Coping with PTSD Symptoms: It’s Time for Change

Happy new year! The beginning of a new year always feels like a clean slate to me. Whatever I did, or did not do, in the previous year magically disappears and I get to begin fresh again. A few years ago I used New Year’s Eve as the starting point to finish my PTSD recovery. I made a resolution, strategiezed implementation, followed through, failed, succeeded, failed again and then barreled toward Dec. 31st with speed and determination and — just at the final moments I succeeded.

Today begins a new year of healing opportunities for you. If you had successes last year, now is your opportunity to build on them. If you had failures, now is your chance to reflect on what went wrong, how you might fix it, and what you will do to try again.

Remember: You never know from where or when or how healing will come. You have to trust that it will come and do your best to continue walking toward it. If what you’ve been doing isn’t working — change it! January is a great month to approach your PTSD symptoms with a whole new strategy.

Change is good. Change helps us refresh, rejuvenate and move forward. Is it frightening? Sure, it is! My trauma therapist friend, Tanya Valenti, said to me a couple of weeks ago, “There can be no self-growth without going outside your comfort zone.”

Sorry survivors, but it’s official: CHANGE is the main ingredient in healing. Embrace it. Bring it to you. Wonderful things can happen.

Here at Heal My PTSD, LLC, we’re all about change at the beginning of 2010. To catch you up with what’s been going on behind the scenes:

1. We’ve developed some new features just for you:

On our home page you can now download our FREE “5 Tips for Self-Empowered Healing“.

On Monday we’re kicking off a new daily feature: You can sign up for FREE daily healing support delivered right to your inbox on the “PTSD Healing Thought of the Day” page of the site.

2.  The daily blog post schedule is changing.

So that I can focus on developing and providing monthly LIVE opportunities for the PTSD community to connect and interact on this site, the post schedule will shift to:

Monday = “Meandering Michele’s Mind” will continue covering random PTSD subjects from my perspective as a survivor.

Wednesday = “PTSD Survivors Speak” because we really do need to hear each other’s voices from all locations on the healing journey.

Friday = “PTSD Professional Perspective” because it’s good to hear from professionals what positive aspects, actions and outcomes are possible in post-traumatic stress recovery.

 3. Now, about those live opportunities…

In the following months I will be offering:

• a FREE live call once a month where we can all come together to discuss a specific self-empowered topic regarding PTSD healing
• online support groups for survivors
• online support group for PTSD caregivers
• personal, one-on-one self-empowered healing coaching
• group self-empowered healing coaching

To read a full overview of what’s coming up check out the new “How to Work with Michele” page, which details all of these new ways for us to further the PTSD discussion.

Finally, for those of you who have been working through the BRIDGE THE GAP  (BTG) healing workshop, a few words about how to continue your progress:

The beginning of the new year is the perfect time to revisit, revise and redevelop your healing intention. The BTG series remains archived on this site and completely free for your access. As you enter the new year begin from the beginning of the workshop and work the posts again. You are wiser now, more focused and directed. Your responses to posts you  read a year ago will be different. Your new reactions will progress you forward. The workshop is designed to cycle in a way that allows you to continually hone your skills in all the areas necessary for deliberately constructing your post-trauma identity. As always, feel free to email me with questions.

2010 is shaping up to be a pretty wonderful and interactive year for all of us! I look forward to hearing your voices, learning together and wrangling the beast in ways that lead to power, strength and freedom for everyone.

(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)

Tags: post-traumatic stress, ptsd, recovery, symptoms