The Power of
Mindfulness
in Trauma Recovery
Developing skillfulness with our thoughts is a major component of well-being
Why Your Mind Won't Let You Rest
Here's a brain fact that might surprise you: every day, your mind processes about 70,000 thoughts. That's a lot of thoughts! And you know a whole lot of them are repeats—the endless loop of I need to get gas, do these pants make my butt look big, I have to call my mother.
To top it off, a significant portion of these thoughts are negative. We’re ruminating on the past, fearing for the future, criticizing ourselves and others. We think about missed opportunities, bad decisions, relationships that went sideways, mean comments that sting years later, things that fill us with shame.
Often these memories arrive uninvited and run on repeat like a broken record. It feels like we have zero control over them. Part of us genuinely believes that if we just think about it enough, we'll finally understand what happened and figure out how to protect ourselves from future pain.
What actually happens? We strengthen these neural pathways and keep ourselves stuck in patterns that belong in the past. It’s like we’re driving through life while staring in the rearview mirror.
How Mindfulness Fits Into Somatic Therapy
In our practice at Cutting Edge Counseling in Los Angeles, we use two primary trauma therapies: EMDR and Somatic Experiencing. Because trauma affects our minds, bodies, and spirits, we take a 360° approach that includes two essential healing components: Mindfulness and Attachment Repair.
Mindfulness isn't about sitting in a lotus position trying to empty your mind which, of course, would be impossible with 70,000 daily thoughts. Instead, it's about developing a different relationship with those thoughts—learning to notice them without getting hijacked by them.
This is where mindfulness and somatic work become such powerful partners. When we're not completely tangled up in our thoughts, we can actually drop into our bodies and let our nervous systems regulate. Our breathing naturally slows, blood pressure drops, muscles relax, and that clenched gut finally eases.
Understanding your
Triangle of Awareness
One of the most helpful concepts we share with clients is the Triangle of Awareness—the three ways we experience everything: thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. That's it. All of human experience distilled into three elements.
When we're overwhelmed, these three are usually happening simultaneously in a chaotic cascade of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. Your mind is spiraling with worst-case scenarios, you’re having some combination of angry, scared, sad or shut down, your heart is racing. Suddenly you're drowning in your own experience. It’s like trying to have three different conversations at once–exhausting and confusing.
The strategy? Divide and conquer. Mindfulness teaches us to tease apart these elements, dramatically reducing the overwhelm. Instead of being caught in that tornado, we can actually step back and say, “Okay, I’m having the thought that something terrible is going to happen. I’m feeling anxious. And I notice my shoulders are up around my ears.”
Suddenly what felt like complete chaos becomes manageable information. You can work with manageable information.
In addition, we are deeply impacted by what we learn as young children, from our parents and from our culture, from explicit as well as implicit messaging. We take in these messages before we have the ability to do critical thinking. No wonder we often operate from beliefs we learned early on:
I'm not good enough
I can't trust myself
I can't protect myself
I am shameful
Mindfulness offers a gentle correction to the negativity bias. It's not about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. It's about consciously shifting our attention toward what's actually working, cultivating gratitude, and developing genuine self-compassion–not the kind that sounds good in theory but what actually feels authentic in your body.
Working with Your Brain’s
Negativity Bias
Here's another thing we have no control over: our brain is literally wired to focus on the negative. This negativity bias means we remember traumatic experiences more vividly than positive ones, hold onto harsh words more than praise, and default to worst-case-scenario thinking.
Brain imaging studies show we get bigger "neural hits" from negative stimuli. Our brains are more activated and create stronger memories from bad news and difficult experiences. It’s not personal–it’s evolutionary. Our ancestors who were really good at remembering where the dangerous animals lived were more likely to survive and pass on their genes.
The Art of Accepting What We Cannot Change
Life hands us so many non-negotiable realities. Heartbreak happens. Situations spin beyond our control. We face our relative powerlessness in the world full of institutional inequities and systems bigger than ourselves. We care for aging parents, challenging children, work that stresses us out, bodies that get sick, the loss of loved ones and eventually our own finiteness.
The big question becomes: How do we find peace within these constraints? How do you stay well with a stressful job? Can you have any peace when your teenager is struggling or your parent who is no longer who they used to be? How do you reduce your anger, bitterness or hurt that feels justified but is also eating you alive?
The Serenity Prayer offers wisdom here: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Mindfulness gives us a pathway to this kind of acceptance—not as avoidance or giving up, but as embodied maturity. It's learning to meet life on life's terms with as much kindness toward ourselves and others as we can muster.
What Mindfulness Practice Can Do for You
Mindfulness literally changes our brains in measurable ways by creating new neural pathways and healthier patterns of thinking and behaving. The research consistently shows that mindfulness and compassion are deeply interconnected and influence both mental and physical health. More importantly, we see it happen with clients all the time and personally experience how it has changed our lives for the better.
Here's what people in our practice often experience:
Emotional regulation: Less depression and anxiety. Decreased self-criticism. Increased capacity for actually feeling good when good things happen (instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop).
Relational benefits: Better understanding of the dynamics in your relationships. Stronger connections with people you care about. Increased compassion for yourself and others that doesn’t feel forced or fake.
Embodied presence: The ability to stay grounded in your body instead of living in your head. Reduced reactivity to triggers. Practical ways to manage pain and stop panic attacks in their tracks. Clearer discernment about what you can and cannot control.
Ready to Quiet Your Monkey Mind?
Mindfulness can be a deep spiritual practice but for our purposes, it is a practical and effective way of managing what Buddhists call our “monkey mind”--that restless part of us that’s constantly jumping from one anxiety, one painful memory, one self-criticism to another.
Mindfulness isn't something you master once and own forever—it's a skill you develop and practice in your everyday life by learning to not follow every thought that passes through your mind and believing everything your brain tells you. It's not about finding a permanently calm space, but about continuing to see more clearly so your actions can arise from your deepest values rather than your loudest fears.
If you're tired of being hijacked by your thoughts and ready to develop a more skillful relationship with your inner world, let's talk about how mindfulness can support your healing journey.
We Can Help. Call Us. It’s Free.
If you’re seeking Mindfulness Therapy or Anxiety Treatment,
we invite you to call us for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
Call Stephanie at 310-339-5812 or Lee Ann at 310-980-8988.