Trauma recovery is not about “the past.”

Trauma recovery isn’t about the past— either “holding on” to it or “letting go” of it. 

Trauma recovery is about the present and the future. 

It’s about defining ourselves, including our personality and our choices, in terms we choose, consistently with values that resonate with us— not by what has happened to us or our reactions to it. 

Many people misunderstand trauma recovery, or even the term “trauma survivor.” 

They think that acknowledging trauma means we are “defining” ourselves by it. 

No one acknowledges their trauma to “define” themselves. 

We acknowledge it because we have to understand our wound if we’re going to realistically heal from it. 

Our trauma conditioning tells us the lie, over and over again, that we “must” feel and believe certain things about ourselves because we’ve been through trauma. 

It tells us we “have to” make all our decisions through a lens cracked by our past pain. 

Trauma recovery supports us in grasping the truth: we do not have to contextualize our personalty in terms of what has happened to us— but we do need to realistically understand and deal with the fact that what happened to us, hurt us. 

The core of trauma recovery is accepting reality and rebuilding our relationship with ourselves. 

The biggest obstacle to trauma recovery tends to be our normal human vulnerability to denial. 

Denying that we’re hurt robs us of the opportunity to heal. Denial is seductive— but destructive. 

Realistically recovering from trauma asks us to acknowledge our pain and develop skills, tools, and philosophies that support us in constructing our life— instead of buying into Trauma Brain’s lies about how we “can’t” do or be certain things because of our past. 

Most trauma survivors I’ve ever met would happily never think about the past again— and most survivors who successfully recover from trauma think about the past way less than you may think. 

Even processing trauma in therapy doesn’t mean we “fixate” on the past. 

In sustainable trauma recovery we only ever engage the past to the extent that it impacts our willingness and ability to function in the present. 

Trauma recovery doesn’t focus on the past because we cannot change the past. 

Trauma recovery focuses on what we can change. What we do have influence over. Where we actually have wiggle room— not on things that will never change, no matter how much we focus on them. 

We cannot change the past. 

We CAN change our relationship with the past— which is what trauma recovery is all about. 

We CAN change how we talk to ourselves, what we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves and how we manage trauma responses that are rooted in the past. 

We CAN influence— not “control,” but influence— what we feel and do today. 

Fixating on the past or our abusers is worshiping the problem. Nobody who is in serious, successful trauma recovery believes in or does that. 

Don’t get up in your head about what the world does or doesn’t understand about trauma or trauma recovery. 

Don’t even get up in your head about the word “trauma.” Use or don’t use it. It actually doesn’t matter. 

What does matter is that you’re clear and consistent about what trauma recovery is all about: protecting and nurturing your safety, stability, and functioning. Here, now, and going forward. 

It’s not that the past “doesn’t matter.” 

It’s that the past doesn’t matter as much as or in the way that Trauma Brain is trying to convince you it does. 

Breathe; blink; focus; and do the next right thing.