this is what trauma recovery ACTUALLY looks like...

Welcome to today's masterclass called Tangible Versus Intangible Progress. Now, on the recovery journey, in the beginning when you're first starting, or when you're first starting to achieve or go after any real goal in life, the beginning is the hardest part, just getting started. Because typically for worthwhile goals, for any goal that is worthwhile to achieve, in the beginning of the journey, you don't see many tangible results. results. You don't see much tangible progress. It can take some time before you realize and see any movement towards that goal or any tangible progress towards that goal. So it requires us to go through kind of this valley of no— little to no results for a long period of time before we can come out the other end of that valley and start climbing up. That's just the reality of really anything. Like, if you think of any type of skill development, like I know with me with learning the drums, I was terrible. Like, you're terrible. I was terrible at everything that I ever did in my entire life when I first started, and I think that's how most people are. Maybe some people are very gifted and they can sit down at the drum set and play these amazing, amazing riffs and fills and things like that, amazing beats. But for me, I was bad. I could not do anything. So my drum teacher started me off on these very basic— first of all, just teaching me how to hold the sticks correctly, and then from there He— I didn't even play on the drums. He gave me this little plastic pad and I started playing rhythms on the pad and I was like, wow, this is boring. This is really bad. And then I was like, I don't even think I'm getting any better at this thing. I was like, this is not fun, whatever. But I did that for 2 weeks and after 2 weeks I ended up learning my first beat and then just kept going from there because I got the first, first bit of momentum and success. And in that skill development. So the same thing will happen in recovery for you. You, you, like, if you are just starting right now and you're first going through the program, you will start and you'll be like, wow, I have to learn all this basic stuff and I have to watch all these videos and I have to do all these worksheets. And at the same time, I'm not seeing huge tangible shifts in my life. Some people do. Some people see massive shifts. But for some people, they'll have to work at this for, for Quite a while, and quite a while honestly isn't even that long. Like to to really start to get some momentum in recovery or any skill really, just a few weeks, right? So like really all we're talking about here is like I want to get you through the first few weeks, and what really helps you get through. And this is like the same with building any habit. Like habit, if you wanted to, you know, I remember when I wanted to start going to the gym more. I was like, I remember the first three weeks being the hardest. Right? They even say that like the first 21 days, if you want to build a habit, you want to at least get through the first 21 days and then it gets a lot easier from that point on. And for me, that has been 100% true. Like the beginning of anything, any skill development, any habit, any type of change in my life, recovery, the hardest part was right in the beginning. And that's where this concept of being able to identify the intangible progress becomes very, very important. And this is something that I do all the time on the Q&As. Like when somebody comes up to me and they explain my problem, I always point out all the intangible progress that they're making. Because a lot of times people will come to the Q&As and they'll say like, oh man, like, you know, I tried to do bilateral processing and, you know, it's— I got in there and I, you know, I This memory came up and this memory came up and, and then I got stuck and I didn't know where to go. And then they're like, what do I do now? Whatever it is, whatever the question is. And then what I would say to them would be, that's awesome. One, you took action, right? So you started taking an action that you weren't previously doing. You were not— you were previously before this week, you did 0 hours of processing. This week you did, let's say, 5 hours of processing. That's a win. Right? Your behavior changed there, right? 2, you became aware of different memories that you were not aware of before, and you weren't aware of how they were affecting you. So now that you put in this time, you are now aware of the different causes for the problems that are happening in your life. So even though you did not see any tangible movement in your recovery or in your distress level, Like your distress tangibly didn't go down. Your symptoms didn't tangibly go down, but you did, you did make intangible progress, which is important to see. Because if you are, if you are taking action and you're doing work and you believe you're not making any progress, that's when you're going to quit. Like for me, I know that's when I would quit. It's like when I'm doing this thing and I want to get this result, but I'm not getting this result and I'm seeing no progress towards getting this result. I'd be like, why am I doing all this hard work for no reason? Because I don't see any progress. Then I would quit. It's like, why, why would I keep going if I don't, if I don't see any progress? But the problem in those situations isn't that we're not making progress, but we're not aware that we're making progress, right? Because there's this intangible progress that's being made, right? So in the example of somebody coming on the Q&A, the intangible progress is, hey, they did 5 hours of processing this week that they did not do last week. That's a massive win. You did not see from that 5 hours of processing, they did not see a tangible movement in their distress level, a tangible lowering of their distress level. But they did, they did 5 hours of processing, which is a huge step forward and a step forward in the right direction to build that into a habit over the long term. Because healing, it takes time. Like the thing about healing, it takes time. Like everything, like Losing weight takes time, making money takes time. We have to go through the trough, we have to go through the valley in order to come out the other side. That's how life works. We have to go down before we go up. And down, I don't mean like rock bottom down, I mean like we have to put in the work before we get the results, right? We have to put in the work now to get the results later, right? So one, they were— the intangible for them was putting in the hours, 5 hours. The other one was them becoming aware of the different problems. or the different memories that were causing their problems, right? So when they were doing the bilateral processing, they became aware of these 2 different memories that were causing their symptoms. That is intangible progress because you are now aware of the very problem, the root problems, or at least 2 problems that are causing your symptoms, right? Which is the first step to actually solving the problems because you cannot solve a problem that you do not know exists. So becoming aware of a problem is progress forward. And that right there, those 2 things right there, and you'll see if you come to the Q&As, you'll see I do this all the time because I want people to be aware of the progress that they're making. Because if you're taking action and you don't, you're not aware of the progress that you're making, you're going to want to quit. But if you can see the progress forward and you can acknowledge the progress and tell yourself, hey, I'm making progress, I'm moving towards this even though I'm not feeling a tangible difference, I'm not seeing a tangible difference in my life right now, I am still making progress towards that goal. Then you get that positive feedback to keep going. And it's that positive feedback that we need, and we need to keep feeding that to ourselves. Like, you, like, you on your own will need to be the person who gives you that feedback, because I can give it to you on the Q&As, but at the end of the day, you are with yourself 24/7. Like, right now we only do 2 Q&As a week. Like, I can't give you the support you need, especially for the rest of your life. So the best way to do it is is to become aware of the intangible progress that you are making and consciously acknowledging yourself for that. And that's why we press so hard on celebrating your wins, right? No matter how small, because it's those little wins that stack up over time that lead you to the big win. Like, the big win doesn't just happen. The big win happens literally because all of the little wins that have been stacked up Over time, over a long period of time, right? You make all these small right decisions over a long period of time. That's what achieves the big goal. It's not one big effort one day. It's these small intangible progress, these small intangible steps forward that you you work and you don't see anything. You work, you don't see anything. You don't work where you don't see anything tangible. You work and you don't see anything tangible, but you're making intangible progress towards that. Ultimate goal. In this case, the ultimate goal is full recovery. So that's what intangible progress is. There are things like becoming aware of problems, right? So being aware of symptoms, being aware of triggers, being aware of different traumas in your past, being aware of different memories, becoming aware of different beliefs, becoming aware of different protectors— all of those things are signs of you making progress, and you want to make sure to acknowledge yourself For that and know that you're making progress just by becoming aware of this because that's the first step. If you're not aware of the false belief that's causing you to lash out at your loved ones, then you can't change the false belief. So even though you might still believe in this false belief, you now are aware of it so you can start fixing it. That is progress and you want to acknowledge yourself for that. So awareness of problems is a type of intangible progress. Another one is identifying a path forward. So You know, actually coming up with a possible solution or a plan of attack to solve one of those problems that you've just become aware of is a step in the right direction, is progress, is intangible progress. Because you might not have fully implemented that plan yet, but you have the plan, and that's progress forward. So you might not tangibly feel better, but you know where you're going to go. You have clarity on where you need to go. And another one that I mentioned earlier, like with client putting in 5 hours of processing, is taking actions that you weren't taking before. So seeing that, hey, this week, even if my goal was 5 days of meditation or 5 days of processing, and I only gotten 1, last week I gotten 0, that is progress. So as long as we are seeing progress in that way, even if we're not seeing tangible progress again in the distress levels, we want to acknowledge ourselves for that. And this is especially useful, I found, for myself too. I used to beat myself up all the time if I set a goal for myself and I was like, I want to go to the gym 5 days a week. If I went to the gym 4 days a week, I'd be like, I failed, you know, I messed up, I screwed up, I'm a failure. And then guess what I did the next week since I beat myself up for only getting 4 instead of 5? I got 0 because I beat myself up and I thought I was a failure. So, But what I didn't recognize at the time was that the week before I did the 4, I was doing 0 workouts, right? So I actually got an improvement of— I mean, that's like infinite. 0 to 4, that's a big improvement. Even 0 to 1, that's an improvement. And we want to see it as an improvement. So even if you fall short of your goals, you want to see it as progress. And even if you fall short of your goals, you don't want to beat yourself up. You want to become aware of why, why did you miss that so you can Hit it next time, right? So you can use the opportunity, you can use the time that, let's say I missed going to the gym, as an opportunity to get better for the future. And then, but that's what I would always tell myself, especially like in gym or in healing, in recovery, when I, again, I would set these goals for processing and hours that I wanted to put in and I wouldn't hit them. The way I explained it to myself, if I didn't hit a goal, I was like, well, I am doing more than I was doing before. I am winning. I am moving forward. And if I continue doing this, I will want to do more. You know, so if my baseline becomes 4 workouts per week and that becomes a habit, that's pretty damn good. And then from there, I know me, I know myself, I'm going to want to push myself to get that 5th one in. So I know I'm going to get there. So taking actions that you weren't taking before is another form of intangible progress, and you want to make sure you celebrate that and you have the right perspective on that. And, um, yeah, the importance of celebrating those little wins like that, the little intangible things along the way to full recovery or anything, is so important. Because like I said, the big milestones that we want to achieve, whether it's losing 50 pounds, making a million dollars, fully recovering from PTSD, it's not one big effort that creates one big outcome. It is a lot of little efforts compounded over a long period of time that achieve this big goal. So does it make sense to only accept our big efforts, or do we want to acknowledge the little things that create the big goal? It's like, that's just the cause, the cause and effect. It's like, if I do these little things every day over a long period of time, I will achieve this goal. So why wouldn't I, why wouldn't I celebrate myself for achieving these little goals along the way. And if you were like me, I did not do that. I thought the little goals were insignificant. I told them— told myself they were insignificant. I told myself I was a failure, I was a loser, and all these things because I was not doing these big massive efforts every day. But I was improving, and I wasn't giving myself credit for improving. So you want to make sure you give yourself credit for the improvement. And again, you are the only person who can give yourself credit for that. Now, Let's talk about, talk about tangible progress because this is, this is also really interesting in regards to recovery because there's like, how do you measure, how do you measure the tangible progress into recovery? That's something that I thought about for a long, long time. I was like, how, how do you know when you're recovered? Right? Like, that's a question. Like, one is like, you could, you could go like, how do you know you've recovered? Like the tangible progress of recovery. One answer could be, uh, you no longer qualify for the diagnosis of PTSD, right? So that's one. Another one is you can look at the amount of time that your day is taken up by PTSD or your PTSD symptoms, and you could track that if you want. That's not something that, like, we personally— like, we talk about it, but it's not something that we tell people to track. But that's something that you can look at. It can be a metric that you look at. To be like, oh, 1 month ago, 2 months ago, last year, whatever, 80% of my day was taken up by PTSD, or 80% of the day I was anxious and afraid, and now it's only 5%. That's tangible progress. The 3rd way that I like, and that I tell people to track, is their distress level, right? On a macro level, which, and you can also track it on a micro level, but that's a different conversation. So tracking your distress level. Which is just how much distress am I feeling on average, uh, over the course of a week or a day, whatever it is. And you can track that over time, and if that's tracking downwards or trending downwards, then you are making— that is a sign of tangible progress, right? So your distress level is going down. Uh, another one that's tangible progress is believability level. So we can measure progress in that way. So when you're installing new beliefs There is a metric that we like to track for individual beliefs called the believability level. So if you're tracking the belief, if you're trying to install the belief, I love myself, what you want to track the metric, the believability level on a scale from 0 to 10, 0 being I don't believe this at all and 10 being I have a full conviction that this is 100%, 1000% true. So then you can track that over time. And that is like something measurable and tangible that we can track and track and see over time. And, um, so that's the way that you can track your tangible progress in recovery. It's very important to do so again, because you get to see progress. And in weird ways, this is actually like a very weird phenomenon when, for humans, it's like you can You can make a lot of progress in your distress level, um, but then you get acclimated to the new normal and you stop really appreciating where, like, how far you've come and you don't see how far you've come. So like, I've had clients who've started the program at a 9 distress level and then they get down to a 6 and then they kind of plateau for a while because they get satisfied because, you know, going from like a 9 to a 6 or a 5. Is going from like a place where life is completely unmanageable to a place where it's like, I can actually do stuff now. So what happens to a lot of people is that they see that initial drop in distress level and they get to a moderate level of distress, and then they're like, holy cow, it's like I can go back to work and I can do this and I can hang out with my family again. Like, they start living their life again, which is great. But then after a while, they become dissatisfied with this level again, which is good. And something like that we say a lot is like, You get greedy, you want more, you want things to get better, which is good, like a good type of greed, right? You want, you want more and more peace. So, but it's an interesting thing where we become acclimated to this point, this new point, and we can forget the progress that we made. So tracking it can actually be beneficial to us because we can like put a number on it and be like, this is the tangible progress that I've made. Because even week to week, if you're not tracking it, you don't really— if you're not, then you're not aware of the progress that you're making, right? I know for me, it's like my distress level in my recovery could have trended downwards, and then— but I wasn't aware of it. But I still think my life is terrible because I'm not aware of the progress that I'm making. And then again, if you're not aware of the progress that you're making, you— like, I— well, I found in myself and clients that there's a tendency to actually fall back again because you're not— you don't see the progress that you're making. So then you then believe that the actions that you're taking are not worth it because you don't attribute progress to the actions that you're taking. You think it's pointless and then give up. So tracking these metrics and tracking the tangible progress is also important to achieve the full outcome as well. But all those things, you know, being aware of whether it's intangible or tangible Being aware of the progress that you're making is really, really important for motivation because this is a challenging journey, right? Like, it's— you're facing your past, you're facing your fears, you're facing traumas and things that you might have pushed down for a very long period of time. And, uh, that's a hard thing to do. And you, like, you have to be diligent and you have to be conscious of and think about how you can motivate yourself through this. And this is just, these are just ways that I learned for myself and from working with clients that were able to help with the motivation. Because to achieve any goal, like I've said, you need to have the goal, right? You need to set the goal, but then you also need to see yourself progressing towards that goal. And there's been actually quite a few different psychological studies that like, that's when humans are actually at their peak fulfillment. Uh, is when they have a goal and they're working towards that goal and they can see progress towards that goal. So not only will it help you stay motivated by acknowledging the progress that you're making, it will make you feel more fulfilled, more proud of yourself, which again will feed back around and make you feel more motivated to want to go and keep achieving towards and striving towards full recovery. So make sure to appreciate the progress that you're making. To become aware of it, and you will achieve the long-term goal of full recovery. So I hope you enjoyed. Hope you enjoyed this session with Brad Schipke on the tangible versus intangible progress that can be made in recovery. If you did, make sure to comment below and let me know. If you didn't, make sure to comment below and let me know. Either way, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and, uh, I will see you in the next one. Thank you.