How to Overcome Trauma with Meditation

Trauma

Everyone has some trauma, a haunting experience, emotion, or situation that happened in their past when they were a different version of themselves. More severe cases need to be assisted by a professional therapist or psychiatrist. Still, besides unfortunate cases, everyone has a weight that we carry on our backs for years, and many don’t even know what they do or why.

Let’s not demonize trauma; it’s only natural, we progress without hardships or hard situations. What many fail to realize is that this event manifests in us like another “us” living inside of our mind, maybe a more scared or ashamed one. However, the problem arises when our lives get controlled by it.

This happens because we often try to fight this thing, trying to kill it off, but by doing so, we kill ourselves. The only way to healing is through acceptance, forgiveness, and, basically, Integration.

My little experience

When I was 16 years old, my parents had a huge fight in front of me, the last that they would ever have as husband and wife. I was standing still in front of my bedroom door and didn’t know how to act. After a while, with them still screaming, I went to my bathroom, with my mind in chaos and not knowing how I could help them out.

Then a few hours later, my mother came in, trying to assure me that everything would have been alright, in complete tears and desperation. In that moment, all my confusion was gone, my mind clear and my emotions killed off, I hugged my mother without shedding a tear, and I consoled her. I didn’t cry for many months after that. 

Years after I noticed a pattern in my behavior, that a part of me was always trying to kill of anything nice that was going on in my life, it was that 16-year-old. That kid who thought to himself that he was useless for not solving his parent’s problems, that kid who believed that it was better to take all responsibility, that little boy so sure of his guilt and fears, that wouldn’t let anything nice come to him.

After many years I was able to meet that little me in my soul, seeing him after so much time, and feeling what he was feeling was, relieving. Instead of getting angry at him I hugged him, and told him “it’s gonna be okay, you are not useless, you don’t have the solution to everyone’s problems” and from that my life changed. He is still there, but I don’t have negative feelings for him anymore, we are one in the end.

Sorry for the long introduction, all this to say that there are ways to make peace with your past and understand a deeper part of yourself, I will give you some meditations and visualization techniques that might help you with it, I strongly suggest thought to go to a therapist or expert, as everyones different and what worked for me might not work for you.

These techniques for a better result should be done in succession, so I suggest you do them when you have 1 or 2 hours of free time, and to do them on a weekly basis. If you want other less trauma oriented techniques to start meditating here is a guide.

1. Safe Space Visualization

Purpose: To create a mental sanctuary where you can feel safe and grounded.

• Steps:
  1. Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
  2. Visualize a place where you feel completely safe and at peace. It could be a real location (like a beach or a forest) or an imagined one.
  3. Engage your senses: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste in this place?
  4. Imagine yourself sitting or standing there. Focus on how safe and secure it feels.
  5. Spend 5–10 minutes immersing yourself in this safe space. When you’re ready, take a few deep breaths and slowly return to the present moment.

2. Trauma Release Meditation (TRE-inspired)

Purpose: To gently release tension stored in the body.

• Steps:

1. Sit in a quiet space and place your feet flat on the ground.
2. Close your eyes and take slow, deep breaths, focusing on your body.
3. Mentally scan your body from head to toe. Notice areas of tension or discomfort without judgment.
4. With each exhale, imagine releasing the tension like a wave flowing out of your body.
5. Focus on one tense area and visualize it softening and relaxing as you breathe.
6. After 5–10 minutes, bring awareness back to your whole body and thank it for carrying you through challenging times.

3. Inner Child Meditation

Purpose: To connect with and comfort your younger self.

Warning: This might be hard and emotionally struggling.

• Steps:

1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take a few calming breaths.
2. Visualize the moment of your trauma, the version of you that is feeling it. Observe how they look, and what they’re wearing, and feel what he or she feels until you relive that experience like it’s the first time.
3. After, the moment he or she is alone, approach them with kindness. Imagine embracing them and telling them they are safe and loved.
4. Spend time listening to what they might want to say or share. Reassure them with comforting words, like “You are not alone,” or “You are loved” or with the words that you think that that younger version of yourself would have want someone to tell him in the past.
5. End by thanking them for their strength and imagining them uniting into your current self.

4. Breathing Through the Heart

Purpose: To cultivate self-compassion and soothe emotional pain.

• Steps:

• Sit in a quiet space with your hands resting over your heart.
• Close your eyes and take slow, deep breaths. Imagine each breath traveling in and out of your heart.
• With each inhale, imagine breathing in warmth, love, and compassion.
• With each exhale, release fear, pain, or judgment.
• Repeat a soothing affirmation silently, such as “I am safe. I am loved. I am healing.”
• Practice for 5–15 minutes, gradually building up the time.

5. Somatic Grounding Meditation

Purpose: To reconnect with the body and create a sense of stability.

• Steps:

1. Sit or stand in a comfortable position. Feel your feet firmly connected to the ground.
2. Place your hands on your thighs or over your abdomen, applying gentle pressure.
3. Slowly rotate your neck, shoulders, or wrists to bring awareness to your physical body.
4. Say silently or out loud: “I am here. I am safe. I am in control of my body.”
5. Tap lightly on your thighs, arms, or chest to further ground yourself in the present moment.
6. Conclude with slow, deep breaths, focusing on the sensation of air entering and leaving your nostrils.

Trauma is something that we all have, and that will never go away. But thankfully or unfortunately, that trauma is what made us who we are, so we shouldn’t fight it, we should be kind to them,. compassion is the first step to healing, and to love ourselves and others.