70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. That's 223.4 million people. 

More than 33% of youths exposed to community violence will experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a very severe reaction to traumatic events.   PTSD is an individual experience, with ramifications for the family as well as the community, and is an injury of the soul and the spirit of the person.  

• Survivors of trauma
  
• First responders
• Veterans
• Refugees
• Parents and schools
• Survivors of human trafficking
• Humanitarian aid-workers
• Teens, children, and at-Promise Youth
• Anyone feeling overwhelmed, helpless, shocked, or have difficulty processing their experiences. 

Science has shown that positive emotions can help shift and replace out stress-producing feelings and perceptions. This services to counter balance the depleting effects from our stressful reactions and also positively affects our psychological and physiological levels.

HeartMath techniques and technology help individuals move from an incoherent state to a coherent state of well-being.

During stress response, emotions are often buried in an attempt to assist the person through the traumatic experience. Emotions can get trapped and stored in the body as cellular memory. Through deep relaxation and calming of the spirit, those trapped or buried emotions and trauma can be gently released.

Energy Therapy, like Reiki techniques and Bioenergy Therapy, are forms of alternative medicine. Simply stated, energy healing calms and stills the spirit of the person, bringing healing to old, buried wounds.

• It can promote relaxation to remind the body how it feels to be calm again.
• It can remind the body that physical touch can be nurturing and therapeutic.
• It can promote inner peace and calm.
• It can balance the bodies energy.

As we slow down our minds and attune to our deeper heart feelings, our natural intuitive connection begins to flow.

When the spirit self has been calmed and quieted, the physical healings of the body can begin.

Neuro Linguistics Programming (NLP) can be a complementary therapy to reduce trauma-related symptoms

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a ‘therapeutic technique used to detect and reprogram unconscious patterns of thoughts and behaviors in order to alter psychological responses. NLP is a type of treatment that has been found to be effective in the treatment of PTSD and other trauma-related difficulties with memories, phobias, and anxieties.

Each person has their own experience and is effected uniquely by stress or trauma.  The goals of working through trauma is to take the charge away from the emotions that the trauma has evoked.  NLP techniques take a deeper insight into how you filter and perceive information through our senses.  This creates a view into your personal map of the world around us. The concept behind the theory can be better understood when we break down the term.

• Neuro - Every second of our lives, even during sleep, we are processing information. Our map of the world around us is made up of images, sounds, tastes, smells, tactile awareness, and inner sensations. This map is known in NLP as our ‘First Access’ map.
• Linguistic - When we receive external information and data, we give it a personal meaning. We assign language to the information, which colors our conscious awareness. This is known as the linguistic map.
  
• Programming - The intake of filtered information and the resulting linguistic map elicits a behavioral response, we call ‘programming’. Essentially, NLP is concerned with how we filter and perceive the world, and how that bias influences our outcomes. The theory behind NLP is that if we bring our conscious awareness to our filters and biases, we can begin to make choices that result in positive change. 
  

Each of us experience life subjectively, forming a subjective outlook on our experiences. That subjectivity drives our behavior, which is productive or destructive.

Visual Kinesthetic Dissociation (V-KD)

NLP has been considered an effective approach to PTSD treatment, as well as phobias and some anxieties, primarily through one important aspect of NLP – Visual-Kinesthetic Dissociation (V-KD).

V-KD is known to be of help for those experiencing phobias or traumatic memories by encouraging a neural reprogramming of their psychological response to the original event. The process involves breaking the connection between images (visual) and their associated feelings (kinesthetic) in order to eliminate the triggering of irrational fear and behavior.

For this technique to be effective, the therapist promotes a state of safety and relaxation in the client. The new, dissociated perspective is elicited, and the therapist guides the client in reprocessing the traumatic memory, allowing them to update their perspective on the memory, and viscerally understand that the fight/flight/freeze is not needed in the present moment.

As a result of V-KD, ‘the traumatic event either becomes inaccessible, significantly modified, or subject to non-traumatic declarative success.

LEARN

simple methods of integrating tools & techniques into trauma-focused therapies, and incorporate skills set in a supportive learning environment.

APPLY

tools & techniques to self-regulate emotions, control of flashbacks, and panic attacks to build personal resilience.

RECONNECT

with the healing properties of the heart, restore hope through heart-coherence transformation, and reconnect with a sense of self-security and well-being.

Trauma Survivors:

For many, the invisible nature of trauma makes people feel hopeless and alone. The Resilient Heart Program provides evidence-based treatment to improve common symptoms following trauma, including problems with attention, emotion regulation, learning, sleep, anxiety and depression.  Integrate practical tools to use “in the moment” that build resilience and improve the capacity for emotional regulation for yourself and your family. Learn to use HeartMath techniques and skills set in a trauma-sensitive manner.

First Responders:

The Resilient Heart Program also helps teach self-regulation techniques for first responders to build resilience, protect against burnout, secondary traumatization, and help themselves and others after critical incidents or natural disasters. Responding to each crisis or disaster, are people on the front lines: 9-11 dispatchers, firefighters, police and paramedics, along with hundreds of average people who find themselves helping without any training at all. While this work can be incredibly gratifying, it also carries the risk of burnout and secondary traumatization.

Set up a private Individual or Family Sessions:

Dr. Cathy Chargualaf partners with non-profit organizations, including schools, communities, social-service agencies, government institutions, hospitals, and military personnel and families to provide a broad range of evidence-based programs to build personal capacities for resilience, emotional regulation, and reconnection with their sense of self-security and well-being for adults, teens, youth, and children.

• The Resilient Heart Workbook
• Specific techniques for your particular situation

LENGTH: 4 week program  @ 1 hour per session

LOCATION: Virtual Zoom or Skype Meeting

COST: Call for pricing

PROGRAM RESOURCES:

How STRESS AFFECTS the BODY?

• Purpose: To increase awareness and understanding of how stress affects the body.
• When to Use: Before you begin to practice any of the HeartMath techniques, review the facts of stress and the impact.

A Moment to Reflect Handout

• Purpose: To document your thoughts
• When to Use: First thing in the morning, or in the evening to reflect on what you know now that you did not know before.

HeartMath Depletion to Renewal Grid Worksheet

• Purpose: To identify depleting and renewing emotions
• When to Use: Increase awareness of emotions

HeartMath Quick Coherence Technique

• Purpose: To regulate emotions, build coherence, increase energy, increase resilience
• When to Use: Use in the moment to shift depleting emotions, for conflicts, or to prepare for difficult conversations.

HeartMath Heart Lock-In Technique

• Purpose: To build coherent baseline, improves and radiates a coherent field for others
• When to Use: Use for personal practice 10-15 minutes per day. Use in the moment to assist someone with co-regulation.

HeartMath Freeze Frame Technique

• Purpose: To increase access to intuitive guidance for decision making, problem solving, or creative thinking, and mental clarity
• Use for situations that feel stuck and would benefit from a new perspective, attitude or solution. 

HeartMath Cut Thru Technique

• Purpose: To create objectivity around an issue and clear emotional memories
• Use to unstick emotional patterns.

HeartMath HeartSoak Technique

• Purpose: Facilitates the "letting go" of worries, painful emotions or distressing events
• Use for situations or feelings that appear stuck or hopeless and would benefit from time soaking in the compassion of the heart.

“What you taught me so far... Is working miracles! I am so grateful for you!”

"I was not even aware of the stress I was holding on to, until I learned the HeartMath techniques. Now I notice immediately when something is stressful and have the techniques and mind set to change my perception and deal with the situation in a positive way. Wow!! this really work."

"I learned how to identify stress that drains me, and techniques that helped me return back to who I am."

"I have learned so much working with Cathy. I am more aware of my sources of stress, and how to use techniques to improve my well-being and resilience to prepare for anything that comes my way. I the tools and I will use them daily."

"Thank you for your time today. Every time we chat, I realize again how very fortunate I am to have met you. I feel strongly that people do come into your life for a particular reason, whether for a short time frame or longer term, and you are one of those people for me. I really appreciate the fact that your own life experiences enhance your ability to help me in identifying a better way of thinking and approaching matters. You exude such positivity and compassion I feel like I've known you forever. You are truly a wonderful coach, colleague and friend."

“I wanted to write you and tell you thank you for helping me conquer some of my fears. I had been suffering with my anxiety since I was about 13 years old. I didn’t realize or know what anxiety was until I turned 18 yrs old. I had been suffering alone for 5 years. When my mom finally understood what was wrong with me, she took me to a psychologist that specialized in anxiety. But, for some reason the help & outcome were minimal. I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. Until I sat down with you and actually talked about my fears, I felt so alone in the world. You taught me to process these feelings in a controllable way. You also gave me the tools to use to get over my fears, when confronted with an attack. People like you are few and far between. Because of you, I am able to travel the U.S., get on an airplane, and attend my college classes without any anxiety. It has taken a couple of years, but I am grateful that I can finally feel a sense of success! I don’t even want to think about where I would be if it wasn’t for you. I want to thank you with all of my heart.”

"Tuning into your heart’s wisdom creates a profound shift within that helps you approach situations with more emotional balance, compassion, clarity and personal confidence."

"I learned as you bring your physical, mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment, you begin to experience increased access to your heart’s intuitive guidance."

"Great program! It was informative. You explained things with real life examples which made it easy to understand, and you made it fun."

"This program is great for the family. I have tools to help me and my family handle things better. Thank you."

"After the 2nd session, I feel calmer and things that bothered me, I now see things in a different way. "

"These techniques have helped me see reality, to see thing for what they are and not take things so personal."

"I am less concerned about what others think of me. I have learned I am important, and these techniques have taught me to see things from a larger view point."

"I am less worried about things, and I do not play negative situations over and over in my head. I am able to let go things I do not have control over. I learned I have control over my emotions."

"I learned more options to dealing with problem situations, which will help me make healthier choices and bounce back easily during challenging situations."

"I learned what makes me happy and I have a positive attitude now. These techniques really work!!"

"I know now how to reduce stressful thinking, be happier, and improve my attitude by using the techniques I learned. Thank you!"

"When challenging situation happen, I am able to bounce back faster. I also have new ways to communicate, which will improve my relationships with my family and others."

"It validated for me what is important and not important to my well-being. I am better off and more grounded than I thought I was. It also confirmed to me, my support structure and the loving support I have around me.”