Understanding PTSD:

My PTSD symptoms

The first step in coping with PTSD is to understand how it affects you. Look at the symptoms below, and tick any that have affected you at least twice in the last week.

• Upsetting thoughts or memories about the event that have come into your mind against your will [  ]
• Upsetting dreams about the event [  ]
• Acting or feeling as though the event were happening again [  ]
• Feeling upset by reminders of the event [  ]
• Bodily reactions (such as fast heartbeat, stomach churning, sweatiness, dizziness) when reminded of the event [  ]
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep [  ]
• Irritability or outbursts of anger [  ]
• Difficulty concentrating [  ]
• Heightened awareness of potential dangers to yourself and others [  ]
• Being jumpy or being startled at something unexpected [  ]

My thoughts and beliefs

Trauma affects how we think about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. These thoughts and beliefs can powerfully affect how we live our lives. It is helpful to reflect on how trauma has affected us.

Write down your answers to the following questions.

• Things I thought as I was experiencing trauma
• How my trauma has affected the way I think about myself
• How my trauma affected the way I think about other people
• How my trauma affected the way I think about the world
• Calming the threat system: Relaxed Breathing

Controlling your breathing sends a signal to your threat system that everything is ok. Calm breathing is slow, relaxed, and from the diaphragm (‘belly breathing’), whereas anxious breathing is quick, tense, and high up in the chest.

1. Begin by sitting somewhere comfortable but supported
2. If you feel comfortable to do so close your eyes, otherwise stare off into the middle distance
3. Breathe in slowly and steadily for a count of 3
4. Breathe out slowly and steadily for a count of 5. Our bodies relax most on the out-breath
5. Repeat for a few minutes. It’s normal for your attention to wander off. If it does, just gently bring it back to focus on your breathing.

Calming the threat system:

Colored Breathing

Another technique for slowing your breathing and calming your mind is to use imagery while you breathe. Some people find it helpful to imagine breathing colored air. You can memorize these instructions, you could ask someone to read then slowly for you, or you could record yourself speaking them and then listen to the recording.

1. Imagine a color representing tension, or tense feelings
2. As you breathe, calmly and steadily, imagine breathing out air tinged with that tense color
3. See the colored air in your mind’s eye, and watch as you breathe it out and it floats away
4. Allow the tense colored air to become paler and paler, as you breathe out all of the tension
5. Now bring to mind a color representing calming, soothing feelings
6. Imagine breathing in this relaxed colored air
7. Just notice what happens in your body as you imagine breathing in the relaxed air
8. Continue breathing this way for a few minutes

Swing Breathing

Swing breathing is another imagery technique for slowing your breathing and calming your mind. You can memorize these instructions, you could ask someone to read then slowly for you, or you could record yourself speaking them and then listen to the recording.

Allow your breathing to become slower … and more regular. Just focusing your attention on your breath … on the air flowing in … and out … of your mouth and nose.

Your breathing finding a steady rhythm. Breathing gently from low down in the belly. Taking slow steady breaths. Breathing in gently … and slowly and smoothly exhaling … Breathing in gently … and slowly and smoothly exhaling.

And as you continue to breathe slowly and gently … in a rhythm that’s comfortable to you … I’d like you to imagine … and then begin to feel … that you’re on a swing. Gently swinging backwards … and forwards … backwards … and forwards … finding that you’re swinging in rhythm with your breathing … just gently swinging … relaxed and peaceful. Pay attention to how it feels to swing gently forwards … and backwards … peaceful … relaxed … at ease. Just swinging gently … and smoothly … smoothly .. and gently.

And you can carry on breathing calmly and gently for as long as you like. Relaxing into this gentle rhythm more and more as time goes by.

Muscle relaxation

When we feel under threat our muscles tense up – ready to fight or take flight. Keeping the muscles tense is one of the body’s ways of trying to keep you safe. One way of letting your body know that you are safe is to deliberately relax all of your muscles.

Progressive muscle relaxation involves tensing, then relaxing, all of the muscle groups in turn. Find a comfortable spot, sitting or lying down. Then, for each of the muscle groups in turn, follow this pattern:

1. Tense the muscles
2. Notice the tension for a few moments
3. Release
4. Notice the sensation of relaxation as the tension drains away

Relax each of the muscle groups in turn:

• Fists
• Upper arms
• Shoulders (lift up slightly)
• Upper back (shoulders back slightly)
• Stomach
• Buttocks
• Thighs
• Lower legs / calves
• Feet
• Neck (gently move neck back)
• Forehead
• Muscles around eyes (scrunch face up)
• Jaw

Creating a safe place

A safe place is somewhere that you create using your mind and imagination. It is a place that you can go anytime, wherever you are.

For some people, it is a place that they remember from their past as being particularly safe and calm. For others, they cannot easily remember a time like this from their past and so they work on creating one for themselves now. Either way, the same process applies. You can have more than one safe place and it can change over time as you wish. It is your creation and your own personal ideal.

It is useful for your safe place to have certain qualities though: it needs to be a place you feel calm, not judged, warm, free and above all safe.

How to create a safe place:

1. If you feel comfortable enough, close your eyes and take a deep breath in and count to three. Then breathe out slowly to the count of five. Do this several times. As before, spend some time slowing down and controlling your breathing until you reach a calm and soothing rhythm. As you breathe in, imagine you are breathing in a sense of safeness and relaxation. As you breathe out, imagine you are breathing out all of the tension in your body.
2. Begin to imagine a place where you feel calm – where are you?
3. Focus on what you can see, take a minute to look all around you in your mind. You may perhaps even turn around to see what’s behind. Concentrate on any objects that you can see, the colors around you and areas of lightness and darkness.
4. Focus on what you can hear, take your time to notice the noises, even the subtle ones. What noises can you hear close by? What noises can you hear in the distance?
5. Focus on what you can smell. Again, take a minute to really notice the smells around you.
6. What can you feel? Is it hot or cold? Are there textures under your feet?
7. Focus on any taste in the image and notice this for a minute or two.
8. Now focus on how you feel in your body, feelings of calm and safety in this image. Focus on the release of tension. Where do you feel this feeling in your body?
9. Keep imagining your safe place in as much detail as possible and revisit that feeling of calm and safeness over and over, noticing where you feel it in your body.
10. Is there a word that might remind you of your safe place? If so, what is it? If you have a word, repeat it in your mind over and over as you keep your safe place in your mind.
11. When you are ready, take some deep breaths in again and slowly open your eyes, trying to hold onto that calm feeling.

Remember, you can come back to it whenever you want to. The easiest way to do this is to start by slowing down and controlling your body and to repeat the word that you picked that reminded you of your safe place. In doing so, it will be easier to return to your safe place whenever you would like.

Safe place:

Write a description of your safe place in as much detail as you can. Remember to include information from all your senses. What word have you chosen to remind you of your safe place?

Coping with memories:

Use all of your senses

When we are having a flashback, or as we wake up from a nightmare, our awareness of the things around us in the here-and-now can be diminished. Just as we can re-experience traumatic memories in all of our five senses, we can use those five senses to try and ‘ground’ us back in the present.

Sight

Look around you and use those sights to remind yourself that you’re in the present and that you are safe.

Touch

It can be helpful to carry an object with us that remind us that we are safe, such as a stress ball, a pebble, or a flower.

Hearing

Focus on all of the noises around you in the present moment. Use them to remind you of where you are.

Smell

Smell can be one of the most powerful ways of learning to soothe and comfort yourself Try using essential oils, your favorite plants, or any comforting aroma.

Taste

Strong tastes such as chewing gum can be helpful. For people who re-experience ‘taste memories’ it can be helpful to focus on the absence of taste in the present moment.

Coping with memories: 5-4-3-2-1

When our minds and bodies feel as if they are fully immersed in the past, using all of our senses at once can be a very effective way of bringing ourselves back into the present. Focus on:

5 things you can see

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

4 things you can feel / touch

1:

2:

3:

4:

3 things you can hear

1:

2:

3:

2 things you can smell

1:

2:

1 thing you can taste

1:

Reminding yourself it was in the past

When a memory is triggered it can feel as if the traumatic event is happening all over again. Our minds and bodies can feel like we are back in the moment the trauma took place, rather than recognizing that we are revisiting a memory.

During a flashback, we often describe what we can see or sense in the present tense. For example, Alex said “he’s standing right in front of me and I can see him” whilst he was having a flashback.

To help put the memory in the past, it is useful to practice rephrasing your common thoughts about the event in the past tense, particularly whenever you have a flashback memory or after having a nightmare. This technique is most helpful while we are in the midst of a flashback. It may seem simple but it can be a powerful technique to help your brain, in the heat of the moment, remember that it is not happening all over again. Here are some examples

Write your most common thoughts when you’re having a flashback and then rephrase them so they are in the past. Practice saying them to yourself often.

Current thinking:

Remembering the past:

It’s just a memory

Remember, our brains (particularly our amygdala) don’t care whether something is happening in real life or whether it is a memory – our minds and bodies react in the same way by activating the threat system.

A simple yet effective technique is reminding yourself that you are responding to a memory rather than the actual event. This can be helpful in reminding your brain that you are not, in fact, back in danger. Try writing a statement down on a card to carry round with you.

For example, Alex would write down and look at the phrase:

When I was attacked the man stood right in front of me, he is not in front of me now. I am just remembering the memory of when I was attacked. THIS IS MY MIND AND BODY REACHING TO A MEMORY. IT IS NOT HAPPENING AGAIN.

If you feel comfortable with it, you may also consider asking your partner or a friend to gently remind you that you are responding to a memory, that the trauma is not happening again, and that you are safe.

Fast forward to safety

When we are bothered by flashbacks we often forget that we can have control over the memories and that we can control our own minds. It is very important to remind ourselves that we are safe, and that the events are over. One way to do this is to think of our memories as being like a video tape, and to remember that we can fast forward it.

Here are some steps in helping you train your mind to ‘fast forward to safety’

1) Think of your traumatic event

2) Think about the first time you felt safe afterwards – really picture this scene as clearly as you can in your mind. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? How did you know that you were safe? Don’t forget to think of all five of your senses.

3) Write down a description of this moment of safety.

4) When you have a flashback, practice ‘fast forwarding’ to this safe time. Quickly see everything that happened after the moment in the flashback, and then focus on the feeling of safety telling yourself that it is in the past. Try and focus on how this safety feels in your body. Try and stay with that feeling of safety for as long as possible.

The more you practice this, the better your brain will get at putting these memories in the past.

The differences between then and now

Remind yourself of things that have changed since the time of the trauma. For example, if you have had your birthday you can remind yourself “I am 45 now and was 44 when I was in a car accident”. You may have changed your physical appearance and remind yourself “I have long hair now but it was short when I witnessed the robbery”

What has changed for you since you experienced the traumatic event?

Grounding the date

Remind yourself the current date, where you are, the time of day etc. For example, “today is Thursday 5th May 2017. I am at work. It is 10:55am. It is spring and it is sunny outside. I am safe. I survived”. You may take this further by writing down and reminding yourself that the traumatic event took place at another time. For example, it took place on a winter afternoon in December.

When did the traumatic event take place? What is the current date? Can you describe the here-and-now?

Noticing triggers for flash backs

Flashbacks and intrusive memories can be triggered by reminders that are linked to the traumatic event: someone who has been in a car accident might be triggered by the sight of certain cars, the sound or traffic, or sirens.

Like trauma memories, the mind and body doesn’t seem to be able to recognize that these things (i.e. sights, sounds, smells etc.) are no longer signs of danger. Instead, the mind and body react as if they are under threat.

It is important, therefore, to try to train the brain to break the link between then and now and to help the brain recognize that these things are no longer signs of danger.

The first part is to first identify what might trigger your flashbacks and intrusive memories.

Some of Alex’s triggers were:

• Knives
• People standing behind me
• Dark streets

Some of my triggers are:

Flashback triggers – breaking the link

Next, systematically think about the differences between what you experienced during the trauma and how different things are now.

Helping with self-harm

People self-harm for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is to cope with powerful emotions, to distract from something overwhelming, or to feel something instead of feeling numb.

Unfortunately, it can come with severe unintended consequences, such as causing lasting physical damage to our bodies. This can be a dangerous way of trying to cope.

Self-harm often serves a purpose, so just trying “nor to do it” can feel impossible. It can be helpful to find out more about the reasons why you self-harm and then try a different behavior instead of harming yourself.

Working out why I self-harm

• To express pain and strong emotion [  ]
• To deal with anger [  ]
• To feel something when I feel numb and disconnected [  ]
• To calm down [  ]
• To see blood [  ]

Any other reasons:

What are my triggers?

What could I substitute instead of self-harm?

If you self-harm to… express pain and intense emotion, try writing down your feelings, drawing or painting how you feel, writing down difficult feelings then ripping them up, or listening to music which expresses how you’re feeling.

If you self-injure to… deal with anger that you cannot express openly, try working through those feelings by doing something different – running, dancing fast, screaming, punching a pillow, throwing something, ripping something apart.

If you hurt yourself in order to… feel something when you feel numb inside, hold ice cubes in one hand and try to crush them, hold a package of frozen food, take a very cold shower, chew something with a very strong taste (like chili peppers, raw ginger, or a grapefruit peel), wear an elastic rubber band around your wrist and snap it (in moderation to avoid bruising).

If you inflict physical pain to… calm yourself, try taking a bubble bath, doing deep breathing, writing in a journal, drawing, or doing some yoga.

If you self-harm to… see blood, try drawing a red ink line where you would usually cut yourself, in combination with any of the other suggestions above.

Remember, understanding and knowledge are key. Try to make a note of every time you feel the urge to harm yourself. Write down what was happening at that time and what was going through your mind. Also, make a note of what you did to cope, taking care to write down which behaviors you found helpful and which ones were less helpful to channel and soothe your feelings of distress.

Sleeping better:

Sleep hygiene

PTSD often affects our ability to sleep. We may have difficulty getting to sleep if we lie in bed thinking about how our life has changed and wondering if things will get better. We may avoid going to sleep for fear that we might have more nightmares. If we do manage to get to sleep we may then wake up after experiencing nightmares. It is normal to have difficulty getting back to sleep.

The tips and ideas below have been selected to try and help you increase the chance of getting better sleep.

1. Bed is for sleeping and sleeping happens at night-time

• Try and keep your bedroom and bed for sleeping only
• Avoid sleeping in the day
• Develop a routine before bed time such as having a relaxing bath or listening to some relaxing music and go to bed at around the same time each night. Try and wake up around the same time each morning. Small children find habits and routines comforting, and the same things work for adults too. As adults, we forget that these things apply to us as well
• If you cannot sleep after 30 minutes, get up and try an activity such as listening to some music. Do this for about 15 minutes then return to bed and try and sleep. Repeat this as often as is necessary until you go to sleep
• Make your bedroom a nice place to sleep – try smells or flowers (or some new bed sheets!)

2. Be kind to your body

• Do not go to bed hungry
• Try and avoid spicy food late in the day as this can act as a stimulant in our bodies
• Reduce caffeine but definitely avoid caffeine after 4pm- remember caffeine is also found in tea and fizzy drinks like pop. You can buy de-caffeinated versions of these drinks if needed
• Although alcohol can initially make us feel sleepy, it stops us from experiencing restful sleep and is not great for PTSD or Adrenal Fatigue. It can also make it harder to fall asleep again, if you wake up in the middle of the night

Coping with nightmares

Practice calming yourself down after a nightmare by using any of the previous techniques.

Having a card with the information from the tips previously tried may help ground you back in the moment. For example, you may have a card with the phrase ‘I am safe, it is May 2011 and I am in my bedroom’ by your bedside to read after you wake from a nightmare.

Having a picture that reminds you of the present can also be useful to have by your bedside if waking from a nightmare as it will help your brain focus on the present and calm your threat system quicker.

Taking a smell to bed and having it ready can, again, be a useful way to help your brain remember where you are following a nightmare. A calm and soothing smell can also help you get off back off to sleep after a nightmare.

Try: Any of the other grounding strategies that you have developed can be helpful if you wake from a nightmare

Re-scripting nightmares

If you experience frequent nightmares, especially the same or similar dream over and over, then research has shown that you can ‘rescript’ the nightmare to make it much less powerful. For example, someone who had nightmares about being in a road traffic accident imagined that the road was made of marshmallows and was soft and bouncy.

Method 1

Spend time in the day thinking of the nightmare but practicing a different ending: an ending you would prefer and that makes you feel safe. Practice the repeat ending over and over in your imagination. The more you can rehearse new ending the better chance your brain has of remembering it. It might also be helpful to talk through your nightmares with someone else. It doesn’t matter how odd the new ending might be, or that it didn’t really happen.

Method 2

Think about your nightmare from the perspective of a Hollywood script writer:

1. Write down your nightmare as though it were a story
2. Think about how you would want to feel different if you could change the nightmare
3. Change some of the events in the nightmare that would lead to the new feeling
4. Write the new ‘script’ for the nightmare. Rehearse it to yourself.

Hey, this is Adele from Naked Recovery…

So, I want to thank everybody who gave us so many awesome comments about my first tips video in advance of the webinar, thank you.

Thank you for watching the tips video, and here’s the third one. We wanted to make sure that we really covered some good content prior to the actual webinar itself. So in the previous video, we were looking at all the kind of blockages to achieving a victor mindset, and in today’s video, we’re going to look at what it actually takes to adopt a victor mindset when you’re going through any kind of life turmoil.

Cool stuff

So I’m going to cover some cool stuff that we’ve developed in many of our retreats, I’m going to be referring to some notes, hope you don’t mind I’m going to kind of look down at my notes, come back to you, and so and so forth. But, I wanted to make sure I don’t skip any of the really cool stuff that you need to know. All right, so without further ado let’s look at that.

Victor mindset

In the last tips video, we covered some of the blockages to actually adopting a victor mindset. We looked at the concept of resiliency and what blocks resiliency is a kind of learning resistance and the learning defiance. In this video, we’re going to be looking at this mentality of being a victor.

Now, as I kind of covered a little bit in the last video, when you have a bad thing that has happened to you were you’re just cruising along in your life, something really shocking has happened, the first experience is very normally to have that kind of shock. You’re in a shock experience where maybe you’re in a bit of denial about the thing that has just happened, and you feel like this thing has happened to you.

Healing Journey

Now anytime you feel like something’s happening to you and you’re in that place of being victimised this is such a normal response for people to be there. I was just cruising in my life, this thing happened, and now I feel at the effect of it and therefore victimised. Being victimised is a very normal part of the healing journey, it’s actually the first stage is the victim stage, is that feeling of being victimised.

So, if you find yourself in that stage don’t be hard on yourself about it. It’s not a problem. The problem though is when that stage lasts a really long time, and you can kind of get stuck there, and a little bit bitter. So what we want to do is look at what are some of the techniques and mindset you need to have to move on from the victim stage through the various other stages of healing. So, if you’re in that kind of victim mentality you’re going to be feeling not good enough, this thing has occurred and happened to you.

Poor me

You might be saying things like, “Poor me, how could this have happened?” You’re feeling reluctant, you’re feeling maybe a bit of outrage, you’re sympathy seeking, you’re feeling quite righteous in feeling hurt, entitled to your hurt. Maybe there’s a blame of shame game that you’re having your fault-finding, very, very normal to be in that in the first kind of stage after turmoil.

To move from the victim stage to the next stage of the journey, which is the stage of feeling like the survivor, what you need to focus on is shifting your perspective where you’re kind of in this victim place to the next part where you’re beginning to cope with what has happened.

Analogy

Now an analogy that we sometimes use is if you’re driving along in a vehicle, and you’re driving along in that vehicle and the driver of the vehicle is actually the person that has created the trauma in your life. If you’re feeling like the victim you’re actually the person that has been hit by whatever it is that they’re doing. You’re actually the pedestrian that has been hit by this vehicle and you’re in a place where you’re feeling victimised by the driver of that vehicle.

Now whoever the driver is, maybe it’s a corporation that has fired you, or maybe it’s someone who’s cheated on you, or somebody who is divorcing you, or someone that has created an accident in your life. You’re in that place of feeling like the pedestrian at the effect of what they’re doing.

What we want to do is move you from the place of being the pedestrian to being the passenger within the vehicle. So this is the place where you’re actually witnessing what is occurring and you’re beginning to cope with what has happened rather than feeling at the effect of what has happened. So, you’ve gotta shift your attention from blame seeking to focus on what you can take ownership for, and accountability for. And to have a plan in place for managing all the triggers that are occurring off the back of this thing that has occurred in your life.

Survivor

Now, when you’re in that space of being the survivor the mindset of the survivor is you’re beginning to cope with what has happened, so you’ve got some systems in place to survive this event. So you’re starting to take control of various things. You’re tolerating the pain, you’re taking control, you’re starting to get up in the morning wash the dishes, you’re starting to actually do things, and you’re stopping the incessant feeling of being victimised. You’re actually like, “Okay, I need to get on with this. I need to do what I need to do.”

To get from the place of being a victim to the place where you’re starting to survive the situation you must commit to the survival. You must tell yourself, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I need to get over this now. I need to begin to move on.” And you’ve gotta commit to actually moving on and developing those coping mechanisms. So, that’s the next stage and that’s the mindset you need to have to get to that next stage.

Now that’s not the end, right? To move beyond survivor, ’cause survivor’s also a disempowering place. It’s disempowering because you’re alive but you’re not living. You’re surviving but you’re not thriving, right? You’re not actually loving life, you’re just kind of surviving life. So to move on from survivor the next stage is to be in the learning stage, and that’s where you really decide that there’s gotta be a better way.

Learning

We’ve gotta start learning from what has happened to us so that we can actually begin to incorporate moving forward from what has occurred and what has happened. This is where you’re starting to kind of attend some workshops, attend some seminars, take on your personal development, read some books, experiment, practise, workshop. You’re accepting help, you’re starting to go to therapy, you’re doing counselling. And this is where you’re taking on the concepts that, I need to learn from what has happened, and I need to actually start being proactive in my learning.

Now whenever you want to heal, the first stage of healings is committing to learning from what has happened. And that’s hard when you’re in the victim stage. When you’re in the victim stage the first thing you’ve gotta do is just survive. You’ve gotta start coping with what has happened. But if you want to kind of be more than just coping you’ve gotta commit to learning, that’s the next stage.

So if you commit to learning, you’re starting to kind of learn and integrate things that you’re learning, you’re in that learning stage and that’s the first stage of the next part, which is healing. So you’ve got victim stage, survivor stage, learning stage. If you want to get into the healing stage this is where you need to start actually processing and integrating some of those learnings.

So in the learning stage, you’re just learning as an intellectual concept, it’s a cognitive experience. When you’re in the learning stage you’re kind of just passively interacting with some of the learnings. When you’re in the healing stage you’re actively interacting with those learnings, you’re actually wanting to kind of really integrate those learnings into your lives. This is where you’re starting to have some breakdown and breakthrough moments.

Let go

You’re actually ready to let go of this pain and the punishment, you want to move on. And you’re starting to practise what you’re learning. When you take learning from a cognitive understanding perspective and you start practising what you’re learning that’s when the healing starts to occur.

Now that’s not the end either, because the final stage, the way you really want to get to is the victor stage.

Now the victor stage is not just where you’re learning, it’s not just where you’re healing. It’s where you’ve had a massive breakthrough in your life, and you feel like the experience that you have it becomes a testimonial, an inspiration for your life. You want to share the victory that you’ve had.

You feel like none of the suffering that you’ve been through has been in vain. And you realise that whatever’s happened to you hasn’t made you less, it’s made you more. And you see that what’s happened is an actual blessing for your life, and it was a necessary turning point for you to go through to have this new life. So the victor stage is really what we focus on producing in all of our retreats and programmes, but it’s really for yourself if you want to move from being the victim to the survivor, to the learning, to the healing, to the victor stage, you’ve gotta really focus on integrating all the things that you’ve learned to produce the breakthroughs, to eventually have a place where you feel grateful for what has happened.

When you feel grateful then you’re in the space of being the victor.

So, to develop the mindset just to recap, what you need to do shifting from victim you’ve gotta move into the place where you commit to survive what has happened. You’re like, “I’m done. I’m done with winging about it. I want to survive what has happened.” From that survivor place, you need to then move to the learning phase, and that’s where you commit to learning from what has happened.

Experience

When you actually integrate those learnings into your life and have those breakdown and breakthrough moments then you’re in the healing phase. And when you start having an experience that you can share the victory, and you’re grateful for everything that has happened because you feel like your life is better for the trauma that you’ve been through, that’s when you’re in the victor stage.

So, I hope that’s kind of helped you in terms of what are all the stages you need to go through to develop the victor mentality, but you’ve gotta take it one day at a time. You can’t leapfrog from victim to victor overnight. You’ve gotta really go through the stages of development. So, some other principles to look at is, at the end of the day you’ve gotta take responsibility and ownership for your own healing journey, your own recovery.

Guilt

Don’t take on any kind of unearned guilt or shame from the event. Focus on having compassion for yourself and just moving forward every single day. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Be nice to yourself. Just give up all those destructive emotions, and the parts in the victim stage that keep people stuck, just keep committing and moving forward, and developing all of those steps as you go.

All right, so that’s what I wanted to cover in this tips video. I hope that was useful.

Come and join us on the Overcome Any Life Event online seminar, we’re going to be covering in a lot more detail a very special technique that you can use to really overcome any trauma in your life.

So we look forward to welcoming you on the webinar, till then.

Hey there, this is Adele from Naked Recovery.

In preparation for our webinar next week, I wanted to just put a few tips videos together to cover some of the other tips and techniques around how to overcome any torment that has happened to you in life. 

Now, it doesn’t matter what the torment is, whether you’ve uncovered an affair in your marriage, or you’re going through a divorce, or you lost somebody really important to you, you lost your job, you’re going through a health scare, you’ve been attacked, your child is really ill, or there’s just been some horrible accident or event that has just side wiped your life completely. 

Learning

There’s always something to get out of the thing that has happened. There is always a way to turn what has happened into a victory in some way, shape or form. Now, it’s very difficult to image that when you’re going through that trauma, because the first place that people go to when they’re in that horrible place, where you were just cruising along your life and this thing just came side wiped you, is that feeling of just being victimised by life.

How could this have happened? Why has this happened to me? And that place of feeling victimised is so normal. That’s such a natural stage of development that we go through as we are developing ourself through the journey of overcoming a trauma. But it’s staying stuck there that is the problem.

Stages of trauma

Now the various stages of moving through trauma. The first stage is that place of feeling victimised and feeling like a victim of the situation. The next stage is what I will call, being the survivor. So that’s when you’re starting to develop coping mechanisms to kind of move on and deal with and adapt to the situation that has happened. When you’re in a place where you kind of get that there’s something to be gotten out the thing that has happened, then you’re in the learning stage. 

Learning stage

The learning stage is where you’re actually, not just developing skills to survive what has happened, you’re actually seeing what has happened as an opportunity for growth, for development, for learning.

They should actually re-label healing, learning

And hand in hand with learning is healing. They should actually re-label healing, learning. Because it is kind of the same thing. When you’re learning from something horrible that has happened, healing is a foregone conclusion. And the final stage, which Is really what we attain in all of our retreats and our kind of big programmes, is the stage of being the victor. And the victor is really where you haven’t just learnt, you haven’t’ just healed, you’ve used this trauma as the catalyst for your transformation in your life. 

Self actualize

So whatever it is that you wanted to self actualize in your life has actually become possible out of harnessing all the energy and all the drama out of the trauma that has happened, for the good, for the best, for the better in your life.

Okay, so let’s go right back to the beginning of this stage, and all of us have been there. Something horrible has happened. You’re just cruising along in your life, and suddenly you discover somebody’s had an affair in your marriage, or you discover you’ve just been dumped. Your job has just let you go. A horrible thing has occurred. That first stage of feeling victimised, totally normal, totally natural to be there.

Resistence

What is the very next thing you need to do, to kind of move out of that, and to begin to develop that kind of survivor mindset? First thing is you’ve got to deal with your resistance to learning, and your resistance to kind of moving forward. And that is the process of what we will call resiliency. And resiliency is such a key cornerstone to adopting a victor mindset at the end of the day. And two of the things that really block resiliency is learning resistance, and learning defiance. 

So learning resistance is whenever we are unwilling to accept what has happened. It’s just like no, this has not happened. It’s like total denial. And we’re in total denial where we’re just kind of numb. This thing has occurred, and we’re just carrying on with life as absolutely normal. Our routines are completely normal. And we’re just continuing. We’re just numb, we’re not even thinking about that thing that has occurred.

Or we’re doing some panic or some kind of negotiation to maintain the status quo. But that kind of unwillingness to accept what has happened, it can manifest in many ways. And some of the signs are even retreating, like just getting away. Like you don’t want to talk to people. 

You avoid people completely, you bury your head in the sand. You indulge in what we call short term emotional avoidance tactics. Excessive shopping, excessive drinking, drugs, sex, TV binge watching. Anything to an excess, that is actually quite negative and not good for you. That obsessive rumination, that’s all avoidance tactics. And it’s anything we can do to kind of avoid dealing with the thing.

So learning resistance is our inability to accept that which is. And you’ve really got to, in those moments stare the demons straight in the face. And just get it. It happened. It happened. It’s not great that it happened but we cannot resist reality. Reality is that that horrible thing has happened to you. 

And I’m really sorry that it happened to you. And you beating this and you overcoming this, is a function of embracing the learning from this. That is what you need to do. And the first step of the learning, is to stop the resistance, accept that this thing has happened. Now you’re beginning to develop the muscle of resiliency.

Learning defiance

The next resistance to resiliency is what we call learning defiance. So learning defiance is when we’ve accepted that the thing has happened. We’re completely clear that the thing has happened. But we’re unwilling to adapt. We’re unwilling to grow, or learn, or adapt, or adjust in any way shape or form to the thing that has happened. So here is where we … What I see the most with our clients, they go on a quest for justice. 

Now you might recognise that in yourself. Where it’s like what’s happened isn’t fair, it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not okay that it happened. And now what I’m going to do, is I’m going to seek ultimate justice from the universe. I want vengeance, or I want this to be even, or I want an explanation, or I want to be able to understand this, or I’m not willing to adjust. We begin to have external criteria and conditions for our willingness to adjust to what has happened.

We become rebellious in these phases. And to move on, you need to kind of understand that putting external conditions or demanding justice, running around gossiping about what’s happened, or repeating the same story over, and over again. None of this is actually moving you forward. 

What it does is it just keeps you stuck. And people get stuck in this place for years. I’ve seen people ruminating and asking these questions and being unwilling to adjust to the circumstances in life for years, and years, and years. And it’s just ridiculous.

What you need to get in that moment is have compassion for yourself, but don’t … Suffering is optional. And you don’t need to be in this place forever. 

Become a hero of your own story

What’s ridiculous is accepting that this trauma that has happened is somehow now going to define you. And is going to be your cross that you must bear like a martyr for the rest of your life. Nonsense. Absolute bollocks. What it is, it’s an opportunity for you to get something. It’s an opportunity for you, if you’re willing to adjust from this, and to take the learning from this, to really move through those stages and become a victor.

Not have this thing beat you. And to become a hero of your own story. So drop the quest for justice. Life isn’t fair. There isn’t always coordinated reasons for things occurring. Sometimes really uncoordinated reality is present with us. Random things occur that are horrible, to really, really good people. 

Justice

Trying to get justice for these things, it leaves you in a place where you can become really angry and bitter, and full of outrage. You become the person that is just gossiping about the situation all the time. Or you become the one that is always bad mouthing the situation or always complaining about what has happened. Just stop talking about what has happened. Focus on, what can I do to accept and adjust to what has happened. 

Those are the two important things I want you to understand in this video, so that you can move through those stages. Because once you get that, you begin to survive the situation. You actually begin to have techniques that you can adopt to get out of the place that you’re at. And when you’re beginning to get out of the place that you’re at, and you’re learning, then the learning begins to occur. Then the healing will occur. And then you will become a victor of your own story. And you will use this horrible trauma that has happened to you as a catalyst for your ultimate transformation. 

Next…

Alright so in the next tips video, I’m going to talk about how to develop that mindset of the victor and how to move through the stages of resiliency in a faster way. So I hope this was useful, until next time.

How much time did you waste in your last relationship, just hoping that your partner would change?

And how much time did you waste complaining about the situation – but doing nothing about it?

Perhaps you stayed with your ex for far longer than you should have done, just willing things to get better. Perhaps you’re angry with yourself, now, for the lost years you spent waiting around for the situation to improve.

Perhaps, deep down, you’re still waiting – and it’s stopping you from moving on.

Humans are irrational optimists. We tell ourselves all sorts of fairytales about the future. We desperately want to believe that things will fix themselves.

Take control

We’re really, really bad at realising that the only person we can rely on to make our lives better is ourselves.

And, ultimately, there are only two things we can do we can make a tough situation better.

We can learn to accept those things that we just can’t change – and stop trying to change them.

And we can change the things that are within our control.

Accepting what you can’t change doesn’t mean throwing in the towel and deciding that you’re doomed to a life of misery. It means being realistic about what you can live with, and what you can’t.

Case study

Take Jessica and Steve.

Jessica knows that Steve is the last person in the world to do something spontaneous. Left to his own devices, he’d happily while away every Sunday in the garden with a beer.

Jessica can’t understand it – when she makes plans on their behalf, he might grumble a bit, but they always have a great time. Yet despite her hints (and the fights), he never, ever, makes the effort to suggest something himself.

Frustrated and hurt, Jessica has decided to force him to change by not making plans and waiting around until he cracks and takes matters into his own hands. In the meantime, she bitterly complains to her friends, non-stop. All she wants him to do is to start taking the initiative. Why can’t he just try?

But of course, Steve is not going to change. He’s a passive guy. He probably won’t even notice what she’s doing and, if he does, he won’t respond in the way she hopes. It’s against his nature. She’ll wind up more and more bitter, and both of them will be miserable.

So what can Jessica do?

First, she has to admit to herself that Steve won’t change. She has to accept that this is who he is. If she wants to spend her weekends doing fun things together, she’ll have to organise them. Or she can leave him to his own device and spend her weekends with fun, spontaneous friends.If she can live with that, great: if she’s genuinely willing to end her struggle against the situation and stop complaining about it, she can start to feel content with how things are.

But what if this isn’t good enough for Jessica?

Unlike Steve’s personality, Jessica’s situation is within her control. She can end the relationship and try to find someone more spontaneous. She can end the relationship so she can be more spontaneous without a partner.

I know what you’re thinking: as if it just that easy.

Of course it’s not easy. It’s the hardest thing in the world. That’s why we ignore the problem and cling to the hope that our partner will magically become the person we want them to be, even though they are the one factor that we absolutely can’t change.

A partner who loves routine will never become adventurous. A partner who is a risk-taker will never become cautious. A partner who is cruel will never be kind.

And if we don’t come to terms with that, it haunts us even after we break up. It keeps us in the agonising purgatory of wondering: what if?

It keeps us going back to people who are wrong for us. It stops us moving on. It stops us healing.

And it means that, next time we find ourselves in the same situation, we repeat our mistakes over and over again.

I can’t tell you whether you should accept a relationship with unchangeable flaws, or change a situation that’s become unacceptable to you. But I can tell you: for your own sake, you have to choose.

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I was in Copenhagen a week ago and that was a tough trip – people were very resistant to the change of the project and it made me think.

Managing change is a bit like boiling a frog.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway gave a speech at the Harvard Law School in 1995. In this speech, Munger cited a small lesson from frogs. He said:

“If you throw a frog into very hot water, the frog will jump out, but if you put the frog in room temperature water and just slowly heat the water up, the frog will die there.”

This speech was given way back in 1995. So we can expect the current generation of frogs to have become intelligent enough to understand this mystery, but sadly this ‘frog in boiling water’ syndrome continues to play out for both frogs and change management.

Let me explain.

Most people dont do well by being thrown into a sudden change. It’s overwhelming and intimidating. They jump straight out of the pot, kicking and screaming. To allow people to adapt to the change, it helps to introduce it slowly – building up a great deal of context of why the change is happening and selling benefits and opportunities to them. As they get used to this change, they warm to the idea and relax a bit. Once they relax, they dont notice that the water around them is heating up and the reality of the change is coming closer and closer to them. Pretty soon they are right in the middle of the change and they totally accept it. Cooked. Dinner is served.

Change management

The job of a change management specialist is therefore to get people accustomed to the change happening around them by creating solid context and understanding prior to the change happening. Within my work, a combination of the context being built up with the rules and structures of the program creates a cocoon which enables them to be tough enough to handle the metamorphosis from the change.

So whilst I am in Helsinki, the game I am playing is to slowly but gently cook some frogs.

Parsley anyone?

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Till next time