There are many thoughts and feelings associated with a traumatic experience, trauma occurs when we are faced with any terrible situation, such as a car accident, fire, witness to an accident, natural disaster, an attack on your person, war, e.t.c. Many people who are recovering from a traumatic experience mentally block out the experience that caused distress while others will relive it time and time again. Trauma can bring many feelings such as
Shock – shock is a normal reaction to any traumatic experience and the closer you were to the experience the more shock sets in. Your brain has to process the terrible images you have seen and this is when the feelings of shock set in and will take time to digest.
Disbelief – many people experiencing a shocking situation have strong belief that what they have witnessed cannot possibly have happened.
Denial – many people deny that the event happened; they try to force it out of their mind.
Emotional pain – even if you haven’t been hurt in the incident you will feel the pain of those around you who did.
Anger – after shock, anger will set in, you will ask yourself “why has this happened to you” and you can feel anger towards anyone and everyone.
Blame – we very often blame ourselves or others for what has happened, we may even blame God for letting this happen.
Sadness – when overcoming a particular traumatic experience you will feel waves of sadness suddenly overwhelming you.
Depression – for some time after the experience you may suddenly lapse into depression from time to time.
Anxiety – anxiety often develops from fear and can continue for some time after the experience.
All of the above are the most common feelings and thoughts associated with having gone through trauma; these feelings can come in no particular order and at any time. What you should realize is that these feelings are only natural and are your body and minds way of coping with what happened, the feelings
and thoughts will eventually dissipate with time. There are many ways you can cope with them and help yourself to overcome them, the best way for you of course will depend on the severity of the trauma you were exposed to. There are however a number of coping skills which can be learnt in order to help you overcome trauma.
Taking about what happened and letting it all out
Listening to and accepting advice from family, friends or counselor
Accepting what happened and continuing on with life
Changing your environment
Taking part in recreational activities
Picking up your old daily routine
Taking part in seminars
Chapter IV: Becoming an Optimistic Individual and Achieve Goals in Life
Developing your self-image
How you see yourself goes a long way to how you feel about yourself and how others see you and think of you. If you think positively on the inside then you will glow with confidence on the outside and come across this way to others. Feeling good about yourself is essential if you are to be happy in life and make the most out of life, it can make the difference of you being successful or failing, it is all about how you see your self-image.
People suffer from low self-esteem for many reasons and if they have been brought up feeling negatively about themselves then developing a positive self-image will be difficult, but not impossible. Developing a positive outlook is about changing your thoughts and feelings about yourself and if you have been thinking negative thoughts for a long time changing the habit will take time. However by adapting a new way of thinking and sticking to this new way of thinking you will eventually banish unwanted negative feelings and will automatically replace them with positive ones in your day to day life. When this happens your outlook changes and with your outlook, you change, where once you might have thought something would be beyond your capabilities you will now look at it in a different light and begin to realize it is within your grasp.
There are many ways which you can use to develop a more positive self-image and esteem, there are self-help books dedicated to the subject, audio sessions which you listen and follow, DVDS, hypnotherapy audio or attending counseling sessions. They all however rely basically on the same principle, understanding what confidence really is, gaining confidence in yourself, ridding yourself of negative beliefs and replacing them with positive ones and learning strategies which allow you to remain confident in any situation.
The basics behind developing a more positive outlook and self-image are
Thinking about positive self-image and confidence and understanding what it means to you
Getting to know yourself better, recognizing your strengths and building on those strengths
Moving forward and constantly changing negative thoughts into more positive ones
Reflecting on what you have learnt and seeing the positive changes you are making to your life
We all talk to ourselves at one time or another, and we may find ourselves continually putting ourselves down and are very slow to praise ourselves.
This must be changed. We want to change unhelpful self-talk and replace it with positive and encouraging self-talk, the easiest way to do this is by
Getting rid of irrational thoughts and replace them with rational ones
Replace negative thoughts and feelings with positive
Give yourself credit
Repeat positive affirmations to yourself when needed throughout the day
Change the Shape of Your Self-Image
While we all understand the importance of eating healthy, exercising and dieting, very few realize that changing our self-image is just as important to leading a healthy lifestyle. How you think and feel about yourself goes a long way to bringing happiness and success into your life and in order to change your self-image - just as you give your body a workout - you need to give your mind a work-out too.
The first step you need to take is to determine what exactly it is you would like to be and what you are already good at or enjoy doing. You might say you are good at sports, poetry and spending time with friends. The one thing you don’t want to do is create a list of things that you don’t like about yourself.
This would only make you feel inadequate and hinder your ability to change yourself and your self-image. By focusing on the good in yourself, you will be able to quickly change your self-image into something that you are proud of.
Visualization and affirmations can help you to realize just how great you already are. See yourself doing and becoming everything that you originally wrote down. Repeat positive affirmations throughout the day to help the new way of thinking sink in and develop your new positive outlook. By vividly imagining this new you, your mind will retrain until you understand that all the things you visualize are true.