Be present in the moment. Breath and remind yourself you are safe now. Sometimes the healing comes through facing the pain and memories.... and overcoming them repeatedly. Hugs of support sent.

Thanks to how my therapist sent me to meditation from the very moment she diagnosed me, I found out there's a third option between rewind or fast forward, and it's that Buddhist option: do nothing. Do no thing, in other words. Like blue says, just breathe, just be. No need to do, just be. For me that was hard, because 6 years of civil war as a missionary kid overseas got me pretty wound up about the value of being always on the move so I'd be a moving target, not a sitting duck. Sitting still was dangerous in my mind. But meditation classes taught me that I could sit with my trauma and still be OK. I too could have peace.

I'm not a Buddhist, I became a hospital chaplain in a different religion of my own, but those meditation classes helped me. The wildest thing I learned was from a book by an American Buddhist nun who said even hopelessness was ok. What???? She didn't mean it in any cruel way, she was just saying we should forgive ourselves no matter how low we feel. This Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, actually said: "As long as we’re addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot."

https://onedharmanashville.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/pema-chodron-on-the-benefits-of-hopelessness/

Benefits of hopelessness? Huh? It sounded like the opposite of helping me, but it turned out that she was just saying it's ok to relax, to let it go when I can't figure things out. I didn't need to screw myself right through the floor with my anxiety when trauma made no sense to me. Just let it be.

Wow. It worked for me, even if it seemed to go against coping with stress. It turned out to be the ultimate best coping tool of all for me.

Peace.

Thanks Muji. I just sat with one of the therapists here who suggested just that. Focus on grounding and coming back to the present and just let it be frustrating and let it be hopeless and let it be all thet it is. She reminded me my whole life was traumatic, that once I finally felt safe suddenly I wasn’t and I went from abuse to less than ideal to shelter living as a mom and then a few moments to breathe before coronavirus hit the US. Tell myself it’s okay to feel all of this and then be kind to myself. Maybe the house is a mess or I’m not teaching my kiddo all that other parents are but we are washing our hands, eating meals together and enjoying each other. This weekend felt like a hurricane and now it seems like maybe it’s a much needed calming rain. Time to just be. Thanks for reiterating that.