How To Heal Trauma Fast
Welcome to the world of spicy memories.
When you have trauma, the whole world looks and feels grey. It feels like your soul is missing. Your spirit is broken… like a piece of you has snapped off from the core.
“Maybe, that’s what hurt does. It cuts us into different people. There are some parts with their gaping holes that break off from the core, and then they roam inside us, reminding us of our own poverty.”
You just want your spark back. You want to see in color again. Music doesn't even sound the same anymore. But here is the secret trick about healing trauma quickly: you don't.
Trauma is a psychic injury. Just like physical injuries, it takes time to heal. There’s just no cast for everyone to autograph. And while you can’t control how long it takes, you can control how well it heals.
To go fast, you have to keep your nervous system happy. To keep your nervous system happy, you have to go gently. And to go gently, you have to go slow. Psychic injuries cannot be rushed; they can only be nurtured.
1. Assemble Your Squad
Trauma injures your trust in yourself, but it also injures your trust in other people. That learned hyper-independence has kept you safe from the wrong people, but healing does not happen in isolation. Since trauma robs you of your power, early recovery means borrowing power from others.
Think of it this way: the best leaders, rulers, and warriors never worked alone. They had advisors, teams, and armies. A warrior has never won a battle alone on the battlefield, and learning who to trust is part of the work.
In this way, building your circle can actually be fun and strategic. It’s an opportunity to join forces with great, magical minds who give you a sense of camaraderie.
If you're new to the journey, stuck in a toxic environment, or surrounded by toxic people, your team may not show up organically at first. They may be hired help. So do it anyway:
Therapists, Psychologists, & Psychiatrists
Social Workers & Domestic Violence Counselors
Clergy, Shamans, & Reiki Practitioners
Acupuncturists, Yoga Instructors, & 12-Step Groups
And especially pets
Is it total bullshit that we have to pay for basic emotional intelligence? Absolutely. But that’s just how this goes. So be resourceful and use free or social or volunteer programs where you can.
There is no hack or single right modality, either. The magic pill is simply the combination of everything you try until, one day, you realize you haven't thought about (or felt about) your trauma in a good while. My personal favorite medicines so far have been IFS, Somatic Healing, CBT, CoDA, Horse therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, plant medicine, memes, some very special life coaches, a criminologist-turned-talk-therapist, a cop-turned-couples-therapist, a psychologist-turned-shaman, and some very pissed off ancestors.
Take what works, leave what doesn't, and assemble whatever unholy alliance of tools works for you.
2. Maslow Doesn’t Like Skipped Steps
While I can't tell you what will speed this up, I can tell you what will slow it down: trying to heal while staying in the same toxic environment. If you're around the same toxic people, you’re just running in place.
There is no formal "rehab" for trauma survivors, even though that's basically what we need. We need a controlled environment where physical safety is guaranteed so we can repair our emotional safety, brick by brick.
So if your physical safety is lacking, your team might also need to include lawyers, private investigators, forensic psychologists, criminologists, cybersecurity experts, and social support programs, or just getting the fuck out of there. Secure your physical safety first. You cannot reach enlightenment, purpose, or big dreams without food and shelter, and Maslow doesn't like it when you skip steps.
Trauma survivors love to skip the bottom steps because we’re experts at the imaginal realm. We are basically psychic karate masters who don't know how to tie our own shoes (myself included).
You have to rebuild your practical ego first; the opposite side of your intuitive brain.
Chop wood. Carry water. Make the bed. Put one step in front of the other.
Then once your structural and emotional safety are covered, try covering the spiritual realm while you're at it. Source, ancestors, and spirit guides definitely can't hurt. The rule in the spirit realm is that you only get help if you ask for it.
3. The Light Returns (And The Hard Truth)
I promise you won’t have to be the general contractor of your entire circle forever. Eventually, if you stick to the process, unknown friends will come and seek you. (Jung agrees).
“No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.”
I cannot promise you an exact timeline, but I can promise that if you keep your head down and focus on the work, things will start looking brighter in about three months.
The three-month mark is when the glimmers start showing up. A glimmer is the opposite of a trigger. It's a small, unexpected moment of peace or joy that signals your nervous system is finally feeling happy and safe. From there, the work starts reinforcing itself.
One last inconvenient truth is this: The people who need therapy don't go to therapy. Their victims do. And until empathy stops interrupting the karma and consequences that evil deserves, the pattern will keep repeating. So your final task in healing is to stop getting in the way.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
With love and girded loins,
Jenny