For many moms struggling with chronic or high anxiety symptoms or grappling with emotional trauma, navigating life can be challenging. With the stresses, pressure, and chaos of daily life that comes from running a household and raising humans, it's crucial to prioritize emotional and mental stability and understand what causes anxiety for you. This blog post will delve into the concept of a healing practice, a new and transformative approach to managing anxiety and healing trauma that goes beyond self-care. We'll explore what a healing practice is, who it's for, why it's more effective than simple self-care, and share helpful tips for creating a personal healing practice.

What Exactly Is A Healing Practice?

A healing practice is a consistent and intentional set of activities that promote emotional, mental, and physical well-being in you. Unlike a one-time activity or treatment, a healing practice is an ongoing process that cultivates bio-behavioral learning, resulting in reshaping how we respond to stressors. At the heart of this concept is the understanding of neural networks and the nervous system's role in healing. Our brains possess the ability to rewire themselves through neuroplasticity, which allows us to establish new neural networks and change our reactions to stress and anxiety. Basically, by engaging in pleasurable activities in an intentional way, we train our bodies to release stress and trauma intuitively, with the goal of experiencing fewer symptoms altogether… because we’ve minimized the “hot zones” so to speak. 

A healing practice is particularly useful for anyone who has a past experience of trauma, deals with chronic stress, or any other ailment that has resulted in undesirable behavior or unwanted emotional patterns. Trauma, by definition, refers to the emotional and psychological response to an event or series of events that are deeply distressing or disturbing. Healing trauma involves releasing trauma from the body and rewiring our brains to develop healthier coping mechanisms. A healing practice can help break the cycle of ingrained stress responses, fostering mental stability and improving overall well-being. This is particularly useful and relevant for parents who are aiming to end generational trauma in their lineage, or trauma that is passed down through learned behaviors from generation to generation. A healing practice can be an extremely effective tool for them to build awareness and resilience in breaking their own inherited negative patterns and installing new ones that promote connection and caring within the family unit. 

It's essential to distinguish between a healing practice and self-care within this conversation. Self-care, by definition, includes activities and practices we engage in to maintain our emotional, mental, and physical well-being. While self-care offers temporary relief from stress, a healing practice is a long-term commitment to personal growth and transformation that addresses the root cause of stress and anxiety, and allows for adaptation on a neural network level. In essence, we use our practice to change our brains to help change our practice. 

Mental health plays a significant role in our overall well-being, affecting how we think, feel, and act. It influences how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Poor mental health can lead to mental illness, which has various causes, such as genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life experiences. Poor mental health has disastrous effects on propogating generational trauma, instilling trauma responses in our own children that will be expressed throughout their lifetime and their own parenting someday. For this reason alone, prioritizing mental health and engaging in a healing practice is vital for at-risk populations like moms with a traumatic history or chronic stress. 

How to Create a Personal Healing Practice- the iHEAL Method

To create a personal healing practice, explore activities that resonate with you and support your journey toward emotional and mental well-being. I've developed the iHEAL framework to assist you in crafting your own routine.

First, set an intention for your practice. This isn't your typical thought-based intention activity, but one that is rooted in your body and senses rather than your thoughts. Embody the feeling of healing, which is similar to emotions such as love, care, compassion, or any other regenerative feelings, and notice where they express themselves within your body and felt sense.

Next, engage in a pleasurable experience that fills your cup, cultivates those same generative emotions, and aligns with your values. While immersed in the emotion, enrich (E) the experience by expanding your awareness to all positive sensations. Savor it and take a few deep breaths to anchor it into your body.

Once you've established awareness, absorb (A) the emotion by visualizing it sinking into you, similar to how the earth receives a summer rain. Concentrate on what makes this experience and the emotions meaningful and relevant to you.

Optionally, but highly beneficial, link awareness of both positive and negative sensations. Identify an area of discomfort—emotional pain, frustration, or resistance of any kind—within your sphere of awareness and imagine it off to the side of you. Try to expand awareness to include both sensations, oscillating between the two with even breaths. If the negative seems too magnetic, drop it and focus solely on the positive feeling.

Finally, return to your healing intention. Bring it into your sphere of awareness and envision it as a cool breeze running through your psyche, clearing out anything negative.

Practicing these steps while engaging in intentional, regenerative activities will help train your nervous system and brain to respond differently to stressors. Remember, repetition is key.

It’s a practice. A healing practice. 

It takes effort and consistency. 

Here are some self-care strategies and tips to consider when developing your own healing practice: 

1. Mindfulness meditation - taking time each day to quiet your mind helps develop body awareness which leads to greater sense of self-connectedness and intuition. 
2. Journaling - a great way to deepen learning and conenction with self and intuition. 
3. Yoga or gentle exercise- body movement is closely linked to mood. Make a habit of moving your body in some way in order to release and move energy within you. 
4. Engaging in creative outlets- this is a great way to move and express mental and emotional energy. 
5. Spending time in nature- nature is healing and grounding. Spend as much time as you can in it to foster a broader perspective and thought container for your development,

Remember, the key to incorporating any self-care activity into your healing practice is intentionality and consistency. Enveloping any activity that brings you fulfillment and joy within the iHEAL framework will support lasting change within your brain as a result of something called positive neuroplasticity, turning passing states into lasting traits (Hanson, 2020). 

Whatever you develop will only be as beneficial as your consistency with it. Healing from emotional injuries such as trauma or toxic stress requires commitment to the long game. There’s no end point at which you will turn around and say “there! I’ve done it!” However, there will be ample opportunity to stop and soak in the views as you walk your healing path higher, and higher. It’s never too late to start the journey and take control of your life.

**The iHEAL method is an adaptation from Richard Hanson's book "Neuro Dharma."