The Five Principles of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
Principle 1: Stay Inside the Window of Tolerance
When introducing mindfulness meditation, it’s important to educate people about the window of tolerance, and the importance of staying within their window when practicing meditation. The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine created this helpful article on How to Help Your Clients Understand Their Window of Tolerance with Infographic. When a person is inside their window – they feel stable present and regulated. When a person is outside of their window – they feel triggered, out of control and dysregulated.
Principle 2: Shift attention to support stability
Trauma can get trapped inside of the body. If a person continues to experience traumatic stimuli during practice, such as, invasive thoughts, intense physical sensations, they may be paying too much attention to them. Which can then exacerbate trauma symptoms. Mindfulness meditation trains a person to be able to shift their attention at will, which can be a helpful skill for trauma survivors. Dogmatic approaches to mindfulness (i.e., not giving people options on how best practice) could be harmful and overwhelming to a person. However, giving people permission to shift their attention to something that supports them in feeling stable and safe during practice is an important part of trauma-sensitive mindfulness. Options may look like: opening eyes during practice, paying attention to an object within sight, shifting attention to a different object of attention (i.e., shift attention from physical sensations in the body to sounds), changing postures to be most supportive for them, or inviting people to move rather than sit still. A major aspect of trauma-sensitive mindfulness is guiding people to find the option that supports them to stay within their window of tolerance.
Principle 3: Keep the Body in Mind: Working with Dissociation
It’s been well-established that trauma is experienced not only in the mind, but also the body. After experiencing trauma, the body can get stuck in experiencing everything as a potential threat. Some signs of trauma in the body include slack or rigid muscle tone, hyperventilation, exaggerated startle response, excessive sweating, noticeable dissociation, pale skin tone, emotionally volatile. Trauma survivors can experience a mismatch between their internal environment (interoceptive sensations) and how the body is experiencing the external environment (exteroceptive sensations). When practicing meditation, their body may be communicating to them there is a potential threat, even if the environment is safe. In trauma recovery, the person often needs direct guidance on how to work with interoceptive and exteroceptive sensations for the two to integrate. It is important for a person experiencing dissociation from the body to work with a trained somatic practitioner as navigating alone can be an overwhelming and futile task. In addition, it’s important to reinforce that the person has control over their own practice, and where, how, when they place their attention. Ultimately, trauma-sensitive mindfulness meditation helps people to heal and listen to their body by staying within the window of tolerance.
Principle 4: Practice in Relationship: Supporting Safety and Stability in Survivors
Safe and trusted relationships are important to trauma-sensitive mindfulness. They help people recover when experiencing the unimaginable. As human beings, we are wired to connect with other people. The beauty of this connection, is that the regulated nervous system of one person, has an impact on the other. In addition, a safe and trusted relationship, especially with a trusted behavioral health provider, can track physiological signs of arousal. If a relationship of safety and trust has been built, then they can help survivors regulate their nervous system through comforting eye contact, physical touch (if granted permission), or an overall calming presence. In his book, David Treleaven outlines eight important structural practices to support the development of trust and safety when introducing mindfulness meditation.
Principle 5: Understand Social Context: Work Effectively Across Differences
The last few years have highlighted the vast injustice and oppression in our society. Another core aspect of trauma-sensitive mindfulness is developing awareness about your own biases, social membership, and the dynamics of power in relationships. It requires the ability to be humble, curious, willing to learn, and the ability to have uncomfortable conversations. Further, by developing awareness, empathy, and compassion around privilege and oppression, we can become more trauma-sensitive.
(Treleaven, D. A., 2018)
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