Fortune Cookies And Fortune Tellers Abound But The Emperor Still Has No Clothes
Becoming whole again is a dynamic, conscious decision. Not a wish, or the result of mere positive thinking. And it requires resolve and a fierce, forever commitment.
Hello,
It’s Sunita here.
Part 1- What is wrong with me?
I meditated. I successfully learnt how to calm myself down when I was anxious. I created a ‘tips and tricks to feel better’ list to choose from when I felt unexplainable sadness and melancholy besiege me.
It ‘worked’ for a while.
I would begin to feel better and be able to call upon my strengths to carry me till the next bout of depression hit.
So, I intensified my efforts to incorporate more self help in my life. I figured, if I did more of the same, it would be better.
But in hindsight, such ‘successes’ pushed me into a destructive repetitive cycle of helplessness and silent suffering that was punctuated by these temporary ‘victories’ over my pain.
But I was not ready to accept that.
My bullishness to pursue self help as a way to feel better was compounded by the fact that I did not see much of any alternate messaging about the path to healing in media.
So, I learnt about positive psychology since information, research and credible people espousing it seemed to be omnipresent. I bought self help books and actually read them. I listened to talk shows on which guests emphatically attributed their healing to positive thinking.
“If you think positive, you will get results.”
“If you believe, it will happen.”
“If you imagine it, you will manifest.” (The Secret- There is no secret but a hoax, in my opinion)
The more I went on a self help bend, the worse I started to feel about myself.
I wondered why my meditation practices were not as effective as others who seemed to be walking in bliss after a single yoga session. I’m exaggerating here but you get the point.
“Maybe I’m just a negative person. That must be the reason I can’t seem to pull myself together by thinking positive”, I thought.
I started to believe I was inherently lacking the positivity gene and so was defective.
If any one of you have ever felt that for even a minute, please pay attention to what I am about to tell you.
Because this is a timeless truth.
Trauma is real. It messes up our brain. It changes our experience of ourselves, others, and the world we live in. By world, I mean our inner world and the external world. No amount of positive thinking will fix the impact of trauma on our mind, body, brain and soul. If anything, it will delay us from getting the proper and in most cases, expert professional help we sorely need. (And that delay may cause more damage to us.)
Let me illustrate this truth by giving you this scenario to envision.
You’re driving on a busy highway. Your car is struck by another vehicle. You suffer massive injuries. You lose consciousness. You come to. You find yourself surrounded by a team of first responders. You can hear the urgency and intensity in the voices around you. It involves assessing your injuries. You open your eyes. You feel liquid gushing from your face. You touch it. You look at your fingers. The liquid is red. Your brain registers it as blood. You can’t feel anything because you are in a state of shock, but you look down and can see both your legs are broken, and sticking out of your skin, at bizarre angles you never thought they could. You realize, despite being in the daze you’re in that you are seriously injured.
Do you say to the emergency responders, “Please leave me alone. I need to figure this out on my own. I know how to do that. I’m going to meditate.”?
Or maybe this suits you better.
“Thanks for coming to help me but I got this! Sorry for your trouble. The jaws of life were not necessary, and I’m certain my car won’t blow up in the pool of gasoline that leaked from the massive collision force just generated. The fire truck and ambulance can go back now. I will take over with positive thinking now. Everything will be okay. You’ll see. Thank you! Bye.”
Mental pain and emotional dysregulation are serious issues. They need the same attention as physical injuries that alarm us. We just have not been trained to think that way. Things are definitely changing but society has still not been able to wrap it’s collective head around the magnitude and wide ranging impact that childhood trauma has on us.
We also are slow to admit how much help we need to overcome trauma. Of course, there is a sliding scale to the type, length, origin, etc. of our trauma that relates to the kind and amount of help we need.
But I will state once again that becoming whole again, and regaining our agency is a dynamic, conscious decision. It is not a wish, or mere positive thinking. And it requires resolve and a fierce, forever commitment.
Part 2- Okay! I get it. But where do I start?
We feel stuck. We feel pain. We are anxious.
We feel despair. We feel hopeless. We feel desperate.
We have an uneasiness that won’t go away.
We have problems in our relationships and at work. We blame others. We blame our work environment.
We find reasons and opportunities to indulge in addictive behaviors and activities.
We feel alone and lonely. We are overwhelmed with the most basic of chores.
Our family struggles. Our need to connect in intimate and genuine ways with others is blocked.
Our ability to ask for what we want in assertive and non dramatic ways is pretty much non- existent.
We inherently know something is not right with us/within us, but we do everything we can to deny that, not only to those around us, but to ourselves as well.
We then master various means that assist us to forcefully broadcast and amplify our denial into the world.
We develop systems that facilitate self sabotage and inhibit our progress in life.
Why?
That is a very dense and complex subject. And beyond the scope of today’s blog.
But what I know for a fact is this;
For us to start the journey of healing we must choose to stop lying to ourselves.
There is no other entry point to the process of getting healthy and living in harmony with/as our true self.
This step is very hard to do because we learnt/were taught/encouraged by someone, and our family system to lie. We were rewarded when we were dishonest about how we really felt. We may have found some control over a chaotic environment by suppressing our true nature and genuine wishes to make things ‘better’.
Often, labels like nice were given to us that served as a chokehold on our true selves.
This all could have been happening implicitly, or explicitly.
We get deeply wounded when that happens. Our brain’s development is altered.
Our wounds lie deep within our psychic/spiritual selves so, although they are felt by us in different ways later on, they usually remain beyond our knowledge, or conscious awareness. Especially if our wounding occurred before we had developed the capacity to comprehend them, and/or had language abilities to express our experience of them
Our wounds, from unimaginable and unbearable injuries, betrayals, deficiencies of care, and even abuse, were just too painful for us to consciously acknowledge.
They are felt by us, but remain invisible to us, and unknown to our conscious mind.
But our soul keeps a record of our wounds. And it encourages us to move towards health and an integrated self.
Jung referred to this personal spirit as ‘Self’. Winnicott called it ‘True Self’.
Walt Whitman stated, “O my soul, if I realize you, thy yearning amply fed at last, I have satisfaction.”
Whitman knew what he was talking about.
So, we don’t know how to face our truth (it’s too painful so it got buried deep in our unconscious to facilitate our survival) and our development lacked the proper juice (I am simplifying things here as they are beyond the scope of my professional expertise.)
What does one do to become whole and live as one’s true self?
Part 3- Get Professional Help & Start Helping Yourself
Trauma will not be treated through positive thinking.
So, what should one do?
Seek quality, expert, experienced help. I am specifically referring to looking for a therapist, counsellor, social worker, or psychiatrist who is trained as a psychologist. It would be optimal if they had additional training in dealing with trauma.
Is there nothing I can do to help myself feel better?
YES! ABSOLUTELY!
AS- Actionable suggestion.
A simple place to start could be by observing your language.
Do you use the word ‘should’ often?
Being aware of our choice of words is important. Words matter because they give us information about our mindset, beliefs, and thought patterns.
I would like to make a critical distinction here between Self Help and Self Care.
Self Care is essential for all humans to thrive, but even more so for those who have experienced trauma.
In my experience, self care was such a critical piece of healing that over the past decade I have been working to develop a Self Love Self Care Practice based on what got me feeling whole during, and after being in therapy. It will be a life long practice for me because it leads me to my most creative, joyful, and useful to others self.
Self care empowers us to live our best life.
It’s very different than believing that we must heal ourselves, with no outside help, and assuming that our own efforts, however valiant, will be able to heal our wounds that lay tucked away in our blind spots.
Part 4- You are Strong and a Masterpiece in the Making
We are designed as humans to push through difficulties. It’s in our DNA. Trauma makes us disbelieve that.
So, I’m here to remind you that you are strong.
I had forgotten that when I started therapy. Much of my initial work was to recover my inner world confidence before I could deal with my issues resulting from trauma.
Our capacity to face difficult truths of our life becomes possible when we are supported and accompanied by those who are unconditionally committed to our recovery.
We heal through love and solid relationships. Just as we are wounded through the lack of them.
Yes. Healing is a lifetime process. But you can do it.
You will first have to make a commitment to your higher self that eagerly awaits you. You will be required to peel off your outward façade. It may be of self sufficiency and toughness. Or conversely of learned helplessness and addictive behaviors.
I hope you will say yes to your soul’s calling. I hope you will make the decision to do the work.
Because you are simply amazing and have no time to waste living a life of bondage and perpetual suffering!
Do the work with compassion and kindness for yourself.
Until next time,
Moving forwards,
Sunita
Read your whole post and this was my favorite phrase -
You are Strong and a Masterpiece in the Making
What I take from this is - we are a work in progress. We are not stuck.
Change is possible. It is also inevitable.
As my Mom would say, “With God, all things are possible “.
There is hope. Her strong and unshakable faith has been a huge influence in my life.
It was interesting to read the distinction between self care and self help.
One of my favorite writers always signs off with -
Wishing you wellness and wonder
Excellent. I agree with the limitations of self help