Changing old patterns
Trauma and anxiety are closely linked. After experiencing a traumatic event, it’s natural to go through a range of negative emotions, including anger, fear, guilt, sadness, and confusion. Anxiety is also a common symptom of trauma, due to its role in our stress responses, also known as fight, flight, freeze, flop or fawn. Anxiety isn’t …
The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in our body, running from the brain stem to part of the colon, supplying both our organs and our brain with vital information. The word “vagus” means wandering in Latin, and the vagus nerve is a wandering cranial nerve that communicates to every organ in our body, especially …
I remember a few years ago, a friend persuaded me to attend a meditation class with her. I couldn’t concentrate or focus, it was boring, and I was just desperate to get down the pub after. This is just one example of how I typically lived for most of my life. If I did ever …
After years of never really fitting in, always feeling as though there was something wrong with me, and entering into toxic friendships and abusive relationships, I finally found myself at rock bottom. I had no choice but to seek help, if I was going to get through. At my first therapy session, not even …
Continue reading “Are You Living In Survival Mode? (and what to do about it)”
We have a saying in our house, on a regular basis. Whenever I or one of my daughters feels stressed at something outside of our control, and about to react, one of us will ask ‘Where’s the bull’s pause?’ A few deep breaths later, and using one of our grounding techniques, we are ready to …
The Window Of Tolerance is a concept originally developed by Dr Dan Siegel, MD, in his 1999 book, The Developing Mind, to describe the optimum zone of ‘arousal’ for a person to function in every day life. When we are operating within our window of tolerance, we can effectively manage and cope with our …
In his book ‘Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner child‘, John Bradshaw relays a story of how, as a grown adult on holiday with his wife and children, something didn’t go his way, and before he knew it, he had stormed out of the accommodation, and was pacing up and down in a new hotel …
In the ancient past, it was useful for our ancestors to respond quickly to danger, or predators and escape with a quick action (a trauma response). The 5 main trauma responses are: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Friend (Fawn), Flop When confronted with a threat, an animal’s brain automatically switches to ‘survival’ mode. The trauma response depends …
Continue reading “The 5 main trauma responses and how they affect our day-to-day life”