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im not the first to say this, won& #39;t be the last:
surviving past trauma = having tactics that, when needed, kept us alive + moving forward, but at some point, if we& #39;re lucky, became unnecessary for our daily lives.
yet these survival & #39;habits& #39; continue to run in the background 1/
surviving past trauma = having tactics that, when needed, kept us alive + moving forward, but at some point, if we& #39;re lucky, became unnecessary for our daily lives.
yet these survival & #39;habits& #39; continue to run in the background 1/
often w/out conscious thought. they& #39;re a normal part of how we function, often integral to our identity. but when we& #39;re stressed, our consciousness of them diminishes while our reliance on them increases. until we& #39;ve convinced ourselves subconsciously that we& #39;re back in
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survival mode—even if our circumstances don& #39;t warrant it. so we behave+feel like we& #39;re reliving that old trauma, sometimes in big ways, sometimes small, sometimes both. it& #39;s exhausting and frightening and confusing. it takes a toll on our overall health + on our relationships.
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if you know me, you already know im going to tell you:
be kind to yourself. ask the ones who love you for their kindness too. create space for self-assessment by saying no when it& #39;s too much, saying yes when it& #39;s fulfilling or fun, saying here are my boundaries + i need space
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be kind to yourself. ask the ones who love you for their kindness too. create space for self-assessment by saying no when it& #39;s too much, saying yes when it& #39;s fulfilling or fun, saying here are my boundaries + i need space
4/
ask the ones who love you to tell you when they see you hurting yourself like this. promise them you& #39;ll listen. that& #39;s probably the hardest part. we have to listen when our loved ones tell us things we don& #39;t want to hear. doesn& #39;t mean agreement, just openness to another way.
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for me, funny/not so funny, how strongly i want to ignore something like this from a loved one is directly proportional to how important it is for me to hear it. i don& #39;t think im alone in that, either
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different people can experience the same traumatic thing, but come out w/
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different people can experience the same traumatic thing, but come out w/
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very disparate ways to survive it. and some don& #39;t survive at all. but if we& #39;re lucky enough to survive trauma, we can create our lives by design: at any given moment, we can choose survival habits/tactics that no longer serve us or we can choose to set aside those habits.
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the trick= train ourselves to recognize outmoded survival habits + to give ourselves space to reckon with them in the moment + then to make our choice from the clarity we& #39;ve created for ourselves.
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8/
sometimes, we& #39;ll end up choosing the old habits. THIS IS OK. let& #39;s be kind when we realize we did it again. we are, in fact, human.
and at other times, we& #39;ll choose to be free. the more we choose a new way forward, the easier it becomes.
that& #39;s my hope for all of us.https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💕" title="Two hearts" aria-label="Emoji: Two hearts">
/end
and at other times, we& #39;ll choose to be free. the more we choose a new way forward, the easier it becomes.
that& #39;s my hope for all of us.
/end
