How to Support a Loved One After a Traumatic Childbirth Experience
Few joys compare with that of welcoming a new life into the world. Children are, as the Scripture puts it, “a heritage from the Lord…a reward from Him” (Psalm 127:3, NIV). However, even when circumstances are good and there are no complications with the birth, giving birth to a child can be emotionally, mentally, and physically challenging. Each woman’s reaction to and experience of childbirth will differ.
These words from Scripture are thus true: “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world” (John 16:21, NIV). However, for many women, it’s difficult to move past the anguish that accompanies the birth of their child. When that happens, she needs the compassionate and empathetic support of the loved ones in her life.
Understanding the trauma of childbirth
Trauma is the emotional and physiological response one has to a situation that is difficult to cope with and is highly stressful, frightening, or distressing. Each woman’s birth story will differ, including the fears that she carries with her into the delivery room. If there were complications in past pregnancies, or if the birth is attended with issues for either mom, baby, or both, that can lead to trauma as the process can be frightening.
During childbirth, the physiological processes that allow for the baby to be born carry on even if the mother feels tired and wants it to stop. When the labor is long and exhausting, it can add to feelings of being out of control, because there’s little to nothing you can do to stop labor once it has begun. One has simply to see it through, and the fact of having no choice in this heavy moment can be overwhelming and distressing.
Often, interventions need to be undertaken to help mom and baby out during delivery. In some instances, an emergency cesarean (c-section) is needed to facilitate a faster delivery when the baby or the mother is in distress. In many situations, an episiotomy may be performed by an obstetrician to allow the baby to pass through easier. Where surgery is required, that can add an element of stress to the birth process.
Another source of trauma during childbirth is when the mom doesn’t have sufficient support or reassurance during the delivery process. Giving birth can feel overwhelming, and support is needed to retain a sense of confidence that everything will be okay.
Lastly, if the birth process is exhausting, or if surgical interventions are required, it can make for a longer recovery time for mom and baby. In some instances, a mom can end up missing some initial bonding time with her child, and it can take some time to process the whole experience, especially if things do go according to plan. As such, the birth experience, while resulting in a healthy child being born, can nonetheless be difficult and emotionally distressing.
Supporting a loved one who’s undergone a traumatic childbirth experience
When your loved one goes through a traumatic childbirth experience, how can you best come alongside them in support? One of the things that can be helpful for the process of recovery is to have someone from the medical team who helped to manage the birth explain what happened. If the new mom is ready to hear explanations of what happened, it can help her to process what she just went through, and it can also feel validating.
One of the ways you can also look out for a loved one who just gave birth is to be aware of the symptoms of postpartum trauma and postpartum depression. If a mom has a traumatic birth experience, she likely experiences symptoms of postpartum depression. Keeping an eye out for these symptoms and urging her to seek out counseling or other mental health services will be a huge help for her.
Some of the signs of postpartum depression to look out for include anger, anxiety, having a poor appetite, feeling overwhelmed, experiencing negative feelings about yourself or your ability to care for your child, struggling to fall asleep, and having suicidal thoughts. Postpartum trauma can have some symptoms that overlap with postpartum depression. The signs of postpartum trauma to look out for include the following:
- Having difficulty sleeping.
- Avoidance of people, places, or situations associated with the trauma, and that might include the hospital where the birth took place.
- Being hyper-vigilant.
- Having anxiety or panic attacks.
- Experiencing worsening depression.
- Re-experiencing the trauma through nightmares and flashbacks.
If you have a new mom in your life who’s undergone a traumatic childbirth experience (and even if she hasn’t had a negative childbirth experience) allow her the space to talk about her experience. Too often, because of the expectations around childbirth, women suffer in silence after a traumatic childbirth experience. They may feel they have failed as a mother or feel ashamed for feeling sad after the birth of their child.
When a child is born, most people are hyper-focused on the baby, but few stop to ask how the new mom is doing or what she may need. Loving the new mom in your life may look like asking her how she is doing and giving her room to speak candidly about her experience. Supporting her may also look like directing her toward counseling for postpartum trauma so that she gets the tools she needs to cope.
If you know of a mom who has experienced a traumatic childbirth or you have had that experience yourself and need help navigating that trauma, please call our offices to set up an appointment with a counselor today.
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Sources of Anxiety in Teens: Causes and Treatment Options
When people get older, they can look at their past with rose-tinted glasses. Compared to their present, their youth can appear pristine, a time of youthful abandon absent of the responsibilities and hardships of adulthood. It’s perilous to try and compare your situation to someone else’s (even your own past self), and it can be unhelpful especially when addressing mental health concerns. Anxiety in teens is often missed.
Teens, like everyone else, get anxious. Anxiety in teens can range from everyday worry about an upcoming test or date, to crippling anxiety that makes social interactions or separation from loved ones nigh impossible. It’s important to understand some of the sources of anxiety in teens, as that can help one understand why certain circumstances may be stressful and anxiety-inducing, and it can inform the beginnings of how to mitigate anxiety in a teen’s life.
What anxiety feels like
Anxiety produces a physiological response, called the stress response. Your body releases adrenaline, cortisol, and other neurochemicals that make your heart beat faster, muscles tense up, breath comes in short, extremities feel numb or tingly, your stomach feels unsettled, and it can also make you tremble and sweat. Being anxious can make you feel like you’re struggling to catch your breath, and it can feel like the world is either speeding up or slowing down around you. You may even feel lightheaded or like you’re about to pass out.
Experiencing these various sensations can be disorienting and unsettling. Not only that but if you are constantly anxious, it can affect your physical health because your body wasn’t designed to always be on high alert and for the stress response to be activated all the time.
Sources of anxiety in teens
Teens face many challenges in daily life. According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that 1 in 7 (14%) 10- to 19-year-olds globally experience mental health conditions. Around 9.4% of US children aged 3 to 17 years (approximately 5.8 million) were diagnosed with anxiety between 2016 and 2019, and those numbers increased significantly during the Covid pandemic.
There are several sources of anxiety for teens, including some of the following. Teens are often anxious about how they are perceived, particularly by their peers. They have an awareness of how the people around them see them, and that has only been ramped up by the presence of social media.
A teen can get caught up in whether they are seen as competent, and they are hyperaware of things that can embarrass them. Often, one of the results of this is a crippling social anxiety.
Another thing that teens are often anxious about is their academic performance. School forms a major part of a teen’s life, and there can be a lot of pressure to perform well to please parents and teachers, meet the standards of their peers, as well as begin laying the foundation for college admissions and their future. Perfectionism and its attendant anxieties can be the result.
Lastly, teens are also anxious about their bodies. The pre-teen and teen years are when their bodies are undergoing many changes, some of them unsettling. Anxiety can result from developing earlier than peers, just as it can also arise from developing later than one’s peers. The changes they undergo can affect their self-esteem and confidence.
In some cases, those changes can be so uncomfortable and disorienting that they feel like their body is not their own. In other cases, they may become obsessed with real or perceived flaws in their body and they develop a negative body image that can interfere with their well-being.
Apart from these sources of anxiety, anxiety may also be caused by a combination of genetic, environmental, and circumstantial factors. Mental health challenges such as anxiety may come about as a response to environmental stressors such as bullying, trauma, the death of a loved one, parental separation, or moving house and changing schools.
If a teen has parents and other family members with anxiety or anxiety disorders, that increases the likelihood that they’ll also develop anxiety and anxiety disorders.
Relieving anxiety in healthy ways
Anxiety can inhibit a teen’s social development at a critical juncture in their lives. If you are a teen or you have a teen and you suspect that anxiety is a reality in their life, the good news is that there is a positive outlook on addressing different forms of anxiety and anxiety disorders.
It’s important to seek help when dealing with anxiety, and to not assume that it’s something that will blow over or that one can simply “grow out of”. Reach out to a Christian counselor to address anxiety and anxiety-related concerns.
Some of the ways to get appropriate help include seeking professional mental healthcare in the form of Christian counseling. Talk therapy and medication can help to contain anxiety and its effects on a teen’s life, and there are a few lifestyle changes that can also help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety.
Some of these lifestyle changes include taking self-care seriously by exercising regularly and staying active, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining a regular sleep schedule to get quality sleep.
Other changes that can make an impact are spending time with loved ones, enjoying the outdoors, and handling your to-do list by breaking up large tasks into smaller, simpler, and thus more manageable ones. The Lord does not desire us to be trapped in worry and anxiety (Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:4-9). Anxiety undermines one’s well-being, but with help, it can be overcome.
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How to Be a Good Friend: 8 Practical Tips
Making and keeping a friend can be difficult but it is possible. For our lives to be lived to the fullest and for us to experience the joy of having others in our lives, we need to work on how we show up in our relationships.
As much as we need to know what attributes we need in the people we consider friends, a more important question needs to be asked and that is. “Am I a good friend?” In this article, we will look at eight practical tips for how to be a good friend so that you too can thrive.
How to Be a Good Friend
For one to learn how to be a good friend, certain characteristics and behaviors need to be developed and fostered. Though not an exhaustive list, below are some components to consider:
Be available.
Being available in friendships means that you are available to spend time together, get to know each other, and have fun together.
No relationship can be built without both people involved being equally invested. Availability also means that you can be relied on whether in good or tough times. You will be there for your friends when they need your support.
Practice empathy and understanding.
Being empathetic means that whatever your friend might be going through, you can feel for them and respond accordingly. You do not minimize their situation or dismiss it. Understanding your friends means that you accept them for who they are not who you want them to be. You might not agree with some of their decisions, but you still offer understanding.
Be their cheerleader.
Being your friend’s cheerleader means that you can encourage them to be the best version of themselves and you are also there to celebrate their achievements, without envy or jealousy. You show that you genuinely want them to succeed, even if they get something first that you both wanted, you show up and celebrate.
Be trustworthy.
No relationship can function without trust. Being trustworthy means, you are dependable, you can be relied on, and you can also keep confidence.
Respect boundaries.
Learning to respect and honor your friend’s boundaries is a sure sign that you care for their well-being and respect their personal space. Never pressure your friend to do or share something they have indicated that they do not want to share. When you respect your friend’s boundaries, it is a sure way to ensure that they will respect yours.
Work on communication.
Communication is not easy in any relationship, but it can be worked on. However you communicate, make sure that you are not the only one who always shares your life and struggles. For a friendship to function equal attention needs to be given to both parties involved. This will mean that you are genuinely interested in what they share, and you give them space just as they do for you.
Learn to give and receive feedback.
One beautiful aspect of friendships is that we have people who can be honest with us about our blind spots. They have your best interest at heart so do not be defensive when they offer you constructive criticism. It is important as well for you to give feedback when needed so they too can grow and become more self-aware,
Practice forgiveness and compassion.
Your friend is not going to be perfect. When they do something wrong and try to make amends, practice forgiveness, and move on with compassion.
Next steps
For a variety of reasons, it can sometimes be difficult to put ourselves out there and build friendships. If this is you and you need help in this area, contact our offices for an appointment.
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4 Things that Will Surprise You about Group Coaching
Group coaching may feel intimidating to you if you’re an introvert or someone who gets energy from being alone. But attending a coaching session with a small group of others doesn’t have to be scary.
4 Benefits of Group Coaching
Here are four surprising benefits that you can gain from group coaching sessions.
1. You can gain confidence in your ability to overcome.
Whether you are struggling in a particular area of life, trying to make a difficult decision, or have a goal you’d like to achieve, group coaching can help you gain confidence in your ability to overcome obstacles.
As you get to know the others in your group, sharing about your goal or difficult situation will happen naturally. They will open up with you (even just a little at first), which invites some level of vulnerability in the group. Your therapist will guide the session so that no one overshares and will make it a comfortable environment where all members feel heard.
Stepping into a group isn’t easy, but as you grow into it, you’ll learn that you can do hard things. It’s a step in the right direction, getting you closer to a solution, a goal, or a sense of peace with where you are right now.
2. If your group coaching facilitator is a licensed, trained therapist, he or she will have tools and ideas beyond what you can find online.
Because therapists not only have higher education certification but also practice for many hours to maintain their certification, you can trust them. While a group coaching session isn’t the same as seeing a therapist one-on-one, your group leader who is trained in psychology will have much more to add to the conversation than a pat answer or an encouraging remark.
Tools such as cognitive behavioral practices, mindfulness, reflection prompts, and active listening techniques are just a few of the ways your group leader can guide you and other members of the group. A group coach’s role is different from a one-on-one psychologist.
Coaches listen, ask the right questions, and use the appropriate tools to guide members to their own awareness. This awareness is powerful and life-changing, helping each individual to view obstacles from a new perspective, make progress, and find hope.
3. Group coaching may be the gateway to your breakthrough.
Group coaching provides support from others who are walking similar roads or have goals they want to accomplish. It can also be a means of accountability.
So, if you’ve been hesitant to seek the help of a licensed counselor one-on-one, group coaching is like a shallow on-ramp to the possibility of experiencing deep breakthroughs via individual counseling. Many who take part in group counseling sessions report that they feel less discouraged and more hopeful, and they can see a path forward where they couldn’t before.
These realizations may just lead you to take the step of finding a counselor who can guide you to deeper healing from past hurt, better relationships in your current life, and gain new perspective on your future.
4. You’ll learn the power of peer support.
If you’ve ever attended a child’s sporting event, you have likely seen supportive family members and non-supportive family members. The supportive ones cheered the child on, said encouraging things, and gave hugs no matter what; win or lose.
The same can be said of group coaching. Your fellow group members become like the cheering squad you wish you had in everyday life. It’s encouraging to learn how much a stranger’s kind words can build you up and give you the confidence to take the next step toward a goal.
Unlike a course where your facilitator teaches content and you listen, group coaching is interactive and allows you to help others while also helping yourself.
You’ll learn how to ask good questions, challenge faulty perspectives with kindness, and give someone else the support they need to overcome a difficulty or make a decision that’s plagued them. Then, as you receive the same kind of support, it’s easy to take in the group’s feedback and apply it to your life both now and in the future.
Attending group coaching can be the foundation for which you or your loved one builds a strong understanding of why we need each other. Human beings were meant to live in relationship and not try to solve problems all by themselves.
Learning the value of group coaching can mean the difference between trying the same things you’ve tried in the past or starting something new. If you’re ready to try something different, contact us at Westlake Chrsitian Counseling today to find professionally trained counselors in Westlake, Texas who lead groups of all kinds. Let us connect you with the right one to meet your needs.
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The Difference a Day Makes: Healing Trauma, One Day At a Time
God’s mercies are present to sustain and keep us, even in the places where we experienced trauma. Otherwise, we would have broken apart and been consumed. Human beings tend to focus on what we don’t have and rarely recognize where God preserved us in trouble.
For those of us who have experienced trauma, we are intimately acquainted with how it deprived us. Often, those facts and our perceptions afflict us with deficits. These threaten to interrupt goodness in our lives with their incessant retelling of trauma, shame, and their convoluted story.
We rarely want to acknowledge any part of our traumatic past, even when Jesus beckons for us to bring our burdens to Him. We don’t always notice where the trauma we encountered deposited toxic traits. These often distort thinking and reconstruct behaviors, based on the lies they tell.
Trauma calcifies hearts and minds, hardening us to the possibility of change along any dimension. It produces patterns that pollute us from the inside out, affecting and infecting those whom God intended to bless through our lives.
While trauma may have a story to expose, its shameful narrative is always in error and incomplete. The greatest news and the gospel’s prevailing truth are at work, highlighting that something better is in process.
When considering the nature of a difficult or traumatic past, we can experience a brilliant contrast between the trauma that threatened to consume us and the compassions of our loving Father. From this perspective, we find harmony with the words of the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah. Lamenting, he poured out his heart in ways that continually urge us to lift our heads and hands, surrendering pain and past trauma to the Lord who heals and redeems.
Though it seemed counterintuitive, Jeremiah declared God’s mercies in adverse conditions. He searched as far as his memory bank would permit to recollect the Lord’s compassion from times past. Like the prophet, we may also recall our history. It may seem that there is nothing but condemnation and pain to point out. However, the fact that we are here testifies to God’s preservation and announces that destiny awaits our advancement.
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:21-23, NIV
We do need to acknowledge, and even grieve what we didn’t gather in some of the places and from some of the people who mattered. Yet, we cannot remain there perpetually. We must mourn it and move forward. Healing sometimes happens on the move, even if one step at a time. God helps us to do this, all with a heart that is resolved to believe and celebrate that He repurposes what doesn’t make sense.
There are times when we feel that we have nothing else good and nowhere that we can praise God, but we can bless Him for a new day. If He didn’t have a purpose in mind, He would not have furnished fresh mercies to greet us with each new morning.
Today is a day forward and further away from the place of pain that threatened to tether us to a trauma-informed past. It represents one day closer to another manifestation of healing. Each sunrise produces a difference that a day can make, not simply because the calendar flipped, but because there is the potential to experience a change of heart and mind.
Learning to rehearse the Lord’s goodness transforms us from the inside. It continues to do so, remaining in operation, even under duress. When we pair our faith with the promises of God, it produces effects. Simply put, we see what we believe. Sometimes, the process is accelerated and other times, it is extended.
No matter the time, faith grows in the dark. The appearance of circumstances may not reflect God’s truth in our reality just yet. They are a collection of facts that reveal part of the narrative, but it is only the truth of God’s Word that places our trauma story in context.
While the traumatic encounters reveal where we didn’t have control, we can embrace our God-given authority in our healing. We must believe and put our faith to work where God has given us influence.
Next steps for healing trauma.
Pursuing professional counseling will offer the support needed to walk through a healing journey. Counseling provides a safe space where you can address the present symptoms of your pain and process what led to it. Make an appointment to connect with a counselor on this site. It can further position you to encounter another experience of God’s love, power, and glory, even as you heal and grow, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
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Toxic Positivity Explained
“We are what we think.” This is a statement society has been told and it is true, we are all a product of what we think, how we view ourselves, and our life circumstances. To get out of hard situations, we must believe we can do so in the first place. Positivity and optimism have been credited with helping people live healthier lives, be more productive, and have better mental states. Toxic positivity, on the other hand, is another matter, entirely.
Positivity becomes toxic when it is expected to be the only emotion we feel or experience no matter what it is we are struggling with in the real world. In a world of constant positivity, it is imposed upon us to always look to the bright side. No matter how dire a situation is, we are encouraged to only feel happy and positive in all situations to the exclusion of all other emotions.
This unrealistic expectation backfires as people struggle to reconcile how they truly feel and what society is telling them they should feel.
Effects of toxic positivity
Everything should always be done in moderation. Positivity is not wrong; it only becomes toxic when people are instructed to live in a way that is contrary to their makeup. As human beings, we are designed to feel a whole range of emotions depending on the situation at hand. No emotions should be favored above others.
All emotions are data informing us of our internal processing and helping us decide how to act, this is for our survival. However, if we chose to ignore so-called negative emotions and only focus on the positive ones, below are some of the effects:
- Lack of compassion or empathy for oneself or others.
- Shame and guilt for feeling hurt, broken, grief, depression, etc.
- Less resilient due to inability to face hard situations and emotions.
- Invalidate our emotions and those of others if they are not positive.
- Re-traumatizing because of not being given space to share hard situations.
- Mental health issues because of not seeking help due to shame and guilt.
- Suppression of emotions can lead to emotional burnout.
- Stigma toward those struggling and thus not offering help when they need it most.
- Inauthentic living because it is unrealistic to be happy, positive, and optimistic all the time.
- Unhealthy coping mechanisms like taking drugs or alcohol to try and numb the feelings one feels they shouldn’t experience in the first place.
- Gaslighting toward oneself or others occurs when we deny the reality of hard emotions even when they are appropriate, leading to being unsure about our own experiences and feelings.
- Lack of growth and accountability occurs because of not addressing mistakes or failures honestly, but they are glossed over with positivity and hence never hold themselves accountable.
Our ability to live in a world that is sometimes painful, unpredictable, and harsh lies in our ability to face these realities honestly for us to be resilient and develop healthy coping mechanisms.
For us to show compassion and empathy toward ourselves and those around us, we must first acknowledge that good emotions also exist with hard emotions. Those hard emotions are not to be denied. It is said, if you bury an emotion, you bury it alive.
When to seek help
If any of the above feels familiar, if you are in a place where you have never known how to share your story authentically and evaluate your feelings freely without judgment do consider getting in touch with our offices. A counselor can provide a safe and free environment where you can be authentic and gain helpful tools to deal with any hard situation you might be facing.
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