Healing Trauma 8: Disappointment And Accepting Reality

Welcome back to this series of healing trauma talks and guided practices.

Life is difficult.

Especially right now,

It feels like life is harder than usual for many,

Many people.

We've gone through the collective trauma of COVID-19,

Which is not over yet.

Our finances are being squeezed.

There's a concentration of wealth in the 1% and many people are struggling financially.

They're struggling to feed their families,

Struggling to have secure housing.

This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on everyone.

What I'm seeing since the pandemic in particular is a lot of people are not coping well.

Our nervous systems are hypervigilant.

We're not really confident that things are going to work out okay.

And then what happens?

I spend a lot of my time on nervous system regulation,

On somatic mindfulness of noticing my body.

My body is tense.

I could breathe a little bit more fully.

After doing this for so many years,

I have a pretty regulated nervous system.

I breathe diaphragmatically.

I don't shame myself.

I don't have a strong inner critic like I used to.

I'm not usually in a freeze response,

Which I was often in,

In my teen years and earlier adult life.

I didn't have the tools and I couldn't afford to see what changes I really needed to make.

Now.

Here we are in this situation of,

It's hard to cope.

We're worried about what's happening now and what might happen in the future.

Ripe conditions for nervous system hypervigilance going into fight,

Flight,

Or freeze.

To make it through this kind of a situation,

We really need to work with several steps.

One is to recognize and acknowledge what it is that's going on.

Another is to work diligently and consistently with our nervous system,

That we can build a stronger,

More resilient nervous system.

We need that right now.

And it's very possible to do that.

We can do relaxation practices.

We can learn how to work with persistent negative thoughts.

We can see we're holding ourselves back.

We can work towards closer,

Kinder,

Compassionate connection with ourselves and with others.

Even though it's difficult right now,

Or perhaps especially because it's difficult right now,

We have the ability to work with our nervous system.

We have the opportunity and the awareness of how important it is right now to do this healing work for ourselves and for each other,

For our communities,

For the world.

My meditation teacher would say,

The greatest gift you can give the world is a peaceful mind.

And I would add that in order to have a peaceful mind,

We need to have a regulated nervous system.

This whole series talks about how we do that.

In this particular session,

I'd like to work a little bit with,

Disillusionment,

Disappointment,

And the difficulty we often have in accepting reality as it is.

One of the reasons that's so hard is because it's a safety issue.

When we see so much evidence of people with dysregulated nervous systems causing harm in the world,

It makes sense for us to be afraid.

Whether that's our neighbor,

It's someone in our own family,

Or maybe it's in our own mind.

We get angry and go into a fight.

We blame other people for what's going on.

We really want people to get it together.

We want to be able to count on that person that we used to be able to count on.

And now they're just lost in a sea of depression or anger,

Blaming.

A lot of people are having more trouble with addictions.

Whether that's the relatively benign,

But ultimately life-destroying addiction of watching television all the time instead of living,

A life of connection and meaning.

Or something like alcohol or other drugs.

Shopping,

Gambling,

Screens.

These distractions that could be helpful in the short term aren't something that we can maintain over the long term.

We also need to find a way to accept that life is as it is right now,

Even though we want it to be different.

Somehow,

We need to come to terms with the fact life is the way it is.

Life is the way it is.

Life is the way it is.

Life is the way it is.

Life is the way it is.

So if we can't arrange the outside world and other people to help us to feel safer,

We can work with our own internal experience of resilience,

Flexibility,

Clarity,

Acceptance,

Kindness.

When we feel like we're going off into a rage,

Where we're really shutting down,

We can do whatever is necessary to support ourselves in coming back into the present.

It might be that we call it a day.

It might be that we call it a friend.

So many people got dogs and cats during the pandemic.

They can be very helpful for nervous system regulation and for a feeling of safe connection.

What are some other ways that we might work with this?

Awareness is always the first step in change.

When we notice that we're not able to see things as they are,

It's interesting to look into that and see if we can figure out why.

So the safety issue is definitely part of it.

I don't feel safe the way that other people are,

Whatever that might be.

School shootings,

Random acts of violence,

Climate catastrophes,

Financial pressures,

Not being able to afford the same kind of food now that the prices have come up so much.

We need to be able to let all of that in and be able to function in our life.

Whenever we find ourselves asking why,

Why?

Why is this happening?

Why is this happening to me?

Why am I being punished?

Why doesn't that other person want to be with me the way I want to be with them?

Why am I not successful the way my siblings are?

We all grew up in the same trauma.

Whenever we get into that why,

Into that questioning,

That's a signal to look into,

Is that a question that actually has an answer?

We can look at something through a trauma lens,

And explain it often.

Even though your siblings may have been raised in the same environment,

Each person has their own experience.

And maybe one person was more likely to be the victim of some of the abuse than the others.

Maybe they had the good fortune of finding a partner who was really supportive and helped them heal.

Maybe one of their trauma responses was to get really good marks and get a good job.

It's not to say that they're necessarily healthier than we are.

It's just that people have a different response to things.

When we look at those kinds of questions,

There's often an inherent shaming of ourselves.

And often there's a deep grief underlying that.

People will often say,

Well,

If I hadn't had that kind of parent that I had,

Or if I hadn't been bullied in school,

Or if I hadn't,

Or if I had.

Those if questions,

If only I had been raised,

If only one of my parents was not mentally ill,

If only my sibling didn't get sick,

If only.

Those are things that we can look at as contributing factors to what's going on.

And we can try to get away from shaming ourselves.

Children can't afford to see what's really happening.

We can't afford to see that,

In fact,

Our parents might really be struggling and they are not.

They're not able to keep us safe for whatever reason.

Maybe they can't face their own emotions.

Maybe they don't have the power to buffer us with finances.

Maybe they're deep in their own addiction.

When we feel that kind of distress and danger as a child,

It explains a lot about how our adult life developed.

And it is not too late to work with that now.

I really want people to know that.

I want people to be fair and to do their best.

And it doesn't matter to as many people that that's what I want.

That would really help me to be safe.

Instead of lashing out at others,

That people would take responsibility,

Work with their own issues,

Build resilience and stability in their own nervous system,

Be kind to each other.

It is absolutely true that that would be very helpful.

And that's not the way it is.

So what can I do?

What can I do so that I can function and that I don't feel so disillusioned and disappointed that I can have an open heart and invite people to be real and authentic and kind and not be devastated when they don't?

Not be so personally rejected when somebody is in a state of overwhelm and they're not available for me anymore.

It feels like it took me a long time,

Well into my 50s,

And perhaps my 60s,

Before I really got it,

That it's my job as an adult to take care of my own life,

To take care of my own nervous system,

My social connections,

My relationship with myself,

My food,

My exercise,

My physical health,

My emotional health,

Mental health.

We really want to be supported in community.

It's how we developed,

As human communities of 50 to 100 people,

We helped each other out.

If we were not in a community,

If we were rejected,

We literally could not survive.

We remember that in our bones.

Any kind of social isolation,

Loneliness,

Rejection,

Other people not having the capacity to really be here for us,

That's something that we need to be able to accept.

It feels like we can't survive,

Knowing that,

And that distress is at the root of a lot of our avoidance,

A lot of our addictions,

Distractions,

Of our own nervous system dysregulation.

I know that it is really possible.

We do daily practice.

We relax our body.

We work with our breath so that we're signaling safety instead of alarm.

We learn how to work with catastrophic thinking,

Ruminating.

We start to,

We feel a decrease in anxiety.

These practices really work.

And at the root of a lot of this is,

I need to be able to see reality as it is.

It is okay for me to be angry that I got a rough shake in life.

It's natural.

It's normal.

Absolutely.

We don't want to be suppressing or repressing our anger.

We want to be able to work with it.

If we tend to go into some kind of a delusion around how life should be,

We are going to be disappointed.

I feel in some ways that the only person that we can really rely on is ourselves.

And the more we rely on ourselves,

Actually,

The more connection that we have with other people as well,

Because people can co-regulate with us.

When we have a capacity for kindness,

Other people want to be around us more.

They don't have to protect themselves from us.

Then we can rely on ourselves.

Then we can rely on ourselves.

Then we can rely on ourselves.

Then we can actually move into connection.

We're not actually alone.

Although I think in some ways it starts with,

I need to be okay alone.

Some of this deep inner work is really work that we do ourselves.

We can get support with it.

We can get help with it.

We can do it in community.

And this is our own inner work.

So when we're feeling overwhelmed,

Disillusioned by people in the world,

We need to develop this mental toughness,

Strength,

The resilience to take it one step at a time,

Work with your breath,

Relax your body,

Do these practices,

Learn about your nervous system,

Get some help to deal with childhood trauma.

And overall,

The most important thing that we can do is to stop being so aggressive with ourselves.

As we start being kinder,

More compassionate,

More accepting of ourselves,

It does make it easier to let go,

Let go of some of the ways that we pressure other people.

The world is difficult.

Being an adult is hard.

Life is not the way it should be.

It's certainly not optimal conditions.

How do we work with that reality?

That's our job as an adult.

We work with reality.

We develop strength.

We increase our capacity to connect with ourselves and each other with kindness,

With empathy,

With patience,

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