Dr. Karol Darsa (Psy.D.) explains that trauma commonly produces disconnection across five domains—mind, body, heart/emotions, relationships, and spirituality—and offers practical, gradual strategies to reconnect. For the mind she recommends mindfulness, slowing internal speed, and tracking negative self-talk; for the body she advises gentle, positive cueing and alternating attention between safe and stressful bodily sensations; for emotions she prescribes short, nonjudgmental toleration exercises (start with one minute, increase gradually); for relationships she recommends seeking nonjudgmental people, therapy or support groups; and for spirituality she suggests expressive practices (prayer, writing, faith-based groups). The talk emphasizes gradual, nonjudgmental reconnection as the pathway to healing.
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Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darza, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Welcome to my YouTube channel. If this is the first time you're watching me, by the way, my last video, I talked about how trauma may create a disconnect within yourself. And in this video, I'm actually going to talk about what to do about it. I recommend that you watch the video, but I'm going to give you a quick summary just in case. So trauma may create a disconnect in five different ways. One, you may feel disconnected from your mind. Two, from your body. Three, from your heart, emotions. Four, from loved ones, your family, friends. And the fifth one is God or spirituality or the universe. So we're going to take each item and talk about what to do because I want to help you to reconnect to yourself because that's how the healing happens when you find ways to put yourself back together in some way. And this is what I've been doing. You'll see the same information in my book, the Trauma Five Steps to Reconnect with Yourself with Detailed explanations. Okay, let's say you are disconnected from your mind. You might be feeling confused, you might have tendencies of being perfectionist, or you may find yourself that you're very judgmental towards yourself and. Or the most common thing is you might have thoughts that are sort of spinning and you're obsessing about things and you can't let go of something. These are all signs of possible trauma that you've experienced, especially if you've experienced childhood trauma. So one of the most important things, and I'm sure you've heard of this in many ways because it's become so well known now, is to really become mindful and have awareness of what's happening to you. So educate yourself about what trauma is, understand what happened to you, and then let's talk about how to become mindful of that and how to overcome this obsessive thoughts, this sort of spinning way of thinking. If you are day to day spending a lot of time in your thought. So you're just sort of doing things and you're in a fast pace. You may want to just take time from time to time just to really become aware of that and slow your thoughts down. Actually slowing down is really sort of the medication for anxiety. Anxiety really means you are too fast inside, your thoughts are just racing or you're constantly doing something, but your mind can't just rest. So if you slow yourself down consciously being aware of it, you may find that there's a lot of calming down in your nervous system. That's actually one way for you to connect to your mind again. Because in fact the confusion is also a sign of this obsessive, fast paced way of thinking. So from time to time, even if it's just one minute, sit down, let everything go, leave your chores and tasks aside and just sit. You know, it's not like a meditation, but just really slowing down. Watch the internal speed and see if you can really pay attention to that. The second thing is watch the way you're talking to yourself. That is another way a lot of people really stay disconnected from themselves is by the way that they are judging themselves or how much they're saying how stupid I am or how what a bad person I am type of things. If you actually write down how frequently you talk so negatively to yourself, you might be quite surprised. I give this homework to my clients. I ask them, in the next 24 hours, I want you to write down every negative thing that you said to yourself and then tell me how frequently that happened. The next day they come with this big piece of paper in shock. They thought they were saying a couple of times a day, but it's actually much more frequent than that. So watch the way you're talking to yourself and that will really help you with the way that your brain is going to feel more connected to you. Okay, the second one, the disconnection from the body and, and how to reconnect to yourself, this is a little bit of a different topic because in the original moment when you had to disconnect from your body, which is also called dissociation or checking out, there was a very legitimate reason in order to avoid pain. And so if you all of a sudden get back in your body in a very fast way, you may remember things that you are not ready to remember, or you may all of a sudden find yourself in this sort of overwhelmed feelings that you are not ready for. So here's the way that I recommend to do that. Think of something positive first. Could be a place you like to be. For me, it's the beach. It could be a person you love. You could have a pet that you just adore, think of being with them. Or in fact, if you have the dog, just take him next to you. And then as you just really imagining being in those places or being around the people that you love and that you feel safe with, notice your body. So again, positive memory, positive incident, and the notification, the noticing of the body, what happens inside when I think of the beach, for instance. I get sense of like sort of this relaxation in my stomach that happens. So stay with that for about a minute. I want to first see if you can tolerate a positive feeling. Believe it or not, a lot of people can't even tolerate that. Which again, it's not something to judge for, it's to understand. But you get back into your body in a gentle and slow way. Then you practice this for a couple of minutes. And maybe that day that's all you practice. And then the next time you bring up a stressful event to your mind, but not traumatic, just a stressful event. So a fight with your boss, I don't know, the house is dirty, something like that. And as you think about that, then notice what happens in your body. Now you might feel a little bit of tension in your stomach or in your neck area, or maybe you're clenching your jaw. That's a common thing too. Don't judge, just notice that. Sit with it, put the story aside, put the content aside, just notice the body. And as you feel that, then remember the positive thing yesterday that you thought about. So was it Disneyland? Was it your dog? And go back and forth between those two events, not only in your mind, but in your body. So let's say the positive thing was a relaxation in the stomach and the negative thing was a clenching in the jaw. So you hang out a little bit in your stomach for a few seconds, notice that, then go back to the jaw, notice the tension in the jaw, go back and forth this way and then notice what happens. Really see if you can expand the sensation throughout the whole body and you'll see that the tension will actually start decreasing because you're also feeling something positive in your body. And gradually you may use that tool throughout the day and just pay attention to how frequently you you are out of your body. When you're driving, do you pay attention to your feet when you're talking to someone? Are you aware of what your hands are doing or how you're supported by the pillows that you are supported? Paying attention to the body is one way to be able to increase your tolerance for stressful situations. Okay, the third one. This is your heart and emotions. We talked about the disconnect and now we're going to talk about how to connect to your emotions. This is a little bit similar to what I said about the body, that the coming back to yourself has to be gradual, has to be gentle and slow in a non judgmental way. There's a reason why you have to put away a lot of the feelings that you couldn't tolerate, maybe when you were younger or maybe for incident that happened when, when you're an adult. So if you jump into it, you may get overwhelmed. In fact, a lot of people talk about the Pandora box, right? There's this fear of like, oh my God, if I tell you about my feelings, I'm going to open the Pandora box and I'm just going to cry and you're not going to be able to make me stop. That is a fear. And that, that is a legitimate fear. That's why I believe in opening everything in a gentle way. So find something that's stressful. What do you do with this feeling? Do you want to run away from it? Are you okay to sit with it? Maybe just for one minute. And how does sitting look like? It's just really. Just sitting means you're noticing the stress, you're noticing the negative feeling, but you're not trying to rush it, you're not trying to change it, you're not trying to soothe yourself. And you're definitely not judging it. You're making it. It's okay, it's not bad or good. It's just a feeling. I have just a minute. This time tomorrow you can try for two minutes. The next day you can try for three minutes. And gradually you'll build a tolerance for this. Then again, when stressful emotional situations arise, you start using these tools in order to increase your capacity for it. The fourth one we talked about was the disconnect from loved ones, from family members or friends. If you watch my first video, you will see that there are also a lot of reasons for that. One thing that I recommend is find people who are not judgmental, who are more understanding, who are more empathic towards you. And even if you can't share what happened, reach out to them. Find a way to connect to them. Find ways to just not feel alone with it. You can also go to a therapist because they are definitely not judgmental in that way. And then. Or you can find support groups that can help you deal with these feelings. And because everyone else will be talking about stressful events, you definitely will not feel alone with it. And the last one is the desire to reconnect back to God spirituality or whatever your faith was might be. So this is a very unique situation. If you are churchgoer or if you go to synagogue or if you just pray at home or maybe you just write letters to God. Just. I encourage you to spend some time to express your feelings through writing, through talking or through joining a support group that shares your belief system. And remember, trauma equals disconnect. Healing equals reconnect. Stay connected.
