Good, bad and ugly

I am no expert or therapist on trauma, but if I have learned anything from my own trauma, it is this…

It’s funny that we talk about trauma as if it is temporary. Because in reality, it’s forever. It lives with us whether we have addressed it and overcome it, or buried it deep in the depths of our subconscious.

We even talk about our traumatic experiences from our past as if they no longer hurt us or bother us. But if we are honest, we know that that is simply a coping mechanism we have developed to reduce the pain and fear. Because as we all know, out of nowhere it can hit you. As if you’ve flown over the front of your handlebars, smack down, chest first, on the cold hard floor and all the air in your lungs has been vacuumed out.

“Because as we all know, out of nowhere it can hit you. As if you’ve flown over the front of your handlebars, smack down, chest first, on the cold hard floor and all the air in your lungs has been vacuumed out.”

@tozandothersaltywords

As fast as a bullet out of a sniper’s gun, an event or a person’s action, or inaction, can take you out and put you back at square one with absolutely no warning. It can take you straight back to a place you thought you’d escaped and that feeling is completely and utterly debilitating. You wonder how it is happening to you as you followed the self help book, discussed that exact issue in therapy, hell you did multiple guided meditations and wrote enough pages of your journal on it to publish a damn book, but one uncontemplated act takes all the wind out of your sails.

So, rather seeing trauma as something that is temporary, or something that can be ‘overcome’, maybe we should try more to acknowledge it (do not confuse acknowledgment with acceptance here). Acknowledge our trauma. Feel it and sit with it. Grapple with the uncomfortable silence you feel as it crawls under your skin. It is, after all, a part of your lived experience, your story and what makes you who you are.

“Acknowledge our trauma. Feel it and sit with it. Grapple with the uncomfortable silence you feel as it crawls under your skin.”

@tozandothersaltywords

Now, unless you can untap all of you and who you are; the good, bad and ugly (trauma falling in the latter two of these) then you can never truly love all of you, because we all have all three and there is no escaping that. So try it. Try risking the possibility of loving your trauma.

“Try risking the possibility of loving your trauma.”

@tozandothersaltywords

Close your eyes, find your trauma (focus on one if there are multiple), ignite it, face it, watch it, acknowledge it and talk to it. Open yourself up to it fully and tell it everything you wish to say/scream/shout at it. Let your self pace around, let the tears fall, let yourself make noise at it, let yourself be silent with it, let every different thing you feel come out and do not hold back.

Are you done?

Once you are done, there is no more to say, to do, so imagine it as a box of memories and that there is a long line of empty shelves in front of you. Pick up the box and put it on the shelf, wave to it as you exhale knowing that although it won’t leave, you have nothing more to give it as you’ve expended all the energy you will ever need to give it. And although it will silently live inside of you, it is no longer volatile and is merely a reminder of all you are.

“find your trauma […] Open yourself up to it fully […] Let yourself pace around, let the tears fall, let yourself make noise at it, let yourself be silent with it, let every different thing you feel come out and do not hold back.”

@tozandothersaltywords

For each trauma you hold inside of you and face, you can add them to the infinite shelves. In doing so, find comfort in knowing that the incredible person you are has overcome so much more than is on the surface. In doing so you can love each part of you and all the moments you’ve experienced: good, bad and ugly.

@tozandothersaltywords