Emotional flashbacks are moments where you feel an emotion or a mixture of emotions, sensations, and impulses that are linked to a time in your past. They are more amorphous than a flashback to a specific time of trauma, and may instead be associated with a time period in your life that contained many moments of neglect, abuse, chaos, or rage. Emotional flashbacks can make you feel rejected, alone, despairing, enraged, lost, and like this moment is the only truth in the whole world. Emotional flashbacks are also an opportunity. A flashback like this is like a post card from your inner child, saying, “Pssst! Hey, this is how it felt for me and still feels sometimes. Help me!” You can do some of your most effective inner child work ever by bringing your compassionate attention to that self as you’re having a flashback. If the emotions feel too tangled or it’s tough to connect with that child you just yet, you can still use this next flashback tool: Focus on your sensations and notice what’s going on in your body. Whatever the physical sensation is, try doing something that evokes a different sensation, even the opposite sensation! If you feel coldness, take a hot bath or make a hot tea or chocolate (or warm up some milk!). If you’re feeling contact-deprived and abandoned, hold yourself. If it’s a very young memory, rocking may help you. Flashbacks are nuisances, and they can be agonizing. They also offer us an opportunity to heal parts of ourselves that we may have forgotten about. Use this emotional flashback as an opportunity for healing.