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Video-Transcript

This session's activity is to start constructing our timelines! These timelines will be how we integrate our trauma stories into the overall narratives of our lives. 

So, today: take a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line on it. As a reference point, place an ‘x’ somewhere in the timeline to represent where you are in your life right now. And then, on the left side, put down all those important milestones that have happened so far. Some events you might include are: 

✨ changing jobs, starting a course, or other life change

✨meeting an important person, like a best friend

Trauma can leave us with many different complicated emotions, fears, and concerns. Based on narrative therapy and journaling techniques, we explore how to identify triggers, understand the science of trauma, re-build self-esteem, work through shame, and recognise the ways we’ve already been resilient.

Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story

Week 1: Foundational Concepts

Week 2: Psychosocial elements of trauma

Week 3: Resilience - the magic trick

Week 4: Coping mechanisms

Week 5: Building a narrative that feels right

Overview

We identify common feelings of unsafety for trauma survivors, recognise our own patterns of mistrust, and explore techniques to stay in the present. 

Restoring safety and rebuilding trust

Hello everyone! It’s Zoë, and I’m here with Aiman, and we are here for Week 3 of the course! How are you doing today Aiman? 

I'm well. I have a little bit of a flu, but I went away for a week on this amazing vacation. And, so there's this part of the country called Hunza, and it had these beautiful Autumn colors and these wonderful mountains, and I was like living in the middle of a forest. So yeah, it was just the best experience ever. 

Oh my gosh, that's gorgeous. Yes, Aiman sent us pictures, sent the team pictures of the time she went away, which just looks so gorgeous. I love those like yellow and orange leaves. I think we're a little bit beyond that here in London. It's more looking wintery now. But it looked so gorgeous. Yeah, amazing. I feel like after that I don't have much to report about how I'm doing, right now.

No, Zoë, tell us how you're doing, tell us.

Hahaha, everything, everything that's taken place, last 2 weeks. No, but yeah, that's really lovely. Well, yeah, with that, we'll get on with today's session. 

We do grounding exercises, of course, at the start of every session to literally ‘ground us’. 

today’s grounding exercise will be… 

One that we learned with our own team therapist, Paula!

Sometimes moving our bodies is the best way of grounding ourselves. If you can, stand up (if not, sit straight in your chair). Think about a fruit that grows from a tree. Do you have it? Here, we are going to go with bananas. 

Now think about a fruit or vegetable that grows from the ground. We are going to go with potatoes.  

Okay, ready? We are now going to stretch to pick those bananas up, by taking our arms up to the sky and trying to reach them. 

And now, let's collect our potatoes from the ground.

These kind[s] of exercises get our blood flowing and allow our brain and body to concentrate on something else!

Remember: every one of us is different. A grounding exercise that works for someone may not work for you. That’s totally fine. Experiment with what feels good for you!

Yes, ooo, I liked that one. Although I realized when we were going down for the potatoes that I have my table in front of me. So I was kind of leaning off to the side to try to get to the ground. 

 But I love that one. Stretching up in particular felt really nice, so thank you for that Aiman.

as well, which is what is a random fact that people might find surprising about you? I'll give you a moment to think, Aiman, so I'm not just springing this question on you. Maybe this is fairly mundane, but something that I found really funny is that last year in Bloom, on some kind of call we were, I don't know what we were talking about. But people's heights came up, and a former member of the Bloom team, Alyson, is quite tall. So she's like 6 ft., 6 ft. 1 in. And I, myself, am 5 ft. 10 in. Sorry for anyone who's only familiar with the other metric system. But I go with feet and inches - I find feet and inches easiest for heights. But, in any case, when I mentioned that I was 5 ft. 10 in., Hera was shocked. And I was like, 'I didn't think it was a surprising fact about me.' I mean 5 ft. 10 in. is, I guess, on the taller side. But I didn't think it was particularly mind-blowing, but she was just blown away. I was like, does my personality seem like, I don't know, I'm shorter than that? I didn't think it was that surprising, but apparently, it is. So, for all of you out there, I'm 5 ft. 10 in. And maybe being tall is surprising. Maybe it seems like I'm not tall. But in any case, a potentially surprising fact for you. 

Oh my God, that is surprising Zoë. That is surprising! I totally pegged you for a shorter person, I don't know why. 

I would love to know what it is that makes people think that. Because there's nothing wrong with being short or tall or whatever it is. But like what are these personality traits that are apparently a give away for being shorter than 5 ft. 10 in.

So I feel like in the same vein, I'm gonna tell you my height and let's see if it shocks and surprises you. Because I'm not even 5 ft. I'm 4 ft. 11 in. I'm like literally shorter than 5.

Do I come across as a tall person? I don't know.

I was thinking 6 ft., 6 ft. 2 in. No, I'm joking. Oh wow, oh my gosh, I feel like the Bloom team should one day sort of like unite, and um, we should do like a little lineup of like heights.

Yeah, do you have a - is that your surprising fact? Is that what we're going with for today? Or do you want to share something else?

Yeah, I think it's surprising enough. I used to stand in the front of the line for, like, school assemblies. Because I was always the shortest in class, so yeah that's my surprising fact: I'm short. 

I love that, and I also remember doing that at school. Like, for some reason whenever, like in games or I don't know what it was, but yeah making us line up like by height. So yeah, if we ever do it, we'll send you a Bloom team lineup everybody. 

 Amazing, so yes, let's get on with today's content

So we start with a quote, which is, ‘Knowledge is Power,’ which was said by Philosopher Michel Foucault, which I believe is potentially how it's pronounced but potentially not? - and we think he had a point. The core of psychological trauma stems from the way it can make us feel 

and then, in this state of powerlessness, we feel as though we know nothing, have nothing, are nothing. 

However, we can always reverse and undo that same philosophy; by learning about the same topic that has caused us harm, we are able to grow. After all, that’s why Bloom’s model is to 

We can also feel empowered by getting to know ourselves better, in building a relationship with our current responses and needs. We will work on this more personal side of things in the next few weeks, as we dig deeper into our coping mechanisms. 

But today, we want to think specifically about rebuilding trust and restoring safety post-trauma. For this, we are going to need to think about our relationships. We will be considering our sense of internal safety, not our immediate physical safety. It’s this lack of internal safety that can many times result in our feeling physically and psychologically vulnerable. 

Although, if you feel your physical safety is at risk, please reach out to us directly, and we can direct you to the right support.

Through this sense of unsafety, traumatic experiences have a big impact in our perception of the world and our relationships. From a very early age, our means of survival is

 Basic trust should be there in our first relationships with our caretakers - and it stays with us for the rest of our lives. Basic trust allows us to believe we can exist in the world safely. Traumatic experiences violate that sense of trust, our belief in the systems we exist in. As a result, they can destroy our connection with ourselves and others. 

In our session on Adverse Childhood Experiences, we addressed this idea when we talked about early relational trauma, which happens in the first few years of our life, and usually in relationship with an important caregiver, like a parent. If this trust is missing from our early relationships, it can feel difficult to trust in our future relationships and break out of the relationship model we were handed by our caregivers. So in today’s session, we will leave you with some questions to reflect on if you feel like your present relationships have been affected by how you’ve been treated in the past. 

This is why in most approaches to Trauma, the first phase of recovery involves the key element of establishing ‘Safety’ - a new ‘safe space’ or ‘default’. Regaining a feeling of safety in our bodies and environment is key to re-establishing healthy relationships, within our immediate social contexts and with ourselves. Psychologists in the field of trauma are usually very familiar with the importance of helping their clients establish ‘safety’ as a first step. They may struggle to agree on other things in the field of traumatic research, but this core idea brings together therapists from all approaches! 

The reason for this is that when we experience trauma, our assumptions about the safety of the world are shattered, in that moment. We are left feeling unprotected, helpless, and abandoned - discarded and unclear about what ‘rules’ apply to our realities. This applies not only to trauma that happens in the context of relationships or interactions with others, but also physical trauma, like accidents or growing up in an area where we’re surrounded by violence - this same sense that our safety has been shattered and lack of trust in the people or systems that should be keeping us safe, also applies. And, unfortunately, it's very common for us to start projecting that distrust into the world at-large: at every level of engagement between our body and what’s outside it. Our sense of internal safety that allows us to rely on the world being a safe place or in trusting people not to intentionally try to hurt us, as a general rule, will be broken. 

This means, of course, that it often feels difficult to trust others again, even those close to us. This lack of trust might be more exaggerated, if we experienced interpersonal trauma - that is, trauma in which one or more people was the cause of the trauma - but can also apply to many types of physical, medical, and other traumas, like grief. We may not pick up on it straight away - or it might not present in an obvious way - but we might find ourselves assuming bad intentions, feeling insecure about the way we are perceived by others, or otherwise assuming negative outcomes. This means our sense of safety, that internal compass that fires back and tells us what’s North, along with our self-esteem, might be suffering after traumatic events. It is normal to experience feelings of guilt, shame, and humiliation. This is particularly relevant for survivors of sexual abuse; it has a big impact on the way we see ourselves. Our lack of self-esteem might express itself in the way we judge our character or perceive our own body. 

Trauma is a fog. It makes it harder to see. 

Absolutely. Wow, I love that last line. But

still, there are a few things we can do, that are verified by research, to start changing the way we feel about ourselves and others post-trauma:

1) So firstly, start by identifying if this is happening to you. 

If you feel you are suffering from lack of trust based on your traumatic experiences, just realising this can be eye-opening and empowering. You have to know what the problem is to fill in the answers! It might give you insight into some of your behaviors and relationship difficulties. If trauma is the source,and our behaviours are protective reactions to its wound, then we can stop blaming ourselves or worrying that we’re in some way defective. 

Our responses in trauma are normal reactions to extraordinary situations. 

And there are ways we can heal from them. 

2) Two, connect with the here and now as much as you can. We know this is hard. But knowing that our lack of safety is a result of our traumatic experience, we can now try and differentiate the two situations; unknot the past from the present. 

Priya suffered sexual harassment at her previous job. A few months later, she is making coffee in her new work kitchen and sees two female colleagues she knows approaching and then stopping by the kitchen door to talk to each other. The first thought that comes to Priya’s mind is that her colleagues don’t want to talk to her; they saw her as they approached and decided to stay outside so they could continue their conversation without her and avoid her. She now feels nervous and anxious, and she can start feeling the signs of that anxiety in her body. 

But what if Priya was able to challenge herself here? Could it be that her previous experience of trauma is making her read intentions within this situation that remind her of a past unsafety? In this case, it’s not simply that she hasn’t been able to ‘get over it’ or is ‘worrying about nothing’. When a past trauma is triggered, it’s because we learned that there were things we had to pay attention to in our environment, in order to survive. The fact that we continue to pay attention to these things after trauma isn’t a sign of weakness; it shows all the ways we’ve already been looking after our safety.

Exactly! But that being said, after trauma, we can learn to stop paying attention to everything in our environment as though it is a threat. We can learn new patterns of trust and connection, and how to stay safe without constantly being anxious.

So as a response, Priya can remind herself that this is not the same situation as her previous job, simply by looking around her and remembering that she is having difficulty trusting people and herself at the moment because of past trauma. 

This is not a negative or debilitating truth. Instead, by knowing her history, Priya is able to replace anxious, negative thoughts with ones that are positive. Such as: maybe my colleagues didn’t see me; maybe they had something work-related to discuss that doesn’t have anything to do with me. This allows Priya to translate these new thoughts into actions. She considers her options: she can approach them and say ‘hi’, or she can wait for them to walk-in, if she wants to. Or she can leave the situation, without ruminating thoughts about their intentions.

If we are not comfortable in a new environment because of our old experiences, there are still ways we can take action to keep ourselves well. Then, we can return to the situation in future, with more information, a better understanding of our responses, and with a conviction that we are safe. 

We don’t have to perform perfectly the first time we get ‘triggered’ by our trauma. We can come back to it. We have the time. 

In this example, we are healing by recognising the patterns of our behaviours; observing that this is a new situation, with new people; and then deciding what action we’ll take. This process of observation also allows us to practice that tool we love so much here at Bloom: self-compassion. The ability to see our trauma responses for what they are, be curious about them, and know that they are the result of us doing the best we could to look after ourselves, is self-compassion. So is any attempt we make to look for new patterns, outside the patterns we’ve been allowed to practice before. 

Of course, like we covered in the last session, our feelings of unsafety may stem from very real experiences of violation and trauma within systemic oppression, whether that’s racism, transphobia, or other prejudices. We don’t mean to suggest that it’s possible to change the unsafe conditions we live in by merely thinking more positively. But still, any work we can do to have people in our lives who we can trust to support us within those unsafe conditions and provide an emotional safe space for us is valuable. 

(3) And the third thing we can do is rely on our social networks! As much as the traumatic experiences we go through affect our relationships, our relationships can also affect the way we recover. A positive response from our social systems, such as friends and family, can have an immense impact in the way we rebuild.

If we are a part of toxic environments, it becomes even more crucial to expose ourselves to people who appreciate us - or to balance what’s bad by adding in positive experiences. We may not have people we can trust to support us with our trauma in our lives right now - that’s okay too. The more we can connect with an inner sense of peace and trust, the more we can recognise who in our lives is capable of being supportive. 

Having a supportive community around us can also help us heal from our trauma - or can, at least, set the ground for us to continue with recovery. Like we went over in our session on traumatic oppression, community can not only show us that we’re not alone in the trauma we’ve experienced, but also that our identity is more than a source of oppression - it can be a source of connection and warmth as well. Or, sometimes people might not necessarily know everything we’ve been through, but they can still show us support by staying consistent with us throughout our mood fluctuations and giving us the time we need to rebuild our own identities. 

Try communicating with loved ones or new, positive people as much as you can - even if it means telling them you need space to process some difficult stuff. 

And also remember, we are here. This right here is also a community. So if you don’t feel like reaching out to your close ones or you don’t feel you have people you can trust, know that you aren’t alone. There are bubbles and people and safe spaces outside of those who’ve let you down. 

Remember, trauma affects our vision, it can make it harder to see the good. But we can still feel that good, seek out good spaces, and absorb that love - like a plant growing into the sun. 

Now, we love our little definitions in Bloom, so, officially, we know that self-esteem is a term to describe a person's overall sense of self-worth or personal value. In other words, how much we appreciate and like ourselves. Self-esteem involves beliefs about ourselves, such as how we assess our appearance, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. 

Those of us who have experienced trauma may have spent a significant amount of time blaming ourselves for what happened. Often, this leads to feelings of self-loathing and low self-worth, majorly altering our core-beliefs. This is completely normal and not something we should blame ourselves for. Lowered self-esteem is not a flaw in our personalities or characters. Instead, it’s reflective of our immediate environment and our past. It is not about strength of will or character. 

Yes, but also wonderfully, self-esteem is not a static thing, meaning it can change. It is fluid, as it often reflects our environment and those around us. This also means that we can hijack it - by putting ourselves in feel-good environments, as we spoke about, being around feel-good people.

And the importance we give to rebuilding our self-esteem will have an impact on our perceived sense of safety. When our radar of internal safety is damaged, it’s normal to have negative perceptions of ourselves and others. If we make a proactive effort to rebuild our self-esteem by being near compassionate people and replacing negative thoughts with kind thoughts in the moment, we will be actively challenging our lack of safety. 

For example: in the case of Priya, her safety alarm went off quickly and her trust compass was compromised. She first felt attacked and only later reconsidered her options. Imagine that she could have told herself: ‘I am a nice person, and I can make good conversation.’ That could have helped push away the idea of her colleagues intentionally not wanting to interact with her. 

Going even further than that, imagine she had someone in her corner, like a friend at the office, to make her feel safer and confident in rethinking her approach with people she didn’t know.

That community, that closeness with others, can build us back up when acting on our own. Being together is not the opposite of being strong - it is a step towards being the person we want to be, in connection with others, whatever that means to us.

The strategies we just talked about are great and can be applied to many different types of traumatic experiences. However, if you feel like your main challenge is personal relationships, then you might want to think about some of the questions we’ll name in a moment. 

Because it's hard to identify exactly how trauma may be impacting our personal relationships. It is much more nuanced than just an overall sense of unsafety that keeps us from meeting new people or socializing. And everyone is different in terms of how much social contact they prefer, and how many close interpersonal relationships they need to feel content. But, however we socialise, after trauma many of us find that we keep ending up in the same type of relationships or endless cycles of feeling the same way: neglected, unheard, silenced, things like that. Other times we might feel like we can work through some challenges, like interpersonal conflict or differences of opinion, but always get stuck when we are up against other things such as jealousy or mistrust. 

And these feelings are not in any way limited to romantic relationships. While we are likely to experience them in more intimate or vulnerable relationships such as those with a romantic partner or partners, children, or close friends, we may also experience them in the workplace, with extended family or other people we interact with. 

If you have identified a pattern or cycle you keep getting caught up in (or maybe are even currently in), you may ask yourself the following questions. Crucially, 

The aim is to identify our own traumas and find new patterns where we can: 

Some possible feelings to consider might be: unsafe, violated, out of control, helpless, worried about losing the other person, or jealous. Again, this is not an exhaustive list, just one to get you started.

This question will help us connect some important dots for ourselves and identify patterns of relating. Can you think of other relationships or times you have felt these feelings? What are the similarities between this situation and those? You may want to reflect on the entirety of your life as you answer this, and not focus only on your adult years.

3- And lastly we can ask ourselves, what change needs to happen for me to feel differently?

Reflecting on this question might give us some tips about what needs to be changed in the relationship, ourselves, or the other person for us to not feel the way we are feeling or have felt in the past. This could be something as small as asking the other person to speak in a softer tone. It could be letting them know how we feel when this happens. It could also simply be that we realise that temporarily removing ourselves from the situation helps us understand it a bit better. 

This reflection process takes time, and it is a matter of trial and error. But we trust you to arrive at an answer that works best for you and your relationships, in your own time!

So now, we come to the activity for today. 

The activity for today is to start our timelines.

Wow! We are so excited. Yes, I know, we've been looking forward to this. 

Well, what are our timelines? Let’s explain now, we haven't introduced these yet. Well, this course is about reclaiming resilience in our trauma story. In each session, we’re discussing a different aspect of trauma, our reactions to it, and the resilience we’ve already shown. 

And processing our trauma is in some ways about integrating it into the overall story of our lives - understanding the effect it has and has had, but knowing that it is not everything about who we are. We know that we have already been resilient. So that’s exactly why we’ve called the whole course, ‘Reclaiming Resilience in Your Trauma Story!’

So for the next few activities, we will be thinking about how what we’ve learnt in that session fits our personal trauma story. By the end of the course, you’ll have a visual story about you, written by you!

And so to start, we will need one large piece of paper – the bigger the better! And as many coloured pens and markers as you like. However, even one would suffice.

Before we begin, remember that these stories are ours. We have full control over them. We are the ones to decide what goes into them, how much space they take up, and how we integrate them as part of our life story.

Draw a straight, horizontal line across the length of your piece of paper. The start of this line represents your first day in the world and the end represents your last. Now, make a cross on the timeline representing where you think you are in your life right now. Make sure there is space both behind you and ahead of you. See where you place the cross on the timeline: does this have special meaning?

So firstly today, as a reference point, let's mark some important milestones we’ve already experienced - this could be the birth of a sibling, moving houses, graduation, or even a relationship – whatever has been significant for you and your story. This will go on the left side of the timeline. 

And that’s it for today’s timeline-drawing. But keep these timelines handy, we will be doing some more activities on them, and we will especially be using them in our first session of Week 5. 

Remember, this is an investment in your own journey to recovery. Give yourself the best chance to build resilience. You can do this. 🌷

Please let us know if you have any concerns, questions, or feedback. We would love to hear from you. We are here to support you, so get in touch!

Thank you everyone for coming to this session and showing up for yourself and others who are here because they know they are not alone. We’re in this together. 

So let’s do a grounding exercise together. Let’s take five deep breaths, and let that last one out, on that big sigh! And I’ll count us down. 

Now name one positive thing that you will take away with you from this session, or something you have learned here today.

And we’ll see you next time! Bye everyone! 