#8 The Power of Acceptance: How to Feel in Control Again After Trauma | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. We are so excited to be here with you today. What we're going to be talking about today is a topic equally as important but often overlooked. So I'm really, really excited to dive into that.

Yep. Today we're going to be talking about another foundational principle to processing. This is something that you're going to bring forward in all your processing tools, all your processing, I'm gonna say adventures, adventures, but I am super excited as always to be here today.

So today, like Brad said, we're talking about something called acceptance. Now you're gonna hear this topic a lot throughout, throughout the pillars, not just in the processing pillar, but it is a foundational element to your processing. So what I mean by foundational element, similar to forgiveness, is it's something that you need to do first, or you need to basically bring throughout the processing process. So you're gonna learn tools on how to process specific traumas and stuff like that. But forgiveness and acceptance are the things that you need to bring throughout everything, all of the tools that you use. So in regard to, you know, acceptance, I wanna define it. You know, there's a lot of different definitions that you can actually have when it comes to acceptance. Like I said, we're gonna talk about this from a few different angles, but it's a really, really important thing to understand what it actually is, right? Because if you don't know what it is, How are you ever going to actually do it or practice it, right? If you don't know the goal you're aiming for, just like we talked about with routines, if you don't know the goal you're aiming for, you're not going to be very successful in getting there, right? So acceptance itself is in human psychology, right? Acceptance is when a person approves of the reality of a situation, typically a negative or uncomfortable situation. Here are the key phrase here. Without attempting to change it or protest it. Okay, so in human psychology, acceptance is when a person approves of the reality of a situation, often negative or uncomfortable, without attempting to change it or protest it. So the key words there are really without attempting to change it or protest it. And so we have a couple of things that we say in regard to acceptance, and one of my favorite things, non-resistance, right? So when you're accepting something, you're not resisting it. Okay, but because I'm gonna let you know, uh, you know, I don't bet on, on fights or anything like that, but if I were to bet on a fight and I'd be guaranteed to win in a fight against you versus reality, reality is going to win every single time. Okay, and so bringing acceptance to your life and to your healing is a non-resistance to reality as it is.

Yeah, that's really kind of, kind of what it comes down to. And, and it can kind of seem like a like a silly topic, like talking about acceptance and just accepting things. But like, this really is one of the foundational things. And if you can just get like this one, one thing, it'll bring you so much peace and it'll bring so much awareness to your life. Like Helene said, non-resistance, right? Non-resistance to reality, non-resistance to what is, non-resistance to the objective truth that you cannot change, non-resistance to the things you can't change, right? And if you just think about it for a second, so many things that we that causes pain, that causes worry or whatever, or the things that we worry about are things that we like, that we can't change. Like we worry about things that we have absolutely no control over, that we can't change. Like we have no, absolutely no influence over it, but yet we keep worrying about it or we keep stressing out about it or whatever it is. We keep wishing that it was different. And as much as I wish the sky was green, it doesn't, like the sky isn't going to just magically turn green, you know? Just for me wishing it, like that's a fact of reality that I cannot change. And obviously no one's worrying about whether or not the sky is green or blue, but bringing that, that non-resistance forward is, is so much so important and will bring you so much peace. And it really, like with everything, starts with awareness, being aware of the things that you can change and the things that you cannot change, being aware of the things, being aware of what like reality is, what the objective truth is, things that you can't change, that you can't control, you can't influence, you can't do anything about. and recognizing the things that you, you can change. So another example could be like sickness. Like if you're sick, it's like, okay, you can either like get all, you know, annoyed and like frustrated and be like, oh, I always get sick and like, oh, whatever, whatever, whatever. It's like you getting upset, you getting angry, you getting frustrated about you getting like you being sick right now is not going to do anything about your situation of being sick. It's only causing you distress. So What we're talking about here is acceptance, acceptance of reality, acceptance of the things you can't change, right? You can't change that you're sick right then in the moment. You can deal with, you can take some action, like you can drink a lot of water, you can go to sleep, you can go to the doctor, you can take whatever this medication or whatever to, to help move that along. Like you be proactive about your situation, but you also like have to accept it or you can fight it, right? You can fight it and be miserable, even that much more miserable and make yourself more miserable, make yourself more stressed. Which will likely make yourself more sick and make your healing process longer. Or you can accept the situation and just make it a lot more pleasant for you and everything else. So the ability to see reality as the objective truth, be aware of reality and accept it is, is a vital step. So if you guys right now could think of something that you're resisting, something that you're like, you know, that you can't change, something that you're worrying about. in your life right now. Like, like I, I'm always aware. I'm like, I'm always reminding myself of like, oh, I can't change that. Or I can't change that. It's like, I just have to accept that. A lot of things is like, we try to control other people or we try to, we try to, you know, make someone do something or like if somebody else does something you don't want them to do, you get all upset. But it's like, at the end of the day, I can't control it. You know, I'm going to do what I, what I can do to, you know, influence the situation the way that I want to influence it. But as soon as I start resisting the reality of it, that's when I start feeling all those negative emotions. So it's not like a passive mindset. You know, you can still do everything you're doing. You can still try to influence reality. But when you start to resist reality, that's when you start feeling all those negative emotions. So that's what I have to say about this. This is such a, like a powerful, if you can bring this into your life and just start being aware of when you're resisting reality, when you're fighting against reality. And like Kayleen said, when you're in a fight against reality, you are going to lose 100% of the time.

100% of the time.

And losing just looks like you Being frustrated or emotional or negative or whatever that is. That's what losing looks like. It's just like making yourself miserable when you go against reality. It's like you can't, you can't win. Like it's impossible. Reality is reality. Reality is real.

Now, the, the interesting thing about this, right, is, you know, so we're saying this and once you start to become aware of this in your own life, you're going to see how, how often this comes up. What you're going to see is that we very often are the cause And the solution to the majority of our pain and distress. Right. And so one of the things that we talk about when we talk about triggers, and this isn't a training specifically on triggers, is fighting a trigger acts like quicksand, right? So you can fight it and you can basically make yourself more miserable. You can make things worse. Or you can accept it and then choose to do something about it. So I've been in a situation before where I can feel myself getting sick and I'm like, oh my gosh, not again. And When you feel like you're getting sick again, you're like, no, trying to fight it, but there's nothing you can do about it and you just make yourself miserable for no reason. Okay? You're the cause of that extra misery. Or you can say, you know what? This is what it is. You can even do some gratitude. You know what? This is a great opportunity to be grateful for the health that I had for the last couple of weeks or a couple of months. And you know what? It's going to be a good check-in for me to see how I'm doing and how I can be more hydrated and sleep more and a great opportunity to Snuggle up with a good book, right? So you, like, you can go the other way as well. And so what we want to do is we want to work with reality. We don't want to work against reality. We want to work with reality. So I want to give you another example, more specifically related to PTSD and/or addiction, right? So you do something, you, you choose to go down a path, or you find yourself down a path, and you, maybe you do something bad, you do something negative, you hurt someone, whatever it is. You have some sort of event, lash out, again, whatever it is. Okay, so once that's over, it is what it is. Now, you can choose to feel guilty, right? And this is uncomfortable because I just said choose. You can choose to feel guilty, you can choose to feel ashamed, or you can choose to accept it. Okay, so when things happen, shame and guilt are not your friend. They are not your friend. They are not going to make the situation any better. In fact, very often they're going to make the situation much, much worse. So you can own it and you can say, you know what, that's on me. You can apologize if and when it's appropriate, and you can do your best to fix what is broken. And that's all that you can do. You can go into situations, you know, with your head held high, with your shoulders back and say, you know what, I messed up and, and this is the way that it is, and I'm gonna do my best to fix it and right what went wrong and, you know, work on myself so this doesn't happen in the future. Or you can feel guilty and you can be stuck in the shame cycle.

Mm-hmm.

And you can run away and you can hide and you can make things worse and you can cause more of those incidents.

Yeah.

And more pain on yourself and your loved ones and whoever else is involved in the situation. Okay? So in these cases, shame and guilt are not your friend. And, and that's just something very, very simple that you can say to yourself. You know, you binge, you lash out, whatever, whatever your thing is, right? Okay. Once that's done, it's done. Shame and guilt are not my friend. And I'm going to choose to accept this. I'm going to choose to own this. Own it. Oh my goodness. How good does it feel to own something?

It feels amazing. It sounds uncomfortable in the moment, but it feels so good.

It's unbelievable.

I mean, it really is just to say, like, anything that you're embarrassed of or like you feel guilty about or ashamed of and you just own it and be like, yeah, yep, I did that thing. Yep. It's so, so good. It loses all power.

It really does. It loses everything. And what you get is you get to immediately move on then. Okay.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, you'll still have to do your reparations where necessary. Right. But you get to immediately move on and move forward. And what you get there is you get to solve, you get to actually solve a problem instead of perpetuate a problem. So instead of making a problem worse, you get to make a problem better. And that's, that's what we're going for.

Owning the problem is accepting the problem. To kind of build off that with like change, you were talking about like guilt and really what guilt is, is like wanting to change the past. And the past is something that you cannot change. And we can kind of go into like, you know, the past only exists in our minds. Anyway, but you cannot change the past. And a lot of our mental emotion, our emotions and our mental processes and thinking is revolved around wanting to change the past and wanting to change things that happened in the past. So we're talking about acceptance today as something that you can kind of actively do. And at the same time, it can be a goal that you strive for, right? So it can be something in your processing that you strive, you strive for, because obviously just me saying, hey, you need to accept your past the way it is. I mean, like, If it was that easy, like you wouldn't be here.

Thanks, Brad.

Thank you for telling me that, you know, just get over it, man. Like you don't have to do anything. Just accept it. Like, just accept it. It's not even real, man. It's not even real. Like you can't change it. Don't it? Like, so it's not like, it's not always as simple as like, you know, just having that singular thought process of like, I'm going to accept it, accept this thing, you know, as reality and I can't change it. I'm just going to move forward. A lot of things you can, you know, like you'll find that there's a lot of things that we hold that causes a lot of stress. That if we just look at it objectively, look at reality and be like, wow, I am resisting this. And if I look down this path, right, of my thinking of like, if I keep, if I keep following this, this path of resisting reality, I know exactly what I'm going to get. Because if I keep fighting reality, reality is going to keep kicking my butt, you know? So I'm going to do something different. I'm going to try accepting this and working with it instead of working against it, right? Instead of fighting it, wishing it wasn't real. I'm going to accept that it is real and really work with the cards that have been given to me. It's like, you do have PTSD. That is a fact. Things did happen to you. That is a fact. If you wish that those things didn't happen to you, you're going to be fighting against something that is impossible to win against. Like, you can't win against the truth. You can't win against reality. It's like, if you keep fighting against and pushing against, wishing you didn't have all these things, you're going to lose. You're going to cause yourself so much stress. So it's about accepting that, owning that, like Kayleen said, that's another great word to use here. It's like owning that, you know, this is the truth. This is the reality and working with that, saying, how can I get better from this? How can I use this to improve my life? Another example is with like when starting like our business, as probably everybody knows, starting a business is not like a, you know, overnight success thing. Maybe people do think that, maybe a lot of people think that, but it's not at all like that. We, we kind of knew that and accepted that.

Yeah.

In the beginning, we accepted that, hey, there's going to be a period of time where, you know, we're not going to make any money and we're probably just going to be breaking even for a long period of time. A lot of time, and a lot of times we're going to work without pay. So in the beginning, for like a year and a half, we worked without pay. We put everything that we made back into the business. But in my mind, I wasn't like complaining about it. I wasn't, you know, being like, oh, this is so bad. Why is it so hard? Things should be easier. More people should help me, whatever. I wasn't resisting what was. I was like, okay, this is the reality of the situation. Like, it's going to take time for this to get off the ground, this is going to be a really cool story someday. And like, this is the reality of the situation and like, we're going to build something cool. We're going to help a lot of people and it's going to be a cool story. Right. And like, I was able to look at the, you know, sleeping with no heat as like, this is cool, man. This is like, we're building, we're building our future. We're building this great thing. And the sacrifice that is required anyways for it is really cool. So those are just a few examples to kind of wrap your head around it. Like, Fighting reality versus working with it. But the acceptance of reality is such a great topic and it's probably like a topic as old as time. Like I learned a lot about it from Epictetus, the Roman philosopher who was a freed slave and then, you know, started to become, or that became a philosopher. And that's a big thing that he talks about, like knowing what you can control, knowing what you can't control. And That's a really, really, really great, great thing and a great topic.

So to build off of that kind of last statement there, I love those stories. I think they're really powerful to explain, and we're going to actually circle back to them. There are things that we can control and there are things that we can't control. There's nothing in between those 2 categories. There are things that we can control. There are things that we can't control. So my question to you is to see what are some things that you can't control? I love asking this question because when, so, so many times in our life, We have the answers and we don't even realize that we have them until we ask the right questions. Your brain is brilliant. You're brilliant if you ask yourself the right questions, right? Okay, so I want to make sure we fully understand this topic. Okay, we have things that you can't control. Now that's other people's thoughts, actions, opinions, reactions, attitude, the past, what happens around you, things like the weather. Now these are just some examples. Of things you can't control. Where I want to make a shift, because I saw some people who have had had kind of their wires crossed here, is there. Here are the things that you can control. You can control your thoughts, your actions, your reactions, your attitudes, your belief, and just you as a whole. Again, these are just kind of some examples here. So I saw a couple people say, you know, they're you know I can't control my reactions. Now maybe not right now. That might be true right now, but you can learn to control those things. So I. I really just want to kind of hone in on that. So when Brad was sharing those stories, you know, he was saying, okay, this is our situation, our physical situation, our financial situation. There's no money. We're just doing the best that we can right now. That's what we couldn't control. What Brad did in each of those stories is he focused on what he could control, which was his thoughts about the situation. It didn't change the situation itself at all. Okay. But that's what he could control, his thoughts about the situation. So I just, again, I wanna get really, really clear on this. There's 2 very, very big boxes here. Number 1, what you can control— you. Everything that happens here, starting— everything starts up here. You can control that. Now, maybe not right now, but that's what we're working on, okay? And you can. You have the ability to, okay? And here's the hug kick in the butt moment: you have the ability to, and sometimes we choose to not control it, okay? You have the ability to. So that's box number 1—

you.

Everything that starts up here. Okay, and then everything that happens subsequently. So imagine you're in this box, or you're in a bubble, right? I remember in elementary school doing like a personal space bubble, or I think you did it in Boy Scouts, like a safety circle bubble. Okay, this is your bubble. Everything kind of within arm's reach here. You can control everything within that bubble. Okay, everything outside of that bubble you cannot control. You cannot control other people, their thoughts, their actions, their reactions, the past, what happens around you, anything like that. Okay, you can control everything in your bubble. And again, I wanted to be really, really clear on that because I want you to understand how capable you are and that you have power. You have power. Okay, everything that we're doing here in coaching is to empower you, but you have the capability inside you.

Yeah, most of us, if you really think about it, most of us spend most of our time, most of our energy, most of our efforts on Changing things that we can't control, changing things that, you know, are just completely out of our control that we can't do anything about, right? What you want to do is you want to kind of invert that. You want to focus totally on the things that you can control, right? And accept everything you can't control, right? And again, it doesn't mean that you have to be in this passive state where you don't do anything or you don't, you don't try to influence or change what's going out there. Right. But it's about accepting what's going out there and focusing on what you can control. So like going back to that story of starting the business, it's like we didn't do nothing, you know, to try to change our circumstances. Like we did a lot, woke up early, we tried to take care of ourselves and we worked a lot to try to get this thing off the ground. So it wasn't like we weren't doing anything. We were doing a lot of stuff to try to change our exterior life, but we were accepting, we were accepting reality as it came to us. And ultimately it's like, you, like, you don't have control over, over stuff, even like your own body. It's like you have control over it right now, but there, there might be a day where like you might not be, right? And that's something that we have to accept. We have to accept reality as it is. And there, like, even if you had all like the, the riches in the world, you know, and you worked really hard and you earned it and whatever, you could lose that. And like, if you're attached to all these things that you can't control, that's another thing. If you're attached to all these things and you put yourself into all these kind of external things, You're also leaving yourself in a point where those things are controlling you. So you always want to be focused on what you can control and realize that, you know, ultimately you can't control like all of these things on the outside. You can influence it and, you know, it like what you do could get you to a better place. But at the end of the day, it's like you ultimately can't control it. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if like, you know, something is like going to be there, you know, forever. But with you, it's like you can, you can control you. I don't know if I'm really getting that across, but that's, that's kind of a deeper, a deeper side of, of this.

Well, one thing I think I really just want to reiterate is you have control over so much. It's just, it's just within that bubble.

Yeah.

Okay. And it starts in your mind. You know, you can influence things, but you can't control them the best way. And those are, some of you might already have seen this in your life. The best way to actually influence those things is To focus on what you can control, which is you and your thoughts and your actions and the way that you live your life and the way that you react, the way that you think, the way that you speak to people, the way that you control your temper, the way that you, you know, get sober from your addiction, the way that you maintain that sobriety, the way that you, again, handle difficult situations. The more that you control what's going on and you put that into action in your own life, everything is going to change. Everything in your life is going to change, even things you might have tried for years to like change. Okay, just want you to understand that if you walk away from with nothing from this except that you have the ability to control your your addictions, your habits, your choices, they all start up here. Okay, and accept everything else. Accept everything else. You don't have to accept what's going on in your brain. Okay, you can say no. Those are thoughts that I don't want to have. These are the only things that you don't have to accept: what's going on between your ears. That's the only thing that you don't have to accept because you have power to change it.

That's actually a good point. Does that make sense? Yeah. And we spend 99% of our time, like when you're in pain, most people spend 99% of their time. I was like this on things they can't change, trying to change things they can't change, fighting reality. So what we're saying today is be aware of what you can't change, right? You know what you can change? Your thoughts, right? Your mind, what's going on in your head. Those are the things you can change. Nothing else. So if you're spending time ruminating around, you know, about the past or about somebody else, about how you want this person to do something or whatever, whatever, whatever, it's like, those are the things you can't change. And you thinking about it, you worrying about it, you stressing about it is not going to change it one bit. It's only going to make you miserable. So the action today is to ask yourself, is this something I can change or is this something I can't change? And you'll find if you start becoming aware of this, You'll be surprised. You'll be shocked at how many things you think about throughout the day that you have absolutely no control over. And you are just thinking about something that's making yourself miserable, honestly, about things. And obviously when it comes to trauma, you know, there are more, more steps to certain things. And it isn't like a, a reason to beat yourself up if you're unable to accept something, but it's something that you can actively do with so many things. You'll be surprised that like so many things are a choice to, you know, I'm just going to choose to Accept this reality and come to terms with this is the way it is, and I can't, I can't change that, right? I'm going to accept that. I'm going to come to peace with that. That's another, like, another way to think about it. I'm going to come to peace.

How about that?

That's a nice, that's a nice idea, isn't it? I'm going to come to peace with this. I'm going to accept this. And then you can change your focus onto the things that you can control. And a great way to do that is be like, how can I make this situation better? How can I change this, right? And then start changing your thoughts around that.

And we call that the how can I attitude. And there's a country song that just came to mind when you said it is what it is, right? And it's just got a little country drawl, right? And she says, it is what it is. It ain't what it ain't. All right. So accept what you can change and get binary with this question. Brad just gave you the action of, you know, go through the day and ask, can I change this? Get binary. Don't leave any middle ground here. Okay. It's yes or no. Okay. If it's yes, then how can I change it? Adopt that how can I attitude. If it's no— How can I change?

Yeah.

How can I change it?

How can I change it?

If it's no, move on.

Very, very simply. Okay. Again, as much as you can. Now, Brad is talking about, you know, past— it's not— this is not always the case with people when you're thinking about like past trauma and guilt from past trauma and different things like that. And we have different tools and skills for that that you'll hear throughout the coaching. But a lot of things in our day-to-day life, okay, our day-to-day life, I want you to think about, and I really want you to ask yourself these questions again in our— in your day-to-day life, because there's so much you can lower that distress level.

Mm-hmm.

You can lower the stress in your life a hundredfold. I'm not even kidding you. Now, yes, we still have to deal with and heal the trauma. Yes. But you can lower that stress. You can lower your anxiety. It's amazing. It's amazing. All right. So ask yourself that question.

And when, when we say, how can I change this? How can I change this thought? How can I change my thinking? You know, a lot of things, it's like, it's, it's hard to come to terms with, with things. Like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna give one last example. So there, there's these people in my, in my life that I held massive resentment for, a lot of hatred, right? A lot of anger, so much anger, so much resentment. And I remember, you know, sitting down one night because it would, it would make me mad for hours and hours and hours. And I would just spiral into like all of this anger, all of this resentment, all of these things like that. And I remember laying down one night and just realizing that, you know, they could be out there having the time of their life and I could just be here Fuming, right? And I was like, man, like, this is only causing me pain. Like, these thoughts, like, me resisting this and me just keeping this, keeping this in my mind, me, me thinking about this, trying to change something in the past about what they did, right, is making me miserable. And then I was like, okay, I finally accepted, like, I can't, I can't do anything about this. You know, like, I, there's nothing that I can do to change this. There's nothing that I can do to change the past. So then I had to force myself and it was extremely difficult to get myself to do that. I was like, I need to accept this. I need to accept that I can't change this. And then I asked myself, what can I do to make this better for me? And like the thought came to me, you have to forgive them. You have to let go. You have to, you have to let all that stuff go because you can't change it anyways. And it's only causing you pain. And I, when I say it, like I can tell it in a story and it's like, It's, it can sound simple, but it was one of the hardest things, hardest decisions I had to make because there was so much charged emotion behind it. And when you have so much charged emotion behind it, you don't want to make that decision. You don't want to change. You want to keep going down that path. So acceptance can be a hard thing and it can be a, it can be a process, right? Because that took me, and obviously I didn't have like, I didn't have all the knowledge at the time, but it took me months to, to work through that. kind of forgiveness and acceptance process. So just know that it can be a process to something that you can, you can work, work through, and it can be a goal that you strive for. Just, just like forgiveness can be that as well. Like I have the goal of forgiving this person or whatever, and it can be something that you work for. And also it can be something that just happens in the moment. So that was, that was the last kind of piece. But the action is to go throughout your day, ask yourself, is this something, am I focusing on something that I can't change? Or am I focusing on the things that I can't change? So things I can't control or the things that I can control.

And one more thing, just to reiterate what Brad was saying, this can be something that you work to achieve or something that just happens. And so sometimes it's a moment-by-moment process where you continue to accept things. And it might be the same thing that you're accepting over and over and over and over again until you achieve that full acceptance when it's bigger stuff. And some of the little stuff, it's like, you know what? I'm getting a cold. It is what it is. Okay. And you can accept it and, and really then move on from that. So it can be a moment-by-moment thing where you're in the moment continually accepting one thing that you work towards that full acceptance, or that full acceptance can just, can just be right there. Awesome. Okay. So Judy sharing, so helpful. I've been emotionally attached to people in the past. I can accept that they have hurt me, which can be so difficult to admit, accept that I cannot change that, but I can change how it affects my life and who I am now. You have a question mark at the end of that, but you have it. Yes, you have that solid.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's exactly it. You can accept that you can't change what happened in the past. That's the hardest thing. And sometimes it's an ego thing. And it's like, oh my God, I don't want to accept that. And here's similar to what we talked about with forgiveness. Acceptance is not condoning. It's not saying that was okay. It's not saying that that's something, that's behavior I'm going to accept in the future. Okay. It doesn't mean that you're letting down boundaries. Okay. It means that you're allowing yourself to be in the moment, to live in the present and to, to continue into the future.

It's you acknowledging reality. It's you acknowledging reality. That's all it is. It's just you saying, hey, this is the reality of the situation. I can either fight it or accept it. Those are your choices. And that's what it comes down to. Like, am I going to accept that this is the truth or fight it? And like we said, if you keep fighting the truth, the reality of the situation, Again, like, that's all it is. It's like Amy said, it's not condoning it. And a lot of times it can be an ego thing where you're like, I don't want to let go of this, right? But it has nothing to do with that, has nothing to do with condoning or, you know, letting somebody off the hook. It's just saying, hey, this is what it is. This is the reality of the situation. How can I best move forward from this? Bonnie says, I had the exact situation with a sister-in-law, letting go of what she had done to our family for years, not letting her have power over me anymore. That's a good example of like, You know, letting this person have power over you. And that's really a way to think about it too, is like these people that we don't really like, or maybe have done us harm, they're basically controlling us. They're having power over us and we're allowing them to have power over us. So I think that's awesome.

And there's some people that, and many of you will understand that, that, you know, simply do not deserve to hold that power. They don't deserve to hold that power. And no one really deserves to hold that power, but especially the people that, you know, you know who I'm talking about, that hold that ultimate power of you. They don't deserve it. Okay. You are the only one that should, should have that power.

And Jen says, repeating, ask yourself, is it something that I can change? Yes or no? And that is the essence of it right there.

That's it.

In such a simple way. I love that. Love that, Jen.

Get binary.

Is it something I can change? Yes or no?

Delaney, I love this. Baby steps, right? Baby steps. That's what we're working on step by step. Carla asking, compounded trauma of similar circumstances. Do I heal them in reverse chronological order? How do I begin to unwrap the multiple traumas? So when it comes to, right, so there's PTSD and there's CPTSD. And in a very basic sense, PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. You would think about this more as like what we would see like cinematically, like a one-event situation versus CPTSD. It stands for complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and it's multiple— it's either multiple traumas or trauma sustained basically over a long period of time, right? So compounded or similar circumstances, you know, is where you're at right there. So your question, do I heal them in reverse chronological order? If you mean reverse chronological order Like, do I start with like last Tuesday and then work back to, you know, when I was 7? If that's what you mean, not necessarily. And so the way that I like to describe this is like you had an initial trauma that broke your arm, right? For example. Okay. And that trauma didn't heal. So now you have a broken arm that didn't heal, which means any tiny little bump is going to irritate that tremendously. Okay. And so all these things through the years have continued to irritate That, that event, or, you know, you can have other events as well. But if you're, if you're thinking the way that you're kind of describing this, and you can let me know in a separate comment, there is like you've had similar, similar things. Okay? So that's why I'm using the broken bone example. So what you want to do is you want to basically try to get to the root. So you want to try to get to the first thing. Okay? Now you can, you can do this any way you want. You could go backwards chronologically. Here's what I would recommend. Going to the first thing, because what you can think about is what you had in your life is a line of dominoes. Okay, so you had this one domino, the first domino. Okay, and that hurt. And then you had another and another and another and another and another. And now you have this big line of dominoes. Okay, so what can happen is if you get to one of the early dominoes or the the earliest domino or the most distressing domino, and you knock that domino over, you heal that domino. What happens in a line of domino? Okay, they all tip over. Okay, and so that's where I recommend. Going, going closer to the initial because it can ripple out and knock down a lot, if not sometimes all of those dominoes. Then what you'll know is what needs to be healed separately, if that makes sense. But you don't necessarily have to go chronologically. For those of you who are like, who have experience where, you know, you have trauma when you're young and then maybe more when you're older, unless it's that domino situation specifically where we're talking about one event that's been similar, similar, similar throughout your life. You can start with the trauma that you experienced in your 20s and then go and do the trauma that you experienced, you know, when you were younger. Does that make sense? Yeah.

When in doubt, I always say like, if you're confused, go for the most distressing and always be aware of when you find the earliest one to find the earliest one. 'Cause a, like a lot of times, like Kaitlin's right, even if it's not the most severe, the first one can be the nexus that, you know, begins a lot of other future traumas, whether like that first trauma might have built some strong belief in, in you that has caused you to, you know, be in front of future traumas, whatever it is. So when in doubt, when you don't know what to do, it's better just to pick the most distressing one and go from there. And then always be aware of, you know, going back and back and back and back and back to try to find the first one. And a lot of times, like, I know with me, I didn't even know what the first one was until I started getting in there. But if you know, that's a good place to start. Like if you do know the first, like this is the first thing and it's very obvious that this is the first thing, you can go straight there. But in lieu of that, pick the most distressing and then go, go from there. And that will give you a really good starting point.

And what's cool about your mind is your mind's gonna cut you. So there's no, you can see there's no like perfect straight answer here, right? So there's a guideline to kind of follow. Your mind is going to actually show you the answers that it, it needs, right? So it's gonna lead you when you use the right processing tools, it's going to lead you where it needs you to go. So Brad's saying like, I didn't even really know what the first one was until I went in there, right? So he went in to use processing tools, and then his brain is, you know, making connections and kind of showing him and leading him, oh, like, here's where we need to start. So your brain can do that as well. So the most important thing over anything is, is to simply start, because you'll, for lack of a better term, stumble upon the answers to these questions as long as you're taking action. Now, again, it's, it's good to get that feedback and ask, though. It's a great, great question so that you can be a little bit more effective or a little bit more efficient when you go to that processing. But, and, and also sometimes your brain will have that answer for you when you kind of go in there, which is cool. Yeah.

The recovery process is a discovery process, and a big part of it is, you know, making the unconscious conscious. How about that for 2 zingers?

2 zingers. I know you— that's, that, those are some zingers. So Bodychair, for me, it was working on the one that was really distressing for me at the time. I did then open up other places that I didn't even know needed to be healed. So You can think of PTSD as, as kind of like layers, right? So you're just, you're doing your best to, to peel back these layers. And it's not always a perfect process. I wish I could tell you, oh yeah, start at, start at age 0, whatever, and then go chronologically and it's gonna be perfect and it's perfect process and everything's gonna go well. Your mind is so complex. It's amazing. It's amazing. And your mind has the systems to do this, which is cool. So your mind is so complex. You can think of it like a web, your, your memory network as a web. So think about a spider web and how complex that is, right? And how, you know, you could start one place and like end up in a totally different place by taking all these different paths. Your brain is like that. And so it's not, you know, people say this all the time, healing is not linear. It's, it's not this perfect linear process, which is why those guidelines help to make it more efficient and effective. But there, there really is no right or wrong answer. Well, maybe there's some wrong answers, but there's really no perfect right answer. You have to kind of discover like, What, what'd you say about discovery?

Recovery.

The recovery process is, is a discovery process.

And that can come down to an individual level as well. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's a beautiful process.

Yeah. And for those people who are processing, that brings like, that's, this is an important point. And it's a little bit off topic for like kind of today, but it's an important point since we're already talking about it. When you go into process trauma, right, whether, whether or not you're starting at the most distressing or the earliest memory that you have, Or the most distressing belief, thought. We're going to talk about that. Whatever channel you're starting in, that's the most distressing. You want to be, you want to allow your mind to go where it kind of naturally goes, right? Because a lot of times you start and you're focusing on this one trauma and this other memory might pop up and you're like, that is totally irrelevant to what I'm processing right now. But like Haley said, it's this complex network of memories that you can't really always track. Sometimes it's like the connection's very obvious, but other times the connection's really Not obvious. Like one, one example for me is like I was processing something and it was like I was processing this traumatic kind of memory. And then this other memory of my cousin's dad came to mind. I'm like, that is so random because I only had a few experiences with him in my life. Right? Like, and it was so, it was so strange. I was like, that's weird. But I'm like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to explore it. Right? So I kept my mind open. I'm like, I'm going to allow my mind to go there. I'm going to allow myself to explore it. And what it ended up being was like that, that man was one of the only men that I felt truly comfortable and safe. And I felt like fully accepted that I could say anything and like whatever, but like that. And that was like kind of like the feeling that I needed to feel or like that, like to solve this, this problem that I was experiencing. I like my, my brain brought me to this, this memory that was actually a positive memory. That helped me heal and realize that, you know, support the new belief that I was trying to create and all these other things. So you can, you can run into these scenarios when you're processing where you're like, this, this has absolutely nothing to do with it, but you need to allow your brain to allow yourself to explore it because your brain's making that connection for a reason. Likely, unless, unless you're just thinking about lunch for the day or something like there's, there's a lot of things that you can get distracted about, but if it's just like a random memory, it's worth exploring that just to see, you know, what is going on here and is, is there a connection?

And so to kind of dial this in, you know, what you can think about with this is your brain's information processing system is very active when we sleep. Okay. Specifically in REM, which stands for rapid eye movement sleep, which is where you dream. So when you, if you've ever had a dream where you're like in the dream, it makes total sense, right? You know, you're like on top of the Eiffel Tower and you're having a sandwich and your dog is there and you're playing fetch with turkey, like whatever is going on in your dream and it's just totally chill. Whatever, right? And you wake up and you're like, where did that come from? That didn't make any sense. Your brain was processing something, okay? And it's making connections that we might not always logically understand. And sometimes that happens, and sometimes we never logically understand them. And then other times we kind of get this click and it's like, oh, okay, that, that's why those 2 things are connected, you know? And sometimes it's very obvious. So there's all sorts of things that can kind of happen when you do that processing, but that's just a— An example so we can kind of relate to what's going on there, where you have that, those dreams, and you're like, that, where did that come from? It can happen kind of when you're processing as well. So Judy asking, so is accepting the first step of healing? This is a good question, Judy. This is a good question. I don't know if I can— it's one of the first steps of processing. Okay, so when we're talking about healing, I think about the healing journey as, as a whole, not just processing, right? So the first step of Of healing would, would fall under some sort of mindset work and honestly would probably fall under just the belief that it's possible or that progress is possible. I don't know. What would you say the first step of healing is?

I mean, that, that right there, you know, the belief that it's even possible to get better would be the very first step. You know, you have to believe, you also have to accept, you have to accept that, you know, there is a problem, right? You have to, well, you have to be aware, you have to be aware of the problem. You have to accept the problem, and then you need to believe that you can actually do something about the problem. That's what I think.

Yeah.

It's a good question.

You need to be aware of the problem, accept that it is a problem, not deny it, right? And then believe that you can do something about it, and then start working towards, you know, actually overcoming that problem, whatever it is.

Right. Because we have acceptance in different areas. You know, we're talking about you can accept situations in the past. You can accept situations as they're happening. You can accept things that you've done.

It's such a broad thing. It's kind of like a principle of processing and healing versus like Singular.

Yeah, that's actually a good way to put it. Yeah, that's a good question though, Judy. Awesome. So keep rocking and rolling, everyone. Practice that acceptance today. Ask yourself and get binary. Is this something I can change? Yes or no. Is this something I can't change? Yes or no. And then adopt that how can I attitude. Okay, how can I change this? And specifically, how can I make this a better situation or a more positive situation, even if it's a negative situation or a hardship? So just remember that, okay? And remember, you are in control of what happens in between those ears there. And everything starts up there, including your external actions. All right. Amazing, amazing job. Give yourselves a pat on the back for being here. Keep celebrating those wins. Keep sharing them with the community. Everybody goes up when you go up too. So that's what I have. Bye everyone.

Hey everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.