The Stages of Trauma Recovery

When I say trauma, you may think of a car accident or something like that. However, trauma is a very common adaption to overwhelming experiences we’ve had throughout our life.

For example, when my illness was first diagnosed a few years ago, it was unexpected, and I had no references to process the information. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but some trauma was laid in. I quickly educated myself and came to terms with it. However, it wasn’t until later that I cleared that initial trauma.

Trauma is a natural process that we all go through. It’s a way the body keeps us OK by getting us out of powerful experiences we’re unable to process at the time. The younger we are, the fewer the resources we have, and so often, the more things we lay in as trauma.

Past life and ancestral overwhelms can also get passed down. You can see that in some family patterns, for example.

The principle is we’ll come back to it later when we have more resources. But the habit of suppression gets in the way of that, leading to a gradual growth of “an undifferentiated mass of global suffering.” Global, in the sense of both personal and collective.

We’re almost always faced with the identity wanting to hold on to “how it is.” Even if it’s painful, it’s familiar. And if it’s part of our sense of self, it’s protected. This means there will be resistance to letting go. Often, we first need to process this resistance to change.

One way this resistance can show up is staying in the head. It’s easy to fall into being an “aboutist” where we study and maybe understand the principles but are unwilling to actually experience it. Reading articles like this is not processing trauma. What we think about the experience is not the experience. This is an experiential process, so it needs to be experienced. Then we can complete and resolve it. (I don’t mean we have to relive the trauma, just experience the remaining energy.)

Here, I’m going to explore the three stages of facing and processing trauma.

This is not a how-to article, but an overview of the process. The how-to is pretty specific to the trauma and to the person who’s processing it. But it is helpful to have some understanding.

Stage 1: Preparing:
Before healing, we need an even keel. This means the 4 S’s: Symptom Reduction, Stabilization, Safety, and Support.

First, we need safe and stable living circumstances. Once we meet basic needs, we can work on internal regulation and building our resources.

What is resource? Resource is the ways we find to anchor safety and security in our body. Where do we go within for a sense of safety and stability, an anchor?

With an anchor, we can learn to track when we’re activated (out of balance) and how to come back to centre.

Those who have been on a long-term spiritual path often have good inner resources, but not necessarily. We may have used spirituality as an escape or bypass, for example. Then we can find inner peace but can’t bring that into our life as we’ve been avoiding dealing with our stuff.

It’s important to understand that all of this is normal and very common. The body will naturally suppress overwhelming experiences to save our balance. It’s a survival strategy. Especially when we’re young. As we develop clarity and consciousness, our capacity naturally expands. But our body may not yet have gotten the memo.

We also gain discrimination: being able to identify one emotion or sensation from another. Otherwise, our resistance remains an undifferentiated mass we can’t process. Naming can be helpful here: not for processing, but for discriminating so that we can see an emotion distinctly. Then we can process it.

Once we have the inner stability and resources, then we’re ready to explore the trauma itself.

Someone well-established in awakening is going to have an infinite resource. But they may still need to learn some skills for using it effectively in healing.

After bringing ourselves together in stage 1, we’re ready for some solvent in stage 2.

Stage 2: Processing:
It’s important not to see ourselves as broken and needing fixing. (Despite the great Coldplay song.) This is not a healthy framing. Rather, see ourselves as having some unfinished experiences, like everyone else.

If we jump in faster than we’re ready, we may trigger our habitual avoidance behaviour, which will re-suppress what was arising. Then it will disappear into hiding again. Do we deflect into humour, or intellectualize, or make excuses to avoid feeling? Can we allow ourselves to feel rage, terror, or shame? There’s an art to easing into the big stuff.

The mind may kick out fear stories (beliefs), that it’s unsafe to feel these. Then that belief has to be seen through first. We teach the body to feel safe and trust the process.

Don’t see what’s being kicked up as a barrier to healing. It’s all a part of the process. Drop expectations about what should happen and allow whatever is arising to be there.

There are various approaches we can use to learn how to process what’s arising. Like being curious about what’s in there to discover. Not giving heed to self-judgment. That’s another protective mechanism. For big stuff, we can learn to pendulate: touch into a contraction and then step back a bit, then in and out again until we’re comfortable facing the emotional charge or sensation.

The body is the royal road to the unconscious. It carries the implicit memories of our traumas. Feeling is releasing.

In my experience, our junk wouldn’t be coming up for processing if we were not ready. But the identity has worked hard to hide it for a long time, as a self-protective measure. We may need to reassure our body and our identity that it will be OK. Facing it will allow it to complete. Then that burden will be gone.

Emotions are like water. They flow in and out again, in less than 90 seconds. We don’t have to feel them for long to complete them. We just have to complete what we started.

If emotions are lasting longer, there’s some kind of identification in play. In such a case, can we feel into the contraction that’s holding on to it? Do we get a benefit from feeling a certain way? For example, if it feels unsafe to be noticed by others, does it feel safer to be painfully shy, even if it means we’re lonely?

What does arising look like? We may notice some rumbling emotion in the background. When we have the time, gather our resources, then bring the attention to that emotion and allow it to be experienced.

Often, we’ll experience a wave. Then it’s done. For the big ones, though, that emotion may be a secondary one that’s being used to hide something deeper.

For example, in a recent practice session in my training, I brought the attention to anger I’d noticed burbling in the background. It felt very big as I moved towards it. But as I moved into resource, it became much smaller (I became greater) and was easily processed. Behind that was grief. And behind that was confusion. This confusion was very early and pre-verbal. I had felt mixed messages about who I was. At that early age, I was seeking a sense of self from outside of myself while separating from mother. Being able to see this consciously was a deep insight and allowed resolving this shred of confusion.

(To be clear, I don’t experience myself as being a personal me but as having a personal self, the same way I have a mind and intellect. As it’s part of the way I experience my life, it’s helpful that these remaining residues be cleaned up so that it’s clearer. This also helps embody more fully.)

If there is shock trauma in play, such as from a sudden event like an accident, the body may shake or tremble during the release. This contracted energy is now moving. This is natural and seen in animals after an intense experience. Allow the body to move or shift positions as it wishes. Let go!

Resources allow us to stay with what is arising so it can be processed. With a little practice, we learn not to fear experiencing our emotions. They’re not the dangerous things we may have felt when young. They can occasionally get intense, but that’s part of the richness of life.

This process can sound deeply challenging, but part of our resource is culturing that internal presence or observer. The observer sits in a neutral place, just noticing. It’s not drawn in if well-established. It’s perfect for curious observation of whatever is ready to let go.

Once seen, there is some background processing and integration that takes place. We let the wisdom of the body take over. It can take a few minutes, hours, days, or even weeks if it’s physical. But it takes care of itself.

Allow the transmutation to complete. Don’t go into the mind too quickly, even if insights arise. For example, suppressed rage can become inner strength. That power is no longer consumed by keeping the lid on.

Some effortless yoga asana or a walk or other light activity can aid in moving out the energy of the release. If you feel a need to lie down and rest, allow that too. The body will teach us what it needs when we stop resisting.

Occasionally, we may notice a wave of grief after something is released. This can reflect a need that wasn’t met that we’d suppressed. When the cover comes off, the grief comes out. My example above mentions this. Same process – just allow it to complete.

Often, we can now meet the unmet need with our own internal resources.

From inner awareness, self-compassion grows. And that brings safety, security, and support.

Stage 3: Completion:
This is post-trauma, integrating the new way of being. Embodiment. The refinement of life skills. Living in the new space. A fundamental trust in life. A heart that can open. New levels of intimacy with self and other. Thriving. Building a lifestyle based on our fuller state of being. Spiritual development.

The basics of trauma processing are simple. Centre yourself in your resource. Allow what is unresolved to surface in our experience and see it through. If we’re not up for that, build our capacity to prepare for it for next time.

Then we’re changing the tide from automatically suppressing everything we don’t want, to allowing what is arising to be there and to complete. Life becomes fuller and richer as we put down the loads of our past.

This is another perspective of resolving karma.

But we’re all different. What we need to set the stage for a smooth process varies. What we find safe varies. Yet what I’ve described is the basics for processing the trauma behind addictions, emotional instability, nervous system dis-regulation, and so much more. Experts have suggested that about 80% of medical disorders (the DSM-5) have their origin in trauma. This is how far-reaching addressing trauma is, and why the field is exploding.
Davidya