Healing from the Past: Steps to Heal Trauma and Embrace a Brighter Future
“The greatest casualty of trauma and oppression is vulnerability” - Brené Brown
If you have experienced trauma you may struggle with living in the present moment for fear of exposure to triggering scenarios and real or perceived threats encountered in daily life. Trauma survivors often live and function in a perpetual state of discomfort or unrest, which on a visceral level, you may feel like you are always “on edge,” tension in your body, or even like you are living in a shell of yourself. Shame and fear around our trauma and opening ourselves up to the possibility of seeking help can inhibit us from being vulnerable enough to expose our truth to those who can help us work through it and heal. For anyone who needs to hear it: your trauma is valid, even if:
You’ve never told a soul about it
Someone didn’t believe your truth
It happened years ago
You think others have experienced “worse”
You can’t recall the details
It’s never too late to break the cycle and ask for help. Here are some steps and tools to help you along your healing journey.
Understanding Your Own Story and Rewriting the Script
Trying to understand a person's motivations and actions without knowing the context of their life is like starting a series like Breaking Bad or GOT halfway through and trying to understand the plot line and characters. Your past doesn't define you, but it sure does help explain you. - Dr. Charlynn Ruan, Thrive Founder
People ask why therapists ask about your childhood (or as I think of it with my trauma survivor clients, their SuperHero Origin Story). This is why. There is always a reason you do what you do. Knowing why you do what you do often isn't enough, in itself, to change your present and future. But it sure saves a lot of time and confusion in getting you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Unless you are the author of your life’s narrative, your life and your actions will be like a script with too many writers. Confusing, disjointed, and dissatisfying. If your script is crap...all the big budget, big actors, and fancy props won’t save that movie. - Dr. Charlynn Ruan, Thrive Founder
It is imperative that we question and rewrite our life’s narrative by firing some of the writing staff (bye-bye narcissists), recasting the roles that don't fit (including our own), and figuring out the meaning, feeling, and purpose of the entire thing. This is our life task. Ask yourself who is narrating your life story and if that voice (or voices) is a credible narrator. Many people run on internal scripts passed down from generation to generation without ever questioning the validity of those narratives. Not every thought that passes through your mind is one you created and not every thought is true. So, get curious, listen to your talk track, and question where those beliefs came from and if they actually serve you.
If you want to learn more about how therapy can help you, book a free consultation with Thrive Psychology Group. We offer in-person therapy in California and New York, as well as online therapy in more than 42 states.
Approach Yourself and Others with Curiosity, not Judgment
Be curious, not judgmental. Condemnation can feel so certain and familiar, even when we do it to ourselves. But, nothing grows in the darkness of shame and judgment. Growth only happens in the sunshine of compassionate curiosity and vulnerability.
When you do something you don't understand or have disappointed yourself, say to yourself "I choose curiosity, not judgmentalness." Shame ends self-exploration and stunts growth. So, next time you wonder why you did something, pay attention to how you ask, "WHY did I do that?" Is your "why" in an angry, judgmental tone or a curious one? Curiosity and compassion will lower our defenses, open our minds and hearts, and create an environment of growth and change.
Finding Your Voice
Sometimes we need to speak our truth not to change others, but to change ourselves.
If you grew up in a home where you edited yourself in exchange for safety and acceptance, then speaking your authentic opinions and thoughts may feel so futile and so foreign. You cannot control if others will hear or understand. And that isn't our job. So speak the things you know but have never said. Say them at first to yourself. Then say them to save others. Then practice speaking them whenever you feel your soul needs to say them, regardless of who hears or misunderstands. The point isn't always to change others, more often it is to change us.
Loving Your Younger Self
Forgive your younger self for all the mistakes she made while you were on your journey to healing.
Do you find it easier to forgive others than to forgive yourself? It is usually easier for women to forgive the people who hurt them than to forgive themselves for the choices and mistakes they made out of brokenness. If you are carrying unforgiveness against yourself for the mistakes you made and the people you hurt, it is time to let it go and make peace with your younger, less wise self. If you can’t embrace and love your younger self you will live in a state of constant self-rejection and shame.
Write your younger self a letter of love, compassion, and forgiveness. Be the older, wiser mentor you needed at that age. Tell her thank you for surviving and for fighting her way through the healing process.
Dig up those old photos that usually make you cringe and say loving affirming things to that girl the same way you would a niece or younger sister you adore, even when she drives you crazy.
During meditation, visualize hugging her and showing her around your life now. Tell her she's going to be okay.
Only when we can accept all the rejected parts of ourselves can we move through the world feeling whole and tell our story wholeheartedly. So open your arms to that younger self. Practice self-affection. And remember, each and every day, you are becoming more and more of the woman that you needed as a little girl.
Setting Healthy Boundaries
"Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously." -Prentis Hemphill
Setting boundaries is REALLY hard, especially for women. Women are socialized not to speak up and assert our needs, we are taught to be people pleasers and that boundaries are rude, and often when we do try to set boundaries, they are not respected. Certainly, trauma is the biggest boundary violation there is and it can really make setting boundaries scary.
At their core, boundaries are about love.
Boundaries RESPECT and CARE for the other person by being honest and straightforward, helping the relationship to be healthy, not enabling unhealthy behavior, giving the other person a chance to correct or support you (they aren't mind readers!), and being authentically you.
Boundaries also show love to yourself by honoring your feelings and needs, helping you to act in your best interest (even when hard), and perhaps most importantly, communicating to the other person AND YOURSELF that you deserve to be treated with respect and that your feelings and needs are valid and important. Sometimes the person you need to set boundaries with is yourself.
Healing Your Relationship to Emotions
Growth often also means loss. Part of maturing as a human is developing the ability to hold two strong feelings at once and honor both without self condemnation.
This hurts and I need comfort.
AND
This feels right for me and I am excited for the new thing.
It is a sign of emotional maturity when we can hold multiple feelings at once and not feel compelled to reduce the complexity down to one emotion by avoiding the pain of growth or trying to control others. If you grew up around people who struggled to hold more than one emotion at once without feeling conflict and anxiety, then this will be new.
The more we grow, the more the complexity of our emotions deepens. "I know you are unsafe for me and I can't be with you, even if I still love you." "I feel both fear and excitement about this change." "I can love someone, wish the best for them, and still be angry at them." You will notice how, as you grow in honesty and vulnerability, your ability to feel complex emotions will deepen.
You will also notice this will scare and confuse others who cannot hold complex emotions. This is okay, too. This will teach you to hold another complex set of emotions, "I love you. I can feel you aren't okay with my growth. But, I am still okay with me." Hold yourself in love and compassion in all of this. Growth can be scary, but it is part of our journey as a living being. The alternative is intentionally stunting our own growth, and that is much scarier.
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