drglenndoyle

Give it time. No, actually.

When I say “give it time,” I don’t mean “time heals everything.” 

In point of fact, I don’t really believe time, by itself, “heals” much of anything. 

In fact, in my experience, time can make some things much worse. 

If we break a bone, and don’t get it properly set or casted, time is going to make it worse. 

If we have a progressive illness and don’t get the appropriate care for it, it’s going to get worse. 

If we experience trauma and do not have the safety or support to contextualize and cope with it, its symptoms are going to get much worse, not better, with time. 

I suppose it’s true that sometimes the passing of time can seem to dull pain or mask how bad it is in some ways. 

Not thinking about trauma, for example, is sometimes easier in the short term. 

Pretending it didn’t exist can feel easier in the short term. 

Telling other people we’re “fine” may feel easier in the short term. 

But as time passes, and we fail to give our trauma wounds and our “parts” the attention and care they need, those wounds are only going to deepen. 

One reason why so many survivors get to thinking that their trauma symptoms are their personality, is because those wounds have gone untreated for so long, that they develop quirks and habits around them— but that’s like saying “limping” is part of someone’s personality when they’ve hurt their leg. 

So, no: there’s no magic to the passage of time. 

But it is true that the things we need to do to heal our trauma DO take time. 

Learning to effectively leverage the three basic tools of trauma recovery— self-talk, mental focus, and physiology— absolutely takes time. 

After all, we did not develop these patterns of talking to ourselves, directing our mental “spotlight,” and breathing and posture and physical tension management, overnight. Our patterns have been overrehearsed, conditioned. 

Undoing those patterns involves literally, physically rewiring neural pathways in our brain and body— and that absolutely takes time. 

Moreover, we survivors tend to want what we want, when we want it. 

We have Trauma Brain telling us that we’ve “wasted” too much time already, that we don’t have time to be “patient” or “realistic” like that dork on the internet keeps saying. 

We trauma survivors also tend to think in black and white terms, so when we try to change something and it doesn’t immediately “go,” the internal backlash and discouragement can be overwhelming. 

That is to say: we might need to be reminded every now and then to give this process of “recovery” time. 

I don’t mean just let time pass. 

I mean work your recovery, every day. 

I mean define your teeny, tiny, baby step, .01% recovery goals, every day. 

I mean nudge, nudge, nudge toward meaningful change in how you use your self-talk, mental focus, and physiology, every day. 

Give it time— but use that time. 

It’s sometimes said that time is like money. We can spend it, or we can invest it. 

I recommend investing your time— intelligently, conservatively, self-compassionately. 

I guarantee the time you invest really working your recovery will support your wounds in healing much faster than time you just let pass. 

And it definitely beats letting time pass and letting our trauma wounds just fester. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Real trauma recovery is life management and enhancement.

Trauma is not the only problem of anyone reading this. 

Many people reading this have problems that relate to our trauma history and symptoms. 

And, we also have other problems. Other things that get in the way of creating the life we want. 

Realistic trauma recovery needs to help us with those problems, too— which can be counterintuitive. 

After all, why should trauma recovery have anything to do with our non-trauma problems? 

Because trauma interacts with a “spikes” our non-trauma problems in specific ways. 

Put another way: not every problem in our life is the result of trauma— but trauma amplifies every problem in our life, regardless of its origin or nature. 

I wish we could compartmentalize our problems and pain— but we can’t. That’s not how problems OR trauma work. 

How does trauma amplify or “spike” our other problems? 

By hijacking our focus. 

By poisoning our self-talk. 

By wrecking our physical energy. 

By smothering our body image. 

By making every relationship, personal or professional, a powder keg ready to blow. 

Remember that the essence of CPTSD is that it’s trauma that worms its way into our beliefs about ourselves, almost into our very personality. 

(I say “almost”— it’s real important to remember that CPTSD is NOT our personality, no matter how it might masquerade as our “true self” sometimes.) 

That means that we carry our trauma wounds into every situation in our life. 

Unfortunately, our trauma wounds do NOT stay confined to situations or triggers that directly relate to what actually happened to us.

To realistically account for this, our trauma recovery needs to include strategies for self-talk, mental focus, and physiology— especially our breathing— that steady and center us in every situation, not just situations that may involve specific trauma triggers. 

A misstep I frequently see survivors working their recovery make is thinking that they can go on autopilot in situations that don’t directly scrape up trauma triggers or memories. 

Believe me when I tell you that going on autopilot as a trauma survivor is the surest way to let Trauma Brain drive you right into the ditch with shame and self-blame— and it doesn’t even need specific trauma triggers to do it. It will use whatever situation you give it, if you’re not committed to staying present and recovery-focused. 

Working our CPTSD recovery means creating a blueprint that is much broader than processing trauma or managing a handful of specific triggers. 

Working our trauma recovery really is about broad life management. “Adulting,” as many people call it. 

A truly effective trauma recovery blueprint will involve goal achievement and emotional management strategies that will support us in every situation. 

When designing your CPTSD recovery, don’t just think “what do I need to do to cope with my trauma symptoms and memories?” 

Think, “what does my overall LIFE need to be safe and happy?” 

Because that’s ultimately the project: quality of life. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Rules and investments in trauma recovery.

You’re going to need some new “rules” for this “trauma recovery” thing in the past than you’ve had for yourself in the past. 

I’m not talking about “rules” other people have laid down for you. You’ve had enough of those. 

I’m talking about “rules” that you choose, for your reasons— that keep you on the rails in your trauma recovery, toward your goals, aligned with your values. 

Because they’re your rules, it’s not up to me to tell them to you. I can only make suggestions. 

But here’s a strong suggestion I have for a rule: no more investing in people or situations without a reasonable expectation of a return on that investment. 

CPTSD tricks us into making bad energetic investments. 

It tricks us into believing in people and ideas that are not worth our belief. 

It tricks us into staying in relationships that have hurt us, not supported us. 

CPTSD tricks us into believing that we don’t have the “right” to expect things from people and situations. 

An example I hear every day is survivors who need specific things from their relationships with their therapists or other health care professionals, but who aren’t getting those things— but who have been convinced that their lack of return in those relationships is “probably” their fault. 

(This actually happens an awful lot.) 

Over and over again, we make investments of various kinds— energetic, social, financial, even spiritual— in relationship partners, health care providers, and spiritual mentors…and when those investments do not pay off, we blame ourselves. 

This is part and parcel of a very common trick Trauma Brain pulls on us— that “everything is our fault and everything is our responsibility” BS (Belief System). 

Breaking out of this pattern requires us to switch up our personal rules. 

We need to yeet the old rule of “I don’t have the right to make changes when I’m not getting what I need.” 

And I suggest replacing that old rule with the new rule of, “I only continue investing when there is a realistic, identifiable return on that investment in a reasonable time window.” 

What does this mean? 

This means you don’t have to stay in relationships of any kind— including therapy or other health care relationships— that are not meeting your needs. 

This means you don’t have to keep having conversations with people who are committed to not understanding or considering your point of view. 

This means you don’t have to keep investing in a specific religion or spiritual identity if engaging with it only makes you feel like garbage, and doesn’t bring you demonstrably closer to the God of your understanding. 

A perspective that has served me well in trauma recovery is, everything I pay attention to is an investment. It’s an investment of my focus, my time, and my energy— all things that, as a trauma survivor working my recovery, I have to be very selective with. 

If I’m going to make certain investments of focus, time, and energy, they need to pay off. After all, you and I, as survivors in recovery, do NOT have an unlimited reservoir of ANY of those things. 

Add to that the fact that if you and I, as survivors working our trauma recovery, allow ANY of those investments to go on auto pilot, Trauma Brain will cheerfully steer all of them in directions that make us feel like garbage and kneecap our recovery…you begin to see the importance of being unapologetically picky when it comes to our investments. 

So: your rules in trauma recovery are your rules. A BIG part of recovery is how the rules you devise and adhere to differ from the rules laid down for you by your bullies and abusers. 

Your rules are going to reflect your needs and wounds— which is why they have to be so individual to you. 

But in my experience, a good place to start is rules around what you will and won’t invest in— especially over time, especially after you have lots and lots of data about who and what will “pay off” if invested in long term. 

Thank you for the investment of time and focus you made in reading this post. 

Now go out and make some other good recovery investments today. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Getting our poop in a group.

The people you think have their sh*t together, don’t feel like they have their sh*t together. 

Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers— is particularly good at telling us we don’t have our sh*t together. 

This is true whether or not we especially have our sh*t together. 

I guarantee, you could be the most advanced, most accomplished get-sh*t-done champion of the world, and Trauma Brain would list 1,473,992 reasons why you don’t have your sh*t together— and why you should feel like garbage about it. 

The reality is, we’re all actually at various stages of having our sh*t together. 

Some of us very much have our sh*t together in some areas our lives— but our sh*t goes wildly off the rails in other areas. 

The areas in which we do or don’t have our sh*t together tend to mirror our trauma wounds. 

For example, many trauma survivors tend to be enormously emotionally intelligent— but many of us struggle to make relationships work.

That’s not “evidence” that that emotional intelligence is illusory— it’s probably evidence that there may be a complex trauma wound there. 

Similarly, many trauma survivors are incredibly “book smart”— but many of us seem to struggle with making decisions and anticipating consequences. 

That’s not “evidence” that we’re “stupid”— it’s probably evidence that CPTSD may be f*cking with our executive functioning. 

There are dozens and dozens of examples like this: trauma survivors who are smart and strong, and who have our sh*t together in some life domains, inexplicably struggling to have our sh*t together and “adult” in other domains. 

The world around us often likes to explain that disparity in terms of our “maturity” or “motivation” or “character.” 

But what’s actually going on is, the “holes” in our functioning are pointing to where our wounds are. No more; no less. 

CPTSD’s ability to make us feel like we don’t have our sh*t together, and Trauma Brian’s skill and enthusiasm for being the living snot out of us for it, is one of the hardest things for many trauma survivors to handle. 

We can handle being wounded, though we don’t love it. 

But we really, really hate feeling incompetent. 

(This is especially true if we were “parentified” kids in our family, and our identity was formed around having our sh*t together at an earlier age than we actually should have had our sh*t together.)

When you experience that shame and frustration at not having your sh*t together, remember that you’re probably doing better than you think you are— and you’re certainly doing better than Trauma Brain is letting you believe. 

No, you’re not doing perfectly. No, you don’t have your sh*t together in every way.

But you’re certainly not the train wreck CPTSD is trying to convince you you are. 

You’re like all of us: a work in progress, with strengths, weaknesses, wounds, and possibilities. 

Do not fall into the trap of trying to punish or shame yourself for those areas in which you don’t have your sh*t together. 

After all: even if you don’t have your sh*t together in certain ways, GIVING yourself sh*t isn’t the strategy for changing that. That just gives you MORE sh*t to try to manage, and if you’re already mismanaging your sh*t, where does that leave you? 

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome new readers to the Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle Facebook community, where trauma recovery meets colorful metaphors. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

So you’re not the “perfect victim.” And?

Nobody reading this is the “perfect” “victim” or survivor— and neither is the person writing this. 

But the culture likes to try to cram us into that box, doesn’t it? 

The culture really likes to tell us what we “should” look and talk and be like if we were “really” hurt or in need of help. 

And because we don’t always look and talk like other people expect us to, they often disbelieve us. 

So many people out there truly believe they can tell a trauma survivor by looking at us. 

So many people out there truly believe that their gut instinct for whether our story is true, is accurate. 

They truly believe that their Spidey Sense trumps our actual words. 

And they’re not shy about telling us this. 

The cultural narrative of the “perfect victim” is a time honored trope. 

It means a victim of trauma or pain who is completely sympathetic— who doesn’t have any rough edges, either in their personality or their story. 

You and I know that life and trauma just don’t work like that. 

Many of us have “rough edges” in our personality that are the entirely normal consequences of having endured trauma responses over the course of years. 

Many of us have overdeveloped “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” or “flop” reflexes that other people misinterpret as us being “difficult” or taciturn with them personally. 

Many of us also have “fawn” and “f*ck” responses that paint an inaccurate picture of how attached or attracted we are to a person— and then when we have entirely normal responses to the prospect of intimacy, we get shamed or attacked. 

In certain ways, it’s not others’ fault that they mistake our trauma responses for our personalities. After all, many CPTSD survivors have been enduring so many trauma responses on the daily for so long, even we get confused about what is us and what is CPTSD. 

But it’s also the case that the culture has wildly inappropriate standards for what constitutes “legitimate” victimhood— or even what constitutes “trauma.” 

We live in a culture that, regardless of how progressive our political leadership is or isn’t at any given time, highly values individualism, and implicitly or explicitly shames “weakness” and dependence. 

Most of the “inspiring” stories in our culture revolve around people who experience trauma—and who are able to miraculously brush it off and kill the bad guy by the end of the movie. 

The culture considers trauma survivors “legitimate” to the extent that we follow in this template. 

Conversely, the culture has little understanding of or patience for long term, day by day, non-cinematic recovery. 

Which is a drag, because that’s what most trauma recovery actually looks like. 

Don’t get me wrong: I think trauma survivors are heroes, and there is plenty of drama in many survivors’ recovery stories. 

But just as often, recovery is about waking up and struggling to do the kind of “adulting” that our culture takes for granted— and assumes people manage via the magic of “personal responsibility.” 

I’ll spoil the suspense, you’re not that “perfect survivor” with the “perfect story,” and neither am I. 

And: that doesn’t actually matter. 

The culture can and will make recovery a little easier or a lot harder for us, depending on how well we meet its expectations. 

But our recovery does not depend on the culture understanding or supporting us. 

Thank God. 

Just keep coming back to basics. Just keep coming back to your safety and stability goals, today. Keep coming back to your basic tools of self talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

Just work your recovery today, this hour. 

Let the culture spin about their “perfect victim” fantasies. 

We have real lives to build and live here. 

I am so, so proud of you. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

We’re Not Gonna Take It.

Leveling up in trauma recovery often involves defining, clearly and emphatically, what we’re done tolerating. 

If you look at your life, chances are any time it’s significantly changed for the better involved a decision to no longer tolerate something. 

Sometimes what we’re no longer tolerating has to do with somebody else. We’re done tolerating their condescension, their disrespect, their neglect. 

Other times what we’re no longer tolerating has to do with our own behavior. We’re done talking to ourselves like our bullies and abusers talked to us. We’re done harming ourselves. We’re done neglecting our physical health. 

This tool— getting clear and consistent about what we will no longer tolerate— stems in no small part from the post traumatic “fight” response. 

What is the “fight” response? 

Ultimately, it’s our nervous system saying, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” 

Our “fight” response is akin to our “parts” banding together and saying, “Aw, hell no.” 

One of the reasons I think the “fight” trauma response gets such a bad rap is, we survivors have super mixed feelings about aggression in general. 

Often we’ve had terrible experiences with people who cannot regulate their aggression or anger. 

We associate aggression with pain and lack of control— and we assume our “fight” response might make us like those scary, dysregulated people who hurt us. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Yes, sometimes our “fight” response manifests aggressively— but just as often, it manifests protectively. 

Our “fight” response is the engine of most of the boundaries we set in trauma recovery. 

Our “fight” response allows us to tap into energy and focus we just can’t access when we’re cool, calm, and collected. 

And, of course, our “fight” response fuels our commitment to no longer tolerate things that are toxic to our recovery or our life. 

What you’re going to find, as you work your trauma recovery, is that there truly is a place for every trauma response we can experience. 

We don’t have to deny, disown, or ignore any of them. 

Trauma responses don’t actually cause us the biggest problems when they get triggered— they cause us the biggest problems when we try to deny or disown them. To run from them, to shame them. 

If you had the tools and support, what would you no longer be willing to tolerate in your life, starting today? 

What would make nudging toward setting a boundary with that thing .01% more realistic today? 

Now go listen to “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, and repeat as necessary. 

Doctor’s orders. 

(Of course that’s a joke, but that is what I’m going to do.) 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Us and our shadows.

We all have a “shadow” self. 

A version of ourselves that is a little— or a lot— dark. 

This is a normal human thing, but CPTSD survivors can have particularly complicated relationships with our shadows. 

We’ve often been assailed, for years, with messages about how “bad” we are. 

We’ve had shame used to control our thoughts and behavior for years. 

Even when we try to recover, we often get messages about how bad our “attitude” is. About how we should “smile” and “engage” more. 

All of that can make us especially sensitive to, and conflicted about, our shadow self. 

We need to understand that our “shadow” self is not evidence we’re “evil,” or even “bad.” 

The concept of a “shadow” self has been around so long that versions of it crop up in the earliest psychological theories, long before Carl Jung popularized the idea. 

Freud’s entire body of work is all about how we engage with our “shadow” drives— most prominently our sexual and aggressive instincts. 

Everybody has a “shadow self.” It doesn’t make anyone a predator or an abuser. 

Predators and abusers are not predators and abusers because their “shadow” selves exist. 

They’re predators and abusers because of how they relate to their “shadow” selves (and for lots of other reasons). 

For trauma survivors working our recovery, how we understand, relate to, and manage our “shadow” selves really, really matters. 

It can be enormously destructive to our recovery if we deny and disown our “shadow.” 

Realistic trauma recovery doesn’t tolerate the refusal to see what we see and know what we know— including our “shadow” self. 

Acknowledging our “shadow” doesn’t mean we let it run the show or make decisions for us. 

It doesn’t mean we become mean, impulsive, or otherwise destructive. 

It means we accept that we are human beings, with the full spectrum of human feelings and experiences— including the darker ones. 

The quality of our trauma recovery is the quality of our relationship with ourselves— including our “shadow” self. 

The intensity of our “shadow” doesn’t mean we’re bad or broken. 

It almost always speaks to safety and guidance we didn’t get once upon a time when we were vulnerable. 

We’re not getting gout of this trauma maze while denying or disowning aspects of who we are— even aspects that make us anxious, aspects we’re conflicted about, aspects we don’t love. 

We don’t have to identify with our “shadow” self. 

But we don’t have to pretend it doesn’t exist, either— or assume that it means something about us that it doesn’t. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Come for it all.

Come for everything they said you couldn’t have. 

You’ve hard that motivational phrase, right? I didn’t originate it, I’ve seen it quite a few places. 

But it has particular resonance for CPTSD survivors. 

We have very often been told we “can’t” have things. 

That we don’t “deserve” things. 

That we’ll have to give up our “victim mindset” and make better “choices” before we’ll even be supposedly eligible for those things. 

Now, don’t get me wrong: mindset certainly matters in trauma recovery, and I’m all for making better choices, always. 

But I’ve worked with hundreds of trauma survivors in recovery, and I can assure you: “mindset” and “choices” are not their— our— biggest problems in recovery. 

Some CPTSD survivors were told, when they leave painful relationships or situations, that we’ll “never make it” without our abusers and bullies. 

(No, really: some of us were literally told just that, in those words.) 

So, my advice is: come for it. 

Come for it all. 

Come for everything they said was out of your reach. 

Come for everything that you ever imagined was off the table for you. 

Don’t let shame stop you, don’t let fear top you, and abso-f*cking-lutely do not let the internalized voices of abusers and bullies from the past stop you. 

You are absolutely “eligible” for a better life. 

You’re honestly “eligible” for a much better life than you would probably have ever imagined, had you not been introduced to the trauma recovery paradigm. 

I would never, ever wish trauma on anyone, and I am emphatically not “grateful” for what you or I have endured. 

But truthfully, if I hadn’t had to save my own life by getting serious about trauma and addiction recovery, I probably would have slept on such basic tools as self talk, mental focus, and physiology for the rest of my life. 

I probably would have remained a random white dude with middling aspirations and moods I could not predict or influence, like most random white dudes. 

However: things unfolded as they did. 

And here I am. 

Coming for everything they said I couldn’t have. 

And here I am, recommending you aspire to do the same. 

They don’t get to choose or limit what we “get” to achieve. Or feel. Or become. 

Working our trauma recovery and building a life can be hard, and is often not straightforward. And we’re very often doing this functionally alone. 

There are no guarantees in recovery, or in life. 

But I can tell you this: if you’re reading this, you’ve very likely been sold a bill of goods about what you do and don’t “deserve.” 

And it’s most likely BS (Belief Systems—but also, you know, bullsh*t) 

Come for it. 

Come for everything they said you couldn’t have. 

We are not who they they think we are— we are golden. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and you (your body, anyway).

Something many trauma survivors have in common is, our bodies know we’re stressed or triggered before we do. 

Our conscious mind is often very well defended against seeing what we see and knowing what we know. 

It’s had to be, for us to psychologically (and, sometimes, physically) survive what we’ve been through. 

But our bodies, our nervous system, our endocrine system, our very cells, are under no illusions. 

They’ll register triggers and stress— often in ways that confuse and frustrate both us and the myriad medical professionals we try to seek support from. 

For example, the exhaustion many CPTSD survivors experience has nothing to do with lack of sleep.

The chronic pain many trauma survivors experience can only be partially understood in terms of physical traumas or injuries we’ve sustained. 

The allergies and inflammation many trauma survivors experience often trace back to…we’ll we’re not quite sure, actually. 

All we know is its real, and often debilitating. 

None of this is to say that any or all of these problems are “psychosomatic” or “in our head.” 

But when we’re reacting to triggers in our body— especially if we’re cognitively “blind” to those triggers— it can make us a hell of a lot more vulnerable to every physical problem or pain point you can imagine. 

Many people will misunderstand this, and think that either CPTSD “causes” those physical problems, or that those physical problems are the result of a “victim mindset” that CPTSD nurtures. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I know and have worked with more chronic illness and pain warriors than most, and I can tell you that, as a group, they do not have a “victim mindset.” 

In fact, it’s usually the opposite: trauma survivors who struggle with chronic pain and complicated medical conditions often feel OVER responsible for what they’re going through— largely because they’ve been told that they are. 

I don’t want you to understand your physical pain or other medical problems as manifestations of CPTSD. 

I want you to understand that CPTSD spikes our risk for all kinds of pain and other problems— which is one reason why it’s so important to work our recovery. 

Nobody reading this loves their physical reactivity. 

Everyone reading this as probably wondered, at one time or another, how they got such a “lemon” of a physical body. 

I don’t think you got a “lemon” of a physical body. 

I think that every cell in our body was affected by what happened to us, and what we’ve been forced, against our will, to manage every day since. 

I think that’s a cognitive, emotional, hormonal, and spiritual load that human bodies were not designed to bear. Certainly not for years on end. 

I think our bodies are doing the best they can. 

And I think all we can do for them, is what we can do: work our recovery with realism, self-awareness, and self-compassion, one day at a time. 

Breathe, blink, focus. 

And say “thank you” to your body. 

drglenndoyle

“Coercion” can be more than just physical.

Because you were not physically threatened, doesn’t mean you weren’t coerced. 

Because no one had a physical gun to your head doesn’t mean you made a “choice.” 

Because your body responded doesn’t mean you “wanted” or “enjoyed” it. 

You’re going to run into many people who have a very narrow definition of “force” or “coercion.” 

They are going to assume that if there wasn’t physical force or threat directly involved, then behavior must have been a free “choice.” 

These are the people who are going to ask you “why didn’t you just leave?”

They’re the same people who will say, “why didn’t you just set a boundary?” 

They’re the same people who say, “if you hated it so much, why did you repeat the pattern, over and over and over again?” 

That worldview has nothing to do with reality. 

That worldview has everything to do with those peoples’ wishes that reality be that simple. 

You see, if reality was that simple, those people would feel safer. 

They don’t like the idea that we can be forced to do things in ways that have nothing to do with physical coercion. 

They don’t like for example, the fact that true, unforced “choice” only actually exists if all the alternatives are survivable. 

That is to say: if someone “chooses” something because the alternative was not survivable, they haven’t really made a “choice.” 

Those people also don’t like the fact that there are types of survival in addition to physical survival. 

Sometimes we may “choose” something not because our physical life is in danger, but because the alternative was not realistically survivable socially, financially, or even spiritually. 

The actual fact of the matter is, there are dozens of ways to make human beings do things that do not involve threats to physical survival. 

Pretending that physical threat or coercion is the only way “choice” can be taken away from us opens the door to us feeling shame about many things we “chose” for the sake or survival along the way— but which, upon examination, were not actually “free” choices. 

I get it: you don’t love some of the things you did once upon a time. Neither do I. 

We don’t have to love all our “choices.” 

But we also don’t have to pretend all of those choices were truly “free.” 

You and I did plenty of things to survive— again, not just physically— that don’t particularly align with our values or self-concept now. And again, we don’t have to love that. 

But we don’t have to hold those “choices” against ourselves, either. 

We can realistically and self-compassionately acknowledge the truth: that we were forced to do sh*t we don’t love and wouldn’t “freely” choose. 

I know, that can feel helpless. And many people would rather feel ashamed than helpless. 

I’m going to ask you to sit with the helplessness that comes with acknowledging we haven’t, actually been “in control” of our “choices” for a very long time. 

That’s not an excuse. That’s reality. 

And that’s the starting point to actually making some real, values-congruent choices: forgiving ourselves for not being as “in control” as we thought we were. 

Easy does it. None of this is easy. 

And, we deserve a recovery that restores our autonomy and dignity. No matter what “choices” we did or didn’t have in the past. 

Breathe; blink; focus.