Soul Tv Episode 309 How do you heal after serious assault?
Pia was beaten by a client at her last job and has lost all hope leading her to attempt to take her life. Our experts help her with steps to healing and her new future. Watch 8pm Tues 15 Dec www.soultv.com.au
Even the most strong amongst us will be shaken to the core and changed by a serious attack. It can leave us feeling surrounded with a sense of hopelessness and fear. It can also show us our strengths. Everyone re-acts differently to trauma and as such to heal each person must be seen and treated as an individual with unique responses. There is never a one size fits all approach to assisting a person through trauma to healing.
How people get to a stage where they think they can’t heal is because they have probably tried everything that established methods have to offer and nothing has worked. Why hasn’t it worked? Many reasons such as being given medication that tends to mask and numb the problem rather than address and deal with it: Processes that continuously re-hash, reinforce, re-traumatise and re-anchor the event rather than giving people the tools to move them beyond it to a better place where they can deal with it. It is common and we hear it all the time in clinic.
Understand that you don’t know what you don’t know and the most important thing is that you don’t stop trying, you keep looking until you find a way through especially when you get to the point where you think everything is hopeless….right then get out and keep asking keep looking in all of the places you haven’t looked before. It happens because the establishment does not offer any services that are considered outside the norm or are not part of mainstream medicine or practises. Sometimes to get better you need to look outside the box. There is a whole real world outside of that box people call “normal.” Expand your idea of what you think is normal and possible and that hidden world will open up to you.
In all our experiences in clinic the people who will get better are those who have not given up. They have heard and listened to that little voice inside and people who have said “keep going, you will get through this if you want to!” They are normally the ones whose spirit may have taken a beating and is in hiding but is still really strong. It is important that you “want” to get better, that you want to make change.
A case in point is a young woman who contacted Soul Tv who had been assaulted at work by a client and is now suffering PTSD, anxiety and depression. She at one point attempted suicide and went internal. Now she is coming out and looking for help to heal and deal with a possibly traumatic court case over the incident. She is so frustrated with the system and her not getting anywhere with it.
What can we do to help at this point? Understand that frustration is a very healthy sign. It gives you the impetus and power to move forward because it not a comfortable place to stay.
Firstly you need to give the person a foundation to stand on from which they can build a sense of hope and possibility. Second is to isolate the problem and understand that it is not going on right now. In this case it was a one off event. That is not always the case. Sometimes people are in situations where they are repeatedly traumatised. This would need to be a different approach and set of processes put in place but for both this is not something that we can do for ourselves at the start. They need to go to someone who can help them to move forward. From my perspective it would be someone well versed in NLP and or Hypnosis. My Shamanic background also helps from a spiritual point of view as people often don’t recognise the fact that the spirit or part thereof will leave the body during trauma and this needs to be addressed as well and as equally importantly as anything else.
Because this case was a one off event it can be isolated as it is a loop like a track on a record that is being constantly played over and over in her mind only but affecting her body and spirit as the mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is being imagined. The record needs to be scratched or scrambled so that the track cannot be played the same way again.
I am not getting into specific strategies on how to do that as it needs to be done in the presence of a qualified professional who can monitor the responses and progress accordingly. For this case when the loop has been scratched an anchor can now be put in, something that will give her a place of emotional safety and strength within herself that she can to go to when needed. Can be a scent, a touch to a certain part of the body normally the hand or the ear that will trigger off that sense of emotional peace, safety and strength.
There is always a silver lining to any experience, the same as there is two sides to any coin and in time it will unfold and that too will help in the healing process. I have a personal story that may help people to understand what I have just said.
At the age of 16 I worked at the post office in Wellington New Zealand. It was also at a time when ages were not checked in pubs. If you looked old enough you were. Next door to the post office was a bit of a rough hotel. A group of my mates of that time and I would go to the pub after work on a Wednesday and would often complete our drinking sessions on a Sunday. Drinking each night not all day…lol! Essentially my life was definitely not heading in a good direction. One evening at closing time a young girl asked if she could have a lift up town. As we were heading her way we said yes. She wanted to be dropped off at another hotel to catch up with her boyfriend. As we pulled up outside what was a very dangerous pub because it was a gang members pub, her boyfriend happened to step out just as we stopped, with five of his mates. What she forgot to tell us was her boyfriend was the head of the Black Power Gang. He pointed to his mates who blocked off the road, I was dragged out of the car and badly punched and kicked.
It took me some time to heal physically and emotionally form my wounds and I made a very definite decision. No more drinking and I would go on to change my job and my life for the better. I saw it as a huge wake- up call from spirit. Some years later I went back to that bar only to find my mates sitting on the same stools in exactly the same space. I was so glad that I had moved on.
In the world of the feather, brick, truck theory…..that was the truck. I had obviously not heeded the warning signs earlier but this time the Universe had my complete attention.
What I am saying is tune in and listen when spirit tickles you with a feather, please don’t wait for the brick or the truck. Learn to trust and listen to your intuition always. Will that mean that you will avoid all challenges in life…no it just means that you may possibly avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ancient Wisdom Mentor Paul Hoogendyk
www.ancientpathways.com.au
www.maurinaturaltherapy.com
http://www.soultv.com.au/?ref=34