What's to Gain by Knowing What Was Lost?

As I work with clients recovering from trauma/abuse, the common thread that ties each client to the other is the desire to stop certain thoughts or behaviors. Clients are often focused on what they want to “cut out” rather than what they want to “add in” when they initially start coaching.

Whenever we experience trauma/abuse, however, two things are occurring. We are both gaining and losing. We gain irrational beliefs, pain, anger, distrust … but we also lose a relationship, security, freedom, energy, joy …

As you begin a journey of recovery, I encourage you to first spend time reflecting on what it is you would like to “get back” that was lost as a result of the trauma/abuse. Knowing what you want to “add in” will get you much further along than focusing on what it is you want to “cut out.”

Why is that? Starting a behavior is much easier than stopping a behavior! If we think of a behavior or thought as something we have to “stop,” we struggle more. I think being told or telling ourselves to “stop” just triggers our inner two year olds, and we stubbornly refuse to cooperate.

For example, one client wanted to stop feeling extreme anger every time her boyfriend failed her in some way. As we worked together, we discovered that one of the things she’d lost as a result of childhood abuse was the ability to trust that she could depend on others. We shifted away from talking about how to stop being angry and instead focused on what she would need to start thinking or doing in order to trust others. She learned some new communication skills. She started looking for times when the boyfriend came through rather than focusing only on the mistakes (which, as it turned out, were actually few and far between but previously seemed to be occurring frequently because this is where her focus was). She also started to challenge the belief that others would always let her down. After about two months, she was able to respond to being let down or disappointment in a healthy way minus the excessive anger.

As I was thinking about this topic, I came across this acronym for people who want to stop smoking:

S = Set a quit date.

T = Tell family, friends, and co-workers that you plan to quit.

A = Anticipate and plan for the challenges you'll face while quitting.

R = Remove cigarettes and other tobacco products from your home, car, and work.

T = Talk to your doctor about getting help to quit.

START! While the outcome is to end the behavior of smoking, the path to getting there is to start – to focus on what needs to be added in rather than what needs to be cut out. By doing so, you will gain momentum, perspective, and the motivation needed to experience real transformation. Love it!

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

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Stop Being a Victim

In the world of recovery, there has been a shift from using the word “victim” to “survivor” when describing those who have been abused or suffered a trauma. This shift shows up in all areas of abuse/trauma: cancer, divorce, child abuse. It's even shown up in the workplace, as in "merger survivor!"

This new label was chosen in order to convey strength, to empower, and to embolden the person as one begins the journey of recovery. The intent was also to distinguish between the moment of the trauma/abuse (victimization) and that of the present existence and experience (survivor).

Moving from victim to survivor is an important stage of recovery. During this phase, the person reflects upon the experience, actively engages in facing and owning what happened, and recognizes the connections between the abuse and the way they feel, think or behave. However, this recognition and sense of empowerment is not enough. While "survivor" is a much better label than "victim," it does not go far enough in framing an identity that leads to a thriving and powerful life.

Imagine with me for a moment that the abuse or trauma you’ve experienced has left a scrape on your knee – just as one you might get by falling down on hard concrete (in fact, we often feel battered and bruised as a result of abuse or trauma). This scrape, for many people, remains unhealed for years and years. At times, they may bandage and tend to the wound a bit, but they never fully heal. Worse, they come to believe it can never be healed.

Now, in the case of an actual physical wound, the skin does eventually heal and leaves a scar. We look at our knee, see the scar, and remember that day when we were wounded. Yet, we don’t feel all of the pain or other emotions that occurred at the moment we were hurt. Nor do we continue to compensate for the wound by changing our behavior – such as not fully bending our knee for fear of reopening the wound.

I strongly believe that the wounds of trauma and abuse can be healed and looked backed upon in this same way. We can see the scar that was created, but do not feel the pain, need to compensate, or constantly re-bandage the wound. However, this requires another shift – namely, from survivor to beyond surviving.

I remember very distinctly the moment when I thought, “This is ridiculous! I don’t want to survive my life. I want to live it!” For that reason, I use the term “beyond surviving” to describe myself and my clients. With this simple shift in language and labeling, the objectives and goals of recovery shift as well.

It is my goal to support clients in reaching a place where they no longer feel it necessary to manage behaviors or cope with thoughts and feelings that have resulted from abuse or trauma. Rather, clients gain insights and skills that make it possible for them to live abundant, powerful lives that are no longer mired in the past. They see the scar but are no longer wounded.

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

This FREE 9-page guide will give you the answers you've been seeking.

Please Send My Copy Now

Not All That Glitters Is Gold

Life’s road can sometimes be as glittery and entrancing as the yellow brick road. It would serve us well to remember, however, that what Dorothy found at its end was a fraud, a fake, smoke and mirrors. The road she had to walk before reaching her goal was the sooty steps of the witch's dark castle.

Sometimes our journeys aren't pretty, but they are our journeys nonetheless! Today, I'm reminding myself that some of the glittery roads I've traveled ended badly while some of the gloomiest roads led to real joy and discovery.

We should be wary of the road that glitters too much. Though the path that lies before us may not always shine, it is forever solid even if filled with witches and flying monkeys.
 

What dark roads are you happy to have traveled?

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

This FREE 9-page guide will give you the answers you've been seeking.

Please Send My Copy Now

How Choosing Can Make All the Difference

The fact that we have the freedom to change “is hard to face up to, so we tend to invent an excuse by saying, ‘I can’t change now because of my past conditioning.’ Sartre called excuses ‘bad faith.’ No matter what we have been, we can make choices now and become something quite different. We are condemned to be free. To choose is to become committed: This is the responsibility that is the other side of freedom. Sartre’s view was that at every moment, by our actions, we are choosing who we are being. Our existence is never fixed or finished. Every one of our actions represents a fresh choice.”

I came across this quote in one of my textbooks and it seems so well timed given the most recent postings I’ve made regarding reshaping who we are and being mindful of our moments. I particularly like the idea that our existence is never fixed or finished. In relation to the outcomes of abuse or trauma, it can sometimes seem like we are just stuck with these results. As I work with clients, one of the main hurdles to overcome is the idea that they have no choice in how they think, respond, or feel.

So, just a gentle reminder that, whatever your past experiences, you are not condemned to forever be in a fixed state of reliving or rehashing.

If you could choose to give up a way of thinking about yourself or others that has resulted from abuse or some sort of hurt, what conscious choice would you need to make?

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

This FREE 9-page guide will give you the answers you've been seeking.

Please Send My Copy Now

Undoing the Lessons of Abuse

There’s a time in all of our lives when we have no concept of life, time, or pain. Tragedy is oversleeping on Saturday morning and missing your favorite cartoon. You don’t understand the frown you see on all of the big people’s faces…you wonder what could be so bad that they yell, cry, and fight. There’s also a time in all of our lives when we become the thing we couldn’t understand…we find ourselves lying in bed with the covers over our head, afraid to come out and face what’s on the outside…inside…there. We've all had that one thing that causes us to retreat to our beds…to shut out the world…to shut out life. For me…that one thing was my grandfather.

I remember the day my grandfather came to live with us. He appeared out of the blue, this short, wrinkled thing that reminded me of the old guy on Fraggle Rock…so how bad could he be, right? He always wore this fuzzy brown and orange cardigan. He spent most of his time watching Channel 13, which was the public announcement channel in our small town in Oklahoma. All day long, the screen would alter between solid blues, greens, and reds, with bold large print announcing the Bingo Meeting at the Local Union #202, the Pancake Breakfast at St. Mary’s Catholic Church…stuff like that. We didn’t talk much. I can only imagine the things he had seen and done during his long life – but he took all of those stories to the grave and left a far more interesting one behind.

Most of our interactions consisted of me taking him his nightly bowl of cereal and holding the screen door with the springy hinge open so he could go out onto the front porch. At the tender age of 10, I felt immensely proud and extremely grown up for helping out. After holding the door open one day, my grandfather took me by the wrist and sat me down with him on the swing.

By now, you’ve probably guessed what happened that day (and would continue to happen) – my story isn’t nearly as rare as it should be.
 

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Last week, I shared some reflections on how I was shaped by my childhood beginnings. Today, as I thought more about this, I realized that this moment in my life – when my grandfather began abusing me – was also a beginning.

Every person who has been abused or experienced a trauma remembers that first moment when the ground shifted and life became, well, different. To be sure, there were a ton of lessons learned, but the two that shaped me the most were that being vulnerable only leads to trouble and that I had to handle things on my own.

Undoing the lessons learned from this beginning has not been easy, and they still try to rear their ugly heads from time to time. Even so, I have made my way to the other side and found myself at yet another beginning! Today, I use all of the lessons I had to learn to counteract the effects of the abuse to coach others who have experienced trauma or abuse through the process.

To those who have been abused or suffered a trauma, I just want you to know that you’re not alone. It is possible to put to rest the lessons learned and to “reshape” who you are.

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

This FREE 9-page guide will give you the answers you've been seeking.

Please Send My Copy Now

It’s Nothing But A Neuron…

Have you ever walked by a pie shop and, upon smelling a fresh backed pumpkin pie, been transported back in time to a fond memory of Thanksgiving? Or maybe caught a glimpse of a stranger with certain features and found yourself thinking about that girl or guy from way back when? How about a significant other who one day playfully wrestles with you, and all of a sudden you find yourself lashing out at him without really understanding why? What exactly is occurring neurologically and what are the implications for the recovery from the trauma of past abuse?

According to Daniel Siegel in The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are(1999, Guilford Press), “understanding how trauma affects the developing brain can yield insights into the subsequent impairments of memory processing and the ability to cope with stress.” Before exploring the impairments and coping he refers to, let’s take a quick look at how memories are created and recalled in the first place.

There is a saying -- neurons that fire together, wire together. When we have an experience, neuronal pathways are created in the brain by neurons firing and connecting to create a neural net. When we smell the pumpkin pie, what is actually happening is that a particular neuronal pathway is ignited. This neural net has now been modified in that it holds the initial memory of Thanksgiving with family and now the time walking by the store and experiencing the same smell. Thus, the neuronal pathway is expanded and reinforced by the reactivation.

Now, consider the implication if, instead of the warm smell of pumpkin pie, the experience is trauma or fear. As Siegel points out, with “chronic occurrence, these states can become more readily activated (retrieved) in the future, such that they become characteristic traits of the individual. In this way, our lives can become shaped by reactivations of implicit memory, which lack a sense that something is being recalled. We simply enter these engrained states and experience them as the reality of our present experience.”

This is what Siegel means by “impairments of memory processing.” You respond to your significant other in the moment with fear and anger thinking that what he is doing is the problem, when, instead, a neuronal pathway has been triggered and the implicit memory of your abuser restraining you is activated. This is what you are responding to in reality. The same thing occurs in response to stressors. If our experience starts to make us feel trapped or scared, we may respond in the same way we did when needing to survive the abuse rather than in a way that actually addresses the present day stressor.

So then, are we always to be held hostage by these firing neurons? Absolutely not! “Each day is literally the opportunity to create a new episode of learning, in which recent experience will become integrated with the past and woven into the anticipated future” (Siegel). Neurons can be re-wired!

Perhaps the first step is to simply absorb the fact that many of our present day responses, thoughts, emotions are nothing but a neuronal pathway lighting up! Recognition of this creates space for the individual to consider the possibility that what they think or feel is going on may not be what is, in fact, really happening.

Secondly, as Siegel states, when one is able to inhibit the engrained state and respond to a situation, trigger, or stressor in a new way, that neuronal pathway will be adapted. The more frequently this occurs, the more modified the neuronal pathway becomes, and the behavior, thought, or emotion that is produced is also modified.

Finally, from my experience coaching women who have been sexually abused or raped, the ability to actually respond in a new way comes as a result of, first, identifying simply what is actually happening without adding any emotion or interpretation. Next, by looking for all of the possible explanations (not just the ones that reinforce the ideas we already have), one can then respond in a considered manner based on these reflections rather than on the initial gut (neuronal) instinct. Hence, a new response occurs and the neuronal pathway is modified.

While the brain is a very complex system and much of the neuropsychological research has produced mostly conjectures and theories at the present time, for anyone in recovery and/or striving toward lives that are thriving, understanding how abuse impacts brain development and memory can only support you in your journey.

Whenever I am coaching someone around issues of trauma - regardless of whether it be sexual abuse, physical abuse, or divorce, using techniques to retrain the brain is ways a part of what I do! If you'd like to explore Trauma Recovery coaching as a way to overcome the patterns of thoughts and behaviors that often develop as a result of abuse, just schedule a call!

Getting the Results You Want

"Current research underscores the wisdom of his [Benjamin Franklin's] chart-keeping approach. People are more likely to make progress on goals that are broken into concrete, measurable actions, with some kind of structured accountability and positive reinforcement." ~The Happiness Project

I couldn't agree more, which is why one of the main things I do with my clients is create "measurable results" - even when it comes to abstract ideas like worthiness, confidence, or communication. I love seeing things become focused and manageable as my clients get clear about the small strides they can take towards a larger goal!

Are there things you've wanted to change, but you're stuck either because the task seems too big or you just don't know where to start? We should chat - just schedule a call!