The core to healing is like fire.
Step 5
Settle incidents. This is often the most difficult step from an awareness perspective. As the obvious abuse is recounted, new obscure abuse comes to light. Most victims don’t even realize the extent of their abuse until they reach this step. When they do, it can be overwhelming and will likely restart the grieving process all over again. As Nancy examined each major traumatic incident, other types of abuse surfaced. She came to see that she was also mentally, verbally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and sexually abused in addition to her physical abuse. Processing this information was hard at first, but it put a nail in the coffin of her abusive relationship for good. There was no turning back now for Nancy.
“Recent research shows that traumatic memories are stored in the right back region of the brain, which is associated with non-verbal memories (sights, sounds, and smells associated with a past event), rather than the left front area of the brain, which is associated with verbal memories. This means that commonly recommended self-care activities like journaling, talking to a friend, or even traditional talk therapy might not be the most effective strategies for working through those memories and the emotional and physical reactions attached to them.
Art expression (in all its forms) activates the right brain because it incorporates your senses by providing tactile, kinesthetic, auditory, and/or visual information. This means that arts activities can tap into traumatic memories the way that other, less sensory activities cannot. There is evidence that engagement with artistic activities, either as an observer or as an initiator, can enhance your mood, emotions, and other psychological states, while reducing symptoms like stress and depression.”