Trauma recovery is about progress, not perfection.

Trauma recovery is about progress, not perfection. 

Recovery from ANYTHING that threatens to ruin our life— including trauma, addiction, eating disorders, depression— is about progress, not perfection. 

Perfection doesn’t exist, except by accident every now and then. 

Our recovery will NOT be picture perfect— probably ever— and that’s actually the good news. 

I dunno what I would have ever learned from a  “perfect” recovery. 

Recovery is about getting close to some NASTY truths. 

In trauma recovery we get close to truths about what happened to us that MANY of us would REALLY rather not know. 

We often get close to truths about certain people that we’d rather not know. 

We get close to truths about the world that we never, ever wanted to know. 

It’s rough stuff. 

Anyone who says that getting past PTSD is about “willpower” doesn’t understand the hard truths that trauma recovery asks us wrestle with. 

That journey will not be “perfect.” 

Wrapping our head around this sh*t is painful. 

Our nervous system is going to push back. 

We’re going to want to avoid. We’re going to want to dissociate. We’re going to want to numb out. 

We’re going to have days when we’re REALLY into our trauma recovery…and days when the very LAST thing we want to think about is our trauma recovery. 

Our coping skills will DEFINITELY not be perfect— at least partly because we’re not particularly good at them yet. 

In order to get good at coping, we have to cope— a lot. 

We’re going to have to get a lot of practice. 

And practice is not perfect. It’s not SUPPOSED to be perfect. 

We’re going to get scared. 

We’re going to get overwhelmed. 

We’re going to backslide. 

We’re going to use our focus and our motivation. 

Sometimes we’re going to choose priorities OVER our trauma recovery for a minute. 

And that’s all okay. 

Our recovery doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to keep us alive. 

It needs to keep us functional enough so that we don’t throw away the things we value and love. 

Our recovery needs to support us in getting through THIS minute. 

In trauma recovery, we gotta think progress, not perfection. 

Perfection’s a red herring. It’s a fever dream. It’s doesn’t exist. 

Don’t worry about it. 

Let your trauma recovery be good enough. 

Good enough to get you through. 

Good enough to keep you alive. 

Good enough to take the very next step. 

That’s all we need.