Map Your Healing Journey

Whenever I feel vulnerable in my shame, I share it. This could be with a friend, or while speaking or doing comedy, or writing. Today, though, I’m sharing this with you.

Because I *cannot* be the only one who struggles with “The Thing.” Even though our “Things” are different and personal to us, I gotta believe that other humans wrestle with stuff that never seems to be resolved.

Guess what trauma survivors and PTSDers find infuriating, and even triggering?

STUFF THAT IS NOT RESOLVED.

So There’s “The Thing” in My Life

I call this unresolved situation “The Thing.”

The Thing that lives in the back of my mind. I cannot wrangle it or shove it down or push it away – it gets free and pops up and runs like a river underneath my conscious awareness.

The Thing I have processed ad nauseam, for years, over and over again. Written about, spoken about, gone over in therapy (yep, I go to therapy, and I love it).

The Thing I’ve grieved with salty tears. Resigned myself to it not going anywhere. Grown sick of thinking about.

The Thing that happened years ago, and appears both tattered and old and fresh and bright in its layers of pain.

You know, The Thing.

The Thing Showed Up…AGAIN

A chalkboard easel with words and drawings of garden tools and plants and the saying, "Life is a garden. Dig it."

I encountered The Thing last week. Fell right down the spiral of it. Felt my nervous system activate and went along for the ride even as I asked myself, “WHY AM I LIKE THIS? WHY CAN I NOT LET THIS GO, FFS?”

Last night, as I was falling asleep, the frustration of this old pattern washed over me, and like a lightbulb over my head, I thought, “What process would I try with a client?”

So I pretended to be my own client, and started by being curious. I didn’t have any ready questions, so I went with the Old Timah question, “What is this about?”

This question stirred the pot and I waited for the bubbles. Bloop bloop bloop. The feelings and more questions bubbled up.

Question 1: What purpose does this pattern serve?

Me: This pattern disrupts my nervous system, which on a certain level still feels comfortable, as I lived a great deal of my life with an activated nervous system.

(Whisper: Keep going)

And I feel like I am making a connection and getting attention from a person who withholds and is not available, which I am also programmed to be comfortable with since birth.

Also, this is a big distraction, and I wonder but don’t need to know if this is a form of dissociation, which has also been very comfortable for decades and decades.

Question 2: How do you feel about this pattern?

Me: Helpless. Angry. Frustrated. Shame.

The Most Vulnerable Questions

Question 3: Ah. What is underneath the shame?

Me: Oomph. A gaping wound that I do not want to see. The wound-iest of all wounds. Jagged and raw and messy and so tender that I flinch even coming close to it. A “how do you even patch this up” wound.

Question 4: What is in the wound?

Me: Ah, okay. An Original Wound, as they say.

The Wound that says, “I’m not good enough. I’m not lovable. I will never be good enough or lovable.”

This is where I need to spend some time. A lot of time, moving through, pondering, reflecting. Grieving, definitely. How I choose people and situations that reinforce this wound. How I gravitate toward these people and situations because it can feel more comfortable to my trauma brain as I change and grow and transform.

Question 5: Will this wound always be there? Will I simply need to learn how to live with this gaping wound?

Me: My gut says no. But I also know that I don’t have all of the skills I need to move through this by myself.

Now What?

Coaching myself only goes so far. Back to therapy I go, along with talking with my Trauma Recovery Coach mentors and colleagues.

Will “The Thing” ever be resolved?

Who knows? In fact, it might NEVER be resolved.

But I DO know this.

I took a look at my pain and…as I like to say…I did not die (LOL). But seriously, I was willing to dig down, face some hard truths, and practice radical acceptance about how this may never be resolved and how I need some help with this pattern. That alone deserves to be celebrated.

As for the rest? No shame. Vulnerability and curiosity, and we’ll see about the rest.