Full Circle Fridays|Week 25: Yoga

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Commonly considered a spiritual practice, yoga itself comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “to unite”. Essentially, yoga is about uniting the body and mind. This practice is aimed at bringing harmony to the whole system, so I try not to focus on the fact that it’s spiritual in nature as that may be triggering for some. Thinking of it as a harmony between mind and body and your human spirit is my best definition. The reason I love this resource is that, so very often, trauma survivors experience quite a disconnect between their mind and body. Dissociation, numbing, medicating, and the like are all protective coping skills that keep the mind from feeling into the body and the body from being recognized by and communicating with the mind. Unlike just using the breath as with meditation or breathwork, yoga is an active use of the body while focusing on the breath, linking it gentle to the movements of the poses, and deepening stretches with the relaxation of the exhale.

While I understand this practice isn’t for everyone, and I personally and by proxy know many survivors who dislike yoga, it’s a practice that comes with my high recommendation to at least try. If you end up in the bucket of yoga-scorners, that’s totally okay. Giving it a bit of an upfront effort though may allow it to become one of your most cherished exercises. Yoga is low-impact, often low-cardio, and generally low-effort on the body. Simply put, yoga is always at your own pace, to cater to your own abilities, with no need to rush or push yourself into a pose or to force your body to comply. It’s like giving yourself a trauma-informed care workout.

Along with the benefits physically in working out muscle tension, stress, and rigidity in the body from the years of enduring what we survivors have endured — yoga also promotes overall wellbeing, stamina, flexibility, and calmness while also centering the mind, grounding the spirit, and strengthening the physical core.

There are many different varieties of yoga which I’ll allow you to explore on other sites that are able to explain them all much better than me. However, I will say that my experience with years of many types of yoga has personally given me a greater depth to my flexibility, emotional tolerance, and allowed me to make room for my shortcomings by offering self-love and self-compassion during practices. I am quite a physically rigid person from years of chronic stress and dysfunction. I carry the weight of joint pain and pretty severe inflammation. Yoga allows for a melting away of that internal tightness, while my mind is able to calm itself with balanced breathing and focus on my mind/body connection.

A great place to start if you’ve never tried it is Hatha Yoga — which is the basic core poses and introductory style to yoga as a practice. My favorite, and one of the more challenging yoga techniques, is called Forrest Yoga. It’s akin to Pilates in its gentle difficulty — still following the generic principles of yoga in that the movements are linked with the breath, being kind to yourself is key, and to show up where and how you are. There is aqua yoga, aerial yoga, and regular floor yoga on a mat. There is guided yoga with hands-on posture correction. Now there is trauma-informed yoga practices so that they are yoga instructors but with a trauma informed background for those who really struggle to get into their body and/or who may possibly get triggered if touched. If you find yoga difficult, there’s a type of bodywork called Thai Yoga Massage where you lay on a mat with clothes on and a trained massage therapist puts your body into yoga stretches and uses gentle massaging to deepen the stretches. You just lay there and focus on your breath and enjoy the relaxing massage.

If the class setting isn’t your taste (or safety/comfort level), there are so many online instructors now. (Shout out to the Pandemic for popularizing home exercise classes.) You also could take a few basic yoga classes, or even read some self-yoga books, just to learn the basic poses, and then practice them completely at your own pace and interest level.

I have a routine, first thing in the morning (after drinking a giant glass of water), of stretching my hips and lower back, and doing basic “cat”/”cow” poses to awaken my spine for the day along with some basic neck rolls and core stretches. To end each day (after usually rolling on my foam roller), I do some chest openers, hamstring stretches after a day of sitting, and full body tension releases before going to sleep.

Yoga has just become a part of my habitual rituals. I encourage you to give it a class or three a try. I can say over the years that I know exactly what I want in an instructor now — so sometimes you have to get through a few classes until you find the right teacher who matches your style. Then, you stalk their class relentlessly! Believe it or not, I have never done a true hot yoga class, although I have done yoga in hot outdoor settings. So a real Bikram yoga class is on my bucket list to try soon, so I’m still even learning! If you have questions about this episode or would like to learn more about bodywork, gentle physical movements, or energy work, feel free to reach out. I would be more than happy to help you resource yourself to try any number of available modalities to help rebuild your mind/body/spirit connection.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 23: Workbooks

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Disclaimer: This topic I’m sharing on today is a resource that I haven’t personally used. This episode is based purely from education I’ve received about this, as well as hearing feedback from people I personally know who have tried this.

Self-help workbooks, as they are widely known, can be a helpful tool for some survivors. Sometimes referred to as “therapy workbooks” or “self-therapy”, these are designed for people who are suffering from cognitive and behavioral disorders or tendencies. There is a plethora of these workbooks in the market over the last decade. These are almost always for specified topics: Complex PTSD, OCD, Somatic work, Anxiety, Reconnecting to the Body, and more.

Who are these workbooks good for? My personal understanding is that anyone can try this type of invention. And I suppose there is no harm in trying — with the caveat being that you know the workbook may not be enough for your psychological situation. For some, this may be a good supplement in addition to regular psychiatric care, while some use it as a standalone or while on a long waiting list for a trauma therapist. Still — those who are suicidal need immediate help from people who can stabilize them, and also someone, in my opinion, with relational after effects of trauma need a relationship model — like therapy or coaching.

With that said, some of these workbooks are great for learning lots of coping mechanisms and provenly helpful modalities like CBT, DBT, guides visualizations, IFS, mindfulness, body awareness, self-inquiry, somatic experiencing, and other techniques. To try them would mean to do the reading, and then follow guided exercises as you follow the self-therapy protocol given in each workbook. For some, these have been game changers. Others found it hard to keep themselves accountable to the work or found the self-exercises too difficult to do. I have read that some users find writing answers to tough questions more challenging than talking about your answers, while still others like it better.

The workbooks are designed as a teaching model which exercises used to implement the lessons. Similar to any school workbook, these are almost always done sequentially and are a form of spiral learning as you solidify concepts from week to week. As a supplement to other courses that you are enrolled in or other therapies you are involved with, I would assume you could jump to certain sections of the workbook that reinforce something you’ve been integrating outside the workbook.

For me, the most important thing to keep an eye out for with these workbooks is to do some research on the author. These should be well-accredited, trauma-trained authors. For many workbooks, there is a reading book that started it all. So read the book, perhaps, first, to make sure you agree with the material and that the book itself is full of the education that you need and the insights that your spirit is looking for. Then, the workbook may be more effective. If you aren’t much for reading, just do a little research on the author of the workbook and make sure that your needs align with their methods. For each subject, there will be multiple workbooks, so finding the one that will best work for you could mean the difference between it being useful to you in your specific trauma needs versus having a bad experience or getting frustrated with the process.

The biggest reason I’m interested in this topic is because there are some clients that I think might be good candidates for adding workbooks into our coaching practice; ones that are designed for cognitive reframing and re-training specifically that would give them extra support throughout the week between sessions. So if you have any insights on this topic that you’ve personally used or any recommendations — I’d love to check them out so I can personally vet a few workbooks myself. If you have any questions or need additional trauma-trained resources and support, as always, please reach out to connect with me or schedule a free consult today. I look forward to hearing from you.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 22: Voice & Choice

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Trauma survivors who begin to heal often recognize how much they were not allowed to or safe to vocalize their preferences or wants and needs. Abuse and trauma inflicted by someone in power over you makes so many demands on you that you quickly realize there is no place for your decisions or your desires. Especially for children, self-abandonment is very common. It’s a coping mechanism in order to help you stay safe and not be targeted by your abusers — you learn to reject parts of yourself, to suppress down emotions and feelings and wishes. You lose yourself to your abuser. Many developmental trauma survivors will say they felt like they absorbed the emotions and desires of the abusive figure in their life, and they literally may have lost touch with their own sense of self. This means that not only was there a long period of just suppressing and silencing yourself, but after time, you can truly feel as if you really don’t have emotions or wants. This even can lead to complete self-neglect as you start believing you aren’t worth even basic human needs like food and hygiene.

A big step in the trauma recovery process is learning to become self-aware, reconnecting with your own human body and with your emotions, recognizing that you have preferences and desires, and realizing that you are allowed to make choices for yourself and then voice your own choices to others. This can be a very difficult part of the process and may take a long time to rewire the brain into allowing you to do these once very unsafe things.

If you haven’t heard it yet, you have a choice. You are safe in this space to want something for yourself; you are allowed to have a desire and to go after it. You can decide for yourself — whether it’s a boundary, a preference, saying no, or just walking away. Anything you need, you have the right to ask for it, go get it yourself, work toward it, or seek it from others. You have a choice to not do something that makes you uncomfortable or scared, anything that hurts, something that doesn’t align to your moral compass, or even just something you aren’t in the mood to do at that time. You have a choice. Listen carefully — you have a choice.

Sometimes the work takes time to even get to that point — to even reconnect with your true self enough to even see the light that you want something and that it’s NOT selfish. I am speaking from years of personal experience. Once you get there, next you may encounter another hurdle where you finally know that you actually want or don’t want something, but you don’t feel safe or brave enough yet to speak it out loud. That is okay. Self-awareness is always the first step. This is where I challenge clients to try using their voice in inconsequential situations. Practice a boundary in the grocery store check out line by asking someone too close to you to please give you some space. Practice telling a co-worker “No” when they ask for your help — then try it more times without the excuses or even the apologizing that usually follows a No. Just a “no thanks, I can’t do that right now.” You can also try asking a stranger for help with something — like to reach something high on a shelf. You can buy yourself something nice and then practice self-kindness talk when the guilt tries to kick in to make you feel selfish. If you routinely don’t take a full hour lunch or your breaks, start taking those. They are yours; take back that power by allowing yourself a bit of time to indulge every day. These are small ways you can voice your opinion, ask for what you need, and give yourself some self-care and grace to start feeling more confident in your self-awareness and reconnection with what you want. These small circumstances where you can practice should be people who you don’t really care about or maybe ones you’ll never even see again. There’s no harm in just practicing your voice & choice speeches on them just to get the hang of it.

From there, it will, I promise, get easier to ask your partner for what you need sexually, to tell your in-laws no when they ask to come over, to not cater to your boss’s whims when they keep changing your shifts around without notice, to honor your body when you need a rest and to not feel guilty for taking a self-care moment, and to stand up for yourself when someone is treating you like a pushover. It can seem ridiculously hard if you are still back at the beginning of this journey — but this is where life gets really good. This is where you no longer are willing to suppress your true self, silence your inner longings, and self-abandon.

As a trauma-trained recovery coach who practices trauma-informed care, I constantly remind my clients they always have voice and choice. They get to decide what we talk about and what we work on. They can always say no. Even if they at first say “yes” they want to try X, they can stop at any time. You will never hurt my feelings by not being okay talking about something, and I will continually ask consent before we dive into a topic to make sure this is still how you want to use your time. You even have voice and choice from the very first initial appointment which is, albeit, a very formal, not-client led intake session. My 90-min intake appointment is a bit rigid with me asking the questions so I can get all the forms done so from there on you can use your sessions the way you’d like. However, even in that intake process, you are never obligated to answer any questions or divulge information that you aren’t ready to talk about. And, in my opinion, everyone in your inner circle should be helping you to regain your voice and choice and never hindering your process or forcing you to self-abandon your trueness when they are around. So take an inventory of those closest to you and make sure they are supportive to this part of the process. If they aren’t honoring your newly found voice and choice, it may be time to reconsider their role in your life. Anything I can do to help, feel free to reach out and connect. Keep voicing and choicing your way back to your authentic self!

Full Circle Fridays|Week 21: Useful

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

On Wednesday’s episode, we talked about discovering which coping skills from your trauma have become no longer needed, that aren’t serving you anymore, or even have been destructive to your well-being. Today, I want to wrap around that concept with some resources that may be useful to survivors so that you can begin to uproot those maladaptive coping mechanisms and re-plant some useful ways to be supported as you seek health and wellness in your trauma recovery.

My personal philosophy is that we are made up of many components. I don’t think that you’ll just find the perfect therapist and your life will change forever. I also don’t believe that you can just find the love of your life and all the pieces will fall into place. I believe in a whole balance of all your main parts: mental, physical, spiritual, psychological, interpersonal, intrapersonal, social, sexual, nutritional, recreational, financial, educational, familial, environmental, and probably a few more that you can think of for your own personal journey. These pillars are areas where we can find healthy attributes and actions that can come together to create a synergy of support, health, and positivity. You may know someone, for instance, who has so many friends and has a great outdoor lifestyle of regular activities but hates their job or their spouse. The imbalance there is going to eventually cause a suffering. As trauma survivors, we have suffered enough. The work we do on our trauma recovery road is deep, painful at times, and healing. In this process, it’s important that we do what we can to find peace in other areas of our lives as best as we can. Again, this is an ongoing progressive lifestyle challenge. The universe is going to ebb and flow your current situation from time to time. No one can be a happy, millionaire, fun, model all the time! Nor should that be the goal.

Here’s where you get to have some fun. Here’s where you get to set your sights on a vision of what a peaceful, happy life looks like for YOU. This exercise may also be a bit triggering as you investigate, so don’t get down on yourself too hard when examining these things. Take some time, when you are grounded and safe, to make a little inventory of some of these cornerstone areas of your life. Write down what each one means for you, figure out what would be useful ways to move ever so slightly toward your most ideal, and then start some small practices. Finding balance in some of these areas will naturally start to move you away from some of those maladaptive coping patterns that you’ve been in because you can begin offering your mind and body and spirit new tools to try when stressed, depressed, overwhelmed, or triggered. Having these ideas of useful resources in your back pocket gives your brain a larger variety of things to choose rather than just its usual default coping skill.

Here’s some ideas to get you started:

Mental — get out in nature to reconnect by disconnecting, turn off the news, find a therapist or coach, utilize a mood tracker app, ask for help when you need it, try volunteering somewhere meaningful to you

Physical — practice some joyful movement, go swimming just for fun, take a friend on a hike, switch up your routine, set an alarm to stand up once an hour at your desk to stretch, find a type of bodywork that you enjoy receiving

Spiritual — try meditation, keep a dream journal, ask someone you admire about their spiritual beliefs, seek help for any religious trauma in your past

Psychological — read “The Body Keeps the Score” (van der Kolk), if you believe you have a psychiatric issue consult with your doctor, ask a trusted family member about your family’s psychiatric health history, find a grounding technique that really works for you

Interpersonal — learn about active listening, join a team sport in your community, ask your partner to try couple’s counseling to improve communication skills for you both

Intrapersonal — work with an IFS practitioner to improve your Self energy and Self leadership, set aside time for self-inquiry and reflection at the end of the day, practice self-affirmations, look at yourself in the mirror for just two minutes in the morning and smile at yourself

Social — ask a friend to try a spin class at your gym, attend a function that seems casual and set a time to be able to excuse yourself, pick an acquaintance that you aren’t emotionally invested in so you can practice boundaries on them, try a book club

Sexual — Google “Goop’s Erotic Blueprint” and do some exploration of your inner workings, if you’ve had sexual trauma you can find a sexual trauma therapist, ask your partner to try something new with you if they are comfortable, practice self-care and self-exploration

Nutritional — try intuitive eating, work with a trauma trained practitioner who specializes in eating disorders, drink more water, turn off commercials when watching tv

Recreational — do something daring like rock wall climbing, if you have physical limitations try something adventurous via virtual reality, go somewhere you’ve never been in a 30-mile radius of your home, have a picnic at a local park

Emotional — get a “Feelings Wheel” and try to name your emotions, for ladies track your menstrual cycle to see if you have strong emotional dips that could be discussed with your doctor, allow any grief or anger from your past abuse to come to the surface in a safe way, find support with a coach or therapist to explore repressed emotions

Financial — find a trusted advisor, set up a budget, clip coupons for regularly needed items for just one month and explore the savings, think about whether it’s time to ask your boss for a raise, give to charitable organizations that mean something to you

Educational — try taking a free online mastermind in an area of learning that you are interested in, discover the power of YouTube by learning a new instrument, contemplate if maybe going back for another degree would make sense for you, for brain stimulation try a dance or pottery or art class just for fun, download some brain training apps

Familial — take an inventory of the relatives in your life and ask yourself which ones have your full trust and which ones you may need to have no contact with and everything in between, let your closest family know your trauma recovery journey so they can begin to understand you and the changes you are starting to make, find a family therapist if you believe it would be a help to any discord in your immediate family, set aside a family dinner night just once a week or once a month based on everyone’s schedules

Environmental — invest in an air filter at least for your bedroom, add more plants to your home and office, work with a professional to help you quit smoking, recycle, get a BPA free water bottle, try some detoxification patches

This is obviously not nearly a complete list. But I hope these are a few useful ideas to get the ball rolling as you take an inventory of these areas of your life. Imagine the power of implementing something small like daily self-affirmations for your intrapersonal health as a supplantation to the inner critic who loves to come in as a coping skill when you are under stress. Eventually, the affirming Self will have more habitual ground in your life than the critical. These are just some examples.

I will always stand by the opinion that everyone needs to find their own regimen for improving their day-to-day lifestyle, health, and wellness. It is imperative to have a strong healthy lifestyle while journeying down this trauma recovery maze. I would love to help anyway I can — so if you need some more ideas or for some personalized resources, reach out and connect with me. I’d love to hear what you do to help yourself in these key areas of life. Keep progressing and be gentle with yourself. A masterpiece isn’t painted in just a day. Small incremental changes will lead you to a content lifestyle. Find balance. You got this!

Full Circle Fridays|Week 20: Trauma Informed Care

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

I want to make sure that Survivors understand the importance of trauma-informed care, practices, and businesses. There is also another important factor when considering therapeutic care which is called “trauma trained”. This is what I want to share with you today to be sure that you have the best possible options of finding people and professionals that will gently and responsibly care for you and your specific needs.

Trauma Informed Care (also called “Trauma Responsive” or “T.I.C.”) is a model of caring for clients, students, patients, employees, or anyone under your advisement with not just the standards of dignity and respect. This practice goes deeper by changing the lens in which is looks at other humans and what they might be going through. This approach is assumptive that others have been through traumas and is willing to acknowledge the aftereffects that an individual may be suffering.

The six guiding principles according to the CDC are: safety, trustworthiness & transparency, peer support, collaboration, empowerment & choice, and recognizing cultural issues and differences.

A business or school, for instance, stating they are T.I.C. means they are equipped to acknowledge any trauma impact and to work hard to not re-traumatize someone in the aftermath of any incidents that need T.I.C. to be implemented. Some examples of this would be how an establishment’s guidelines are set to handle discipline issues, behavioral crises, or the uncovering of substance misuse. This also looks like creating an inclusive environment welcoming everyone, leadership being examples of vulnerability when mistakes are made, using calm and clear communication of desired behaviors, allowing everyone to set their own healthy boundaries, not labeling, giving ample notice before making changes that affect the company’s population, making sure there is an open door waiting for anyone who would like to seek services or crisis management or discuss their stress-related matters, and considering different cultures so as to make generalized statements.

Looking for trauma-informed doctors, legal aid, insurance carriers, childcare, schools, and workplaces can be the difference in your overall wellbeing and your continued healing journey. Imagine making huge strides in your trauma recovery, only to be re-traumatized by a doctor who doesn’t know how to approach a weight-related issue with trauma informed care to discuss the possibility of disordered eating or triggers around your weight. If you are working diligently in your personal childhood trauma healing but have so much work-related stress that you start to breakdown, you would want an HR team that you can feel safe to discuss your issues with and to figuring out how to implement changes to improve your wellbeing so you can remain an effective employee. Without this, your boss may see some behavior that seems like you are not “giving work your best effort” and end up letting you go without even knowing what you are dealing with. It’s important for someone stepping out of a domestic violence situation to have compassionate childcare so that there is room for some flexibility in dealing with the parent pick up for instance — as well as being empathetic to your child’s behaviors which may be stemming from the disruptive home life.

A step beyond trauma informed care in business practices, I believe it incredibly important to find therapeutic support that is actually trauma trained. This would be your therapist, coach, psychiatrist, and anyone else in charge of your mental health care. There is a clinical difference here between going to a therapist who has trauma informed care guidelines as a standard of administration, practice, policies, and consent versus a therapist who is specifically trauma trained in helping you with your trauma history and mental health and wellbeing.

As trauma survivors, as often as you can, you want to find trauma responsive businesses. It would the same as finding grocery stores that have a wide organic section or buying from vendors with cruelty-free products as some examples of circumstances that honor a person’s goals and desires in their life. For you, a trauma informed gas station may not be important, but your workplace or community co-op that you visit regularly would be very helpful. For your clinical needs like therapy, ‘trauma-trained’ is the key words you are looking out for. As a trauma-trained coach, I would love to help you surround yourself with people who can be sensitive with you along your journey. If you need advice, support, or person- or region-specific resources, feel free to reach out. I look forward to helping you with this and any of your trauma recovery needs.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 11: Keys

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

If you are new to this podcast/blog — this is a perfect episode/post to jump in on. I’m recapping from our most important ‘key ideas’ from past episodes, AND we have a special offer today!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Today marks our 33rd episode together! I want to thank you all for joining me as we walk our trauma recovery healing journey together. It’s been my honor to speak to you these past episodes, and I look forward to delivering more helpful content to serve you the best that I can. Also, I have been contacted by a few trauma survivors, authors, and other coaches who want to do interviews with me on the podcast. So in the coming future — look out for some “Saturday Specials” where I’ll have bonus content collaborating with special guests right here on the Trauma Survivorhood podcast. Lastly — if you are listening to this episode — I want to offer you a podcast discount on an initial appointment. First steps — schedule your 20-minute complimentary discover call and see if coaching is right for you and if we are a good match to work together. If you move forward coaching with me, you can use coupon code PODCAST33 for your initial 90-minute intake appointment to receive 33% off!

*This cannot be combined with any other discounts or coupons, and must be scheduled and paid for by Friday, April 8, 2022 — so schedule your discovery call soon and let’s get started our journey together!*

Now for today’s episode. I want to talk about some of the keys to even starting, figuring out, and maintaining trauma recovery. Let’s get going! Over the past 32 episodes, you’ve heard me say plenty of “this is super important” or “this is really key” or sometimes I’m fancy and say “this is so paramount” for our healing. Let’s take a look back at some of those. (Many of those episodes are mentioned today. For a few list all episodes, check out the podcast’s website here.)

Way back on the Basics episode, I explained that it is a big key to even recognize that trauma survivors are often disconnected from their mind, body, and their True Self. In the CBT episode, I shared how awareness is really a key step. In fact, I said, specifically to CBT, awareness must be the first step in finding help. In the Four Fs show, I shared how important it is to understand the Four Fs in order to recognize which one(s) you gravitate toward and when you are steering into a Four F response. In the Good Enough post, I challenged you in the importance of being able to recognize the coping skills you developed if you were an under- or over- parented child. Obviously — the theme here is that awareness to your situation, recognizing your abuse or traumas, seeing how it shaped you, and knowing truly how you are now as a trauma survivor are the first steps in really even starting the journey.

During the Flood episode, which was a guided meditation in case of a trigger attack, I said the first key was establishing safety in your body and the space you are in. In Everything & Nothing, I said that mindfulness within your meditation practices is key to begin being present so you can reconnect to your mind and body. In the Humming episode, I stated that Vagus Nerve Stimulation is key to calming anxiety and relaxing the body. The thread tells us that once we can be aware of our current circumstances and our coping skills within our trauma world, we need to shift from constantly being on edge to a state of being present with our body, mind, breath, and finding peace in the present moments. This allows us to reconnect to ourselves, others, and the world around us — which is of course exactly what our trauma disconnected us from. For many of us, this is a practice — either with mindfulness practices regularly, in some kind of self-care practice, or therapy or coaching schedule. The more often we can practice being with our emotions and in our own body, the more apt we are to be able to stay with them when we are triggered. In the Everything & Nothing medication, I quipped that “this is the more important thing you’ll do all day, yet it is nothing at all.”

In the CBT episode, I declared that an important part of the CBT therapy process is to challenge your thoughts with curiosity. This doesn’t just apply to that modality. It is in fact how we must come into our emotions, body, and mind — with curiosity. It is how we coach in our sessions. I help train you to stay curious by being curious for you with lots of questions to help root out how you came to believe things you believe about yourself so we can challenge those feelings with gentleness. That’s why we call Trauma Recovery Coaching client-led because you are leading your own healing, and even when your coach speaks it’s often to ask questions to lead you further into your thoughts or feelings until you find what you are searching for.

In Acne of the Soul, I shared how important it is to give yourself permission to decide what’s right FOR YOU and what’s not. In the Basics episode, I explain how important it is to find a self-care regimen that works for you. In Books, I state that the “process is more important than the destination” when we talk about trauma recovery. I want you to hear that NO ONE can direct your healing. As your coach, my job is not to tell you what you must do, but to tell you some ideas of what you CAN do to help yourself. For instance, I will simply be reminding you that self-care is a must for survivors, challenge you to find something that is self-care, and ask how you are doing with it. What that looks like for you is not for me to dictate. Along the way, you’ll discover things that don’t work for you. There may be certain grounding techniques that make you more activated based on your abuse history. You may not be ready for a particular level of breathing. You may hate yoga. Perhaps you know you have to find a fulfilling career, but you aren’t comfortable to leave a current position. THAT’S the process. That’s what I’m here to help you sort out, to listen as you muddle around your pros and cons lists, to challenge you but then encourage you if something doesn’t work out. We mustn’t be afraid of the process of finding our healing.

In the Basics episode, I said, for certain, that kindness is key. Later in the Kindness, Find Us episode, I double downed that even recognizing we have a self-kindness part is a must. In the Compassion episode, I commented that just by seeing our inner suffering, by looking at it, we can truly understand how important self-compassion really is. There is no easy way to go about this healing road. It’s bumpy, twisty, scary, dark at times, and definitely not a joy ride … and it’s worth it. Along the way, you will fail, falter, and fret. You must learn self-kindness and loving compassion to give yourself the patience and grace you need to do this hard work.

Finally, just recently in the Jubilation episode, I said “it is important to make room for celebration” of the small wins along the way. As your coach, I will never let you run on by a sentence of how you did X or said Y or didn’t do Z and NOT recognize this huge accomplishment. Whether it’s a boundary you kept, someone you said no to, a phone call from a triggering person that you didn’t answer, a new coping skill you used, an old coping skill you didn’t, a healthy risk you took, a complement you accepted, or anything of the like — I will help train you to celebrate your wins by reminding you how amazing you are even when it’s a small thing.

This journey is meant to be walked together. Consider being coached along your recovery path. We’ll find the Keys that work for you and get you set on a smoother, more manageable road. It will be my honor to follow along, point things out, encourage you, challenge you, and cheer for you because you are truly amazing!

Full Circle Fridays|Week 9: I.F.S.

Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Straight from the IFS Institute itself, “Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy… IFS is a movement. A new, empowering paradigm for understanding and harmonizing the mind and, thereby, larger human systems. One that can help people heal and helps the world become a more compassionate place.” IFS was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz just a few decades ago. In that short time, this model of therapy has revolutionized the lives of many trauma survivors. The basis of this model comes from the belief that all parts within each human have a positive purpose and intention, no matter the way they present to the human and the world as a whole. Before we go any further, let’s discuss what I just meant by “all the parts”.

Firstly, IFS identifies the Self as a whole, healed person. Your true Self, that authentic Self that I’m always going on and on about. The Self is not the watcher or observer the way that some meditation-based models explain it. The Self is the one who the watcher watches. The Self, the Seat of Consciousness as you may know it, is you. You can know you are operating as a Self-led being when you are experiencing the 8 C’s that IFS uses: confidence, calmness, creativity, clarity, curiosity, courage, compassion, and connectedness. When those 8 C’s are harmonized and working together, you would say you in your true Self. This is often described as feeling “Centered” — which is probably one of my favorite C words.

Next, the parts come into play. The IFS model is often called “parts work” when you are doing therapy literally working with your parts.

The Exiles are the (often) child-aged parts that have been isolated from the system due to trauma or abuse, which are shunned, shamed, feared, or guilted into exile. Exiles are the parts that are least heard, but that are one who want to be heard the most. Because Exiles are traumatized and often silenced or invisible, they can be hard to find. Once found, they can be hard to communicate with. However, the Exiles are what IFS intends to root out, listen to, and heal.

The Protectors jobs are all attempts to keep the Exiles from being seen because they hold so much shame and fear and guilt so that the Protectors feel they are a threat to entire system. The Protectors come in two forms: Managers and Firefighters.

Managers are a proactive role — the ones who like to keep the system in order. They are protecting the system from ever getting out of control — at work, in relationships, in stressful situations, anywhere. The Managers’ jobs are to keep the system from being hurt, rejected, or shamed anymore. This can come in the form of caretaking, overworking, drill sergeant like task management, overachieving, overanalyzing, strict preparing, constant planning, worrying, complicating relationships and events with overthinking, and drastic protective measures, etc.

Firefighters are the reactive parts that, when an Exile gets triggered, it lashes out in an attempt to put out the fire of feeling the Exile’s (often strong) emotions. This looks like self-destructive behavior, risky choices, self-harm, suicidal ideation, binge-eating, drug and alcohol addictions, any number of numbing behaviors, and more.

Both protectors are working to control the system from the Exile being activated, they just approach with different techniques. Both protectors believe they are doing what they can to attend to the Exiles, and to keep the system safe and healthy. This is why IFS believes that all parts of a person are intended for good, no matter the outcome of their protective style. Even the parts that seem self-punitive are honestly self-protecting. This shift in thinking allows you to befriend your parts, hear them, be gentle and kind to them, and work toward a resolution instead of striving to just “stop doing the negative behavior” associated with each part’s role.

This is why I personally believe that all healing is always possible because the system is always trying to keep the true Self functioning. Along the way, you have learned coping skills — some protectors that have been around since the very first instance of abuse as a child — to keep you safe. They did serve a purpose. As a child, if you couldn’t leave your dysfunctional home and the only solace you found was in binge-eating junk food, that mechanism allowed you to survive in the home until you could leave. That’s why it’s no longer serving you now, why you can appreciate its role in your life then, and why you can heal that part (the binge-eating protector AND the exiled scared inner child who used the binge-eating to survive). You can indeed heal through inner child work, re-parent yourself now, heal your exiles (which are often very young versions of yourself), and make a full circle recovery back to your true, centered Self. IFS can help you rebuild your intrapersonal bridge within yourself, repair your self-trust, and reunite with your self-abandoned dreams and goals like we spoke on a few weeks ago.

Recently, I recommended Dr. Schwartz’ book No Bad Parts in my episode called ‘Books’. I personally have been self-studying parts work for a few years and have entered into the self-exploration of my own inner child healing since the Pandemic. I am working on joining an IFS circle training this spring. I am not trained as IFS-certified, however, I do use a lot of this language in my coaching sessions. If you had developmental trauma, IFS is impactful and healing down to the roots of your original traumas.

Because I’m not clinically trained in this modality, I’m going to encourage you on a couple of things. Firstly, read No Bad Parts to get a better grasp beyond this quick synopsis that I just shared with you. This was a very incomplete quick overview. Keep learning and even try some of the self-therapy exercises in the book.

Next, think about whether you are at a place in your trauma recovery journey where you believe IFS Therapy would be a good step for you. Whatever you decide, coaching is always an option for you. However, I don’t plug IFS just to plug my own coaching services. I honestly want you to find healing, and I know the IFS model process can help. Please send me a message on the “Connect” tab of my website if you are not able to find an IFS therapist, are placed on long wait lists, or are struggling to know if IFS is right for you. I will help you with any resources I can offer. Even being coached with this type of language while I work on my own training can be helpful for you especially if you have read Schwartz’ books on this topic and are able to flesh out the basic concepts. I can help you go a bit deeper while you wait for a trained therapist’s help as well. Healing the inner child is work that will literally change the trajectory of your adulthood from here on out. I look forward to walking this journey with you.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 7: Gaslight

*Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

You’ve probably heard this buzzword throughout the past decade. Gaslight was a 1944 movie created from a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. If you can stomach the film, the insight into the term we now use as a common verb “gaslighting” will make this concept very clear. At 14 years old, Paula, played by Ingrid Bergman, witnessed her aunt being murdered. After that trauma, she was sent to study opera in Italy. Years later there, she has a two-week love affair with a man who she falls in love with, and they marry and return to London to live in her aunt’s home that she has inherited. In order to help her with her traumatic memories in the home, her husband, Gregory, played by Charles Boyer, tells her to put all the house’s belongings in the attic and seal it up. With a criminal mentality and a desire to take these riches for himself, Gregory later goes into the shut-up attic himself to investigate all the pirate’s booty stored from the wealthy aunt’s estate. While up there, Paula is hearing the sounds in the attic, and the gas lights in the home start to dim as he creeks around up there. When she tells him this, he has to cover his tracks, so he lies and tells her she is imagining the whole thing. This is where we get the phrase “gaslighting”. He told her she must be seeing and hearing things because he didn’t see the gas lights flickering. It’s only the start of the many things that Gregory says to get Paula that have her slowly start thinking she’s gone “mad”.

This. Is. Psychological. Abuse.

There’s a broach she thought she had lost, which he actually stole. He tries to make her feel forgetful, so he moves a picture off the wall and tells her she moved it and that she must have forgotten. He hides a piece of jewelry, and then in front of everyone at a party, she pulls it from her handbag and gets hysterical thinking she stole it. After this meltdown, he decides it’s best for her not to go out in public, which starts an abuser’s favorite tactic: isolation.

This real-life process doesn’t happen in a two-hour movie time frame. This is a slow, manipulation over days, months and sometimes years. An abuser uses gaslighting as a control move to make the victim feel, through their lies, that they are going insane. Without having a trust in their own sanity, the victim begins to not trust themselves to do another else. It turns into a helplessness where now they rely more and more on their abuser because they think the abuser is the only one helping them. This can look similar to Stockholm Syndrome. In the movie, in order to “keep her safe” from herself, Gregory has a plan lined up to get her placed in an institution and take over the legal rights to the estate and her care, which would allow him full say over her life and inherited wealth. So dangerous. All this time, he is straight out lying to her making her think she is the one who has gone crazy. This is brainwashing. These are invisible chains.

When a detective, Inspector Cameron, played by Joseph Cotton, eventually gets involved in Paula’s life, he starts to piece together what is really going on. One scene I love goes like this:

Paula (distraught and hollering about the events): He said I was going out of my mind!!

Inspector: You’re not going out of your mind. You’re slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind.

Well, if that isn’t the truth! What’s the irony here is that it is so upsetting to think you are not mentally well, so when someone makes you feel like that even though you are well, you actually can start to feel confused enough to question the reality of everything. Everything becomes messy and garbled as if you are insane. It’s a terrible abuse that truly can make you mentally unwell even when you weren’t in the beginning.

This is one of the most common types of abuse techniques used. When the gaslighter’s control or abuse is recognized in the early stages of a relationship, the victim may speak out to their abuser. Gaslighting is a response like “trust me, I’m only doing this because I love you”. “Why are you being so sensitive?” “If you were better with spending, I wouldn’t have to do be in charge of the checkbook. I don’t even want to handle the finances, but you can’t do it, so I have to.” They will also straight out lie once they’ve gained trust. They’ll tell you a friend said something horrible about you to them and make you start questioning your outside relationships. Isolation and confusion are always what they are going for.

Any type of relationship can have gaslighting. From a boss, partner, child/parent, even friends. I have had a number of relationships where I have discovered I was being gaslit. A rule of thumb I use now in given situations is: When I’m in a discussion and I start to think “wait, am I going crazy?”, I stop and think “Gaslighting!!” And I end the conversation. Do I really think to myself, “am I going crazy?” Yes. There are people in my life that will twist me in a corner, and I actually have a cognitive thought about the confusion of my actions, words, perception. If they tell me “you didn’t say that”, and I start to wonder, “wait, did I say it or am I going crazy?” If they say “you’re being too sensitive, I didn’t even mean it like that”, my brain whispers “are you too sensitive or are you just going crazy?” It’s the strangest thing, but psychology calls this “crazy making” — something that draws your cognition, emotions, or feelings to start feeling illogical or not able to trust your perception. This makes you start wondering about reality all together. It’s very scary. Once in a while, it may truly be a miscommunication — but if I find myself thinking this over and over with the same person or in the same conversation, it’s time to run!

If you are in a relationship of any kind with someone who is a narcissist, you know this type of gaslighting behavior better than anyone! If you’ve had any type of experience with gaslighting, this is a type of trauma — a psychological abuse. This is not just something to brush off. You may still be struggling with lack of self-trust if you’ve endured gaslighting for any season of your life. This also makes you more susceptible to gaslighting relationships in the future, so it’s common if you’ve encountered multiple gaslighting traps. Maybe you are even still in one right now. Maybe because it’s gone on for so long and you love the person so much, you aren’t even sure if you are in a gaslighting situation, but you are wondering.

With any of this, and more, I’d love to help you discover the truth from the lies your abuser told you, help you rebuild the self-trust bridge inside yourself, and work through any narcissistic healing. Please reach out if you need support in this area. If not to me, to any professional who can help you get a reality check from the outside looking in. Be careful who you choose to talk to about this — because if they are close to and believing your abuser’s side of the story, they may confirm their lies and make you doubt yourself even that much more. On the “Connect” tab of my website, please send me a message if you have questions about this episode’s content.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 1: Agency

*Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

To round out our week one – where on Mindful Monday I discussed the duality of life and on Wellspring Wednesday I explored how each person has to discover their own regimen for well-living – I thought I’d come full circle today with the word “agency”.  This topic goes beyond trauma survivors today, as it’s applicable to all people no matter your circumstances.  I shared on Monday the complexities of the opposite nature of life and how this can actually be useful to recognize that we have options and availability by not being stuck in one path of thinking.  Wednesday, I spoke on how each person can use these options to design a systematic regimen of self-care to live their possible life – even after trauma. 

When you look at the information that’s out there – I often find myself feeling overwhelmed with the seemingly contradictory science behind self-improvement.  I read a lot of books and listen to even more podcasts.  As someone with many biological after-effects of trauma myself, I have to limit my intake of “health and wellness” education.  In one morning, I could listen to a podcast where this brilliant scientist and world renown author might be on one of my most trusted host’s shows talking about what to eat, when to eat it, how to fast, for how long, and why.  I could flip to the very next podcast in queue only to find an equally qualified, totally believable, passionate health guru unwittingly totally debunk the prior guest with all kinds of similarly researched “must follow” diets and fasting rituals.   You’ve all heard these things … one website says a glass of wine is actually good for you and another says any alcohol in any form at any time is taking years off your life.  One site swears to completely have a breakthrough with intermittent fasting, and yet still another will tell us ‘intuitive eating’ is the new health craze sweeping the nation.   One says plant-based is the only right way, and another scientist literally only eats meat for a month.  Sometimes these “contradictions” make my head spin.  The truth is, we still don’t understand enough about the body, the mind, and certainly not the soul enough to have ANY completely conclusive answers to literally anything.  For instance, I have to take food specific info completely with a grain of salt (pun intended) due to my health conditions and a rare GI disease.  I have had to figure out specifically what works for me no matter what my podcasts tell me to try – like what I was saying about discovering and designing your own best life your own way on Wednesday.

So what does this have to do with “agency”?  I want to challenge you to explore your personal agency today.  I don’t want today to be a concept to try or a book to read … I want today to be about you evaluating your own choices.  Maybe you need to account for another person’s abuse and how you got to where you are today.   You can take an inventory of how you handle your day-to-day life, and you can judge yourself (kindly) about what you would like to be different in this New Year.  2022 is primed for taking ownership of your own self-agency.  You can direct your own steps – everything from learning to follow your own intuition to actually reading a book someone recommends.  No matter where you consume wisdom, advise, self-help tips, and the like – it all starts with understanding the nature of your own agency.  The more in control you feel of your own choices, by giving power to yourself rather than to your abuser, the more you are going to be free to exercise within that power.  I want you to know that personal agency is something no one can GIVE you and no one can TAKE from you.  Abusers ultimately want more power and control and so they are trying to steal yours.  Please, don’t let them do this.  One of the first steps a survivor takes to move into survivorhood from victimhood is to recognize and acknowledge their trauma.  Once you can fully understand what happened TO you, you can start taking back the power of what you are going to DO with what happened to you.  You can move forward and accomplish goals in your trauma recovery journey by recognizing that you are in the driver’s seat of your life. 

As a coach, it’s my work to help you read the map, create goals to getting to destinations, remind you to buckle up, assist if the car breaks down, sing along to the radio with you, read the manual to find a replacement part, keep you company, point out the speed limits, and other ‘passenger seat roles’.  I can’t sit in your driver’s seat though.  I can only remind you of your own agency, support your choices, encourage your ideas, and bum along for the ride of your lifetime. 

You are the agent of your journey.  You are truly the only one who can manifest any kind of change.  In fact, you are the only one who can decide when you even want anything to change.  You control your daily environment – no matter how stuck or lost you may feel.  That power you hold within your agency is the magical cure to allow yourself to dream again, to seek out the options and opportunities of life, to reclaim your inner child, to heal, and to grow.  There are many things in life that you can compare and contrast, and even more things that seem like total contradictions.  You have the influence and the impact to determine what’s best for your healing, how to go about pursuing it, and who to allow along for the ride.  Buckle up; it’s go time.