HeartMath®‑Informed Support for Trauma Therapy
This online group program is for adults already in trauma therapy whose bodies stay on high alert between sessions, even when they understand a lot about their story.
Together, we’ll build gentle, practical nervous system skills—using HeartMath®‑informed coherence practices—so you can arrive to therapy more resourced, more grounded, and less flooded.
This curriculum unfolds across three consecutive rounds — each one building on the nervous system foundation laid before it. You don’t have to commit to all three at once. Many people begin with Round 1 and find themselves ready for more. Each round stands on its own, and together they create a complete arc of healing: from the body, into relationship, and toward meaning.
You don’t have to know the science or have done groups before.
You just need a willingness to be gentle with yourself and try some new tools at your own pace.
Who This Group Is For
This group is designed for adults who:
- Are already working with a therapist on trauma, attachment, or chronic stress.
- Feel like their body snaps back into “high alert” between sessions, even when they leave therapy feeling clearer in their mind.
- Are tired of doing everything “right” and still not feeling safe or settled inside.
- Want support for their nervous system, not just their thoughts.
Who This Group Is Not For
This group is not a fit if you:
- Are not currently in individual therapy.
- Are in active crisis or don’t have basic safety in place.
- Need a processing‑heavy trauma group where sharing details of your story is the main focus.
This group is an adjunct skills group—meant to support, not replace, the work you are already doing with your therapist.
What We’ll Explore in 8 Weeks
Each round explores 8 research-grounded areas of nervous system regulation through the same gentle progression: psychoeducation to understand what’s happening, pattern identification to recognize it in your own life, and resourcing to build new capacity — with HeartMath coherence practice woven throughout as the somatic catalyst for lasting change.
The framework draws on polyvagal theory, interoception science, attachment research, somatic psychology, and meaning-making models (Porges, Levine, Ogden, Siegel, van der Kolk, Perry, Barrett, Bowlby, Ryan & Deci, Neff, Gilbert, Johnson, Shapiro, and others).
ROUND 1 · SOMATIC Coming Home to the Body
We begin where healing must always begin — in the body. Before insight, before story, before change, the nervous system needs to know it is safe enough to be present. Over 8 weeks, we gently explore what safety, agency, and rhythm actually feel like from the inside.
- Week 1 – Felt Safety We start by helping your body feel a little less braced and on guard — exploring what safety in your body, with others, and in your own self-talk can begin to feel like.
- Week 2 – Choice & Agency · Somatic We work with the body’s frozen or incomplete responses to stress — learning that your body has impulses, and that moving with them, gently, is the beginning of reclaiming choice.
- Week 3 – Choice & Agency · Reflective We focus on finding tiny pauses between trigger and reaction, so you can feel more choice in how you respond — instead of being driven only by pressure or old patterns.
- Week 4 – Choice & Agency · Relational We explore what it feels like to express a preference, hold a limit, or say something true in relationship — from a regulated body rather than a reactive one.
- Week 5 – Predictability & Rhythm We look at how “just enough” structure and rhythm — in your body, your environment, and your relationships — can steady your nervous system so life feels a bit less chaotic and more holdable.
- Week 6 – Interoceptive Awareness & Permission We practice noticing body sensations and emotions without immediately assuming something is wrong, building trust in your body’s signals as meaningful information.
- Week 7 – Physiological Regulation We work more directly with helping your body shift out of constant activation into moments of real settling and rest — so insight doesn’t land on a flooded system.
- Week 8 – Integration · The Regulated Body We gather everything the body has learned, create a personal regulation map, and design a simple, sustainable practice you can carry forward — into life, and into Round 2 if you’re ready.
ROUND 2 · RELATIONAL Being With Others Without Losing Yourself
Once the body has enough ground, we can risk something more — being known. Round 2 moves into the relational nervous system: how other people affect your internal state, what it takes to trust, and how to stay connected to yourself while remaining close to someone else.
- Week 1 – Orientation to the Relational Nervous System We explore co-regulation as biology, not weakness — and how other people can be medicine for a nervous system that has learned to manage alone.
- Week 2 – Interoception in Relationship We practice noticing what your body does with others — the signals that arrive before words, and what they’re trying to tell you.
- Week 3 – Trusting What You Feel We explore the difference between noticing a body signal and trusting it as real, useful information — especially in relational moments.
- Week 4 – Permission to Feel Together We build tolerance for sitting with sensation and emotion in the presence of others — learning that vulnerability doesn’t have to mean overwhelm.
- Week 5 – Relational Safety · Being Soothed by Another We explore what it means for your nervous system to actually settle in someone’s presence — and what gets in the way of letting that happen.
- Week 6 – Relational Safety · Risking Being Known We look at trust, emotional accessibility, and what it takes to let someone know you’re struggling — and actually receive their response.
- Week 7 – Relational Safety · Being Yourself While Being Close We work with the tender balance of intimacy and autonomy — staying connected to who you are while remaining genuinely close to another.
- Week 8 – Integration · The Regulated Relationship We consolidate the relational skills built across the round, practice HeartMath coherence in dyadic connection, and prepare for the meaning-making work of Round 3.
ROUND 3 · NARRATIVE Making Meaning of the Life You’ve Lived
Round 3 is where the body’s regulation and the relational safety built across the first two rounds finally create enough internal space to ask the deeper questions: What matters to me? What is my story? Who am I becoming? This is the integration round — where healing stops being something you do and starts being something you live.
- Week 1 – From Surviving to Meaning We explore what becomes possible when the nervous system is no longer spending all its energy on survival — and what it means to begin living toward something rather than away from something.
- Week 2 – Intrinsic Worth We gently loosen performance-based worth and begin listening for what it feels like to have value simply because you exist — not because of what you produce or provide.
- Week 3 – Values-Aligned Living We clarify what actually matters to you — separate from what you were taught should matter — and explore what it would feel like to let those values guide more of your daily life.
- Week 4 – Present-Moment Sufficiency We practice experiencing an ordinary moment as enough — without needing to justify it through accomplishment or productivity.
- Week 5 – Meaning Without Pressure We gently loosen performance-based worth and listen for the ways your life can feel meaningful even when you’re not “performing” or being productive.
- Week 6 – Narrative Coherence We make space for your story — not to rewrite the past, but to hold it in a way that makes sense, where even the painful parts have a place in the arc of your life.
- Week 7 – Memory Processing & Continuity We explore how experiences move through us — or get stuck — and what it means for healing to feel cumulative rather than fragile.
- Week 8 – Integration & Continuity We notice the patterns and shifts that have been building across all three rounds, and create a simple, sustainable regulation plan you can keep using long after the group ends.
How These Groups Support Your Therapy
These groups are designed to support the work you’re already doing with your therapist — not replace it. Each round gives your nervous system a weekly container for practice, community, and regulated experiential learning that deepens and extends individual therapy work.
You don’t need to know the science or have done groups before. You don’t need to commit to all three rounds at once. You just need a willingness to be gentle with yourself and try some new tools at your own pace.
Over time, participants in this curriculum report that they:
- Carry a sense of growth that actually lasts
- Recover more quickly when stress arrives
- Feel more at home in their own bodies
- Experience their relationships as safer and more nourishing
- Trust themselves to handle difficult emotions without shutting down
- Find meaning in ordinary moments rather than only in achievement
Important Boundaries and Safety
- You will never be asked to share details of your trauma story in order to participate.
- You choose how much or how little you speak in group; silent participation is welcome.
- All practices are invitational and paced; you can always opt out, take a break, or adjust anything to fit your capacity.
- This group focuses on skills, safety, and regulation, not on processing specific traumas in detail.
Group Details
- 8‑week online group (closed group once we begin).
- 75–90 minute meetings once a week.
- Small group size so there’s enough time and space for everyone.
- You’ll be invited to practice short exercises between sessions and notice what changes for you.
Investment
- Tuition: $1,600 per 8‑week group – payment plans are available
You can talk with your therapist about whether this group might support the work you’re already doing together.
About Your Facilitator
I’m Tamara Ridge, LMFT, a therapist with over 30 years of experience supporting adults healing from childhood and complex trauma.
My work now focuses on nervous system regulation, HeartMath®‑informed coherence practices, and creating trauma‑sensitive spaces where people can feel safe enough to change.
Ready to Learn More or Join the Next Group?
If you’re curious, you can:
- Talk with your therapist about whether this group might support your work together.
- Use the form below to ask questions or get details about upcoming start dates.
Once you submit the form, you’ll be taken to the group application.
For Clinicians: 8 Domains at a Glance
Each week focuses on one of eight regulation domains from the Nervous System Regulation Check‑In, each with three subdomains across body, relationship, and self.
- Felt Safety – safety in body, relationship, self‑compassion
- Choice & Agency – somatic, reflective, and relational agency
- Predictability & Rhythm – internal rhythms, external structure, relational predictability
- Interoceptive Awareness – noticing, trusting, and allowing body signals
- Physiological Regulation – autonomic flexibility, arousal modulation, state recovery
- Relational Safety – co‑regulation, emotional accessibility, connected autonomy
- Meaning Without Pressure – intrinsic worth, values‑aligned living, present‑moment enough‑ness
- Integration & Continuity – narrative coherence, memory processing, cumulative growth.
