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Who is Moving the Human Spirit?
Moving the Human Spirit are Certified Trauma Counsellors and Trauma Informed Coaches, who provide the drive and guidance for clients to respond to challenges, improve relationships and live a full and rewarding life. We work with the individual, couple or team to achieve better goal setting, foster positive enquiry and develop meaningful conversations. Our focus is on changing negative conditions and creating powerful outcomes that are measurable.
Through a solution-focused approach, we look in the forward direction and employ a number of techniques that engage and stimulate actual change. We specialize in post traumatic growth, trauma counselling, trauma informed coaching, anxiety and stress management and mindfulness in all aspects of life. We work on different levels and with specific needs, be it personal, couple, family, within the corporate team or beyond.
We provide a supportive, logical level framework for clients to generate powerful solutions in a positive environment. Harnessing the energy that you create for yourself, we inspire clients to over come their barriers however grand they may be. You choose the path and we will walk beside you on the road to change.
What is P.T.S.D.?
In severe cases, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events, which can store itself in the subconscious. People with PTSD often re-experience the trauma through disturbing flashbacks or triggers that relate to the event. This may be a sound, smell, sign or sense of something as they go about daily routines. As a result one can start exhibiting symptoms such as constant avoidance, inability to return to work and hyperarousal resulting in an array of medical conditions due to the physical drain on the body.
What can cause P.T.S.D.?
Events that can cause PTSD are sexual assault or abuse, home invasions, natural disasters, warfare, severe and serious injury, auto accidents, homicide, suicide, or threats of imminent death resulting from certain lines of duty that can result in feelings of intense fear, horror and powerlessness.
Who gets PTSD?
Anyone can suffer from PTSD, it is prevalent in first responders, military personnel and everyday people who are, or have been, subject to situations of discomfort, be it past or present. We coach around the recovery and daily living with extreme anxiety and related conditions of PTSD. Although not all anxiety related disorders are curable, we believe they are manageable with the right tools and effort put forward from our clients that want to start the path of healing and forging a better life. Our primary focus is on Mastering the diagnosis and Post Traumatic Growth (PTG).
What is Post-traumatic growth?
Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is a term for the positive life changes that may come from trauma. PTG is considered to be the opposite of PTSD. For some patients and caregivers, the trauma experience inspires them to question their beliefs, attitudes, life goals, and relationships and leads them on a path of deeper understanding of the relationships they hold, with others and with themselves. We help clients benefit from positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and other challenges that help them rise to a higher level of functioning.
What is Moving the Human Spirits approach?
We work toward “Mastering the trauma”. Although most therapies for PTSD are based on a review of an incident we come from a completely different angle, one of solution focused. In solution focused work we encourage the client to become resourceful and find the strengths within them to arrive at their own solutions. The solution focused approach is where we work with the individual or couple from the “exact place” where they are on the day we have the session. We look forward in a positive, problem-solving environment and do not give energy to the long list of “I don’t want”. Instead we ask the deep questions of, “what do you want instead?” Even that one small question moving you from negative to positive has a huge paradigm shift within our clients. This moves us into our Prefrontal Cortex or Executive Brain as we call it, where we generate solutions and possibilities. Our conversations around PTSD will be discussed as PTG, moving the client from the negative energy and into a more positive resourceful area.
We centre and ground our clients so they may take the opportunity to view the world with a positive lens, dive in deep within themselves, explore their values and beliefs systems to see what works and what doesn’t.
What are Values?
A value is a measure of the worth or importance a person attaches to something; our values are often reflected in the way we live our lives. eg I value freedom of speech, or I value my family, expressed through words and behaviour.
What are Beliefs?
Beliefs are described as a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing; it may be a belief in your god, a belief in democracy, it is usually something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion, something that is believed.
Why are these important?
Here is where it gets interesting: This area, values and beliefs, starts to form our playground of possibility. When we can alter un-resourceful states (beliefs and values) and check to see if old states or habits are keeping us in the negative, we can then see what may need updating or changing to serve us better in a more positive light. This is where we start moving into “Mastery” and the resilience of post-traumatic growth.
We want to build resilience that is physical, mental, emotional and social. These areas can be dormant after sever trauma and re-engaging with these resilience’s, helps shift one into “Mastery” and living a fuller more enriched life.
Essentially we are guiding our clients to redefine who they are from a healthier more positive state. We are not removing the trauma, yet we are not making it the primary focus. Often their lives become organised into “life before the trauma” and “life after the trauma”. We acknowledge the realness of the trauma but refuse to let it control the recovery. We enquire “what do you want to be next” “How do you want to show up?”. Trauma does not have to be the defining guide on your life, it is too limiting. As clients start to realize that they are more resourceful living in the “here and now” they start flexing their ability to self-heal and re-engage. Their perceived limits no longer define them. They get to make a new declaration on life, one of forward positive change. They assume the position of who they are now and to let go of the past to get on with the business of living exceptional lives in the here and now.
You are whole and complete.
We come from a place that there is nothing wrong with the client. They are unique, whole and complete just the way they are. They may have forgotten that, they may be far down the rabbit hole and not able to see light just yet, but we know its there and watch as they use their resources to excavate their way to the surface again. Empathy plays a huge role in client’s transformations. As trauma informed coaches we hold a space for the work to be done without judgment and guide our client to the positive.
Neuroplasticity and the healing power of the Brain
Developments in neuroplasticity have proven that the brain is a powerful healing tool and is actually designed to have the ability to change and rewire nuero pathways. The importance of this in healing PTSD is we are aware that forging new pathways to positive reactions can now close the “loop” that gets created from a trauma. We can be a collaborator with our brain and support posttraumatic growth. It is not the brain that decides to not heal; it is the person that decides. Some people get caught in the process of PTSD because if they step out of it, they may have to take on a life again that has its own demands and requirements. The healing process can be raw and uncomfortable but once the person has committed to it and brings that power of their mind with it, they start playing in a limitless resource.
Everyone recovers differently because we are unique and that is something we should celebrate. The opportunity to heal is present if the individual wants the prize at the end. Nothing worth having come without work, no easy path has given the best that life offers; we must strive for, and own our Post Traumatic Growth and become familiar with the fine art of “Mastering our Trauma”.
Next broadcast in the series we will be speaking with Susan Hogarth on “Trauma and the Family”. Following that session, we will be interviewing Cindy Hogg around “Trauma and Relationships”. Stay tuned and until then stay well.
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