A Return to Your Genuine Self

April 28, 2015

On Steps Two and Three: The Sanity and Decision Factors

This week, we wrap up our series with Rivka Edery, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. in which she shares the healing power of trust and letting go of control.
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STEP TWO: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

In social work we say: “Start from where the client is.” This applies to trust issues: if you feel you cannot trust enough to ask for help, then you have just identified your starting point. You will begin your journey from the place of “I don’t / can’t trust”.

During your personal process of recovery from trauma, by applying the Twelve Steps, you will learn the difference between belief and trust. A person can believe that a spiritual power exists; but that does not mean that he necessarily trusts that power.

It is true that traumatic events shake up your world, have you questioning the meaning of life, and this puts up barriers to trust. The goal of trusting a power greater than you can be an exacting taskmaster. As a result, many survivors are attempting to do much more to heal than what once was

just a longing. Having the courage to take your first steps in recovery is what lays down the bricks on your path, in order to “come to believe” that you could be restored to wholeness.

When you apply Step Two to your own life, you can begin the process of developing a sense of trust for safe others. The essence of Step Two is coping with loss, including grieving for what is now gone and cannot be undone (perhaps you were once a very trusting person; innocent and vulnerable, and something or someone robbed that from you). It is also about learning to know a Power greater than yourself, as a loving, sustaining energy, and not as an authority figure that will harm or control you. Step Two is also about achieving some cognitive understanding that no matter what happened to you, a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity and integrity. Think about this for a moment. You are not to be blamed for your loss of trust, or any other reaction or formed beliefs. Actually, it was a perfect response in the context of what happened.

STEP THREE: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

You have worked Steps One and Two with a safe and trusted person – you have surrendered and you have demonstrated your willingness to try a new approach to your life experiences. When you admit your powerlessness over your traumatic history, you learn a comforting and critical truth: that you experienced certain painful life events that you absolutely could not have controlled. You were also not always in control of the coping patterns that have emerged. For some survivors, this can be a frightening and humbling experience.

In addition to your traumatic life experiences, there are numerous things in life you cannot control. Your willingness to view your experiences in a different light infuses you with a new sense of hope and relief. However, if you do not translate your hope into action, you will revert to old behaviors.

Your old behaviors, formulated by you as coping mechanisms, leave you feeling resentful, frustrated and angry. As a trauma survivor, you try to be in control in many different ways. Using your sexuality as punishment or reward, using guilt, dishonesty or “learned helplessness” to get your way, you try to get the results you want.

Another very common dysfunctional behavioral approach in dealing with people is trying to “take care of” or “fix” things, even if it is unsolicited, unnecessary or inappropriate. Some of you may resort to threatening others, manipulating, or bullying to get your way, even if these tactics are not necessarily used maliciously.

Your willingness to receive the care of a power greater than yourself will produce a life-changing transformational shift, because it opens you to new, broader possibilities. You participate in rather than try to control life. No one gets anything right without an appropriate amount of practice and patience, and this step is no different.

If you are anything like the average person, you will find that your openness will come and go. However, as long as you remain on your personal spiritual path, a little bit of faith is enough to bring you back. When you feel like giving up, remember that you are wired for growth and change (neo-plasticity). By remaining honest, open and willing (H.O.W), you will be in the best position to change any negative and false beliefs about your Higher Power, yourself, and other people.

Thank you so much for your participation up until this point! I am delighted to have had this opportunity! If you are interested in learning more about this process, please see my contact information below. Good luck on your healing journey, and trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

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Rivka Edery, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. has a Bachelor’s of Arts in Social Science and a Masters in Social Work from Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She is a highly intuitive and sensitive psychotherapist, with a private practice in Brooklyn, NY, and is a first time author specializing in trauma recovery and spirituality. She has been active in the treatment and recovery field for more than eighteen years. Since 2009, she has been working as a clinical social worker assisting clients who are recovering from trauma-related disorders. She has treated numerous clients and has talked with hundreds of recovering addicts. As her career was advancing, Rivka wondered if the ancient spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous could be applied to the healing of trauma. One day, she was suddenly inspired with an idea that had a firm hold on her and has not let go since. It combined the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that saved her life, with life problems that are a result of surviving traumatic experiences. The result is a unique approach for trauma survivors who are seeking a combined spiritual and clinical approach to their personal effects of surviving trauma. www.rivkaedery.com

Author of: “Trauma and Transformation: A 12-Step Guide”
To purchase my book, “Trauma And Transformation: A 12-Step Guide” (2013): http://goo.gl/o3BndU

My podcast, "Trauma and Transformation: A 12-Step Guide", is available at the iTunes Store, Microsoft Windows Zune, and other podcast providers. You can search using my name, book title, or key words.

Bi-weekly Radio Show Guest Host
National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (NAASCA)
“Stop Child Abuse Now" talk show. Every other Thursday is SPECIAL TOPIC Night - "Child Abuse, Trauma and 12-Step Recovery". Please see our web page at: www.NAASCA.org/Trauma-12Step

April 21, 2015

On Step One: The Admission of Powerlessness Factor

This week, we continue our series with Rivka Edery, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. in which she shares with us the importance of acknowledging we may have been powerless but we are not helpless.
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STEP ONE: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step One is your guide on how to process and heal from trauma. It will also serve as your guide to personal growth, which is applicable for anyone, not just for trauma survivors. Why is processing trauma, and personal growth, important for you? You may wonder of the necessity of going through such a process, especially if you are high functioning and successful in life. Growing pains are painful, and we humans are wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

You also have a responsibility to take care of yourself, and although some pain can be avoided, there is the pain that cannot be avoided, and requires processing. This is your turn now, and you begin with this first step. The word “admit” is to accept what is valid and true for you personally. This step asks you to accept what areas in your life that have been affected by your personal trauma history, causing your life to be out of control, unsatisfying, or chronically problematic for you.

Emotional growth includes freedom from a sense of false control and dependency, facing what needs your attention, replacing unnecessary emotional defenses, and ending spiritual isolation. At this point, you may be thinking: “Just get over it and move on! If I dwell on it, talk about it, explore it, I will just make it worse. I don’t know why I should bother with this healing stuff? After all, look at how 'fine' I am without knowing or dealing with what happened!”

If there was a time in your life where natural dependency was used against you (childhood abuse and trauma), you may be highly triggered by “admitting powerlessness” over what happened. After all, when you are powerless over something, it implies that you did not do something, but rather, you get done to.

If your powerlessness was once a weapon used to control you, and your protesting what happened carried little weight, you may associate “powerlessness” with defenseless, and this can be entirely too painful. You may have never taken the risk to feel this vulnerable, or to explore the definitions of these terms, as it pertains to your growth. After all, most people have the need to be in control, let alone if believing you are in control once saved your life, your mind, your sanity, etc.

Some survivors over-react and harm themselves or others. In either case, there are always the elements of either over-reacting or under-reacting. You do not have to remain this way the rest of your life. The opposite of Step One is the erroneous and highly misleading belief that you have power (over what happened: people, places, and things), which results in you taking inappropriate or excessive responsibility. This is because you think that you can stop the person(s), or event(s), or that in some way you actually caused it to happen.

Human nature is such that people would rather feel guilty than powerless. That is why you assume a great deal of power; to counteract the real feelings of powerlessness, which is inherent in having been traumatized. In what areas of your life can you see evidence for this?

TIP: Whenever you feel miserable, consider if it may be because you are forgetting that you are powerless of the situation (people, place, or thing), and you are mentally trying to change someone or something else, that you do not have any power to change.

TIP: Being powerless does NOT mean you are helpless. It just means that you must change your source of power. You are not the Source. Internally, you may have taken on the entire burden, which leads to emotional entrapment and a form of mental slavery. Unlearning your original beliefs about power, and responsibility, is the essence of Step One.

TIP: Step One will allow you the freedom to love people in a genuine way, because you will be free of needing anything from them. By letting go of control and manipulation, both you and the other person are free to be who they are. You allow yourself, and others, to experience love on a different level – free from demands and hidden agendas.

You cannot overpower a traumatic event, and other people are beyond your power to control. This is the essence of Step One. If you integrate this principle into the very fiber of your being, you are experiencing the power of Step One. You may need to return to this step as often as you need to, and feel free to do so. It is now that you stand a real chance in changing your self-identified unhealthy patterns.

Please join me next week as we further explore Steps Two and Three of Alcoholics Anonymous, and their application for trauma-recovery: Step Two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

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April 14, 2015

The Transformation Factor: Addiction, Trauma and Recovery

This week, we continues our series with Rivka Edery, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. in which she shares with us the important transition we have to make from denial to acceptance.
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The consequences of surviving trauma are complex, making it difficult to formulate a recovery and treatment plan. The most common defense mechanism, and the toughest one to work through, is denial. Throughout human history, lack of knowledge and non-acceptance of the perpetrators misdeeds has placed the suffering of survivors behind an armored wall, perpetuating traumatic effects. No recovery can occur behind this wall of forced silence, ignorance and lack of helpful resources.

Over the last two decades, research has revealed the frequency of traumatic events, and their injurious effects on a survivor’s psyche. Mental health professional have come to understand the connections between unresolved trauma and serious psychological problems.

The survivor’s decision to begin a process of healing begins with the admission of what happened to them. This involves working through the defenses employed to shun from consciousness the excruciatingly painful memories of the traumatic events. Having passed through this phase of remembering (in any way possible), the acceptance of the truth of the traumatic experience moves the survivor towards resolution.

Thus begins the creation of an internal, healing space for the survivor to feel what remained frozen in time, banished and unwelcome in consciousness. By going through the felt experience, the survivor can let go and access healing. The way is open to be in charge and responsible, embracing difficulties as well as personal assets and gifts.

Over the course of each survivor’s life, there will be people who will criticize any efforts to acknowledge and heal from traumatic experiences. Such nay-sayers accuse survivors of using their histories to live in the past or to make excuses for personal problems. This criticism comes from those who have limited empathy, or may be in denial about their own mistreatment.

Qualified trauma specialists know that the stress from repression manifests itself in serious life difficulties. The perpetrators themselves will often intimidate their victims in an attempt to enforce silence. Although the absolute recall of traumatic events is not possible, the overwhelming consequences and burden on the untreated survivor deserves attention.

Please join me next week as we talk about Step One of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” We will explore what, if anything, this step can teach us about trauma recovery.

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April 7, 2015

The Spirituality Factor: Addiction, Trauma and Recovery

This week, we begin a series by Rivka Edery, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. -- and I couldn't be more thrilled. Rivka has done amazing work bringing the 12-step model of Alcoholics Anonymous and spirituality to the world of trauma recovery. I'm sure you will gain so much from her over these next few weeks!

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The role of spirituality in trauma recovery is often misunderstood and subsequently minimized. There is a great need for understanding the healing potential of spirituality in addiction and trauma recovery. Utilizing spirituality as part of trauma–informed care, while detailing the complicated puzzle of the survivor’s inner reality, requires a step-by-step process of applying spiritual tools to each phase of recovery.

This process significantly alters a life of pain and confusion. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, during the course of the next few weeks, a series that explains, and discusses, the process of utilizing the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as an adjunct for trauma-recovery.

Trauma survivors usually have a difficult time experiencing their vulnerability and the attending feelings of having once been profoundly helpless and alone. The process of unearthing one’s memories and re-experiencing anguish requires the help of skilled, knowledgeable and spiritually grounded professionals who have done healing work on themselves. With issues as delicate and sensitive as deep emotional wounding, each survivor and counselor must approach the recovery path with patience, self-love, self-care and the development of an appropriate support network.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous comprise a spiritual program used to treat alcoholics and other individuals with a range of self destructive and addictive tendencies. The potential for transformation in trauma-recovery lies in the powerful spiritual process that has its own mysterious element to it.

Due to the nature of the wound of trauma that is so often intertwined with addiction, a comprehensive approach to healing the physical, mental and spiritual wounding is essential. It is my hope that survivors will consider incorporating a rich spiritual component to their recovery, and encourage others to do the same.

Please join me next week, as we talk about “The Transformation Factor”

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March 24, 2015

How Meditation Saved My Life When Nothing Else Could

This week, we wrap our series with the fabulous Zoë Wild, Spiritual Life & Business Coach, and spectacular woman. This week, she shares with us her own personal story.

And this also marks the 200th post for the Return to Your Genuine Self blog -- kinda exciting!!!

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Almost a decade ago, while living in LA and working in the film industry, I experienced a complete emotional and physical breakdown. I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t sleep for weeks on end, or talk without pain. I couldn’t work, see my friends, or leave my tiny studio apartment. I was overwhelmed and exhausted from a lifetime of knowing there was more but not knowing what, seeking for true meaning in every corner of life, simultaneous high and low self worth, intermittent depression, anger and pain about the state of the world and the things I had witnessed and been through. I felt as if I had tried everything to quell the longing in my soul and overcome the trauma and nothing was working.

I gave myself a year to live. Therapy, career changes, worldly success, relationships, sex, travel, self-help books, making myself beautiful-- all had done nothing to sustainably shift the deep ache I felt inside.

I told myself I would try everything that I had always wanted to and never had and if, at the end of that year, nothing had changed, I would end my life.

One of the things on that list was meditation.

Every day, I would crawl to the end of my bed to follow the instructions in a book a friend had given me. I took to the practice like a fish to water. The techniques for using my own direct experience to explore the true nature of being alive were the first thing that ever really made sense to me. Finally, someone was starting at the foundation– and asking me to look for myself rather than telling me what to see.

Very quickly, I realized that I was not my mind, emotions, or body. What I am revealed itself to be something much more profound, and yet so ordinary, something that had always been there and yet I

had missed it in the hustle of daily life and lack of instruction. It was the source of the longing I had felt, calling me back from the insanity of the world, reminding me of what we are and how to live in harmony. By returning to it, the door I had been looking for in healing and in my life was opened.

I made some inquiries, saved up some money, and moved to Burma-- a country I didn’t even know existed beforehand, to live in a monastery.

I can still see the bright sun on the stone walls, the tall tropical trees out of an exotic adventure novel, and feel the impact on my heart of the smiling faces and openness of the villagers, full of a simple joy I had never before experienced.

I went to that monastery not to become enlightened, discover God, or learn supernatural abilities. I was there to find a reason to live. I wanted to know if there was any rhyme or reason in this universe, lasting peace to be found in my heart, a way out of the overwhelm, pressure, intrusive thoughts, painful memories, self-criticism, bad habits, relationship patterns and hopelessness about the state of the world that were so pervasive in my experience.

What I got was so much more. Within three months, everywhere I looked, I saw only the miracle that is life. I had no desire to be anywhere other than this moment, open and curious about what was. Through practice, the layers of limiting perspective I had accumulated over the years dissolved, allowing a fresh experience of even the most minute details of life to emerge. Everything appeared the same on the outside, and yet I experienced it completely differently internally. The transformation from separation to unity was so complete that I didn’t even consciously notice it had happened for some time.

Through meditation I discovered the true nature of my being – beyond thoughts, emotions, physicality, and perceptions. The way the mind works, and how to use it as a magnificent tool, rather than have it run me. The nature of emotions – how to experience and allow that energy to transmute and express in helpful rather than destructive ways. A profound connection with all of creation. Gifts and abilities I could share with the world. A wealth of joy and creativity I had no idea lived within me. An immovable place of peace in the center of my being. The beauty of the world. Freedom from my inner state being tied to outer circumstance or any idea of identity. The true, alive meaning of Love. I healed my relationships with my family. I became so kind to myself and others. I was healed.

What do I mean by healed?

The experiences of the past don’t create my present. They are not forgotten, but they are integrated and not a part of my daily repertoire. I truly love and accept myself. To me, this means I allow and experience all of my emotions and thoughts without making them mean something about me or my worth. I don’t feel controlled by my thoughts. I have a wonderful relationship with my body, and the physical ailments I was suffering from at that time went away. I feel in communication with my body, mind, heart and soul – and I am committed to following my inner guidance. When I have conflict, I know how to deal with it and use it for my growth. I am more often relaxed and peaceful than stressed or anxious. I am free to define myself in each moment as it comes rather than based on the past.

Meditation is a vehicle (sometimes an extreme sport!) for examining what it is to be alive that continues to take me on an incredible adventure and revelation of the secrets of what this life is.

Is my life perfect? My definition of perfection has changed. Do I have hard days? Of course! I am human. Life doesn’t stop having a huge range of experience, nor would I want it to – but the understanding of the whole picture, and the approach to the ups and downs is entirely different.

When I returned to the US, I saw so many people suffering simply from not having access to the simple yet profound teachings that I had been given. I also saw that most people did not have the freedom in their lives to get up and go off for several years, as I had – even if they were in as much despair as I had been.

I was shocked to see how differently most meditation was taught here. It had become attached to a specific lifestyle that led to ideas of superiority rather than humility and connection. People were spending more time reading and writing books about it than actually practicing it. Worse, people didn’t seem able to bring the peace they found on the cushion to their actual daily life.

I longed for other people to be able to experience the immense transformation and freedom from so much suffering that I had been blessed with. That is why I created www.WildMeditation.com.

Wild Meditation is meditation anyone can do in any activity of life. It’s a group course because that is how it has been taught for thousands of years. It is so much easier to stay committed when you have companions on the journey. It is pay-what-you-can because I believe this tool is your human birthright.

Sharing these teachings is the way I can say thank you to the universe for all the benefits I have received.

Whether you learn meditation from me or someone else, I urge you to try it. May it be the key for you that it was for me, and open up the door to the healing you are seeking…and so much more.

With Love,
Zoë

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Zoë Wild, CPCC wants to live in a world where every single person knows their essential, liberated nature – where the truth of each unique soul is fully and freely expressed, so we can play and explore life in radiant compassion and electric freedom, together.

As a Buddhist Nun, Interfaith Minister and Spiritual Life & Business Coach she has spent thousands of hours in personal retreat and worked with thousands of people on their own spiritual unfolding for life success. She is a beloved spiritual community leader known for her grounded, no BS approach and unshakeable love.

When she’s not bringing people to their knees in awe of themselves or exploring the deepest questions of life with her community -- you can find Zoë hiking the red rocks, riding horses, and learning to sing.

Her book The Little Book of Being is scheduled to be complete by summer 2015.

You are so much more than you know. Liberate yourself at www.zoewild.com

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