If you're feeling overwhelmed, with racing thoughts and an unbearable present moment, you're not alone. That feeling of being stuck in a never-ending cycle can be incredibly distressing.

We've discussed how trauma affects our emotions and brain. But a crucial question is: what can we do to heal? Before exploring solutions, we need to understand that trauma's impact extends beyond our minds to our physical health.

A key factor in how trauma impacts us lies in our early caregiving environment. Three elements are crucial for a child's healthy development: attunement, containment, and rupture and repair.

Before we delve deeper, let's add another valuable tool to your grounding toolkit – a simple tapping technique. These activities can be used in moments of stress, overwhelm, or even as a gentle way to start or end your day, helping you anchor yourself in a state of calm.

When we experience trauma, regardless of whether it's a significant, life-altering event ("Big T" trauma) or a series of smaller, yet impactful experiences ("little t" trauma), our minds and bodies often engage in three key survival responses: fragmentation, dissociation, and isolation.

We've discussed how past trauma can continue to affect our present lives. To move forward, we need to increase our ability to process these experiences without feeling overwhelmed.

Engaging with the topic of trauma can understandably bring up difficult feelings. Your body's natural response might be to resist these emotions as a form of self-protection.

We've previously discussed how current struggles in our lives – be it in our marriages, relationships with our children, our jobs, or even our relationship with ourselves – can often be rooted in unresolved traumatic events from the past.

When we hear the word "trauma," many different images and ideas might come to mind. Some might think of war veterans, survivors of violence, or those who've faced natural disasters or near-death experiences.