Make Room for Healing
How much mental energy do you spend dwelling on the past?
How much mental energy is consumed with bitterness, doubt, guilt, rage, shame, worry? Do you ever give yourself a break -- or are you constantly filled with negativity, beating yourself up for the past? Are you still so angry with one or more people that it impacts your life regularly?
How have these negative thoughts and feelings affected your health? Are you healthy and happy -- or struggling with your physical and mental well-being?
The problem? Trauma.
The solution? Healing.
Trauma as an Infection
We typically talk about trauma not as the thing that happened to you, but the lingering unprocessed emotions related to the event. Most people are wired for protection, which means we all have a coping mechanism for dealing with negative events... some people compartmentalize their feelings, some bury all those things deeply in themselves, and others think they're sweeping everything under the rug.
This trauma is trapped in our minds, bodies, and souls. There's no compartmentalizing or sweeping things under the rug... that trauma is just waiting to be triggered -- to be reawakened in your nervous system, which then leads to many negative outcomes.
We may become very good at avoiding triggers, but that's not helpful in the least. Avoiding triggers simply allows that trauma to fester and grow more insidiously within you.
Maybe a different way to discuss trauma is by thinking of it as a dangerous infection -- an infection that is slowly negatively affecting our entire lives and the lives of the people around us. What do we do whenever we have an infection? We seek treatment, right? We seek HEALING.
How to HEAL Your Trauma
You may already be "treating" your infection with some pharmaceutical, such as an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, but these meds only focus on symptom management... good for short-term, but they will not get you to a place of healing.
Healing your trauma takes a very different approach than how doctors and psychologists have been treating it for the last half century. The pharmaceutical pills treatment is passive and a person's only involvement is swallowing the pills every day. Healing your trauma involves taking an active role in your treatments.
I recently published a well-received book, HEAL!, which outlines the six categories of holistic healing. I call them "wholeistic" healing modalities because the goal is to make you WHOLE again... perhaps for the first time in a very long time.
Six Wholeistic Healing Modalities
1. Psychedelic and Plant Medicines. A variety of plants, combinations of plants, and fungi have unique properties that allow major shifts in perspective and understanding. Current research continues to show that these substances have promising healing potential for a wide variety of mental and physical ailments/conditions, all of which originate with trauma. While macrodosing (a true psychedelic experience) has been studied quite a bit already, microdosing (a tiny, subperceptual dosage) is emerging as a popular tool.
As I discussed in detail in my ground-breaking book, Triumph Over Trauma, these psychedelic medicines are being labeled a "breakthrough" medicine, even though they have been around since time immemorial, with evidence of ceremonial use by Indigenous Peoples. In fact, psychedelics were being researched and touted as miracle drugs back in the 1960s before being banned by President Nixon and the U.S. Congress.
2. Somatics/Exercise. Movement has always been seen as something that is extremely important to our health and wellness, but it can also be used for healing purposes. The term somatic comes from the Greek word soma, which means "body," and includes all work that is done on working the body.
Many experts theorize that trauma affects our whole body, not just our mind. Thus, this area of healing operates on the concept that what happens to you in your life is stored not only in your mind, but also in your body -- and so you need to clear the trauma from your whole system.
3. Spirituality. Not sound overly harsh, but religion has done a real number on quashing/diminishing people's spirituality. We are spiritual beings, but many people with trauma lose faith, especially in organized religions. Healing helps us realize that we are not alone, that we are all connected, spiritually.
Spirituality and its related practices can be quite a positive force for healing, especially at a time when so many of us feel disconnected from the people and world around us. More than 3,000 studies indicate that religion and spirituality have a potentially beneficial effect on health, and health is a vital part of healing.
4. Nature. If you are like most people, some of your fondest childhood memories come from playing outside -- and that's partly because of the healing power of nature. The Japanese have known of the healing power of nature for centuries, calling the time spent as "forest bathing." Simply being in nature induces a state of physiologic relaxation, a true stress-reducer.
Furthermore, a large body of scientific evidence shows that spending time in nature is responsible for many measurable beneficial changes in the body. One of the reasons for these changes are chemicals (called phytoncides) produced by trees and plants.
5. Nutrition. Our grandparents would truly be aghast at the "foods" we consume; in fact, they would not even recognize some of the products. To make matters worse, some people trauma-eat, filling up with truly toxic candies and sickening desserts and other junk foods. As a whole, we are all nutrient-deficient.
Many of us are literally eating ourselves to death... it's so bad, we even have an acronym for it, SAD: Standard American Diet, which consists of ultra-processed foods, added sugars and salts, artificial flavors and colorings, refined/bleached grains, as well as toxic fats and oils. About 50 percent of the calories in SAD come from simple carbohydrates!
6. Breathwork. If we chose to, we could never once think about our breathing -- it is one of just a few automatic functions in our body (along with heartbeats and blood pressure) controlled by the medulla oblongata in our brain.
When we actively and consciously change the rhythm and pattern of our breathing, we can take our mind to deeper places -- places in which we may find healing.
Final Thoughts on Healing: Just Do It!
We all need healing.
Healing allows you to live for today -- in the present -- not dwelling on the past or imagining a better future. And there are amazing things that happen in the present that we often miss because our minds wander because of our trauma.
Healing? True healing? It just takes one step to start -- just a commitment to start researching the healing modalities that might work best for you.
The keys to successfully achieving true healing are intention, actively doing the work, and community:
Intention deals with having a focus on healing, of wanting to face the trauma and truly heal.
Doing the work is about consciously putting in the time and effort (and as many modalities as necessary) to address the trauma and heal. Sometimes healing opens your mind to other possibilities for your life, so the work also involves figuring out what's next after you heal.
Community is essential because a healing journey has ups and downs (and side alleys) -- and it's important to have a supportive group of family and friends; community can also include a coach or therapist.
Finally, these healing modalities do not preclude working with a therapist, and, in fact, all modalities can work well when combined.
One final note: Once you get on a healing journey and clear your previous trauma, life gets amazingly better, but most people stay on that healing path to help maintain healing, as well as to help protect/prepare for any future trauma.
Additional Resources For Finding Healing
Dr. Randall Hansen is an advocate, educator, mentor, ethicist, and thought-leader... helping the world heal from past trauma. He is founder and CEO of EmpoweringSites.com, a network of empowering and transformative Websites, including EmpoweringAdvice.com.
He is the author of the groundbreaking Triumph Over Trauma: Psychedelic Medicines are Helping People Heal Their Trauma, Change Their Lives, and Grow Their Spirituality and the well-received HEAL! Wholeistic Practices to Help Clear Your Trauma, Heal Yourself, and Live Your Best Life.
Dr. Hansen's focus and advocacy center around true healing ... healing that results in being able to live an authentic life filled with peace, joy, love. Learn more by visiting his personal Website, RandallSHansen.com. You can also check out Dr. Randall Hansen on LinkedIn.
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