Journal prompts for healing11/29/2023 ![]() Larry, his family, the waiter, and everyone in the restaurant were all stunned and just sat there confused. Larry Chelsey was at a restaurant with an old friend, and the waiter brought a dish to the table and all the sudden his friend was jumping up and screaming at the waiter, screaming about how terrible the restaurant was, and storming out. They’re meant to help us react quickly to escape danger like a snake or a physical attack, but sometimes they get triggered even when we’re actually safe. These memories are stored beneath our consciousness, in our limbic system- the emotional centers of our brain and nervous system. That’s because a lot of times, these big feelings in the present moment are connected to deep emotional memories, sometimes of trauma. You’re walking down the street and suddenly feel scared and jumpy, or your child is rude to you and you snap at him, or your boss says something and it just fills you with an overwhelming heaviness. OK, so sometimes big emotions seem to come out of the blue. ![]() And as he did this work, his fears of flying decreased immensely. And the therapist asked, “Can you see any connection to what that has to do with flying?” And the man said yeah actually, I’m terrified of trusting adults to keep me safe, I feel like I have to keep myself safe, and when I’m on a plane I actually have to trust the pilots and flight attendants.Īnd as they continued to discuss his fears as he was able to identify them and see what those feelings were really about, he was able to see himself now as an adult, and realize that the pilots were not the same as his parents- they were competent and trustworthy, and he was also not that child any more, he was a capable adult. So the man just sat there and thought about how he felt as a 12-year-old and suddenly he remembered how that was the year when his dad just left the family and when he left he handed the 12-year-old boy a checkbook and said, “You know your mom is incompetent at handling money I have written down all the bills that need to be paid, it’s your job to make sure that they get paid.”Īnd the man realized that he had been put in a position where all the adults who were supposed to be in control couldn’t be trusted. His therapist didn’t say much, she just let him sit with that feeling for a minute. He described feeling helpless and panicked but couldn’t remember why. Then they explored when he remembered feeling these sensations- he saw an image of himself as a 12-year-old boy. When asked about where he felt this in his body, he said he felt anxious, jittery, tense, and sweaty, and that he felt like he just needed to “do” something. He told the story of how once he had even demanded to be let off the plane right as they were closing the doors. ![]() His therapist asked him to describe what it felt like when he had to fly in an airplane, he said it made him feel anxious, panicky, and out of control. His wife eventually asked him to see a therapist and so he did. Mike was terrified of flying, and because he refused to fly, his family couldn’t do the vacations they wanted to do and he couldn’t take a promotion he wanted that required travel. Let me tell you the story of a man who walked through these questions with a therapist and it changed his life. And you’ll hear about a man who’s fear of flying mostly went away when he did this work. In this article, you’ll learn 7 journaling prompts for mental health to help you explore how big emotions might be related to past trauma. ![]() Trauma changes our nervous system to make us super sensitive to situations that in any way remind us of the pain or danger of our past trauma.īut when we can’t identify what’s underneath those emotions, we often feel out of control in our own life. In this article, you will learn about journaling prompts for mental health.ĭo you ever have an intense emotional reaction that just seems disproportionate to the situation? Does some little thing set you off? And you can’t figure out why?ĭo you get anxious, a flash of anger, or an unexplainable feeling of fear? Or do you experience a feeling of “shut down”, exhaustion, or withdrawal? When we can’t figure out where these emotions are coming from, sometimes these feelings are related to childhood trauma or unresolved painful experiences from our past.
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