Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 15: Objectivity

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 start off today, I want to give a shout out to Feedspot. They ranked “Trauma Survivorhood” as #32 on their most comprehensive Top 60 Trauma Podcast’s list this month! I appreciate that and am honored to continue to bring solid content three times weekly to survivors around the globe. Ranking #1 on this list, as it should is Guy Macpherson’s “The Trauma Therapist” podcast. This is the podcast I was listening to that fateful day years ago when one of my Association’s coaches came on to explain the modality of Trauma Recovery Coaching. It’s all been forward motion for me since then. I’m honored to even be on a list with his amazing podcast, and he is now weekly helping me to develop a solid coaching business helping survivors find their full circle healing as a trauma recovery coach myself! That’s a full circle moment, for sure!

Now let’s dive into today’s topic: on being objective. I love this word and its many meanings. The dictionary defines objective as: a) expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations, b) of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind, c) something toward which effort is directed : an aim, goal, or end of action.

Similar to last week when I discussed nearsightedness, objectivity is a perception free from distortion. Although no longer talking about actual vision, this concept comes with time and energy and space and distance. Being able to have an undistorted perspective, one must have a bit of distance from the emotions and biases of the situation. This can be hard to do for yourself and by yourself. Not impossible — as I believe all things are indeed possible. Yet, a lot of what coaching is for my clients to be an outside shift in their perception. Not at all to say that I take away from the pain and reality of their trauma. We never downplay the emotions that come up during your trauma healing. We aren’t trying to get rid of your past — just looking for new ways to cope in the future. I just personally believe that having another’s view of the aftereffects from your trauma is really insightful when moving forward as a survivor. I do think that an individual needs to be able to see the affirmations that their trauma left with about themselves — all the lies that come out subtly of what we believe to be true about ourselves. This sometimes sounds like an affirmation of something a survivor says: “I can’t do X” or “I can’t figure out Z”, or something they limit themselves to like: “I will always be this way”. Those black and white statements that we say so subconsciously continues to wire into the brain the things your abusers made you think about yourself and the world around you. Having some internal space and distance from your trauma allows you to see things from a more objective view. Never, ever condoning the abuse or forgetting about the trauma, but in a way seeing things from a fresh view. This can be challenging and comes with a lot of practice.

Beyond that, objectivity also serves to allow for more concrete evidence to present. You can step back and recognize that you still speak illy of yourself when stressed or that you use your parent’s words to describe your lack of accomplishments. You can question those all or nothing statements, asking yourself if they are really true and why you believe them and when you started believing them. This is a powerful internal resource for yourself — similar to CBT training to challenge your thoughts. Can you begin to have some objectiveness when you think and talk about yourself? Is there room for reframing? Are you looking for other ways to feel differently about a situation so you can unstick from the misery?

What I most love is that a whole other definition of objective means a goal. It’s almost as if once you allow objectivity to work its way into your life, you can start setting recovery goals based around this new view and way of thinking. It’s just really beautiful to me that this change can occur with just a few questions — asked of yourself or your coach. Small challenges to your mindset can turn it from doom and gloom to a growth mindset over time. You can begin to see yourself the way your friends and loved ones do; you can hear and speak your trauma story in a new light with a new hope for the future. Then, you can set aside goals that you want to move toward and start growing right before your very eyes.

If you think you are ready to begin this kind of journey of healing and reframing, setting goals, and changing your life from the inside out — send me a message or schedule a free 20-minute consult today to see if coaching is the next best step for you. I’d love to support you as you start exploring your way from subjectivity to objectivity.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 14: Nearsightedness

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

When it comes to trauma, in the moment, safety and survival is all that matters to your brain.  When it comes to trauma recovery, shifts in perspective become of utmost importance.  Trauma has many effects.  A lot we have talked about in the last weeks, and later this week, we’ll dive into more about what trauma does to the brain.  For today’s topic, nearsightedness, I’d like us to think about how trauma distorts our lenses – how we see ourselves, others, and the world as a whole.  In terms of eyesight, myopia is caused by an eye shape issue that causes the eyeball to refract light incorrectly.  Light rays are supposed to focus on your retina, not bend in front of it.  This slight misshapenness changes the entire way that a human’s eyeball is able to see objects far away from it.  It may see things fine up close, but looking more broadly causes distortions, blurriness, and inabilities. 

Relating this to trauma, as I imagine you know where I’m going, trauma misshapes how we feel and think about many things.  We may able to handle well-lit situations, well-understood concepts, black and white ideas, or closely tuned circumstances.  However, when life throws us all the nuances, demands us to plan and prepare for future things, or creates a bit of width in front of us with relationships, careers, goals, and lifestyles – these things can become distorted.  It is easy to see ourselves in this one color – as if we are wearing the same persona every day.  It’s also simpler to just accept that the world is scary, and that people are bad.  Trauma taught us that, after all. 

However, a lot of healing can be had by creating some distance from your trauma, challenging some of the lies about yourself that your trauma made you believe, and reframing your perception by recognizing that the trauma is over and that you can now choose to live in a different mindset than your trauma brain wants you to be stuck in.  With coaching, a lot of what I do for clients is help them see some other options of how they could think about everyday stressors, triggers that occur, relationship patterns they are suffering, and their toxic shame and guilt of themselves.  Every bit of insight that you gain about your trauma brain, how to rewire your neuropathways, and those “aha” moments – this is all new data that widens your perspective.  When you can start seeing yourself in a way separated from your trauma and to see other people as separate from your abusers, this allows for intra- and interpersonal healing.  Reshaping your lens with healing work gives you a fresh and more expansive view of the world around you. 

Trauma created a chasm between your trauma self and your authentic self.  That chasm was cut with pain and abuse that made you feel unworthy, unloved, and not able to trust yourself or anyone else.  The further away you are from your authentic self, the harder it is to see your true self clearly, in focus, and accurately.  You begin to identify with your traumatized self, and it starts to feel so familiar that sometimes it’s hard to know it’s not even you.  Sometimes the real you on the other side of that chasm is so distant and the chasm so wide that, even when you squint, you just can’t see that self anymore - like a ghost lost in the fog. 

Trauma recovery is meant to help you bridge that gap, heal that deformed perspective, clear out those lies so you can begin to change your attitude toward yourself, give you a new point of view so you can reference what happened to you without associating with it anymore.  Appropriate distant can’t be measured in days or years or miles or amounts.  Distance from your trauma is about creating a landscape of extension, and the recovery is the glasses that correct the warped shape of yourself so that the bend of light can amend.  This will allow for clear vision of self, others, and the world.  This will create room for precision, improved sight, healthy observations, curiosity, and will remove the blurry film layer that brings confusion over your authentic self.  

If you need help along this part of your healing journey, feel free to schedule a 20-minute free consult with me or send me a message if you need resources or have questions.  Nearsightedness is a condition of circumstance.  It is correctable and manageable.  Let’s try on some glasses together and find a good fit for you!