Validation

 In small or large ways, we have all experienced trauma. Some traumatic experiences seem to settle in the body, take residence in there and won't shift. It's as if they lodge. This doesn't necessarily effect every minute of the day or even every day. Some days are fine. Some days aren't so fine.

I think, when we have an issue, we look for the solution, as if there is a solution; some miracle cure that will exterminate the trauma.

In my experience, it doesn't work like that but rather there  has to be a fairly consistent approach to working with the trauma; small but consistent baby steps; without some sort of expectation that one day you will wake up and it will all be gone for good.

I think acknowledging yourself as a person living with trauma is a good start on the road to recovery; to feeling better. I don't say this lightly or flippantly. It's no small thing, for me anyway, to be able to write these words.

I find myself here sitting at my laptop writing into my online journal, aware that unless I say something deeply truthful there is no use writing here at all. The truth is that I feel quite emotional saying this, that I am someone that lives with a sense of trauma. It was probably perfectly evident to you the reader for years, but even so, it's quite the revelation for me.

If I can be helpful to the reader here, perhaps I can offer something that has helped me quite a bit lately. I take my hands to my chest, one hand crossed over the other and I hold them there. I close my eyes and I am more aware of the feelings of this sensation. If you try it now you may well become aware of a deep quiet not just inside yourself but outside of yourself too, like a protective shell. There is something deeply affirming about this action.

You might say quietly to yourself, even out loud, "You're okay." It might not feel right, right away, but maybe you can add another time, "I approve of you." or "You're a good person."

Sometimes in life, when we aren't given something we very much wanted as a child, there's a sense that even if someone were to give it to us, we allow it, perversely, to slide off us like jelly. We just don't let it land.

I am suggesting that maybe you, and maybe I do receive validation at times but maybe the validation we need is our own validation. Maybe the love we need most is to love ourselves.

So, maybe when you cross your hands over each other and hold them on your chest (I personally do this high on the chest close to the collarbones) you might say to yourself, "I love you". See how this feels.

I don't offer this as a remedy for the trauma. If the trauma lodged, it may not be ready to depart so easily. And yet, it's quite something to note after offering oneself this little act of kindness repeatedly that acceptance softens the trauma.

It's almost as if, when one stops being 'brave' and denying the trauma; when one acknowledges and offers compassion to the being that has experienced trauma, the trauma settles down. There is a quiet whisper...'finally, you've welcomed me'.