Sarah Schulmann-Palmer

My Approach

It is important to accept yourself just as you are, but also to accept your childhood and what happened to you, without feeling embarrassed, ashamed or guilty about it. As a child we are not responsible for how we grow up, or for the adults looking after us. Building up confidence and self-belief requires us to get to know ourselves better. By that I mean, we need to better understand our own feelings and what triggers these feelings. Like “Why did I feel so upset yesterday by something someone said to me?” “Why did this comment make me feel so sad? Why did I react the way I did?” Very often the answers to why we feel what we feel, lies in our childhood, a traumatic childhood leaves us with an empty feeling inside, an empty gap, and a feeling of not belonging. Confidence building starts with changing our self-talk and lowering the sound level of our inner critic. Replace the negative self-talk with positive thoughts about yourself, praise yourself. Like and love yourself. Befriend yourself.  As we know more about our feelings, our wishes and desires, the next step is to learn to express our feelings with clarity, using our calm voices and putting names on our feelings. To be able to clearly express and name your feelings is a powerful tool that will enable you to set healthy boundaries in your relationships. Strong self-motivation and determination to achieve your goals will help you grow your resilience and bounce back more easily from rejection, failure and criticism.  

Overcoming childhood trauma is also about looking after yourself and feeling good about yourself, your body and your mind. Choosing a healthy diet and regular exercise, mild exercise like going for a  walk every day,  connecting with other people and learning new skills or taking up a new hobby will make us all feel good about ourselves. That is a good starting point for recovering from a traumatic childhood.