Changing Your Post Trauma Approach
It’s the last show of 2011, so we’re looking forward to the new year and how you can make significant change in your post-trauma experience! Dr. Nancy Irwin and Dr. Sana Quijada had great ideas about how you can discover your life purpose after trauma, plus why it’s so important to be a friend to youself.
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If you get stuck after trauma, it’s likely for a few reasons:
- You keep looking back to assess the meaning of what happened
- You disconnect from the present moment due to fear and isolation
- You cannot imagine the future because your view of yourself and the world has been altered
Part of overcoming these blocks depends on your ability to reconnect to yourself in the present by discovering the purpose of who you are. Part of doing that involves becoming a friend to yourself. We discussed both of these topics on last night’s show.
To me, discovering your purpose is a sort of amorphous process. I stumbled into mine absolutely by accident. Although, looking back, I see that my purpose today is very tied to the idea of purpose I had thirty years ago…. How do we, er, purposely discover our purpose?
Dr. Nancy Irwin explained three simple steps to discover your purpose, which included:
- Accept you don’t know what it is
- Discover and explore your gifts and talents
- Go into your community and volunteer
That’s just a short summary — Dr. Irwin had a lot to say in between and around to support those steps!
Dr. Sana Quijada then joined me to discuss why we aren’t good friends to ourselves, how we can be better to ourselves, and what makes the process easier.
It took me a very, very, very — did I say, very? — long time to stop being my own worst enemy and start being a friend to myself. But you know what? It made a HUGE difference in how I was able to move on after trauma, build a life and create the future I wanted. With the insights of these two guests you can end 2011 with some concrete plans for how to move into 2012 with strength, courage and confidence.
Michele struggled with undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for 24 years. Then she was diagnosed and went on a healing rampage! Today she inspires trauma survivors to overcome depression, anxiety and fear.
I’m wondering if a geographical cure to Fla would help me re invent myself?
@Richard – You can reinvent yourself wherever you are. What I learned from my own journey is that relocating is not a panacea. Your past comes with you. While you reinvent you still need to do the work of recovery, which means reinvention can take place anywhere!
gotta agree w michele and billy joel who both say essentially that wherever you go, u still wake up w yourself
. what r u wanting to reinvent richard? keep talking.
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Having survived and recovered from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm in my mid-40s, this blot post really resonates with my experience. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust to the fact that one’s “normal” has been significantly altered. Eventually I reached a point where I recognized that it was my choice whether to see myself as a victim or as a warrior. Taking responsibility for one’s own happiness and self-acceptance is very liberating.
@Janet — What a fabulous, life and recovery affirming comment! Thank you so much for sharing. You’re so right: we have to come to understand the new normal, and then learn how to make it into the extraordinarily wonderful life we desire.