Work through a process of understanding the symptoms & causes of PTSD & CPTSD with this guided recovery course, with the additional benefits of a supportive community space & regular group sessions.

Learn how to adopt an ecosystem mindset for healing, practice techniques to reconnect with the body & regulate your nervous system, heal the root causes within the mind as you develop a life design for long-term recovery.

Welcome to Love School!

Watch the video below as host Terri introduces Love School and welcomes you to the space.

As you begin this course and your recovery with Love School, it is important to lay a foundation of understanding and awareness and take time to consider if you think and feel our approach is best suited to you and your needs.

All our content is based on certain principles, understandings and experience.

We might at times present a different perspective than you are used to, and some of our ideas might be new, seem alternative and much of our work does challenge the status quo of healing and recovery.

In this section, you will be guided to understand:

• Our Foundations of Wellness

• Ecosystem Mindset and our holistic approach.

• Our perspective and understanding of trauma and the wounds created by it.

• Shadow Work

• Life Design processes.

Our processes are open to allow you the necessary space to explore your healing path. Each of us will have our own experiences and insights based on our perspectives.

We have dedicated space for questions or discussion should you not understand what is being presented, if you feel called to share an insight that might help others on their path or if you would like to leave feedback.

Our ethos is based on developing ourselves individually and collectively. Being authentic and finding who we are, without trauma ruling our lives, is part of the process here. We don't believe in one-minded thinking or detaching, repressing, giving our power to others or deceiving ourselves from our life experiences. We are a space for growth and development. This extends to many of the mainstream solutions to symptom management and trauma therapy.

In principle, what we offer, the perspective and process of natural, holistic recovery, is a basis of the space, so these foundations of the school are not going to change.

Should you complete this section and feel like the space is not appropriate for you, you are welcome to end your subscription and find something more suitable. The section is dedicated to developing your initial intuition and discernment about the space and the process before you begin.

The life design process is part of and develops throughout a healing a recovery process.

As we begin, we are in the early stages of developing the awareness to create a design, but it is important to add it here at the beginning of the course so you are aware of the process and can begin to use the mindset and perspective it offers to support your healing journey.

Initially, I would recommend you read through the lessons in this section to get an idea of the process involved and develop more of what we have covered in the introductory section.

As you decide you want to learn more about this process, begin making first steps to develop a body design (which is suggested in the next section), you are invited to look through and begin using the Natural Holistic Recovery Course. This can be accessed in the products tab of your dashboard.

This course is detailed and focused on a couple of simple life design tools that can be used for a recovery process. Following the course in stages, as it is relevant to this course's progress and suggestions, is how these courses are designed to be used together.

In this section, we are going to explore the foundations of body connection, self-care care and how we can use body work or somatic healing to begin moving through and past or processing trauma symptoms.

As you work through this section, you are encouraged to use it alongside a life design process.

Through the lessons, we will cover in more depth what helps to establish a healthy body foundation and why it is important for people with complex trauma stress response and symptoms.

This part of the process for healing and recovery can't be rushed. Our body needs time to respond to having its needs met. Often, I found simply paying attention and responding to my body was a huge relief! Even if it was new, different or felt strange at times.

As you begin this type of change, you will likely notice thought patterns emerge, reasons why you "can't" or "shouldn't" keep them going. Our mind, body, and emotions are all connected. We can't avoid this reality. Instead, at this stage, you are encouraged to simply pay attention, make notes on what arises because they will be helpful later when we are processing other aspects of the trauma recovery.

Patience and understanding are important here. Not being judgmental of ourselves or making assumptions of how our body or mind "should" respond to the change. Regardless of whether a change is good or bad, better or worse for us, our human system doesn't like change, it sees it as a threat and (especially as a highly attuned to threat, complex truama survivor) is natural to expect some discomfort or resistance.

As much as possible, even if it's only one tiny change on more challenging days, is helpful to prove to yourself you can, will and are committed to this beneficial process of healing for yourself.

If that's not possible at all on some days, that is fine too.

Adopting a small steps mindset is important here. Small steps still lead us toward much larger goals!

I recommend you watch the Love Fools Podcast chat with Mari Craig as we discuss the benefits of this mindset and how to navigate the process of change.

In this section, we're going to explore all about trauma, our responses, and we're going to dive into how they might show up in your life or for you or for other people around you.

Through the lessons, we'll go through the different responses. Some you might be aware of, some you might not have considered before, and you're invited to spend some time with each one and reflect on how that might have shown up in your life, and consider whether it's relevant for you to look at.

What's important to understand when we're looking at trauma responses is that it's not something we can control. When we experience trauma, these things often happen subconsciously, and when they happen, our automatic, biological nervous system takes over. It does its job to try and protect us, to help us survive whatever situation we're in. And depending on the conditions and the circumstances, it's going to choose an appropriate response. It might not seem like the most appropriate response to us on reflection or in the moment. But you have survived. And our brain, our mind, our nervous system, then knows that this trauma response helped, and it helped you to survive.

It doesn't matter whether it was preferable for you, what the consequences have been since. These selected trauma responses can become preferred by our system. It might be something that reoccurs again and again, especially when triggered.

With complex trauma, we might have several or all of these responses that have manifested in one way or another. Because of the nature of complex trauma, which means there might be either several ongoing traumatic events that have caused different trauma responses or the triggers themselves. We might be triggered in new situations, and the old response can't come out in these new circumstances. So another response happens, and that's what makes the complex trauma complex because it can be related to many events, and we can have many different responses.

So in this section, as we go through um allow yourself to either read or watch the videos or read through the information and then spend a little time reflecting and considering insights that arise for you.

• You are invited to make notes on how the information might be relevant or have shown up for you. Make notes, journal, and gather some data on what comes up initially because there may well be some recognition as we're going through them.

Be gentle with yourself in the process. If you feel yourself getting triggered or stressed through the process, do your grounding techniques or take steps to regulate yourself, practising self-care techniques. Take your time with the process. If you need a break, come back to it another time.

If you need additional support, reach out in a private message or through the discussions. Feel free to share your insights within the community guidelines and boundaries.

Through the course so far, you have been guided to consider your body and understand trauma and its effects. The next stage of healing embarks upon uncovering the deeper, root causes. This can be personal work that requires a foundation of understanding to prepare.

Through the section, we will explore some of the concepts, skills and tools that will allow you to embark on this process.

It is a preparation of the mind and energy system to begin this work, and it is important to bring more stability and confidence to the process. As we grow through these new awareness, it allows us to embrace the changes ahead and recover more of our potential.

When we embark on the deeper healing of complex trauma, we begin the process of uncovering and discovering the wounded parts of ourselves and then healing the reason for the wounding.

In the previous section, we explored how trauma responses might be showing up in your life or controlling your experiences. This is a process of identifying the problem and gaining understanding. When we do this, it shifts us from fear and ignorance to a more empowered state. When we understand something, we can begin to know it better. When we know what is happening to us and for us, we can step into awareness. From a place of awareness, we can then open ourselves to the ideas of choosing in a new way.

We have seen and reflected upon the consequences of trauma for us. This is not to feel stuck within it, but to now see why we want to grow beyond them and begin to heal the root causes.

In this section, we begin to explore the mind. Understanding the mind is a construct of ideas, experiences and meaning that we have developed or adopted as we have grown.

The mind, therefore, is non-physical in nature, and although the manifestations, symptoms or consequences of our trauma experiences may have physical expressions for us, the wound is energetic and spiritual (non-physical) in nature.

The mind then represents the way we understand and comprehend these energies.

Our logical mind requires information. We covered that in the last section. But information does not heal; it only informs. We use the information as a reference or instruction to guide our internal, subconscious process.

The subconscious mind is deeper than the conscious, thinking mind. It is not logical; it is much more abstract. It enjoys concepts and stories and expresses itself in ways that are not rational, reasonable or always logical. Each of us will have our own interpretations and expressions of the subconscious mind.

As we work through this section, it is important to adapt the knowledge and information in a way that your subconscious mind can explore. That may take some exploration or asking questions if something doesn't seem to work for you.

The concepts of addressing and healing and then reconditioning the subconscious mind are the same, but how we comprehend and find benefit from them can vary. Some people might prefer language, others visuals, and some respond better to sounds. There isn't a correct way to do the work once we understand it, only what is useful and helpful for you.

The lessons in this section are a combination of information, insights and concepts. Some of them have practices for you to develop a deeper understanding, adapt to your own way and build skills that can be used for the deeper processes of healing core wounds.

It is up to you to begin experimenting and figuring out what works for you to build a foundation before tackling any more in-depth healing work.

As we have moved through this process, a lot may have changed and shifted within us, and we may have noticed other things have stayed with us. Healing and recovery a process, and the pace we need as we follow it is determined by our nervous system.

It wants to heal, but it also wants to protect us. So moving too fast or facing too much too soon may seem like too much for us. Instead of fighting the process, pushing ourselves too hard, finding balance and acceptance is more preferable to creating a foundation of wellness.

This course has focused mostly on your internal world and personal healing. You might find that now you are more established in your healing here you want to consider developing your life design and looking at the relationship and environmental aspect of your healing.

We have dedicated courses and bundles for the next step of healing with regard to relationships.

Healing for Connection Bundle contains all our courses focused on relationships and would be a great next step for you.

It includes:

• How I Like to Be Loved

• Being Yourself in Relationships

• Healing Through Connection.

You might also want to join Love School as a Community Member and become part of our main membership, or buy our entire Curriculum Bundle package and have access to all the courses and content hosted in the space.

In this section, I have included additional content links that might be relevant throughout your process.

Remember, you can always ask questions on any of the lessons, bring your insights and explorations to the discussions or join us for group sessions to dive into something you want to gain perspective or understanding about.