As both a trauma-informed practitioner and someone who’s been healing from complex PTSD for years now, I have a great emotional, intellectual, and embodied interest in healing. Today I was considering how my offering, Coming Home To Yourself, fits into the greater path of healing that I’ve walked, and hope to support others in walking.
Which brings me to the question: what is the point, or goal, of doing healing work?
When I say “healing”, I’m referring to tending to the wounds that come from experiences like abuse, neglect, bullying, and being the victim of oppressive systems and high-control groups. These experiences can all lead to complex PTSD, which involves numerous debilitating symptoms. And yet, many people who have experienced these hardships don’t necessarily qualify for a mental illness diagnosis, or maybe they have their mental illness symptoms managed well enough, but are still left feeling disconnected from themselves or others.
In my experience as a survivor, even when I wasn’t struggling with intense symptoms like paranoia, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, etc., I still felt disconnected from both my inner world and the world around me. And that did not feel good.
So what some might call “personal development” or “personal growth”, I am referring to as healing. Because sometimes healing is crisis care and symptom management. And sometimes healing is reconnecting to your most authentic self and learning to express who you truly are. That’s what I hope to offer to the world.
So, back to my original inquiry: what is the point of doing this kind of healing work?
What healing ISN’T about:
First, let’s talk about what I do NOT see as the point of healing:
“fixing” yourself. - you are not a broken object, you are a human being.
changing who you are at your core. - your behaviors and habits are NOT who you are.
trying to be perfect or never “regress” - we are not robots who will always perform in the same way. We will not always be at our best. But we are still worthy of love.
What healing IS about:
What I see as the point of healing:
Connecting to yourself.
Sounds simple, but if I know anything about the experience of complex trauma, there is a LOT of disconnection from self. We disconnect from our needs and prioritize others’. We disconnect from our feelings and try everything we can to numb them. We disconnect from our desires and resign ourselves to the life we were told we should tolerate. We disconnect from our values, our hopes, our body, our spirit. All in the service of survival.
Growing gradually.
If you want to change your life, you can approach that in a couple of different ways. You can mimic the energy of the oppressor or abuser, and come at yourself with criticism, ridicule, shame, and cruelty (been there, done that, don’t recommend it). Or, you can invite in the energy of safety as you look to make changes. We do this by being curious about our habits, patterns, and feelings. We see what is compelling or helpful about the thing we want to change, and what about it is no longer working for us. We dream up, and get support with, ways to make small changes and step away from the thing we want to change, toward something new. Slowly, gradually, and without beating ourselves up when we fail.
Making space for our humanity.
One thing that oppressive groups and people love to do to their victims is erase their humanity. Take all your human messiness, contradictions, and beauty, and turn you into an object. You’re harder to control when you’re a multifaceted, complex human; you’re easier to control when you’re an object, living for their pleasure. So, therefore, when we’re healing, we’re learning to make space for our humanity. This means letting go of rigid perfectionism and overachieving, and seeing that it’s safe to make mistakes now. This means letting go of people-pleasing and peacemaking and seeing that it’s safe to disagree or disappoint others now. This means not making healing into something with force and pressure and shame. This means learning to accept where you’re at, even if you have dreams far beyond your current reality. This means learning to offer yourself softness on the way there.
Connecting with others.
Isolating their victims is an abuser’s bread and butter. The truth is, we are far weaker and easier to control when we are isolated. It’s easier to convince us we are crazy, broken, delusional, and worthless when we are disconnected from all the people who see our goodness. So, friend, my number one piece of advice for you in the healing process is this: do not isolate yourself. Will you need solitude sometimes? Of course. Will vulnerability be terrifying? Probably. But if there are any tiny ways you can let people in, do it. You don’t have to connect about the hard stuff all the time either - you can connect over a puzzle, a walk in the park, a funny tv show. And you don’t need to tell everyone everything. Just don’t think that you are a burden for your suffering. You’re not. There are people out there who DO have the capacity to see you, even when you’re not at your best, and love you.
Is there more to healing than this? Absolutely. But when it comes to my intentions for helping you shed the masks that are keeping you stuck in patterns you want to transform, these are what come to mind.
What I can offer for you:
As a trauma-informed practitioner, it is the highest honor to be able to support survivors on their healing journeys. It makes my world go round and my heart expands, a little bit, every damn day. So I’m delighted to share with you one way you can work with me right now if you’re ready to take the brave step of getting support:
Coming Home To Yourself
This is my course for those of us who have traveled far from home. Who have lost ourselves in relationships, groups, work. Who have forgotten what it is like to be deeply connected to ourselves, if we ever felt connected at all.
This is for those of us who want to discover: what do I really care about? What do I want? What do I need? What delights me? What inspires me? What do I love? Who am I, underneath this collection of masks I wear?
I don’t proclaim to lead you from total disconnection to lasting reconnection to self in 5 weeks. But I think this course is a great way to begin the process or strengthen you along the journey.
We meet as a small group for 5 weeks together. We move from understanding the stories trauma has given us about who we are to writing new ones. We move from shame toward self-compassion, from judgment toward curiosity. We move from focusing solely on the other to focusing on the self, while in a community of folks who are cheering you on. We move from seeing ourselves as “never enough” to seeing ourselves as heroes of our own journeys.
We start February 1st. I’d love to see you there.
With fierce belief and compassion every step of the way,
Emmy
This is a beautiful piece of writing, and I see so much of my own complex trauma recovery journey in what you shared. Thank you for writing this. ❤
This is so important. Thank you.