Trauma recovery means living intentionally AF.

Trauma recovery demands that we be very intentional. 

Intentional about our time. About our focus. About our mental “diet.”

We are not going to realistically recover from trauma on autopilot. 

Remember: our autopilot was programmed by trauma. By abusive and neglectful people and institutions. 

If we could live a functional and meaningful life on autopilot, we would have by now. 

But if we’re serous about trauma recovery, we have to take it off autopilot— which is easier said than done. 

When we take our life off of autopilot, we’re forced to be way more intentional. We’re forced to choose our focus. We’re forced to manage our time. 

We’re forced to manage what I call our mental “diet”— what goes in to our head via what we watch and what we read and who we follow on social media. 

Mental “junk food” leads to feeling and functioning about as good emotionally as actual junk food leads to feeling and functioning physically. 

Having to be this intentional about life can be exhausting. 

When survivors struggle with trauma recovery, it’s almost never because we don’t “want” to recover— it’s almost always because we are so. Goddamn. Tired. All. The goddamn. Time. 

I’ll spoil the suspense: there are absolutely going to be times when you and I are just not up to living as intentionally as recovery demands. 

There are absolutely going to be times when we don’t feel like it— and there are going to be times when we are not physically or mentally or spiritually up to it. 

There are going to be times when we resent the hell out of all this super intentional living, and we go back on autopilot out of exhaustion— and maybe even a little spite. 

Then, our trauma-programmed autopilot does its thing— and we wind up where we wind up. 

No shame. It happens to all of us. Most definitely including me. 

What we need to remember is, there’s no shame in being tired. 

There’s no shame in being exhausted, even. 

Trauma recovery is one of the hardest things you and I will ever, ever do. It’s one of the hardest things humans ever do. 

It’s okay to be exhausted. It’s okay to not feel like working your recovery today. It’s not evidence of “cowardice” or “weakness” or anything else Trauma Brain is accusing you of when you have a day when you’re just not feeling this “recovery” thing. 

What we’re shooting for, in trauma recovery, is building up our capacity to live intentionally. 

What we’re shooting for is living intentionally more days than not. Making decisions intentionally more often than not. Day by day, upping the percentage of intentionality with which we live. 

It’s not going to be perfect. And that’s okay. 

Let me repeat that. It’s not going to be perfect— and that’s okay. That’s normal. That’s all part of recovery. 

It’s not going to be perfect— but it’s going to get better. We get better at it. 

We get incrementally more used to it. 

Day by day, we develop the habit of living more and more intentionally— and when I tell you living intentionally is the absolute bedrock of realistic, sustainable recovery, I’m telling you something I believe more than anything else about trauma recovery. 

People often ask me what practical, on the ground trauma recovery looks like— and it’s not an easy question to answer, insofar as the details of everyone’s recovery tend to look a little, or a lot, different.

But one thing I can tell you is that nobody recovers without getting good and intentional about their focus, their time, and their mental “diet.” 

Living intentionally doesn’t solve all our problems. But it’s necessary to solving any of our problems.