7 Trauma Coping Strategies To Help With Healing

Trauma can be caused by many types of experiences. When it presents, the effects on mental (and sometimes even physical) health can be far-reaching. For many trauma survivors, daily life may not be the same as it was before the onset of trauma symptoms.

The complexities associated with being traumatized often make recovery complex as well. Importantly, though, recovery or improvement is very possible and people who recover or improve end up living very fulfilling lives. At times, the recovery from trauma actually makes the survivor stronger and wiser.

If you’re struggling with trauma, it’s important to start/remain on a journey to recovery and never give up. Flare-ups are possible. There may be challenging days when even simple tasks become mentally exhausting – but you must keep pushing and find ways to cope.

What you may be going through and how deeply your trauma impacts you is up to you to determine. You may want to consider professional therapy. Still, there are techniques you can implement in your life to help yourself cope with and recover from trauma.

Techniques to help with healing trauma

Here are some strategies for coping with trauma that may help you recover.

1. List what you’re feeling

You can do this in writing (more recommended) or list them verbally in your mind. Regardless, take a moment to list all of the emotions you feel. Trauma isn’t an emotion itself, it is represented by one or many emotions that culminate. Sometimes more than one emotion is felt at the same time. For example, a traumatized person may feel anger and fear simultaneously.

Listing emotions helps with identifying them and addressing them as needed. If you don’t know what you’re feeling, it might be a little hard to be able to properly deal with it. Make sure to write down or state why you feel each emotion. It doesn’t need to be in excruciating detail. Just jot a simple emotion and a specific reason for feeling it.

Then, once you’ve identified your emotions, consider writing down a reason why it does not matter. You don’t actually have to believe it doesn’t matter, but make up at least one reason. For example, write down why fear isn’t that big of a deal. Review it if ever you deal with a flare-up.

2. Journal

Journaling can include listing your emotions (per the previous tip) or it can really be any form of writing which helps alleviate emotions. When you journal, feel the emotions leaving your mind and being dumped onto the paper.

You can have a more focused journaling session where you pick a topic related to trauma or associated emotions. If you do this, your goal should be to stay on topic with little to no deviation. This can work if you have a very particular feeling associated with your trauma.

Another excellent form of journaling is brain dumping. With this, you basically write whatever comes to mind. You need not follow any order or stay on any topic. With brain dumping you just have the opportunity to let it all out. It can be quite a relieving form of journaling. Just feel the memories and emotions being released and “dumped out.”

Remember, you can do one or both of these journaling techniques. You don’t need to follow any rule, just journal in a way to help yourself heal.

3. Think about it

Try to do this in a controlled environment where you would be okay with the possibility of feeling a lot of emotions. For about 20 minutes (or more, if you have the time) a day, allocate time to think about your traumatic experience and emotions.

Let traumatic memories run their course in your mind. Let emotions arise and feel them fully. Actively bring these thoughts to your mind and let yourself feel. Allow yourself to purposefully remember tough memories and feel uncomfortable emotions.

Just purposefully repeat a hurtful memory or memories in your head. Don’t try to calm down, simply allow yourself to process feelings. If you find that you are struggling too much when you do this, try taking it slower or maybe holding off on this until you are more prepared. But just know that if you feel uncomfortable for a little while doing it and for the first few times, that’s okay. It’s important to maintain consistency and do this every day for at least 20 minutes if possible.

The mechanism behind this is desensitization. The goal is to become accustomed to recalling the thought and any associated emotions. It’s about becoming more tolerant to recalling the negative memory.

Think of it like a sad ending of a movie. Many people may cry the first time, the second time, maybe even the third. But eventually, a lot of these people will stop crying and accept the ending. It doesn’t mean the ending is any different, it just means it doesn’t have as strong an emotional impact. Are there people who’ll continue to cry or people who wouldn’t even cry the first time? Yes. But emotions usually decrease in intensity.

4. Emotional reflection time

Dedicate some time to also reflect on your emotions. You can let your emotions run free, but also reflect on them logically. Use allotted emotional reflection time to talk to yourself about your emotions and feel them.

Ask yourself what you feel, why you feel it and where you feel it. Dig deeply in your verbal analysis to understand the root cause of an emotion. This is basically time set aside to have a conversation with the illogical, emotional side of the brain. It’s a way to reason with it.

Don’t forget to do this in tandem with other techniques. While it can be surprisingly helpful, it’s also important to remember that emotions don’t always have to be receptive to logic. For this reason, you can try to “negotiate” with the emotional brain but also acknowledge what you feel and deal with it using other techniques.

5. Calming exercises

Calming exercises can help ease the intensity of traumatic emotions by keeping you mentally grounded. They encompass a broad range of techniques to ease emotional intensity.

Calming exercises can include (but are not limited to) focusing on breathing or focusing on something neutral (like the ceiling), slow breathing, gentle temple massage, softening the gaze, music therapy and the list goes on.

You can try any of these or learn more calming exercises online or from a therapist. That was just a quick rundown for some ideas. Try what works for you and don’t hesitate to do some experimentation.

Remember that resisting emotions shouldn’t be the goal here. Calming exercises can help but emotions should also be processed and acknowledged.

6. Don’t resist emotions

For people with trauma, it’s not uncommon for memories and emotions to surface at any time of day and cause discomfort. For some, the instinctive reaction is to resist those emotions. Avoid doing that.

Yes, the goal of trauma recovery is to no longer feel emotionally burdened by trauma, but resisting emotions is often not the best way to do that. Resisting emotions will likely only make them stronger. Trying to evade intrusive thoughts and using distraction is probably just going to bring those thoughts to mind.

If you feel an emotion, do not resist it. Simply allow it to run its course. Feel it and embrace it. Just sit back and observe the emotion(s).

7. Live despite trauma

No matter what you may have gone through, if you’re living and breathing there’s something to be thankful for. Never view yourself as a trauma “sufferer” or as the “victim” of a traumatic event. You are a survivor. That’s something to be proud of and should serve as motivation to keep pushing to heal.

It may feel like life is not the same or that just living life is too hard, but keep pushing. Even if you feel distressed, you must allow yourself to live. Live despite your trauma no matter how good or bad you may be feeling.

This doesn’t always have to be easy and there’s a chance that some days won’t be. Regardless, live your life. Try your best to achieve something resembling normal as best you can.

This doesn’t mean just “forgetting it.” Nor does this mean giving up on trying other techniques to heal. In fact, you very much should continue to make efforts to heal. This just means you try your best to live your life, and if you think about it or go though hard times you just keep pushing. Allocate time everyday to help yourself recover and go to therapy if you have to. But give yourself a chance to live, as well.

Ask yourself “what would I do/think right now if I weren’t traumatized?” Would you be reading your favorite book? Watching an educational video online? Playing an instrument? Whatever it is, try your best to do it. Continue making efforts to heal but don’t let your whole life be focused solely on trauma or healing from it.