We explore the intricate relationship between trauma, motivation, willpower, and our sense of worth and belonging.
Drawing from her personal journey and professional experience as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Trauma Survivor, Lisa discusses how our nervous system and unresolved wounds impact our behavior, motivation, and ability to achieve our goals.
She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, connecting with our bodies, and redefining our perception of ourselves and others to heal from past traumas. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, psychological insights, and practical advice, Lisa encourages listeners to embrace their emotions and past experiences as a path to self-discovery and transformation, highlighting the pivotal role of nurturing a compassionate relationship with oneself and others for a fulfilling life.
We explore the intricate relationship between trauma, motivation, willpower, and our sense of worth and belonging.
Drawing from her personal journey and professional experience as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Trauma Survivor, Lisa discusses how our nervous system and unresolved wounds impact our behavior, motivation, and ability to achieve our goals.
She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, connecting with our bodies, and redefining our perception of ourselves and others to heal from past traumas. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, psychological insights, and practical advice, Lisa encourages listeners to embrace their emotions and past experiences as a path to self-discovery and transformation, highlighting the pivotal role of nurturing a compassionate relationship with oneself and others for a fulfilling life.
02:13 Today's Deep Dive: Motivation, Willpower, and Trauma
02:47 A Personal Journey Through Trauma and Recovery
05:04 Understanding Motivation and Its Complex Ties to Trauma
09:04 The Role of Emotions in Motivation and Behavior
12:18 Embarking on the Path to Healing and Self-Discovery
18:56 The Power of Embracing Our True Selves and Building Strong Relationships
25:17 Closing Thoughts and Poetic Reflections
Lisa:
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Healed Now What? A podcast where we discuss life, relationships, connection, and trauma through the lens of somatic and attachment psychology, nervous system health, relationships, and self discovery. I'm Lisa Dawn, and I'm on a mission to teach people how to transform their deepest wounds into their greatest strengths by first transforming the relationship they have with themselves. So whether you've had trauma, years of failed partnerships, or just want a better relationship with your body, I've got you covered. I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Educator, Relationship Mentor, and Trauma Survivor. With a lifetime of experience helping not only myself, but countless others transform their lives by learning how to become the fullest versions of themselves. Learn more at www. somatic. com We do this through self awareness, connecting with their bodies and changing the way they perceive themselves and others. I have coached innumerous people how to heal their wounds and create lasting change so they can live a more joyous, passionate and fulfilling life. Thank you so much for tuning in and enjoy the show. Hey guys, Lisa Dawn here. Thanks for tuning back into this week's episode of Healed Now What? So, it's Tuesday late in the afternoon and here I sit contemplating what I want to speak about this week. And this is a topic I've contemplated a fair bit as there were quite a few times in my life when I was in full recovery mode from complex trauma and chronic pain, and then deep in case studies with mentors and then clients. So I'm excited to be here with you today, talking about such things. What we're going to chat about today is this concept of motivation, willpower, trauma, and how they intermingle with our sense of worth and belonging. And of course, we can't talk about trauma without addressing the nervous system. And we're, when we are speaking about regulating the nervous system, we are also talking about regulating emotions and why that is so important to changing behaviors and really just going for the things that we want in life. But I just want to start with a bit of a story about me. When I was in my twenties, I seemed to have this invincible amount of of willpower, determination, and motivation to get things done. I had drive and ambition, and quite often I pushed past my boundaries to get there. So even though I was experiencing chronic pain, I would just pop some pills and crush through sometimes 12 to 14 hour work days. So this got me a high paying job, recognition, and all of the things I wanted. But I also burned out. I bankrupted my physical body and when my body finally was able to rest, even though it was a forced rest, I went into a very long and painful period of shutdown. And so, although back then I didn't have the words to label my experience, what I was experiencing was uh, an oscillating of between dorsal vagal, which is essentially free, a free state and sympathetic activation or better known as, as fight. So adrenaline and cortisol were coursing through me, um, as well as being completely shut down and frozen. So it was quite the cocktail. So it didn't seem to matter what I did. Everything was overwhelming to me. Um, I couldn't have a hard conversation without flying off the handle, changes of plans would send me into a tailspin and the motivation and willpower I had in my twenties was just becoming a distant memory. So what happened? Well, this is a common story for folks, even for folks who don't have significant trauma as we are still living in a culture that promotes productivity as worth, hustle over rest. and you know, same, same. And I posted on some, I posted something on Instagram this week that ties into this whole conversation, which is we have to begin to differentiate between who we are and who we've been taught to be. And this is not just mindset, but also what's living beneath our skin. They, these are the experiences living within us left unaddressed, but first a little bit on traditional motivation. So we all have this. It's propelling and driving force within us. It's quite profound and when it's working properly, it's amazing. But what happens when there are significant unresolved wounds or we go through a period of life where everything comes crashing down, overwhelming us? So this invincible or invisible yet powerful force is eaten up by our survival responses. So essentially we get split off from this motivation. So for me personally, not only was I traversing this weird space of Not really knowing who I was or what I wanted, this guiding light or this invisible force was suddenly very dim and my body was doing all kinds of unfamiliar things. Like why wasn't it working the way it always did? Fuck. So frustrating. So I blamed, shamed, and even. tried to force it to come back, but it was just gone. So our understanding of motivation and willpower alongside decision making has been based on the assumption that if we have this blend of activation to initiate a, a behavior and then we have persistence to give continued effort and intensity which is like the concentration and vigor. We can basically accomplish anything. And then of course there are different types of motivation. Intrinsic, extrinsic. Intrinsic being the internal motivation to do something purely for the internal gratification and extrinsic which involves external like praise, money. social recognition, their, um, motivation, which is basically we're motivated to do things for the people that we love to support our, our families. But rarely do we talk more in depth about how motivation is tied into our body's responses to overwhelming life events and what happens when these responses are stuck in any one position for too long. So, we assume motivation is driven by task related factors, such as goal setting and mindset. But in the presence of complex trauma, the part of the brain where motivation and behavior live are affected, and symptoms can range from hypervigilance to avoidance to extreme negative beliefs, and all of these things interfere with goal oriented behavior. And this is especially true if we've experienced childhood trauma. So when these negative beliefs are operating, they act as a, like a lid on motivation, a barrier to transformation. They reduce or restrict forward moving growth. So, in order to bring back that zest for life after major loss, trauma, abuse, it is essential that we work with the trauma and create an opening for these beautiful allies to re emerge. When we have unresolved wounds, what we think of as destiny is in fact the unintegrated past. Let's take that in for a second. When we have unresolved wounds, what we think of as destiny is in fact, the unintegrated past, when we're feeling good, when things are going well, when we feel safe and engaged, we feel like we belong. and can bond and have open communication with others. We are alert, we have drive and focus, we can rest and digest, we can experience awe. But when we are under threat, our attention is hijacked and our biology goes into protection mode. So what happens then? We try and blend in. As to not be seen, we isolate, we people please, we may be more prone to arguing, fighting, we may freeze up, procrastinate, or even feel collapse in our bodies and in our minds. And as far as feelings go, we may be feeling betrayed. We may feel rage, panic, or fear, worry, irritation, helplessness, or confusion. This unresolved baggage weighs us down and colors our experiences preventing us from showing up fully in the present moment. So keep in mind that all of this is happening and not separate from our nervous system. So logically we can try and think our way out of these states, but unfortunately that is only going to take us so far because we carry the records of our darkest experiences in our bones. In our skin, in our teeth, in our blood, in our families, and in our communities. And the energy needed to maintain all of this is taxing and exhausting. And let me tell you, it does not leave much energy for motivation and the energy required to meet our goals or to really go for something that we want in life. We just keep doing the same things because it's who we are or who we've been expected to be. And then suddenly Or maybe always we are fearful of our internal sensations and feelings instead of realizing or having the knowing that they are just invitations to get to know ourselves more intimately. Now, this doesn't mean going full throttle into our deepest, darkest places alone. What it does mean that when an emotion arises that is unpleasant, Perhaps we could even just test the waters to see if we can even manage to spend one minute there. And then perhaps even placing a hand of support on our physical bodies. When we cannot process and integrate the things that life has thrown our way, this can lead to hiding ourselves away from the world. And in our need to be liked and seen as good people, we end up fracturing and fragmenting ourselves. Our motivation for change is dulled or it mostly comes from wanting the world to confirm we are good people or waiting for the world to give us permission to be all of the things that we already are. And what is true is that there's nothing wrong with us. Our bodies are preserving themselves the best they can. And what is also true is that we can make our way back home. to feeling good again, and I have seen this time and time again. When we begin to come back into contact with our true selves, a few things begin to happen. So we're no longer so fearful of our emotions and our sensations. We begin to feel like we belong socially and we can start to recognize pleasure again. We can stop giving energy into worrying about what, whether others perceive us as good people and instead have the energy to focus on the experiences we want to have more of and then begin taking small steps daily to cultivate those experiences. We stop needing to control everything. Our sensitivities, if we have any, go down or go away completely. So in other words, our safety no longer resides outside of us because we have cultivated it within. Curiosity returns and hanging out in the unknown doesn't feel so terrifying. We can now spend some more time exploring who we are now. The one who wants things. The one who has desires. We can take risks. Dare to be different. stand in our own shoes, we can connect. Our internal messages can begin to shift from I can't to I can. I don't belong to I belong. And what I want to be really clear about is that these internal messages are directly tied into our nervous system responses. They are not separate. Our brain learns about the body through the experience of our body. The brain also learns about the world through the experience of the body as it interacts with the world. So when we inhibit emotion from the brain and body or we shut it down, we can feel pretty dysregulated because we can't tolerate the unpleasant or the unacceptable emotions. Our body and brains learn that they are too scary and then they act accordingly. So we have to rebuild our ability to tolerate polarity of the spectrum of emotions and difficult sensations that we feel. When we are able to tolerate unpleasant emotions in a situation, it actually increases the likelihood that our bodies are more regulated, available, and connected to the environment around us. We can improve our situation because now we don't have to compromise our brain or body by shutting them down to cope with unbearable or unacceptable emotional experiences. Therefore, excuse me, the capacity to tolerate emotional experiences plays a huge role to ensure that our bodies and their connection to the world around us remain intact, meaning we are more available for life. And are able to navigate it in a way that is productive, easeful, and expansive. And in this way, emotion and behavior are inseparable. Emotion provides the motivation to do or not to do something. So we are emoting. And when we are constantly trying to manage or suppress our emotions, it affects our behavior and our motivation to do things. In other words, it eats up our energy. We are just always managing the tides instead of riding the waves. And this is the work of true embodiment. When we learn how to embody our emotions, this ultimately regulates our emotions, which in turn has the potential to regulate our behavior, and this has big implications. Bingo, bingo. Here, motivation and desire can begin to come back in. For example, say someone is suffering from addiction, which is often driven by unbearable emotions that consciously or unconsciously drive the behavior for reaching out to the addiction. And then giving into the addictive behavior, behavior reinforces the person's helplessness against the vulnerabilities that drive the addiction. But when we make these vulnerabilities conscious, spend time with them, relate to them. We regulate them, and we make them more bearable. This can help in regulating the compulsive impulse to engage in them. And it also gives the brain and body time to process and cope with the emotions that go alongside with that. What is also often missed is that when we regulate our systems and start to relate to ourselves, we begin to show up in our lives the way we want. We stop buying into the narrative that past, of past versions of ourselves or what others have made up about us because of the hurt we've experienced. We begin to uproot the truth. Now truth can be inconvenient. It has the ability to uproot the deepest. relationships and create awareness around things we can no longer overlook. And it doesn't follow the rules of others and as sure as hell doesn't care about whose feelings we hurt. It has one goal, to set us free. Truth emerges from our bodies with more ease and grace once we learn how to be with our own discomfort and the discomfort of disappointing others. We start to become brave and courageous. Knowing that my truth may destroy who you've come to believe me to be, but it can also destroy who I thought I was. And then an interesting thing begins to happen. We become less interested in cultivating relationships with people who need us to perform so they feel soothed. The kind of truth, this kind of truth offers relationship, freedom, bravery, and security because we begin finding that safety and that risk within ourselves. We begin to have what we need internally so we're not desperate to be saved or to keep people and things in our lives that make us sick. So how do we do this? Well, For starters, we do it by feeling unpleasant feelings and truths, but we do it in a way that doesn't overwhelm us and send a spiraling back into our traumas. We chunk it out. We create a container for growth. We nurse ourselves back to health. And we do this without the intention to fix or heal the body, but rather to relate to our bodies, to come into communion with them. Because yo, A traumatized body is not broken. It's overwhelmed and overworked. It's stuck in past pain and future fear. When we start to regulate our nervous systems and our emotions, it may look different than what we thought it would look like, or at least it did for me. When it started to change for me, I wasn't anger free, I wasn't stress free, I wasn't anxiety free, I was not guilt free. I was just more capable of holding all of my experiences and being more okay with them. I realized that life did not have to be perfect to be wonderful. When we are regulated, we are in motion, we are aware of our inner experience, in tune with our environment and our feelings, and we have more of an ability to be focused, balanced, and present. This also does not mean we are regulated or calm all the time, but when dysregulation happens, we can recover more quickly. It doesn't take months or even years. We're able to love and respect ourselves, even when things are not going our way, because only loving ourselves when things are going well is like trying to build a relationship with someone who only loves you when you don't piss them off. It just does not work that way. Relating to our body brings it into connection with where we are now, so the body can relax its defenses. We want the body to catch up with the fact that it's safe now and there is such freedom in that. We heal our bodies the same way we heal relationships. We relate to them. We build and tend to the capacity to meet conflict with open hearts and we do it from a place of tending rather than fixing. We also do this when we expect life will bring us connection and love as well as disharmony and rupture. And we have a practice for tending to those things. When we can feel into ourselves, our truth and the inevitable bull hardships that come from being human, we realize that the point is not to be fully healed, but to have access to fully feel. It then becomes easier to hold people accountable for their actions and hold ourselves accountable for what emerges in us as a response to their actions. We try so hard to save ourselves from feeling. And then we try and save other people from sitting in feelings that we don't know how to sit in. So we have to build the strength to be in our own discomfort so that we can let others have their discomfort. All feelings are welcome and all feelings are guaranteed. Emotions are not meant to be coded as positive or negative, but they do feel different in our bodies. Emotions are pieces of information. So we get a chance to develop a whole new relationship with our body, our needs and our true self. We get to have that self connection, that depth and that rootedness that used to come from others or wasn't there at all. Now you've grown that within you. And we work with the body because there is a biology of hurt, a biology of sadness, despair, anger. There's also a biology of happiness and joy. But I want to speak more to the biology of hurt, sadness, anger, and despair because it's one of access, excess adrenaline, high blood pressure, cortisol, and a heightened nervous system. The body simply cannot maintain that amount of charge for long periods of time without getting sick and feeling pretty shitty. So our work lies in not healing everything, but learning how to relate to ourselves in a kind and loving way. When we do, we can stop self censoring our values, our needs, our no's, our yes's. We can quit sacrificing our true desires to make other people happy. Juicy relationships with ourselves and others can exist while we continue to live disconnected from our bodies, are unavailable for pleasure, and are outsourcing feeling good to others, or judging and suppressing our emotions. Because life changes, loss happens, we lose people we never thought we'd lose, we lose pieces of ourselves we never imagined we would, and then suddenly creativity, creativity arrives, new love emerges, better, more aligned friendships come in. This expansion and contraction is part of life. This is an invitation into the wise woman way of life, which means we are whole beings here to have a full experience, which also means that sometimes we will have our health and sometimes we will lose it. Sometimes we will have accidents and sometimes we will avoid them. Sometimes we will overextend ourselves and sometimes we will rest. Sometimes we need help, and sometimes we help others. And when we are in tune with our inner navigational system and feel a sense of ease and regulation, it is so much easier to show up, to go where we are appreciated, to go where we are valued, to go where we matter. But most importantly, we become able to be that for ourselves. We give ourselves the love that we so freely offer to others. And on that note, I want to add in this community piece. What determines happiness, fulfillment, and longevity is the quality of our relationships, which includes the one we have with ourselves. What determines the quality of our relationships is our ability to be ourselves. When we work up the bravery to do this, it sends out a bat signal in the sky to those who want to be with us, those who want to cherish us, who love us deeply, and who are committed to growing alongside us. I just love these words from Rainer Wilde, so I wanted to include them here. Love requires courage and demands risk. Love is not about protecting ourselves from hurt. It is about opening ourselves up to the possibility of deep connection and true intimacy. Then I also found these words the other day. This poem is just so beautiful. So I wanted to share it also. It goes like this. Marry your best friends. Find the people who speak highly of you. The kind of people you can make stuff with. The people you can share your life with, people you can laugh with. The kind of laughter that makes your belly ache and your nose snort. The healing kind of laughter. Life is too short not to let people love you. The full version of you. The one who cries during commercials, or the one who fumbles with their words, and does cute things with their hands when they are nervous. Love hard the ones who let you be a fool with them. Make sure they are people who let you cry, too. Despair will come. Loss will come. Find the folks that you want to be there with as you move through those times. Find the ones that make passion, love, and creativity combine and course through you. That kind of love will never dilute, even when the waters get deep and dark. So as always, Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate each and every one of you. See you next week.
