FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR Healing Childhood Trauma

BY MELISSA GRABAU, PHD

Healing physical or emotional trauma from childhood is rigorous work. Cultivating the will to do this work requires self-compassion, companionship and a lot of heart. The following principles are meant to offer medicine as they also portend the unfolding and multiplying rewards that will be revealed as you move forward.

1) Cultivate a Fierce Alliance with Self:

When you have endured physical abuse or neglect in childhood, or if your emotional needs for love, play and respect were not honored, your relationship to yourself was disrupted. This is because we are relational creatures, and we learn who we are through our interactions with others. It is all too common that we internalize the critical or