5 Ways the SSP is Trauma-Informed
When you do the SSP with me, it’s trauma-informed. And that goes beyond a buzzword into tangible actions and practices. So if you’re wondering how LAND is trauma-informed, that’s so valid, and I want you to know these things before you begin. You deserve the kind of trauma-informed care that meets your needs and honors your nervous system and lived experience. Read on to find out a bit more about my approach.
When you do the SSP with me, it’s trauma-informed. And that goes beyond a buzzword into tangible actions and practices. So if you’re wondering how LAND is trauma-informed, that’s so valid, and I want you to know these things before you begin. You deserve the kind of trauma-informed care that meets your needs and honors your nervous system and lived experience. Read on to find out a bit more about my approach.
Listening moves at the pace of your nervous system
We listen 10 minutes at a time, followed by processing & support. This way, the listening isn’t overwhelming. It’s doable and digestible, and there is time built in for integration and self-care, as well as group connection. Also, you can always listen less. I will encourage you to honor your capacity. In LAND, your NO will be celebrated as much as your YES!
Relationships grow at the pace of your nervous system
I know joining a group, and a healing group especially, can be vulnerable and tender. In LAND, we can take our time. We have 12 weeks to get to know one another. I will be nurturing connections and comfort but not rushing or forcing them. Connections can grow on your unique timeline, and that’s okay (and even encouraged!) with me.
There is no forced sharing!
Part of the group magic is witnessing other folks and bringing your experience to be witnessed. In this light, sharing is always invited and even encouraged. But I'm also here to encourage you to honor your boundaries and needs. Sometimes you might share a little, sometimes a lot, sometimes there are no words or they're just for you. That's okay! Also, voice AND chat are open for shares. I strive to be very inclusive and adaptive when it comes to sharing, and this is a place to practice showing up and sharing the right amount for you (not how much or how little you think you should share to be accepted.)
There is space for you to have the experience you need
In the SSP, you’re invited to listen to music for 10 minutes at a time. You can do whatever you'd like, and whatever feels right to you, while you listen. So you have a lot of agency and ownership over your experience. A lot of folks listen while: resting, moving, art-making, doodling, snacking, etc. You can do whatever supports your nervous system! And if you’re not sure what supports your nervous system or experience, this group is a lovely way to find that out and cultivate new tools, rhythms and practices.
The SSP isn't kapow! It's more like gentle waves. We titrate and we integrate.
Sometimes your experience can be intense, and there is space for that. But I also hope to co-cultivate a space where what comes up feels doable, digestible and for the most part be-with-able. This is where lasting change can occur. So how do we ensure the SSP is as gentle as it can be? We meet for 12 weeks, we listen for ten minutes at a time, and there is space to resource, self-soothe, and weave the lessons we're learning into our lives. And there is time for reflecting, processing and digesting our experience. Most people feel like what comes up might be a lot, but also through the SSP their experience of “a lot” can change and when things come up that in the past would have been too much, now it’s less overwhelming.
There are so many ways to be trauma-informed. Important aspects for you (and for me - this is just one blog, after all) might be missing from this list. But I hope this helps you see some of the ways I aspire to hold our group so everyone feels welcomed to show up as they are and has space to feel, grow and transform.
When a coach or healer says they are ethical or trauma-informed, it doesn't always mean they are ethical or trauma-informed. So what now?
When a coach or healer says they are ethical or trauma-informed (and soooo many are saying it right now; have you noticed that, too?), it doesn't always mean they are ethical or trauma-informed. As potential clients and customers, it's important to use our discernment. And herein lies the challenge.
When a coach or healer says they are ethical or trauma-informed (and soooo many are saying it right now; have you noticed that, too?), it doesn't always mean they are ethical or trauma-informed. As potential clients and customers, it's important to use our discernment. And herein lies the challenge.
As a survivor of trauma, it might be extra challenging to use discernment. Especially when some coaches and healers are practiced at clouding, manipulating and diverting discernment and critique.
We hear it all the time. Clients or customers bring up a concern or critique, and coaches and healers say:
➞ That’s just your block
➞ Well what does this say about you?
➞ That’s not my problem
➞ Find the lesson in this
And while self-reflection is a valid tool for growth and self-awareness, gaslighting is neither ethical nor trauma-informed. And so many healers and coachers take part in this practice.
What’s more, someone who has been through a traumatic experience might notice:
➞ A struggle expressing and holding firm boundaries
➞ Tendencies toward people pleasing
➞ Hesitance to speak up and say no
➞ The tendency to blame the one thing we can control (ourselves)
And listen, coaches and healers know this. (<--- this is the part that fires me up!!)
The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t using this information to manipulate and clients and customers.
The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t using this information to prey on folks who might be more vulnerable to mixed messages, gaslighting and “tough love”.
The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t responding to critique or feedback with lines meant for clients to internalize the issue so that the practitioner doesn’t have to take any accountability.
But some of them are. That sucks, and I’m so sorry. You deserve better. So much better.
You know I’m a softy, but I also don’t mess around with so much of the bullshit our fields do, and as long as it’s happening, I’ll call it in and out. If you're a coach or a healer (or anyone who works with humans) on this list, you already know your clients deserve better (and they're getting better from you!).
If you want to deepen your skillset to meet clients with a more trauma-informed approach, join us in Foundations. The doors are open and it’s both sweet and a little spicy inside. We'll spend 5 weeks forming a trauma-informed approach that honors the needs of our business, our selves and our clients.
Basically, we'll do the opposite of what this letter describes. We'll explore how trauma might impact clients (it might seem like the ways are countless, but we're going to count them anyway), and we'll make a plan to be as supportive to clients as possible. As the word states, trauma will inform the ways we show up. For real.
Are you in? Hoping so.
Jess
P.S. Eeek, I generalized. I try not to generalize, because people (coaches, healers, and folks who've been through trauma) are unique individuals, aaaaand sometimes there are patterns. My list about folks who have been through trauma might not resonate 100%. Also, often vigilance and hypervigilance (a.k.a. being on alert) means folks who have been through trauma are on the lookout for bullshit. Also, not all healers or coaches suck, there are some AMAZING folks even here on this list! And, finally, folks in healing and coaching can also be folks who have been through trauma.
Are you leading body scans in a trauma-informed way?
Body scans can be a supportive tool. That said . . . When we lead someone through a body scan, we could be forgetting that there are places in their body that might not feel accessible.
Body scans can be a supportive tool. That said . . . When we lead someone through a body scan, we could be forgetting that there are places in their body that might not feel accessible.
When we lead someone through a body scan without offering grounding resources, we are not offering support for potential activation.
When we lead someone through a body scan without using invitational language and adaptations, we are not honoring their autonomy or needs.
If it is our practice to lead folks through body scans, let's check in with our client around their comfortability with their body and accessing it via somatics and mindfulness.
We might find that focusing on smaller areas better meets the needs of our client. We might find that our client prefers a different modality for checking in. Listen to your client. Consent is key.
Body scans can be a supportive tool at best, and re-traumatizing at worst. We might not have been taught to offer body scans in a trauma-informed way, but it’s never too late to shift our practice.
What’s your experience with body scans, either as a client or practitioner? You’re invited to share below, if you’d like.
The healing binary is a falsehood
THE HEALING BINARY IS A FALSEHOOD //
Sure, there are healing practitioners and survivors, but they’re not always mutually exclusive.
We can be in a process of healing and also offer that to others.
We can offer care and also deeply need to fill our own cup.
We can help folks and we can also harm them.
Healing, life, humans —> it’s all complex. Perhaps it’s complicated than a binary. Perhaps we can be more than one thing at once.
THE HEALING BINARY IS A FALSEHOOD //
Sure, there are healing practitioners and survivors, but they’re not always mutually exclusive.
We can be in a process of healing and also offer that to others.
We can offer care and also deeply need to fill our own cup.
We can help folks and we can also harm them.
Healing, life, humans —> it’s all complex. Perhaps it’s complicated than a binary. Perhaps we can be more than one thing at once.
Sometimes, our brain likes boxes and rubrics and categorization (we’ll touch on the wise reasons for this in the mini course!), but often, they fall short.
In How To Talk: how to talk about trauma with invalidating our clients, we’ll explore:
🐝 the ways we think and talk about trauma and why (including the Big T/little t framework!)
🌻 approaches for connecting with clients through trauma informed language
💛 compassionate practices for tending to our self and our “stuff”
Because the binary is a lie. If you’re a healing practitioner, you are also a whole human, and you might need care too.
If you feel like two incompatible things, maybe you’re not.
If you feel like a box or binary can’t contain you, maybe it can’t.
And what if, in healing and in life, that’s not a problem?
Spots are still open in the free mini course which begins on Wednesday November 3rd! Three daily trauma informed lessons will land in your inbox, and I’d love to have you if it sounds like your cup of tea. Click here to join, if you’d like.
Talk soon,
Jess
P.S. Of course there are times we are so deep in a process it ends up clouding our client care and/or causing harm. Just wanted to name that because I imagine many of us have experienced it as either a client or a practitioner, or both.
What do doorways have to do with trauma recovery?
One key component of a traumatic experience is that we are often stripped of choice. We don’t choose traumatic events, they are things that happen to us. And we often don’t get to make many choices throughout the experience. Of course our nervous system is always making the best choice that it can for our survival and well-being, but more often that not, those are limited too.
So what does this have to do with doorways and trauma recovery?
One key component of a traumatic experience is that we are often stripped of choice. We don’t choose traumatic events, they are things that happen to us. And we often don’t get to make many choices throughout the experience. Of course our nervous system is always making the best choice that it can for our survival and well-being, but more often that not, those are limited too.
So what does this have to do with doorways and trauma recovery?
A trauma-informed approach to healing supports clients in acting from a place of agency. In making the choices that best take care of themselves. In choosing the pace that feels right, choosing what to share and what to hold close for the timebeing.
Part of this approach can be about illuminating doorways. Something many trauma survivors have in common is wanting to know where the exit is. We also might want to know where a door that leads us to connection and belonging exists. So part of our work (whether this is through self-care or with our clients) might be to find these doorways.
This isn't about knowing the best door for our clients, because we likely don’t. (Though we might have some great ideas, and those are so welcome!) This isn't about pushing them through the doorway or pressuring them to choose a certain doorway that we think is the right one.
This is about letting clients know that there are pathways that can take them deeper into the work and help them face their sensations, and pathways that can take them out of the intensity of the experience and back and to safety and resourcing.
This blog could be a mile long, because these topics are complex. I imagine you have experienced some of these things before. Maybe feeling overwhelmed by a tidal wave of feelings and frantically looking for an exit.
Perhaps feeling a readiness to spend time with feelings or unresolved trauma and not knowing where to turn for support as you do that work.
One way that we can shine a light on the doorways and illuminate choices is with our words. We can give clients and in and out. We can remind our clients (or ourselves) that yes, these feelings are here, and also there is a choice about how to engage with them. We have a choice about if we even want to engage with them.
And sometimes for survivors of trauma, choices can be overwhelming. So we might strive to be really gentle with ourselves and our clients. To make the choices small. What’s the best choice in this moment? We don’t have to solve everything in one session or one breath. But what might we need right now? An entrance, or an exit? To dial back the intensity or to turn up the volume?
Just a few things to think about. In a few days, I'll be inviting you to explore trauma informed language with me through a free mini course. At that time, I'll invite you to consider if this is a choice that serves you, or something you want to say no to. I celebrate your decision either way!
Trusting your choices and looking forward to connecting soon,
Jess
New Healing, Big Feelings
Have you ever started therapy/healing with a new person and felt some big feelings and thoughts about it?
We’ve been chatting about this over on instagram, and these are The Big Two that come up for people:
The “I feel like too much!!!!!” experience
The “this is moving so slowly is anything even happening???” experience
Have you been here? Maybe as a client, maybe as a practitioner, maybe even in both roles?
Beginnings are tender. This much I know is true.