When someone goes through trauma treatment, choosing to make lifestyle changes that promote personal growth provides an empowering experience. Treatment can help individuals heal from trauma, but there’s much more to the recovery process than that. Trauma treatment, whatever form it takes, should be followed up with lifestyle changes to help individuals continue to see improvement in everyday situations and their overall lives. How does one continue to promote their personal growth and address any lifestyle changes after leaving trauma treatment?
Life After Trauma and Treatment
Trauma affects people differently and makes people react differently depending on the person’s personality, the traumatizing event, and how they internalized the situation. It can be difficult for people to verbalize their experience with trauma, which can make treatment difficult.
Trauma especially repeated trauma, can leave people with their flight or fight response stuck permanently on. This constant vigilance and the brain telling them to protect themselves or escape a situation can be draining. They can also be triggered by situations that remind them of their original trauma.
Once trauma treatment begins, individuals can dive into the experience and become desensitized to trauma triggers, thereby eliminating or at least lessening their trauma response. The tools learned during treatment can help individuals continue to make lifestyle alterations to eliminate feelings of vulnerability and address emotional responses with clarity and immediacy rather than with a trauma response.
What You’re Doing Now Impacts the Future
Just as trauma impacts many, if not all, areas of one’s life, treatment and adjustments must be made in many areas of one’s life to experience freedom from traumatic experiences. With treatment comes clarity and the ability to make changes that can have a significant impact on an individual’s future. A therapist can help clients identify traumatizing events, triggers, and responses, but it is up to the individual to implement suggested changes to see improvement in their lives following trauma.
Throughout treatment, individuals can make sense of trauma symptoms, acknowledge their trauma, realize they were a survivor, and learn how to implement new self-care strategies. They may gain a stronger understanding of what’s going on with their lives now that they’ve addressed the traumatic event and no longer have to live with shame or guilt over the situation.
Some of the lifestyle changes one makes may not seem like they help for a while. It can take a bit of time to see significant improvements for someone who’s had traumatic experiences. Change is gradual, but for every seed, one sews now to promote their personal growth, they will reap the benefits in the future. One’s experience with trauma can teach them that something negative that happened in the past can have lasting effects on their future, so why should positive changes not be the same?
Creating an Aftercare Plan
The whole point of an aftercare plan is to develop self-care awareness and relearn how to heal and recover over time. Treatment can help people start developing goals and increasing their resiliency to endure unforeseen situations, but it takes time to achieve them. It takes dedication to continue making lifestyle changes following treatment that will allow an individual to become a better version of themselves. Sustaining personal growth will create a more balanced, healthy journey free from trauma that can lead individuals to a more fulfilling and happier life.
Create a Routine
Those who have undergone trauma treatment can implement day-to-day activities where they care for their mindset. If one keeps their mind active and focused on the present and the future, they can promote incredible, sustainable, continuous healing for themselves.
Routines can be a great first step in the journey to personal growth after trauma treatment. As an individual develops and sticks to a routine, they can be comforted by the known, expected elements in their day. Once they get the hang of their routine, they can begin to consider opening themselves up to other options in their life around the framework of routine.
Take Care of Yourself
Other things to consider adjusting for personal growth include improving nutrition and physical activity, going to local community meetings, volunteering for a cause one cares about, or pursuing creative outlets and hobbies. Another good way to make lifestyle changes is to keep up with self-care for one’s body and spirit. Both require attention and direction, but when they are properly cared for, they can have a significant impact on an individual’s personal growth journey.
Remember that growth and change don’t happen overnight. One must continue working to grow and change over long periods. Healing and personal growth don’t stop when treatment ends; one must look to their future by caring for themselves today.
Healing takes time and effort, especially healing from trauma. Treatment can be a big helping hand in healing from trauma, but you should continue to implement lifestyle changes that encourage personal growth even after treatment ends. By doing so now, you help your future self feel more confident and free from trauma than you may have thought possible. If you struggle to deal with traumatic experiences or feel that your emotional health is not as solid as you want it to be, The Guest House is here to help you find healing and happiness. We can help you heal from trauma. There is hope for a future free from the impact of trauma; you may need someone who understands how to get you there. For more information on how you can make lifestyle changes that promote your personal growth after treatment, contact us at (855) 483-7800.