healing childhood trauma pt7

Review  of Healing Childhood Trauma Parts1-6

The First Task of Healing—Acceptance

Part 1 Accepting the fact of the loss-what is wrong with my family? 

Part 2 Accepting the meaning of the loss-what does the loss mean about me? 

Part 3 Accepting the irreversibility of the loss-what is the truth about my family?

The Second Task of Healing—Experience the Pain

Part 4 Stage one begins with denial/magical thinking and the avoidance of conscious pain. 

Part 5 Stage two deals with sadness and confusion. 

Part 6 Stage three brings out anxiety, anger, guilt, depression and loneliness.

How to Heal From Childhood Trauma Pt 7

Internal Shift

The Third Task of Healing—Internal, External & Spiritual Shifts

The third task of healing from childhood trauma addresses three shifts that must occur in order for the healing journey to come full circle; internal, external and spiritual. These are not linear but occur in layers. We finish with one then move on to the next, then come back around and do it all again. I don’t want to sound discouraging. You are not caught in a never ending loop. But, as survivors, part of what we need to accept is the depth of chronic childhood trauma. You can’t possibly process it all in one go. It is going to take time. It’s easier if you look at it in layers and not as a linear check list. 

An Internal Shift is a Change in Belief

After you walk the difficult path of acceptance, and you understand that there is nothing you can do to change your family, you begin to believe with your heart that you were not the cause of all the problems. This is what it is like to make an internal shift. Notice the heart part. A shift is not a shift unless it involves true heart belief. Understanding and knowledge come first and are necessary, but they are not the same thing as an internal shift. An internal shift is a change in belief.

Many years ago, while vacationing in Florida, I went on a ride at Universal Studios called “Earthquake.” As we rode in the “touring car,” the earth suddenly began to shake; building’s tumbled over, bricks narrowly missed us, the ground split and water spewed out. It was as realistic an experience of an earthquake as I hope I ever have. I thought about that ride and the way it relates to internal shifts in belief. 

Everything you base your life upon as a child is connected to your parents. They are the only stabilizing force you know. You need them to survive. In addition, abusive narcissistic parents work hard to keep you tied to them. They want you to stay in their system forever because it gives them power. Using you brings them temporary relief from their own emotional damage. You serve as a sort of emotional dumping ground. Because much of this behavior is covert and done unconsciously, it is one of the reasons making an internal shift is so complicated and difficult.

There is a Need to Re-learn the World

“There is a need to re-learn the world.” is a quote from Grief counseling & Grief Therapy by William Worden. I have found this book extremely helpful. For me, the healing process from childhood trauma has been a journey of grief. In a way, seeing the truth about my family system and the truth about my parents and the damage they were doing was like a death. Perhaps even more difficult than death. My relationship with them died, yet, they continued to live. 

I had to re-learn everything about the world and my place in it. First, I had to stop seeing myself through the eyes of my abusive parents. I was not the family idiot. I was not the family screw-up. I was not stupid. I was not responsible for or the cause of their emotional problems etc. etc. But in order to see the truth, I had to let go of the old. And that meant, letting go of the hope that I would ever be loved or understood by the people that mattered most. Talk about an earthquake! That one was nine points on the richter scale.

Who Am I?

In order to make an internal shift I had to answer the question, who am I? One profound experience illustrates my answer and ended with a large internal shift. I found my first grade report card amongst a box of old papers. The last time I’d seen it, I was five years old and couldn’t read cursive. To my surprise, line after line was filled with glowing accolades from Mrs. King, the only teacher and adult I felt loved me. Hmmm, here was an eyewitness account in writing that said the exact opposite of what my parents had pounded into my head. Mrs. King wouldn’t lie. An internal shift occurred. 

How Are Things Different From What I Always Thought They Were?

In order to make an internal shift, I must also answer the question how are things different from what I always thought they were? My answers changed everything. The world was not the ugly, depressing, hopeless place my mother told me it was. Things did not always end in disaster the way my father said they did. Slowly, internal shifts began to occur almost daily. I had to work at it. I had to slow down. I had to listen to the song of life. I could not live like a bat out of hell pushing to get to the next thing so that I did not have to deal with my own inner turmoil. Everything had to change. The way I lived, the way I thought and most of all, the things I believed. 

When I was a child, there was a large field of corn growing next to our dilapidated farm house. As a four-year-old, I once wandered into the long rows—each looking exactly alike. I remember tilting back my head. The sky broad and as vast as an ocean was only interrupted by the tops of tall corn stalks growing to the clouds. A black bird flapped its wings and disappeared into the unending rows. I looked at my bare feet. Hard, brown earth crumbled between my toes. There was no beginning and no end. It didn’t matter that my house sat only a few yards away, the corn field was all I could see in every direction. 

When you have never lived anything except abuse, it is hard to see that there is anything else. If I had kept following the rows of corn, I would have been lost forever. But I figured out that by stepping across and through the rows, I could find my way out. How do you make an internal shift? You do the opposite of what abuse tells you to do. You step across hopelessness, and through self-hatred ignoring the rows and rows of lies—challenging each one as you go.  

The Biggest Internal Shift of All

And now we come to the biggest internal shift of all and when accomplished, will be like rocket fuel for the rest of your journey. I was now in charge, not my abusers. This one change in belief was a bridge to life. Growing up in a narcissistic system, I was completely powerless from the moment of my birth. All the normal phases of development were destroyed. As an adult, I made my own decisions, but my inner belief system caused me to make them in the shadow of abuse. It was like looking at the world through a fun house mirror. Everything was warped. 

And then one day, a wise therapist looked me in the eye and said, “you keep waiting for a hero. I would like to suggest that you can be your own hero.” The thought that I could rescue myself had never crossed my mind. I could reach down and save that precious inner child that had lived in sorrow for so long. Whatever and wherever I went from this point forward, I could choose! I had the power—NOT THEM! What I had waited for, for so long was right underneath my nose. I got to decide my present and my future. And I could treat myself with love and respect! What a joy to really believe this. What an even greater joy to live it out. When this bridge is crossed, it leads to the topic of my next blog: external shifts. Defy trauma, embrace joy. Make the shift!