Mindfulness practices help reduce psychological stress and promote emotional regulation. Furthermore, mindfulness may aid mental reformation and healing from trauma.
Mindfulness practice may be upsetting to those experiencing trauma and may lead to secondary or vicarious trauma if practiced without consideration for this factor. Thus, mental health providers need to incorporate trauma-informed practices into their work practices.
Honesty
Honesty is an essential component of trauma-informed mindfulness practice. It makes clients feel secure and connected to a trusted mental health practitioner. Furthermore, honesty can be applied directly into daily life to promote self-care, acting as a foundational practice for managing emotions nonjudgmentally while developing compassion towards oneself.
Aimee Cabo highlights that mindfulness can be an extremely effective healing tool, yet when done without care, it can cause additional trauma for those experiencing sexual or physical abuse. Therefore, mental health practitioners and teachers must receive training in trauma-informed mindfulness practice.
A trauma-sensitive approach to mindfulness may provide participants with various choices during meditation or yoga practice, such as opening their eyes during practice, shifting attention away from an object within sight, or moving instead of sitting still. This enables individuals to stay within their window of tolerance and ensures that no harmful experiences remain trapped inside.
Mental health providers can also give clients the option of stopping the meditation or yoga practice and taking a break at any time should they feel unsafe or are triggered by something. That way, should something start them, they can stop immediately and return for support with their therapist.
Self-Compassion
Compassion is a response to another person's suffering that calls forth an urge to understand their pain and an impulse to comfort and show kindness. Aimee Cabo clarifies that trauma survivors should develop compassion toward themselves and their complex emotions to process and regulate them more efficiently.
Self-compassion fosters self-care and an underlying sense of inner strength and resilience. It lets you acknowledge that feelings are normal and you deserve care as much as others. Self-compassion may be promoted through mindfulness practices that help become aware of negative self-talk and triggers that could result in unhealthy responses such as avoidance or over-identification.
Implementing mindfulness-based interventions that can be adapted for trauma-informed care can be one of the best approaches to cultivating self-compassion. Such programs teach individuals to recognize conditioned trauma responses such as denial, avoidance, or over-identification with painful emotions, as well as how to bring attention back into the present moment with gentle techniques designed to bring awareness back.
Aimee Cabo points out that many of these programs also encourage group participation to foster an experience of connection and support that may increase feelings of commonality and decrease feelings of isolation due to trauma-related experiences.
Multiple experimental and quasi-experimental studies have concluded that mindfulness practices improve overall self-compassion, specifically its components such as self-kindness and shared humanity. It's likely because practicing mindful awareness helps individuals develop distance from unpleasant experiences so they do not overidentify with them.
Self-Awareness
Trauma recovery requires developing an increased awareness of how trauma manifests itself physically and psychologically in one's life, both externally as well as internally. Mindfulness practices provide a safe space to explore sensations, emotions, and thoughts without judgment from outside sources - this reduces rumination while encouraging self-compassion and helping individuals gain control and stability over their lives. Mindfulness may manage triggers and dissociative symptoms by strengthening one's connection to the present moment.
Aimee Cabo focuses on the fact that mindfulness meditation instruction typically involves focusing on breathing or repeating a mantra to keep attention grounded at the moment, which may be difficult for those struggling with trauma as this approach can activate their nervous systems and lead them down an unpredictable path of feelings of dysregulation. Yet mindfulness practices remain valuable tools in managing trauma because they increase body awareness, capacity for attention, and emotion regulation - all vital tools in managing trauma symptoms effectively.
As such, individuals who have experienced trauma should seek guidance from a therapist or mindfulness instructor trained in trauma-informed care. Such practitioners can provide guided meditation instructions, employ techniques designed to speed healing and offer flexibility in terms of breaks or modifications should any discomfort arise.
Self-Regulation
Self-regulation refers to the practice of managing extreme emotions, sensations, and thoughts (both positive and negative) effectively and is essential in trauma therapy. Furthermore, self-regulation supports us in living healthier lives as it allows us to delay gratification and curb urges.
Human beings possess an impressive capacity for self-regulation. Unfortunately, trauma survivors may find it hard to manage their emotions in response to triggers and secondary alerts, making the Red Zone of high alertness and anxiety their reality and preventing them from engaging in activities they would usually find pleasurable.
Several body-focused practices can assist self-regulation in addition to traditional talk and exposure therapy modalities. Trauma-releasing exercises utilize induced vibrations to release deep muscular tension associated with trauma experiences. At the same time, somatic experiencing or TRE(r), another body-oriented method, uses tremors to calm autonomic nervous systems and give individuals confidence when facing triggers.
Aimee Cabo conveys that those who exhibit self-regulation report higher well-being levels than those whose self-control falls off track. Regulating oneself is also an accurate predictor of family protective factors, resilience, and life satisfaction.
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