NATURAL WAYS TO DEAL WITH YOUR TRAUMA

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Touching the 300 mark on my clientele currently, I have seen a pattern emerge in most people when they are near to overcoming the most traumatic episode of their lives. Self- sabotage, yes, you heard that right. Self- sabotage comes in different forms, including your tendency to somehow doubt the ‘basic’ life you have finally come to terms with. You could also start being toxic to yourself when you think you do not deserve the good things but you feel everyone else does because their wins look ‘normal’ to you but when you experience good things you feel you don’t really deserve it and then go on to questioning your worth about the same. I have been on this path for five years now, when I say it is not uncommon, it actually is NOT uncommon.

I meet people on a day to day basis from all walks of life, owing to a steady writing and research career that demands quite some inspiration from the most trivial elements and incidents. And in that process, I see people behaving a certain way; it becomes interesting in the process because I see how far I have come ‘mentally’ and ‘spiritually’ because nothing seems to push me off the cliff. As the conversations get more toasty, the inferences I draw somehow make me reflect upon the fact that in a world where it is every second person out of five who has undergone severe abusive episodes in childhood or early adulthood, sometimes post marriage or post- partum phases, it is fairly safe to assume that civilisation just did not bother to provide emotional security as much as the technological innovations and all kinds of space missions, etc. were seemingly more important.

Here’s what we are going to do:

1. Take a notebook and write down every bad memory you have had since the time you can remember.
2. After you have listed them, you are going to compare the age you were in when a certain incident happened with the age you started to see improvements in your life, no matter how small the progress has been.
3. Before going to bed, you will read a page of any book you think is interesting. It could be a comic book, a magazine, a piece of content online, the back of a shampoo bottle or the ingredients listed on your moisturiser. Read it.
4. When you wake up, you will go on an affirmation rampage stating, “I can do it”.
5. When you begin work, or meet people during the course of your day, you will pray for their well- being.
6. Screenshot the above mentioned points and make it a wallpaper till your life seems to get back on track.

Your body stores trauma because you are accustomed to doing certain things the same way you have done stuff when the ‘incident’ happened. Your inability to overcome the memory, however horrible it is, is because you do not consider the progress you have made ever since the event that had broken you. Your problem is not the fact that you lack trust, you just don’t believe in yourself anymore. You have lost connect to who you used to be before the drama happened. We just need you to get back on track and make life look as normal as it can be. Human beings thrive on action. More often that not, we act on things that give us no genuine satisfaction. And it is only because we want to live in misery, thanks to our need to be validated. How do we get better at that?

1. People are thoughts pushed out. If you think you are a victim of circumstances people will continue to show up in your reality where they will act like ‘jerks’.
2. You are not everything that has happened to you.
3. You are living in the past because it is a muscle memory. It is like a wobbly teeth that you feel dangling in your mouth and your tongue just can’t help itself but go to tease it now and then. Your memories are your lessons and blessings, both. Things that worked out, those were fine. Things that did not, they were fine too. You don’t have to figure everything out. Rest your mind or it may explode. Quite literally.
4. We love to blame others for our mishaps. How about we look at the bad memories as necessary because there was a lesson to be learned there? Things could have been worse, but they are not. You are still breathing. Give yourself some credit.
5. Seek less assurance. Honestly, it is the most imperative thing you should cultivate. Your hunger to be validated is making you into someone who has zero self- esteem. It is like asking someone your own name. You’re more intelligent than that, I presume.
6. Work on a passion, a hobby, something that sets your soul on fire. We are humans, we thrive on creativity. When we are not creating, we are bound to feel useless. Remember those random mood swings that tell you things like, “I am so lazy/ lethargic/ underproductive”? That is because you are not creating anything.
7. Speak to people who are inspirational. Cut down on those who indulge in self- victimising behavior.

I am available for coaching: anjashi.work@gmail.com

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