The aftermath of developmental trauma can be stressful and has a long-lasting impact on your brain. What follows after such trauma is that your brain acts in weird ways.
One part of the brain is overwhelmed and reacts to everything, whereas the other part remains numb. You need to find an emotional equilibrium and re-center yourself.
Enhance your ability to feel the joy of overcoming such a trauma:
Acknowledge your present situation
Learn not to deny but to understand and accept every situation that comes your way. Denial halts your personal growth, whereas acknowledging every situation how they are allows you to clarify your challenges and opens the door for self-improvement.
First, you need to figure out where you stand in your life and once you have done that, you need to jot down your goals and work towards them no matter how difficult the circumstances get. Even baby steps will take you forward.
Learn to let go of things that are not in your control
Many people try to overcontrol their lives. They hardly understand the importance of letting go of things that are not in their hands.
Various things can’t be in someone’s control, like changing people around them, so it is better to focus on self-growth and do things that will benefit them instead.
Begin with simpler and easier things like paying attention to your well-being and happiness rather than trying to bring bigger things under your control, which can be done afterward.
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Live in the present
One of the very important attributes one must learn is being focused on the present, focusing on what is in front of them rather than letting thoughts from the past occupy the mind.
Thoughts regarding past events can’t be changed, so it’s better to concentrate on what’s in front of you and make the most of it.
Also, when you are constantly dwelling on what has happened or what might happen, you let wayward thoughts wreak havoc on your mind, which is unhealthy.
Focus on the task at hand
What many people have a misconception that they think multitasking will increase their productivity, but in reality, this is not what happens.
When you take on multiple tasks at the same time, your brain and body get overloaded, and you get stressed out. Also, when you do various tasks at the same time, you often lose track, and things get jumbled up.
When you pay attention to a single thing at a time, you allow joy and happiness to bloom and reciprocate.
Throw procrastination out of the window
Procrastination is a very bad habit everyone must learn to get rid of. Keeping essential tasks for later only increases your stress at the last moments.
If people feel this way, their productivity will increase, but instead, it only boosts their anxiety levels, and they fail to do the task as well as they could have done it.
Keeping aside the important tasks for the last moment is very harmful as it can mess things up even more rather than boosting your energy to complete them on time.
Learn to stay calm and composed
Nobody in this world has mastered the art of staying calm and relaxed all the time throughout the day. People do go through tough moments wherein they react and get angry, but one needs to learn the techniques to remain calm and cool in various situations.
When you learn to calm yourself down, you open up your brain and allow joy to surface. Your brain can build more positive connections. Try to inculcate tricks that help you to maintain your cool in difficult situations.
Practice mindfulness meditation
Talking about staying calm and composed, what better way to do it than by introducing meditation into your daily routine? Just a few minutes of mindfulness meditation can help you to stay mentally active and alert and also enables you to stay calm in the toughest of situations.
When you have a calmer approach toward everything in life, you allow positivity to flourish, which in turn allows joy to surface and bloom. Meditation, when induced in life, can help you acknowledge life more.
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Maintain healthy boundaries
When healing from developmental trauma, try not to expose everything about you to others. Firstly, you never know who can use it against you, and secondly, many more people can know about your weaknesses when they expose them to others.
It is always crucial to have healthy boundaries. Don’t allow everyone you meet to be a part of your life; this is very important if you keep your sanity and mental peace intact.
Let go of any form of toxicity you feel
A very vital point to be kept in mind while healing from developmental trauma. Toxic behavioral patterns in any relationship can be harmful to you as you can neither let that go nor can you accept it every day, as it gets so hectic and cumbersome.
If toxicity was the reason or a part of a big reason which led to your trauma, then every time you feel a bond turning toxic, just cut it off for the protection of your mental health.
Engage yourself fully in whatever you do
It does not matter what you are doing; engage yourself completely with that. Get involved in that thing completely, even if you are doing it out of necessity and nothing else.
When you dive right into the depths of whatever you are doing, it is indeed possible for you to find joy and happiness in action.
When you engage with something, you get to find out interesting aspects about that thing, which in turn awakens joy.
Don’t overwork yourself
Neither procrastination nor overworking, none of these are fruitful for you or your mental health. Just the way you should not keep important things for the last moment.
Similarly, you should avoid overworking yourself, which can stress you out and harm you physically and mentally.
You should avoid doing a lot of things at the same time or taking in too much pressure. This will not only mess up your work but will also degrade your health and overall mood.
Include breaks in your busy schedule
No matter how busy you are, it is very important to take breaks in between. Some people overwork themselves just because they have a notion that taking a break will halt their progress.
In reality, taking a break gives you the time to replenish and reassess yourself. You can plan better for your next work when you take a few minutes’ breaks.
Also, taking frequent breaks is important for your brain as it settles it down and refreshes the brain when it gets some rest.
Have some patience
Patience is a virtue that is inculcated over time. You can’t always expect results immediately; as they say, good things take time, so do things the best way you can without worrying about the results. When you give your everything, you are bound to get proper results for it.
It takes several years to achieve goals that have been set and to become successful, so don’t be impatient and expect an outcome overnight. When you get impatient, you don’t allow joy to surface.
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Devote your time to self-care
What is better than caring about yourself, the way you look, the way you speak, the way you smell? Devoting time to your self-care makes you look even more attractive.
You don’t need to appear the way someone wants you to. You can always be yourself and let your inner you flourish in front of others.
This way, you are not trying to walk in someone else’s shoes and acknowledge yourself for the person you are. When you acknowledge yourself, you let joy bloom!
Share little details about you
As you already know, social connections can be beneficial in providing you with joy and happiness. Even when you merely connect with someone on zoom, even if that person is a stranger, starting a conversation can give an instant joyous boost.
When you share little details about you like your hobbies or an incident about you, you can start a little bond with the other person. Sharing things that you are passionate about can bring you immense joy and satisfaction.
Portray gratefulness
Just like patience, gratitude is also a virtue. When you become grateful, you accept things the way they are; when you showcase gratitude, you try to find out the positives even within the host of negative things.
Gratefulness prevents you from getting absorbed into the difficult situations you face in your life; rather, it enables you to scrape out the positives, which you can learn from those situations and become a better version of yourself.
Give time to your hobbies
Apart from overworking yourself, you must keep in mind to devote time to your hobbies. One of the best ways to take a break from your busy daily schedule is to give time to your hobbies.
No matter what you love doing, no matter what you are good at, keeping a separate time assigned for your hobbies can be beneficial for your overall mood. Having a separate time for your hobbies will provide you ample amount of joy and happiness.
Get involved in some kind of physical activity
Any form of physical activity that will keep you fit and in shape can be great in enhancing the process of healing developmental trauma.
It can be dancing, skateboarding, playing football, learning martial arts, or anything. Whatever you get yourself into, just make sure that you enjoy being a part of it and that you are not forced to do it.
The love and appreciation for it should come from within so that when you start getting results, you start acknowledging yourself even more.
Let your creativity flourish
You all have some talent that you are aware of, or even if you are not, you can always try doing various things which will portray your creative side. It may be sketching, handicraft making, designing various objects, and so on; you can name them.
The main objective of this point is not to hide the talent that you have. Letting your creativity flow can greatly impact your brain and can be instrumental in relaxing your mind and providing you joy.
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Try doing yoga
Yoga takes meditation to the next level and is even more fruitful in curbing developmental trauma. Yoga is the combination of mindfulness meditation, calm breathing, and various stretches and postures.
When you practice yoga, you are inducing some physical activities inside your regular meditational routine, which helps in keeping you fitter alongside calming down your senses.
Just imagine if meditation can be useful in relaxing your mind and body, how much more useful yoga can be.
Connect with an old friend
Many times, connecting with an old friend can be beneficial in providing you happiness and joy.
Someone you had fond memories with, but you people have lost all contact due to some reason.
Try connecting with that friend again and refresh all those memories that might positively impact your brain.
Also, you never know when the other person can come up with a solution to the problem that you are currently facing and sort out your life.
Go on a long drive or a vacation
A great escape from the hustle and bustle of your everyday life can be a trip somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily have to be with your friends or close ones; even a solo trip can be better sometimes.
You can be yourself, explore places all by yourself, and this can help you get over your everyday monotonous routine.
A much-needed vacation can also be a massive motivational boost and release happy hormones to make you feel joyous and enthusiastic.
Have a soothing playlist
Music calms you down, and this has been proven scientifically. Having a soothing collection of songs can improve your emotional well-being, relax you, enhance your concentration levels, memory, attention, and reasoning, and boost your information processing speed.
There are various aspects of developmental trauma, and music is seen to curb them all by calming you down for a while and segregating you from the outside world, which at times, can break you down even more.
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Staying close to entertainment
Entertainment can have various forms; it depends on what you love doing or watching and what gives you the most enjoyment. You can go for a movie, or binge-watch a web series, play video games, or laugh your heart out by visiting a comic show.
It all depends on your taste and choice, but the most important fact is that having a form of entertainment can be beneficial in healing trauma. You tend to forget the world around you and enjoy a time by yourself.
Conclusion:
From the above points, it can be concluded that developmental trauma is within you and is just a phase that you have to go through.
If you don’t allow it to overcome you, then it can never so; take note of these points and follow them just so that you can be yourself again and overcome your trauma instead.
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“Mindfulness, meditation, and positivity – these three words describe me the best. I founded “BeHappyHuman” blog dedicated to spreading happiness and inner peace through mindfulness and meditation techniques. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been exploring these practices for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing their benefits with others. My mission is to help individuals achieve greater happiness.