Healing Trauma: Methods, Meditations, & Books

All of us have experienced some form of trauma—some traumas are bigger, some are smaller. In childhood, we simply manage as best we can, developing whatever coping mechanisms help us survive. So by the time we reach adulthood, most of us have significant trauma-healing work to do. And if we are willing to do it, we can begin to more fully enjoy our lives and make the most of the life we do have. 

Trauma Healing Techniques
Trauma healing work can involve a number of techniques. First, and most importantly, making use of a trauma therapist can greatly aid this journey. Internal Family Systems therapists, somatic therapists, EMDR practitioners, and other trauma-trained therapists can be very helpful.

Here is a directory of Internal Family Systems practitioners.

You might also consider joining a 12-step group. This is a place where you can openly share past traumas so that you can begin to understand them—and the role they’ve had in your life.

In addition, there are a variety of other trauma-focused psychological techniques that can help you heal past trauma and move past it. Here are a few that I find helpful.

Preferably under the supervision of a therapist, these trauma healing techniques can help you begin to uproot even the most deeply held traumas.

Healing Trauma Patterns
Trauma significantly changes our perceptions and beliefs (Doucet & Rovers, 2010) resulting in trauma-based patterns. Each pattern includes a belief (or perspective) that leads to specific types of thoughts, that lead to specific emotions, that lead to specific action tendencies (i.e., habits), that lead to specific behaviors, that lead to specific experiences. It looks like this:

Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience

Trauma rewrites our beliefs, which then creates a cascade of life challenges, often resulting in negative experiences.
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Examples of Trauma Patterns
Here are a few examples of how trauma rewrites our patterns by changing our beliefs.

Example of Developmental Trauma
Soroya is 6 years old and has one older sister. Her parents and the older sister gang up on her and tease her for playing with “baby toys”, for having messy hair, for being shy, and for pretty much everything else. This experience leads her to develop two beliefs: 1.) I’m not good, and 2.) People are cruel. 

This leads to the following life experiences:

• Belief: I’m not good > Thought: I shouldn’t show my true self > Emotion: Shame > Habit: People-pleasing  > Behavior: Overly nice, non-authentic > Experience: Disconnection from others
• Belief: People are cruel > Thought: I don’t want to be around people > Emotion: Fear > Habit: Social anxiety > Behavior: Avoiding social interactions > Experience: Isolation and loneliness

As you can see, our traumatic experiences shift the way we perceive the world, which changes how we interact with the world.

Example of Generational Trauma
Luis has 5 siblings and both his parents work long hours. This mimics how his parents grew up, how his grandparents grew up, and so on. Luis’s eldest sister is often the one he goes to for support and he is generally responsible for taking care of his younger brother. This experience leads Luis to develop the belief that ‘Life is hard’.

This leads to the following life experiences:

• Belief: Life is hard > Thought: I must constantly be working > Emotion: Stress > Habit: Workaholism > Behavior: Little time for rest or fun > Experience: Burnout or unhappiness

Keep in mind that everyone’s patterns are different. Two entirely different experiences could result in the same pattern. Simultaneously, the exact same experience could result in different patterns. For example, Luis’s siblings might start with the same belief, but the thoughts that come from these beliefs might be “I’m going to escape” or “I give up”. Everyone is different. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to your own patterns so that you can understand what truly creates the life you live.

Healing Your Trauma Patterns
To undo our trauma-based beliefs, all we need to do is bring awareness to the entire chain of events so that we can see it clearly. Although Cognitive Behavior Therapy might suggest we should use our will to change our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, habits, etc…, this isn’t necessary. In fact, forcing ourselves to be what we are not can bring up all kinds of negative emotions.

The truth is we don’t need to actively change ourselves. All we need to do is simply acknowledge the entire sequence of events every time it occurs—and do so without self-judgment or self-criticism. By maintaining ongoing self-awareness and self-compassion, we begin to realize that 1.) our trauma-based beliefs aren’t true, and, 2.) They aren’t who we are. This recognition leads the beliefs to dissolve on their own. 

After we fully acknowledge a pattern of ours—that is, we bring full awareness and acceptance to the “Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience” chain—the core belief will begin to dissolve. It’s kind of like a monster under our bed. If we avoid looking at it, then it’s scary. After we look, we realize that it’s really an illusion and it vanishes. The same is true for our trauma-based beliefs. All we have to do is look and accept.

Here are some common examples of trauma-based beliefs:

• I am worthless. 
• I don’t matter.
• I am bad. 
• I am to blame.
• I am trapped. 
• I can’t.
• I am a burden.
• I am unsafe. 
• I am vulnerable. 
• I am weak.
• I am mistreated. 
• I am a victim.
• I am a failure.

To begin healing trauma-based beliefs, ask yourself, “Do I have any of these beliefs?” If you experience emotions like shame, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, or frustration, it likely comes from one of these beliefs (or a belief similar to it). Spend some time really thinking about what ‘Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience’ patterns occur for you.

To begin healing trauma, it can be helpful to uncover the roots of it. Here is what you might try:

Healing Trauma Through Awareness
If we are in denial, we may need to allow the experience of trauma to come forward into awareness and just look at it. For example, if we are looking at a thought, we might try to observe it as a thing, notice the emotions associated with it, look for the beliefs that created it, and watch it fade away. You can think of it as moving through your awareness as if on a conveyor belt.

Important note: Not all trauma needs to be remembered and reviewed (in fact, this can sometimes be detrimental). Often, we can simply observe the sensations, observe ourselves crying or screaming (if that’s what we need), and pay attention to the trauma (hopefully) moving out of our bodies. Much of our trauma is stored in the body (Van der Kolk, 1994), and that’s why body-based trauma healing (like somatics and EMDR) can often be quite helpful.

Trauma Healing Time-Travel Visualization
Sometimes it can help to go backward in time and imagine the situation occurring differently. For example, we might imagine yelling at our parents, standing up for ourselves in ways that we couldn’t as a child, or running away (​Schubiner & Betzold, 2010). Our brains often experience visualization as if the event were occurring right now (Quoidbach et al., 2009). So, stopping a trauma from occurring in our imagination may help us gain a greater sense of self-empowerment.

As we begin to be more aware of our trauma, we might have the urge to resist, fight, ignore, or otherwise push away what we see. This is completely understandable. If we can, it helps to simply acknowledge what is. We might say, “Yes, this happened, and it hurt me.” This in no way excuses what happened or indicates that you find it acceptable. It just involves seeing our experience and acknowledging our lived experience of what happened—what we thought, felt, and experienced. 

Example of Healing Trauma Through Acknowledgement
Misty experienced emotional abuse as a child, but because her mom gaslighted her, she wasn’t able to acknowledge her own emotions and experiences until her late 40s. She remembered being told things like, “You’re over-reacting” and “I love you more than anything”—which invalidated and diminished her felt experience of being hurt, abused, and unloved.

After experiencing intense trauma symptoms—yet not understanding where they were coming from—she decided to start therapy to better understand what was happening to her. In therapy, she was finally able to acknowledge the pain of being raised by a narcissistic mother. Her mother had been unable to acknowledge Misty’s feelings, so Misty learned to ignore those feelings too. 

Acknowledging her pain was difficult at first—there was a lot of pain to process. But over time, and with the support of her therapist, she was finally able to release the pain that was producing symptoms, and she began to recreate her life in ways that allowed her feelings to exist just as they were.

Self-love and self-compassion are key tools to keep on hand while healing trauma. There may be times when you want to blame yourself for not processing the trauma sooner, harm yourself in the same ways you were harmed in the past, or abandon yourself in ways that helped you survive as a child. Instead, try to offer love to your inner child, and give that child all the support it needs.

Trauma is often stored in the body, and so it can result in a variety of physical symptoms as well as mental symptoms (Van der Kolk, 1994). This is why meditation—particularly vipassana meditation, which can involve paying attention to physical sensations—can be such a useful trauma-healing method.

Try this trauma-healing meditation below to see if it’s a good fit for you.

• Doucet, M., & Rovers, M. (2010). Generational trauma, attachment, and spiritual/religious interventions. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 15(2), 93-105.
  
• Quoidbach, J., Wood, A. M., & Hansenne, M. (2009). Back to the future: The effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5), 349-355.
  
• ​Schubiner, H., & Betzold, M. (2010). Unlearn your pain. Pleasant Ridge, MI: Mind Body Publishing.
  
• Van der Kolk, B. A. (1994). The body keeps the score: Memory and the evolving psychobiology of posttraumatic stress. Harvard review of psychiatry, 1(5), 253-265.