Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 19: Stagnation

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Learning to love yourself is exactly that — a learning process. Accepting yourself as you are in this exact moment, in this exact part of your healing journey, that is the secret sauce. No matter how far you’ve come or how far you think you should have come by now — none of that matters to your true self. Your authentic self only cares about the effort that you put in and the work that you are currently doing. It is proud of who you are right now. You can remember that this whole trauma recovery road is a process. Because of that, there are going to be times where you feel like you are flying through this growth thing and then times that you feel stagnated.

I heard something powerful this week on Glennon Doyle’s podcast from her guest Chanel Miller, a trauma survivor, who was talking about feeling stuck. Glennon asked her “So that’s what you’re saying, you bring it back to yourself? All these things were happening, and you were swept up… Going to that art class, was that your way of insisting that you were still in there?”

Chanel replies: “Insisting that I’m still there and that things are still changing. Because when you are in your past, you feel like you are stuck. And you have to look at the small changes. It’s even helpful to go on a walk. If you walk the same loop of your neighborhood every day, I would challenge you to look for the certain factors that are different each time that you walk. You have to know that life is in motion and that it’s impossible to get stuck even if you feel that you are… Art is what forces me to pay attention to these smaller changes. Art also helps me because when I create these creatures or people, I create really whimsical, odd landscapes and beings. I think about how if I am to put my pencil down and mute myself and not do anything at all, if I am to give up on myself, I would also be giving up on all of them…Protecting the things that I make is non-negotiable. That helps me respect myself and my work.”

Glennon’s wife, Abby, answers “My gosh … the beautiful metaphor here is that all of us have an interior world, some of us don’t know how to draw or create beings, but we have an internalized space that if we don’t get it out of ourselves, then we are only actually living in our past, and not able to create a day or create something that could save us or heal us — that is so f*****g amazing.”

So sometimes as survivors, we feel stuck in our world … but the beauty is that the world is always in motion. Time is going to continue to tick. If you take a moment to notice, nothing is stagnant. No matter how slowly something is moving, it’s still moving. A rock may be planted down heavily into the soil, but the earth itself is rotating, so therefore the rock is technically rotating as well. The same air that is around the rock this second is now a different bubble of air around it the next second. Like Chanel said, “it’s impossible to be stuck even if it feels like you are.” The work that you have inside of you — whether it’s focusing on your trauma recovery, advocating for other survivors, creating anything from art to writing a book, sharing your story with a stranger, becoming a more present parent, learning self-compassion — that’s your work. And if you want to choose (yes, because it is a choice) to not show up, not participate in your calling, not pick up your pencil and create whimsical characters — then you are choosing to not actively participate in the movement and growth of the world around you. It doesn’t mean that the world stops spinning or that time quits ticking along. It just means that you are left living in your past. What’s beautiful is that at any moment, the opportunity to rise out of it and participate in your healing and growth is available to you, and you can rejoin the already set-in-motion reality of the present moment.

This is just food for thought for you today. I am still chewing on this myself, but I think it’s a great opportunity to discuss how we heal, how we grow, and how the work never ends even when we don’t want to keep showing up. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, so please reach out with comments or questions. As a trauma recovery coach, I think it’s important to share impactful things with curiosity and then see how it lands for my clients. I guess, for today’s episode, I’m kind of seeing how it lands with the entire interweb community of survivors.

So on a final note: Accept yourself wherever you are in your journey; respect your progress. Share your insights. Keep going, even when you feel stuck. Keep going even if you do something really small — even if it’s just a moment to celebrate something small that you have done. Love yourself no matter how slow the growth. Keep the momentum going. You aren’t stuck; nothing is stagnant. Practice makes progress. You are doing amazingly well.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 12: Labyrinth

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
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I often refer to this thing we do as a “trauma recovery journey”, a path, a road. If I’m really honest though — it’s basically a labyrinth. It’s complicated, dizzying at times, twisty, and topsy-turvy. There’s not just steps forward and steps back, like with any lifestyle goal or achievement worth doing. Because trauma is messy, the recovery will be so as well. There’s really no easy way around this, and for that I am truly story. For myself and for anyone reading, I’m really sorry. It’s heartbreaking to think about how much more pain we must go through in the name of healing. In the sake of rebuilding the puzzle, we must dump the puzzle box over. In order to find the regimen that works for you and the right meds or therapeutic interventions, one must fail again and again. Failing forward is really important though because when you fail, you must learn and then not give up and keep going. However, while in the throws of trauma recovery, you often want to (or do for a time) give up. There isn’t a timeline on this like other medically intricate healing types. There isn’t a trauma recovery surgeon who’s going to set a pre-op, a surgery date, and then a post-op follow-up care routine that lasts 10–12 weeks.

This so far sounds really bleak, so let me pause for a moment and remind you that THIS IS WORTH IT. Also, you should know that there are so many GOOD twists and turns on this labyrinth. This is where it gets good because even though you may still be in a muddy patch of your trauma road, you may have an eye-opening revelation about yourself, you may make a lifestyle change that makes a huge difference, or you may learn something important about your attachment style that helps you even more in your healing. These twists of the maze seem to take you down a great path momentarily, and you get a fresh strength with even a small insight. Maybe you finally (through mindfulness and lots of practice) have a healthy trigger reaction that blows your own mind, and now you are so excited to run down the corridor of this thing, recognizing that you are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Just keep in mind that around another labyrinthine corner, a big life event or a family get together may not be such an enjoyable stretch. You also sometimes will return to old habits or addictions. There will be times when you wake up and your trauma brain is so loud for no apparent reason that you get stuck in bed for days feeling sorry for all your “failed hard work” (and other lies your trauma brain will tell you). A friend’s comment about their parents may derail a moment of your painful adventure of having no-contact with your parents. Let us not forget that while we are working on this trauma recovery mess, we are also humans living a regular life just trying to work, go to school, have a social life, and live our dreams. In the mix of all these other wild, winding ways is actual real life — where friends let us down, jobs get lost, pets die, kids get sick, cars break down, and other normal human stressors. Sometimes it’s appropriate to put your healing work on hold while you handle a regular life crisis.

Okay, see I’ve gone back to bleakness. Let me ‘re-calculate this route’. Recalibrating back onto a positive track, another day in our healing may look like: a therapy session that leaves you with a smile, a good cry maybe makes you feel so whole, or a friend’s encouragement to you after noticing some healthy changes in you. These days we are enthusiastic about walking the maze another step or two or ten.

There is no right or wrong way to do this. There is only forward — even if it’s a dead end. Yes, sometimes you have to backtrack — even if it’s not pretty. Even if you have to consult a map, and then still get lost. It is worth it, even if you somedays you are in the intricate, confusing journey by yourself. And also, there are checkpoints along the way — I promise. Moments of no return, like a Mario Kart video game; it’s like life’s redemption to give you a leg up after you’ve worked so hard. You can “save your progress”, so, if the whole system crashes, it’s all there whenever you are ready to go back at it. Along the way, like a marathon, there are people throwing water on you, giving you gel packs of nutrients, cheering you on, and waiting at the finish line to snap your success photo.

Truth be told, though, I don’t know if the trauma recovery maze has a complete finish line, but I do know that not all the days are bad and hard. Eventually, with the right psychological support, finding your stride and self-care regimen, and sticking with it long enough — things do seem to have more ease. When you get knocked off the path, it does get easier for your brain to recognize the importance of getting back up and trying again. Kicking old habits, for instance, is hard, but the more you conquer them each time, the more readily your brain will respond to minor slip ups going forward.

This is not the most comfortable post I’ve made. I’d rather be here telling you that within 10–12 weeks, your trauma will be reversed — that after 3 months of treatment, your pain will be in remission. I wish it was that easy, for myself as well. We are in this together. As a trauma recovery coach, my pledge is to see you through this maze — not promising to know a trick to get out of it but a promise to support and guide you as you figure it yourself. If this episode was painful for you to hear or if it all seems too daunting, feel free to message me on the “connect” tab of my website. I’d love to encourage you and resource you, so you don’t feel so trapped in the labyrinth alone.