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“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror |
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Your Life After Trauma by Michele Rosenthal
The Happy Body by Arelia and Jerzy Gregorek
The Wellness Project by Phoebe Lapine
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Wellness: The Best Offense
If there's anything that focus on being well can perhaps protect: It is our vulnerability as humans when traumatized (remember-we'll all at least once have to face this in our life-times). Working out a wellness plan, to protect this vulnerability can be put together with as much help as we might need. To build a wellness plan may mean we need to consult beyond our trauma helpers. I think we're wise to include those professionals who can guide nutrition choices. Those who can help us put together a routine for exercise. Perhaps we'll include those gifted in teaching others how to establish a daily, consistent routine to help us with time-management and the like. That is, if we've the means and are thereby empowered to afford such dishing out money to support such things. Part of recovery's goal is to establish a sense of mastery over our daily lives. Pre-Trauma, I suspect others lived perhaps as I did. I'd pick up ideas to change my eating habits in fits-and-starts. I'd go at an exercise regime for awhile. More often than not, my efforts to hit the gym at least three-days-per-week grew into more days even than that. I'd end up needing to abandon the gym in the end due to over-training and ultimately burning myself out. It took my own confrontations with trauma before I woke up to the need to put my own wellness at the top of my own priority list. Once tagged with PTSD, Depression, and Substance Use Disorder, unresolved trauma makes it that much more difficult to practice daily self-care. |
Excuses? There were some. Reality however dictates that to keep focused on anything post-trauma that we might wish to pursue, we must be willing to work with clinical care to get our traumas resolved and out of our own way if we want in our recovery full-success.
A key lesson I held onto from my first therapist is this: Whatever we agree to focus on in our lives, that thing we focus on will expand. This means that when we focus on our illnesses, we're more aware of being sick. When we agree with ourselves to focus on being well, being well is what expands and paths to wellness start to make themselves visible to us.
It's like it is if we were to tell ourselves, "What ever you do, wherever you go, SEE red cars!"
Tell yourself that and see what happens. If you're like me, and I suspect you are, you'll see RED CARS for a time practically everywhere you go. The same thing happens if you stress towards yourself to NOT see red cars. Do that too, and red cars will show up everywhere.
Until our traumas are released in my experience, it's difficult to commit to any wellness plans. That's why, again, we need trauma-informed help. However, even with these traumas left unresolved, I doubt we'd be causing ourselves any harm when we shift our focus away from illness, even for a few minutes of every day, towards seeking out the information we wish to learn if we wish to be well.
The goal remains: To recovery and be well as best we we possibly can. Which takes time and right information to come our way if we are to succeed with the ultimate goal.
Even while we remain in the midst of still battling the demons of trauma, working on putting a wellness plan together is something I think we need to consider. I think it's important to have a discussion with our physicians and other trauma-helpers about it. These professionals are with us to guide us towards getting started building plans that support our recovery.
I'll confess that before my own diagnosis, my family doctor had suggested some wellness life-style changes many times.
Did I listen? Sometimes, yes. But I couldn't stick to anything long enough to enjoy a positive outcome.
Given , if we're smart, for the remainder of our natural lives we'll need to make our own wellness and self-care a priority post-trauma: Agreeing with ourselves to be well will provide, via expansion of those bits-and-pieces of information we need to teach us, all that we need to put together a wellness plan that sticks.
The people we need to learn from will show up. The time we need for right nutrition and exercise will be available. The energy and willingness to keep moving towards wellness will start to take shape. Once we agree, and with that agreement commit to our well-being and recovery, we open up, in my experience, to all that is for us as individuals important.
When I commit to a path personally, I find it less cumbersome inside to find ways to work it all in.
I found myself drawn to learning meditative practices, for instance, when I decided to shift away from the illnesses towards seeking ways to be well. Mindfulness practices are now there for me as a daily, highly-helpful support.
Focusing on self-care, I now do my best to work, rest, and work on a bit of a schedule that allows my brain a break from researching and any writing I assign myself to do.
Eating-Right and Daily-Exercise? On these fronts still, although the need is calling on me to address recovery for my body: I confess, again, that towards nutrition and exercise, I've some serious work now left to do.
That said, I know I can do this. I've had success with weight-loss in the past by simply making sure I walked a few miles every day. When I've achieved other remissions, I've had success in those times too with getting into eating well again. Putting meditative, grounding, and breath-work time on the table, and learning how to be more mindful, acts to support for me by granting a need for practicing daily emotional self-regulation skills.
I do this when I need to in order to tackle the physiological responses (fight-or-flight-anxiety) that my damaged emotions and thinking push me into suffering sometimes still.
As we might encourage anyone we care about who's seeking out ways to do the same, to be well, I've found solace in coaxing myself gently, with self-compassion in play, towards making the very best of my own recovery time.
After Trauma and Diagnosis: It's that focus we choose to put on wellness that expands in increments. With every effort we agree to make, we can slowly shift into new habits. Habits that support our wellness and protect any future vulnerability to retraumatization.
Our pain? That's on the inside. Trauma and PTSD needs clinical help to resolve. We need ways that release the locked bits of trauma-memories in order to reset our nervous system. Exercise, laughter, even tears have granted me a sense that this reset has happened now many times.
Spending ten-minutes a few times throughout the day with the Breathing Video I shared on the previous page still works wonders for me in calming things down inside to at least a more tolerable level if ever I find myself 'triggered' by anything.
It may be difficult to stick to a plan. But slow, constructive, forward-movement is something our physical self. mind, and soul need to experience. PTSD can create physical pain. Depression too. Both can get us very stuck. It's with that pain that trauma-informed, clinical care can help us work through our traumatizing experiences:
It's FOR that pain that wellness strategies can work their greatest magic.
Wellness practices, learned prior to trauma or after-the-fact, as we apply being well to our lives: The information we need to learn by will come our way, and the information will come to us individually in a way that fits us uniquely like a favorite hat in my experience.
Wellness: Could have been our best defense. For some of us, it perhaps was. For too many others, it most certainly was not.
Focusing on wellness will most definitely need to be a priority as we recover. It's something humans should be focusing on consciously anyway.
For some of us, it simply took the sky falling on us all the way before we were prepared to accept the need.
Being Well Post Trauma: Along with right treatment with those who use the modalities I've shared, this focus put upon wellness-building, I believe, acts to serve as our most rational choice for developing the best offense against future events that might bring suffering our way again.
Consider approaching Buddhist Philosophy with an open mind. The Eight Fold Path grants a structure one can learn to work with. Fear not if past relationship with religion may have planted any seeds to suggest this philosophy is the work of the devil. It frankly isn't so-we've been denied much by our religions that in the end can prove that those things religious rule-making has painted as taboos:
In my experience settling-in to accept some Buddhist Philosophy and Practices was precisely what I needed.
If you remain frightened by the seeds of perhaps some spiritual abuse in your life, having perhaps been indoctrinated via any Fundamentalist Faiths: Consider the Buddha not as the antithesis of God. The last words the Buddha shared with his followers included a command to not worship the man.
What he encouraged, rather, was that we troubled-folks 'find the light within ourselves'.
Didn't Yeshua's parting words suggest pretty much the same thing?
The Apostle Paul, put it like this: "ALL things work for good. . .for those that love God." I've taken his words to heart. I think what Paul hoped we'd here, is that all things work for good, ultimately, if we allow our concept of God to unconditionally share that energy's love with us.
What my Christianity did to me, and others I know, is it denied me access for too long to much that's proven to be most helpful.
At the very least, all this aside:
As I've done on other pages, I'm more than comfortable encouraging others to consider learning about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Be sure to clear this with your physicians and other trauma-helpers before you begin.
There are other things I've experienced across my recovery years that I found helpful in supporting my recovery. Reeducating myself I'd put on top of the list. I've always loved to learn. That brings me joy. I found way to study near every subject that interests me, for free, online over the past five or so years.
Check out online platforms like Edx and Coursera. Edx allows auditing of courses for free. They charge a fee if we want certificates. Coursera is moving towards a monthly-learn all you want-payment model. For those with low-income, Coursera grants financial aid for verifiable certificates.
You'll find on both platforms a slew of introductory courses on the subjects that for yourself are most interesting.
I'll share some other ideas. These come from my own experience. I've given many things a look-see at least across the past 13 years of focus towards lifting myself up by my own boot-straps:
If nothing else, engaging in activity can take our minds off-of the incessant memories of trauma if we've not yet had opportunity to work with anyone to assist us towards resolving them. I doubt anyone has ever given themselves any additional trouble by choosing even something as simplistic as getting out of the house and taking in some fresher air throughout the day.
I offer this up from my own lived experience. I offer the things that I've found that support me feeling more-well than otherwise. This recovery I'm coaxing others to consider taking seriously is about YOUR wellness. This is about YOUR recovery, as much as this site is about me sharing my own experience.
My words might suggest that I'm telling visitors to the site to follow my lead by adopting what I applied to my own journey. That isn't the point of this web-site. I've no package of gimmicks to market and sell to anyone. Most of my own learning, I've been granted for free. Thus, this is why I'm freely sharing all that I picked up along the way as I walked my own recovery. That walk for me was all-along about hoping to complete a Hero's Journey, full-circle, back to where I came from.
To encourage you all that one step further, I'll leave you with this motto I've adopted from my first, virtual-mentor, Professor Joseph Campbell:
"Find a place inside where there is joy. . .the joy will help to burn-off the pain."
Allowing Oneself To Be Well Calls On Us To Practice Self-Compassion
Check Out The Video Below
Here's a take on wellness from Sir Harry Burns and TEDx, as well.
Check Out The Video Below
I'll share here again the Breathing Video
I used this for a time four times/day like taking a pill.
For More That Discusses The Social Determinants of Health: Follow This Link
A key lesson I held onto from my first therapist is this: Whatever we agree to focus on in our lives, that thing we focus on will expand. This means that when we focus on our illnesses, we're more aware of being sick. When we agree with ourselves to focus on being well, being well is what expands and paths to wellness start to make themselves visible to us.
It's like it is if we were to tell ourselves, "What ever you do, wherever you go, SEE red cars!"
Tell yourself that and see what happens. If you're like me, and I suspect you are, you'll see RED CARS for a time practically everywhere you go. The same thing happens if you stress towards yourself to NOT see red cars. Do that too, and red cars will show up everywhere.
Until our traumas are released in my experience, it's difficult to commit to any wellness plans. That's why, again, we need trauma-informed help. However, even with these traumas left unresolved, I doubt we'd be causing ourselves any harm when we shift our focus away from illness, even for a few minutes of every day, towards seeking out the information we wish to learn if we wish to be well.
The goal remains: To recovery and be well as best we we possibly can. Which takes time and right information to come our way if we are to succeed with the ultimate goal.
Even while we remain in the midst of still battling the demons of trauma, working on putting a wellness plan together is something I think we need to consider. I think it's important to have a discussion with our physicians and other trauma-helpers about it. These professionals are with us to guide us towards getting started building plans that support our recovery.
I'll confess that before my own diagnosis, my family doctor had suggested some wellness life-style changes many times.
Did I listen? Sometimes, yes. But I couldn't stick to anything long enough to enjoy a positive outcome.
Given , if we're smart, for the remainder of our natural lives we'll need to make our own wellness and self-care a priority post-trauma: Agreeing with ourselves to be well will provide, via expansion of those bits-and-pieces of information we need to teach us, all that we need to put together a wellness plan that sticks.
The people we need to learn from will show up. The time we need for right nutrition and exercise will be available. The energy and willingness to keep moving towards wellness will start to take shape. Once we agree, and with that agreement commit to our well-being and recovery, we open up, in my experience, to all that is for us as individuals important.
When I commit to a path personally, I find it less cumbersome inside to find ways to work it all in.
I found myself drawn to learning meditative practices, for instance, when I decided to shift away from the illnesses towards seeking ways to be well. Mindfulness practices are now there for me as a daily, highly-helpful support.
Focusing on self-care, I now do my best to work, rest, and work on a bit of a schedule that allows my brain a break from researching and any writing I assign myself to do.
Eating-Right and Daily-Exercise? On these fronts still, although the need is calling on me to address recovery for my body: I confess, again, that towards nutrition and exercise, I've some serious work now left to do.
That said, I know I can do this. I've had success with weight-loss in the past by simply making sure I walked a few miles every day. When I've achieved other remissions, I've had success in those times too with getting into eating well again. Putting meditative, grounding, and breath-work time on the table, and learning how to be more mindful, acts to support for me by granting a need for practicing daily emotional self-regulation skills.
I do this when I need to in order to tackle the physiological responses (fight-or-flight-anxiety) that my damaged emotions and thinking push me into suffering sometimes still.
As we might encourage anyone we care about who's seeking out ways to do the same, to be well, I've found solace in coaxing myself gently, with self-compassion in play, towards making the very best of my own recovery time.
After Trauma and Diagnosis: It's that focus we choose to put on wellness that expands in increments. With every effort we agree to make, we can slowly shift into new habits. Habits that support our wellness and protect any future vulnerability to retraumatization.
Our pain? That's on the inside. Trauma and PTSD needs clinical help to resolve. We need ways that release the locked bits of trauma-memories in order to reset our nervous system. Exercise, laughter, even tears have granted me a sense that this reset has happened now many times.
Spending ten-minutes a few times throughout the day with the Breathing Video I shared on the previous page still works wonders for me in calming things down inside to at least a more tolerable level if ever I find myself 'triggered' by anything.
It may be difficult to stick to a plan. But slow, constructive, forward-movement is something our physical self. mind, and soul need to experience. PTSD can create physical pain. Depression too. Both can get us very stuck. It's with that pain that trauma-informed, clinical care can help us work through our traumatizing experiences:
It's FOR that pain that wellness strategies can work their greatest magic.
Wellness practices, learned prior to trauma or after-the-fact, as we apply being well to our lives: The information we need to learn by will come our way, and the information will come to us individually in a way that fits us uniquely like a favorite hat in my experience.
Wellness: Could have been our best defense. For some of us, it perhaps was. For too many others, it most certainly was not.
Focusing on wellness will most definitely need to be a priority as we recover. It's something humans should be focusing on consciously anyway.
For some of us, it simply took the sky falling on us all the way before we were prepared to accept the need.
Being Well Post Trauma: Along with right treatment with those who use the modalities I've shared, this focus put upon wellness-building, I believe, acts to serve as our most rational choice for developing the best offense against future events that might bring suffering our way again.
Consider approaching Buddhist Philosophy with an open mind. The Eight Fold Path grants a structure one can learn to work with. Fear not if past relationship with religion may have planted any seeds to suggest this philosophy is the work of the devil. It frankly isn't so-we've been denied much by our religions that in the end can prove that those things religious rule-making has painted as taboos:
In my experience settling-in to accept some Buddhist Philosophy and Practices was precisely what I needed.
If you remain frightened by the seeds of perhaps some spiritual abuse in your life, having perhaps been indoctrinated via any Fundamentalist Faiths: Consider the Buddha not as the antithesis of God. The last words the Buddha shared with his followers included a command to not worship the man.
What he encouraged, rather, was that we troubled-folks 'find the light within ourselves'.
Didn't Yeshua's parting words suggest pretty much the same thing?
The Apostle Paul, put it like this: "ALL things work for good. . .for those that love God." I've taken his words to heart. I think what Paul hoped we'd here, is that all things work for good, ultimately, if we allow our concept of God to unconditionally share that energy's love with us.
What my Christianity did to me, and others I know, is it denied me access for too long to much that's proven to be most helpful.
At the very least, all this aside:
As I've done on other pages, I'm more than comfortable encouraging others to consider learning about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Be sure to clear this with your physicians and other trauma-helpers before you begin.
There are other things I've experienced across my recovery years that I found helpful in supporting my recovery. Reeducating myself I'd put on top of the list. I've always loved to learn. That brings me joy. I found way to study near every subject that interests me, for free, online over the past five or so years.
Check out online platforms like Edx and Coursera. Edx allows auditing of courses for free. They charge a fee if we want certificates. Coursera is moving towards a monthly-learn all you want-payment model. For those with low-income, Coursera grants financial aid for verifiable certificates.
You'll find on both platforms a slew of introductory courses on the subjects that for yourself are most interesting.
I'll share some other ideas. These come from my own experience. I've given many things a look-see at least across the past 13 years of focus towards lifting myself up by my own boot-straps:
- Consider studying ancient Eastern Arts, such as Qigong or Tai Chi.
- Consider approaching Yoga if that's something that's perhaps beckoning you.
- Consider simply walking every day in nature, if that seems more like a welcome fit.
- Take Fishing up, or pick it up again. Hiking if you like.
- For joy these days, I'm having a blast swinging golf-clubs with my youngest son.
If nothing else, engaging in activity can take our minds off-of the incessant memories of trauma if we've not yet had opportunity to work with anyone to assist us towards resolving them. I doubt anyone has ever given themselves any additional trouble by choosing even something as simplistic as getting out of the house and taking in some fresher air throughout the day.
I offer this up from my own lived experience. I offer the things that I've found that support me feeling more-well than otherwise. This recovery I'm coaxing others to consider taking seriously is about YOUR wellness. This is about YOUR recovery, as much as this site is about me sharing my own experience.
My words might suggest that I'm telling visitors to the site to follow my lead by adopting what I applied to my own journey. That isn't the point of this web-site. I've no package of gimmicks to market and sell to anyone. Most of my own learning, I've been granted for free. Thus, this is why I'm freely sharing all that I picked up along the way as I walked my own recovery. That walk for me was all-along about hoping to complete a Hero's Journey, full-circle, back to where I came from.
To encourage you all that one step further, I'll leave you with this motto I've adopted from my first, virtual-mentor, Professor Joseph Campbell:
"Find a place inside where there is joy. . .the joy will help to burn-off the pain."
Allowing Oneself To Be Well Calls On Us To Practice Self-Compassion
Check Out The Video Below
Here's a take on wellness from Sir Harry Burns and TEDx, as well.
Check Out The Video Below
I'll share here again the Breathing Video
I used this for a time four times/day like taking a pill.
For More That Discusses The Social Determinants of Health: Follow This Link
Body
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Mind
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Spirit
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Disclaimer: These materials and resources are presented for educational purposes only. They are not a substitute for informed medical advice or training. Do not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified health or mental health care provider. If you have concerns, contact your health care provider, mental health professional, or your community health centre.
Darren Gregory © 2018. All Rights Reserved
