For the record, I tried this for a REALLY LONG TIME & it made some things better & a lot of things worse. It did help me break some bad habits that weren’t helpful for me (jumping to worst case scenarios for example) but it also made me feel responsible for my trauma https://twitter.com/softlylesbian/status/1381034413941780480

Instead of telling people to ~*manifest their way out of literal trauma responses*~, maybe we can start by modeling that anger, pain, fear, and shame are normal and fine and natural emotions to have!

From there maybe we could move to something like “shame has a function, but we’re often conditioned by having it weaponized against us to experience it for much longer than it is functional”,

aka shame ideally has a very limited life span, simply to alert you to ways you may have acted outside your integrity!

then maybe, if it’s welcome or solicited, we can offer the idea that there may be ways ones still has personal agency- which is really powerful!! A little can go a long way! It not if you’re already being shamed for shame. Fuck all that it simply doesn’t work!

In fact, the reminder that I still have personal agency IS the one great takeaway I’ve kept from ~*manifestation culture*~ or New Thought. That in spite of the pain and bad things I’ve endured, I get to choose what I focus on and how I tell my story.

For a long time I told my sad story of having my passion ripped away from my by blackmail, and the pain of losing everything I loved, to absolutely anyone who would listen. I realized this was 1) blinding me to the fortune that *was* surrounding me, and

2) later let me know I needed a lot of the *right kind* of care and processing around this wound—care I lacked for a long time.

I still have a hell of a lot of pain from that story and more, but I don’t broadcast it or necessarily focus on it or make it a part of my identity. It’s a part of my *story*, that happened in its own temporal place.

I use my personal agency to focus my attention on my care, my tending of the wounds that need it, AND to focus on all the amazing fortune around me: I have incredibly supportive friends, a loving husband, I’m healthy now, I have found passion in new places.

But I would never deny my pain, especially when I’m in the thick of it. I absolutely will throw pity parties when I need to. The difference is now I respect my pain enough to not invite just anyone (like my coworkers or entire SM feed) to that pity party.

I invite those who have given consent to hold space, like: my therapist, my spouse, close friends who offer.

Anyway I’ll get off my soapbox. You can’t manifest your way out of trauma. You have personal agency. I personally have benefitted from using that agency to honor my pain and choose how and when I tell my story, for my own safety, comfort, and flourishing.

The way you use your personal agency may be different. That’s all good! The important part is it’s yours and it’s powerful.

this thread on “”reframing””, particularly this tweet, feels related: https://twitter.com/justjogleason/status/1333274119840919553