No one can tell you what’s going to happen next.
That includes Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of your abusers and bullies, camped out inside your head right now, telling you everything is going to be horrible and you’re going to fail.
Look, maybe everything is going to be horrible. Maybe you are going to fail.
But maybe not.
Trauma recovery is not about guaranteeing anything. I wish working your trauma recovery could “guarantee” anything— but it won’t.
Here’s what I do know: working our trauma recovery, with awareness and commitment, gives us our best shot at a life we don’t hate.
It gives us our best shot of being in a position to experience things we like.
It gives us our best shot at meeting our needs.
But it doesn’t “guarantee” any of that.
Watch what Trauma Brain does with what I just told you: Trauma Brain very likely is whispering in your ear right now, telling you that if working your trauma recovery doesn’t “guarantee” anything, then it’s not worth bothering with.
After all, paying attention to your self talk, your mental focus, your physiology— it’s all hard. It’s all a hassle.
Of course, what Trauma Brain is conveniently neglecting to tell you is, NOT working your recovery— just letting your trauma programming run on autopilot— is also hard. It’s also a hassle.
And, importantly, letting your trauma conditioning run on autopilot is hard and a hassle in a way that you did not choose. It was chosen for you, by the behavior of your abusers and bullies.
The “hard” and hassle involved in trauma recovery orients you toward what YOU want and what YOU value. That’s not true of the “hard” and hassle of trauma programming.
Your mileage may vary, but if both options are hard and a hassle, I’ll go with the “hard” and hassle that gives me some options for actually living a life I like.
Here’s the other thing about trauma recovery: while it may be hard and a hassle, the component skills are things we’re all doing all the time anyway.
We’re always talking to ourselves. We’re always mentally focusing on something. We’re always breathing and using our physiology in some way.
Trauma recovery doesn’t ask us to invent new tools out of whole cloth.
It asks us to adjust the way we’re doing things we do all day, every day we’re alive.
Is it really any skin off our nose to adjust how we talk to ourselves? It costs us nothing.
It costs us nothing to adjust how we direct our mental focus or “spotlight.”
It costs us nothing to breathe and use our physiology intentionally, as opposed to letting it all run on autopilot.
None of that is to say these things are EASY— but they’re free. And there is no downside to experimenting with them.
Talking to ourselves, leveraging our mental focus, and utilizing our physiology in recovery supportive ways are all unfamiliar, and it might feel awkward or cringe or even dangerous to shift how we manage these things. That’s absolutely true.
But don’t let Trauma Brain tell you that recovery is going to ask us to invent or learn entirely new skills that are overwhelming.
When I tell you you can recover from trauma, I’m not just spouting inspirational bullsh*t.
What I mean when I say that is that trauma injures us in specific ways— and there are specific tools that tend to help humans recovery from those injuries which are not outside of the behavioral repertoire of anybody reading this.
I know, I can hear Trauma Brain now. It’s working overtime to invent reasons why trauma recovery might be be possible for some people, but not for you.
That’s what it does.
What a bunch of BS (Belief Systems).
Breathe. Blink. Focus.
And lock in on the next recovery supporting micro decision. No more, no less.
