Spiritual Healing after Trauma: Clear, Actionable Steps to Find Calm and Connection

We have all been going through a lot of trauma just figuring out our way in a world that keeps changing. After exposure to ongoing stress and anxiety without clarity, we may be pushed to our limits in different areas of our lives again and again. I want to focus more on the positive changes that come from these types of experiences. They are collectively defined as post-traumatic growth or PTG.

I will share with you a variety of effective spiritual healing tools that offer quick relief when you need it. The best place to start is “what do I really need right now?” By living in the moment, we are grounded in the here and now which helps a lot and can turn down the ruminating mind.

Fast Self-Healing Exercises

A few fast solutions you can try including:

•            drinking lemon water

•            stepping outside and connect with nature

•            listening to soothing sounds

•            practicing some quick yoga or stretching your body

•            meditating for 10 minutes

•            lighting a candle

•            practicing gratitude

•            journaling

•            expressing your creativity, any way that calls to you

Let me explain a few other tools in more detail. Experiment with these holistic approaches to trauma healing and see what works best for you, and when they are most supportive. If you are not getting the relief you need, please reach out to a professional for more support.

DYI Somatic Therapy: Energy Medicine Techniques

These methods have really helped me a lot, when done consistently. Life Energy is not visible to the human eye. But neither are sound waves. Bottom line, energy is a moving, vital, living force inside our systems that is directly connected with our health and happiness. It is all about flow, balance and harmony. Engaging our physical bodies can be very helpful in freeing up stuck energy facilitating healing. In turn, we heal our bodies by tuning into and activating our body’s natural ability to heal itself.

The following are eight powerful daily energy healing routine tools you can try just about anywhere. Take note: You can do these eight exercises in any order, individually or all together as a Daily Exercise Program. The Daily Energy exercises are created by Donna Eden.

Breathe slowly and deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth during these exercises. Including mindful breathing for stress relief will make the exercises more effective. This will increase your general energy level, balance your energy, help you feel better quickly and create positive energy patterns.

1 - Three Thumps

Tap these three acupressure areas as directed to calm and connect your body.

a) K-27: Locate your collar bone points with both hands, move inward toward a U-shaped bone (where a man knots his tie), move the fingers to the bottom of U, then outward (left and right) about an inch. You will find a sensitive spot. Briskly tap or massage these two spots for 10-12 seconds.

b) Thymus Thump: Place your hand at the center of your sternum, the location of the thymus gland (high up above and between a woman’s breasts). Tap for about 15-20 seconds. Use your thumb and all four fingers. Continue deep mindful breathing.

c) Spleen Points: Located beneath the breast and down one rib. Or tap the spleen acupuncture points on the side of body 4” beneath the armpit. Choose the location that is more tender and tap for about 15 seconds.

2 - Cross Crawl

This exercise enhances whole brain thinking by reconnecting the right and left sides of your body communication. It also re-integrates brain and nervous system functions.

While standing, raise your right leg and left arm at the same time. Repeat and exaggerate as you lift and swing across your midline. Continue for a minute, using the left leg and right arm. and alternate crossing from side to side.

Another Option is to do this seated. Raise the right knee and touch it with the left hand. Next, raise your left knee and touch it with your right hand. Alternate the movements and continue for a minute.

3 - Wayne Cook Posture

This is great for calming anxiety and racing thoughts. It also helps you to think more clearly and establishes a better perspective.

To start, sit in a chair and cross your left foot over your right knee. Hold your left ankle with your right hand and the bottom of the left foot with the left hand. Pull your knee toward you while performing mindful, deep breathing. Repeat 4- 5 times.

Next, do the reverse and place the right foot over the left knee, left hand on your ankle and right hand on bottom of the foot. Breath and stretch 4 or 5 times while you bring your knee toward you. Uncross your legs and relax.

Finally, steeple your fingertips, resting your thumbs touching above the bridge of your nose, fingers pointing up. Do this 3-4 times. Separate your thumbs slowly and press down lightly and stretch your skin on forehead with your fingers. Relax your hands, placing them on your lap and enjoy the calm, mindful breathing.

4 - Crown Pull

This helps to loosen tight energy and literally opens your crown chakra, so energy can move through. It also strengthens memory and can aid insomnia.

Start with your thumbs at your temples and fingertips resting at the middle of the forehead. Apply modest pressure and slowly pull your fingers apart, stretching the skin. Continue your mindful breathing, in through the nose, out through your mouth. Repeat a couple times. This will feel very good.

Place the fingertips at your hairline and repeat this stretching outward.

Repeat the pattern by starting at the top center of your head. Move back slowly with this process until you reach the base of your skull.

5 - Neurolymphatic Massage

This type of massage helps strengthen the immune system, relax muscles, energize the body, promote grounding, enhance digestion and improve sleep. Not bad, right?

Begin at the center of the chest. Find the collar bone and deeply massage the points just beneath it. Stay for at least five seconds with each spot as you massage in circular motions with strong pressure.

Continue by moving in a straight line, pausing and rubbing in a circular motion with a variety of spots towards your arms, focusing only on the most sensitive spots.

Next, go straight down the center of your chest, between your breasts in the same fashion. Follow this by rubbing spots beneath your breasts in a straight line toward the outer edges of the body.

Take Note: Each day, find at least 2 or 3 points that are tender and massage them. It is well worth this effort.

6 - Zip Up

This mind-body exercise strengthens your central meridian (central energy channel), grounds your energy, boosts confidence, protects against outside energy and helps you feel less vulnerable to people and environments.

To begin, place your hands at your sternum (bottom of central meridian) or crotch area. As you take a deep breath, move your hands slowly but with intention up towards your lower lip, as if zipping up your jacket. Turn your fingers at your lips as if you are locking this in.

Continue on up and raise your hands to the sky. Circle around and repeat these steps for three rotations.

7 - Hook-up

This is not what it sounds like, trust me. This technique is very beneficial when you just feel “off”. It creates a connection between your central meridian (sending energy to the front of your body) and your governing meridian (sending energy to the back of your body). This bridges the energies front and back creating a bonding between your head and torso. It also strengthens your aura, increases coordination and is an excellent way to center yourself.

Take a deep breath and place the middle finger of one hand on the third eye (between your eyebrows, above the bridge of your nose). Place your other middle finger in the navel. Gently press each finger into the skin, pull it upwards, and hold for 12-30 seconds. Relax and continue normal breathing.

8 - Heaven Rushing In

This one has been around for a long time, clearly surviving the passage of time. To start, you’ll be working to activate your heart chakra alignment for emotional healing. It improves your spiritual connection, accelerates the dimension of healing, helps feelings of isolation and is ideally done outside, barefoot is even better if possible.

Stand tall and rub your hands together to create warmth and vitality. Circle your arms out and around you and bring your hands together in a prayer position in front of your chest. Raise your hands, open your arms and look up to the heavens feeling a sense of a deep connection to the universe. Choose what lines up best with your soul.

At this point, I pause and say, thank you, thank you, thank you. Recognize that you are not alone. And an endless supply of source energies and angelic forces are here to meet you whenever you are. Open and allow spiritual guidance to lead the way. Feel the healing come through the divine connection you have with your spirit allies. When you feel connected (with literal messages or not), scoop up the energy with your hands and put it all on your heart chakra (middle of your chest.) Let this resonate with you and enjoy it.

Variation: If you desire healing for a specific part of your body, do this exercise again and take the scooped-up energy and place your hands to the ailing part of your body, instead of defaulting to your heart chakra.

 

Self-Care in Challenging Times: Seven Additional Action Steps

Now is the time to realize that one way or another, you can figure out your life, even with obstacles and challenges. Start with baby steps. Forward movement and clarity come from taking those necessary action steps that you fear and delay, not from thinking it over again and again. You do not want to keep running on the treadmill of life. You can create the life you desire by dreaming big and moving in a direction that supports you. As things change, you will continue to adjust.

1 - Breathing Exercise for Stress Relief: Diaphragmatic Breathing

When stressed, we often have shallow and ineffective breathing patterns. Instead, raise your awareness and deepen breathing 360 degrees. By focusing on your breath, you calm your mind, reduce stress and anxiety, strengthen the diaphragm, slow your breathing rate, decreases oxygen demand and use less effort and energy to breathe.

Lie on your back on a flat surface with your knees bent and your head supported. Place one hand on your upper chest and the other just below your rib cage. Breathe in slowly through your nose so that your stomach moves out against your hand. The hand on your chest should remain as still as possible.

As you exhale, tighten your stomach muscles, letting them fall inward as you exhale through pursed lips, like blowing out a candle. Repeat the breathing pattern.

Practice for 5-10 minutes a day, multiple times a week.

Note: At first, you'll probably get tired while doing this exercise. But keep at it, because with continued practice, diaphragmatic breathing gets easier and automatic. With practice, you can do this exercise seated in a chair, too.

2 - Mindfulness Technique for Healing Exercise

This mindfulness exercise keeps you in the present moment and calms your body and mind, while releasing tension in your body. It also increases awareness, creates the feeling of safety and is deeply relaxing. Our minds like to wander, we all do it. Too often we are stuck on something from our past, what we did or should have done, or maybe we are fearful and worried about an upcoming event. Regardless, we are not in the present moment - the only time we do have any control over our life. Start small, pick one wellness option to improve your life this week.

Close your eyes and breathe, tune into your body and notice how the intake of air feels, how the heart beats, and what sensations you notice in your body.

With your eyes still closed, purposefully shift your awareness away from your body to everything you can hear, smell or feel through your skin using your senses! By shifting your awareness back and forth several times between what's going on in your body and what's going on around you, you will learn in a physical way, that you can control what aspects of your world (internal or external) that you notice.

3 - Muscle Relaxation for Stress Release Exercise

This can quickly bring increased clarity, release stress and worry while relaxing your entire system. Do you have too many balls in the air all at once? Feeling pressured and under-appreciated? Are you overwhelmed, not feeling safe in your own skin or not sure how to get out of your current patterns of survival living? Maybe you feel surrounded by triggers everywhere you go, and you are quick to blame yourself. Do not worry, you are not alone. We are living in a frantic world, that does not resemble the world of a few years ago. If you are still searching for a method to stop the nagging voice of blame, shame and guilt, let’s try a new method.

Take a few calming breaths and begin with a still body and a quiet mind (as best you can). Start with your feet and work your way up (or the other way around). Work through your body, by tensing one muscle group at a time for a few seconds and then release the tension and notice the contrasting feeling of relaxation. Keep moving through your body, as you feel led. Make this process easier by connecting this activity with your senses: play soothing music, light a candle, smell essential oils, lay on a comforting surface or whatever cue will connect you with peace and calm now and in the future when you want to recreate this peaceful and relaxed feeling.

4 – Meditation for Emotional Healing: Dump it All Exercise

Sometimes there is too much going on, and we feel we have less and less impact on everything that is happening. Never fear, I have a unique exercise that you can have fun with. This exercise helps you to “let-go”, release and unburden yourself so you can feel free and breathe easier.

Use your imagination and choose a safe location. You are invoking sacred space creation for healing in your mind. See this space clearly in your mind’s eye, then tune into yourself.

You have been carrying around emotional baggage with you in the form of “suitcase” after “suitcase” of worries and concerns. You also have “filling cabinets” where you have been storing all your important data from the past. Maybe emotional “boxes and bundles” in a closet or under your bed. Gather them all, in your mind. Enough is enough, you are more than ready to pitch and release all of these heavy burdens. They are not helping you at all, anyway. They feel like boat anchors pulling you down.

Pretend that you are approaching a large industrial elevator. It is bright and shining silver. As the doors open, you see how very large it is. Just start pitching one old beat up old package after another into the elevator. Roll the filing cabinet into the elevator. You can do this alone, or you can invite friends and make this a party. The elevator magically keeps getting larger, to fit everything you are ready to purge! Yay!

Once everything is in the elevator, step out and push the shiny glowing down button. As the doors close, a huge metaphorical weight is lifted off of your shoulders. Hooray. You are so light; it is almost like you can fly! We are releasing your heavy, outdated, weighted drama back to Mother Earth. Whew, that was huge. Pat yourself on the back and accept metaphorical applause! Yes, now is a fine time to bow for your accomplishments.

5 – Journaling for Spiritual Insights: Morning Pages Exercise

This exercise can declutter your mind, help you to get in touch with your creativity, face fears, stop hiding, push you to move forward, calm you mind-body-spirit, and most importantly encourage you to take those action steps you have been avoiding. Do you ever wake up (or prepare for bed) with a million things floating around in your head? And you do not know how to stop the crazy train? One way is using a lovely quick journal technique to release it all.

This exercise is ideally three pages of longhand writing, that is done typically when you first awake in the morning (hence the name). Although you can try this technique anytime you need it, this is literally downloading what is in your mind — almost with a subconscious flow onto paper. Start writing, do not worry about grammar, spelling or any corrections. Keep the pen to paper and just flow from thoughts that pop up in your mind to words on the page. It does not matter what you write. The more you go-with-the-flow, the more you release. When you are done, you can crumple it up, throw it all away, or even burn it. Just release it safely — and the result is a clear unburden mind. The more you practice this activity, the easier it is to get into the flow of release.

6 - Magical Scissors Exercise: Untangle Your Connection with Others

Are you feeling stuck in a pattern that no longer serves you with people, places or situations? This can be with a life partner, business connection, neighbor, family member or a situation you feel but do not understand. Try the following mini ritual to release trauma energy. We will energetically, emotionally, and every other way imaginable, cut ties from this person or situation from this point moving forward. It is all about using your imagination and your intention to release the ties that bind.

From a place of safety and calm, close your eyes and imagine you are seeing the person or situation you want to break these cosmic ties with. Stand tall, feel empowered and unstoppable. In your hands are a beautiful shiny pair of powerful scissors that are shiny and sharp. These scissors are light as a feather but can cut through anything they touch. Take a deep breath with resolve and confidence and reach out to place the scissors on this unspoken cord that connects the two of you in ways beyond logic. Now, count to three, and slice that cord in half. The tension drops and the pieces fall to the ground and start to disappear. Congratulations, you are now standing in your own power. Relish this strength and power.

Tips: If you hit a wall of resistance; ask more questions for guidance, invite in a spirit/angel to help, or sleep on it and return again. After the release, rub, massage, or fill any spot with love positive, high-vibration energy. Ahhhh…

7 - Have Fun

We all need more fun in our lives. Try dancing to your favorite music, coloring in an adult coloring book, gazing at the moon and stars, expressing your true feeling of gratitude for where you are in life and all the support you received to get you there (even if that support was your amazing inner strength). Keep taking the best care of you every day. Remember, I have your back and I believe in you.

Soulful recovery after trauma isn’t always easy, but it is possible. Now is the time for you to trust YOU, too.

Namaste.