To Manage Affect Flash Backs

1. We say to ourselves: "I am having a flash back." Flash backs take us into a timeless part of our psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in some early time. The affect and senses we go thru are past memories that cannot hurt us now.
2. We remind ourselves: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in this minute." We're now in a safe time zone. We're far from the danger of the past.
3. We own our right and need to have boundaries. Remind ourselves that we do not have to allow anyone to mistreat us. We're free to leave mean scenes and yowl at unfair acts.
4. Speak reassuringly to our Primal heart. It needs to know that we love it unconditionally. Our primal heart can come to us for care and security when it's lost and scared.
5. Deconstruct eternity thinking. In early times, fear and abandonment feels endless. A safer future is impossible. Still, flash backs will pass as they have many times before.
6. Remind ourselves that we are in an adult body. We have allies, skills and resources to protect us that we never had before. To feel small or little is a sure sign of a flash back.
7. Ease back into our body. Fear launches us into "heady" worrying, or glazed numb and frozen space out.'
8. Gently ask our body to relax. Feel each of our major muscle groups. Softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to our brain.)
9. Breathe deeply and slowly. To hold our breath also signals danger.
10. Slow down. To rush presses our psyche's panic button.
11. Find a safe place to unwind and soothe ourselves. We wrap ourselves in a blanket. We hold a stuffed animal. We lie down in a closet or a bath. We take a nap.
12. Feel the fear in our body but just watch it. Fear is just an energy in our body. It cannot hurt us. We'll not run from it. We'll not react with self harm to it.
13. Resist our scolding Grouch catastrophic fear.
(a) Use thought stopping to halt its gross over fear of danger and need to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or give up ourselves. Funnel the anger of self attack into saying "No" to unfair self scorn.
(b) Use thought substitution to replace negative thinking with a written list of our qualities and accomplishments.
14. Allow ourselves to grieve. Flash backs are chances to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment. Then we validate - and then soothe - our primal heart's past times of helpless hopelessness. Healthy grieving turns our tears into self compassion. It turns our anger into self protection.
15. Push for safe relations and seek support. Take time alone when we need it. Don't let shame isolate us. To feel shame doesn't mean we're shameful. Train those close to us about flash backs. Ask them to help us talk and feel our way thru them.
16. Learn to know and label our kinds of triggers that lead to flash backs. Avoid unsafe people, places, acts and any tricky course of action. Set up preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering scenes are unavoidable.
17. Figure out what we flash back to. Flash backs are a new chance. We find out, make valid and heal our wounds from past misuse and losses. They point to our still unmet growth needs. They can offer a motive to get them met.
18. Stay cool with a slow recovery process. It takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized. It takes ample if not a huge chunk of time in the future to bit by bit lower the nasty, mean affect, length and rate of flash backs.
19. We don't beat ourselves up for having a flash back. Recovery is a bit by bit process - often two steps ahead, one step back.