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Trusting Yourself After Trauma · Trauma Free Relationship

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One of the things relational trauma takes from us is the
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ability to trust ourselves. Prior to trauma, whether it be
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betrayal, abandonment or neglect, there's a universal
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trust in us, in what we think and what we feel.
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We know our own mind and we're in touch with our own needs.
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We come pre wired that way and when that innate wiring is
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coupled with the supportive, nurturing and secure
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environment, then we have all the ingredients necessary to
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provide us with the ability to create healthy relationships.
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But after trauma, there's a relentless doubt in what we
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think and feel and it cast a shadow over all of our
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relationships. Healing from relational trauma
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isn't about becoming somebody new, it's about returning to the
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self you were before you were taught to doubt your worth, your
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feelings, and diminish your voice.
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Trust isn't a leap, it's a series of tiny steps back to
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yourself. So today we're going to talk
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about how to regain trust in yourself.
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Welcome to trauma free relationship.
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I'm Tom Philp, your host, and as a therapist, I've spent over
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10,000 hours helping couples work through their trauma so
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they can repair ruptures, heal their wounds and communicate
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from a place of wholeness and connection.
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Let's get started, OK? As I mentioned in the opening,
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we're going to talk today about that.
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One of the things that that that trauma robs or takes from us,
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and that is our ability to sort of trust ourselves, to trust our
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own feelings, to trust our own thoughts, to to trust our own
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instincts. Because often times after
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trauma, specially relational trauma, complex trauma or
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attachment trauma, they're kind of all linked together.
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We really begin to question ourselves and there's this sort
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of lingering doubt inside of us. So I, I want to just kind of
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walk through what is it like to lose trust in yourself?
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This, this may be some of your own mindset and some of what
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happens inside of you, your internal world.
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You may not experience all of these, but you might experience
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some of these and you can kind of go through and just make a
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little mental note if any of these apply to you.
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So whereas you were once confident and driven, now you
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second guess a lot of your decisions.
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You second guess, as I said, your own sort of gut instinct.
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There's a constant internal narrative.
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Was it me? Did I 'cause this?
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Am I overreacting to a situation?
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There's times where you struggle with trusting your gut, often
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dismissing your instincts as being dramatic, too sensitive,
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I'm too much, not enough, I'm flawed, or I'm simply not
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worthy. And there's that sort of
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narrative, that tape that kind of runs in the background of
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your life, no matter what it is you might be doing.
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There's that tape that just sort of get stuck on repeat and
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constantly brings up and questions your own sense of self
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worth. You might have trouble making
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even small decisions like what to wear, who to text back,
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whether to speak up at work, whether to set boundaries, so on
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and so forth. And also, it impacts the way you
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feel safe in your own body and the lack thereof.
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You don't know how to create a sense of peace and calmness in
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your own body. And that's why learning to trust
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yourself is in a sense learning to return to yourself before the
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trauma, before your world, your internal world was disrupted and
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you go back to a place where you can have some sense of calm and
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peace. And so from the emotional
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landscape stand standpoint, what this often looks like is you,
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you feel disconnected from your emotions or you might feel
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overwhelmed by them. It might feel like there's a
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constant storm inside and you're constantly using your energy in
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order to try to calm and regulate that storm, only to
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feel anxious and and or depressed all over again.
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Or you might just feel numb. You might just feel really numb
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inside and not be able to feel your feelings.
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You might suffer from anxiety as well as some emotional
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flashbacks. Now, these are different than
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say, visual flashbacks. An emotional flashback is where
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the same emotion from the time of your trauma comes up for you.
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And when that happens, it really blinds you from being able to
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perceive what's happening to you in the moment in an accurate
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way. And that emotion comes up and it
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hones in on any sense of danger, and it amplifies that danger so
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that you feel in danger now when you should be feeling safe in
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the now, in the here and now. And so those emotional
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flashbacks can come up and really hijack an interaction
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you're having. They can hijack the day you're
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having, or they can create a sense of emotional numbness
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where all of a sudden you're going just fine and, and, and it
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feels like the bottom falls out and, and you're just numb and,
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and you don't hardly feel anything.
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And so these emotional flashbacks can come up and
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really get in the way. Also too, from emotional
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landscape standpoints, you can carry lots of shame.
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You can feel stupid for playing a role in what might have
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happened, even if it was not your fault at all.
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Maybe you feel stupid for not having left sooner, or for
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falling for manipulated behavior of of a trusted partner.
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But that shame and sometimes even guilt can come up as well.
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Especially guilt around setting boundaries and being able to say
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no. That is something that a lot of
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trauma survivors struggle with, is being able to learn how to
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set boundaries, how to set limits for themselves and how to
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say no because that was compromised through the trauma
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in the beginning. And so being able to set a limit
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and say no and draw a line now is something that a lot of
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trauma survivors really struggle with.
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So these might be some of the things that you're struggling
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with in terms of feeling like you can trust yourself again,
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feeling like you have control over your emotional landscape,
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over your thoughts, and that you can actually even trust your
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feelings and your thoughts. And so let's just pivot and talk
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about because I really want to focus on what we can do about
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this. I described just a second ago
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these different things you might be struggling with and we don't
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need to swim in that pool because you get it.
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You understand if you're listening to this podcast,
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you're, you're probably struggling with trauma anyway.
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And I don't need to sort of keep pushing your head under the
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water there and making you feel stuff over and over and over.
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So let's pivot. Let's talk about what can we do
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in order to try to gain a, a sense of internal trust in your
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life again. Well, I think there's a couple
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of things, and you pick out some that work for you.
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So one of them is journaling. I know you've probably heard
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this ever. Seems like every therapist in
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the world talks about it. It doesn't work for everybody, I
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fully admit that. But I also think journaling can
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be a very powerful tool. And so I always included for
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those who may have thought about it and thought, well, yeah, I
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probably should do that. But right now, I don't know if I
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have the time or I don't quite know what to journal and so on
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and so forth. And so it just try it.
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If you haven't done journaling before, I just want you to try
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it because oftentimes what we think and, and this is a
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fallacy, is that somehow we're going to gain clarity and then
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take action. And that's not really the way it
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works. Often times we gain clarity from
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action. We have to take action first.
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We have to do something 1st. And somehow it's in the doing
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that we begin to create clarity for ourselves.
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So do some daily check insurance.
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What am I feeling? What do I need?
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What is my mood today? Did I notice any particular
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shifts in my mood? These things you can journal.
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It doesn't take long. It could be 5 minutes to just
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journal some of this stuff. Some prompts might include when
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did I begin to ignore my gut and what happened at any time?
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Did I listen to myself as I went along with the day?
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Was there a time I paid attention to my gut and it paid
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off? Often times what happens with
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trust is we notice all the times where we don't trust ourselves,
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but we don't pay nearly enough attention to those times that we
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actually do trust ourselves in order to to make note of that
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and internalize the times where we did trust ourselves and it
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paid off. It worked our our internal needs
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and wishes met our external reality.
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So try journaling, focusing on what you're feeling, what you
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need, the times where you might have ignored your gut response
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and what happened, but also and maybe most importantly, the
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times where you paid attention to your gut and went with it and
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it paid off. I think also doing some inner
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child work is important. Writing yourself a letter to
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your younger self and what would you say to yourself feeling the
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way you do, knowing what they went through?
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What would you have wanted somebody, a compassionate adult
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to say to you back then? And so writing a letter can
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again be very impactful to your younger self.
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Now, I don't want you to re traumatize yourself.
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So if this brings up too much emotion, if you've got too many
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blocks, if your protector jumps up and you go blank, then put
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that aside. Don't try that yet.
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We're start working on emotion regulation and some grounding
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and soothing techniques first. Then maybe you can get to a
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point where you can do some inner child work.
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But if you feel like you're prepared for that, then go for
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it. Try to write yourself, your
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younger self, a letter and you know, what would you say to it?
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What do you want it to know about who you are now and all
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the wonderful things that you've accomplished?
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Here's another one, identifying and reframing core beliefs.
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As I mentioned at the opening, a lot of times there's this sort
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of tape that just runs on automatic back in the back of
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our brain. It tells us we're not enough,
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we're unworthy of love, we're broken and we've got to be able
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to challenge and reframe those core beliefs.
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So often times we can use cognitive behavioral therapy or
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trauma informed therapy to shift those those narratives.
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One of the things you can do is just have a, a mantra of I am
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safe right now. Because as you know, and I'm
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sure you've heard, part of trauma is that we feel unsafe in
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the here and now, when we should be feeling safe in the here and
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now. That that feeling is actually
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attached to the past. And it's our inability to be
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safe in the here and now and to be able to recognize that.
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So just even saying to yourself, I am safe now and trying to feel
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safe in your body can make a big difference.
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Try to make some low state decisions for yourself, right?
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We don't have to make any life changing decisions, huge career
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changes, employment changes, falling in into a new
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relationship. We don't have to make big
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changes. We can make small incremental
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changes. Practice choosing what to eat,
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wear or watch something as small as that wearing an outfit maybe
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that you only save for certain occasions, wearing it on a day
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that's an average normal day to make yourself feel good an
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outfit maybe that you feel really nice.
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And I know sometimes when I put on a new shirt that I buy or I
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get man, I just feel sharp that day.
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I just feel better it, it's sort of artificially raises myself
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esteem, but none the less, it feels good that day and I feel
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like I'm looking good. I've gotten something that maybe
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is a little more in style than some of my clothes and I'm
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updating my, my style a little bit, if you will, which I
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desperately need because I'm always, I'm always behind the
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curve. I'm never really in style.
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But none the less when I get a new shirt or something, you
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know, you wear it that day, you just feel good.
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So little things like that can make a big difference and
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celebrate even small choices that you're making
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independently. You know, maybe maybe choosing
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to eat something a little more healthy as opposed to that that
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next cheeseburger that you just normally get.
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Even a small decision like that. Maybe it's not going to tip the
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scales on weight or something enormous, but here's a choice
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you made and you chose to to make a choice that was good and
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healthy for you. And so making slow state
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decisions can be really helpful. Another thing is mindfulness and
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emotional tracking. Use mood trackers or or even
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apps to recognize your emotional patterns.
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Are there times where you get triggered?
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Do their team seem to be some patterns, our people or places
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where you tend to get triggered more often than not?
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And being able to sit with your emotions without rushing to fix
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or even minimize them is really important.
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So we want to learn from our emotions and we want to be
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mindful of them. We want to be able to have an
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emotional experience that we can learn from, that we can observe
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without being overwhelmed by the emotion, so much so that we are
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caught up in it. Like that pool I mentioned
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earlier. We just jump in and we're
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literally swimming in the emotion.
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We want to be sort of standing on the edge of the pool looking
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at the water, which is the emotion and going, oh, this is
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interesting. I, I want to be able to learn
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from this. This is an interesting feeling
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that's coming up for me. Or I just noticed that all of a
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sudden I felt very disconnected from any feelings and I feel
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very apathetic right now about everything.
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This is interesting. So imagine yourself on the side
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of the pool looking into the water and, and the water is
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representative of your emotion. Can you unblend from that?
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Can you be mindful of that for even just a few moments and be
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able to try to observe what you're feeling as opposed to
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being caught up in it? And then of course,
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compassionate self talk. This is really important.
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We need to be able to verbalize to our self ways that we want to
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be and feel, not ways that we already are and feel.
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So instead of why do I let that happen, we need to replace it
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with I did the best I could with what I knew with.
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It was my fault. We need to replace it with I was
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too young to know any better. I should have been protected by
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others. It wasn't my fault.
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We need to be able to develop a deep, nurturing inner voice.
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That's going to be so important in our being able to regain
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trust in ourselves is we have to stop beating ourselves up with
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that critical inner voice. And we have to be able to
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replace it with a compassionate self talk.
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And the only way really to do that is to be able to recognize
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when that inner critic speaks up, recognize when that tape is
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on automatic and it's just rolling through the same, the
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same mantras. You're unworthy, you're not
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measuring up, you're too much so on and so forth.
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And we've got to be able to stop that tape and and interrupt it
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with a more compassionate self talk.
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So these are some ways that I think is important to begin your
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journey to regain trust in yourself.
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Remember that healing from relational trauma, it's not
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about necessarily becoming somebody new.
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It's about returning to the self you were before the trauma
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occurred so that you can trust your own feelings, your own self
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worth, and your own voice. And this is a journey.
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Sometimes for some people, the trauma is so severe, this might
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be a lifelong journey, but nonetheless, this is a journey
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that can begin today for you. You are not alone.
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Help is here. And so try some of these tools
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to help yourself, begin to trust yourself and to have a more
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nurturing inner voice. Thank you so much for listening.
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As always, it's such an honor to bring these to you and continue
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to let me know what you'd like to hear more of, what I can
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focus on, to be of most help. And until then, we'll talk to
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you next time.