Not every individual who experiences trauma will adapt and grow healthily. Trauma pushes many people to cover their thoughts and emotions associated with their traumatic event. Additionally, trauma haunts many people and prevents them from living normal lives. Some people develop health issues like PTSD or anxiety disorder. Some people are more sensitive to criticism and negative comments even when they seem happy.
Our brain experiences changes that affect our thought processes and emotions. It also impacts our fear management after the devastating event. While many people can cope with the situation better than others, some can’t, which affects their perceptions and thought processes.
This is why trauma also has an impact on mindset. Whatever the reason for the trauma is, if the person has not healed from it, you can see a great difference in their mindset. Read further to learn how trauma affects mindset.
Effects of Trauma
When you experience trauma, your brain disintegrates, and the mammalian and reptilian parts of the brain operate on overdrive. This will make your brain extremely sensitive to fear and danger, and your neocortex or brain often gets out of your individual’s processing.
These changes have the following side effects that usually occur in a chain reaction, which are considered the primary effects of the trauma:
Struggle to connect with self (i.e., inability to be self-aware and introspect)
Numbing- disconnecting your mind from the feelings of your body
When you lose the ability to connect with yourself, you will also:
Have difficulty loving your own body, soul, and mind
Struggle in thinking, working towards a brighter future and purpose, working for a goal, and planning to achieve anything
Have difficulty connecting with others
To be precise, your trauma affects your ability to be emotionally intelligent. An individual who experiences trauma struggle to move on and heal due to their natural defense mechanisms that stays on high alert to keep them secure and safe and limit their ability to involve in different and new experiences and thought process that can help them improve and revise their mindset and relationship with self and others.
Does Trauma Affect Your Mindset?
Mindset is the long-range neural connection that connects and integrates all three major regions of your brain. When a person experiences trauma, their brain prevents these long-range neural connections from connecting and growing, making it easy for trauma to develop a negative mindset.
If you have been going through a trauma, you will be dealing with the following mindset based on your associate’s desires or your survival mechanisms:
Inward- need to be seen as being an important person or desire to get ahead
Closed- the desire to be in control and to be right
Fixed- the desire to protect the image or look good
Prevention- desired to avoid discomfort or avoid problems
If you have the above-mentioned mindset, you will understand things differently than others. It will also impact your relationships and how you deal with people. Trauma survivors will struggle in every aspect of their life.
Keep in mind that if a person has a negative mindset, it will also impact their body. They might not care for themselves. They can even start to self-harm or try to commit suicide. Hence, if an individual doesn’t have the right mindset, it will impact their beliefs, decisions, lifestyle, and almost everything, eventually leading to poor life.
Mindset is a Key to the Happiness and Success
You can make the most out of life with two things:
Overcoming doubts and fears so that you don’t have any big regrets and live your life fully
Feeling content with your decisions and life
The problem is that following your dreams and goals requires a strong mind and courage. It’s not that easy to get started when you have doubts. Getting rid of your fears and getting up and working again if you fail takes a lot of effort and, most importantly, the right mindset.
Additionally, you need to focus on what is important and prevent yourself from getting off the track for any reason. The fact is that consistency is difficult but a necessary component for success.
This is why; success requires you to be extremely positive. You need to have a healthy dose of self-confidence and a strong sense of determination. This is because you will face failure at some point in life and experience fears and doubts.
The simplest and easiest way to do it is to cultivate the right and positive mindset. A growth mindset is the key to success and prosperity.
Bottom Line
When you experience a traumatic event, your body and mind start to prepare you to help you properly respond. This is an automatic survival mechanism of humans, and they don’t have any control over it. During this process, your mindset also changes. You start to see the world and yourself with a negative perspective that impacts your career and personal life.
If you are a trauma survivor, you need to consult an expert to heal yourself and improve your mindset. They know the tricks and tips that will help you resolve your issue easily/ Another thing is that you need to follow your consultant’s advice if you are visiting a therapist. This is the best way to improve your life.
Besides getting help from professionals, you need to start practicing some techniques. For instance, you need to keep yourself calm. For this, you need to meditate in the morning. Also, you must create a positive daily routine that helps you stay positive.
Spend more time with people that can help you grow and move from your past. Also, if you have developed any habit of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, you need to stop the habit immediately. Also, try to be humble with others and improve your relationship. If you’re dealing with self-doubt, Subtle Shifts can help you out. We teach and embody the concept of acceptance. We help people accept themselves just the way they are and overcome their traumatic experiences.