Breaking The Cycle of Trauma
Steps to Moving on
It’s scientifically proven that relationship break-ups are hard.
The feeling of love releases serotonin in our brains, and the absence of love forces us to go through withdrawals from it, which can cause feelings of hopelessness and depression in the wake of losing the support of someone we love and have a relationship with.
The end of a relationship may seem like an impossible feat, and can make the future seem bleak and negative, but there are ways to get past it and move on with methods to make yourself happy again on your own!
1. Give Yourself Time
You may feel pressured to be okay right away after a break-up, and get past it quickly instead of dealing with the pain for a long time. However, while it might not sound like it, dwelling in your hurt and feelings of sadness can actually be a good thing. Allowing yourself time to grieve the loss of a relationship is necessary for coming to terms with it instead of pressuring yourself to get over it before you’re emotionally ready to. You’re allowed to eat ice cream and cry for a week, and welcome the negative feelings you’re experiencing in order to be able to move past them.
2. Accept The Reality
Coming to terms with the changes that come with a break-up can often be the most difficult part. It’s often bigger than just losing your significant other, you might also be losing your best friend, or the person you go to with your daily worries and troubles, which means losing multiple people in one tough loss. But accepting that there are others who can fill those roles, yourself included, is almost as important as accepting the end of the relationship in the first place. It’s tough to face the reality of losing someone important in your life, but it’s the first step in really moving forward.
3. Keep Busy
Keeping yourself busy and productive in the aftermath of a break-up is incredibly important to the upkeep of your personal well-being. Staying busy can mean doing more physical activity and taking out negative feelings in a workout, or reading more, or taking on a new hobby like knitting, or graphic design, or writing.
4. Take Care of Yourself
It can be really difficult to keep on top of your personal hygiene and well-being when your brain is in emotional distress over the loss of a relationship. However getting up each morning and starting a routine of showering, brushing your teeth, washing your face, and brushing your hair can make you feel good on the outside, which is a step towards feeling good on the inside as well.
5. Be Honest With Yourself
It’s okay to not be okay, and it’s incredibly important when going through a big transition to be honest with yourself about how you’re feeling. If you’re feeling sad, don’t feel pressured to hide it, especially from yourself by repressing feelings. You are the only person you can count on to know how you’re feeling 100% of the time, so if you feel you’re not ready for something or aren’t feeling okay on any given day, just be honest with yourself.
6. Create a Healthy Support System
It’s okay to rely on other people too. Your first instinct might be to hide away and isolate yourself when you get your heart broken, and try to nurse yourself back to health alone. However, surrounding yourself with people who love and support you, whether it be family, friends, coworkers, or other people in your circle, is a huge step in moving forward and making progress. Even if you might not want to, go to other people to talk about your problems and talk things through, because it helps to know that other people are there for you and you have people to fill in the gaps that a lost relationship might leave behind.
7. Don’t Look Back
It’s easy to carry on a conversation with your ex, look them up on social media, stay in a rut and keep trying to understand the breakup or fix it. It’s much harder to move on, stay strong in moving forward with your life, and accept that your life is changing. But not looking back and letting go of the past can be the best move for your future. Looking at a breakup as a door opening to a new world of possibilities and opportunities instead of a door closing is the first step to embracing the future, making progress on being your person, and creating your happiness.
EMDR therapy
This therapy is regarded and evidenced-based treatment that gives significant results after a few sessions. My background and experience as a Hypnotherapist and psychotherapist have led me to undertake specialist training in this field of trauma and post-traumatic stress.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an integrative psychotherapy approach, designed to treat trauma and alleviate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Past trauma, like childhood neglect, physical or sexual abuse, violence, accidents, and others can block EMDR works by stimulating the left and the right part of the brain as the eyes follow hand movements, while you recall the distressing memories. To make the experience as non-traumatic as possible, I strive to create a safe, friendly environment where your comfort and mental health are of the utmost priority.
When a person recalls a memory, the person can re-experience what they saw, heard, smelt, tasted or felt, by alternating left-right stimulation of the brain with eye movements, patients can stimulate the "frozen" information processing system. During the process, the memories seem to lose their intensity so that the memories are less distressing. These stages include the use of eye movements or other forms of left and right alternating stimulation, along with relaxation exercises, guided visualisations and breathing techniques.
What is EMDR therapy used for?
One area of this growth is the treatment of anxiety and anxiety-related issues such as panic attacks or phobias. While many anxiety treatments help you deal with the symptoms of anxiety, EMDR therapy can help you address the root cause of your anxiety or fear.
EMDR therapy can also be used to effectively help you deal with depression. Often depression can be a symptom of other problems in your life, and EMDR therapy can help you work through those problems that are adding to your depression.
Some of the important areas that EMDR therapy can be helpful include:
Trauma or PTSD
Anxiety
Chronic pain
Childhood trauma or complex trauma
Unresolved grief
Eating disorders
Treating addictions
Phobias or fears
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