Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 12: Labyrinth

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 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.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 9: Inner Child

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

This episode has a lot of references to season 1/episodes: #11 on week 4 entitled Developmental Trauma and #20 on week 7 entitled Good Enough. It may be helpful to read/watch/listen to those along with this.

For starters, everyone has an inner child no matter their trauma status. This is the internal self that has stored memories from conception through birth into all your developmental years. There’s not actually a child in there (unless you’re pregnant, congrats). This colloquial term is used to talk about the kid we are were at one time. Infant’s brains start developing in the womb, and every interaction and word is recorded and stored internally like a computer hard drive. Even when you erase the memory and empty the trash can, a good hacker can recover all that stuff. If it crossed the path of the computer, it’s still in there somewhere, even if you can’t find it easily. The inner child is you when you were developing. A vast majority of adult responses, reactions, patterns, behaviors, and beliefs were all formed in the developmental years of their child. That inner child is still at work encouraging you to do the same behaviors and tactics it used as a child.

That inner child has a heap of issues too. If you weren’t heard or believed when you were young, your inner child still carries the pain of being invisible. If your inner child used dissociation during sexual violence, it could keep you disconnected well into your adult years. When the inner child is bullied or mocked, it will continue that pattern of self-criticism — even though it may be things you’d never say out loud though your inner voice says harsh words all day long to you.

When we discussed Developmental Trauma weeks ago, I was serious when I said how devastating it is to endure trauma in your early-age years. Back then, anything that happened to you was because you were not in control of your circumstances. As a child, without the freedom to just leave an abusive situation, this left an impact that can barely be described in words. As a kid, you also couldn’t grapple with everything going on. You simple didn’t understand. You also have an innate sense of love for your caregivers — so it’s very common for a trauma survivor to turn on themselves rather than their abusive caregivers because it’s too hard to comprehend why the adults in your life are hurting you. You surmise that YOU must be the problem; you must be bad. You can carry that burden for your whole life.

When I spoke on “Good Enough Parents”, I talked at length about healing the inner child. This is what the psychology world calls “Inner Child Work”. That thing that I called really really hard work, but also the most beautiful. That. Inner Child healing is about mourning for the childhood that you had — good or bad. Sometimes non-trauma survivors feel like they missed out on much, or they just simply miss being a kid so much. It’s okay to feel this way. A lot of people wish they could return to childhood and fix all the things that happened. They say things like “I’d go back and tell that little girl that she is worth more than gold and not to let anyone tell her otherwise.”

Well, my friends, you can do just that. With Inner Child Work — you can grieve what happened to you, what you lost, what you miss now, what didn’t happen to you, and more. Then, you can actually go back and find the scenes that star the little hurt inner child, and you can rescue them, tell them you are grown now, and are safe. You can tell them they are worth gold, and you can tell them perhaps that as an adult you no longer talk to that abusive stepfather or maybe even that he died. The inner child is actually listening to you. You can visit them, spend time listening to them, let them know you are grown and healing now. This is real. This isn’t just woo-woo; it’s not even a little woo. It’s science; psychology at its finest to be honest. It’s that powerful, in my opinion.

You can also, in present time at the age you are now, write down things that need healing — like the things that didn’t happen that should have when you were a kid. Maybe you never learned how to ride a bike or how to save money. Maybe you never learned how to set boundaries. Back then, maybe you weren’t told “my body my choice”. If you were told you are ugly over and over, you can begin doing some mirror work and learning to find your true beauty now. You can start working on those things right now, and that is part of your inner child healing.

This isn’t going to reverse all the trauma and abuse and damage that you went through. Those years may be marred with horrible things, and there’s nothing that can you back those moments. This is not about undoing; it’s about uncovering what can be healed now to get moving forward. You won’t forget what happened to you, but you can recover from the pain and addictions and patterns and behaviors now that are only making your current present circumstances worse. You can make a shift, start the inner child work, and find your true self again.

On this week’s Full Circle Friday being released in a few days, we are going to learn about IFS and how having conversations with your inner world, your inner self, and your inner child is especially magical in healing developmental trauma. In the meantime, take a moment to try to connect to your inner child. Ask it some questions. Stay curious. Don’t judge what comes up. Just observe and be ready to hear whatever it wants to share with you. Be inquisitive and not pushy.

A lot of what I do with clients with developmental trauma is inner child work — finding the roots of where behaviors and feelings about themselves started and then working on healing through what we discover. If you are interested to learn more, I encourage you to schedule a Complimentary Discovery Call with me to see if coaching is right for you.