Types of Trauma Healing Techniques & Modalities
Written by Jennifer Aldoretta, founder of Groove
Trauma is the expression of a painful past experience within the present moment.
This is, by far, the best definition of trauma I’ve personally come across, for loads of reasons. But the biggest reason I love this definition is because it means that healing trauma does not mean we have to “relive” or rehash our most painful, intimate wounds.
The best trauma healing techniques and modalities are all grounded in the present moment. What I mean by that is that they focus on what we’re feeling and experiencing RIGHT NOW, not what we experienced back then whenever the event first occurred.
They support us in completing the stress cycle and discharging the trauma energy from the body in the gentlest ways possible.
Here are a few amazing techniques to release trauma
Somatic Experiencing
Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)
Shadow Work
Breathwork
Yoga
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing is a technique that (re)connects us with our body by focusing on the physical sensations we are feeling right now. This helps us build awareness around any danger (fight-or-flight) signals being sent out by the body. Then, we can gently discover exactly where in our body stuck trauma energy is being stored and become conscious of the effects this stuck energy is having on our body, mind, and spirit.
Explore Somatic Experiencing in our online courses.
Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)
Trauma Release Exercises are the facilitation of a physical shaking response like the one we saw in the video in this post. This discharges stuck trauma energy and allows the physical completion of a halted stress cycle.
Explore TRE in our online courses.
Shadow Work
Shadow Work is the process of building awareness of the ways in which past trauma experiences are currently affecting the ways we behave with people, situations, and experiences in our life. We become mindful of our Shadow self — which is the amalgamation of characteristics we probably don’t really like about ourselves but that were ultimately a shield we built as a way to survive our painful experiences.
While this doesn’t directly discharge trauma energy, it guides us in building healthy skills and behaviors and fostering true self-love and self-acceptance.
Learn how to do Shadow Work here.
Breathwork
Using breathing techniques to gently help the body transition from a sympathetic nervous system state (fight-or-flight) to a parasympathetic nervous system state (rest-and-digest). This eases stress and regulates things like digestion, immune response, metabolism, and reproductive function, among other things.
Learn how to heal with breathwork here.
Yoga
The really great yoga teachers incorporate elements like breathwork techniques (not just “inhale” and “exhale” cues) and even Somatic Experiencing to help facilitate the gentle discharge of stuck trauma energy from the body.
There are lots of ways to heal trauma
These aren’t the only ways to find healing. If something doesn’t resonate with you or doesn’t feel right, trust yourself above all else. Don’t force yourself to engage in a healing technique that doesn’t feel right...move along and find something else that will.
There are countless trauma healing techniques, so there is something out there that can work for everyone.
In addition to being super into science, I also toe the line into traditional and “new age-y” modalities. I’ve personally explored (and directly experienced) the profound healing effects of more traditional methods that are still not fully accepted in our Western culture, and I firmly believe that they are worth mentioning here.
Some traditional methods of healing include:
Shamanism
Soul Retrieval
Energy Work (like Reiki)
Meditation
Plant medicine (like ayahuasca and psilocybin)
Feminine / Masculine energy balancing
Be supported through your healing journey
Healing can feel overwhelming, and don’t have to walk the path alone. We’ve created a whole library of online courses to guide you through this process in a gentle, loving way.