Areas › After harm
After harm
This area is for understanding what is happening in you after something harmful, and for settling. It is not a treatment programme.
Nothing here asks you to go back into a traumatic memory. Processing a trauma is work to do with a therapist who can hold it with you, not alone with a website. If you start to feel far away, unreal, or flooded while reading, stop and come back another time.
Narrowed down
3 practicesTheme · Safety and grounding
When · Under stress
When the past floods in, name five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch. Come back to now.
Grounding in your senses tells the mind the danger is memory, not present. The room is safe; you are here.
Breathe out longer than you breathe in, a few times. A slow breath tells the body it is safe.
You cannot argue a frightened body calm, but you can breathe it calm. Long, slow exhales do the talking.
When fear rises, being near a calm, safe person, or turning to God's remembrance, helps your body borrow that steadiness.
Our nervous systems settle in the presence of safety. A calm, attuned other, or a steadying practice of remembrance, sends the body cues of safety…