Re-Writing Our Story, Part Two

Identifying repeating patterns and then choosing to re-write our life story to be free from those limiting beliefs.

Transcript

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Hello, welcome to trauma unpacked, my name is Ingrid Andrus. And with me, I'm Ana Sorenson. And we are actually trying to bring awareness to the obstacles of unresolved relational trauma in our lives. And to look at it because we want to see the benefits of healing from that relational trauma that we sometimes knowingly or unknowingly keep hidden. Our goal is to have a conversation about several topics around relational trauma to share with you how it has helped move us through our process of healing, in hopes that it will help you as a listener to grow through your process of healing.

And Inger, can you expand more on how you want to achieve this today? 

So in this podcast, we're going to be talking about how we write a story that we have lived based on our trauma about ourselves, and how to rewrite that story about ourselves based upon truths that we know about who we are. And this can be so subconscious, which is what makes it very difficult to identify at times, because this is how we think this is all we know. This is who we think we are, this is based upon how we've been raised in a way that our parents or the person that took care of us, or if we were in foster care from place to place, how people responded to us, is all part of how we begin to develop a story about who we are based upon their impressions and develop how we perceive relationships and how they are built. Correct and sustained. That as you're listening right now, I want you in your own life to actually understand that part of writing your story down first, before you can rewrite it is to identify what's actually happening. 

So what what was the story that you identified in your life, what I ended up doing was trying to write truthfully, the things that based upon almost a third person perspective, saying, you know. "Once upon a time, there was this child who was born into a hard place where her mother did not want her born and would pour out her anguish on this little one, because she wasn't expecting to be pregnant." And so if you start out your story with once upon a time, there was this child, and then you fill in how that fits for you. 

So when you write it in the third person, for you, did that make it less intense or less scary to write down? 

It kept me from getting too caught up in the emotion of it. So that allowed me to write it as if somebody else was reading about it, to help them understand what the facts were which actually allows also more of the true facts to come out.

But as you're writing that, being able to start to see how you're writing things that had to do with how the other person, like you said, perceived you and that is, in turn, what we absorb and transfer on ourselves, instead of really understanding that we were completely separate from how they perceived us. So if somebody else was to hear that this child was born from a mother, who was not wanting to get pregnant, and felt that she had to have this child, but every moment was identified as being burdensome to be a parent, you would as a grown adult, in your mature mind start to realize that that was based on this Mother's mindset. So then, as you write that story, and read it to yourself, or perhaps read it to a sacred friend, and share your story in that new way, 

Then how do you suggest the rewriting of that happens? How does that transformation happen?

 I think that having once again, as we talked in the first set of podcasts that we did about having a safe place within oneself, a compassion and a curiosity that allows you to without judgment, look at your life, you realize that there really is no good reason to feel like you're, for instance, in this example of burden that that has much more to do with how the person that raised you felt, whether it be that I'm sure you can think of an example in your life where you're a parent, you took on what they were thinking of you or the abuser in your life you took on how they viewed you. And so it's that powerful impact that the relational trauma has had in our life to the point where we've actually adapted to how they viewed us by writing a story or narrative. It helps to build that awareness of where we are continuing the pattern from our childhood. 

And you're also saying when we have awareness, it allows a choice to happen where we can then choose a new path, we can rewrite the story right there?

Exactly. Part of identifying the difference is to know that you can actually feel better about who you are, I don't think that we can even rewrite our story until we start to enjoy the person that we are. Because once we start enjoying that person, we start to see that there's a difference in that there's certain triggers that make us go back into a mindset that's very self defeating. And then we realize, wait a minute, I woke up this morning, feeling great about who I was, and then all of a sudden, I've shifted, and I've gone back to the old ways. It's that kind of difference that starts to show, is this really what I want to keep falling back into?   Once that's been identified, the ability to start rewriting your story is much more doable. Because you see a difference.

 I know, for myself, that rewriting of my story has been a very slow process. And it's frustrating. So I thought I would share that because I think everybody's pace at which they go through this is different for some maybe quicker than others. I like what you're saying about the awareness starting to happen where you make that choice, do I want to continue going down my old path, even though the new path is hard, maybe we make that choice to go down the hard path and get the reward, even if it's small, it can help, you want to keep going down that new path, and there's going to be bumps in the road, it's going to be hard, you're going to fall back into your old patterns that they do build on each other, when you make the choice to go down the new path, it does build on itself.

Right. And so the bumps along the way could look like this, where a scenario that you are moving into a new territory of enjoying who you are. But you were raised to think that it was selfish to actually take care of yourself. So when you start doing it, then all of a sudden you deal with this shame, or guilt feeling that comes out of the blue, that then takes extra effort to sort through because you sometimes dive even deeper in that second round of questioning yourself. And it then requires a centering of oneself getting away remembering who you are, again, in order to get back. 

I'm so glad that you brought that up, because it's so real. And it takes that awareness to even get through those bumps in the road.  I just am curious because I was thinking about how you mentioned in this example, about self care and feeling guilty, and potentially sabotaging it. So when you say centering and getting away, what I think of is what are coping skills that we are trying to build up in ourselves so that when we get into these bumps in the road, we have kind of an emergency plan. And I think for everybody that's a little different, whether it be prayer, whether it be meditation, whether it be calling a friend, whether it be take a walk, whatever the coping strategy that works for you, but to have that planned and prepared, knowing that you're going to have these bumps in the road that it's, you're going to get to that crossroads again, where you have to decide, am I going to follow my old pattern, or am I going to push through to the new pattern, and maybe I need to cope first, before I can move forward with the new choices, the biggest thermometer of going through this self awareness of understanding what your story is, and then trying to rewrite it is paying attention to what's going on inside. 

Part of the trauma in various ways can cause a separation between our body and mind. And so not really identifying we talked about that briefly and in times past, but when it's too painful, to be connected to your heart or to your body for various reasons, because of past trauma, it's part of the journey of understanding your story is actually to work through that tension in being able to stay connected enough to know what's going on inside. Part of what repeats the current patterns of living out the old story is because we're so responding to the pain inside, we just loop upon loop upon loop on ourselves, because we go through that cycle of pain and then we somehow self medicate that pain in whatever way that is. And we detach, we try to just get to a place where we can survive and live. And then we go back into trying this again. And then we repeat the same thing. And then we go back to trying this again. All this time. The pain has had that response to keep us away from being able to acknowledge what's really going on inside. 

If we move towards the pain. If we compassionately love ourselves through that, we can actually start to identify what's going on inside. It's that that will let us come to grips with what our story is, and then realize that we have another story that we can rewrite and make it our story based upon our perceptions of who we are not based upon the abuser that we are with, and their perceptions of us. So we turn life into this wonderful garden that we've created, rather than it being based upon somebody else's garden that we just so happened to be there. 

So what I believe is the next step, once you are able to identify the difference of feeling good. And when you start feeling bad is then to write down and say, "Okay, but the truth is, if I keep believing what my abuser felt about me, then I won't enjoy life. And I will feel rejection, and always see my situations as if they are rejecting me. But now I see myself and fill in the blank." 

So it's really important to identify if you are to stay in this old way of mindset, what it's going to keep doing to you. So that then you get motivated to realize, why would I want to stay in this miserable way of thinking? And in this rut? Why would I want to do that when I could live life in such a different way?

And so it helps you really own and feel empowered of saying, " I don't have to live like this anymore. I can be and I can live and I can see life, through my own eyes, not through the eyes of the person who created the relational trauma in my life.a'

This is huge. 

Okay. Thanks for joining us today. We know that some of this information can be very hard to hear sensitive raw feelings. Want you to love yourself, if there were any of those kind of emotions drawn up when listening. We're in this together. Thank you for listening today. We hope this encourages you in your journey of healing and that you feel loved and cared for.