Turning Flashbacks Into Forward Steps

Trauma memories surface at any time. They give no warning. You can be doing the simplest task and when you thought you weren’t ready… there it will be.

As long as you don't get swept away by the emotion, these moments are opportunities to piece together what happened and how it has affected you up until now. If you get swept away by the emotion, a thought loop gets stronger. If you step back and notice it, the loop can loosen.

So how to step out of the loop? Just allowing the memory to come and separating yourself from it emotionally is helpful for you to be able to see and understand it in a new light.

If you are with others, acknowledge it quietly to yourself first. This is your personal process.

If you share things like that before you've had opportunity to be gentle and logical with yourself (so as to balance out the emotional aspect of it), you will lose an opportunity to deeply process something that may be keeping you stuck.

Each memory of a trauma that surfaces has something new to share that you are ready to hear, to process fully, and to understand so that you can integrate it into your life in a positive, helpful way — instead of getting stuck in a loop of negative emotions and thinking. A way that makes you wiser and more you.

If you are by yourself, just allow it. Pause before you decide to immediately call a friend or family member. This is not something to go trumpeting around the town. The trumpeting comes after you have processed — and that very processing has helped you claim the life you really want, instead of the loops that you've been living in.

~Janice M. Burke

Image by Lindsay Henwood from Unsplash