The Better Living Collaborative

There's a lot of talk about 'trauma-types' - the types and definitions get expanded; the nuances of combinations and settings are discussed a lot too. But I don't see a lot of conversation about the power of trauma-types.

Trauma-types aren't bad; Your trauma-type is an automatic reaction developed by your brain to do one thing - Keep you Safe.

When your brain/body perceive something that might be dangerous/difficult, reminds you of something that was dangerous/difficult, or feels you're getting a lot of input about something dangerous/difficult, your trauma-type kicks in and does its thing: its thing is to keep you safe.

You developed your primary trauma-type around the age of 6-8. You DO have combinations of types, your reaction can be based on setting and also influenced by the perception of others needing you to keep them safe too. But that one, early, response - it's especially powerful. AND, because you've honed it for most of your life, it also comes with additional perks - strengths you and others can rely on.

For those of us with a significantly traumatic background, our work is in learning to calm the response and teach it when it really needs to engage and when it can take a break. That doesn't make the response 'bad,' just extra protective - and for good reason!

Find your trauma type and check out one of the special gifts it gave you...

As a feminist psychology theorist (not the same as social feminism) challenging the codependence label matters.

While some people are, and can be, codependent - the reality for women and gender-diverse individuals in particular is that this mechanism is often more accurately described as conditioning towards safety. In a true codependent situation, both individuals are so deeply invested in each other that they struggle to function independently. To be clear, this is not a healthy relationship pattern and needs and deserves intervention and support. But too often I hear the term 'codependent' assigned to individuals who are simply unable to picture themselves as worthy to be in relationship with someone because their historic normal was that they were not considered worthy unless they were self-sacrificing on behalf of the other person.

The way you adapted to a situation in order to survive it - i.e. being useful, being the caregiver, doer, peacemaker, etc. isn't necessarily codependence at all. It's a survival mechanism. It was an adaptation - and a clever one at that. But, when we take it into our next relationships because it's all we know, it becomes conditioning. We stop being able to recognize where the conditioning ends and we begin. Then, it can be a real problem for us.

But importantly, the problem isn't something that is broken in you - it's something that is broken in our world where safety isn't an automatic given inside even our closest relationships. When we shift from believing we're codependent, or disordered, or dysfunctional, and start believing we adapted to a world that didn't care for us as we deserved, the way we heal - and stay healed - can shift.

I'm hearing it frequently these days - and I know I've said it myself:
"I'm just so angry."
"I'm full of rage."

Particularly for those of us who identify as women, this can be a very difficult emotion to experience. And unfortunately it is frequently followed by shame. That's because anger feels out of control, it feels uncomfortable - sometimes, it even feels dangerous. I'm reminded of a scene in a television show I enjoy called "The Newsroom" in which the producer, Mackenzie McHale (played by Emily Mortimer) instructs her anchor and estranged love interest Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) to step away from her and go to the other side of the room because, as she says, "There's a credible threat I'm going to hit you." But Mortimer's character isn't being violent- or cruel. She's reacting to something McAvoy has shared that is so deeply upsetting to her that the anger wells up. In the scene, she fights it off (and never hits Will.)

The Newsroom character experiences a violation - and, as a result, a deep sense of injustice. This injustice manifests itself as anger and, for a moment, the threat of violence. But it's not cruelty. It's pain. When we encounter injustice, it sparks pain - and we often respond with anger. That's not shameful. That's awareness that something is wrong.

Is there "bad" anger? Absolutely. Anger that is rooted in hate, in fear, in the desire to overpower someone, is absolutely toxic. However, I find people experiencing that type of anger are far more interested in justifying their actions and even their violence and far less interested in controlling it. They don't feel shame - they feel entitled.

Intention matters. So what's the intention at the root of your anger right now? If it's injustice, know you are not alone and should not be ashamed. Also, however, it's important to channel that anger in ways that 1) releases it from your body and 2) does not inflict damage on someone else. Yes - scream into the woods, run hard (even if you only last 1/2 a block), take up boxing, or bake something that would usually need to be mixed with a mixer - but do it by hand! Throw paint. Play loud music. Cry. But do not punish yourself for experiencing it - you see the injustice - and it is painful - but you can handle it and eventually use it for action.

Every now and again, I encounter that person. The one where I can see that they don't necessarily believe what I am telling them.

These people used to be a huge, huge shame-trigger for me. I would immediately launch into all the ways I was right, working in the research I'd done or all the proof of an incident I had.

Because the benefit of the doubt had always been an elusive thing for me, being in an abusive relationship that often included implications that I "wouldn't be believed anyway" further upended my concept of self-truth. I doubted myself at least as much as others did - even when I knew I was truthful to a fault.

When I worked through those issues, I found that no more people believed me than had before I worked through them. That's just how it is. Some people are never going to believe me. The shift was in how I accepted that fact without being consumed by it any longer. I learned that when I could feel the inner confidence of my own truth, it mattered much less how others perceived my knowledge and experiences. It was incredibly freeing.

The confidence to know what you know: That's Radical Wellness

How often do you hear someone (maybe yourself) referred to as 'resilient', or as 'not resilient'?

We deliver this judgment the same way we refer to curly or straight hair or green or brown eyes: as if it's something we are born with (or without).

That's just not true.

Resilience isn't a character trait. It's a skillset—a set of tools you build to help yourself absorb the initial blow of a trauma. It's essential, but only part of the story when it comes to navigating traumatic events—and the messaging about it is so, so wrong.

Whether I'm counseling, speaking, or consulting, I think it's important to explore a new view on resilience, and I can teach you how to build up your own, customized resilience toolkit for yourself or for your organization; one that won't leave you relying on this response alone, or stuck in a cycle of constantly being 'resilient' until you burn yourself out.

Ready to learn more? Visit my webpage, grab a free download on self-compassion, or dm me for an exploration call.

My TEDx talk actually opens with the line, "I have always wanted to be liked."

That's been true for most of my life - I just wanted people to like me.

But I was a socially awkward, chubby, not-very-cute kid donned in glasses and clothes I 'would grow into' who was too smart not to be noticed - and thus bullied. As I grew, I failed to connect to one group (certain I couldn't trust them), instead, chasing every activity I could find. I became like water - able to fill the shape of whatever room I was in 💦.

Well into adulthood, that was my identity. Water 💧. I played the part of filling vessel after vessel - transparent and able to create buoyancy for whomever needed to float. 🛟 I could put out a fire. 🔥 I could create motion for almost anything or anyone. ⛵️ I could nourish and sustain life. 🍃In many ways, I was proud of it.

That is, until I realized I wasn't water 💦 at all. I had never been 💦 water. I was a tree 🌳 just waiting to be planted. I realized that filling vessel after vessel - flowing into the shape of whatever was there - and always running, flowing- had met I'd lost myself. It was my way of protecting myself, my way of trying to make people like me. And it came at an enormous price.

Being a tree 🏝️ is hard work. I have to been seen now - no flowing away or rushing to try and disappear. I have to embrace the leaves and branches that suit me. Even if those aren't the ones someone else likes. 🌟

But I also GET to do that now. And so can you.

It's hard to give up being water 💦 - but if you're a tree, I promise you that the joy you'll get from growing your new branches and being seen as you have always been is priceless.

If you're not sure how to get there, like and follow my page. Sign up for my email list. We'll talk about how to unlock our true selves with a coaching program, expressive arts experience, with self-care, with growth, with resilience: 🌳🌲🌴

Join me.

One of the reasons I developed Radical Wellness is because I've seen this exact approach all too often. We are waiting for the trauma (for the hard thing if the word 'trauma' makes you squeamish) before we learn to deal with it.

That's a bad plan for most things - but it's especially bad for learning to deal with trauma. Here's why:

When you encounter something that causes a trauma-response (or a trigger) in you, your brain does its job and alerts the 'first responder', your amygdala. Amygdala has one job and it does it very, very well - to keep you safe. That includes shutting down or overriding much of the rest of your brain - including your frontal lobe (where the pre-frontal and frontal cortex's dealing with problem-solving, language, decision-making, regulation, etc.) live.

If you don't know how to calm and regulate this response before it happens, you aren't going to be able to manage it during, or after, the event.

Radical Wellness acknowledges that hard things are going to happen to us in life and, instead of shying away from that fact, looks at all the ways we can understand ourselves and our needs so that we have skills at-the-ready to respond to that fire.

Whether you need to learn this skill for the first time - or relearn it - to manage what's in front of you, visit me at The Better Living Collaborative and I can help!

We have to talk about the power of weaponized words for a minute - even without recognizing it, we can fall into the trap of using/welding words to exert control or elicit feelings of worth, value, etc.

I've done it. I've even done with the word on my post - Victim.

I have hated that word for the duration of my time 'inside' the category. In fact, I think I wrote about how disempowering that word is for a trauma-informed post and have railed against its presence on things like the 'Victims of Crime' paperwork I was once forced to fill out.

Now, I'm not wrong about the word being disempowering - it is. BUT, it's disempowering because of the way it's been weaponized, not because the word itself is a problem. We use the word 'victim' as a tool for shame and for silence. We use the word TO disempower. And that's the actual weaponization of it.

Think about it - if you can convince someone (me, for example) that sharing abuse, or sharing an injustice, or calling out a systemic wrong, makes me someone who is weak, or manipulative, or failing to take responsibility, you'll likely shut me up. And even if you don't, if you can paint me in that light, I'm discredited. That means the status quo can continue, undisturbed by its 'victims.'

But 'don't be a victim' is hollow - if you've been abused, suffered injustice, been taken advantage of - you ARE a victim (sorry to say.)

You just don't have to be ONLY a victim - You can also be a survivor, warrior, victor, change-agent, or whatever else you want. And, you know things others don't if they weren't a victim - you've got wisdom.

Victim = has been victimized.
Victim ≠ can't be anything else.

You saw it all go down.
You kept telling yourself to DO something.
But you didn't.
Somehow, you couldn't.

And now, away from it, you're playing out the details over and over again in your head - thinking about all the things you wished you had said or done. This is often accompanied by guilt, shame, and low self-worth.

Welcome to the 'Freeze' trauma response.

You are not weak, not stupid, and not really 'frozen' at all.
You are taking it all in.
Your brain is quite clever; In fact, you're the trickster.
You can 'play possum' and study the incident - surviving AND learning at the same time, so that next time, you are ready.

People who don't understand this response will question whether you 'really' thought you were in danger and whether it was 'that bad.'
It was.
You're survival mechanism kicked in; because it was.

But, when we start healing we have to calm that response so we can let the emotions we literally put on ice thaw out and be processed. It takes time, a safe place, and patience - so be kind to yourself. You deserve it.