Wellspring Wednesday|Week 20: Time

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“Time heals all wounds.” The end. Episode over. Go out and just wait for your healing to come magically to you.

…

I find this statement to be personally unnerving and a bit offensive. I don’t think the Greek poet 2,000 years ago who seems to be the author meant it to be hurtful. In fact, I think he probably meant it for good. A soothing salve to help others get through their difficulties, losses, and grievances. I get the heart, but I don’t like the statement.

Not that it doesn’t have some truth. As you remember from episodes Nearsightedness and Objectivity, there is a quality to time and distance that allows for your mind to expand outward to even be receptive to healing. That is true. I agree with that. However, it’s not just some magic wand that waiting 15 years after a sexual assault that you’ll be wound-free. Just as there is not prescription of “add 17 months after you leave your abusive mother’s home and you’ll be cured”. In fact, beyond the original abuse, we know that trauma survivors — especially of childhood trauma — are much more likely to have recurring traumatic relationships, have a more reactionary trigger to new traumas like the death of a friend or a car accident, and are more prone to addictions, crime, and other coping skills that shorten their lifespan. So should we really be waiting around for time to fix all our woes?

I know that sounds dramatic, but as years go on with unhealed trauma, survivors are still suffering the aftereffects, struggling to keep the hope, and can become more isolated away from treatments that can help as the days go on. For some survivors, there is a desperation.

In the practice of IFS (like I spoke on weeks ago), strong protectors are working hard to keep the vulnerable, exiled inner children inside of survivors protected from pain and more suffering. As time goes on, a protector that has a lot of trust issues — for example — will only be proven right again and again as people fail them and the world remains scary. Ultimately, they are doing a great job protecting the ‘exiles’ inside — but they are doing a disservice to the system as a whole. As time marches on, this protector may indeed become more and more resistant to help, and another protector who is “tired of the trust issues” can come to cover that original protector. So now you have an inner child who was taught that people are scary from their original abuse, a protector who works to keep that exile safe by not allowing it to trust anyone, and then another protector who layers on top who is sick and tired of not trusting and getting hurt. Then your Self is sick and tired, and yet days are marching on. It can seem to be getting worse.

Again, I know the author of the saying meant well. I just feel the need to add on here that no matter the trauma, time is just one of the players in the game. It’s what you DO with that time that most matters. Even if it wasn’t childhood trauma, this is true. Let’s say you are in a really terrible accident and lose the ability to walk. You wouldn’t just sit in your wheelchair waiting for time to heal your legs. You would work hard with PT, special treatments, and therapies. With time, multiplied by a lot of work and tons of pain, you can relearn how to walk. Let’s also say that there are no therapies that will help you regain the ability to walk. Now you are just sitting in your wheelchair — but it’s still about what you do with the days after that reality. It takes time to rebuild self-confidence, and that’s only after accepting the truth and dealing with the grief of the loss of your legs as well as all the freedom that goes with it. It takes time to allow others to take care of this new dependent you, and it takes time to work at the small ways you can learn some independence even with your new condition. That’s time multiplied by work and tons of pain again.

Same is true for all types of survivors. Truth is, here you are — a Survivor! Let’s stop and take a moment to applaud that. Next, what can you do with your time post-trauma to work at your healing? What’s the next right step for you? How are you manifesting your healing in the time you’ve been given? Do you need to allow yourself to be angry at your abuser? Do you need to forgive yourself and recognize you aren’t even to blame? Can you learn to be okay with your aftereffects that trauma gave you all the while working to supplant some of the maladaptive coping mechanisms with new, healthy ones? Are you ready to try some modalities of therapy? Are you at a place where having a coach is right for you? Have you allowed yourself to grieve someone you lost? Have you sought out help for your addiction? What do you need in order to be successful at a new relationship or a career move? Are you happy in your current living situation or do you need to make some changes? Have you designed a regimen of self-care and accountability to help you along the way?

Time multiplied by nothing is nothing. Time multiplied by hard, arduous work is healing. Time alone can’t heal all wounds. Time and doing “the stuffs” — that can heal all wounds. Trust me, I know that, eventually, with enough of the time, patience, work, and support — you can heal. If you need a hand, reach out and let me know. Keep on keeping on. Time is marching on, and so come the opportunities to heal and return to your authentic Self. You are amazing!

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 17: Quantity v. Quality

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I love math. I am a human who just loves math. I get it; I can work with it. I like to solve equations. An algebra workbook would be what a coloring book is for others. I like figuring out problems; I love solving for X. There’s an actual true solution to every equation. There is an exact calculation once you understand the problem and know the formula. Oh, how I love formulas! To me, math just makes sense.

I digress because this show/blog isn’t about math. It’s about trauma recovery. The beauty of healing is that there is no finite solution. There is a lot of system creating, formula following, and problem solving — sure. Yet, with healing, you can’t know those things in advance. You are making them up as you go. Healing isn’t a math equation; it’s an art. It’s creative. It’s a dance. It’s a poem, a prose, an essay. It’s getting up every morning and trying to find joy while drudging through miles of pain. It’s exploratory, unpredictable. There are no X and Y to solve for or anything you can punch into a calculator to get an answer. Healing is the answer. The art of healing is the solution. The mitigation of the aftereffects of your trauma is the result. The calculation is whittled down to how much relief you find in your day-to-day life. The secret sauce is finding peace within yourself as you loop around in wild fanciful circles, small pivots, and untamed brush strokes. You are recreating your authentic self; you are putting together puzzle pieces and making something beautiful.

There are no rules, no way to quantify your experience. What works for you may indeed trigger another. What your best picture looks like today may feel like a 4-year-old’s drawing the next. You rip it up, and you start over — over and over again. You take hours learning the choreography of this healing dance, only to discover you hate dancing. Then you walk away for a year or more. You come back, and healing is waiting for you to pick back up wherever you left off. There is not a magic equal sign that means you’ve completed the work. There’s just a fresh canvas every morning waiting for you to design something from scratch. The hope comes from knowing the blank canvas is waiting and knowing that you are the only one who can create this thing.

We’ve talked about how the healing road is dizzying with curves and bumps and twists. You can’t find an end because the end is not the goal. Learning to love the journey is the goal. Would it be easier to have a specific gauge to check in on how much healing you’ve accomplished? Sure. Would it be lovely to have a meter to see how much farther you’ve got to go? Of course. (Although, depending on the person, both of those may be devastatingly pessimistic measurements, so let’s be thankful that they don’t exist.) So if you are like me and really like to find solutions and fix things, how can you value your healing if not by ranking it in size, shape, and distance? That assessment can only come from your soul. Once you’ve hit one plateau of healing, you can relish in that for a while, only to be assured that even deeper healing is around the corner. How is the journey going? How do you feel day to day? Can you give a quality to your current mood and mental state? Can you feel the internal changing happening? Can you be okay with the small wins and build momentum on those?

That qualitative condition in your heart, mind, spirit, lifestyle, emotional state, mental health, and overall well-being — that is measurable. You can do much more; you could do way less. None of that matters if something isn’t working. Also, nothing can compare to finding that thing that serves you really well — a creative outlet, a new friendship, a coach you connect with, the replacement of an old coping skill, or a good night’s sleep. You don’t judge that with ounces, weeks, or inches. You compute it with your feelings, your instinct, your true self.

If you need support along the journey — maybe you aren’t happy with your current quality assessment or you’ve hit a plateau and are hungry for more — feel free to send me a message or schedule your free consult today. A road trip is always better with a friend to support you; I’ll even chip in a little for gas. Either way, never give up on yourself. You never know when the next level of healing is around the corner. No calculators needed.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 16: Processes

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I want to chat about the word process in all senses of the definition today. Trauma recovery starts with a lot of processing — in the sense of “sorting through” the trauma you’ve endured whether that means thinking on it, talking about it, facing your emotions about it, finding professional help to cope through what you uncover, etc. This fire-starter of processing can be a lengthy ordeal. It takes patience with yourself as you move through the truth of your abuse or trauma, but eventually you will be at a place of some sort of acceptance where real healing can begin. You can also process through your trauma — as in “refine or rectify” — not as easily as you can distill water or decontaminate hazardous areas though. In the sifting and sorting that you are already experiencing, you can find some purification. Some may call this purging — maybe a cleansing of things that remind you of your abuser, going no contact with a toxic family member, moving out of a house where your tragedy happened, or anything you need to find solace.

From there, the process — as in “a fixed series of actions leading to a result” definition — is now the trauma recovery. You are looking for a combination of events or activities that start improving and healing the aftereffects of your trauma. This is a good time for coaching to begin — when you feel in more of a growth mindset and are at the place where you are examining the traumatic disturbances and looking to find relief. The groundwork that you do here is like setting into motion a path toward recovery. You can continue to sift through the side effects that you are suffering from — not just the trauma but the coping skills you adapted to survive your trauma. This is the pivot point we talked about weeks ago where now you are ready to begin thinking about helpful resources, therapeutic interventions, support groups, and getting your mind, body, spirit realigned and reconnected.

This is where a good routine becomes the blueprint for your healing. This may mean trying medications for the psychological struggles — which can be a difficult road to travel to find the right one and the right dose. This takes time, patience, and cooperation with your medical care team. This may mean trying bodywork or energy work to destress your nervous system, or meditation to begin to slow your mind and allow a new adaptation of mindfulness to emerge. This may mean a dedication to your therapist or coach — which also can take some hit or miss chances before settling into the right one. Once there, building a bonded relationship will be paramount to explore safety in yourself and others, and to grow in trust and intimate conversation. This is also a time in the process of strategizing to find creative outlets and long-lost passions to move you from trauma identity back to your authentic self.

After you’ve developed the system, you are in the process — as in “forward movement” — which is the progression phase. This is where the headway you made begins to reap benefits of healthy life functioning, a solid mind, body, spirit connection, peace, good relationships, improved sleep and physical health, replacing trauma lies with beautiful new affirmations, and supplanting harmful coping mechanisms with new, safe ones.

This of course is all under the umbrella of one, big, years-long process. The healing work is the healing, remember. The recovery road is the recovery. You may never find an end to it, to be honest. Some professionals say there is no truly “healed” trauma survivor, but along the way, the journey becomes more sustainable, more productive, more healthy, and more enjoyable as you grow and do the work. Remember that it’s not a linear road, and sometimes the process has detours and cul-de-sacs. Keep your head forward though, so you can also be proceeding onward.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 5: Easy v. Simple

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I have been known to say that “nothing is easy, but everything can be simple”.  This isn’t always the case, of course, but this kind of blanket statement motto has been a constant reminder for myself in my own trauma recovery journey.  For me, because I believe in the almighty optimism of life, I just trust things the simpler they are.  It’s almost like when searching for an answer – I tend to have it fall into my lap.  However, then, when something comes too easy, I tend to be a skeptic!  Yet when something tangible and logical comes to me – like in a dream or something – it seems simple and feasible.  This could be an answer to a question, a confirmation I needed for something, the next right step that I’m searching for, the proper response, or just what I must do to move forward from a situation.  However – this comes after taking time to learn to self-trust and trust the universe.  If you aren’t there or you are bent toward pessimism – I’m not going to try to change your mind.  If you hear me out though, I will challenge you with a concept that may turn into a powerful inner resource on your healing path.  Either way is okay, but I’m going to share it because I believe it to be true - if only for my own life.

The way toward self-realization is realizing who you are; the way toward self-actualization is actually realizing who you are. 

The End…Just kidding.

Trauma survivors – all of us – would LOVE an easy solution, an easy cure.  We want the PTSD to stop, the emotional disconnection to end, the relational and intimacy issues to go away, the physical pain to be gone, etc. We know there really isn’t an easy one-step-cure-all to fix each of us.  What if it could be broken up into simpler steps though?  What if there was a perfect path for trauma recovery with YOUR name on it?  Different for each survivor; tailored to your specific trauma, responses, coping skills, and aftereffects.  Instead of asking how CAN you live your best life – what if we asked ourselves how SHOULD we live it?   What I mean by that is what if we had a felt sense of knowing in our gut that is our authentic self that is guiding us back to our truth.  

I don’t say this to sound woo-woo.  I’m not woo-woo; I’m just woo.  I believe that survivors have their own tools and keys buried inside them like a hidden treasure.  Trauma covered it up with earth, magma, rocks – like a volcano that covers everything it touches.  But – underneath is still preserved the tools that you were born with, the person you still are even before the trauma happened.  The purpose, the passion, the right path for your perfect life.  Now, those tools may be altered from the lava, ash, and soot.  They may work differently; they along with you have been changed forever.  That’s all true.  It’s also true that the coming back to yourself is the healing.  Then you realize, uncover, and rediscover (or maybe just discover) who you are.  This can’t be an easy task – but it can be simple if you trust that you are still in there.  If you are sure that you are, you are willing to do the work, set a plan, and show up for yourself over and over – the rest can be simpler.  Your self-actualization can then be freed to bubble over and do great things. 

Way back on Week One, I discussed some basics of this in episodes called: “Agency” and “Acne of the Soul” which I’ll link to in the show notes for reference.  Finding what works for you and what you actually need is part of a self-inquiry process. If you are struggling with sifting through this – I recommend asking your trauma recovery coach or therapist for help.  This is similar to Life Coaching – which I am passionate about in helping people find their life’s mission – but if you have a trauma history, this may be bringing up so many emotions that you may need extra support.  Feel free to send me a message and ask how I can help.   

Once you do this self-inquiry process, you’ll start having freedom to ask yourself questions about goals, careers, relationships.  You can search out answers to life’s big questions.  You’ll want to figure out how you want to live, where you want to live, who you love and why, how to be a good parent, how to break addictions and cycles, and so much more. 

And all that can be simpler because you’ll ask your inner knowing what SHOULD you do instead of what CAN you do.  For instance – if you asked yourself what you can do for a living … you could think of 10 things off the top of your head. You could pick off the option’s list by narrowing it down based on how long the commute is and how much the salary is.  You then decide on whatever one, and then go and get it.  Probably in a year or two with the right certification or degree or application process – in no time, you could be a (insert career here)! 

However, if you ask yourself deep down what SHOULD you do for a living … then, you have to simply be quiet, patient, still, and listen.  Aligning with your purpose deep in your inner being, you can actually find out what career bests suits your purpose.  Then – you won’t be given a random list to choose from, you’ll be given an answer.  

I do know from experience that this trauma recovery thing is really difficult at times, and it requires consistent, hard work.  Picking an easy road – like remaining where you are, not growing, allowing your family to keep manipulating you, not setting boundaries, losing yourself in everyone else, striving to be perfect, just staying where you’ve always been – this won’t take you to where you want to go.  Choosing the (albeit) harder recovery road– doing the work, being coached, figuring out who you are, getting help for your addiction, emotionally releasing all the junk, discovering your authentic self – will give you the long-term gains in the future to live your best life and walk in your healed, whole self. 

And that’s the end.  That’s the goal of this human life thing we do – finding ourselves and our purpose and then being our best self. On this week’s Full Circle Friday (week 5: Eat, Pray, Love), we’ll talk more about the idea of goals and goal setting (which is a big part of what I do as a trauma recovery coach).  If you are overwhelmed at the challenge of today, send me a message on the “Connect” tab on my website to let me know.  I promise to reach back with any help I can offer.   If you are feeling overwhelmed, there is a reason for that, and we can figure it out together.