The holidays can be a dysregulating time, especially if you’ve experienced trauma. A lot of things could be impacting this dysregulation:

• Disruption in your routine 

• Traveling

• Attend group events that you don’t regularly attend (religious services, parties, large family gatherings)

• Interacting with family and friends in the group that you left

• Late nights and/or early mornings

• Increased substance use

• Situations that trigger a desire to use substances

• Being away from your home and familiar places

Interacting with Family and Friends in a Group you Left

Last month we shared a blog on interacting with people who remained in the religious community or cult that you left. The topics discussed in this article can help you put practices in place to protect your wellbeing. 

The main highlights of that article are:

• Boundaries: Boundaries are the most important component of interacting with loved ones who are still in the group that you left. You are the expert on your experience, so you know what your group is like and your needs. It might take some time to figure out, but considering what you want in relationships is crucial.

• Reality Checks: You might experience gaslighting during these interactions, making you question your reality. The people who are still in your group might deny your experience, and tell you things weren’t as bad as you say they were. Before interacting with people from the group you left, putting some reality checks in place might be helpful.

• Relationships Outside of the Group: This isn’t exactly having interactions with loved ones in the group that you left, but it’s also important to build relationships outside of your group. No one can replace the relationships that you already have, but your life is changing and you deserve to have relationships in your new stage of life.

You can read the full blog here to expand on those topics.

Coping Skills to Calm Down your Nervous System

The concepts listed above can help you protect your mental health before becoming dysregulated, but we also want to provide you with some coping skills to calm down your nervous system. These skills don’t require any props and you can use them on the go.

Affirmations: Remind yourself of things that are true. It can help to identify these in advance so that you aren’t trying to think of them while you’re distressed.

Helpful affirmations:

• I am safe.

• I can leave if my boundaries are not respected.

• I am loved.

• I am making the right decision.

If you like having a visual reminder of these affirmations, you can write them down in a note on your phone. Since most of us carry our phones with us at all times, our affirmations are almost always on-hand!

Connecting with safe people: Even if we’re in difficult situations, it can help to identify a person or people that we can reach out to when distressed or upset. Maybe this is someone you can send a quick text to while in a difficult situation. Or perhaps they are someone that you can call on the way home to process what happened. Relationships are a very important part of coping and healing.

Somatic coping skills: Somatic coping skills are a great way of connecting to our body in order to feel our emotions and experiences in our bodies. Gabriela Ucrós, AMFT specializes in somatic work and has many helpful teaching videos available.

• Hugging self: “One of my favorite somatic practices to regulate the nervous system and come out from overwhelm or freeze response.”

• Alternate nostril breathing: “Alternate nostril breathing serves as a way to regulate our nervous system by connecting us to both the left and right side of our brains, which creates a felt sense of body-mind integration, to help us expand our nervous system flexibility and ultimately react less and respond more.”

• Send safety signal to brain: “With this simple practice you can send a safety signal to your brain. If you are feeling triggered and are trapped in a fight/ flight/ freeze response, try this practice and notice how your nervous system resets and comes back to a calm state.”

There is no one size fits all coping skill. It might take some time to identify the ones that work for you, but you are worth the investment!

We have two curated courses that can help you take your nervous system regulation to a whole new level. Our first course is Regulated: Nervous System Masterclass and it teaches you all about how your nervous system works in real, practical and easy-to-understand examples. You can take your nervous system knowledge to the next level with our Four Trauma Responses Mini-Course. Learn all about fight, flight, freeze, and fawn and what you can do to help yourself get grounded again.