This is How We Do It...the "Hard Work"

…by putting one foot in front of the other

I frequently am asked "how did you do this? How do I heal? How do I let the past no longer control my today? How do I get past this pain that never leaves me?"

Today I wanted to share a post that I wrote last year that was a storyboard of the path and process I followed to do the "hard work" of my healing journey.

Go here to read this post. There are quite a few links I'd like to invite you to click on and follow...each picture or soul collage has its own page and story behind it. There is also some Poetry and other examples of expressive work that I used to facilitate my journey from there where I lived in that dark place to here where today I live in the light:) 

What's the "hard work"?

Its the work in which I willingly entered into the pain of the past to finally experience it in a state of conscious awareness instead of avoiding it...and trust that I will survive it.

Its that place where I had acknowledged that the coping mechanisms where I was "acting in" or "acting out" that had protected me in the midst of the pain but no longer were serving me well as it had become the proverbial ball and chain that interfered with my ability to run the race or live my "best life".

Its that place where I learned how to no longer be a victim and desired to live far beyond survival. 

Its that place where I stopped avoiding triggers to cope and manage them and I began seeing them as the teacher that had shown up - because I was now the student who was ready.

Its that place where I realized that the only way out of this pain...

was to go through it

that I might finally 

live beyond it. 

Heres that link again where you can read this post and view its many links here:Whoops! I Did it Again! Using Creativity...

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Ambivalence As A Survival Skill

I like looking for solutions.

But - part of looking for a solution - means that a problem has to be identified.

This past week over at Emerging From Broken Christina Enevoldsen, founder of popular website and private forum, Overcoming Sexual Abuse, shared part of her journey at our mutual friend Darlene Ouimets blog, Emerging From Broken, and how she learned to identify the dysfunctional family relationships that had shaped both her sense of self and the way she viewed and interacted with the world. 

There's tons of great information in this post (and any other of her posts at her website) but one thing I wanted to point out is how she identified that push/pull that can be so damaging to our relationships as survivors.

Here's an excerpt on this issue of ambivalence in her relationship with her mother; what it looks like and the purpose it serves:


As long as I saw her as all bad, there was nothing to grieve. 


I’d only seen her goodness when I was a child and I was seeing only her badness now.  

I was terrified that if I allowed myself to see her good side, I’d want a relationship with her and I would be exposed to more rejection.

As a child, it was normal to compartmentalize my relationships this way. It was safe; it kept me from more disappointment and pain. 

And it was normal that this would be how I would view ALL of my relationships: through the lense of expectation that others would cause me pain.

It was normal that my adult relationships looked so much like the ones from my childhood and that conflicting feeling of

I love you so much. (I need you to feel safe, to be ok)

and

I hate you, leave me alone, go away. (Usually with a few choice names thrown in:))


It was NORMAL for me to view the world in 


black


and


white.


Because that is how it was in the dysfunction that I came from. 

I was seen as good or bad based on if I'd done whatever I was expected to do and did it right enough or good enough, based on the ever changing rules that were arbitrary at best. And no matter how hard I tried 

it was never 

enough.

I was taught that I was either right enough or good enough based on someone elses determination but for some reason known only to those who modeled this way of engaging with the world as "normal"....I was never

just enough.

Raise a child in the way he should go

and when he is old

he will not depart from it. 

So

the problem was that I was stuck in that dance of seeing my relationships

and myself

through the dark lense of

all bad

or the blinders that let me see it as all good...

aka denial

and nothing in between. 

In this post by Christina over at Emerging From Broken she takes us into the process of how she was able to reconstruct her view from black and white to that place where she was able to see her past, her relationships and her life 

in living color.

~

zebras

polka dots

and plaids:)

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Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Photo Credit

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!
~