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Schawn Austin | Healing History Counseling

Inspiration Corner December

December 24, 2017 by Schawn Austin Leave a Comment

When a person grows up in difficult, awful, or horrendous conditions they do what must be done to get through. Later, when looking (through adult eyes) back at those childhood choices it is easy to judge them harshly. People often forget that it was not their adult selves who made those choices but a young child who was doing their best. Sometimes it is helpful to notice how childish a child's thinking truly is and gain perspective on their ability to make adult choices. Forgiveness of one's self is an important part of healing one's past.

When a person grows up in difficult, awful, or horrendous conditions they do what must be done to get through. Later, when looking (through adult eyes) back at those childhood choices it is easy to judge them harshly. People often forget that it was not their adult selves who made those choices but a young child who was doing their best. Sometimes it is helpful to notice how childish a child's thinking truly is and gain perspective on their ability to make adult choices. Forgiveness of one's self is an important part of healing one's past.

The holiday season is in full swing and so is family conflict and unobtainable expectations. If you find yourself struggling with your family and being disappointed it is often useful to step back and reevaluate your expectations. If your family gatherings are always difficult and disappointing it is better to own this and make plans to manage the foreseeable challenges.Until we come to love ourselves we will struggle in relationships. A belief in our unlovableness will cause us to undermine and push away any love that is given to us. The cause of a lack of self-love is often rooted in our childhoods. Parent's who ignored, hurt or hated their children can create a belief in their children that they are unlovable. As a child we NEED love and acceptance and when it is denied us we think it is because something is wrong with us. This starts the belief system that can lead to an inability to accept love as an adult.

I hope this coming holiday week is better than you expect.

The holidays are here and so is the extended family. If visiting family, or having family visit is a challenge please remember to take time to take care of yourself. Take five minutes alone in the back yard, walk around the block, seek solitude in the bathroom. In those quiet moments focus on something other than how wrong it is going. Look at puppies or kittens on the phone. Think about something you do that you love doing, walk yourself through a detailed remembering of doing it. Breath in warm healing and breath out upset. Once you are ready, return to the fray. I hope you holiday is better than you hope.

It is not always how our family behaves that causes us pain. It can also be our expectations of them. If our family has never supported us as we needed them to, our continued hope that they will is actually what is causing us pain now. But it can be really hard to let go of those old hurts and harm. Healing your history can help you let go of those unobtainable expectations and hopes. Healing your history will not make your family any less harmful or toxic than they've always been, but it can help you not cause yourself extra pain through your own misconceptions.

The holiday may not have gone perfect, or even particularly well. Take a moment and celebrate that you made it through another family gathering!When struggling with PTSD or complex PTSD a major part is trying to stop or at least avoid flashbacks. An individual changes their life to avoid those things that trigger a flashback. Again and again they limit their lives to try to avoid those awful memories. This can lead to extremely isolated lives that are depressing and upsetting. Without a doubt flashbacks are horrible. But a life constrained and and on edge is not the only other option. That history can be healed and those flashbacks can be resolved.

The holidays often mean spending lots of time with our extended family. Spending time with distant relatives can bring up feeling that we don't have to deal with most of the time. For some being with family can be mildly unsettling, for others it can be very upsetting. If your family brings up upsetting feelings or memories it may be useful to consider talking with a therapist to heal the pain that is still attached to those memories.

When you have had your trust in people broken at a young age it can be super challenging to trust people as an adult. It can feel like closing everyone out is the safer choice. Here's the thing, people don't have to be let in to hurt you; but they do have to be let in for you to get comfort and love from them. When you have been abused or traumatized as a child it can also be very difficult to know how to choose who to let in and how to build a healthy relationship. Healing the pain of your childhood abuse is an important first step to learning to know who to let in.

It can be really annoying to have people say that a person who has survived childhood trauma is stronger or better because of it. At times it can be tempting, while struggling in the mud of dealing with childhood trauma, to just slap those people (I'm not advocating that you do). But at the same time it will never not be there. The pain, the destruction, the drama that you are experiencing right now because of it can go away but the fact that you endured it then will never go away. You can heal your past. What happened to you does not have to be the architect of your future.

Yes it is great being strong and resilient but really is it necessary to keep showing off my mad skills.

A race doesn't become easier, just because you won. A weight doesn't become lighter. just because you lifted it. But for some reason people will tell someone that the fact that they survived their childhoods is proof that their childhoods were not THAT bad. Or they'll say that you seem fine, so it couldn't have been THAT bad. Both of these statements are ridiculous. These statements have nothing to do with how BAD your childhood was. These statements are about people being uncomfortable and unwilling to engage. Many people are overwhelmed by stories of trauma and abuse. If you have a trauma history you need to heal it is vital that you find a therapist who will not flinch or pull away when you share your painful history.

Emotional, physical or sexual abuse and neglect of a child can leave wounds deeper than skin and bone. They can leave wounds on our soul and in our heart. But that abuse and that neglect can take neither our heart nor our soul. Those we get to keep, battered though they may be. Those we get to nurse back with love and care. Even years later we can choose to heal those wounds. It is never to late to heal those wounds. Childhood wounds can become scars. Scars are proof of healing. We point at scars and say "When that happened, it really hurt. It was horrible, but now it is just a reminder of pain healed".

We are not taught the value of taking care of ourselves. Often if we are taught to take care of ourselves it is only so we can recharge our batteries and return to taking care of others. Taking care of other people is a good thing to do and that work does drain our resources... Thus recharging ourselves is an important part of taking care of others. But that is not the only reason we should practice self care. We should practice self care because we are worth it. We should practice self care because we are valuable unto ourselves and we deserve to be taken care of, particularly by our own selves. People with histories of childhood trauma or abuse often expend a great deal of energy taking care of others - If the abusive individuals needs are met the abused may stay safe. At the same time that abused child is being taught that they are unworthy of love and care. From those lessons grows an adult who doesn't practice self care, doesn't believe they are worthy of self-care and who expends a great deal of energy taking care of others (and eventually resenting it).

Inspiration Corner November
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