When I emerged from an extremely challenging, traumatic life experience, I was overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure who to turn to for support. I tried a bunch of different practitioners who seemed to help with one aspect of my healing or another, and although their intentions were good, I didn’t feel as though I was improving at all.
There are many different versions of “challenging life experiences” can leave you feeling the effects of a dysregulated nervous system. Whether your challenging life experience is an abusive relationship, like mine was, the devastating loss of a loved one, being a caretaker for someone who’s ill and living in fearful expectation of that next lab test result, going through a contentious divorce where you feel attacked legally, financially and emotionally, a pandemic where you’ve been isolated and fearful for a period of time.
It’s often overwhelming to figure out the next steps to take to recover and restore yourself.
I know that I personally wasted too much time trying to handle things on my own and trying piece together solutions.
Now, over 3 years later, I recommend a triad approach that includes emotional/mental, medical/functional medicine and physical/nervous system repair:
1. Emotional/mental/subconscious healing support:
Find a good therapist who has been educated in trauma AND your specific situation. Whether you experienced narcissistic abuse, death of a loved one, divorce, or being a long-term caretaker—you need to be heard and validated.
The most helpful therapist I went do didn’t have the highest credentials — she had been through and survived what I was going through.
If your practitioner doesn’t understand the specific dynamic of your situation, keep looking. Ask for an initial complimentary interview and get a sense of the person. It might take several paid visits to get a deeper sense of whether it’s a good fit. If it’s not, cut your losses and move on. It’s okay to be discerning and it’s okay to spend some money and time figuring it out.
In addition to more traditional therapy, I currently also work with someone who helps remove subconscious blocks so that I can explore what my own emotional patterns throughout my life have been that would have lead me to an experience like narcissistic abuse. This would also fall under this category of emotional/mental/subconscious healing support.
My advice is to initially seek to feel stability in yourself again. You can add on later if you’d like to continue and deepen your self study.
2. Medical/functional medicine + nutritional support:
Find a good functional medicine doctor. Although I did start with my primary care practitioner, I was told that the extreme exhaustion I was experiencing was in my head and further testing wasn’t ordered.
Two years later, I found a functional medicine doctor who believed me when I told her I could barely move. Once she ordered the proper tests and a realistic baseline was established, I had a plan to improve and I began to feel better. For me, it was important to use holistic methods to heal and this practitioner was a good fit for me. You have to find someone with whom you feel comfortable, and a method that resonates with you.
Healing from a stressful life experience can be a slow process. It took time to get where you are now; it takes a bit of time to get better.
I highly recommend that you find someone who can give you nutritional support as well. If your health care practitioner can’t give you specific support, I would hire an expert who only focuses on eating to support your nervous system, your hormones, your adrenals, or wherever you need support. See my blog post on foods to calm your nervous system.
3. Physical + Nervous System repair:
This is a critical piece of information so if you’re skimming, please back up and read this carefully….
If you’ve recently been through a challenging life event, then you’ve probably not been nurturing yourself for awhile. In fact, the idea of that might make you uncomfortable.
Pushing yourself to run or power walk or “work out” or even practice a vigorous form of yoga is NOT nurturing if you’re exhausted and your body aches.
Find a physical component that nurtures you. I was fortunate to have Feldenkrais as a practice I could rely on. I did some yoga, but at the beginning, it took too much energy that I didn’t have. Even a few sun salutations felt like too much. I craved something more nurturing for my body — something that connected me to myself, and included the physical component. Meditation is good, but it doesn’t move energy in the same way as a physical practice.
Connecting to your physical body is critical — now especially.
The main reason Feldenkrais worked for me is because it involves physical movements and works with the nervous system. I was able to regulate and release any physical tension at the same time. After each session or class I felt as if I’d had a really good massage and felt emotionally calmer and at peace. My mental clarity improved substantially.
I took group classes as well as worked with a practitioner, but looking back it was the group classes that empowered me and gave me on-going tools to calm my nervous system by myself.
To conclude, anyone who has recently moved on from an emotionally and mentally stressful life experience may find themselves continuing to feel unexpectedly depleted. Begin with a triad of support — the right expert who can support you mentally/emotionally, the right expert who can support you medically but in a way that is all-inclusive and resonates with your values, and some sort of gentle physical or somatic method that addresses your body and regulates your nervous system so that you can reconnect with your body and feel stable and safe again.
Here is a beautiful nurturing audio lesson that will give you a taste of what it feels like to calm your nervous system while making small, gentle, slow movements of your body. Lie on the floor or your bed, remove distractions, and enjoy.