For a couple of years now, I have been drawn to material - books, articles, podcasts and videos - about overcoming trauma. I wanted to know everything about the topic; what made for trauma, what trauma looked like and most importantly how to overcome trauma.
This material is out there in abundance and I inhaled my share of it. I didn't want to leave any stone unturned. It felt to me that I had to keep reading and watching because what if the gem that I was searching for was forever lost in material left unseen and unread?
One day not so long ago, I noticed that I had no interest in reading any more of it. If an email had the word 'trauma' in it, I deleted it. I had lost all interest in the subject material. I remember once reading that if this day came, that was a very good thing.
This is not to say that I in any way turned away from the need for trauma recovery in the lives of many people. That's a journey many people must make.
It is to say that the good news is that there is an ending point for the journey of trauma healing.
When things happen quite suddenly as this happened to me, the wish is to go back and write down the recipe and then print it for all to have. 'Recipe for ending the need for any further trauma recovery'
Alas, I don't know why I reached this point, except to say that I got bored. It felt like the material was on repeat and that everything was saying the same thing, just another well meaning person giving the material their own unique flavor.
Maybe I just reached a point where I knew what I knew and I didn't need to know any more.
For what it is worth to you, I offer this:
- At some point I came to see that the narrative I had built around my life was a bit of a fabrication. I had a lot of unprocessed feelings to unearth and investigate.
- On investigation I came to see that the nurturing and care I needed as a child, I didn't get.
- The lack of nurture led me unconsciously to seek out nurturing as an adult.
- At the same time, as so many people in my situation do, I chose a partner in life who sought out success (like both my parents), which meant he wasn't nearly as available for nurturing experiences as I would have liked/needed.
- This situation led to suffering which led me to explore myself and to ask how I could help myself.
- Exploring my nature led to a consciousness that I hadn't really had a childhood and that my 'inner child' or younger self was stuck. I befriended the smaller part of me and this process started to make a shift in how I was feeling. In order words, I starting nurturing myself.
- I befriended myself through bodywork - yoga, especially yin yoga and restore yoga were especially beneficial, but so too were other modalities. Shaking is a great way to start the day!
- I acknowledged that my situation was as it was. My husband has no foreseeable plan to give up working hard at his desk. Regular holidays, now that that is possible, is a requirement. He is as he is.
I think it was an understanding too that I must recover; must make my peace with the circumstances. My body was showing signs of distress such that I found myself at a chiropractor and week by week, I am getting strong again.
For some time there, maybe a year, it was very noisy in my head. It took a while to realize that I had a vicious internal critic who was blaming me for everything. Once I realized what was happening, and the craziness of accepting that blame, she completely settled. I think you have to talk back to internal critics.
Now, I see it all as I see the way the planet has come to this moment in time. It's not the doing of one person or three people but the unfolding of a long history that spans back generations. It's many, many decisions, each one leading to another decision, leading to this.
This makes acceptance entirely achievable.
Did I ever tell you about my psychiatrist acquaintance? We met in retreat and she told me she thought she must have murdered her little brother...until the child that was never acknowledged as once being in the family wrote to her and told her the story of his mother and what she had done. She closed the practice down. Since the mystery was solved she no longer needed to look for answers in the world of the brain. She wasn't the bad person she thought she was after all.
That's a bit how I feel. Why go on reading about trauma when you have followed the path to its logical end?
Now, I look at the world through different eyes. I made it. I am strong. My days are to enjoy.
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