-calming-companion?variant=40247577247826

CalmCarry

https://www.theglowcompany.co/