11/11/2025
There are such profound statements in this podcast! Recovery from trauma isn't just about the horrific things we've been through, the things that nearly broke us... Yes, it's important to process the underlying trauma so that our nervous system, body and mind, and all our parts, can learn a new way of being without being triggered and instantly hijacked by flashbacks, emotionally, physically, visually or in whatever form they come...
But it's equally important to be curious about who you are underneath all the trauma, the protective behaviours, beliefs and habits that kept us safe and kept us going... To be able to pause and feel safe enough to explore what we like, to explore things that bring us joy. Maybe something very little to begin with, just a flicker of joy, fleeting as it is, a little seed that we can plant in our memory garden, something to start building a balance between the horrible past, the here and now, that often is still filled with hardness and struggles, and things we want to invite into our life for the future... And because it's so hard to even believe that it's possible we need to start small...
As Carolyn Spring - Reversing Adversity says in this podcast:
'So recovery from trauma isn’t just about dealing with the difficult stuff. It’s also about building something positive in your life, and in many ways I think that can be the hardest thing to do. Because we’ve been conditioned to life being awful. That’s what we’re used to. It’s hard to want anything nice, because we’ve been programmed to fear that it’ll be taken away, or that it’s only really a prelude to something bad happening...'
But each time we find something nice, something joyful it adds to the new you... Because we are all so much more than the trauma that happened to us! ✨🫶🪷
How on earth can we begin to enjoy life after chronic childhood ? My stumbling block wasn't just trauma symptoms. It was having a fundamental issue with who I was: being utterly ashamed of myself.
Listen to my podcast: https://www.carolynspring.com/podcasts/learning-to-enjoy-life/