Trauma-Sensitive Meditative Practices that Promote Healing
Throughout my journey over the past eleven years of living in Melbourne, studying, working and learning, there is nothing that has caught my attention as a professional in the helping field more than the association between trauma and Meditative Practices such as mindfulness. Longer than I can remember, I have had a relationship with both, somewhat consciously but mostly subconsciously. Previously, traumatic experiences have had a profound effect of my sense of who I am. As I have sort to continually engage in life and connect to my true identity in a deeper and more meaningful way, I have developed my understanding of spiritual practices and their relationship to my trauma. This has helped me to create a sense of safety and renew my mind to who God says I am.
Trauma conjures up negative images in the mind that previously had me running as fast as I could away from the feelings and thoughts of the past, the hardships, the injustices, the helplessness, the hurt, the pain. I lost sight of who I was, who God made me to be, my gifts, my talents, my dreams and goals, my purpose. I spent years feeling like there was something wrong with me, thinking I wasn’t good enough, important enough, worthy enough, smart enough, valued enough to have the life I dreamed of and so I continually sabotaged anything that contradicted this way of thinking. I remember feeling a sense of paranoia that one day someone would find out I was a fake, faulty, flawed. Yet, throughout my journey I have seen the real me make repeated attempts to break free of the bondage and of the effects of trauma. Like a rabbit in a burrow, safe from the foxes and the hawks, knowing that it has to go out to find food otherwise it will die, leaves the safety of the burrow but always alert to danger and ready to run and hide at the slightest sign of feeling unsafe.
Trauma blurs the boundary between the reality of now, memories of the past and dreams of the future. Trauma attempts to steal your identity and left unprocessed, changes details of who you are right down to the choices you make, the relationships you have, how you care for yourself, what you think about yourself, what you think about others and whether you think the world can be a safe place. Trauma is a whole system response to being threatened or violated. Trauma compromises feelings of safety and security, and our sense of control. Historically, treating the effects of trauma involved retelling of traumatic experiences, which often had a re-traumatising effect on the client. Thanks to experts in the field such as Rothschild, Ogden and Levine, who have have contributed deeply to understanding what trauma looks like and how to work safely within the therapeutic space with clients, this thinking has changed. Working with trauma is very different today and although it requires history taking of the client, details of trauma are not encouraged, but are exchanged for the empowering of the client towards psychological safety, sensory stabilisation, identifying and drawing on internal resources and working towards living a quantity of life.
In recent years, research of inward meditative practices such as mindfulness have focused on areas such as anxiety, depression and personal growth and have shown some positive results in stress reduction, but some have struggled with these types of practices. This may be due to clients who have experienced trauma, which is estimated to be has high as one in three people also trauma, when trying to connect to breath and inward sensations can trigger the held experience of trauma still trapped in their physical body. Rothschild explains this well in saying “the body remembers”.
Research into mindfulness has shown that is can strengthen body awareness, boost attention, and increase the ability to regulate emotions, all of which are important in working with the effects of trauma, but caution is needed in motioning the body’s response and maintaining psychological safety. Professionally, Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT) has focused of developing a more present awareness of thoughts, helping clients to notice and let go of unhelpful thoughts, develop a better self-regulation and interpersonal skills, and increase ones capacity for self compassion and kindness. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, popularised by Jon Kabat-Zinn focuses on “paying attention to present moment experience with open curiosity and a willingness to be with what is”, whilst others connect mindfulness and character strengths for overall flourishing (3), Monash researches mindfulness in relationship to learning and living more mindfully (4), whereas, Smiling Mind have introduced mindfulness to the younger generation through school-based practices. These mindfulness practices are lacking in that they do not specifically address the safety concerns of someone who has experienced trauma. I have found that in using mindfulness practices when there is underlying unresolved or unprocessed trauma, mindfulness can trigger symptoms associated with past trauma and PTSD,
bringing previously suppressed thoughts and emotions to the surface and exaggerating symptoms. I must say at this point that meditative practices such as mindfulness do not cause trauma, it is the practice without the understanding of trauma which can exacerbate trauma symptoms, which I have had to learn along the way, as the field of trauma-sensitive mindfulness is still growing.
In more recent years I have committed to developing my own trauma-sensitive meditative practices as part of my spiritual journey from past trauma towards wholeness and in order to understand how to best help clients navigate their own pathways. As a trauma sensitive practitioner, my role is to stay responsive to the unique and ongoing needs of the client, understanding what is triggering for one trauma survivor can be beneficial for another and adjust these practices accordingly.
If you have experienced, be reminded of who you are in the eyes of God “fearfully and wonderfully made in His image”, that God’s plans for you “are good, to give you a future and a hope, not to hurt you”, there is hope is finding inner peace, shalom peace where there is “nothing missing and nothing broken”, and His love for you is such that “He holds every tear you will ever cry in the palm of His hand” for “you are precious in His sight”. If you would like to explore mindfulness practices in a safe and empowering way towards a better quality of life, I would love to connect with you on your journey. During the months of October and November I will be running some workshops on trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices, and self-compassion which will be advertised through LIFE Services and I encourage you to connect into one of the workshops.
