How to know you're healing PTSD and not just coping

Hey everyone, Kailene here. And today in this training, I wanted to talk to you about how to know that you're healing PTSD and not just coping with it. Because there's a very distinct difference between healing your PTSD and coping with it. And that's what I want to talk about today. So there are 3 specific things that I want to talk about. The difference between coping and healing. So actually the actions that you take on your journey, coping versus healing. And then of course, the results that you'll get and how that will differ. 10 signs you're making progress, so you're actually doing the healing work, and how to know, you know, 'cause sometimes it's so dark, things can be so confusing on the healing journey, and how to know that you actually are on your way and the things that you're doing are actually working. And then a common trap that leaves people almost healed and stuck for years, sometimes decades. And this is the trap, as I call it, Where a lot of people feel like they're either backsliding or they're taking one step forward and two steps back, or they plateau on their recovery journey. So they do a lot of healing and then they end up finding themselves kind of stuck, stopped, paused, and feeling like they have to cope for the rest of their lives. So I'm going to talk about that trap, what it looks like, how to get out of it, and we'll jump right into our first point here, which is the difference between coping and healing. And this is— Super vital to understand for your recovery journey. Coping and healing can really be summed up in a really, really simple way. So coping we call dealing with the effect, and healing we call dealing with the cause. Now beyond that, coping is short-term. And healing is long-term. For example, some coping activities would be, you know, managing your anxiety or doing grounding tools or progressive muscle relaxation or dealing with nightmares or sleep problems. And healing would be dealing with the root cause. So the things that cause the anxiety, the things that cause the nightmare. And so as it applies to PTSD, This is kind of what it looks like. So there's PTSD. There's what caused your PTSD. That's what we call the root. Okay? And that is the cause. And then everything beyond that, your anxiety, your flashbacks, if you disassociate, your relationship problems, your problems at your job because of PTSD, your nightmares or your sleep problems. Mmhmm. Those are all effects of the cause. So when you're coping, what you're doing is dealing with the effect, but not dealing with the cause itself. When you're healing, you're dealing directly with the cause. So it's a really simple cause and effect relationship, but it can leave people kind of confused and stuck. And I know I felt this way for a long time. For example, when I was having anxiety or nightmares, What I was trying to do was, was heal my— was fix my anxiety, right? By doing anxiety tools, by doing deep breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, that belly breathing, box breathing, all sorts of different breathing exercises, by doing, you know, grounding exercises if it was flashbacks, or for nightmares, trying to, uh, you know, use different skills during the night or do different things before bedtime, right? So to read a nice story before bedtime. But none of that was really dealing with the root of what was causing those things. And this is what can leave people stuck and kind of sometimes confused. Because you're doing all this work, you know, you're trying to fix your relationship, you're communicating through your relationship, but your problems in your relationship are being caused by your PTSD. So if you don't heal the root, the thing that caused your PTSD, you're just going to end up running in circles. You know, you're always going to have anxiety. Yes, there are ways to calm it down. To relax so you can function, and that's important. But you'll always have anxiety if you don't deal with the root. It will always come back. And it's kind of like, you know, if you've ever been involved in like weeding a garden. If you just cut the weeds and just take the leaves and the branches off, the root is still there. And so what's going to happen is it's going to grow back. But if you dig down and you get underneath and you remove it at the root, those weeds won't grow back. And so that's really what PTSD is all about. So coping is— Short-term, right? Every night you're dealing with your flashbacks or your nightmares, or every day you're working on your relationship. Every single day, sometimes every moment of every day, you're dealing with your anxiety. You're trying to calm your anxiety. That's all short-term. When you heal the root, all of these things go away. You have no more problems. You have no more anxiety because you've healed the root of what's causing them. So it's a really simple concept. But it's really truly important to understand the difference between coping, right? So dealing with anxiety, fighting depression versus healing, you know, processing your past, releasing emotions, working to detangle what's going on in your mind so you can understand it and truly heal it. So you no longer have to cope. So that is coping versus healing. And now I want to show you 10 signs that you're actually making that progress. So you know, because again, on the healing journey it can be confusing. Every day looks a little bit different. It's hard to kind of measure where you are at in regards to, you know, getting to that finish line of healing PTSD, or, or how far away you are from rock bottom, and all sorts of different things, because there's so much going on. So I want to, I want to show you right now 10 signs that you're actually making that progress and, and getting closer and closer to healing. I want to talk about these signs for a few reasons. And these are just some examples of things that, you know, you can keep track of, or you can kind of reflect on your own journey in your own life. But, you know, it's really important when you're on your recovery journey, sometimes it's, it's so easy to look forward and to look at how far you have to go and never take the time to look backwards and to see how far you've come, or to just stop and reflect. And it's a really important thing to do on the journey because, for one, it'll give you motivation and hope. And it'll really show you kind of where you are in regards to your recovery journey and how far you've come, even if it's just a little, little ways. And so what I encourage you to do, if you're not already, is to take time, whether it's once a month or once every 3 months or once a year, whatever it is, to reflect on, you know, your recovery journey as a whole. And you might— what you might want to do is keep some semblance of a journal, whether again that's once a week or once a month. Where you just look at these metrics that I'm about to share and you just kind of jot them down and you journal exactly where you are. And then that way when you go back over a year, what you can do is you can look at all the times that you journaled and see how much these metrics have changed. And again, these are just some examples. But it's a really, really important thing to do to, for one, understand, okay, I am getting better. I am getting closer towards healing. And for 2, to give yourself a pat on the back for how far you've come when you make progress on these things. Now if you aren't making progress on these things, that's okay. Because it also gives you an indicator that, hey, wait a minute. I'm not making progress on these things. I need to change the action that I'm taking so I'm healing, right? If you're always just coping, you're not going to see the progress on these things. But if you're doing healing activities, You're gonna see the progress. If you take the time and you consistently have deliberate action, you're going to see progress on these things. So if you find yourself reflecting and say, I haven't made progress on those things, you know, it's time to reconsider what you're actually doing on your healing journey for your PTSD and how you're going about it. So that's okay too, and it's an important thing to do. Regardless, pat on the back for doing all the work you've done so far, even if it's just been coping work. It's super, super hard work. And what I always want you to do when you reflect is, is just to acknowledge that you've been so far, you've come so far, even if it's a little ways, even if you haven't made progress at all, because that's a time that you can use it as a turning point. So 10 signs you are making progress. Number 1, you have longer and longer stretches of good. So that could be longer and longer stretches of good days, or even longer and longer stretches of good hours, right? Sometimes on the healing journey, it's like, You have a really great morning, right? You're having, uh, you're just rocking and rolling. You're having a really good morning. And then maybe something triggers you or it just turns into a bad day. And sometimes you can have a few bad days in a row or a few bad weeks in a row. And so, you know, as you progress on the healing journey, you're going to notice that those stretches of hours or those stretches of days are going to get longer and longer. So you might have one awesome day, just like great day. And then you might have 7 really bad days. But then you might have 3 really good days. And then 5 really bad days. So you have longer and longer stretches of good in regards to days or hours. You're more aware and in control of your thoughts and your actions. So you'll see kind of a theme here of awareness. And awareness is really, really, really important. You're aware of, first of all, if you're not aware of a problem, you can't fix it. You're not gonna know that it exists. So you're aware of your thoughts and your actions, and you're in control of. And you'll notice also a lot of times I'm saying you're more aware, right? Because this is a subjective measurement. You just want to reflect on where you have been and kind of where you want to go. But you just want to say, you know, am I more aware of my thoughts and actions? Am I more aware of and in more control of my thoughts and actions than I was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago? And really kind of reflect on it. It just has to— you just have to be— A tiny bit, a tiny, tiny, tiny bit better. And if you get like 1% better every day, this is what I always tell my clients, if you get 1% better every day, you know, it's just 1%, it's just a tiny little tweak. But over a year you're going to get 365%, or this year 366% better. So that's huge giant leaps, and that's why consistency is so important. But you're more aware of and in control of your thoughts and your actions. So— You're aware of your thoughts. You know how to either stop them, control them, redirect them, swap them. And you're aware of your actions. You know what you're doing on your healing journey. You know and are aware of what you're doing in your life. You're not living in kind of sleepwalk mode. You're not living in this autopilot mode. You see what you're doing. You know why you're doing it. And basically you're doing good things. You're doing things, actions that will help you Achieve your goals, whether it's just in recovery or in your life in general. Number 3, you have time to think before you react. So you find yourself, instead of just snap-reacting at things, responding to things. So instead of, you know, if someone gets upset at you— and I know this happens a lot in relationships— those angry outbursts are going to happen less and less and less. So you're going to have more time to decide how you feel and how you're going to act and react to any sort of situation, triggers included. But you have more time to think, kind of take the information in. It's almost as if something happens and like your brain kind of just puts everything in slow motion and thinks about, what am I going to do with this? You know, how am I going to react to this? What am I going to say? What am I going to do? Because you can think about the repercussions as well. So another thing that applies to awareness. Number 4, you're less responsive to triggers. Now this is a really important one as well. So as it comes to the deep healing work, you know, we were talking about just before where, you know, the anxiety, the relationship problems, the nightmares, the flashbacks, all of those have a cause, and that's PTSD. So the more you're, you're working on the cause and working on healing what causes those things, the less and less and less until eventually they don't trigger you at all. So that's a really, really good one. So for me, for example, something that used to really bother me— and around here in the summer we have a lot of fireworks, right? And so as I was working on my healing journey, what would happen is I would find that they triggered me less and less and less until now, of course, they don't trigger me at all. And now I actually very much enjoy fireworks. So something that used to totally wreck me, like spiral me to rock bottom, is something now I very, very, very much enjoy. And I actually— Like to go to with friends and stuff like that. So you want to, you know, think about what are things that maybe used to trigger me that don't as much anymore, or don't have as much of a charge, or I'm in control of and I can take myself out of the situation. Now that's a level 2. That's kind of the first step there is like, oh, fireworks show— before you kind of almost like snap, um, what you can do is take yourself out of the situation. So that's kind of the first step to Again, that awareness and responsiveness to the triggers. Number 5, you understand yourself and bring yourself more compassion. So a big part of healing the core and healing the root is really, I used the word before, detangling, and that's such a good word. Detangling your thoughts, your actions, your emotions, excuse me, and what causes all those things. So you understand yourself, you understand why you do what you do, why you don't do what you do, especially when it comes to running and numbing. You know, things like maybe eating a ton of ice cream, watching a ton of TV. I know for me, I used to drink a ton, and then I wasn't necessarily as nice to the people in my life as I should have been. But with that healing process, understanding the root, healing the root, you learn a lot about yourself, and you're able to bring yourself love and compassion and understanding because you can kind of connect the dots and see, oh, that's why I acted that way. And then heal that so you don't act that way in the future. That's an important one. You just straight up enjoy things more. I know for me, when I was really struggling, when I was at rock bottom, you know, I didn't laugh a lot, I didn't smile a lot, I didn't have like a ton of joyous fun. I didn't feel joy all that often. And, you know, I could watch the funniest movie in the world, but it just— nothing really just made me laugh and brought me that like true pure joy. Even like hanging out with my dog Shiloh, like— Aww. I love him and it was always great and it was always calming, you know, hanging out with him and walking on the beach with him. But it never brought me that like joy and excitement and happiness until I was able to again heal that root. And so, you know, once I did, I laugh at everything. I mean, now it's just— I laugh all the time. If you're in any of the offices near me, you know, you would just basically hear me laugh. You hear Brad and I laugh all the time. And so now I'm able to, you know, walk on the beach with Shiloh and just have a good time and run around and laugh, just being With him, or watching movies and laughing, and you just really enjoy everything in your life a lot more. And you find that you laugh a lot more. You find that you maybe even make more jokes. And you just find things funny, even if they aren't obviously funny. Just little things like that. So you just enjoy things more. Number 7, you're more positively— you're more positive externally and internally. This is a big one. A big part of healing that core is changing your mindset and thinking about things in a different way. There's a lot of, when it comes to healing PTSD, mental models that you have to adopt. And mastering your mindset is truly the foundation of PTSD recovery. When I teach what it takes to fully overcome PTSD, fully heal from PTSD, I talk about the 3 pillars of PTSD recovery. And the first one is mindset. And what mindset is, you know, we talk a lot about inputs, we talk a lot about positivity, Like I said before, you want to be aware of and in control of your thoughts and your actions. And you want to have positive actions. So that doesn't necessarily mean, oh, I'm like happy-go-lucky all the time and I'm just pretending to be happy. Positive actions also means, you know, I'm going to my workout instead of eating ice cream at 8 in the morning. And so positivity doesn't necessarily mean this, like I said, like this happy-go-lucky individual. Although, you know, part of it is expressing gratitude and being grateful for the things in your life. Looking for the good things and looking for the silver linings and the good moments and things like that, but also taking positive actions on your healing journey. So that's why it's externally and internally. Number 8, you know how to find out where your thoughts and feelings come from. This is a really important one. Again, all tying down to awareness. If you're not aware of a problem, you can't fix it. If you don't know something exists, you don't know what the problem is, you can't fix it. So You know how to find out where your thoughts and feelings are coming from. So when you have a negative thought, or a distressing thought, or a distressing feeling, you have kind of a process in place. And you have enough awareness to say, wait a minute. First of all, this is not appropriate. Or, this is not right for the situation. And where does this come from? What is the root? What is the core? So you're always looking for the root of all your thoughts, feelings, emotions. The core of everything. So you can heal the core so that you don't have those reactions and actions in the future. And that's so, so important. PTSD really is like weeding. You, you need to get to the root of everything because if you don't, it will come back. But to get to the root, you, you need to do a little digging and you need to have the awareness to be able to move the dirt around, to be able to dig and make sure you get the whole thing in a safe, appropriate way. So that is an important one. Number 9, you are more patient with yourself and others. Again, more, more, more. You're more patient than you were 6 months ago. You're more patient than you were a year ago with yourself and others. And with yourself comes, you know, that, that comes from that place of understanding yourself and, uh, detangling those things and saying, oh, that's why I did that, and bringing yourself that love and compassion and being patient with others. So the more you understand yourself, and I think this is Honestly, one of the coolest parts of the healing journey is the more you introspect, the more you understand yourself, figure yourself out, heal yourself, become the best version of yourself, the more in turn, at the same time, you understand others. Because you understand this inner world that you have, why you do bad things, why you do good things, you know, why you do everything. And when you bring that love and compassion to yourself, heal those parts of you, It's almost like you gain another dimension of viewing people. And so you don't necessarily view people as like, that's a good action or a bad action. You can almost zoom in and see, okay, they probably did this because they're hurt and because this and because this and because this. And you really start to understand people at a whole other level. So you naturally are more patient and have more compassion towards others as well. And then number 10. Just, you have a straight-up noticeable reduction in symptoms and distress level. So again, this is all kind of a subjective measurement. These are just some signs that you're making progress and you're healing. But what you might want to do, like I said, is just journal these 10 things. You know, set an alarm once a week so that you're keeping track of these things, so you can look back and say, how much progress have I made? And go me, and great job, and pat yourself on the back. Or you can look back and say, wow, you know, I haven't made any progress over the last 3 months. What do I need to do differently so I'm making progress on these things? So regardless of what it is, it's a positive experience to do. But you just have a noticeable reduction in symptoms and distress level. So you might just want to jot down, like, what are my most distressing symptoms at the moment? You know, what am I experiencing most of in my week, in my day? And what's my average distress level on a scale of 0 being No distress at all, to 10 being max distressed, where am I at? You know, on average. And you might want to just take some time over the next few days and think about, you know, how distressed am I? And ask yourself and journal and say, you know, when I'm at work, I'm at an 8. When I'm at home, I'm at a 9. When it's bedtime, I'm at a 2. And you can just literally get the average of those things. And again, it's a subjective unit, but it gives you a jumping-off point to say, Hey, Hey, things are going great. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. And I'm doing a great job and I'm getting there. Or, hey, wait a minute. You know, things have not been going the way that I want to. I'm not making progress. You know, I've totally stagnated or I'm going the other way. I need to change the actions that I'm taking. So regardless, a really powerful activity. And now what I want to talk to you about is one thing I call a trap. And it's really a way to view the recovery journey. And like I said, in recovery sometimes you're just Trying to get through the day, trying to get through the day, trying to get through the day. So it's really important to stop every now and then and look back and look forwards. And I want to show you a diagram, it's called the seesaw effect. And this seesaw effect can subject people to feeling trapped, feeling stuck, feeling like they're backsliding or they're plateaued in their recovery, even though they feel they've done the majority of the healing work. They feel like, yes, I've healed, but But I have a little bit to go, but I just, I feel stuck. I feel plateaued. I feel better than I was at rock bottom for sure, but definitely I wouldn't say I'm fully healed. So I want to talk about that diagram because it can leave you stuck, and I don't want you to ever feel stuck or feel plateaued. And it's just kind of a simple shift in mindset to be able to kind of break through that plateau and really understand why the healing journey— and as I'll talk about in a second— can feel like a complete So this is what I call the seesaw effect. And this is the thing, this is the concept that leaves a lot of people stuck when they're almost at the finish line. So I want to explain the diagram here and then I'll explain how it works. So this line here, this arrow pointing to the right, is the road to recovery. And now recovery by no means is a straight line. But this is the road to recovery. And so if it was a perfect road, You know, you'd be at rock bottom over here, and then you'd be fully recovered all the way on the right over here. So it'd be rock bottom, and you get better, better, better, better, better, better, better, until you're all the way better when you're at this end of the arrow over here. So that's not how recovery works. But how we have our arrow lined up is all bad days on the left. Again, that's maybe rock bottom, or that's kind of where you start. You can start really anywhere on the spectrum in regards to your recovery journey. But on the left is all bad days. Then as you move a little bit closer to the right, you have more bad days than good days. But you see, you start to have some good days as you get closer to full recovery. And then as you move even further to the right, you have more good days than bad days. So that kind of swaps right there. You're having more good days than you are bad days. You're getting closer and closer to that full recovery point. And then as you get all the way over here to this right side of the arrow, you have all good days, and that's when you're fully Fully recovered. Now in between all these things, of course, you have, you know, all bad days and some good days. But you have more bad days than good. More good than bad. So you kind of progress on this sequence, on this line to full recovery. Now, of course, it would be great if you just started with— I mean, I don't want you to start with bad days, but if you just started at rock bottom and you were just able to walk straight down this line. But that's not what happens. What happens in recovery is something I call a— Sine wave. Seesaw effect on the road to recovery. So this is a seesaw up here that I've drawn. So what happens on recovery, let's say you do start at rock bottom, you start at all bad days. So you, you know, you're doing your healing work, you're working really hard, you're working consistently, you're working deliberately, you're taking action, and you start to get a little bit better and a little bit better, and you start to have more bad days than good days. But what's happening right here is You know, you're starting to have those good days, but you're still having the bad days. And as you have the good days, they feel really good. And sometimes the good days can feel like you've fully recovered, but the bad days still feel like rock bottom. And so that's kind of the seesaw effect there, is you're having these good days, right, and you seesaw this way, but then you're also having the bad days and it flops totally the other way. And so what happens as you get further And further on the spectrum where you have more good days than bad. Let's say you have a stretch of 99 good days, right? You're like so close to full recovery. You have a stretch of 99 good days, you're right here on the spectrum, and then it flips and you have a bad day. That bad day is going to feel sometimes like you are at rock bottom. That pain still feels the same way because you haven't fully kind of Crossed the threshold. So you could be right here on the spectrum. You've done all this work, you've done all this healing, you've been rocking and rolling, you've been working really hard, you just had your longest stretch of good days ever, but then the seesaw effect gets you, right? It sweeps and you have a bad day and it feels literally sometimes like you're right there at rock bottom again. And so what happens there is even though you're all the way on this side of the spectrum, When that seesaw flips and you have that one bad day, you think you're all the way over here. And sometimes people throw their hands up and they say, oh my gosh, like, I was doing so well, I was working so hard, and it's not working. But the truth is, that's part of the journey. This entire time, this seesaw effect is at play. So you're having all bad days, and then the seesaw flips and you have one good day, and that feels— Amazing. Really good. It's almost kind of like a tease, right? And then you work, and you work your way along this spectrum, but the whole time this seesaw is going back and forth. So you're having 3 good days and then 5 bad days, and you're having 10 good days and then 10 bad days. And it's this, this exhausting journey where you're kind of being pulled around left and right because of this seesaw. Have you ever been on a seesaw? Now they make them a little differently, but when I was younger, it was just like straight-up seesaw. There were no springs to catch you or to make it fun. It was just straight-up really— Really hard thing to ride. So, you know, that seesaw is, is always flipping, and it feels so rough sometimes that you can be literally almost at the very end of your journey. You can have done all the healing work, and this is why people feel plateaued, because they do all this healing work. They're, they're at the point where they're, they're right here. They're almost at that point where they have all good days. They're having their longest stretches of good days ever. And then they have a bad day. And it feels the same, right? So what happens is they either stop doing the things that got them to this point because they feel like, oh, they're not working. Because they don't understand how the road to recovery looks. This is the road to recovery. So again, no matter where you start, you're going to have this seesaw effect. You can start with more good days than bad. Not everyone starts at rock bottom. But as you get to that point, you know, why you feel like you're backsliding, why you feel like you're stuck, why you feel like you've plateaued, why you feel like throwing your hands up because you've done all this work and you've tried and you've tried and you've tried but you haven't gotten to full recovery, is because this seesaw effect messes with your perception of where you truly are on the recovery journey. You could be right here, have, like I said, like 100 good days in a row, and then have a really bad week. But if you keep doing the root healing work, if you keep working on the cause, if you keep focusing on the root and doing the things you need to do to heal, you will cross that threshold and eventually it will be all good days. So you could be right here on your journey and then just stopping the work because you think it's not working because of the seesaw, because it feels like it's not working. But it really is working, and that seesaw is part of the journey. So I wanted to just explain that because, you know, if you're at this part of the journey sometimes, and honestly, as someone who's been all the way at rock bottom and been at this part of the journey and been beyond this journey, this is one of the hardest parts of the journey. Rock bottom for sure is hard, but this part right here where you can taste full recovery, where you have great days, you know you can do it, you've worked really hard to be there, you've been through all all this stuff, and then you have that bad day, that part almost hurts more. Because it's the high to the low. It's like you're on this super high, you're on a high of life, you're having fun, your relationships are good, your job is good. And then you have a bad day and it feels so very low. That almost the strain of going that low from being that high, honestly, is one of the hardest parts of the recovery journey. So if you're right there, Keep doing the things you need to do, or keep doing the things that have gotten you to that point, and you will cross that threshold if you keep focusing on the route and just keep taking track of your metrics. That's another good point. You know, we just, just before we talked about 10, just 10 metrics to show you that you're actually progressing. If you keep, keep track of those, like I said, every week, every month, every year, you're gonna see That you are further and further and further along on this spectrum. And if you're not, you need to change the actions that you're taking on your healing journey. But that is what I have for you today. So I want just to make sure that you reflect and you take the time to say, am I doing healing or am I doing coping? Am I actually healing my PTSD or am I just coping with it? So I hope you enjoyed this training. If you did, please feel free to like this video, comment below this video. Let me know what you liked. And what you want to see in the future, and feel free to subscribe for more videos. I want you to know I believe in you. I know that you can do this. I know that you can fully recover from PTSD. I see people do it every single day. No matter who you are, what you've been through, CPTSD as well. No matter what your circumstances are, I know that you can do it. I truly believe in you from the bottom of my heart. I don't just say that. I truly believe in you. And let me tell you. And I don't, I don't mean to brag, but it is so good on the other end of this spectrum. So I promise you that's out there for you. You know, you showed up, you showed up to a training on PTSD. That's a great step. Keep taking action, keep putting in the work, keep rocking and rolling. Believe in yourself. Know that I believe in you. Even if you don't, you deserve full recovery. Everyone deserves full recovery, and I know you will get there. Like I said, keep showing up. I love you. I believe in you, and I hope to see you in the next training.