Healing from emotional trauma can be a life long journey

“Emotional abuse is a pattern of behavior in which the perpetrator insults, humiliates, and generally instills fear in an individual in order to control them. The individual's reality may become distorted as they internalize the abuse as their own failings.”  - Psychology Today
 
Emotional and psychological abuse can be hard to see, especially when you’re on the inside. It might feel like it’s all in your head. Or maybe you think it’s your fault. Maybe the perpetrator is someone you thought you could trust, a parent, a partner, a friend.
 
Maybe it’s hard to accept or even believe that they would hurt you because they’re supposed to love and protect you.
 
It’s not uncommon that the perpetrator looks great in public and to everyone else, maybe they’re well known and well liked in the community, so you start to think maybe it’s just you.
 
Maybe just owning the term “abuse” is hard to do, because you don’t think they meant to hurt you.
 
This is what goes on in your head when you’ve suffered emotional trauma from a difficult relationship with someone you trusted.
 
What Emotional Abuse looks like:
Emotional abuse includes manipulation, control, demeaning and threatening behaviors.

It looks like:

• Monitoring or controlling a person’s behavior
• Threatening a person’s safety, property or loved ones
• Isolating a person from friends and family
• Demeaning, shaming or humiliating a person
• Extreme jealousy, accusations and paranoia
• Constant criticism
• Regular ridicule or teasing
• Making affection or acceptance conditional
• Refusing to allow a person time alone
• Thwarting a person’s professional or personal goals
• Instilling self-doubt and worthlessness
• Gaslighting - Making a person question their competence and even their basic perceptual experiences.

What Emotional Trauma feels like:
Physically it might show up as body aches, headaches, digestive issues, trouble sleeping, always feeling on edge, protective closed in posture
 
It might feel like fear, guilt, denial, grief, panic, anxiety, depression, anger, a sense of overwhelm or feeling stuck.
 
You may feel like you’re walking on eggshells, feel confused, have nightmares, not feel good enough, have a hard time concentrating or remembering things, feel suspicious, uncertain, have self-doubt or feel financially insecure.
 
You may find you withdraw socially, you’re unable to rest even when you’re exhausted, have a loss or increase in appetite, change your social interactions, feel unseen and unheard.
 
Emotional and Psychological Abuse affects every layer of our existence, every layer of who we are - Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
 
You may feel disconnected from your body, unable to breathe deeply, feel unworthy or guilty or ashamed, you may lose trust in yourself and in your own judgement. You may feel a lack of clarity about who you really are and what you’re meant to do with your life. Maybe even questioning if you even matter to this world at all.
 
Healing from Emotional Trauma can be a life long journey. Yoga Therapy can help you build resilience, rebalance your nervous system and learn to self-regulate when the inevitable ups and downs of this healing journey. You learn how to self-regulate and come back into a state of balance. You learn to set firm boundaries in our lives and feel empowered to be who we really are.
 
You'll recognize where you feel stuck and what’s holding you back. You'll learn how to move through the layers of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing to find joy and peace and purpose in your live.
 
You’ll learn to trust in our own inner wisdom, to know your value and to trust that you have everything you need already within you.

If you’re healing from emotional trauma, no matter how long ago it occurred, I’d love to work with you. Schedule a discovery call and we'll see if yoga therapy is the next step on your healing journey.