Portland Trauma Healing

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Portland Trauma Healing

Portland Trauma Healing provides trauma-informed psychotherapy for individuals and couples looking t

12/19/2021

We don't become who we want to be on accident."

I heard this quote on a podcast recently and it resonated so deeply. To create and sustain a life worth living takes intention and courage.To heal from past traumas, stop repeating patterns that are no longer serving us and step outside maladaptive coping strategies takes determination, conscious effort and the ability to withstand the discomfort that comes along with change.

Oftentimes in therapy, things feel worse before they feel better. Memories and feelings may be brought to conscious awareness that have been repressed for decades and the remembering can be deeply painful, however what we're conscious of, we can work to change and heal from.

Awareness is the first step.

Life is deeply unfair at times. We aren't all born on equal footing, to say the least. Some of us live through seemingly unbearable and unspeakable pain due to circumstances that weren't our fault and lie completely outside our control. And yet, the choice to heal is up to us. No one else can do this work for us.

When you open up painful, traumatic memories in therapy, and reprocess them with someone with whom you have a safe and strong therapeutic rapport, the new experience of having a trusted other bear witness to your pain is reconsolidated into the memory, thus giving you a new experience of an old story. Each time you revisit this memory going forward, it will resonate differently than it once did.

No matter what you've lived through and experienced, you don't need to remain stuck. There's nothing in nature that's stagnant. Life is forever dynamic and fluid. We’re all constantly in motion, including our perception of our experiences.

You can learn to have a different relationship to painful experiences but it doesn't happen on accident. If you are feeling stuck in your journey, reaching out for support in the form of a therapist or another healing professional can be a powerful first step.

07/28/2021

Our body holds programmed responses and patterns of being. We go through the world operating from these conditioned responses, largely unaware of the echoes of the past alive in the present. Our sense of self is held not only in our verbal narratives and stories about who we are but in our nonverbal habits as well.

"We remember the past, not only in words, images and stories, but also through chronic habits of tension, movement and posture." The language of the body speaks through procedural memory."-Pat Ogden

We carry the stories of our childhoods within us, encoded in our psyches and in our physical beings. These stories inform how we expect others to treat us, how we treat others and whether or not we hold self-compassion or self-criticism when things don't turn out as expected. These beliefs inform our body language and how we walk through the world.

We have complexes because we have histories.

If we have patterns of enduring other's poor treatment of us, those patterns persist. If we avoid eye contact or look down with crossed arms when we enter a room, if we have distancing actions and isolate when hurt, if we physically collapse when there's conflict, if we seek proximity when we're upset, if we habitually clench our fists and tighten our jaws .. all these behaviors stem from an accumulation of past events, all largely operating on an automatic and unconscious level due to procedural memory.

"Identity is merely a pattern of events in time and space. Change the pattern and you change the person"

You can shift from being caught up in a fixed narrative of who you are to becoming more mindful and invested in your internal experience. You can make a difference in how you feel. You can do things to release the tension you carry. If you feel dysregulated and destabilized, you can learn ways to find more safety in your body. You are capable of learning new ways to move your body through the world.
If you are interested in somatic work and in changing the physical habits of your body, reach out to someone trained in sensorimotor psychotherapy or another somatic modality. The results can be so transformational.

04/28/2021

The other evening my 3.5 year old daughter was talking on the phone to her uncle, who she ecstatically calls “Tio Turo.”
I overheard her squealing and shrieking with joy before running up to me, excitedly calling out, “The moon, mama! The moon!” She had just discovered that she and Tio Turo were both looking at the moon, way up above the clouds. She asked me to raise the blinds higher so she could have an unobstructed view of the nighttime sky. I watched as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass, propping her face up with her palm so she could get comfortable. She stayed in that position for a long time, entranced by the moonlight.

She couldn’t grasp that both she and her uncle were gazing upon the same moon, yet she was reveling in their shared experience. Her unbridled joy made me feel an unexpected surge of nostalgia.

Magic and wonder.

These things come so easily to children my daughter’s age. The exhilaration that comes with discovering things for the first time, the comfort and boundless mystery of the imagination, the ability to be so completely present and in the moment. For my daughter, each day brings an abundance of this magic. I love seeing the world through her fresh eyes.

We all have younger parts inside of us who crave magic. Perhaps we’ve disconnected from them. Perhaps we don’t acknowledge their existence. Perhaps we’ve forgotten what it’s like to dance in the rain, converse with imaginary friends and thrill at all that’s unknown around us, like my daughter with the moon. But no matter how remote we feel from our younger selves, no matter how buried they are, they still exist and they still crave nurturance and attention.

It doesn’t matter how important our day job, what salary we make our how much responsibility we carry. When we take the time to pause and reconnect with the longings of our younger selves, we are helping to cultivate magic anew in our lives. We’re reawakening our vitality and spirit of playfulness and joy

What small action can you take to nurture the younger parts inside of you?

04/22/2021

Grieving is a process. It’s a practice. There’s no right or wrong way to do grief so long as we give ourselves permission to feel the feelings as they arise. Feelings are body-based. They aren’t cognitive. We can’t think our way out of them. We don’t have to violently wall ourselves off from our feelings, nor do we have to be intoxicated by them. We can allow them to be just as they are without judgement, and without feeling the need to fix or change them.

And so it goes with grief.

Culturally, we don’t know how to grieve. We revere boot strap grit. We suppress and repress. We grieve silently, in isolation. Sometimes we feel the pressure to live in two different realities. One in which we unsuccessfully attempt go on with our lives as though nothing has changed and another in which all of our sorrows are compartmentalized. We oftentimes do all we can to avoid the latter.

Allow yourself the time and space to truly sit with your grief. Instead of repressing it or feeling pressure to “get over it already” find ways to honor it and integrate it into your life. Grief is not something to be completed. It’s a journey, oftentimes a lifelong one. You may not be the same person when you come out the other side and that’s ok.

Give yourself the gift of grief.

03/14/2021

There are many different things that can lay the groundwork for eating disorders.
There is a saying, “It didn’t start when it started,” and this applies to disordered eating, as well as many other things. You may think your disorder began when your behaviors started however there were things happening environmentally and/or genetically that made you more vulnerable to turning to food and the manipulation of food as a coping strategy.
You may carry certain beliefs.
Beliefs such as:
-My body has to look a certain way to be good enough.
-I’ve never felt I deserved to eat.
-I’ve always felt I needed to make myself small and hide.
-My body has betrayed me, therefore I don’t need to nourish it.
The list goes on.
You deserve to take up space. You deserve to love your body and listen to what it needs and wants. You deserve greater than what your fears and inner critic tell you.
If you are struggling with disordered eating, you don’t have to do it alone. Reaching out to a therapist can be transformative. Having someone beside you as you learn the reasons behind your behaviors, learn your triggers, learn how to sit with uncomfortable emotions, and learn new ways to cope with life’s stressors can radically transform your relationship with food and with yourself. Change is possible.

03/13/2021

Do aspects of your life feel like Groundhog’s Day the movie? Have you caught yourself repeating certain unhealthy patterns and can’t seem to figure out how to break free? Perhaps you’re attracted to the same emotionally avoidant person time and again despite your desire for true intimacy……or maybe you yourself are the emotionally avoidant person. Maybe you perpetually wake up late or show up late to things despite your best intentions. Your patterns might be more self-destructive and involve addictive behaviors or disordered eating. No matter what shape they take on, chances are, they’re impacting your quality of life and overall happiness.

We unconsciously seek out situations and people that feel familiar, even if that familiarity is painful. In relationships, this can look like reenactments from our childhood, feeling chemistry with people who represent the negative qualities of our caretakers or with whom we recreate the traumas of our past. Our emotional states themselves can become addictive and we might seek to perpetuate them, even when those emotional states are painful.

We take great comfort in what is known, despite the consequences.

Stepping outside this is possible. The first step is to make the unconscious conscious. Recognizing the existing patterns is crucial. Finding a therapist you trust and feel safe with can help provide you with the clarity and insight to do this important work. Once you’ve identified the patterns, the next step is discovering what is driving those behaviors. Learning to recognize your triggers or underlying reasons for sustaining unhealthy choices helps create the space to choose differently.

So much of the work lies in healing those parts of yourself that carry shame, sadness, grief or anger from your past. Learning to accept and feel compassion for the coping strategies that have gotten you this far is invaluable. We all can heal and grow.

Address

Portland, OR

Telephone

+19713509939

Website

http://portlandtraumahealing.com/

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