Treating PTSD: Keep Your FOCUS

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Today we kick off the end-of-year BRIDGE THE GAP (BTG) countdown. Each BTG post for the rest of the year will be geared toward keeping your PTSD healing momentum going and making sure you stay on the healing path.

Our first topic: Be specific.

Not so tough, eh? Just two little words but they mean so much. Being intentional and clear about your healing post-traumatic stress goals helps you “see” them better. Helps you “feel” them better. Helps them become more real, reachable and reasonable. Being intentional keeps you focused and brings a far out idea alive and close.

Reminding yourself often of your healing intention also helps you imagine the outcome more fully. As Einstein famously said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, wheras imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”

It’s time for a healing PTSD revolution! When you bring awareness to your healing intention as a habit, say, on a daily basis, your subconscious mind kicks in. It gets excited. It likes patterns and games and when you give it the challenge of imagination it gets as giddy as a child at a birthday party — it wants cake and ice cream and toys and Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Meaning, your subconscious gets involved in the healing process and that’s when you really kick your journey into high gear.

Tip # 1 for Staying on the Healing Path: Constantly be aware of and refine your healing intention. Support your efforts by creating the right goal(s) with specific language. When you stray from the healing path let your own idea for the end result guide you back.

Not sure your intention is specific enough? No problem! Check out the BTG series on Creating A Healing Intention. Begin here. 

 BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise

Time to ramp up the role of intention in your life. Once you have (re)defined your healing intention spread the love! Don’t keep your intention in the recesses of your mind. Let it out!

For example:

• Write your healing intention on post-its, index cards, and posters and place them in your home and office space.
• Make or buy yourself things that symbolize the idea of your healing intention.
• Make vision boards, write poems, compose music, design clothing, develop a dance combination that expresses the idea of your healing intention.
• Meditate on your intention 1-3 times a day.
• _______________________ (What else can you think of??)

Your challenge is to see how often, when and where you can infuse your life with the energy and expression of your healing intention.

(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)

Tags: healing, intention, post-traumatic stress, ptsd, Staying on the Healing Path