Ep. 29 Post Traumatic Growth - Solo Episode

In this episode we delve into the concept of post-traumatic growth, offering insights into how individuals can transform their trauma into strength and resilience. She highlights how trauma is subjective and discusses the psychological changes that can occur as a result of wrestling with traumatic events.

Lisa emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, connecting with one's body, and changing perceptions of oneself and others in the healing process. She introduces the distinction between trauma bonding and post-traumatic growth, stressing the significance of empathy, setting boundaries, and experiencing life through a new perspective. 

The episode also covers the challenges and transformations in personal relationships post-growth, the journey of healing chronic health issues, and the pivotal role of finding safety and vulnerability in fostering growth. Lisa uses her expertise as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and personal experiences to guide listeners through navigating their healing journeys, encouraging self-compassion, and embracing the treasures found along the way.

00:00 Welcome to Healed Now What?

02:08 Exploring Post Traumatic Growth

03:04 The Subjectivity of Trauma and the Path to Strength

05:03 Empathy and Connection: The Fruits of Healing

11:20 Navigating Life and Relationships After Trauma

16:48 The Brain-Body Trauma Connection

21:20 Embracing Post Traumatic Growth and Self-Compassion

25:25 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Lisa: 0:01

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.

1:33

Hey guys, Lisa Dawn here. Welcome back to this week's episode of the Healed Now What Podcast. Ah, how's everyone doing out there? Currently I'm sitting in my office recording this episode, listening to Birds chirp. I'm not sure if you can hear them in the background, but it's bringing me a lot of joy in this moment So as far as this week's episode I've spoken about this on a previous chat But it felt right to expand on it. And I also wanted to dive into this subject a little bit more And this is and the idea of post traumatic growth Life after trauma. Well, what is it first? So let's let's define it Post traumatic growth explains the positive psychological changes as a result of a struggle with a major life crisis or traumatic event. It's this idea that it is possible to grow from trauma. That you can not only bounce back, but bounce forward because you've had to dig deeper than you ever have to come back to life, to bring yourself back to life. Some also refer to this as the journey back to foundational repair and restoration of your entire self. So as you likely know if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, is that trauma is subjective. It's subjective. Our experience of trauma is completely unique to the individual person. What is traumatic to one person is not necessarily traumatic to another. So, this idea that once we've resolved a certain amount of trauma with the help, of course, of a healer, a therapist, or guides of your choosing, you become stronger than before. Able to handle more, you're more resilient, you have more grit. And I want to say that. You can experience both being in a healing phase and post traumatic growth simultaneously. Because post traumatic growth is something we all have access to no matter where we are on our healing journey. And part of what we do in sessions to assist folks in therapeutic growth is helping people to connect with what is there. on the healing journey. So even when people don't feel it, say you're someone who just isn't feeling the healing. In other words, you just can't seem to identify where you've grown, which I mean, it happens when we're in the depth of a healing crisis or a stressful situation. Uh, it's very common to only be able to. to focus on the shit and that is also part of healing trauma and so is eventually being able to tangibly see our own growth, to be able to feel it, see it, hear it, and touch it. And that's also part of the therapeutic process. It comes as a reminder of where we are now. And so one of the most common parts of post traumatic growth is this idea of enhanced empathy. So we develop this kind of deep felt sense of what it means to be a human and to have gone through something really fucking hard. So typically thereafter, our reaction to other people and struggle is softer, more accepting, more understanding. But the empathy now is coming from a place of joining. with people rather than merging with another, which is a differentiation that makes a huge difference. It means that we have learned how to be empathetic without getting lost in another person's stuff. We can have boundaries around what we take in as ours and how much we give. It also means that we can understand a part of ourselves as well as a part of another without them having to explain it. We don't necessarily have to articulate so much of that experience. It's like this immediate kinship. So you're standing here having a similar story like I do and you made it. You're alive. We have this shared experience. The pain of it and how we survived it. But then it's not just how we survived it, but how we are thriving now. And this comes with a perspective shift because we went through these things. Certain things just fall away. They have less of a hold on us. We understand the world a little bit differently. And this shift in perspective is a huge part of post traumatic growth. We get to experience life again not through the walls we've put up around ourselves, but through a different lens. We built the walls for good reason, but now we want to experience life in real time. I'm actually in my body. I feel organized and present, not foggy. We can't help but look at the world differently and or feel differently and it is as a result of all the intentional effort and work we've put in. And this is one of the differences between trauma bonding and post traumatic growth. Trauma bonding is about going to someone who has the same experience as you, forming a connection around it, and dwelling in the victimhood of it. Whereas post traumatic growth connections come from having a shared experience of feeling so seen and understood and moving forward, allowing for expansion, growth, and self acceptance. It's like this deep acceptance of having gone through the experience and the releasing of shame around it. And of course, this is different from false positivity when we skip the healing process and try and jump forward. Trying to claim the growth before it's actually authentic and this is where we can get lost in Trying to be somewhere that we're just not right now and when we do the healing in a deep and slow way There's this kind of shedding of the skin that says This is not something I have to wear every day, but it's something that I know about myself. I've survived, but I've also claimed some treasures along the way. And the treasures I've claimed along the way are knowing myself and my capabilities, my strength, my divinity. And what it means to step towards the person I want to be and how I want to show up. And because I went through that, I now know how to live and explain myself and understand myself on a totally different level. And there may be sadness, there may be grief, there may be a mourning process and reactions. We end with that also comes with this knowing that what is painful right now isn't the end of our story. It's the beginning of some unraveling. We talk a lot about gratitude and compassion as being critical in the healing journey. And I want to say that just because you may not be feeling grateful right now or able to access self compassion does not mean you're doing it wrong, or that those things will never come. It's not about skipping over any of the feelings that come with being wounded or hurt. But we do get to a point where we need to decide what our relationship with our emotions is going to be. We have to because there are a lot of them and they can be super intense at times and they can really take over our life and not in the best way. When we are struggling, our relationship to those emotions is usually one of being overwhelmed and feeling helpless against them or feeling like the only way to survive is to suppress, repress, ignore, and dissociate from them. And let me tell you something, both of those strategies, all of those strategies are needed and valid and good, and hopefully they're temporary. And what I'm talking about with post traumatic growth is when we no longer need those strategies to make it through the day. It's a natural result of learning how to be with discomfort in a secure environment. And we can know more about ourselves when we are more self aware. Are we moving towards healing or retracting into protection? This is the nuance of getting to know ourselves deeply. And what of triggers and relationships that don't want to accept us as we are now? So we've changed, but we have, we may have people in our life that seem to be holding on to this old version of you that you've been desperately trying to recalibrate and move past. Will triggers don't disappear when we heal? What does change is how we respond to a trigger, how we hold it within, and how we share about it. And instead of seeing our responses as evidence of going backwards, what if we could see them as intelligent and treat them as such? And then what of the people in our lives? What of our relationships when we're no longer the people we used to be? Some people in your life will not be ready for your healing. Some people will unconsciously or consciously try and hold you to who you have been because it is familiar and comfortable. And this is the point oftentimes where partnerships and friendships end. We have these bigger boundaries. We know we matter. We no longer feel so much of a pull to people please or fawn. And this can be extremely uncomfortable for the people who have known us as our traumatized selves. So some relationships will end, others will flourish, some will feel awkward, and like they're pulling you back into a version of yourself that you're no longer entertaining. And this is part of the process too, this newfound ability to be able to discern what is right for us now in the present moment. Can our partnerships and friendships meet us in our expansion? This is the question. I remember when I had come to a point where I'd healed enough of my please save me wounds and started to come back to life. I began to trust and move more freely in the world again, feeling a certain amount of safety. And my partner, who is now my husband, just could not grasp that I was no longer this person who became overwhelmed and dissociated all the time. I was feeling fresh and new and he just seemed to see me as this wounded person and it felt really suffocating for a while. Like I was trying to step out of this trauma container and it felt as though he was trying to keep me there. And of course this is not something that he was consciously trying to do, but he had his own role of knight in shining armor and I had mine of damsel in distress. It took so much time, therapy, and a ton of compassion to see how our roles were fueling each other, keeping each other stuck, keeping each other the same. And I mean, thankfully we were able to grow together after many hard conversations, somatic healing, truth telling, and all kinds of hard things to liberate our love for each other, but it doesn't always work out that way. Some people cannot meet us in our expansion. Another thing that isn't talked about is the grief, the anger and confusion that comes with healing chronic health, health issues. Suddenly there's more energy to be used in different areas of our lives. And this can feel foreign and overwhelming. Also, there's this feeling of you have to make up for all this lost time and then fully realizing how much of our days were just spent. Trying to be okay. And this is part of processing. This is part of healing too. Mourning, forgiving ourselves, the anger, all of it. These are the Bardo phases of healing, where once again, we've stepped out of this persona of the traumatized person and are now trying to feel into what it's like to have more of our sovereignty back. And we spend so much of our lives seeking to belong and it's At some point, we have to become the place we belong. And the more we heal, the more that becomes a reality. And with that, the higher the bar of integrity we are asked to hold for ourselves, for our relationships, for our health, for our lives. The things that we claim along the healing journey, what we will learn about ourselves is simply a gift that comes along with saying yes to looking into the deeper areas of ourselves. Viktor Frankl wrote, when we're no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. I just love that quote. And within that, I want to I'm going to talk a little bit about the brain body trauma connection, but first I'll start with a quote from Bessel van der Kolk, being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on, unchanged and immutable. As every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past. Such a powerful quote. Our brains develop in a way that is dependent on our experiences. This is how we grow and learn. So when it comes to trauma, attachment wounds, we can know that it's over in our minds, but then we really don't have a felt sense or feel like it is. There are parts of our brain body connection that are still tasked with processing the trauma when it is still unresolved. And so we have these parts of ourselves that are saying, just put on a face for the world. But in the meantime, we have like three or four walls of plexiglass between us and the world because we are in this, this state of trying to figure out what happened and how we're going to move forward. What is life? What is the meaning? What is my purpose here? God, those questions plagued me when I was in the deep pits of healing hell. As if my suffering wasn't enough, I had to try and figure out the burning questions of humanity. So much of the work that I do, is helping folks to really give them an experience of helping their brain, nervous system, and body sort out and properly file away the trauma experiences to really stamp it with this. Okay, this happened then. It's over. The boundaries that we've set are now there. We're not at risk right now. The threat is over. It's done. And You can actually feel that in your body. We want to get to a point where both our minds and bodies agree that we are safe in connection. And once that is believed with all the fibers of our being, we are ready to start talking about growth. When we get to that moment where we re experience that agreement between what we think and what we feel and what we sense in our body, when all that is in agreement, then I am safe now and growth is inevitable. And that is the space where those gifts that we've been gathering, those treasures that we've been finding along the way that we didn't even know were there, they naturally start to emerge. We don't have to create them, they kind of just bubble up. Along with purpose passion wisdom and embodiment and it's this thing about being human that we are just so wired for healing and Expansion and growth that if we are put in the right space of feeling safe and feeling known and connected We will grow we will become the version of ourselves that we really want to be It's almost inevitable when the environment is correct. And so in that way, we are like plants with the right amount of soil, the right amount of light, the right amount of water, it's just going to do what a plant does and it doesn't have to effort around that it's naturally going to bloom and just keep blooming and growing. Humans are the same way. So that's the promise of post traumatic growth is really what it means to plant yourself in the best position that you can to heal in a way that you need in order to truly feel safe and truly are able to be vulnerable again in relationships with safe people. No, I didn't say all people, I said safe people and being able to discern the difference between the two. And when we are triggered, a. k. a. when we come into contact with someone who hurt us, or into a situation that hurt us, and we react and go into our old wounded states, that doesn't mean that all of our growth is meaningless or that it's not real. It just means that now it's our job to retrain our brains about what is safe now. Our brains are just recalling memory of what was threatening in the past to keep us safe, like we need that. It's a vital piece of self protection. We just want to be able to correctly identify what is a threat and what isn't. And then we can come to this point where there is no need to feel shame for the reaction. I did what I did because I felt under threat. I ran away because it's all I know. So do we need to work on new ways to protect ourselves? Likely, yeah. But do we need to go into a shame spiral? Definitely not. And in post traumatic growth, those kinds of reactions can be met with compassion and even catching them before they manifest. So, for example, when we get to know ourselves and our responses, we can start to feel our overreaction rising from our bellies. And before it actually comes out of our mouths, maybe we can attend to ourselves in a self compassionate way. And we also begin to notice it in those around us. It's not an experience that is just unique to us. We begin to have this sensitivity to what is coming from someone else and not internalizing it. We begin to not take everything so personally. Ah, this is their own nervous system responding to something they are detecting and feeling its intensity. And then we can use that to inform the way that we show up in that environment. And if it's with a loved one or a friend. Maybe we might say, Hey, you're safe. What you are afraid of isn't happening right now. Or if it is, we can connect and use our relationship as the safe container to hold it. So here again, we're getting into that place of my mind and my body agreeing that I am safe and protected. And when that happens, not only are we bringing forth that state of ease from when before the trauma happened, but we can begin to rediscover the truth of ourselves and our partnerships. Just things become possible when we get to know ourselves beyond the pain we've endured. We become fully confident to make decisions that are aligned with our intuition. So instead of playing this ping pong in our minds, we have this heightened ability to be able to listen to what our body is telling us. When someone, when something feels like a full yes or a hell no, we no longer question ourselves so much or give our power away to others to make decisions for us. We can ask for input, but ultimately we're clear enough to make decisions that of course may disappoint others. And from this place of embodied self trust, we become really clear on what actions we need to take to live in alignment with our authentic self. This also allows us to step into our power and feel more confident being ourselves, having deeper intimacy in our relationships, and gaining clarity on what lights us up. We gain a greater sense of love and compassion for ourselves and become more confident in meeting our own needs and expressing our truth in our relationships, knowing that no matter what, we have our own backs. So I wanted to just close out with some. Thoughts. Again, I want to use a quote from Bessel van der Kolk from the book, The Body Keeps Score, because it just seems so appropriate for this. Beneath the surface of the protective parts of trauma survivors, there exists an undamaged essence. A self that is confident, curious, and calm. A self that has been sheltered from destruction by the various protectors that have emerged in their efforts to ensure survival. Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate, the self will spontaneously emerge, and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process. Ah, yes. So, with that. I bid you adieu for this week, folks. See you again next Wednesday.

Lisa: 26:35

As always, thank you so much for listening. Life is busy. So it means even more that you're carving out time in your day to be here. Listen, we've got so many great episodes coming up, so please make sure you subscribe to follow along on Apple podcasts or Spotify. And for those of you who like to watch your podcasts, we are now uploading them to YouTube. And if you appreciate these episodes, please do us a favor and leave a rating or a review and share it with anyone you think could benefit. See you again next Wednesday.