Latest / Adult Child of Dysfunction / E 366: Tammys Takes #43: Healing Isn't A Race

Transcript

E 366: Tammys Takes #43: Healing Isn't A Race · Adult Child of Dysfunction

• 0:00
  hello everybody, and welcome back to Tammy's Takes, where we take powerful conversations with our guests and turn them into practical strategies you can use right here, right now.
• 0:08
  So I wanna go back to yesterday's episode with Rachel, because honestly, I wanted to preemptively go back and proactively put a little bit of a trigger warning in there.
• 0:17
  Because I realized in listening to her tone and listening to her talk, and just listening to some of the tough conversations that we had, we talked about trauma, we talked about PTSD, we talked about some of the healing
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  modalities for PTSD.
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  And honestly, we talked about some pretty difficult childhood experiences.
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  And I know that depending on where you are in your journey, parts of that might have been a little uncomfortable.
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  So I never want anybody listening to this podcast to feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
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  That is absolutely never my intention.
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  So know this, and know this with all the love in my heart.
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  If an episode ever feels like too much, please give yourself permission to pause it, turn it off, come back when you're ready, or never come back at all to it.
• 0:56
  It's okay.
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  But I also want to encourage you to get curious about what came up.
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  So what did you feel?
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  What did...
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  Where did you feel it in your body?
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  What was it about the conversation that affected you?
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  And if you need support honestly figuring that out and exploring those feelings, reach out to me.
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  You don't have to figure it out all by yourself.
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  Because here's what I really want you to understand today.
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  Everybody is at a different place in their healing journey, and that's okay.
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  You are exactly where you are supposed to be at the time.
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  We talked about it in many of my podcasts how healing undoes itself, and it unravels itself in layers.
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  And I truly believe it's when your God, my God, whatever, your higher power, whatever it is, the universe, whatever you wanna call it, my friends, I believe that it unravels these layers as we're ready to deal with them
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  So your healing doesn't need to look like Rachel's, it doesn't need to look like mine, and it doesn't need to look like somebody else's.
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  Healing isn't a race.
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  Your nervous system sets the pace of your healing.
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  So today I wanna teach you a really simple way to start listening to what your reactions might actually be trying to tell you.
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  I call it notice, name, need.
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  But first, let's talk about why it matters.
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  You heard me just say before, your nervous system sets the pace.
• 2:13
  One of the things I teach over and over again is that healing is not just an intellectual process.
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  You can understand it intellectually all No matter how you look at it, you can know exactly what happened to you, you can know why your behavior is the way it is, you can know why your parents behaved the
• 2:30
  way they did.
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  You can read every book, you can listen to every podcast, you can go to therapy, you can learn all the big fancy words that we use, but your body is still reacting.
• 2:40
  Because understanding something and feeling safe with something are not necessarily the same thing.
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  This is especially important for adult children of dysfunction, because everything in their world stems around safety, and a lot of us became really good, honestly, at overriding ourselves.
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  We learned to abandon ourselves.
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  We learned to not cry.
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  We learned that we shouldn't make things w- worse.
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  We learned that we shouldn't be too sensitive.
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  And then something really interesting happens.
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  We start healing, but we bring that exact mentality into our healing.
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  So you ask yourself, "Why am I still triggered?
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  Why can't I talk about this yet?"
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  Rachel can talk openly about her trauma.
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  Why can't I?
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  These are the things you start asking yourself.
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  Or you might even give yourself a time limit "I've been doing this for two years.
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  I should be further along."
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  Do you hear what you're doing to yourself?
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  You're literally putting your sa- that same pressure on yourself.
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  You're just putting a healing label on it, but it's still pressure no matter how you look at it.
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  Healing was never supposed to become one more thing you have to be perfect at.
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  So take your reaction that you got and use it as information.
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  So if you are triggered by something that somebody says, I want you to start asking yourself, instead of saying, "Why am I still triggered by this?"
• 4:01
  and frustrating yourself and starting to go down that shame spiral, ask yourself what the reaction is trying to tell you.
• 4:09
  It's a very different question.
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  One comes from judgment, the other comes from curiosity.
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  How many times have you heard me talk about how when you come at things with curiosity, you soften them?
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  Honestly, curiosity is one of the most powerful tools you can use in healing.
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  Let's say you're listening to a podcast, like my conversation with Rachel, and suddenly you notice that you're feeling a little uncomfortable.
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  You don't necessarily know why.
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  Don't immediately go into the story.
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  Don't try to tell yourself why.
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  Just start with your body.
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  What happened with your body physiologically?
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  Did your jaw tighten?
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  Did your shoulders come up?
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  Did your breathing change?
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  Is there pressure in your chest?
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  A knot in your stomach?
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  Does it suddenly feel like you're irritated or anxious, or you wanna crack your knuckles?
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  What happened?
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  Because physiologically, something is going to happen, right?
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  Just notice it.
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  Just notice it and be aware of it.
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  And you do not need to figure out, and this is very important, because a lot of the exercises we do say go back and figure out when you first felt this feeling, right?
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  You don't have to immediately figure out what childhood experience caused it.
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  Because then we're just turning awareness into another investigation.
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  We're turning it into another task, another chore, and more pressure.
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  Because then you start thinking to yourself, "I have to figure this out.
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  I wanna know where this comes from.
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  I have to fix this."
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  No.
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  Sometimes awareness is simply something in me is reacting to this right now.
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  And if you are okay with that, that's enough information.
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  So here's the tool I want you to practice, okay?
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  Three words.
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  It's very simple.
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  Notice, name, need.
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  First, notice it.
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  What's happening in my body right now?
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  We talked about all those different sensations you could have.
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  Your stomach, your shoulders, you feel restless.
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  You wanna leave, you wanna get up and move, you wanna turn that podcast off, whatever it is.
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  Don't judge it, don't fix it, just notice it.
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  Then name it.
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  Just give it a name.
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  What might I be feeling?
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  Is it fear?
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  Is it sadness?
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  Is it anger?
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  Shame?
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  Overwhelm?
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  Rejection?
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  Maybe you feel powerless to fix what's going on right now.
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  Or maybe honestly, you might have absolutely no idea.
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  That's okay.
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  Just simply name it.
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  Something feels activated in me right now, and I feel blank.
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  And the last step is need.
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  What do you need right now?
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  This is the part that so many adult children struggle with, because we've spent so much of our time asking ourselves, what does everybody else need?
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  Instead, I want you to ask yourself, what do I need right now?
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  Maybe you need to pause.
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  Maybe you need to talk to someone.
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  Maybe you need to take a walk.
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  Maybe you need to put both feet on the ground and look around the room.
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  Ground yourself.
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  Do something to calm yourself.
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  Maybe you need a few short breaths.
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  Guys, we could go over and over all of the things that you could possibly do to calm yourself in that moment, but it's ultimately what you need.
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  I can't tell you what n- you need.
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  Only you know what you need.
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  And I truly believe, and you've heard me say this 1,000 times if you've been listening to this show, you were born all-knowing.
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  You were born with this divine knowledge of everything you need, everything you want, everything you desire.
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  You have it all inside of you.
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  So maybe- You just need to remind yourself, "I'm here.
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  That was then.
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  This is now."
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  Who knows?
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  Maybe you need to turn off the podcast.
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  Name what you need, and then honor yourself in giving yourself what you need.
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  Do not judge yourself for stopping or for doing something different.
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  Because honestly, stopping and doing something different is self-trust.
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  It's telling yourself, "I don't need to hear this right now."
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  You noticed yourself, you listened, you responded.
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  For someone who might have spent decades ignoring their own needs, this is actually a big deal.
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  Sometimes healing doesn't mean going deeper right now., We're all at a different level of our healing.
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  I think sometimes we actually turn healing into endurance, so it's another fight.
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  It's another, struggle, another battle, so you wanna know "How much can I cover?
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  How deep can I go?
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  How much can I process?
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  How much trauma can I talk about without reacting?"
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  But that's not always automatically better.
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  Sometimes the next step is just creating more safety.
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  So it's in making that safety bubble that I talk about a little bigger, sometimes that little safety bubble means getting enough sleep so you wake up rested.
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  Sometimes it means nourishing your body so that you feel healthy.
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  Sometimes it means moving, setting a boundary, saying no, calling someone safe, talking for five minutes without doing anything productive Not explaining yourself, leaving the room.
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  These are all things that can make yourself feel safe.
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  But every time you do one of them, you're teaching yourself, "I'm listening to me now."
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  And that's how self-trust starts to rebuild.
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  Not through one giant breakthrough, and we've said this before many times, but through hundreds of little moments when you notice yourself and respond differently.
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  But I think the big message that I'm trying to get out here today is that you can't compare your healing to someone else's.
• 9:38
  Rachel has been working on her healing for years.
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  Someone listening to that conversation might have just realized, "Oh my gosh, my childhood actually affected me."
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  Maybe you're at the very beginning.
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  These two people are not supposed to be in the same place.
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  You're exactly where you need to be right now.
• 9:55
  Maybe you're just starting to recognize your patterns of people-pleasing, the perfectionism, the hypervigilance, the issues with self-trust, the reading the room.
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  All these things that we mention and we throw out there over and over again.
• 10:07
  Maybe you're at that part in your journey where you're just now starting to realize, "Oh my God, this is me."
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  And suddenly you're looking back at your life and you're thinking to yourself, "Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense."
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  That feeling can be so assuring that you're finally figuring it out, but can also be very overwhelming.
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  So please remember, you don't have to fix everything that you become aware of.
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  You don't.
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  Awareness comes before change.
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  Sometimes today's healing is simply noticing, "Ah, I do that."
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  That's it.
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  You don't have to solve it before it's dinner.
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  So this week I want you to practice something.
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  When you notice yourself having a strong reaction to something, don't immediately try to make it disappear, and don't judge yourself for having it.
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  Practice the- three things that I mentioned.
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  Notice what is happening in my body.
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  Name what might I be feeling and need.
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  What do I need right now?
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  And then whenever possible, honor the answers you get because every time you do that, you're sending yourself a different message.
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  Instead of your feelings are inconvenient, you're saying to the, yourself, "I'm listening.
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  I got you.
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  I'm here for you."
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  Instead of saying, "Get over it," you're saying, "We got this together, my friend."
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  And instead of asking yourself, "Why aren't I further along in my healing journey?"
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  remind yourself, "We'll all go at our own pace, and I'm exactly where I need to be right here right now."
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  Like I said, your healing doesn't have to look like Rachel's, and it certainly doesn't have to look like mine.
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  Your job isn't to heal the fastest, your job is to learn how to heal yourself again.
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  And whatever you are in that process today, that's where we start.
• 11:46
  So if this Tammy's Takes resonated with you, please follow or subscribe to The Adult Child of Dysfunction and share this episode with someone who might need permission to heal at their own pace.
• 11:56
  And if you're ready to go a little deeper into understanding the patterns your childhood trauma might have left you behind with, you can check out my course at tammievincent.com/course.
• 12:04
  Right now, I am giving 90% off with the code THRIVE25 because I truly believe we all start somewhere, and today might just be the day that you start.
• 12:14
  You do not have to force healing, my friends.
• 12:16
  You can listen your way through it, and it can take you the rest of your life.
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  It is a journey, It is not an A to Z path.
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  It is a journey, and I would love to take that journey with you.
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  Right now, all I want you to know though is that you are safe, you are loved, and I welcome you back anytime.
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  So thank you so much, you guys.
• 12:35
  Have a blessed day, and we'll see you back.