Trusting Yourself Again After Trauma - Coaching Session

All right, my friend, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Good, Connor. How are you?

Good, man. Good. How are you feeling coming into this conversation knowing that we're going to dig in a little bit? You ready?

Yeah, I'm excited.

Good.

Kind of. Good.

Yeah. Excited. I know usually guys are like, I'm really excited. And then by the end, they're like, holy crap. Yeah. Not to, not to like pressurize your system or anything. I'm just messing around. Tell me a little bit about what you are here to work with. What you want to address, what you want to try and make sense of, confront, resolve, and whichever one of those feels the most aligned for you.

Yeah, I'm, um, my primary focus is, um, addressing sort of uncertainty and getting comfortable with, with not knowing what's going to happen or the outcome of of situations and in particular a relationship that I've recently started.

Okay, so give me a little bit of context. So you have a new relationship and before we were, you know, we hit record and jumped on, you said that you were married for 10 years or you were together for 10 years and married together for 10, married for 5.

We separated about a year and a half ago and I've been seeing someone for, for 8 months now, and, um, it's my first serious kind of relationship after my, my long, uh, my, my marriage. And, um, it's going— things are going great. Like, um, there's not that I can think of anything wrong with, um, with her or the relationship. It's just my own kind of internal monologue surrounding it and the little bit of doubt that's still lingering. And, um, yeah.

Well, tell me about just the Cliff Notes or the Coles Notes of the divorce. What happened there?

Um, we had— there was no, uh, infidelity or anything. It was the— we had grown apart. We had been growing apart for some time, and I had gone through some mental health struggles in terms of anxiety and depression, and it was one of the— in hindsight, it was one of the reasons it definitely put a strain on the relationship. And I don't think we addressed it or approached it in the right way. But there were also other things, like the last 2-3 years of the relationship, it was we were basically roommates, not, you know, a married couple.

Tell me a little bit more about some of the struggles that you were going through.

Um, I had, um, it started when, um, so I had started having panic attacks when I was a teenager, and, um, they put me on medication immediately. Without any therapy or anything. And I had been on that medication for 15 years or so and decided to try and, you know, go without it. I did it under my doctor's supervision and it didn't go well and it sent me into a real spiral. And through trying to get back on track, I had a self-harm incident And from there, started seeking counseling, spent some time in the hospital as part of a group, group therapy program. And yeah, it was just an ongoing thing that I was struggling with.

I appreciate you opening up and digging in with me. A couple of things. One, You've probably heard me say this before, but I'll reinforce it with you now, which is that nothing, nothing that you have to bring or talk about is going to be too much for me. Okay. Nothing in terms of your, your past, what you're dealing with now, the intensity of your emotions or any of that. Okay. I just want to reinforce that because I think oftentimes when guys have gone through challenges and struggles, sometimes there's a question mark of like, You know, will this practitioner be able to support me and, you know, deal with what I'm dealing with? That's a very common thing for a lot of men. I'm not saying that that's what's happening inside of you or that there's a question there. For a lot of guys, the question is, you know, this is intense and what I'm dealing with is intense. And I don't know if anybody can deal with that intensity. Do you And you don't have— we don't have to dig too deep into this, but in hindsight, do you have a sense of what was bringing on those panic attacks in your teenage years?

I'm not sure. It was a particular event where I had been camping with friends and I smoked marijuana. For the first time, and that triggered the panic attacks. Like, I didn't, I didn't know there were panic attacks back in the day. I just know I didn't feel good, you know, when you're a teenager. And this would have been, you know, you know, before we talked about panic attacks and anxiety and depression. Like, I didn't know that was happening. But Looking back at it, that's what it was.

And it was your— it was your first time smoking weed?

I don't think it was the first time, but it was the first time smoking it in excess.

Aha.

Okay.

Yeah. I was going to say, what a— what a rough ride. Like, weed really?

Yeah.

You're like, weed is not for me.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Have— have you— have you smoked at all since then? Have you engaged in— in weed at all since then, or has that been something that you've kind of exiled? Like, what's that been? Been like for you?

I don't anymore. I had like here and there socially, but never regularly or, or on a consistent basis. Like when it became the, the year became legal up here in Canada, we would just, you know, for fun, just to say we did it, you know. Yeah, other than that, nothing really.

Fair. Okay. I'm going down this path for a reason because, you know, kind of what you were talking about before is that the relationship is objectively going great, the new relationship that you're in, and that the struggles that are kind of happening are more internally. Is that— did I read that right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going down this path for a reason. We'll come back to that. I promise we'll come back to Okay. What did you learn about— what did you learn about or what do you know about now in terms of what you went through and what happened to you in that, in that moment with, with the weed and what you experienced?

Looking back, I think like a different course of action could have been taken, you know, like therapy, counseling, and just a better understanding of what was going on inside of me.

Have, have people worked with you to explore and kind of lay out what you went through and what happened inside of you?

Um, not me and my therapist have talked about the incident and the event and Connor Beaton doing some— did some exposure, reliving that, but not if you mean like cognitively or like biologically why that happened. No.

All right, guys, really quick aside. First off, thank you so much for tuning in to the show and to the channel. If you are wanting to go deeper, if you're a man that's working on himself in some way, shape, or form, you're wanting to be more self-led, you want to trust yourself more, you want to have a deeper level of self-worth, or maybe you're looking to improve your relationship, then I encourage you to check out the Man Talks Alliance. You can go to mantalks.com/alliance. We have over 1,000 men in this incredible community from around the world, men who are just like you, working to better themselves, to be a better husband, a better father, a better leader in your own life. So check it out, mantalks.com/alliance. Yeah, I mean, more like, did you— so you had that happen, and then tell me a little bit about what was going on inside of you after, because I'm trying to— here, here's what I'm, I'm just going to tell you straight up where I'm going, okay, so that we're on the same page. What I'm really trying to assess and wanting to get clear on is, is there any correlation between what you experienced and what you're going through now, because what you're describing could be considered a form of PTSD. I've worked with a lot of guys who have had, whether it's marijuana or psychedelics, they have a pretty bad trip and they experience some form of psychosis. They experience some form of derealization or depersonalization. And usually have— they can have symptoms of like very real PTSD that happen. And those things can go away for a long period of time, or we can, you know, whether it's medication or treatment or what have you, and then different situations can start to bring certain parts of those back up. So, I'm wanting to assess whether there's connection between the two of those things, just so we're—

Yeah, um, after, um, it was only years ago that I had learned what derealization was, and it sounds exactly what I was going through back then. Yeah, this feeling of my surroundings aren't real, I'm not real. That's what that was the kind of primary symptom. How old were you? 15.

Oh, that's, that's rough, man. That's really rough, dude. Yeah. How were your parents? How was the support that you got?

My mom was my primary support at that time, and she Um, she was my primary caretaker at that time. Um, took me to the hospital, you know, arranged everything, looked after me, and, uh, helped me get through that. Um, yeah.

Say what's happening inside of you right now. Take another breath.

I'm feeling some emotions of sadness because my mom took her own life when I was 18 years old. And thinking of her looking after me is, is bringing up some, some sadness.

And yeah, just stay with it for a moment. That's, that's pretty big, man. That's a, that's a lot to have happen in the span of a few years as a teenager. So take—

yeah, that's—

take another breath for me. Take a big breath for me and just say what you're sad about.

I'm sad that she looked after me and helped me through my period of, uh, hardship, and, um, I wasn't able to do the same for her. And just wishing I could I could thank her.

Did you know that she was struggling?

Um, I had known that she took medication, and, and I had only ever heard, um, it referred to as, oh, she has a chemical imbalance. And that's pretty much all I knew about it. But then, yeah, like a year before she passed, I knew she was unwell, but again, didn't know what was happening.

Or, um, yeah. Okay, so One more breath for me. And now tell me about some of the internal thoughts and some of the challenges that you've been experiencing in the current relationship. What's, what's been coming up?

Um, it's most— there's a lot of, um, mainly just ruminating on different things. Um, you know, um, it feels like my subconscious is looking for problems or looking for reasons to end things or constantly asking myself questions like, am I ready for this again? Or is this right for me? And the rumination really takes hold and just kind of It ruminates, you know, it goes and goes, you know.

Yeah. Is that something that you experienced in the marriage, or is that more so a new, a new phenomena in this relationship?

I did experience it, um, in my relationship, but that— I feel like that was, um, It's hard to compare the two relationships, obviously from different people, but near the end, yeah, I was ruminating on those quite a bit, and I realized that it was because I wasn't getting things I needed or wanted, and I never expressed those things. For example, there was no intimacy in my marriage, and I would constantly ruminate on being with other people or seeing someone else or to get the intimacy that I, that I wanted. And It's hard to compare it with this relationship because I'm, I'm getting that, like, we, you know, and I can't think of anything that I need from her that I don't— I'm not getting.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Where were you? Just out of curiosity, where was your dad in the picture growing up when everything was going on?

So he, he was around a lot as I was a kid. He worked a lot, though. He would have been the breadwinner, I guess. And so he was around. And then in my later teens, he had moved to Alberta to go to work and he made some poor decisions and got caught up in the lifestyle of that Alberta life, you know, work and spend your money and drink and do whatever. And he left and went to Alberta was gone for quite some time. And that was really the catalyst of what sent my mom into her period of, you know, her dad, that was the downturn, right? Was my dad being gone and yeah.

Hmm, okay. So take another breath in for me. And out. And if you're comfortable with it, just close the eyes for a moment. We won't stay here for too long yet. And just take another breath and say what's been happening inside of you as we've been talking about all these different pieces.

I've been, um, I feel as though I'd I've felt pretty calm as we've been talking. Some sadness coming up talking about those events and my mom and, you know, those years of my life. And that's about it. Yeah.

Just see if you can make contact with her for a moment, with Mom. So let yourself visualize her, see her, and just connect to her in some way, and let yourself be affected by Just let yourself be affected. The presence again, just like to be around her, visualize her, and just make a statement to her as if she was on the call with us or in the room with you.

Sorry, Connor, your, uh, your mic is, is a little distorted, cutting in and out.

I will try. We'll try again.

Yep.

Just— all right, is that working now?

Yep, clear.

So just make a statement to her as if she's on the call with us or in the room with you.

I'm sorry.

Um. Sorry for—

I'm sorry you had to go through that. And after being through it myself, I, I can see how hard that was for you, and I can't blame you for making the choice you did.

Another breath. Good, good job. Tell her what it was like after she left for you.

For me, it was really strange after you had passed. It didn't feel real. It didn't feel like as though it really happened. And We all tried to move on and that's what we did as a family, me and Chris and Dad.

Say what you missed after she— Lacked? Or did you miss?

Just miss her presence, her support.

Tell her that. I miss— I miss your presence.

I miss your presence and your support and your love for me. I miss making you proud.

What would she be proud of right now?

She'd be proud that I went to school and, and got a good job, and that I was you know, that I had met someone and got married and built a good life for myself.

So just see if you can say that again, but directly to her.

I, I want you to know, yeah, I want you to know, Mom, that I, I'm doing okay. I went to school and I got a job and I moved to Ontario. You probably wouldn't like that, but it was because I had met someone and I married her and we had, we had built a good life together.

Take another breath. You're doing great, buddy. Doing great. A lot of energy there, a lot of charge, a lot of grief. What else do you want her to know?

I want her to know that— I want you to know that my sister is doing wonderful and my dad is doing good, because I know you loved us so much and all you wanted for us is best were to be, to be happy and grow up with the values you taught us.

Just keep letting yourself be affected by what you're saying. You're doing great. Just keep letting the grief come up. What do you want to thank her for that you didn't get to thank her for?

Thank you for raising me, taking care of me, coming to watch all my hockey games, being my biggest fan.

Yeah, I miss having my biggest fan around.

And I want to thank you for helping me get through that period of my life and making sure I was okay and Another deep breath.

You're doing great. So I'm just gonna make a statement, Josh, and you notice how it lands for you, okay? If it feels true, then you can say it to Mom. If it doesn't feel true, okay. My guess is that, you know, in some ways you made it through a very similar thing to what your mom went through.

Yes.

And I think it seems like there's a part of you that really wants to be able to communicate that. Like, Mom, I made it through. I made it through what you went through.

Yeah, I made it through what you made it through, and I wish that you could have had the kind of support I did and I continue to have. You had your loved ones, but you didn't— the system failed you.

Yeah, I'm sorry that you didn't have somebody to hold you the way you held me. Take your time with it. It's okay. Take another breath. You're doing great. I know this is big.

You didn't have anyone to hold you the way you held me. You had people, but They only could do their best with what they knew.

Have you been blaming yourself in some way? You've been upset with yourself for not being able to support her or not supporting her in a different way than you did?

Yeah, I feel as though if I had called her.

So tell her that. Tell her that I've been blaming myself.

I'm— I've been blaming myself, Mom, that I, I moved into the city to go to school and, and left you behind, and I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what was wrong, but I had— I was hoping that it was all going to work itself out and you were going to be okay. And I regret not calling you. I didn't— I can't remember the last time I spoke to you before you passed because I was scared and confused and I didn't know what was going on. But I blame myself for not doing it, because maybe if I had to call or show you that I love you, or maybe you wouldn't have made the choice you did.

Took another breath and just let her reply back. What would she say to you if she was in the room with you? If she was on the call with us, what would she say back?

She would say that it's okay and there was nothing I could have done, and that she didn't She didn't want me to call. She didn't want me to see her because she didn't want me to see her like that. She wanted to— she was protecting me.

Yeah, it's not your fault. So just see if you can let that in a little bit, buddy. Just see if you can let that take some space up inside of you. Your mom sounded like a great mom, and no great moms want their sons to carry around that type of weight of blame or shame. So you see if you can let that take up a little bit of space inside your heart, your chest, and just say what's happening. Say what that's like.

I can, I can feel it. Coming in a little bit when I think of her talking to me and saying that it's not my fault.

And you didn't do anything wrong. You're still a kid, you know. You're still 18, and it's okay for— it's okay for you to have wanted to call her. That's totally okay. We don't need to negate that, but I'm pretty sure your mom would want you to forgive yourself. Is that true?

Yeah, she would want me to be. I mean, like most parents, they just want their kids to be happy, and, and she wouldn't want me to feel that way and not be happy.

Yeah, and it's okay that you do. It's not about rejecting how you're feeling. It's about making space for forgiveness. So take another breath for me. And now you've been through a lot, man. You've been through a lot, buddy. You have a resilient heart, my friend. A resilient soul, resilient heart, mind. And I can hear the pressure that you've been putting on yourself in this relationship, and I just want to acknowledge you because what you've been through is a lot. That's a lot to go through as a young man.

I've thought recently that it's— it feels like I've already led multiple lives through my 34 years already. Yeah, with all these different events, you know. Yeah, because each one is a sort of a new chapter and— or even a new book.

Yeah, well, you have in some ways. You know, you have in some ways. And it's a tough thing for a 15-year-old kid to go through, to have to question so much of his reality. And then for an 18-year-old to go through, to have his reality shaken so deeply, you know, really ruptured so deeply. And the reason why— do you want to say anything before I go into a piece here?

No, go ahead.

The reason why I walked you through that experience is because there's kind of two ruptures that I heard you talking about when we started this conversation. And the one is a, a deeper rupture internally within you that's questioning, can I trust myself? Can I trust myself to make the right choice? Can I trust myself to be okay? Like, am I okay? And can I trust that I'm okay? And can I trust that I'm not only making the right decision, but can I trust that I'm not going to harm this person? Does that feel true, or how would you alter that to feel more true?

Um, what you said about making the right decision is, uh, very on the nose. Um, I'm, um, Yeah, just wondering what the right decision is and putting a lot of pressure on knowing.

Mm-hmm. In terms of when you say wanting to know what the right decision is, are you talking specifically about whether or not it's okay for you to be in the relationship, whether or not, like, moving in together? Like, what decision specifically?

Um, the decision to continue it and, and see where it goes.

And what makes you question that? Or maybe I should put it another way. How is what we've just been exploring connected to that question? How is everything that we've just been exploring connected to the question of, am I making the right decision to continue to explore this relationship?

It's that my, my choice will, will affect others.

Yeah. And notice the, the, you know, the work that we just kind of snuck into there, the little piece of work that we just did. There's sort of two, you know, there's kind of two big ruptures with your own decision, right? One is I smoked a whole bunch of weed and it messed me up. And I, you know, spent years trying to deal with that. And the second was, I don't know if I made the right decision in terms of, you know, I should have called my mom. And so those are two big inflection points with your decision. And it sounds like when you feel as though you have to make a big choice, that trauma from both of those experiences creeps back up. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, and I think it's, um, those are the big, like, the big inflection points, like you said. But, um, it's also the, um, decision, other decisions I've made that, you know, um, you know, getting married, and that didn't— that ended, and Right.

Well, here's the— here's the weird thing about the human psyche and the human experience. When we have— we need something called disconfirming events. Okay. And I'm going to explain something else and I'll come back to this. When what we know, when we experience things that harm us or hurt others, and we make decisions that in hindsight, it's like, I wish I had made a different choice. And we all have those. Every single human being has a different version of this. I wish I hadn't made that choice. That in some ways is what causes us to learn, right, through experience. But in other ways, we start to undermine and question our own decisions. And depending on the severity of what we experienced, which, you know, the experience you had at 15, stuff with mom, those are big, right? Those aren't small ones. So I don't think that we should pretend that they're not because it really— you really questioned yourself, like, shit, should I have been— should I have called mom? Would that have done something? Would that have made a difference? So at the very least, I would have, you know, I would have felt better about something. Right. And so we don't want to diminish this. We want to be real about them and honest about them. But when that happens, it, it kind of ruptures our trust with our own decision-making process to the point where what we're used to, the normal state that we're used to, what we expect is for us to make decisions that aren't good, at least around the big ones. So we have this kind of cognitive confirmation bias of, oh, because these big things happened in the past and that imprinted itself on me, now when I have big decisions, I kind of have a confirmation bias. I'm going to make the wrong one. Right. And then what do we do? We start to ruminate. We start to fixate. Am I making the right choice? Look, let me look for all of the evidence possible to try and see if I'm making the right decision. Even though when I've heard you talk about it very clearly, you are making a good choice. You know, I think anyone listening to this is like, oh yeah, he's making a good choice exploring this relationship. You're like, the relationship's great. I love this person. I really love the relationship. But here's the rub, that is foreign. And that's what feels unnerving. This is what happens when we have some type of trauma or, you know, a negative bias or a negative outcome that's happened in the past is that that can carry itself forward and it becomes the normalcy that our brain looks for. Okay, and so the unfamiliar seems like a threat. So the ease, the goodness in the relationship, things unfolding, you making a good decision, that all feels foreign. And that's going to cause your, your mind to start to ruminate because it feels good. And so what feels safe is I'm making a wrong choice, I'm making a bad choice, I need to question my choice. What feels unsafe is I'm making a good choice and this is right for me.

Right.

Does that make sense?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

So part of what we need to do and part of what you need to do is gather more disconfirming evidence to disprove the story that you can't make good choices. And you're doing that. I would argue that you are in the process in this relationship of gathering some pretty solid evidence that you can trust yourself, that you can make the right choice, and that you can make decisions that are good for you, healthy for you, and positive for you. And that's something that I think you're going to need to continue to let in? Okay. Because what you're used to is— I bet if I followed you around for the last 10 years and I had a, you know, I had like a little computer wired up to your mind, I bet that almost most of the decisions that you make, almost all of them, you question them. And you're a constant decision-making, choice-making questioner.

Yeah.

Right? Is that right? Or am I Yeah.

And it's also a— also there's another part of that where you don't make a decision.

Okay. Where I don't make a decision.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So here's what I want you to practice. Okay. One, I want you— do you have a pen and paper with you or something to write down?

Yes.

So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to evidence gather once a day about the good choices that you've made. This was a great decision. Eating that was a great choice. I'm really glad that I chose to do X, Y, and Z. I'm really glad that I chose to watch this movie, have this conversation with my significant other. I want you to start to evidence gather for the good decisions that you are making.

Okay.

The second thing I want you to do is start to allow yourself to feel and embody what it's like to trust your choices. That is not something that's going to come intellectually. This— the first part will help because you're going to gather evidence. The second part, though, is that you, you get to start to breathe and relax into No, I'm making the right choice. No, this is the right decision. And the big motto I want you to have for yourself is it's safe to trust myself. It's safe to trust myself. I am becoming a man who's safe to trust himself. That's who I am. All right. We're going to pause there. I think it might be good to do a round 2 at some point with you. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me, my friend. Friend.

Yeah, thank you, Connor. Appreciate it.

You got it.