Triumph Over Trauma

When I founded The Center • A Place of HOPE over 35 years ago, I didn’t fully appreciate that almost all struggles and afflictions people have can be traced back to one thing – unresloved trauma. Whether it is depression, anxiety, addiction, an eating disorder, or other mental health struggles, it stems from trauma.

Trauma can be excruciatingly painful. It lingers, resurfaces, and hides around the corner to confront us at inopportune times. It slowly saps us of our confidence, strength, and happiness. It usually has whole person implications – emotional health, physical health, immune health, pressure on relationships, spirituality, and more.

Often referred to as PTSD, or post-traumatic disturbances, trauma stems from a singular or series of dramatic and potentially shocking events. It can happen in the most deplorable ways we can imagine, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, combat, or public shootings. Other forms are more common but no less devastating: the loss of a loved one, a bitter divorce, or being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

Whatever the cause, traumatic incidents leave us feeling deeply shaken, if not completely shattered.

The Pandemic Created and Exacerbated Existing Trauma

The pandemic brought unexpected trauma to millions of people through prolonged sickness, sudden job loss, financial crisis, loss of loved ones, or relapse into substance abuse. It was a slow-moving morass that eventually overwhelmed many. And if there was already trauma in one’s life, the pandemic may have pushed them over the edge.

Simply put, any experience that leaves a person deeply wounded and feeling broken inside can have long-lasting, detrimental effects. The question ultimately becomes, “How do I resolve my trauma and move on in a healthy and productive way?” Research shows that, left untreated, trauma often gets worse.

Triumph Over Trauma

Understanding that virtually all mental health challenges stem from unresolved trauma, I set out to write perhaps the most important book of my professional career – Triumph Over Trauma. I wanted to create a resource that could help people truly heal, and move forward living a happy and prosperous life. It is my hope that this book will have a profound and positive impact on many struggling and feeling hopeless. Brokenness after trauma is never a life sentence. There is hope and healing from even the worst of trauma.

The book begins by looking at the root causes of trauma. They may be from childhood. They may be from a recent difficult relationship. It could be from suppressed memories from the battlefield. It could be a combination and accumulation of those and others.

Once the root causes are understood, then the work of resolving those life episodes needs to begin. I help the reader walk through the ways trauma should be addressed, worked through, and resolved.

I provide tools and techniques that the reader can do every day to help begin or continue the healing process.

Therapy Is Almost Always The Best Approach For Treating Significant Trauma

Many people suffering the aftermath of severe past pain are unwilling or unable to address the initial traumatic event. They stay stuck in unhealthy patterns of behavior and emotional distress. Others try therapeutic approaches, but have found the advice to be ineffective or short-lived.

Left unresolved, trauma can have devastating results. Research shows that survivors of accidents, disasters, childhood abuse, and other traumas often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from not just anxiety and depression, but to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful “acting out” behaviors.

In the process, the individual loses a part of who you are—their true self. I agree with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, who says:

Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe. The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from themselves.

You do not need to hide from yourself—your brokenness—any longer. You do not need to avoid the events that have left you feeling trapped in hurt. The courage to explore your past pain will lead you to new understanding about yourself and the events that wounded you.

If you or a loved one is experiencing trauma, you join the over 85% of The Center’s clients who note trauma as a primary or significant secondary challenge to their mental health. Trauma has now supplanted depression as the #2 mental health challenge in the United States, behind anxiety.

I know from experience that the Whole Person Care approach to healing at The Center is very effective in treating trauma. If you are struggling with trauma, please call us at 888.771.5166 today to learn what a treatment program involves.

You don’t have to live in shame, fear, anger, uncertainty, or timidity. You are still a strong, confident, fun-loving person inside.

Let’s do the work to resolve the trauma, and allow you to enjoy life the way God intends it to be lived. Intensive therapy is almost always the best way for someone to achieve resolution, and to regain the confidence and strength needed to live a fulfilled and balanced life moving forward.