drglenndoyle

Try this Recovery Supporting Question over “positive thinking.”

I do not believe in “positive thinking.” 

“Positive thinking” has never done much other than annoy and distract me on my trauma and addiction recovery journeys. 

Your milage may vary. But it’s not a tool that I find useful. 

I don’t believe in superficially “positive” thinking— but I do believe in asking intelligent, recovery supporting questions of almost everything that happens to me. 

In my experience, the most useful RSQ (Recovery Supporting Question) in any situation is almost always: “How can I use this to serve my recovery?” 

I suppose that’s catty-corner to “positive thinking” in a way, in that it assumes there IS a way to use virtually everything that happens to us to support our recovery. 

So be it. That’s one of my rock solid beliefs: that we can use literally anything that happens to level up in our recovery. 

Mind you: I’m not talking about the gaslight-y thing where we insist we’re “grateful” for everything that happens to us. 

I once knew a self help demagogue who blithely insisted that the true definition of “forgiveness” was getting to the point where you could honestly say, “thank you FOR GIVING me that experience.” 

F*ck that. 

There are absolutely experiences that are not worth being “grateful” for. That we wouldn’t ask for; that just suck. 

But that doesn’t mean we can’t use them. 

I’ll be the first to admit: sometimes I have to bend over backward to figure out a way to use the sh*tty situation that just happened to somehow support my recovery. 

Right now, as I write this, I’m dealing with a frustrating health symptom that almost surely developed out of my past addiction behavior, and my brain is, to put it mildly, struggling to find a way to use this development to support my recovery. 

But I will find it. Because I am committed to not wasting pain. 

If something is going to suck, you’d better goddamn believe I’m going to find some way to use it. 

Again: don’t confuse that commitment to some positive thinking fantasy that we can or should be “grateful” for even the painful situations we’ve endured. 

What my commitment to USING everything is about is acknowledging the reality that sh*tty situations are, in fact, going to happen— and we have at last a little wiggle room in how we process and respond to those sh*tty situations. 

“Positive thinking,” in my experience, doesn’t resonate with many trauma survivors. 

Try on the realistic RSQ “how can I USE this to support my recovery?” instead. 

drglenndoyle

Your vs. “their” mission statement.

Remember: you are on a different life path, a different mission, than “they” are. 

Of course they’re going to misunderstand you. 

Maybe mock you. 

Certainly communicate to you in dozens of implicit and explicit ways that you’re “doing it wrong.” 

You’re not, actually, doing it wrong. 

But, in working your trauma recovery, you’re definitely doing life much differently than “they” are. 

Hell, you are doing life much differently than they ever COULD. 

You and I know the kind of focus and courage working our trauma recover takes. 

Do you think “they” could actually do that? 

I don’t. 

Chances are, anyone who gives you sh*t about your recovery needs and habits is light years away from realistically being able to do what you do every day. 

They don’t even know how much effort you’ve had to expend at various points in your journey just to stay ALIVE. 

So, yes. You are on a very different path than they are. 

Your mission statement is very different from theirs— not least because people who aren’t working a recovery often don’t even bother having a mission statement for their life. 

Don’t let “them” get in your head. 

Their judgments have exactly zero to do with what you’re actually doing in your life. 

Don’t hold yourself to “their” standards. Don’t take “their” opinions any more seriously than they deserve to be taken. 

You are on a different path, a different mission— and that’s the good news. 

The path you’re on, the mission you’re on, is keeping you alive and creating a quality of life “they” could never. 

Don’t doubt it. 

drglenndoyle

Why trauma conditioning’s bullsh*t sounds so convincing.

It can be hard, during the course of the day, to remember that what our trauma conditioning tells us is not reality. 

It sure FEELS like reality. 


Especially the stuff about how we suck and deserve to suffer and are destined to suffer. 

That stuff all tends to FEEL true— not because it is true, but because it’s consistent with what we were told growing up, often by the very people who were supposed to love and support us the most. 

When the people who share your name and DNA spent years effortfully sh*ttng on you, it’s hard to believe you “deserve” anything better. 

When the people whose job it literally was to raise you to understand who you are fill your head with doubt and fear, it’s hard to believe that you’ll EVER feel or function better. 

What we’re exposed to growing up, implicitly and explicitly, becomes our baseline. 

It becomes our programming, our operating system— and it runs so quietly and pervasively in the background, we barely register it’s a thing. 

Fast forward to now— is it any wonder we meet ideas about how maybe we’re not the worst, maybe we have something to offer, maybe we can do better, with skepticism? 

We’ve been programmed to doubt ourselves. To distrust ourselves. To believe that, given enough time, we’ll “obviously” f*ck up this job, this relationship, this opportunity, just like we “f*ck everything up.” 

It’s not real. It’s programming. Conditioning. Propaganda. 

And, like all propaganda, Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t has a specific goal: to make you and me feel like trash. 

That’s it. 

But you and I need to remember, Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t will FEEL real— because it is consistent with our past conditioning. 

It’s familiar. 

It goes down easy, because we’ve heard it before. Our nervous system has been “softened” to its message. 

That doesn’t mean our self-loathing, self-distrustful thoughts or beliefs are “true.” 

The real truth is, you and I are human. We’re mixed bags. Some things we do well. Some things we could stand to improve. Believe me when I tell you, trauma recovery will put us in touch with both of those categories. 

Because that harsh narrative about ourselves feels true doesn’t mean it is true. 

Yes, challenging it can feel like a risk. Like we’re setting ourselves up to get punked or punished. 

 I wouldn’t ask you to take that risk if I didn’t truly believe it was worth it. 

It is worth it. You are worth it. 

drglenndoyle

Love was never something you should have had to “earn.”

It’s not our fault that we came to believe we had to “earn” love. 

We should have been loved in such a way that we truly believe we deserve it. 

But— what happened, happened. 

Our brain loves to make what happened about us— but the truth is, we couldn’t have done our parents’ jobs for them if we’d wanted to. 

It wasn’t our job to teach ourselves about love. 

It wasn’t our job to teach ourselves we are worthy. 

We don’t know what any of that is or means when we’re kids. 

All we know is what we feel— and we believe what we feel. 

Neither you nor I were abused or neglected because we were “unworthy” or “unlovable.” 

There was nothing we did, or could have done, to “deserve” what happened to us. 

It’s pretty f*cked up, how many people com through childhood believing we have to “earn” love— but believing that we somehow effortlessly “caused” our abuse or neglect. 

Nether you nor I “caused” or “allowed” our pain. 

Recovery means accepting that— which is harder than it sounds. 

Accepting that we got enormously unlucky is very, very unsatisfying. 

But— that’s what happened. 

We didn’t choose our parents, and we didn’t choose the environment we grew up in. 

And because of our conditioning, many of our choices since them weren’t exactly “free,” either. 

None of this is easy to wrap our head around. 

But that’s okay. It doesn’t all need to happen today. Acceptance is a process, more than a “choice.” 

Today just start with: it was not on you to “earn” love. 

It’s not your fault that you still feel you have to “earn” love. 

Tell your “parts” and your inner child that they are lovable and loved (even if you don’t quite feel that self-love yet). 

We can’t change the past, or how the past shaped our nervous system up to this point. 

We can change our nervous system going forward— with what we say to ourselves, how we direct our mental focus, and how we leverage our breathing and physiology, today. 

So: breathe; blink; and focus. 

Repeat as needed.