5 Trauma Informed Care Tips.
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When I talk about trauma informed care (or trauma informed goodness as I personally like to call it) I’m both referring to the care that trauma informed practitioners should have and the ways in which we can all show up with trauma informed care in our lives. In my experience the more I embody trauma informed care in my own healing, the more I show up with trauma informed goodness in all areas of my life. In this blog post I’ll be sharing about the ABCs of Trauma Informed Care, which are 5 trauma informed principles that were created by trauma resolution educator and coach Rachael Maddox.
Bringing a trauma informed care approach to our healing looks like working with our nervous system, honoring our unique pacing and respecting our limits, taking small doable steps and trusting the process. I’ve found the ABCs of Trauma Informed Care a helpful framework both for my own healing and for the work I do with my private coaching clients.
While I always recommend working with a trained trauma therapist or practitioner, it’s my hope that this article will be supportive in your own healing journey.
Why a trauma informed approach to healing trauma?
I spent years racing to heal and “fix” myself before I landed in trauma informed somatic trauma resolution trainings. The ReBloom body of work and ReBloom coach training were created by Rachael Maddox and is an archetypal approach to trauma resolution for personal and collective post traumatic growth. It was through this approach that I began to slow down, to listen to my body and to approach my healing with small doable steps. Instead of thinking that I had to suffer in my healing, I learned that healing could be doable, steady and with lots of space for things like joy and celebration.
The ABCs of Trauma Informed Care come from the ReBloom body of work and were developed by Rachael Maddox. The ABCs of Trauma Informed Care are:
Attunement
Body based.
Consent and Cooperation
Doability
Trust
The ABCs of Trauma Informed Care work with the natural intelligence of your body, honors your own unique healing timeline and supports you in healing in a way that’s sustainable. The truth is that so many of us who have experienced trauma are deeply desiring to heal. This can sometimes look like an energy of “I’ll do whatever it takes to heal” or being drawn to programs that promise rapid transformation. Of course we want to heal and if it’s fast, even better right? But healing that doesn’t honor our nervous system pacing needs will often lead to a collapse. Healing takes time and it can be sustainable and doable when we approach it with trauma informed care and goodness.
Let’s go over each of the ABCs of Trauma Informed Care.
1.) Attunement
Attunement is really about being present with what’s happening in the present moment. When we experience trauma or overwhelm it can be a common experience to lose access to our attunement to present time and place. For example, perhaps you feel like you’re five years old again and in that scary place. We can practice attunement by being present with what’s happening inside of ourselves-such as physical sensations, emotions and even energy. Can you notice what’s happening without trying to change it? That could look like:
Pausing to get curious about what might be happening at the body level.
When you’re sharing a story that might feel activating perhaps feeling into your current place and age.
If you feeling anxious (or another challenging emotion) pausing to be with the emotion instead of reacting or trying to fix it.
Why it’s important: If we’re looping in an old trauma response, attunement can help slow the nervous system. It’s also helpful in the sense that trauma can often impact our capacity to feel and trust ourselves and our bodies, by attuning to ourselves we can begin to rebuild our self trust muscles. Attunement also brings in regulation and choice, which are an important skill for post traumatic growth.
2.) Body Based.
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A body based approach to trauma healing and post traumatic growth is because our bodies hold both trauma and also deep wisdom. Your body and nervous system are incredibly intelligent and we can experiencing healing shifts as we listen to and cooperate with our body sensations, instincts, impulses and timing. This could look like:
If I’m working with a client and they are telling a story I might invite them to pause and notice what might be happening at the body level. What sensations, temperature and even speed might there be to notice?
Pausing to check in with your body after you go on a first date. What sensations and emotions might be here to notice?
If you’re neurodivergent noticing any body cues that tell you that you might be close to a meltdown or shutdown.
Why it’s important: Since trauma is held in the body and nervous system we can experience healing shifts as we listen to and cooperate with what our body is telling us. Many of us have also had the experience of overriding our instincts or experienced traumatic invalidation, tuning into and listening to our bodies can help self trust.
3.) Consent and Cooperation.
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You always have choice in your healing. This means that when you’re in a session with a therapist or coach they should explain how you might explore a topic together and include permission for you to opt in or out. Your no is always valid and welcome. What would it be like to know that you could be a no for how ever long you wanted, even forever? We can bring consent into other areas of our life by doing things like:
checking in with the other person
orienting someone to an activity and letting them know they can opt in or out.
letting a partner or friend know that they always tell you no and you will always respect & honor their no.
Cooperation is about honoring and trusting your body’s yes’s and no’s, pacing and physiological cues. At the core, cooperation is about working with your nervous system that honors it’s inherent wisdom and healing. Your nervous system and emergency embodied responses (also known as trauma responses) are incredibly intelligent. Just like your nervous system sizes up danger and uses the correct emergency response that will allow it to survive the threat, it also has so much intelligence to heal. Cooperation is about allowing, harmonizing and respecting our sensations, emotions and instincts without bypassing, shaming or judging them. This could look like:
Listening to your intuition about a specific person or situation.
Tuning into your body’s impulse to hide in a session and giving yourself permission to put a blanket over your face and cooperate with that impulse.
Respecting your no and validating that your no is so welcome and makes so much sense.
Why it’s important: Healing is sustainable when we work with our nervous system and respect our needs and limits. Many people who have experienced trauma have had their limits not respected or have had to override their own instincts & needs to stay safe. At a basic level we all deserve to have our needs and no’s respected.
4.) Doability.
When I was in my early 20’s I had a very “go fast and hard” approach to healing. I would make New Year’s Resolutions where I would promise to buckle down and “finally heal.” But the reality is that a lot of the steps and pacing I was doing were just too big for my nervous system. Doability is how we can honor our nervous system and move at a pace that create sustainable and long lasting changes. Instead of approach our healing with an intention of “fast results” and “rapid transformation”, healing is sustainable and effective when we move at the pace of your nervous system. This includes things like:
Titration: bringing in intensity slowly. Remember that science experiment you likely did as a kid where you mixed baking powder and vinegar together and you got a really cool foamy explosion? We really don’t want to have an explosion in our healing. With our healing we do want to focus on things like taking a small doable step and if that goes well we can then take a bigger one.
Pendulation: moving between intensity and stabilization. A good rule of thumb with any healing is to start with stabilization, dip into difficulty and then go back to stabilization.
Asking yourself: “what’s the next doable step?” Doable as in what your nervous system can truly handle. If you find yourself unable to do it, it’s likely actually not a doable step. Can you perhaps remind yourself that less actually is more?
Why it’s important: Our nervous systems are wired for homeostasis and healing that’s too fast or includes too big steps can lead to retraumatizing us, collapsing or shame spirals when we can’t do the thing we said we would do. Sustainable healing happens through small doable steps and honoring the pace of our nervous system.
5.) Trust.
Trust is such a key part of healing. Trust is about trusting your own healing timeline and process, trusting yourself and your own wisdom. Instead of an urgency to “fix ourselves” we can orient to a trust that we’re on the right path and that we have our own healing timeline. Trust might look like:
Really honoring and trusting your healing pacing.
Knowing that just like a garden over winter, in your healing so many things are happening underneath the surface and with enough ideal conditions you’ll also experience the “bloom” (or growth) of your healing.
Trusting your yes’s, no’s and maybes. Can you trust your instincts about what your body needs?
Why it’s important: Trauma can make it challenging to trust ourselves and rebuilding our self trust can be an important part of our healing. Healing involves rebuilding self trust in the areas of your healing, body, decisions and pacing of your healing. Self trust is an important part of feeling safe.
What are your wildest dreams around healing?
When I first started my own healing journey I had a lot of big and wild dreams about healing but I didn’t actually know what healing trauma even looked like. Fast transformation and rapid results felt so exciting to me because life felt challenging and confusing. I have so much compassion for my younger self who put so much pressure on herself to heal as quickly as possible. But now in my late 30’s my wildest dreams around healing look a lot different than they once did. Now I’m focused on sustainable shifts, on working with my nervous system and honoring my own pacing needs. If you gave yourself permission to tap into your deepest desires around your own healing, what might you discover?
I learned the ABCs of Trauma Informed Care in Rachael Maddox’s ReBloom Coach Training and I love them both as a somatic coach and as someone who receives somatic trauma resolution coaching sessions. Healing trauma can feel overwhelming and I know it’s felt so supportive to have practitioners who have supported my own healing with gentleness, trauma informed care and so much respect for my own nervous system’s pacing needs. My wish is that you too have trauma informed practitioners who support you in your own healing.
Thank you for reading!
I hope this blog post was supportive.
The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.
Resources consulted & further reading:
The ABC’s of Trauma Informed Care comes from the ReBloom body of work and were created by Rachael Maddox. I learned them in her ReBloom Coach Training and you can learn more about them in her book ReBloom: Archetypal Trauma Resolution for Personal and Collective Healing.
I also consulted Rachel Halder’s course Slow Burn for this blog post.
Your healing matters.
I hope this blog post was helpful in your own healing journey.
If you’re seeking support and healing, I’d love to support you in my 5 month program The Somatic Mentorship. In this program I support clients with ReBloom Coaching (a somatic archetypal trauma resolution method) and steady support. The program includes:
An intensive intake session & personalized “Coaching Map” document to identify your goals and developmental objectives that we’ll work on in our program together.
Three (75 minute) sessions a month.
Optional practices and resources to help support you in implementing the work we do in our session.
You can find out more about The Somatic Mentorship here.
Tiffany Landry is a somatic coach who works with neurodivergent and queer clients on coming home to themselves. She works with clients in her program Autistic Support Sessions and The Somatic Mentorship. Tiffany also writes a free newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.