Pain is Pain

To Heal is a Journey...not an event

In my journey, I've personally experienced a broad range of trauma. I've also had chance to meet and talk with other survivors-of-bad-things. And while our stories are varied, our experiences different, very often our healing journey's are very similar.....

Pain is pain.

It doesn't matter the source of the pain - something hurts.

Healing takes place in the same way, no matter the sources of the injury; there is a natural healing process. An order. 

Wounds look different - a broken bone looks different than a cut. But still the healing process is the same for each. 

It is vital that this wound be protected; time, tenderness, dress the wound, set the break. Rest and compassion for the injury; don't overtax ourselves. 

Emotional trauma is trauma, regardless of the source; the wounds look different, the source of the injury is often different, varied. But the healing process is very often the same regardless of the type of or source of pain, I've found.**

Telling my story about what I survived is vital; but I learned to tell only to those who will treasure it and validate my experience and my pain without trying to offer fixes or worse - denying or dismissing my experience. 

It is vital that this wound be protected; time, tenderness and kindness for our soul and our spirit. Rest and compassion; don't overtax ourselves. 

Feel the anger; throw rocks at the mountain, pound the sand, scream, run...then be open to the tears and the grief at what was lost and what will never be.  

Journal, write, draw....whatever comes to mind to tell your story and allow the pain to escape your body. 

And be willing to do it over and over...

Until it is done.

I learned to not expect myself to be able to just "get over it" without attending to this pain. 

Avoiding it and attempting to go on as if nothing has happened was likely to cause this wound to become bigger; in time the untended wound may fester, take over our lives and cripple us as a physical wound left untended might.  

Or perhaps we go along, thinking all is well and the wound has healed, unaware that it was not completely healed from within and that we unwittingly left ourselves fragile. The next storm might toss us back into the throes of the original pain - or much worse as the waves of hopelessness overtakes us once again.

I found that this is the healing journey; the hard work and the healing path. 

Sometimes a physical injury hurts as it heals. 

Emotional healing is very similar. There is no short cut. There is no easy way around it. 

To heal from the wound, I learned I must go through the pain in order to finally get out of it...

and live free from it. 

~

The Natural Elixir of Emotional Healing

Onions Make Me Cry

The Power Within

**Note: the complex issues of child abuse create the additional need to address not only the trauma experience, but the interpersonal/developmental issues/life skills that are often related to the trauma experience. For more information on Developmental Trauma issues visit the Trauma Center developed by Dr. Van Der Kolk.

For more information about the unique issues faced by survivors of parental abuse and neglect visit my friend Amy at Guess What Normal Is 

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

The Natural Elixir of Emotional Healing

Too often trauma survivors, regardless of the source of trauma, are expected to somehow magically be "ok", as if there were a clock, ticking and saying "hurry up; aren't you done yet?"

And if they aren't, they are somehow "disordered"; their very normal response to trauma is seen as something being "wrong" with them. The natural emotional healing process is too often seen as a character defect, we are conditioned to simply see ourselves through the lens of "illness" and in need of someone or something that will somehow make our pain go away. 

In reality, we are often experiencing a very justified anger at the loss of control and the physical, emotional and mental injury of the trauma experience and grieving the losses around it.

It is in the validation of our experiences and the emotional and mental fallout from these experiences that we begin to heal. Compassion, a kind ear, a hug often do more than any elixir that could be prescribed. 

(See this note and comments at Facebook)

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

Validation

Photo Credit

The process of de-traumatization begins with validation....IT IS NOT NECESSARY to analyze every event. It IS necessary to be heard and listened to and to tell your story. But not over and over to everyone who will listen. Validation is critical. ~Dr. Frank Ochberg




This is the website where I found this quote; I have not read the entire site and cannot vouch for its content and publishing this statement in no way suggests an endorsement of this persons entire body of work. 


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

Lissa Rankin

Tune in to Empowering Solutions! this Thursday January 6th!

Click here  to listen live at 8EST/7CST/5pm Pacific time on Thursday January 6th or download the recorded broadcast to listen later!

This month on Empowering Solutions! we'll be chatting with Lissa Rankin, practicing gynecologist, best selling author of the book “Whats up Down There”, blogger, mother, artist and owner of the Womans Center “Owning Pink. 

We’ll be chatting with Lissa about how very often those who don’t want to talk about their unique woman-ness may have experienced some sort of sexual trauma or abuse - as well as offering some empowering solutions to help you reclaim your unique power!

Visit Lissa's website Owning Pink to get a preview of this months conversation!

Check out Lissa’s book:  WHAT’S UP DOWN THERE?: Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend (St. Martin’s Griffin; ISBN 0-312-64436-1; $14.99) www.owningpink.com/whats-up-down-there/buy-now

Click here  to listen or download the recorded broadcast!

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

Anger and Acceptance

Sunset

8/6/10

Anger and Acceptance is a big deal in the healing journey.

At some point I was able to piece together that my initial anger or irritation at others and circumstances - past or present - was connected to that sense of powerlessness that had ruled my life for such a long time. 

This served a couple of purposes....

In focusing on what others "should" do or "should" have done I had a sense of power over the behaviors of others as I judged them and their actions and often got lost in "story" and being that perpetual victim as my focus was on the power others seemed to have over my life. This kind of rumination was like pouring salt in a wound and reliving the injury or offense over and over.

And - focusing on what I thought others should or should not have done or be doing....successfully kept my feelings at bay and allowed me to avoid shifting from that "fight or flight" response of stress or conflict to the more vulnerable state of feeling the feelings behind my personal boundaries being violated and the "Story"  that would enable me to find healing.

It took some practice but eventually I was able to recognize that my anger was not a bad thing thing, needing to be managed. But that this feeling was the starting place for recognizing the difference between accepting what I truly had no power over - what others do, think or say - as well as the things that I DID have power over - my own thoughts, feelings and choices  today.


And slowly I made that shift from rumination to resolution of past injuries and learned to no longer tolerate the intolerable and embrace the power within that would allow me to create the change that would change my life.

Related Posts...

Fighting Forgiveness

I Held the Key to my Freedom


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

I Held the Key to My Freedom...

Photo Credit

This healing journey is truly a journey; there is no "event" where we can stand at the threshold of our new life and say "I have arrived". It is a process, step by step, moment by moment of developing the conscious awareness and insight that sets us free and creates the change that changes our lives....

There came a day when I realized I was reacting to my life as if I was still the helpless child at the mercy of those who tormented me. It was in this day I realized I held the power to take my life back from my abusers by refusing to let what they did keep me prisoner in my mind any longer. 


It was in realizing that today's distress was caused by the meaning and story I told myself in my mind and that I held the key to open the door to freedom that had always been there...and only I could unlock. 


In the beginning, I'd have to unlock that door many times as it would slowly close again when I wasn't looking. But in time, I came to realize that when my today life was not working it typically was because I had let yesterdays life overtake me again. 


Bit by bit, one step at a time, day by day and with practice, I've learned to recognize when that door is slowly creaking shut on me again. The "tell" is often a sense of doom, depression or dissociation that overtakes me - or a feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness as I become frozen and incapable of moving forward...


Sometimes the "tell" is that my physical life has gradually gotten out of control again, I feel overwhelmed with the simplest of life tasks. Or I become needy and am seeking comfort or to be taken care of by others as though I was still that child in need of a safe place...


In these times I've learned to acknowledge my fears and phantoms, feel and express the anger....


I hate you because __________________.


And shed the tears, feel and honor the justified anger at being violated and embrace the sadness and grief at the loss of the life I never had and will never know...

It is in recognizing that I am no longer a victim and I am much more than a survivor where I begin to see myself as an adult full of hope and knowing that I hold the power to create this change that changes my life...

time and time again. 

~

Related: The Power Within

Cultivating the Power Within

When you Have Come to the Edge...

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth

~

My Wish for You and Yours....

Wishing you and yours 

a holiday weekend that brings light 

to your life and peace to your heart!

In gratitude and appreciation of your presence in my journey!


Susan




 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

Fighting Forgiveness

Carrying the burden of a debt owed us

It was brought to my attention that not everyone was able to access this on Facebook for some reason so I decided to re-publish it here on A Journey today. 


Originally published on Facebook here on June 21 2010. 


Fighting "Forgiveness"

by Susan Kingsley-Smith on Monday, June 21, 2010 at 11:20am

I had no clue what it meant to "forgive".

I'd been told to "get over it", "move on", "let it go"....

In other words, forgive those who had hurt me, been responsible in some way for my trauma experiences and most likely would never make their own "amends" with me. And justice would most likely never be served...for either those who have died or still live.

So - this became a part of my journey. To learn to understand how to live in that "peace that passed all understanding", to live in that "serenity" that I'd never experienced following a lifetime of abuse and multiple trauma experiences.

And it came down to a few things.

One - was feeling instead of stuffing the anger at those things that had been done to me when I was powerless to protect myself as a child, as an adult in adult relationships or circumstances that were beyond my control

As an adult I realized I could learn how to access and express my anger and rage in ways that would empower my journey to healing rather than hinder it by consequences for "acting out" against others, or "acting in" against myself.

Two - was recognizing I was no longer powerless; that I am now an adult, no longer dependent on another for my survival and if I am angry at the way someone treats me, I can move on. I no longer am a victim.

If there are circumstances beyond my control - I can identify what I can do to influence change, using my anger and hurt to fuel my purpose, focussing on solutions instead of ruminating as though I am still a powerless child.

And if there truly is nothing I can do to affect change...I can choose to live in acceptance of what is the lesson learned in the "Serenity Prayer" and move on to the next step...

Three - was grieving the losses connected to that experience. And that was that childhood or healthy adult relationship that I deserved for no other reason than I existed - or the losses connected to being in a circumstance that took something from me as in an accident...or a war. This is that process I wrote of in my note Onions Make Me Cry.

And four - I learned what "forgiveness" is - and is not. I began to look at "forgiveness" in contexts other than personal relationships.

In my past, I was a Mortgage Broker/Banker. I dealt in finance, credit reports and so on. Part of my job was to assist folks to understand how their payment history of the past affected their ability to purchase their "dream home" of today especially when they had gotten to that place of "foreclosure".

Another part of my job was to assist these folks to create a workable plan to dig themselves out of the mess they had made by abusing the trust of their lender.

When I looked at "forgiveness" from this perspective it became much easier to see how I could actually "forgive" those who had abused my trust and dependence on them to care for and protect me as a child or those connected to the trauma experiences of my adult life.

This also helped me to understand that forgiving someone does not mean that I have to "extend them credit" in the form of my trust again.

This can be for however long I decide - just as a bank may say "no" to a new loan for up to the 7-10 years that default stays on my credit report, I can also set some limits to see if over time those in my life have learned to treat me and others as they deserve to be treated or not.

And there are some banks that would give some folks a "second chance" with a loan at very high interest to help them re-establish their credit rating as an opportunity to prove they have learned their lesson...

So I can choose to let someone back into my life or close the door permanently.

But I discovered the choice was mine as to if I let them “borrow” from me again or not.

"Forgiveness does not change the past, it creates hope for the future" ~Unknown

See the related posts Paying Homage to the Past here and Onions Make Me Cry here.


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
`

Onions Make Me Cry

Photo Credit

This is a post that I'd done this past June on Facebook Onions Make Me Cry and decided to post it and another post Fighting Forgiveness here on A Journey when it was brought to my attention that not everyone could access them on Facebook.

Onions Make Me Cry

by Susan Kingsley-Smith on Sunday, June 20, 2010 at 8:54am

Healing from the lifelong issues that can come along with surviving childhood abuse or neglect of any kind can be a daunting, overwhelming task that until recent years, even the professionals often don't know how to help us do and today is being approached as "trauma" work or "developmental trauma" issues as in C-PTSD. 

But when I discovered the natural emotional healing process that would enable me to begin to move "through" the pain of the past I discovered that as I peeled back one layer to the next, it would do a couple of things.

First, I found a freedom that I'd never known before. When I began to face the past and learn about the dynamics of power and control in family relationships and the effect of it on the children, I was able to understand that I was not “broken” or “defective”…or “bad” or even “ill”; but injured and I understood that injured can heal.

And second, I discovered that as I peeled back one layer of pain, grieved the past, bit by bit, I was able to let go of that pain that had held me prisoner and begin to integrate that experience, those thoughts, the related emotions…into my today.

This is the freedom of making that mind shift from "avoiding" the pain of the past by using unhelpful and oftentimes harmful coping mechanisms that allowed me to numb my emotions in one way or another.

Peeling back the layers, one by one, I found is much like the peeling of an onion.

The top layer is a bit tough. The outside skin is dry and flaky; it's job is to protect the tender inner layers of the meat of the plant that holds all the spice and flavor of it's being; it’s “heart” where new life sprouts from.

And as I began to peel off the top layer of the dry, flaky skin, I reached that first tough outer skin of the onion. I found that I have to work a little to break through to reach that first layer in order to begin to actually “peel” it.

This I found is similar to when I first began to see that I could break through the resistance that was MY top layer; the dry, flaky “skin” that protected my sensitive and injured inner and childlike self. The skin that I presented to the world.

Slowly and intentionally I allowed the grief process to guide me through the layers. Each level of grief embraced, expressed and experienced would take me to a freedom I'd not known in my lifetime and prepare me for reaching the next layer.

The peeling had begun the process. The tears of the grieving process had washed me free and clean of the pain.

And much like in the beginning of peeling of the onion, as I got past those first protective layers, it became easier to peel down to the next layer. This process of grieving the past became easier as I became familiar with it.

In time, I learned to embrace this process with hope and promise that as I peeled back and looked at each layer I began to trust that I would find the full freedom that would take me to the heart of my soul, where I would find the "me" that had been buried and protected by the tough outer layers and hidden from the world.

The “me” that was the heart and source of the seed where my own new life would sprout from.

Peeling through these layers of grief, from the top crusty flaky layer that encased my protective tough outer skin to the tender and sweet inner heart of my being was much like the peeling of the onion...

That would make me cry as I began to peel back the layers in order to reach my heart. 

You can read the related posts Fighting Forgiveness, Paying Homage to the Past here and Learning to Live Beyond "It" here.

Tears Wash the Soul Free

Connect with me on twitter here and on Facebook here.

Thank you for being a part of my journey today:)




 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Anger Opened the Door to Joy - My Guest Post at Emerging From Broken

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This past week over at Emerging From Broken my friend and fellow Blogger Darlene Ouimet has been hosting a series of guest posts on the subject of anger as a part of this healing journey.

Here is an excerpt from my post that Darlene so graciously invited me to share on the subject of anger...and how I learned to use it to fuel my own healing journey....


But it was when I finally began to put the pieces together and break through the lies that the abuse was my fault, that I deserved every bad thing that had happened to me, when I started realizing that my thoughts, my feelings, my choices, opinions, my dreams and desires DID matter that I began to see something happening in myself. I began to feel something besides an intense self-hatred. I began to feel anger.

And while it took some time to learn how to let the lid off the kettle bit by bit what I discovered is that by allowing myself to feel my anger I found the door to grief and the tears that would set me free from the anger and at the same time open the door to joy.

Please join me at Emerging From Broken where you can read the rest of this post and join the conversation!

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!
~

Learning to Live Beyond "It"

Photo Credit

 

By learning to make peace with the past vs wishing I could change the past I found I could accept it as the past and learn to live beyond it. 


Paying Homage to the Past


Making Peace with the Past


I Will Never "Get Over It"







 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

"Happy". It's not just for Fairy Tales:)

"Looking up"

September 2, 2010

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be. ~Kahill Gibran

It is keeping our eyes on the prize, on what we want rather than what we don't want more of, where we will begin to find victory. Focusing on what I hated about myself and my life never got me anywhere and it seemed as though I would never find the peace and happiness that I was searching for. I believed I was destined to only surviving, coping, managing, getting by - but never truly "living"; that "happily ever after" really only happened in fairy tales. 


It was when I began catching those negative ruminations - those thoughts that would torment me day and night - and by choosing to no longer "go there" where I found that peace from the pain of the past was very often...

just a thought away.

I discovered that when the past came knocking, when my fear of "what if's" and "how will I", when my mind would not "turn off"...that I could learn how to and practice not going "there" and that I could shift my focus from "there"...

to somewhere I wanted to be.

By learning to focus on what I wanted, instead of what I hated, resented or feared, I began to find my way from

there

to here

where I could begin to see what had been there

all along.

~

You may enjoy: Word of the Day: Progress!

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!


.

Carla Realized her normal was not so normal

Not everyone can tell they've been abused - most abuse isn't even physical. So for someone who comes from a background that did not include physical violations of some sort they may not recognize that the source of their mental health issues could actually be some of the more subtle and unseen forms of abuse that often lead to unseen injuries....

This week at my friend Darlene Ouimets blog Emerging From Broken Carla Dippel shares her journey through depression and the realization that her "normal" upbringing wasn't so normal.

An excerpt from Carla's post...

"My childhood would have looked absolutely normal to most people. I was never beaten, deprived of physical needs, verbally or sexually abused. But at age 16 I knew for the first time that I suffered from depression. It wasn’t the kind of depression that took me through huge highs and lows. It was just this ever-present, cloudy feeling. I operated my life in a constant state of anxiety. I strived to conform to what I thought was the “ideal” or “perfect” way all the time. I had a chronically low self esteem. I see now that the nature of my depression was exactly the same as the nature of my abuse."


Click here to read the rest of this post.


Related...


Abuse Disguised


I Didn't Know that I Didn't Know I Was Abused


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!


Photo Credit

This month on Empowering Solutions! Iraq war Vet Amber Stone

This month we’ll be talking with Iraq war Veteran Amber Stone and some of the things that she has done to overcome the residual effects of war. Amber will share how PTSD changed her life and how she found some empowering solutions to take her life back!


Click here to go directly to the show page at Blog Talk Radio to listen live at 8pm EST/7pm CST/5pm Pacific time

Don't worry...if you can't listen live you can access the recorded show later at the same link!



Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

"story"...or "Story"?

Everyone has a story. 


And it was when I learned how to tell the difference between "story" (little s) and "Story" (big S) that I began to understand the power of 


Story.



"story" I came to view from a writers perspective as "backstory".

"story" lays the groundwork, tells who the players are, give atmosphere and lays a foundation for the ending, like in a novel.

Its the framework for a creative ending.

But - if the entire novel is written only about the "backstory" that lays the framework the last chapter never gets written.

We are stuck in WRITERS HELL....

That file on our hard drive that is never quite finished

and causing us all kinds of irritation

or distress.

It is when we move from laying the groundwork, setting the stage and telling the backstory to telling about the emotion, the experiences and the drama behind our feelings about the 'story", like when we

 step to the edge of the mountain,

that we begin to see how the story might evolve and in time come to a conclusion worthy of a pulitzer...

so to speak:)

Throughout my journey, when I was stuck on "story" that focussed on what others had done or things that had happened TO me - I was stuck in anger, resentment, hatred and rumination...

not resolution.

I was stuck in the pain of the past. 

In time, I learned to recognize this was where I was at by who and what my focus was on. 

If the focus of my story was on the things that had happened; the people, the places, the things going on that I'd had no choice in - well, those were things that I could not change. 


(God, grant me serenity....)


These were those things I was truly powerless over - people and past circumstances.

That was backstory; the details, the players...the who, what, when and where of my bigger "Story" and the framework for the final chapter. 


It was in shifting my Story to be about me, my anger at being violated, my power and my choice taken from me, to feel both the anger and the grief, to tell why this was important to me that I was able to move myself into, through and out of the healing process and

give meaning to the backstory by telling MY story.

Getting entangled in "story" made it impossible to tell my "Story" and write that new ending where I am

no longer 

a victim

and much more

than a survivor

where I am

creating and living my best life

each day....


in spite of the past I'd had.



See the post: It is Unwritten....(today is where your book begins:))



 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

How do I? I will. ~Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse~

I. Can. Do. This.

Photo Credit              

Some days this journey is difficult.


Hell.


Sometimes it just plain sucks. 


In honor of those all who are on on this journey and as a contribution to the Blog Carnival against Child abuse...


This is a re-post from December 2009 but it seemed appropriate for today as a reminder that the road to freedom from the past is full of potholes and yet there is hope...

How do I?...I will.

how do I do this

how do I see

that I am not limited

in what I can be?

how do I go forward

leave the past behind

how do I get there

what will I find?

somehow I have to

reach for that ring

Some way I'll get there

I'll be free and I'll sing

standing at the top of that mountain

ready to reach for the stars

no longer fearful

no longer scared

I know that I will go far

this day I will get there

you know that I will

no longer a victim

I stand free and will

let go of the memories

grieve the past

no longer helpless

I am free at last

Originally published December 2, 2009

Visit the Host site for Novembers Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse HERE


You might also like I Believed

Cultivating the Power Within

The Power of Light
Sunset

October 29 2010

In my last post The Power Within  I introduced the idea that it was by understanding that I held the key to my freedom from the past within myself that I found my way to the light. 


So in today's post I wanted to take a brief look at part of the "how" behind cultivating that power that each of us holds within ourselves if we can only learn how to tap into it....


One of the first things we can do to learn to cultivate intrinsic change on purpose is to choose to live in conscious awareness of our thoughts, without judgement, simply noticing the thoughts that pass through our mind.


Upon noticing a thought we can check our physical being; where do I "feel" this thought in my body? Is my throat tight, my stomach full of butterflies? Is my back tense, my brow furrowed or do I feel electrified and alert?


Do I feel fear? Sadness? Joy? Excitement? Anger? What is my initial impulse? Do I suddenly want to dance and shout or do I feel the urge to run, or fight or the need to sob and cry? 


I can use this insight to create a sense of self awareness, connecting the outcome of my actions to the initial thoughts that are fueling my emotional responses that - in the past had someone asked me "why" I'd done or said something I might have replied with "I don't know". 


Instead I can learn to cultivate the power within myself to create the change that will change my life by cultivating that practice of self awareness. 


Here's to living in the light:)


You may also like: Empowering Solutions and Shamash Alidina; cultivating a practice of Mindful Awareness. Click here to listen

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!