Recovery from PTSD from Childhood Trauma–for Highly Sensitive Souls
Hello everyone. I hope you are able to enjoy the holidays and find some inner peace and joy in just “being wonderful, sensitive YOU!”. For highly sensitive souls, the holidays can be difficult, especially if you are triggered easily due to PTSD from childhood trauma. I relate, however, many big breakthroughs have been happening for myself. I have been wanting to write and connect with you all about all the self discovery and healing I am learning about and how it’s making profound shifts in my own life–I am always listening to my inner guidance and growing. It’s an amazing process once you get on a roll. One day while journaling, the following information just poured out of me from my inner guidance and I knew it was meant to share on this blog. Here it is:
“You can recover from PTSD from childhood trauma. It’s not easy. It’s step by step. Yes, it really is about putting one foot in front of the other-wading through the feelings and voicing your truth. When you have PTSD from trauma in childhood it is your root chakra that continually needs help in your life. This is about getting your legs underneath you, standing strong on your own 2 feet, and feeling safe. It’s about moving forward towards your dreams. It’s about feeling solid, centered, grounded, and safe for your soul to stay in your body. When you voice your deep fears and the truth about their origins to a safe person, it validates you to feel safe and be “in” your body—perhaps for the first time.”
I didn’t know I wasn’t in my body until 2011 and I had memories of terror come up when I was laid up with some health problems. I had to cry and re-experience the terror with a safe person holding my hand 
as I voiced the truth of what happened to me. Realizing it was from childhood and not in the present is part of the relief—you realize you are not dying or going to die from the emotional pain (which is what a child believes) but just releasing a repressed trauma. Afterwards, I had a new sensation and a knowing that I was stronger—I proclaimed, “OMG! I feel like I am in my body for the first time!” I never forgot this moment and I was amazed—you realize the profound shifts that emotional healing can evoke. It propels you to keep feeling more and more of your repressed pain and release it as it comes up.
After this you begin to understand you are building a foundation (healing your root chakra)
—a solid foundation is being laid down brick by brick. It takes time and patience and deep love for yourself. You are lovable and you have always been. You deserve to feel safe and whole and vital. You can overcome all of your fears and step into your whole true self. You are on your way!
More helpful guidance for highly sensitive souls on the way in 2019! Happy New Year to you all!! It’s gonna be a great year!!!
With love and light,
Roxanne 😇✨
HSP Tips for the Holidays and the Benefits of the 2 Kinds of Crying
Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourselves. Today as I am writing this the first big snowflakes of the season are falling here in the midwestern United States. Yes, it is that time of year again. How did it go so fast yet again?! It is good to constantly remind ourselves that, as highly sensitive souls, we must strive for balance in our lives by adding in some time alone to recharge and for some creative self-expression as we set out to accomplish the many tasks that accompany this busy holiday season that is quickly approaching. Express your creativity in ways you used to love to do as a child but haven’t found time for lately–the activities we loved as children (like singing, writing, art, or dancing) are often our true desires–taking just a little time daily for this artistic self-expression will give you new found energy, rejuvenation, and a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Also, remind yourself to check your heart rate occasionally on busy days and breathe deeply and slowly to slow yourself down. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is harmful to our bodies when it is called upon too frequently so we need to learn relaxation techniques to take care of our adrenals. Laying down for 20 minutes with eyes closed (with just the intention of slowing your heart rate and following your breathing as you try to make it slower and slower) does wonders when you are feeling anxious and starting to spiral with negative thoughts. Positive self-talk and affirmations are important as well such as: “There is plenty of time for all the things I want to do”, and “I love and approve of myself”, and “I give myself permission to be the best that I can be”.
These are good reminders that Christmas is about Love. Love is the opposite of fear and can heal it. You can love yourself out of these fear-based anxieties that originated in a childhood that did not provide a safe place to be yourself. Also since you may have had to numb ourself out to survive as children, you may have learned not to pay attention to your bodies urges to tell you what it needs. For example, “thirst” can be something that you learned not to feel and so your bodies are very dehydrated without your realizing it. You”ll be amazed how much better you feel when you start making yourself drink more water on a daily basis. I drink 32 ounces in the first 4 hours I am awake in the morning–the rest of the day always goes so much better when we start our day really hydrated. Try it and see! And make sure to drink at least 64 ounces a day and even more on days you have extra stress. And if you are trying hard to “hold it together” in spite of the stressful feelings that the holidays can trigger, try a different approach–let it all out and have a good cry! Crying is good for you and studies show that emotional tears have higher levels of toxins that are released than in regular tear production.
I want to talk more about the benefits of crying because society has such a stigma against it. How often have you heard on a media outlet about a public figure or celebrity seen crying and then heard it referred to negatively as a “breakdown” which is ridiculous. A break “through” is a better term. The urge to cry is just truth that is coming up to be healed (comforted and released). Think of it symbolically as light breaking through the clouds, and someone finally “seeing the light”. I like to think about the song “I Can See Clearly Now” as if the writer of that song just had a good cry and a period of healing and now feels better and has healed a wound from childhood that was blocking him from functioning at his best. He is now en”light”ened! I also like to think of the description by a pilot right before breaking the speed of sound–he describes that, “the cockpit shakes the most right before” and then it is smooth sailing once he breaks through. If we resist our bad feelings and suppress them we may never know what aha moment or lesson we could learn–we must trust that our feelings are trying to teach us something.
More of my views on the benefits of crying are demonstrated in my reply to a highly sensitive and gifted commenter names Elisabeth who was concerned about how emotional she feels and how often she cried. I hope it is helpful to all of you HSPs out there who can relate to how she felt. Here is the interaction that transpired in the comment section of one of my pages on this blog:
| Elisabeth |
Submitted on 2012/06/02 at 2:04 pm
Hello Roxanne, p.s. Is it normal for a person like me to not be able to talk about anything emotional without crying? Just within this past year I can not say how i really feel without bursting into tears, and then starts the process of telling myself that its stupid to cry over it etc etc.. Much Love, |
Roxanne |
Submitted on 2012/06/05 at 2:42 pm | In reply to Elisabeth
Hi Elisabeth, Thank you for your wonderful, thoughtful and wise comment. I agree with everything you say here. I wish I had time to respond in depth to everyone’s comments–I am so happy to know this blog is helping so many. Thank you ALL for all the wonderful comments! I just want to mention a few things: why the sad((( face for being the most emotional signs–I don’t know anything about horoscopes but sounds like you are emotionally “gifted” It is normal to cry if you feel the need–sounds like you have a good reason to cry. It spills out at inopportune times because we are holding it in so often. Having a good cry from time to time is so healthy and recharging! Also, often survivors like us cry when we are misunderstood and don’t feel “heard” when we are actually “angry”–but we were punished for expressing our true assertive positive selves when we were tiny children and so we learned to repress it–they were threatened by our positivity and truthfulness! So it is kind of a post traumatic stress response. It is not stupid in any way to cry–crying is positive and healing when it is grieving about how you were mistreated in the past. Crying releases a truth that needs to be told! There are 2 kinds of crying (…or more): 1)“Grieving” is the healthy releasing of the truth of your injustices and it is cleansing to release your truth–try to catch what you are learning as you cry and write it in a “journal for your eyes only.” Crying has lead to the writing of my best songs–there is always hope at the end and you feel a release and a new inner strength. 2)“Despairing” is a kind of crying that can be destructive if it is habitual because while doing it you are being very mean to yourself and beating yourself up (negative spiraling) the same way your abusers did. Survivors often need to release and admit these despairing feelings at first which are still repressed from childhood–upon realizing how bad you must have been treated to be a child in such horrible despair, your innate compassion kicks in and you begin to love yourself a little more each time–releasing layer by painful layer of truth is how we heal. Learning that HSPs with childhood wounds must stop the habit of despairing and turn it into grieving (and be very very kind and gentle to themselves when they are sad and build themselves up instead of continue the abuse of themselves that started as tiny children) will change their lives. I hope you will continue to read more of my blog because I talk about the importance of grieving losses from childhood quite a bit. Elisabeth, by crying you have bravely started the process of emotional healing–you are on your way to finding out how special and gifted you are and have always been! I hope this has been helpful to you. With love and light to you and all, Roxanne |
ABOUT ME |
!!!. Our families of origin (and our society too) instill in us this shame about our emotions–it is not true!! It is wonderful to be emotional–our emotions are meant to be our “compass” for finding happiness in our lives! You can learn how to have boundaries to keep out the negative emotions from others and tap into the positive emotions that are innate in you. Learning to love yourself is key and processing your pain from the past includes grieving about the love and acceptance you never got for having this emotional gift. Crying is necessary to tell your truth about how you have been treated.Welcome To The Blog For Highly Sensitive People, Intuitives, Empaths, and INFJs In Search Of Emotional Support and Guidance
(May 23, 2012–No you are not seeing double–except for parts of the first paragraph I copied this post and turned it into my new static Home page. So if you have already read this post, check out the comments here and then just scroll down to find the other posts. Welcome to my blog and it’s new format. New posts coming soon! 🙂 )
Hi Everyone. I am back and feeling great. Thank you to all for your prayers and well wishes. I hope you are doing well also. I learned much while I was away and I have much new knowledge and wisdom to share. My Coaching is thriving and I feel very blessed. I love my work–there is no better feeling than helping other highly sensitive souls to feel good about themselves and their lives and to help them to heal their emotional wounds. In my opinion, my clients are among the kindest, most compassionate, gifted people on the planet!
It is interesting for me to take an objective look at this blog now that I have had a break from it for several months–there is so much content here. The first post I wrote back in January 2010. In my last post, I talked about how I feel I healed my final trauma-wound—an abandonment wound from the time when I was only 1 and 1/2. I couldn’t remember it of course but the emotional pain had been dormant within me and in my body in the form of an energy blockage. Both ailments that I suffered from in the last year were in my root chakra–I never knew about the chakras before and I had been kind of resistant to learning about that kind of stuff. But it kept coming up in my search for answers to how to heal from this last ailment. It helped me to put it all together when I read that health issues in the root chakra area may have to do with issues of abandonment. Then it all came clear in the AHA moment I talked about in my last post (see Oct. 2011) and I was able then to process and heal this inner trauma.
Since then I feel different–healthier, physically stronger, and wiser and with so much more clarity and calmness. For the last month, when thinking about what I was going to write for this post I was trying to think of a word to describe this feeling. Then I saw Jane Fonda speak on Oprah and on Dr. Oz and some other shows and I resonated so much with what she was saying about “wholeness” and I realized that is it! I feel “Whole”.
I feel I have come full circle into living my life with the vitality of my whole true self. I feel more centered and grounded with an exhilaration about the wonderful things to come and for all that I have learned from where I have been. I am so grateful for what feels like a second chance at life without chronic pain. I have learned how to relax and enjoy my life. It has been such a rollercoaster of a spiritual journey to come to this place and time where I can say that with confidence and amazement. In 2004, when I started writing my songs and process through the layers of grief and pain that kept coming up and were holding me back, I never would have dreamed it was possible–the pain seemed endless as I worked through my childhood truth that had previously been long hidden away from me. There was something inside of me that KNEW that going through the pain was the only way to get to the other side–that finding my true self was only possible by changing the “faulty BELIEFS” about myself that had formed in early childhood.
And now here I sit feeling very much healed with a new-found ability to recharge and comfort myself and find inner peace no matter what life throws at me and know with complete confidence and trust that everything is going to be okay. I am telling you this because I want all of you to know it is possible for you too. I feel so strong in spirit now with so much to give to assist other highly sensitive souls to heal from their abuse from a narcissistic, emotionally abusive parent or to heal from childhood wounds from an event or trauma from childhood.
I look at the content on this blog and there is so much self-help information here–I am amazed at how I did it! I remember it just flowed out of me easily for almost 2 years, ideas coming to me all the time. I really was just going with the flow in my life at the time–it takes a lot, getting informative posts ready for public view. I look over this blog and it feels like it is “complete’–I have had people tell me that it is an entire self-help book in itself. Some people tell me they read 2 posts a week and it helps them so much. Others tell me they start at the first post and read it like a book.
If you are looking for some emotional support and guidance, there is much content that I have written in the comment sections of each post where I have in the past answered each and every person’s comment. I am no longer able to do that now that I am Coaching a lot more. Frequent commenters have been jumping in occasionally to give support to other commenters when I am not able–it is wonderful to see this happening. Thank you to those of you who have reached out to help others in this way.
I will be answering comments just sporadically and occasionally from now on because of my busy Coaching schedule. But please know, I am here–I am available for Ask the Coach services and for Coaching. I am reading your comments and I know you are out there–I understand and KNOW first-hand the emotional pain you are experiencing as you try to make sense of the confusion and destruction of the spirit that is left behind by a narcissistic parent or narcissistic family members. I send my love and message of hope to you all. I hope this blog will be a safe place that you can come to for comfort, encouragement, compassion, and most of all healing.
UNDERSTANDING THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON:
In my early forties, I felt empowered when I discovered that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). I now understand that being an HSP is a gift and for this I am truly grateful. It means I am highly “intuitive”–not highly “insecure” or “weak” as many people have been wrongly led to believe by our American culture and media. It also means that I am “Sensory”-sensitive which is not about emotionality–it means I am sensitive to sensory input that causes me to feel overstimulated at times–HSPs take in 5 to 10 times more stimuli in our environments than non-HSPs. HSPS are highly creative and often visionaries. Here are some other things I learned about being an HSP that I would like to share:
1) MANY HSPS ARE HIGHLY EMPATHIC. Until you understand the benefits of being an HSP, it can be very difficult to understand why you are so different from those around you and why you yearn to “fit in”. HSPs feel things more deeply and we can empathize with the feelings of others so completely that we often unwittingly “take on” the negative feelings of those around us. We can end up feeling “bad” and have no idea why and blame ourselves for it when actually the feelings belong to the person we were just talking to (or sometimes even someone we have just been near). When we feel bad for no reason, the common reaction for HSPs is to blame ourselves and mentally beat ourselves up. For example, we say to ourselves, “what is wrong with me; I should be happy; everyone else seems happy and carefree so there is something wrong with me that I feel this way; I must have emotional problems; I am flawed compared to everyone else” etc. When we can recognize that the emotions we are feeling are from others, we can learn to stop this negative self-talk and let go of and release this negative energy that we have absorbed.
2) HSPS ARE OFTEN TOO HARD ON THEMSELVES. Becoming aware of how you are treating yourself in your head is becoming aware of your “inner critic”. Your inner critic is always negative and always wrong about you. Becoming aware of your inner critic is powerful. Once you become aware that you are listening to your inner critic you must stop and say to your self, “No, that is not true about me!” Then replace these thoughts with positive affirmations such as “I love and approve of myself; I am safe; I am supported and cared for by the Universe (God); and I am a highly intuitive soul and I am sensitive for a reason”. Being able to change the way you treat yourself and talk to yourself will change your life!
3) HSPS ARE LOVING, COMPASSIONATE SOULS. When you love and approve of yourself as you deserve to be, you begin to shine the light that is inside your soul. This light is the gift of the highly sensitive soul: you innately see the good and the potential in other people; you look to yourself to improve rather than blaming others or expecting them to change; you are able to empathize with other people’s feelings with compassion; you are a trusting and loyal friend; and a very good listener. These are wonderful gifts for a person to have for they are rare—and it is usually only the rare and highly sensitive friend that would point this out to you.
4) HSPS OFTEN NEED TO LEARN HEALTHY BOUNDARIES. Being the kind and caring soul that you are, if you are not seeing the value of that, your worthiness, you will often attract relationships with the kind of negative energy that your inner critic is reflecting. Also, people who are less sensitive and not intuitive at all are often drawn to HSPs because we absorb their negative feelings and they feel better around us. Some of these relationships can really confuse us because these non-HSPs can “act” very kind and generous when they want something from us. These are actually people we need to avoid because they drain us and are unable to reciprocate the giving nature that we need and deserve in a friendship. Ending relationships with people who are really takers and manipulators rather than givers is a giant leap towards becoming the person you dream to be. When you are able to take this final step for yourself and start listening to your inner guidance that is your gift, you are well on your way to a life of emotional vitality and wholeness.
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Here are lists of links to important posts within this blog:
HSPs and Allergies, Food Intolerances, and Stress-Related Illness
Helpful Tips About Healing Childhood Pain
High Achieving and Intuitive HSPs Can Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviors
More Helpful Tips For HSPs with N. Parents
Part 2–More Helpful Tips of HSPs with N. Parents
The Misjudgement of Introverts and the True Meaning of Introversion
HSPs and Perfectionism–How to Heal Through Grieving Childhood Pain
Forgiveness is For Your “Self”
Through Pain You Grow Stronger–Processing Childhood Pain
The Process of Inner Child Healing
How My Best Counselor Helped Me
Journaling for HSPs–Over-riding Your Inner Critic
Childhood Pain Comes Up To Heal When Things Are Going Well
Overcoming Self-doubt and Unblocking Creativity
Holiday Survival Tips–For HSPs With N. Parents and My Musical Gift Recovery
Honor Thy Parents Only If They Are Honorable
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As a final note of support, I want to say that as a highly sensitive and intuitive person, you are part of a group of 15 to 20% of the population that is deep, caring, and compassionate with much love to give. Our giving nature is an inspiration to others who are also part of this 15 to 20%. You do not have to be around anyone who makes you feel bad. One fifth of the population is over 1 BILLION PEOPLE–and empathetic compassionate people are out there. When you begin to love yourself as you are, stop comparing yourself to others, and protect yourself and your energy from the negative people who diminish you by staying away from them while you are healing, you will start attracting and finding more compassionate people like yourself in your life. Do not settle for superficial relationships–take the road less traveled. It is the path to love and enlightenment and inner peace.
With love and warmest wishes,
Roxanne
Hope and Healing Haven 
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