MYTH #7: PTSD Never Gets Healed, It just goes into remission until it comes back

These are the things that we see day after day after day that stop people from fully recovering. Hey everyone, Kayleen here, and welcome to PTSD TV. Today is a continuation of our myth marathon, and this episode of PTSD TV is sponsored by Broken to Unbreakable, which is my PTSD and CPTSD recovery program. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Kayleen. I recovered from CPTSD after suffering for 15 years, and now what I do is help people all over the world make that same transformation. And this lovely man to my left here is Brad Schipke.

I am lucky enough to be Kayleen's significant other, and I was there through her recovery journey, went through my own recovery journey, and I'm again excited, very excited about today's myth number 7.

Number 7, okay. Uh, our myth today is PTSD never gets healed, it just goes into remission until it eventually comes This is something I hear a lot, something I read a lot in the PTSD community, but also in, uh, in, in the, um, healthcare community as well.

Yeah, I hear this all the time, and people tell us that we are in remission and it will come back all the time. They're like, you still have PTSD, you still have it. Like, all right, man, it's like, okay, thank you. But the, the thing is, like Like with all of these myths, it's easily believed because, I mean, there are people who, who do go. Maybe a good way to go, or a good place to start, is, is to explain kind of why this belief exists, which is, you know, people do kind of— maybe they do recover, or they recover from certain things, and maybe they're good for, you know, a year or more, whatever. Um, but then they get triggered again, everything comes back. But that's Because they've never healed the root cause of it. So the reason is like they do a little work, they feel better. And I like this is a natural process along the journey of recovery. And I've certainly felt this way before, you know, where I'm like, oh, I have like I have a great day or like I have a great week or I have a great month even. But then I get hit back with like a trigger or something. Something like brings me back and then like I just. Um, you know, kind of beat myself up and I pull myself down further and further and further because I thought I was good and then I'm not. So then like that, that kind of like, um, dynamic of feeling like you're really good, but then you're like, oh no, I am still broken. And then you're like, oh, I feel really, really good, but I'm still broken. Or I had a really good day or week or month or whatever, but then I have a really, really, really bad day. And that kind of jump forward and backwards is really, really hard. And I think that's kind of where this belief comes from. It's like, it's never truly gone. You just kind of go in different cycles of being OK for a little while and then feeling broken again.

Yeah, and I think there— I love that you kind of started with that. And there are a few reasons why someone would believe this. And that is one of them. And we'll talk about what we call the seesaw effect and how we kind of explain that when it comes to recovery. And I think another reason is, well, I guess number one, right, is like you don't heal the full root. So it's complex, not necessarily complex PTSD, but it's a complicated process to heal the root and to make sure that you kind of get everything. And basically, if you don't have the right tools and the right setup, it can leave you to miss something. So that would be a reason. You don't fully get the root, right? So if you don't fully pull out the root of a weed, it will eventually come back.

Yeah.

Another reason would be, you know, you heal one part or piece of yourself, you heal one thing that was traumatic, and there's something else that you experienced that was traumatic. And so you can heal one thing and, and have more healing to do and either not be aware of it. You know, when it comes to PTSD, there's a set of basically symptoms that you have. And so whether you're dealing with issue A from your childhood or issue B from your adulthood, The symptoms that you feel, the way that you feel, will have an overarching theme. And so you can heal issue A, but if you don't heal issue B, you're still going to feel the same way, and you might think it's still from issue A.

Yeah.

And a third reason on top of that would be, you know, you, you heal, you fully heal, and then you might experience something else that's traumatic, right? And so there's, there's a lot that goes into why people believe this myth. And why it feels true to some people. And then those, I would say, are the 3 cases in which people truly believe that, because they either experience it themselves or they see someone they love experience it. But in all 3 cases, you're not getting the full picture and you're not healing the core of it.

Yeah. What would you say is like the most common reason why people believe this? I would say this is what it was for me, and I would probably say this is what the most common is. Like, you either— you're either coping with the problem for a while, or you fix one problem or a piece of one problem and you feel better for a little while, but then you, you hit the next problem, or you hit that same problem again because you never fully healed it. Um, what would you say?

I would probably agree with that. Like, a lack of completely resolving the issue or issues getting extremely good at coping, or not kind of understanding that there are layers to this. So, so healing one layer and then hitting another layer, and, and basically like, well, I've been doing so great and like I healed this piece and I feel better, but now I'm like, I hit this wall again. I would say like, it's just not, I think, a complete understanding of what the process looks like and will feel like, because there are, I think, so many layers when it comes to actually doing it.

Yeah.

I know we've both experienced this and And we talk about something called the seesaw effect on recovery as it, as it applies to recovery. And the basic idea of a seesaw, right, is you flip back and forth if you've ever been on a seesaw.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and how it's laid out, and we have a kind of a visual diagram for it, but if you just picture a line and all the way on the left of the line is when you are at rock bottom, and you can start your journey anywhere on this line. All the way at the left, you're at rock bottom. All the way at the right, you're completely healed. And now healing is by no means linear, but you go from left to right on your journey. So some people start at rock bottom, some people don't. But for this case, we'll say, you know, you start at rock bottom. You start all the way at the left of the line. And as you heal, as you're coaching, as you're working with me, as you're whatever, you're moving through this line to the ultimate goal of full recovery. But as you're moving through this line, you get the seesaw effect where you're going to have, you know, when you're first starting, maybe one good day. You know, you start coaching with me or you start doing the Unbreakable Planner or whatever, you have one good day and you're like, wow, that was awesome. But then it flips to the other side and then you have maybe 9 bad days, right? And then you have, you know, you keep working, you consistently work, you're, you're doing the things you need to do. And then maybe you have 5 good days and you're like, this is awesome. You're rocking and rolling, you're feeling really good. And then you have 3 bad days. And so you're progressing on this line from absolute rock bottom to full recovery. But what's going to happen is the stretches of good days and bad days are, are going to flip basically until you get there. So as you get towards further and further towards full recovery, you might have like 90 days where you're rocking and rolling and you're feeling really, really, really great.

Yeah.

And then it's going to flip to the other side and you're going to have one bad day that it still hurts and it hurts a heck of a lot and it's going to feel just like those bad days. And for a lot of people is when they get to that side of the line where they're approaching full recovery. This is where a lot of people get stuck, believe it or not, because they feel like they've been working for so long and they feel like, oh, I've been having so many good days and, and I still have bad days. But you're so like close to the finish line. Um, but what's happening is you're, you're having longer and longer stretches of good days, and that's from all the work that you've been putting in. And so it can feel like, you know, if you have 90 good days and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm I'm healed. This is great. And then you have a bad day or you have 2 bad days. It can feel like, oh my gosh, this is never going to go away because you just had that long stretch of good days. So it's almost like the better you get, the harder it gets to really see the full picture.

Yeah. And when you have those 2 days after a stretch of 90 days, you think you're back. You think you're in remission and you forget that you just had the longest stretch of good days you ever had. So you lose focus on the progress that you made and you you mentally go back to that broken state where you believe that you are still broken. You're still at rock bottom, or you feel like you're at rock bottom. And the core of all these issues, of this issue right here, is binary thinking, is thinking that I'm either fully recovered or I'm absolutely broken, hopeless, and everything's terrible. There's nothing in between. There's no journey, right? So you can't be 3/4 of the way healed where you have 3/4 of your time are good days and then 1/4 of your days are bad days. That's not possible, right?

Yeah.

It's like when you have those— even though that's actually what's happening, let's say 75% of your days are good, right? And on those good days, you're probably thinking like, yes, I'm fully recovered. I'm doing this. I'm great. And then you have that 25% of bad days and you're like, oh my God, I'm back. I'm at rock bottom. I'm broken, like nothing. I'm hopeless. Nothing will get better. And you know, I hate my life and I'm a failure and all that stuff. But then you you have those good days again. You're like, oh my god, I'm healed. So then you're like you're going back and forth, but you're not seeing the reality of like you're on this continuum of of you're on this journey. You're on this continuum of growth, and it's not it's not binary. It's not you're not broken or fully recovered. There's a continuum in between those two extremes, and that's a hard thing for a lot of people to do in a lot of different areas of life. Um, but that is kind of like the root of it is like, you can't see beyond, you can't get beyond this kind of binary, binary mindset where, you know, it's, you know, I'm totally like an amazing, awesome person, or I'm this worthless or whatever person. So you get stuck and you then that's what the seesaw is. So you're like, you feel like, you know, you're this great person in full recovery, or you go all the way back and there's nothing in between.

Yeah.

And that's why it's— that's why we call it the seesaw effect, because like you're either on one side or the other, or you mentally are on one side or the other, even if you've made, you know, so much progress forward.

I love that, and I love that you shared that. And something that we talk about, and I know we used to talk about in our relationship before we got out of the binary thinking of it's all good or it's all bad, is kind of complexifying things. And it's just a fun word to kind of use to get out of that binary thinking. But I know specifically for us, when we were struggling in our relationship, it was like we fight all the time or we're the perfect couple, right? And there was no in between. And it was like, what the heck? Like, when we were fighting, it was like, we fight all the time. And then when we're not fighting, it was like, we are amazing. And there was no in between, and there was no kind of growth. And it was like every fight and every obstacle did feel like, you know, back at rock bottom or back at our worst moments, you know, however you want to phrase it.

Yeah.

But that's a great point. Getting stuck in that binary thinking can be really dangerous because you end up thinking that you're not making any progress, when in fact you are making progress.

Right.

And a ton of it. And it's a hard journey. It's hard right up until you really reach the finish line. And there's not this glorious finish line where you get a medal and there's ribbons and stuff. But it is challenging up until the point where you actually do reach that. And the mindset will make you go so much faster. knowing that you are really close and knowing that you're still making progress and this is part of the journey. You have to have those bad days. You have to fall down in those, in those times. And like, it really does help. And if you can keep that mindset and build that unbreakable mindset, it's going to set you up for success long term. And that's why we're doing these myths, right? We decided to do this myth marathon because these are some of the biggest blockers of recovery and, and they really can stop people from even trying at all, some of them. Um, but they can stop people, you know, right in the middle of their journey or right when they're near the finish line. They can completely stop people. And that's why you get so many people who, who say, you know, well, I've tried everything and I've, you know, I've worked really hard and I just wasn't able to do it. It's just not possible for me. And that's, you know, just not really the case. It's all about, you know, what you know about the journey and setting yourself up for success with the mindset and the tools and All that good stuff.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it all comes down to our next point here, which is the difference between coping and healing. So, Kayleen, what is the difference between coping and healing?

Well, Brad, the difference between coping and healing in a very simple way is coping is healing the effect. And healing is healing the root. So coping is dealing with the effect and healing is dealing with the root cause.

Mm-hmm.

So if your PTSD is a tree, we'll call it a tree, coping would be, you know, trimming the tree and, you know, taking the bad leaves off and maybe taking a few branches off. Healing would be cutting the tree down and digging up the root to actually get rid of the tree. And in a gentle way, of course, in a loving way, in a loving way.

And then raking up all the acorns around the tree that fell down so they don't make little seedlings.

Yeah. And so it's all about like what is actually going to, to heal the core and heal the root of something. So coping is dealing with the effect, healing is dealing with the cause. And so there's a very distinct difference on the recovery journey. There's a place for coping on the recovery journey, but coping is not healing. You know, if you just trim the branches, if you just, you know, pick off the leaves, you're not going to get to the root. Even if you cut the tree at its trunk, if you don't dig up the root, you're not going to heal it. Like, it will come back. That tree will come back.

Yeah.

We have a tree here in New England. It's called the Rose of Sharon. And I don't know if it's like botanically a tree, but it's essentially a weed. And it's this beautiful tree. And They are amazing, but they grow everywhere. So we have literally hundreds, and I'm not even joking, and we live on a very small piece of property, hundreds of these trees in our yard. Because what we did when we were a little bit younger is we were coping with these trees, and we were cutting off the branches, and we were cutting them at the trunk but not digging up the root. And every time we did that we left space for them to come back actually in droves. So this is a tree that like is medieval or whatever and like you cut it off and it comes back 10 times worse and so now we have hundreds of trees because we didn't deal with the healing. We didn't heal it. We just coped with it.

Yeah.

And I don't know. That's the short, I guess, kind of explanation of why it's different but there is a place for coping on the healing journey and you know I teach a lot of recovery tools and Coping is something I teach, but it's for a short period of time. I teach something called a recovery toolbox, and if you're part of the program, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And the recovery toolbox is really important because if you can get yourself in a place where you're calm enough to do the deep healing work, or you're relaxed enough to focus on the things you need to do to actually heal the root, it's really, really important. And for our tree example, you know, if you have a 30-foot tree And there are some branches that are hanging down that are dangerous. You need to kind of cope with them. You need to take those branches off so you can actually get to the root and heal the root in a safe way.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you're just coping with things, you'll never get to that root. So an example, I guess, is like if you have anxiety, right? It's like doing deep breathing or the butterfly hug or something. to relieve the anxiety now, but then you don't go any deeper, right? So like, you feel anxiety, right? I do some deep breathing, I meditate, whatever. I feel better for a little while, but that anxiety always comes back, right?

Right.

Um, deep root healing is trying to understand why am I having that anxiety, you know, why is this even happening, and keep going down and down and down and down to try to find the root of that. And then there's a whole memory network of different things that kind of link together Um, but you do your best to try to find the root, like the, the first, like the nexus of all the memories and everything to heal that. And once you heal that, um, that's like, that's the very root of, of things. So it could be like, um, no, something, something traumatic. That's PTSD.

Yeah. Or embarrassing.

Or embarrassing. Yeah. I, that's, that's the other thing. Cause Kayleen always tells us a story about the guy getting licked by a cow.

There's a there's a story in Dr. Francine Shapiro's book Getting Past Your Past, which is a great book, and she talks about this guy. I forget his name, but he he whatever. He he went into his therapist. He went for help because he was having relationship problems and confidence problems, and he was having all these issues. He was like forty years old, and they did a technique they call I believe it's the float back technique. But basically, he was searching his memories for like okay what was the first time I felt like this? And he was searching his memories and he, so they say, apparently like audibly laughed when he came up with this memory. And he like, I mean, he was in his 40s and he laughed because he was like, this could not possibly be the cause of these problems that I'm having. Like, I'm in my 40s. This happened when I was, I think it was like 3. And looking back as an adult, it was really funny. But what happened is he, you know, he was a little kid and I don't know, he lived near a farm or something and he got knocked over by a cow and the cow licked his stomach. And when his mom came to get him, she kind of came like running or jogging over to him and she was laughing. I mean, how could you not, right? And so she was laughing as she picked him up and it led to him really having like a lack of safety and feeling insecure about a lot of things. And I, you know, as an adult, it's easy to look at that and be like, listen, everyone was fine. It was funny. It was cute. All that stuff. But, you know, when you're in that position as a kid, Those things can really affect you. And so it doesn't matter. In the field, they talk about trauma with a big T and trauma with a little t. And trauma with a big T would be something classic and cinematic. And trauma with a little t would be something maybe like that. And it really doesn't matter what it is that is the core, what it is that needs healing. But finding that core, finding that nexus, is really, really so important to live the life that you want. Because if you don't ever find the core, you're always going to be coping and managing. And that would be another reason that people feel like it comes back, is they're rocking and rolling, they're like really consistent, really, uh, disciplined at coping, and they're just— they're using their coping skills and they're doing all the things right when it comes to coping. And so they're feeling good because they're, they're coping so much and so well, and that's great. But then maybe they get a little less disciplined and They kind of reach the peak of their pattern of existence, which basically means they take their foot off the gas, right? And you start feeling good because you're coping so well and you stop doing the things that allow you to feel like that. So if you're coping and you're— let's just say you're doing the butterfly hug all day long, right? Let's say you're usually anxious, but instead you're using this coping skill, you're using the butterfly hug all day long, you're going to feel great. But when you're not doing the butterfly hug, that anxiety is going to come back. And so that's what happens is you can get really good at coping, but the second you stop coping, it's going to come back. And it's just, it's really just covering it up and giving you enough relief to, to move on with your day in your life, which again is a part of the healing journey and a good thing. But if you don't heal the root, it's, it's always going to come back.

Yeah. Yeah. So most people don't know how to, first of all, identify what the root is. They don't know how to heal it, and then they're not consistent enough. If they do, if they can identify and they do know how to heal it, they're not consistent enough with healing. And then at that point, most people at any of those points, that's when people are like, oh, it's impossible to recover. That's when all these myths come in. You know, PTSD will never get healed. I just go into remission and will always come back. You know, because at that point they give up and. Where all of these myths kind of come and like converge together is giving up is kind of like the mindset portion of it. Of, um, because in, in, in the recovery program that we run, Broken to Unbreakable, there's, we have 3 pillars for a reason: mindset, consistency routines, and then processing. And processing is like identifying the root cause and healing it. But without the routines, without the consistency, if you're not consistent in applying those practices and you don't have the right mindset. If you don't believe that you can fully recover, if you don't know how to push through the short-term pain to get to the long-term pleasure, like you, you will never get there. Like, and that's where most people are stuck is like, maybe they even know the processing piece. Maybe they do go to a therapist who knows it, but they're not consistent enough in applying it or they don't have the right mindset going into it. So then they fall victim to believing all these myths that are already pretty much infecting. I mean, I don't think it's, it's probably not a, stretch to say 99% of people who have PTSD believe these things. And like, that is the root of why so many people don't recover, is because they believe these things. And that really comes down to the mindset. And like, if you don't have the right mindset, then you're not even going to get started. And it all starts with like identifying these beliefs, questioning them, and being like, why the heck— why the heck am I believing this? You know, why the heck do I believe that this is impossible? Why the heck do I believe that, you know, PTSD never gets healed and then it just goes into remission. Why do I believe that?

Yeah.

And most people don't even question their own beliefs and they get stuck and they become imprisoned by that for the rest of their life.

I mean, that's the truth. And I would say that you're, you're probably right, right on the money with 99%. And this is why you—

That's probably an underestimate.

If you listen to us a lot, or if you listen to my coaching or whatever, you'll hear me talk a lot about the same kind of things. And I'm not here— we're not here to make stuff up just to entertain you. These are the things that we see day after day after day that stop people from fully recovering. Yeah.

Recovery is not complicated. It really is not complicated. It's very, very, very simple. If you have the right mindset, if you never give up, if you are consistent and you build really great routines to help you heal and you process the root. That's it. It's really, really simple. It's really, really straightforward. The hard part is actually just applying it, is doing the work. And most people do not want to do the work. I didn't want to do the work.

It's hard, man.

Like, every day I'm like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to keep facing this. I don't want to— like, it's hard to get better. It's hard to challenge yourself. It's hard to challenge your belief system and then willingly Change it. You know, that's really hard to do. It's hard to process the past. It's hard to process the root cause of why you're feeling all this pain.

It is.

It is. And most people aren't willing to do that.

And we're not superhuman. You know, we're not these amazing— the, the people that we are now, we've built. But especially when we were on our recovery journey, we, we were very far from superhuman, very far from motivated, very far from— I mean, we didn't have all the information. We didn't have the knowledge. We didn't have all these We didn't have the pillars. Like we had to figure that all out, which made it that much harder. But we're not superhuman people. The reason that we built the program and the reason that it's laid out the way that it is, is because we're not superhuman, because we're very normal people that we saw the need for the mindset and we had to build that mindset ourselves. And then the routines because We don't have super willpower. We're not these fantastic— I mean, we were building our life. We were going from rock bottom to trying to just have a life, not even anything extraordinary, just trying to get out of the house every day. And so those routines are really important. And then actually processing the past is hard work. And if you build the routines, if you have the mindset, you build the routines, and then you have the right tools to process your past, it becomes a routine.

Yeah.

And you kind of integrate it into your life rather than having to fight yourself every time to do it. And that's kind of what we realized that we needed to do on our own recovery journey. And why it's built the way it's built is because we're all human.

Yeah.

And it's hard, it's challenging, but it's worth it. Every single second is worth it.

Yeah, it is. It's very challenging but very, very much worth it. There's nothing better. There's nothing better to do, honestly.

There's nothing more worthwhile than healing your PTSD. And every single day I hear from people, this is affecting 90% of my life. Or it's, you know, it's my relationship and it's my career and it's, it's really everything.

And that's the sad part because then, you know, some people, they see that, they admit it, but then they don't go and take the steps forward. They don't go and take the action.

They don't put enough time into it.

They're not committed enough.

That's like affecting 90% of your life. It's taking 90% of your life. It should be, at the very least, you should be putting 90% of your time into trying to heal that thing and into trying to solve that problem.

Yeah. And nobody's telling you that. Nobody. Like, if somebody told me that— actually, Kayleen, like, she was one of the biggest persons who's like, you know, this— like, she's like, okay, what's your biggest problem? Like, whether it was— this was probably like, I don't know, like halfway, 3 quarters of the way through, probably like 3 quarters or more through, like, my recovery. And, you know, I'd have a lot of good days and I have a bad day. And then Kayleen would ask me like, well, what's the problem? What's the biggest thing that's stopping you? I'm like, well, it's my emotions. my emotions. That's like, I can't— I feel like I can't focus when I'm working. I can't focus when I'm reading, or I can't like be there with you and build this relationship because of my emotions, because of my past. And, um, and she's like, okay, well, what are you doing to, to help with that? And I'm like, uh, I'm not really doing anything. And like, that's where most people get stuck, is like, you know what the problem is, you know what's stopping you, but you don't Take the steps. You don't take the steps you need to take. And it's all about that commitment. And you don't want to take that time to look behind you and fix the problems behind you. You want to look ahead and build this great future ahead, right? But you can't build this thing ahead. This is what Kaylee and I always say. It's like you are trying to run a marathon for 26 miles while chained to a big-ass boulder behind you. Right? But and what most people with PTSD are trying to do, they're just trying to run faster, you know, in in towards the towards the finish line. But what you need to do is you need to take the time to stop, let everybody else keep trying to run forward, and fix the problem behind you so then you can just freaking go. And most people aren't willing to take the time to look behind them because that's a really hard thing to do—to look behind you and fix all the things in your past so then you can go forward. But once you do that, like imagine like. If PTSD is taking up 50% of your time, compound that over the rest of your life, right? What's that going to look like? I plan to— let's say I plan to live another 80 years, right? 98 sounds pretty good. No, that's 108. 108 sounds even better. So at 108, that's 40 years. If I'm losing 50% of my life, I'm losing 40 years of my life, right? What if it takes me— 2 years, and this is a— it won't take most people 2 years to fully recover. But what if I go full-time for 2 years to spend on healing my PTSD to get 40 years of my life back? Let's say 38 minus the 2 years. So I spent 2 years to get 38 years back. And most people don't think out like that long-term. They don't look at the effects of PTSD on their life and then look out how this is going to affect the rest of my life because that's painful to do. It is, but it's motivating.

But when you heal, when you commit and you take action on healing, right? So like that conversation we had where it was like, okay, like what are your biggest problems? And Brad was saying, okay, it's emotional. And okay, what are you doing to heal it? Okay, nothing. Okay, so what do we need to do, right? And so once you put the time into it and once you were like, okay, um, we talk about something called like a healing vacation, which is just basically an extended amount of time where you're just very, very focused and only focused on healing. Um, doing that was the thing that, you know, and then you never have to deal with it again, right? So you're thinking about like this commitment.

Yeah.

It's, it's a, it's a challenging journey and it's hard, but it is worth the commitment. And it's a, it's a, I don't want to call it a one-time commitment because it is about consistency over the long term. But if you make these small kind of one-time commitments short-term, long-term, you're going to reap the rewards far and wide. Because if you're having a hard time focusing during the day and you take 3, 4 days to just really just 100,000% focus on yourself, focus on your healing journey, you're going to take a big step forward, right? And it might not get you totally to the finish line, but you're going to take a bigger step than if you, well, either don't deal with it at all, um, or even just put, you know, an hour in a week. So you really want to think about—

Yeah.

How much time it's, it's affecting and hurting you and how much time you're putting in and see if you can match that, even if it's just for a couple weeks. You're gonna take big steps forward instead of no steps, or, or I mean really steps backwards. But if you put the time in, and it doesn't take most people 2 years when they have the right tools and the right skills and the right mindset and the right routines. If you put the time in now, it will serve you for the rest of your life. And it doesn't matter how old you are.

Yeah.

It will serve you for the rest of your life. And I promise it's worth it. And like, I, I don't like to brag, But it's really nice on the other side. It's really—it's great to sleep through the night. It's awesome to feel calm. It's so cool to kind of be like truly the master of your emotions. And this is something we talked about on the recovery journey—is it gives you skills that go far beyond PTSD recovery. It really does, and it is really very cool to have those skills and to know how. Strong a foundation you have in your mindset, in your routines, and, and how whole and healed you are in, in your— whether you want to call it your, your soul or your body or your heart or whatever— is really very special. Yeah, it's awesome.

It is awesome. So you have to ask yourself, how much time are you putting into healing, and what are you doing during that time to heal? Yeah, are you, are you just coping, or are you dealing with the root? Right? Are you working on your mindset, on your routines, um, and on processing your past? You know, if you're doing that and you're consistently working on that, you will get there. Um, and the, the last thing I want to say is like, you know, maybe you're like, well, you know, PTSD is taking up 90% or 100% of my life and I'm doing nothing. And that's okay. And this— the purpose of us saying this is not to get you to beat yourself up. And that was kind of a problem we both had was, you know, becoming aware of the problem, of the obstacle can be challenging. You know, the problem being I'm not spending enough time doing this, right? And it's, I mean, if you don't admit that you're not spending enough time, then you will never spend enough time to heal and you will never heal. So you have to look at the problem, but sometimes that can be a little bit painful. It's not about— you haven't done anything wrong up until this point. It's not about beating yourself up because that just pulls you down further. It's about accepting your situation, like, okay, I've, I've been going down the wrong path. You know, I haven't been spending enough time and like, and that's okay. I'm going to learn my lesson. I'm going to apply this in the future to get better. And that's all you can do. So it's not about beating yourself up. Don't beat yourself up. You haven't done anything wrong. It's just time to readjust and course correct. And do your best and just keep doing your best every day. And if you take a tiny step forward each day, that's a win. Celebrate every little step, every little win forward. And then in time, you'll gain momentum and you'll make bigger and bigger strides.

And you're here with us now. You know, you're listening or you're watching, like you're committed in some sense. And I think that's a great point. Just like celebrate everything, every little win. I mean, just listening to the episode, whatever, even things like that. Like, they, they matter and they're steps forward because you're, you're getting the right information and you're, you're seeing that there's something more. And even if you don't like outwardly say it, you believe that there's something more and you believe that you can do it and you're, you're willing to challenge your beliefs and challenge the things that you might currently think about PTSD, about recovery, about everything involved. And that is cool. I mean, you're here for a myth marathon. That's, that's That's a big deal to challenge your beliefs, and, and it can be an uncomfortable way to think. So, you know, kudos to you for being here. And, and if you're gonna think about how much time is this taking, what am I doing, and what do I need to do, that's a huge win just thinking about it.

Yeah.

And then going and, and actually taking action on it is, you know, a whole different ball game of a win. But super important, yeah, that you don't beat yourself up and you celebrate like, wow, okay, I, I thought about how big of this how big of a problem this was, and now I, now I see it. That's a win that you see.

That's a win. That's a win.

Um, okay, and so this is what I'm currently doing, and it's not enough. That's a win. You see it, you're aware of it, and this is what I need to do. Like, super, super good and super wins all around. So kudos.

Yeah, great job.

And if you want to learn more about the pillars of recovery, I know Brad and I sometimes we talk about them, uh, you know, we talk about mindset and routines and processing your past and you know, really talk about the roadmap to success on the healing journey and to healing your PTSD or your CPTSD. Right now I'm running a free training. You can go to overcomingptsd.info/go.

Go.

Okay. And, um, and you can check out that free training where I'm talking about the 3 pillars, and I explain more about why they're so important and why they're kind of crucial, crucial steps in that order on the recovery journey. So you can go to overcomingptsd.info/go and check out that training. It's a great training if you haven't seen it, uh, really diving into those 3 pillars and, and really what you can do about it.

You'll get a breakdown of what to do for those 3 things. So like for the mindset, what do you do for the mindset? For the routines, how do you build the routines? What routines do you need to build? What habits do you need to build? And then processing your past, how does that process actually work? How do you actually— how does your brain actually work to process the memories in the past? So when you go through that free training, you actually get a top-down view of everything that you should be doing. So if you don't know the steps that you need to be taking, you're like, okay, I know I need to do these things. I know I need to take action. And you want the step-by-step guide, go to that and you will learn that.

Yeah. It's a great resource. It really is.

Absolutely. Cool. Okay. I think that's all we have for you guys. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for listening. And, uh, we will see you back for our— I think this is our— the next one's our last episode.

It will be our last episode of the myths. Myth marathon. The myths. The myth marathon. So that's what we have for y'all. Thank you for joining us. Uh, we love you. We believe in you at the highest level. We're here for you. That's, you know, we, we love doing these episodes. We love doing the podcast because we love helping spread the belief. And honestly, like, we wish someone was just, just saying, hey, it is possible. Uh, you know, when we were struggling and, and hearing that from someone would have been really nice.

Do you get tired of us saying that yet? Do you get tired of us telling you that it's possible and that you can do this?

And that we love you.

Well, I hope not.

Thank you for joining us. And, um, it's been a pleasure.

Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Any last word, Kay? Bye. Bye.