The Trouble With Your Trauma (Letting Go Of Limitations)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Freewell podcast.

Today I am here to talk about your trauma drama.

I'm really excited for this episode.

This is something that I've been planning on talking about for a while and I was kind of waiting for the right moment but yeah let's just dive right in.

There's so much I have to say about trauma.

I mean so so much.

Welcome to the new personal development buzzword.

We just jump from one thing to another with not a care in the world.

So before we were like all about like narcissists and gaslighting and I did an episode about that too.

Two other things that I think are total bullshit and now we're all obsessed with trauma.

We are obsessed with our own trauma,

We are obsessed with other people's trauma,

We are obsessed with diagnosing people's trauma.

It's too much.

It's too much and I think this whole thing is just hilarious to be honest with you.

I really really do.

So let's start off with like I think what is obvious already but I don't necessarily believe that we all have trauma.

I think maybe on a micro level we might but I really think that we need to play around with this idea of like what if we actually don't have any trauma.

Like what if some of us have lived very privileged lives and I'm not saying that nothing bad has ever happened but if I look over like the landscape of my life which I you know invite you guys to do pretty much every episode of the podcast.

If I look back over the entire the entirety of my existence okay and I think about some really bad things that have happened to me and maybe I'm especially privileged and I don't think this is just because I'm white.

I think that this is like there's there's more to it than that.

I think I've been very lucky in life but I have really never lost anybody.

I think the worst thing that happened to me when I was younger was my parents got divorced and I don't remember it being that traumatic because they were fighting all the time and like them breaking up just was better for our family in general so I don't see that necessarily as a negative.

I had some issues with my mom after the divorce and then like but even that shifted over time and like I'm obviously looking at it looking back at it with the eyes of today and the knowledge and the information that I have today so there could be like a certain amount of like rose-colored glasses because hindsight is 20-20 right but still I don't think that any of this qualifies as trauma.

Then moving into my adult life I mean I was a little bit bullied in high school but big deal and then when I went to university that was where like the shit really hit the fan for me.

So I had really abusive friends and I was in an abusive relationship and that is probably about as close as it gets to trauma for me but then even when I unpack this and it's not now I have always felt this way when I was in when I was at university I was in an abusive relationship and it is my profound belief that this person is not an abusive person but that our relationship was so dysfunctional that we were abusive within the container of the relationship.

This person is happily married and has like I don't know how many children now like and I mean obviously happily married within within the reason I don't live in his house I don't know what goes on but I don't believe for a second that this person is abusive now or even immediately thereafter our relationship.

I think that he was abusive within the confines of our relationship and I think I was abusive in certain ways as well because our relationship was so incredibly incredibly dysfunctional and I think that even that influences so like that's the by far the hardest thing that has ever happened to me was going to university and being in all of these really really really dysfunctional relationships.

My friends were treating me like absolute garbage I had really little to no support and I had no tools really none that was the start of my personal development journey because I didn't I knew that I felt like shit I was in therapy at the time I knew that I didn't want to get on any kind of medication but I was also not functioning like a normal person and so I decided to like kind of take up arms and go go this on my own and I knew that I wanted to find a way to do things on my own I wanted to get better on my own and so I started really diving into personal development and all of this was in 2008 and like since then other kind of sure crappy things have happened and I would not classify any of them as trauma and it seems like today when somebody breaks a nail it's trauma it's just so exaggerated and it's the same discussion that I had on the podcast about narcissists and gaslighting not everybody in your life is a narcissist it's not statistically possible and also who are we with no training and no no skills and no knowledge of what any of these words actually mean who are we to like diagnose somebody or to go around saying like oh he or she is such a narcissist or like even to be talking about people's trauma I just think it's a joke and we use these tools to put people even further in boxes and I think that we use them and we abuse them frankly in a way to make ourselves feel more powerful more in control and to make sense of our world and that would be fine if we were making sense of our world but oftentimes we're using these these words these definitions to label and control other people and other people's experiences and that is like just a wow gray light gray area kind of line in the sand dance there that we need to be really mindful of because we can only ever own our own shit and take care of our side of the street right so yeah like I mean it's I just think it's really interesting that we're in this moment now where everyone has trauma and yet we're not talking about the things that like I don't remember when I recorded the podcast about narcissism but I feel like it was in the fall of 2022 so we're not talking about a long time ago but now we're not talking about those things anymore it's like they're just they're done we've moved on to the next fad of what's wrong with people and how we're going to like diagnose and judge and and describe and label people and now it's trauma and like I think that this should give you a really big indication of how the collective focus impacts our internal focus and impacts our our internal experience to a certain extent and then also the way that we perceive ourselves and our lives right so because these conversations are happening outside of us we are talking the collective is kind of talking about trauma now we're focusing on our trauma and other people's trauma and when they were talking about gaslighting or talking about narcissism we were focusing on that and in six months or three months or whatever it is there's going to be something new there's going to be some new trend some new fad that we all start talking about for whatever reason and so that kind of I think lends or sheds light on the fact that all of these things are kind of bullshit in the sense that do narcissists actually exist does trauma actually exist yes gaslighting whatever I'm gonna you decide you decide whether or not that exists for you or not I am not of the mind that it's anything really particularly relevant to be honest with you but but fine whatever floats your boat so like let's play around with this idea for a second then if all of these things are constructs that are created by the collective and the collective focus and perception of them influences our internal perception of them and our internal state what if you don't actually have any trauma what if you don't just play around with that for a second you can agree or disagree but sit with that for a second and kind of look over what you are currently categorizing as trauma because if I look at my life like I've said already I feel like I'm very very privileged I'm very privileged for like actual like reasons that we see talked about often right now in the media I'm privileged because I'm white but I think I have just been very lucky in life in general and I'm very very very grateful for that I do not take it lightly I do not take it for granted and and I want to I want to say this like about about privilege because I think that the trauma that I have if you can even call it trauma is really not the same trauma that people from minority groups experience or the trauma that somebody who comes from you know who has experienced racism okay or somebody who has come from an actually abusive relationship like there are people who have experienced actual hardship and it seems like a massive disservice to them to call the small things I've been through trauma that just doesn't seem right to me and this is not about putting various traumas on a pedestal like your trauma is better than mine it's bigger than mine it's whatever it's not about that at all because that really really creates a lot of discomfort and it creates a hierarchy that is unnecessary in a system that already exists within a hierarchy or is built upon a hierarchy right we don't want to create more barriers to equality so it's not about like your trauma is better or bigger than mine but it's about actually understanding what qualifies as trauma and I don't think my parents getting divorced or my boyfriend or friends being mildly abusive or whatever qualifies as trauma it might be the the closest thing that my life comes to in terms of trauma but that doesn't actually mean that it is trauma the pain that I experienced while intense in the moment certainly and something that has shaped absolutely and altered the course of my life 100% I don't feel like that is equivalent to the pain of somebody who has actually been physically or sexually abused or as somebody who has experienced racism or as anybody who lives in any kind of minority system right anyone who identifies as a minority like we're not talking about the same thing and so I think that when the when the personal development industry when the coaching industry or the therapy or whatever industry you want to say begins to focus on these things and they make it almost like for the masses like oh now everyone has trauma it really devalues the experience of the people who are actually out there dealing with real shit like who are actually out there working through the pain and the hurt that they have gone through we do them a massive disservice on their journey by trying to equate what we're going through on a micro level with what they're going through I just think that that's not I for me that seems really unjust to be honest with you but I think there's more even more to it than that when we obsess about something when the collective focus is so strong on something we ultimately give it power so the more that we are all sitting here talking about trauma reading about trauma discussing trauma blah blah blah blah blah the more that we give it power and like we've seen this and I'm not going to bring it up necessarily I'm just going to drop this here we have seen what happens when the collective focuses very intently on something over the last like three years we have lived through what mass collective focus has the power to create in the world and it is not necessarily positive because the focus was on something negative obviously if we are all collectively focusing on something positive it would be phenomenal we could move mountains we could do so many incredible things but we're not we are focusing almost exclusively on the negative as a collective whether that be through the economy or politics or whatever we are we are typically talking about what's wrong and when we are listening to politicians or people in power talking about the state of things they are often talking about what's wrong they are not talking about what's possible they are not coming up or offering solutions they are talking about what's not working over and over and over again that's the job of the media it's fear it's a little bit of fear-mongering obviously we we hear this and so what I really don't like is that now we have the same structure showing up in an industry that is meant to help us feel better what the hell like that doesn't actually make any sense that we are all sitting here giving away our power talking about trauma one of my clients was reading a book and she was telling me about um she was telling me about it and it's all about how like trauma is intergenerational and you actually inherit the trauma from your grandmother because your mother was in the womb and so you're her she already had like she was an ovum obviously within her grandma within your grandmother and then you were an ovum within within your mother and so through the female line we tend to pass on trauma and I thought that is simultaneously a very interesting concept and a very disempowering one and the more that we buy into these things the more we give our power away the more we focus on them the more we invite problems into our lives this is not about being Pauliana I'm not asking you to pretend that you don't feel good like or that you don't feel bad like whatever you feel is valid and you need absolutely to be there you need to sit in that space and own whatever is coming up for you in order to move through it it's number one like it's one of the basic techniques for for moving forward both in therapy and in coaching so this is not about pretending or negating that something has happened or that something has made you feel a certain way right if you have an experience and that experience causes a negative emotion valid absolutely whatever you feel is valid including if you want to categorize it as trauma that's valid too because you are a sovereign being and you get to decide what you do you get to decide how you categorize and live your life what I'm asking here is why would you want to why would you want to categorize the things that happen in your life as trauma when you don't have to when you don't have to give it that that big name that big label we don't have to blow things out of proportion we can feel badly about something and move through it without creating this like massive story about oh I was abused and oh I was this and always that because like I could ride this train forever guys then if that's the case I could go back to 2008 and I could say oh my friends abused me and so life is so hard and no one will ever love me and I'll never make friends again and everybody always hates me and blah blah blah blah blah and it's not like I don't still come up against those things let's be very clear because there are times where in my present situation likely connected to this experience and then other experiences that I've had in high school and so on and so forth there are moments where I'm like damn like why do these situations keep repeating in my relationships with friends for example that's a big one for me and I I try to like work through it like why do I have these kinds of run-ins with this energy and why do I feel like people maybe won't like me but that still does not make the situation trauma it doesn't have to at least it only is if I decide it is if I put my energy and my focus and my attention there and that's exactly what we're doing collectively and it is a fucking waste of time it is a colossal waste of time something that I talked a lot about with clients um and especially recently I had a community session and I haven't really talked about this on the podcast but community sessions are like one-off sessions that are specifically designed for people who are like in like maybe a low-income situation or a low income period of time or they don't have like the resources whether that be mental energetic or financial to invest in a coaching series so you can just do like a one-off call it's 75 minutes and we will focus on one area of your life so I recently had one of those with um with a client and one of the things that we talked about is that sometimes not always it really depends on you and your individual situation but sometimes there is little to no value in figuring out why something is the way it is okay and it's really hard to give an example but I'm trying to think from like my own life um if I can come up with something but no I don't have something and like obviously for client client uh coach client confidentiality client patient whatever confidentiality I can't tell you what um what we were talking about but sometimes there is little to no value in trying to understand why things are a certain way or why things are the way they are sometimes it is literally more valuable to try to understand where you want to be and to begin taking action towards moving there because if we keep we can continue asking ourselves why literally until the cows come home and there will always be another reason like this is a like something that I do often with clients is getting them to ask why to get to the root of like what is actually holding them back because we might start with a surface level problem and asking why allows you to get deeper but if you are stuck in the asking and you are not taking action to to move to another place right to bring up that momentum and that motion to get you into another like energetic mental emotional spiritual place then it really doesn't make any difference all you're doing is holding yourself back and I would say that this is very much the same we're we're talking about something very on a similar wavelength at the very least so us talking about trauma and focusing on trauma all the time is only keeping us in the energy of trauma it is not ultimately getting us where we want to go and if you're going to continue focusing on it repeatedly you're just going to invite more of that energy into your life and like honestly why would you want that do you want that like is that something that is that seems valuable or helpful to you or is it maybe time to like let the stories go and move forward easier said than done absolutely sure like I'm making it sound like just just drop it and go on it's I know it's not that simple it's not about that but it is about the choice to no longer view and label and discuss your life in these terms it's huge it's the same thing as the episode prior nothing ever works out for me or everything works out for me the difference is but a choice like not necessarily an easy one we're still there there is work and focus and energetic investment involved 100 but it is still just a choice just a choice and we can choose to sit here and collectively piss and moan about our drama and our trauma or we can start doing something differently thinking differently making a different choice working on our mindset so we don't have to be in this collective toilet because that's exactly what this is this is society's toilet social media is society's toilet and that's where all of these fads about trauma and gaslighting and narcissism that's where they are coming from all of these ideas and the repetition of them are coming from social media and we don't need that shit in our lives we just simply do not if you want to live an awesome life trust me talking about your trauma incessantly is not going to get you there that's not the path forward so what could you do differently if you are this person that has been focusing on trauma like how could you view your life differently what empowering message could you begin to tell about your about your life about your story about who you are as a person like how can you begin to take action to move yourself in the direction that you actually want to go like do you really want to be here whining and complaining and feeling bad or do you want to feel better so then we know already that talking about your trauma over and over again if it actually even is trauma etc etc referring back to the the previous discussion in this episode but that's not the way to get there so what do you need to do instead one you probably need to cut it out like you probably need to stop talking about your life in these terms that would be an excellent place to start and it's going to start one step at a time literally baby steps if you have built up a habit over even like the last six months of talking about trauma in a certain way it is not necessarily going to go away overnight it is going to take a certain amount of focus and choice and decision making like we always talk about to shift your perspective to something different but you can do it you are 100 capable i believe that you have that option available to you should you so choose right so it would start with baby steps not talking about things that way catching the way that you think about a situation are you in victim mode or are you the king or queen of your life are you standing on your own two feet are you rocking it are you moving forward the way you want to are you being sovereign in your own life and really taking responsibility for the way that you show up with yourself the way you speak the way you think you know the actions that you take are you being self-responsible or are you just kind of sitting in victim mode that's going to be a big game changer in and of itself if you can shift that if you can shift that experience right and then it's just about infusing your life with more positivity however that looks like for you and it's not necessarily about positive thoughts or affirmations or even any of the strategies that i've talked about or that you've heard other people talk about it's literally just about feeling good and that's about doing whatever it is that feels good for you no one could possibly tell you what feels good for you we can sit here all day and wax poetic on suggestions but that's not necessarily ever going to be true for you i like showers other people like baths i cannot imagine baths just that's not my thing that does not do anything for me so like somebody telling me to take a bath and i talk about this all the time because it's like literally the most basic example ever but that's not gonna have a positive impact on me that's not how i roll so what do you do to feel good anything do you draw do you dance do you sing do you go out with friends do you make pizza at home do you talk to your grandmother or call your best friend or go for a run or like go hiking take a solo trip somewhere like what is it that you do to take care of you it really doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes you feel good infusing your life with more of that instead of focusing on the negative right because that's what we're talking about at the end of the day isn't it we are shifting from a negative mindset to a positive mindset that is the underlying current of this entire of this entire episode and calling out the industry because enough enough with this behavior enough with like taking words and turning them into buzzwords in order to like sell something or using like these like using people's pain in order to in order to monetize it almost like enough and i'm not saying that that you if you have pain that you shouldn't seek help you should but the industry is creating these cycles it's creating these topics that we talk about for a period of time almost in order to like enroll people into coaching or to get people to go to therapy or to sell courses or to sell books or whatever it is right this is the fad of the moment in the industry and we're all talking about it including here i'm here talking about it too in a different way i hope than the way everyone else is talking about it but it's almost like we're doing it to monetize it and the capitalization of personal development we all need to be careful of it as well because yes we live in a capitalistic society and there's really not much we can do about it like i can't help you for free even if i wanted to because i still have to eat i'm not a part of the society that we that we live in even if i see that there are issues with it i'm still in it i still need to play the game right but i think that we are using these words to trigger people into getting support into buying books into buying courses and i think that's not really cool i don't think that's the best way to go about it and i hope to god that i'm not part of that problem i try my best to be as open and honest as possible about these things and like do i want to work with you yeah yeah i want to help you that's my job and it's what i love to do and i hope that translates like i love recording these podcasts i love talking about this stuff it literally like sets me on fire i'm so passionate about it um but i don't ever want to trick you into working with me i don't want to like create this story about how you need to heal your trauma in order to have a healthy relationship or you need to heal your trauma in order to like really manifest what you want in your life why you don't have to have trauma in the fucking first place you know what i mean like we don't even need to start with that step you can look beyond that not always not everyone because there are people who actually do have trauma and that does take time and focus to heal and that's okay too but like we don't need to be creating things that don't necessarily exist because all we're doing is creating a block to our own success to our own moving forward to our own momentum it's a joke it's just it's silly it's really really silly and the more we identify with these things the more they become a part of who we are as people and the harder life gets and then guess what life gets harder and all of a sudden you need that coach and book again and you need to buy that program again and you need to keep going through all of these steps and like it's just no it does not need to be this difficult what if you are just an awesome person and you need a little bit of love and support and that's that's the energy that you get help from not you're broken and fucked up and you need to get support because you have to but what if you are totally fine and you've had your own unique set of life experiences whatever those might be and despite those you are now looking to move forward from a place of peace and self-love you want to get better because you know that it can get better not because where you're at right now sucks not because it's shit right you cannot hate yourself happy i say it all the time to clients on here everywhere you can't that's not how life works you can't hate yourself skinny you can't hate yourself funny you can't hate yourself pretty whatever whatever it is whatever it is that you want you can't hate yourself into a wonderful loving relationship that's not how it works so can you release the story and come at your life from a place of like yeah i've had whatever experiences i've had and yes they've had an impact on me and i'm willing to look beyond those and see where i'm capable of going now if i look beyond these so-called limitations quote unquote okay or my so-called trauma if we really want to insist on using that word still despite my 30 minute monologue about it um i want to look beyond all of these things and see what i'm really capable of because i am a good person because i am a worthy person i am worthy because i exist and i am worthy of moving forward no matter what's happened to me in the past just because i am because i want to because i choose to that's it that's that's the whole story i am worthy because i decide to be so i hope you found this podcast useful and not too intense although a little bit intense i'm good with intense i am intense own it own it love it let's just go from there um but yeah i hope that you found this useful and if you are really if you're interested and ready to create your life from a place of like i'm good the way i am and i want to see if i can get any better i want to see how my life could could improve how much better it could possibly get then please reach out to me there's a million ways that you can possibly work with me um i have options available like i said if you are looking for something a little bit easier and also more financially accessible than like a long-term series and then i also have series and um yeah i'm just i'm totally willing to collaborate with people so please reach out to me if you are even remotely interested and let's talk about what we could what we could do together what magic we could make in your life and how we could help you get from where you are to where you want to be so yeah if you're interested you can reach out to me so if uh you need anything hit me up if you loved this episode please rate share subscribe and all those good things because it helps me reach more people and also it just gives me a little fuzzy feeling in my heart to know that you that you resonate with this so yeah if that's something that uh that you're able to do i would so so so appreciate it and otherwise i hope you have an amazing weekend and i will see you next week on the next episode of the podcast ciao