Healing is not all sweetness and light; or rather, the road to getting there is can be fraught with tribulations, pain, rawness or anxiety, and injury worst of all -from ourselves. Most people have parts that want help, while other parts want to run away, fight the therapist or deny the issues.

When we look at the legacy of past complex experiences including surviving many different kinds of trauma or neglect, we see all the things we have carried to this point in our lives. Healing is not a simple process. We may need to heal different parts of us that feel anger, hurt, grief, issues related to addiction, relationship or intergenerational unfairness issues, disowning of parts of ourselves including the body, certain emotions or thoughts; faulty beliefs that feel true such as the belief that we do not deserve love or belonging.

Then there are patterns or habits to heal- especially those that make us refuse to accept-or even perceive- the reality of life, or make us  live a life based on fantasy, ideals, perfectionism, or the need to control ourselves or others.  These sorts of patterns also have a sneaky way of making us very self critical and hard on ourselves, or makes it hard to get over even small upsets.

Through many years of working with people who want to heal, I would say that learning to accept and love all the parts of ourselves is central to healing.  Yet often it seems that people surviving trauma have an unspoken agreement with themselves that they will be kinder to themselves and look after themselves better only when and if they are healed. Paradoxically people continue to mistreat or neglect, criticise, drive themselves too hard , exhaust or hurt themselves in other ways, doing the things they have always done, instead of doing the opposite- loving, accepting and honouring themselves.

The truth is, if we want healing, we  need to first address the old patterns of how we relate to different parts inside.  This requires first finding a calm state then learning to be mindful or cultivate a dual awareness of what is going on inside- to unblend with old patterns and procedural ways of being in the world.

Here is a worksheet I used for trauma group sessions a few years ago which participants found useful. It is adapted from the ideas of Babette Rothschild, Peter Levine, Kathy Steele, Janina Fisher and many others.

Finding a good trauma-informed therapist or group to belong to and practice these skills is really important. Usually a safe place or a safe state is needed. Since the trauma was caused by relationships, relationships of a better kind are needed to heal the trauma. Remember. healing trauma is possible.