Trauma Education: Attunement Flashcards
After experiencing shock trauma, developmental trauma, or chronic stress, the body needs what?
The safety of loving relationships with God, others, and self
These loving relationships are the container in which we do our healing
In the context of healing, when we have a loving relationship for self, how do we relate to available tools/resources?
Like a mother relates to her baby - with wisdom, freedom, and power, out of love, compassion, and care
Two words to help you cultivate loving relationship with yourself
Aware: CURIOUS EMPOWERED awareness of your thoughts, behaviors, and feelings - your ways of relating to yourself.
Care: when we become aware of behaviors or thoughts that aren’t loving toward ourself, we can take a step back to see how we can care for ourself.
(Can feel overwhelming to experience these things when we encounter them, but this is result of a trauma experience. We are actually empowered with resources to deal with all of these things so that is how we can feel. Whatever we find, we can tend to with power.)
What is attunement?
A loving and empowered way of moving toward what we’re feeling on a bodily and soul level.
It is the container in which we heal.
What are the three parts of attunement?
- Awareness of what you are experiencing
- Understanding, to the degree you can, what you’re experiencing
- USING YOUR UNDERSTANDING TO SHOW LOVING CARE
Polyvagal ladder states
- Ventral vagal: safe, confident, connected
- Sympathetic: fight, flight, mobilize. Thought pattern: “I need to do something about this now… or else.”
- Dorsal vagal shutdown: if body becomes overwhelmed by survival energy from sympathetic state, body pulls E brake to put body into dorsal vagal shutdown.
- Fatigue, emotionally numb, spacey, hopelessness
- Story is “I can’t, I don’t have what it takes, I’m overwhelmed”
- Freeze: state in between sympathetic and dorsal vagal. Story is, “I need to do something now or else… but I can’t.”
Why should we feel empowered in our awareness?
Put this card after the “Two words to help you cultivate loving relationship with yourself” card
Mind can feel overwhelmed sometimes, but this is a trauma experience. We are actually empowered with resources to deal with all of these things so that is how we can feel.
What is the body’s tendency when it feels uncomfortable sensations and what should we do instead?
Tendency is to turn away from them and engage in avoidance behaviors, which sometimes results in shame.
Best to pivot toward compassion, realizing that avoidance behaviors are the result of a trauma pattern.
Important to signal what to the survival brain before using any tools?
Loving empowered presence and validation.
Why it’s important for the survival brain to feel loved and safe?
Once it feels loved and safe after being in sympathetic state for example, it will discharge the stored survival energy bc it doesn’t feel the need to run or fight anymore.
With emotional attunement, a healing limbic system needs what two things?
1) a break from relentless, painful emotions
2) to process life‘s very real losses and injustices
5 steps to helping your limbic system have a break from painful emotions while also needing to process them:
- IDENTIFY what you’re feeling under the fear, anger, etc. Naming emotions can take some of the power away from them and make them more manageable
- VALIDATE: assure yourself that what you’re feeling matters, because you matter
- INVITE the spirit of God to meet and help you and what you’re feeling
- CARE: what do I need, how can I care for myself right now or show myself love?
- PIVOT to a GLIMMER after doing this processing: thought, movement, or activity that elevates your mood, facilitating peace, hope, joy, or happiness. This step will help you stay in your window of tolerance and give your limbic system the pleasant emotional experience it needs
What is a trigger?
Something that signals threat to survival brain.
Might threaten your emotional or physical safety, sense of dignity, worthiness, value; your sense of connection, love, belonging
How does the survival brain deal with triggers?
Keeps track of any experiences of feeling threatened and files them away in a database. And if it feels these again another time it will fly into action to protect you
What’s a glimmer?
Regulating resource that will signal and help restore felt safety, dignity, joy, comfort, or loving connection to the survival brain.
Also are the thoughts and experiences we have in our daily lives that move the nervous system up the poly vagal ladder.
