Stability After Trauma: How Post-Trauma Routines and A Therapist in Sugar Land, TX Help You Heal
After you have experienced trauma, whether it is a car wreck, a bad relationship, or past memories that you cannot seem to shake, you feel lost and out of control. Even when you are in safe circumstances now, you can randomly feel yourself clenching your jaw, your body fidgeting, or scanning every shadow, anxiously dreading the bad news that is certain to come your way.
How do you escape the constant stress, tension, anger, and fear that pulse through your veins after trauma? A strong start would be establishing a routine. When you visit me at Southern Pine Counseling to get help with a post-trauma routine, I help you discover a routine that can lay the foundation for stability.
After you have experienced trauma, small decisions become bigger and feel heavier. You can find yourself exhausted, standing in your kitchen, stalled over whether to make coffee or tea. As you look at your situation, you long for predictability and comforting habits we have when things are “normal”. Creating stability is an important part of your post-trauma routine because when you intentionally add in predictability and structure, you begin to establish a sense of safety. It is important to explain that this does not mean you have to have a rock-solid schedule; we are not trying to achieve perfection; we are simply establishing comfortable patterns that can give your nervous system a break from its constant state of high alert.
Having a routine allows you to open the door to re-establishing trust within yourself, as you see yourself overcome feelings of overwhelm and chaos and begin to experience small moments of tranquility. Predictability and structure are important skills that you learn when working with your therapist at Southern Pine Counseling in Sugar Land, TX.
If you wanted to get a head start at home, you could start small by building the structure you work to create, establishing a regular sleep schedule, and eating meals at actual meal times… even keeping your keys in the same place every day can help decrease the day-to-day stress you experience. Adding in some gentle self-care, such as calming walks, decreasing your exposure to the news and social media, and implementing a craft project, a phone call to someone you care about, or a light-hearted sitcom, can be simple switches that bring big results in stress reduction. When you do this, you avoid the little anxious moments that start to add up and weigh on you throughout your day. Taking the guesswork out of daily life reduces the constant cognitive load, which can give you more energy for the big stuff that you have been avoiding because you do not have “the bandwidth” to tackle that right now.
Trauma makes you task-focused, even when you do not have to be. When you seek help for your trauma at Southern Pine Counseling (whether it is a car wreck, childhood trauma or infidelity) you we take the time to build rapport, so that you feel comfortable sharing your experience on your time, you feel confident in your ability to care for yourself after working through those terrible memories and know that I am here to guide you toward finding peace in your life. When you have a good rapport with your therapist, and you feel secure, your nervous system can finally exhale, and you can process things in a manageable way, which allows you to truly open up and do the work of overcoming your trauma and PTSD that you came to do.
An important reason to attend trauma therapy for accidents, a chaotic childhood, or betrayal trauma is to be able to develop your emotional regulation. As you develop your emotional regulation, you learn to notice, tolerate, and soothe your own feelings. When you seek help from an expert trauma therapist like Alyssia at Southern Pine Counseling, she helps you establish grounding techniques such as the 5-4-3-2-1 method, which is important because it helps you stay present when your emotions threaten to overwhelm you.
Trauma robs you of your sense of control, but the good news is trauma therapy at Southern Pine Counseling will help you reclaim it, one small decision at a time. As you work with me, you will explore how small additions to your routine/schedule, such as integrating a five-minute walk, or saying “no” to a social event that overwhelmed you with dread, each little decision is a tiny win, allowing you to feel like the person you want to be again. Click here to schedule your free 15 minute consultation.
