Month: February 2022

I was at a Somatic Experiencing (SE) training course recently. I like to go to these to keep my skills up to date, but what happened on this day was not what I was expecting would come up for me at the time!

I went through a particularly deep somatic dissociation, which I’ll describe in this post, where I lost all feeling in my left arm.  I’ll share with you how I worked to release the emotions and memories trapped there; ultimately and thankfully regaining sensation. and most importantly, I’ll also outline some grounding techniques and practical resources that YOU can use at home or on the go, if you should find yourself in the midst of a dissociative response.

But first, let’s understand what dissociation actually is…

Have you ever driven home and realized you have absolutely no idea how you got there?

Or perhaps you’ve been so engrossed in a book that you lost all track of time? If so, it’s likely that you were experiencing a very mild form of dissociation.

That dazed, fuzzy feeling of losing touch with your thoughts, feelings or actions is extremely common amongst trauma survivors, but not in a good way, and not in a way where we can quickly snap back to reality.

When faced with the overwhelm of a traumatic event or experience, the body does whatever it can in order to survive. 

This is true whether the event is a car accident, sudden loss of a loved one, injury, illness, rape or sexual abuse. In basic terms, trauma can be defined as a psychological, emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing. It is usually combined with feelings of helplessness, fear and inescapability.

When fight or flight responses are not possible (usually because our nervous system deems these responses unsafe, such as during a highway collision), the body resorts to freeze. Linked to that freeze state is Dissociation. Generally speaking, dissociation represents the state of a person’s perception when they’re in the state of freeze.

As a coach, specializing in Trauma Healing, I see this dissociative, freeze response very frequently with my clients. But you’re probably wondering how you might be able to recognize it, either in yourself or in a loved-one?

Characteristics of dissociation…

Dissociation is often characterized by a glazed expression, glassy eyes, confusion, lapses in time – where time seems to either speed up or slow down.

Memory loss or periods of amnesia are also common, as is a person’s feeling of un-reality and a sense of distance or detachment from themselves, their identity and their surroundings.

Frequent examples of this are when a person reports watching themselves and their mangled car flip in slow-motion from up-above the accident scene, or a person telling me that they witnessed their rape as if it were ‘happening to someone else’.

In his book ‘The Body Bears the Burden’, Dr Robert Scaer gives a very clear example of somatic dissociation when he writes about a client who had been in a motor vehicle accident (MVA). She had suffered damage to the vision in her right eye. Since her accident two months prior, the woman had experienced persistent blurred vision. During her accident he reports that she had:

“lost control of her car on an icy mountain road, and as the car spun out of control, it slid off the right side of the road, into a shallow ditch. On the other side of the ditch was a cliff.  As she watched the edge of the cliff approaching from her right side (perceived in slow motion…), her car was stopped by impacting a tree, and came to rest.”

The woman was treated for her vision impairment. Scaer reports that within minutes of putting on the glasses with new lenses his client  developed nausea, heart palpations, panic and flashback memories of the accident.

In this case, the threat to the woman’s life (the approaching cliff) was on her right side. Her right eye had experienced a somatic dissociative response resulting in blurred vision. This blurring was her body’s way of protecting her from the terrifying, overwhelming and inescapable threat coming towards her. The blurring was effectively blocking or distancing her from the flashbacks, emotions and physiological responses to her trauma.

In order to heal our trauma however, we cannot stay in a dissociated state long-term. In a dissociated state, we are essentially living with huge amounts of charged, unresolved feelings, emotions, memories and bound or pent-up survival energy in our body. Eventually this takes its toll on the body and can result in chronic pain and illnesses.

So, what can we do instead? How do we go about recognizing that we’re dissociating in the first place and then what steps can we take to safely come out of dissociation? As you’ll see from my story below, dissociation can creep up on us and catch us off-guard. It can happen suddenly or more slowly. The trick is to notice the coming and going states and to take steps to ground yourself along the way.

How I lost all feeling in my left arm…

I’m never very keen on people with clipboards taking notes on (what feels like) my performance at training events, but it’s an inevitable part of the day.

This particular day had been very long.  Many people were coming down with winter colds and it was snowing heavily outside. We had been told we might need to end the day early because blizzard conditions were expected later that evening.

As we settled in to our triad group-work, one of my colleagues was complaining of laryngitis. She was barely able to talk above a whisper, was feeling very grumpy and short-tempered and was finally sent home to get some rest.

So, for my practice session as ‘client’, this left just myself, the trainer (complete with clipboard and pen at the ready!) and my ‘therapist’.

My therapist began the session by sitting down with a loud exhaling-snort complete with eye-roll ‘oh my god, do we have to do this now?! Can’t we just go home already?’ I bristled and recoiled immediately. My shocked response was – ’Wow! Lucky me! I can’t wait to be your client right now’.

I’m not usually one for conflict or confrontation, but this opening seemed just a little unprofessional and triggered some big emotions in me. I had planned to work on some small, innocuous childhood event during the practice session, but that went out the window and what we worked on instead was a memory I had long-since forgotten.

We began by noticing that because of this exchange, I was feeling very hot and flushed in the face. I felt hugely embarrassed, panicky, exposed and vulnerable. I had clearly been triggered by my ‘therapist’s’ clumsy words. I told her that I did not feel safe to open up to her. We hung out with that for a few minutes (as you do in practice sessions), and decided that we could continue to explore what was happening with my body and nervous system.

As we tracked the feelings of embarrassment, panic and anger in my chest, what became very strong was the idea of not feeling safe in my body or in my environment. As I acknowledged this, my left shoulder began to throb. The left side of my neck beginning under my earlobe and running all the way down to my collarbone had a strong searing-sharp pain.

Aware that my head was beginning to feel fuzzy, I found myself trying to shake my head and laugh off the physical discomfort. I took a moment to notice my feet on the ground beneath me and to gently lift and press my toes into the ground one foot at a time in a kind of pedaling motion. Feeling a little more ‘here’ and present, I took some deep diaphragmatic breaths before checking back in with my shoulder.

What I found was that the pain was now spreading down the entire length of my arm. As it spread, my whole left arm tingled for a few moments and then became completely numb. My arm became frozen and rigid and very cold to the touch. The fingers on my left hand were white and blanched further to the touch. My right hand by contrast was warm and pink. This is an example of partial somatic or body dissociation, where a single limb or body part is affected instead of the whole organism.

As I looked at my left arm, I noticed a strange feeling of distance from it. Like it didn’t belong to me. It felt detached, cut off and very far away. I felt cold and detached from my arm emotionally too. Numb to what it might be experiencing or why. I decided at this point to pick up my left arm with my right and cradle it gently against my stomach. It felt somehow like my arm was being held in a sling.

Beginning to feel all the feelings kept at bay by the dissociation…

As I continued to cradle my arm, the soothing self-touch began to shift something in me and my awareness. I got a sudden woosh of emotion throughout my torso. My arm remained immobilized, but I suddenly felt huge waves of emotional pain, shame, embarrassment and the feeling of desperately wanting to escape or run away.

I felt all this in my chest, my heart and in my arm. I was engulfed by a quick succession of images of being outside near trees at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, surrounded by a gang of bullies a year or so older than me. For the first time in decades, I remembered being shoved to the ground by these bullies, falling hard and dislocating my left shoulder. The physical pain was scorching, but to me sitting in this simulated SE session, the emotional pain was far greater. Through my tears, the words ‘what do I do, what do I do’ kept racing through my mind.

Back then, when I was still just a little girl of 8 or 9 I hadn’t known what to do. I felt trapped and very, very scared. I was outnumbered and I was hurt. All I could come up with was ‘I’ll never let them see my cry, I’ll hold it all inside’. And so, I had squished down all the emotional pain of the event.

Growing up, there was no supportive adult at home whom I could tell that might listen to me, believe  me or help me process what had happened. Let alone protect me from further incidents and so I handled it the only way I knew – alone. The feelings of grief and a lack of support were intense. As I gently squeezed the length of my left arm, I felt intermingled waves of sadness, grief and compassion for that little girl and the pain both physical and emotional that she had experienced. I felt her feelings of unworthiness of love and support, care and attention.

I wondered, as I sat patiently with my motionless arm, can I give the things I didn’t get back then to myself today? I asked my arm – ‘what do you need today to heal this?’ My arm’s response surprised me. I had the thoughts, ‘I want to take up space. I want to deserve to exist and be seen as me without fear or consequence. I want to feel worthy of love and care’.

Little by little, as I acknowledged what my arm needed and all the big emotions of grief, pain, shame, embarrassment my arm began in tiny increments to tingle and defrost. I had not cried back then,  it had felt like my only defense to squelch my emotions, but I cried now. Letting out all the emotions trapped in my arm, frozen at the time of that horrible incident.

At 8 or 9 years old, I had not been able to successfully complete the flight response. I had felt a strong urge to run away, but too outnumbered and too filled with fear, I had frozen and dissociated instead. Our nervous systems are incredibly intelligent and, based on the circumstances where neither fight nor flight were an option, freeze and dissociation was my body’s best chance at survival.

Now, today however, in the middle of this practice SE session, I imagined my little-girl-self standing back up tall after being shoved to the ground. I saw her brush herself down, take a deep breath and courageously push past the bullies and walk away with head-held-high down the street to safety. Giving my body the opportunity to complete what it never got a chance to do in the moment is not about re-writing history. It allows the nervous system to discharge bound or pent-up survival energy so that we can return to a more whole sense of self.

I had not anticipated doing such an important piece of healing work that day. I didn’t even remember that that event had happened to me as a child prior to working on it. But just in the same way as the woman’s blurred vision had protected her from all the painful, overwhelming emotions surrounding the possibility of plunging off a cliff to her death, my arm’s somatic dissociation was protecting or shielding me from feeling all the fear, shame, grief and abandonment as a child.

As I gradually felt, acknowledged and processed these emotions, the freeze response and somatic dissociation in my arm lessened. After about an hour it felt completely normal again. The next morning I woke feeling like I’d bench-pressed some heavy weights, but otherwise, there were no lasting physical symptoms.

So how might you work with your own dissociation?

 

Step # 1: Learning to recognize out own patterns of dissociation

You remember how I noticed my head starting to feel fuzzy? And how I felt like my arm did not belong to me? These were signs that I was dissociating.

Take a moment to think about what you do when you get triggered by something. Do you get sleepy? Do you yawn lots and zone – out of conversations? Do you stop breathing or only take really shallow breaths? Do you feel like you’re gliding through the day on auto-pilot? Does time slow down or do you have lapses in time or memory? Do you feel like a by-stander in your own life? Take a few moments to consider this and to get familiar with your specific ways of ‘checking-out’.

When you’ve come up with a few ways that you typically dissociate, you can begin to notice specific times of day or specific situations or triggers that may make this more likely to happen.

For example, is it always around a specific holiday? Or when you have to give a presentation in a meeting at work? Or when you have to see a particular relative? Your answers will give you important clues about what is causing you to dissociate.

STEP # 2: Grounding Techniques

To begin with, please practice these grounding techniques when you ARE NOT dissociating. This way when you are dissociating, you will stand more chance of remembering and using these resources.

A great way to ground yourself, is to use the 5 senses to help bring you back in to your body and into the present moment. As you become familiar with working with each of your senses, you will most likely find that one or two work best for you. This is very normal If any sense does not feel good or safe to you, simply move on to the next one.

TOUCH:

Feel your back against the chair you’re sitting in. Notice how it supports your back, your seat and your legs. Notice your feet on the floor. Do they feel heavy? Solid? Very slowly push one foot into the ground and release. Repeat this with your other foot and repeat.

Gently pat both of your arms as if you’re giving yourself a hug. Move on to pat your legs, head, face and anywhere else that reminds you that you have and are in a physical body. Notice one place in your body that feels the most centered, present or good (it could be as small as your pinkie finger or as big as your whole torso). Let your attention rest there for a few moments. Allow yourself to rest in the good feelings of that body part

VISION:

Look around you. Notice something about the room you’re in that is pleasing to your eye. Let your eyes rest there. (You can do this outside also.) Notice how looking at something pleasing  to your eye makes you feel inside your body. You can look for 5 blue things, or 3 red things for example. Move your head very slowly from side to side as you orient yourself to where you are. This will help to bring you back to the here and now.

SMELL:

You can burn a candle or incense with a fragrance that you like. Cut a lemon and inhale the fresh citrus scent deeply. Think of a pleasing smell to you (fresh cut grass or vanilla ice cream for example). Notice how your body responds as you think about or actually smell those things.

TASTE:

Hold an ice cube in your mouth, or suck on a slice of lemon or lime. The tart taste can help bring you to the present moment.

HEARING:

Play some music that you like. Listen to the clock ticking in your kitchen, Listen to the birds singing outside your window or the sound of your cat purring on the sofa. Listen to you sound of the lawn being mown or kids playing outside. Whatever is a positive or pleasing sound for you, you can try.

For me and for my clients, grounding is the number one tool that I use when working with dissociative responses. As you’ve seen here, you can use these grounding techniques as a resource to help you if you find yourself dissociating. I

If you’ve experienced trauma and dissociation and you would like support on your healing journey, please reach out. I’m here for you.

When people seek me out as a Trauma Coach, it’s often after going through years of traditional, talk-based therapy, when they are at the end of their rope – drained and depleted physically, emotionally and spiritually as well.

Typically, when they first reach out to me, they are overwhelmed by their experience of past traumatic events. Some are frustrated by years of bouncing from therapist to therapist with little to no relief, while others don’t know where to begin to heal or how to move forward in their lives.

In most cases, the nervous system is over-loaded and dissociation is rife. They are vacillating from being hyper-vigilant at times to shut-down at others, desperately trying to find relief from extreme stress and anxiety, all while sorting through and making sense of the constant barrage of triggers and other sensory overwhelm.

If that weren’t enough, many of them are living with life-limiting conditions, addictions, weight issues, physical pain and other debilitating symptoms that they developed in the wake of the original traumatic event.

Irrespective of the individual circumstances and experiences of each client though, what I’ve found is that they all have one thing in common – at one point or another – they sabotage their healing journey.

They sabotage their healing, not because they don’t want to heal or because they don’t care, and not because they are somehow lacking in the skills or resilience to heal. No, they sabotage themselves because the healing process is not easy, and generally speaking, every fiber of our being wants to run away from the process!

 

Healing takes great strength, courage, determination and time.

It challenges our core belief systems, our identity, our coping mechanisms and our sense of safety. When we face these challenges, our body, brain and nervous systems are innately wired to do whatever it takes to maintain a sense of equilibrium and to ensure our safety and survival.

Whenever our healing journey requires us, even momentarily, to step out of alignment with our current identity, beliefs and perception of safety, we will be met with resistance and if we do not recognize this pattern, and work to consciously over-turn it, we will inevitably sabotage our progress.

For many people facing this conundrum, it feels easier and safer to bounce around from therapist to therapist, from coach to coach and from technique to technique, than it does to double-down and do the real work necessary for long-term healing.

It feels easier and safer to start and stop on our journey and to chop and change our approach than it does to commit to the deep work of true and lasting healing.

And so today, I want to shed some light on 3 of the most common reasons why people sabotage, stall and sometimes quit their healing journey altogether.

I want to show you how to spot the subtle signs of sabotage so you can catch yourself in the act, re-direct your efforts and learn to stay the distance. I want to help you avoid these major pitfalls to healing and guide you towards creating real and lasting change and true healing. Yes, everybody gets off track at some point, everybody gets triggered. Everybody sabotages their progress to some degree, but it doesn’t mean that we have to give up. When we can begin to recognize the unconscious patterns of behavior that we have been running – and why – we can then bring these patterns to conscious awareness and begin to make a different choice.

 

REASON #1: ‘THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG!’

When it comes to healing from trauma, I get it! You want it all to be over and to be over right now! The flashbacks, the panic attacks, the depression, the body memories, the physical illness, to name but a few possible manifestations of your trauma. You want it to stop. To stop affecting your life. To stop holding you back. To stop feeling so painful and raw.

The good news is… you can absolutely see improvements that are life-changing in a short period of time, especially using EFT Tapping and Somatic Experiencing (SE). However, depending on the level of trauma that you experienced, true and lasting healing may take longer. For example, a single-incident trauma (such as a car accident) may take less time to process and work through than more recurrent, pervasive trauma will.

 

Improvements can be quick. But true healing takes time.

I know that’s not what you want to hear…and you may be feeling frustrated even reading this right now, but it doesn’t mean you should quit, get discouraged, or give up. Remember, any movement forwards, no matter how slow, is progress.

After all, if you experienced years of sexual abuse and trauma, and have carried the pain and suffering with you since then, resolving all of that in a matter of minutes, hours, or days, is perhaps a little bit of an unrealistic expectation for all of us. But…

What you can see is improvements in all aspects of your everyday experience of life, from your relationships, to your career, your health, your finances and so much more. And, ultimately, that is our goal: to have a better quality of life now. Yes, we can’t change the past. We can’t change what happened to us. But, we can change how our trauma is affecting us today – if we are willing to commit to the work and stay the course!

 

Everyone wants the quick fix!

The effects of sexual abuse and trauma are typically long-lasting and consequently, healing from it is a journey that takes time.

It’s easy to understand, in today’s society and culture however, why so many people get frustrated with the perceived slow speed of their recovery and quit on their healing journey too soon.

They are looking for the quick fix. There is heavy emphasis on speed and instant gratification all around us; the constant striving for the next thing that promises to fix everything and deliver happiness now; the band aid approach to life.

I get it, no one wants to live in pain and suffering. That’s why addictions, be it to food, substances, anti-depressants, opioids, shopping or even the distraction of social media are so rife today. It’s easier to check-out than it is to face what’s really causing us so much pain and suffering. But…

For true and lasting healing to take place, we have to be willing to rip off the band aid; to dive-deep and do the real work of healing. While techniques like EFT Tapping and SE can help to process things faster, you still have to do the work. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it.

 

Think for a moment about how your trauma has affected all areas of your life?

What emotional, physical or psychological symptoms do you still experience? Do you struggle to form or maintain close friendships or intimate relationships? Do you experience hyper-vigilance, anxiety or panic attacks?

Do you have physical symptoms or intrusive flashbacks? How has your trauma held you back in your life? What has it stopped you from doing or being? Are you finally ready to do the work necessary to truly move forward?

For me, PTSD symptoms were showing up in my body. I had terrible headaches and insomnia and when I did sleep I was plagued by violent nightmares. My adrenals were working overtime and my cortisol levels were severely dis-regulated. I could never relax and hyper-vigilance and panic attacks were my norm.

Everyone around me seemed happy and this only fueled my negative self-talk. ‘What’s wrong with me? Why is this taking so long? Am I broken? This is hopeless! Why can’t I just be happy? Other people have been through far worse.’ But the truth is…

None of this self-criticism is helpful. And so we have a choice to make. Either we can stay stuck in the rut of our trauma, lamenting how long it’s taking to heal, or we can choose to move forwards one symptom, one memory, one event and one day at a time, knowing that no matter how slow we go, forwards is forwards. There is hope. Life can be different. Healing is possible. It just might take a little time.

 

 

REASON #2: DISSOCIATION – I’M AFRAID TO FEEL MY FEELINGS AND BODY SENSATIONS:

A large part of what I do as a Trauma Coach, is to help my clients develop a tolerance for being present in their body in the here and now as we work together to resolve and heal past traumatic events. For many people who have experienced emotional, physical, sexual abuse or trauma, being present in their body feels extremely challenging and dangerous. It’s not surprising then, that I see dissociative, fear-based sabotage all the time.

The simple fact is that trauma gets stored in the body. We may not have conscious memories of our trauma, but our body remembers.

Using Somatic Experiencing (SE), I guide people towards a felt-sense or body awareness of how their trauma is stored in their body and from there we work gently and safely to release the pent-up or thwarted survival energies.

For example, trauma might show up in a person as pain symptoms such as neuropathy, jaw pain or chronic migraines. Oftentimes, the idea of what might be underneath this physical pain brings with it high levels of fear, dread, panic and dissociation (even if it’s dealt with in a very gentle way). Typically, the fear of feeling an emotion or sensation is far worse than the actual experience of being present with it.

And so, although a client may really want to heal, as soon as they begin to touch-into body sensations, feelings or emotions, they are likely to sabotage their efforts and leave their body or ‘dissociate’.

Perhaps you can relate to this experience of dissociating whenever you try to focus on your own body sensations, such as your breathing or areas of tightness or constriction. If so, it’s important to recognize the pattern before bolting to the door and quitting your work, never to return for another session!

I understand this fear-based sabotage all too well because I spent many years staying far, far away from my body and the reality of the trauma I experienced as a child. It did not feel safe to register body sensations or emotions. As a very young child, I learned that freeze and dissociation were my best chance at survival and I became adept at dissociating.

It’s really important to understand that, when faced with the overwhelm of a traumatic event or experience, the body does whatever it can in order to survive. When fight or flight responses are not possible (usually because our nervous system deems these responses unsafe, such as during a highway collision or rape), the body resorts to freeze. Linked to that freeze state is dissociation. The challenge is though, that this freeze/dissociation response can become habituated and can prevent us from moving forwards with our healing, or cause us to stop entirely.

I had one client recently, let’s call him *Bob*, who experienced this kind of habituated dissociation. Bob would lose all feeling in his right arm every time we talked about his rape.

We worked on this for several sessions. Week after week he would try to avoid the subject. He would distract himself with family drama and the various pain symptoms popping up around his body. He would call last minute to re-schedule sessions. But he did not quit. Bit by bit he persevered.

One day, after a lot of work to address his fears of punishment and repercussions, he was able to connect with the rage he felt towards the perpetrator. Yes, it was intense for him in the moment, but he finally released the fight-energy bound-up in the urge to punch the person who had caused him so much emotional and physical pain all those years ago. By connecting to his emotion (rage) and noticing how it was stored in his right arm, Bob was able to sit with his arm as the fight energy dissipated and he found relief.

 

It all comes down to safety

When a person has PTSD symptoms and a history of trauma, they very often have little sense of safety in their body and limited awareness that their trauma is in the past. They respond as if their abuse were happening today. They are unable to grasp that the threat is over. This is because trauma does not involve our rational brain. Our responses are firmly rooted in the mechanisms of our reptilian and limbic brain systems. The body and nervous system react as if the threat is still present today.

No matter how hard we try to move forwards and heal, unless we address this aspect of safety in the body, our body is likely to continue to say ‘NO’ to the work and sabotage our healing journey. Unless we can befriend our body, healing will not feel safe. Re-membering will not feel safe.

Take a moment to ask yourself how this plays out in your own life. When you notice feelings or body sensations linked to your trauma, what do you do? Do you dissociate? Do you freeze? Do you turn to food, medications or other substances to mask your pain or emotions? Do you zone out or self-harm? Do you constantly clean or find other ways to feel in control? Do you sleep for hours or barely at all? Or maybe you run marathons or pursue other extreme sports?

Whatever tools or strategies you have developed to cope, there is a more balanced way to approach our feelings and sensations that doesn’t leave us feeling terrified, numb or re-traumatized.

Crucially, lasting healing in the face of dissociative tendencies is about finding the balance between being firmly rooted in the here and now whilst at the same time exploring body sensations, feelings and emotions linked to back then.

When we can become aware of how we distract ourself and dissociate away from uncomfortable feelings, emotions and sensations, we can learn how to slow down and ground ourselves. It is from this grounded, embodied place that we can begin to really listen to our body. We can break the healing process down in to tiny, manageable pieces so that instead of bolting for the door, you can feel safe enough to continue your healing journey and finally find the healing and relief that you deserve.

REASON # 3: I HAVE TO HOLD ON TO MY IDENTITY – WHO WILL I BE WITHOUT THIS?

The idea of letting go of our trauma can be terrifying. After all, it is extremely familiar to us and we may have been carrying its burden for years or decades. Because of this familiarity, the magnitude of all that our life could have to offer without the pain, suffering, symptoms, dis-ease or trauma can fill us with panic, and the potential for success or failure, traveling or dating can trigger an identity crisis that can cause us to sabotage our healing journey.

So often, I work with people who make massive progress in terms of alleviating symptoms and issues such as insomnia, anxiety, panic, weight gain and addictions. I sit with people every day as they re-negotiate highly traumatic events and safely process strong emotions such as grief, rage and shame. These are people with huge amounts of courage, strength and determination. But sooner or later, every person I have ever worked with comes up against some kind of ‘identity sabotage’.

Healing challenges our core belief systems, our coping mechanisms, our sense of safety and our identity. When we face our trauma, our body, brain and nervous systems are hard-wired to do whatever it takes to maintain a sense of equilibrium in order to ensure our safety and survival.

This is why, whenever we rock the boat of healing, we encounter resistance. Anything that might challenge the status-quo or change our life (even for the better) is a threat. Let’s look at the case of my client *Joanne*, to find out more.

Joanne had been physically and verbally abused by her mother for many years. Her self-esteem was at rock bottom when we began our work. She was in and out of work and suffered with scoliosis of her spine and terrible joint pain. As we worked to process her traumatic past, her pain subsided and her confidence grew. Interestingly, as the fear of her mother diminished, her shoulders no longer drooped, the tension in her spine released and her posture straightened remarkably. She got a job she loved and took up canoeing as a new hobby. It was at this point that she began to consider dating.

And that’s when the identity sabotage kicked in. You see, a core belief that Joanne had taken on as part of her identity was the idea that she was ugly and unworthy of love. Her mother had repeatedly told her that she was ‘ugly and would always be alone’ and although she had done so much work to heal, the idea of dating brought up some major sabotage.

Joanne went on a couple of dates but her car broke down on the way to one and on the other the waiter spilled french onion soup on her dress.

She believed very strongly that these experiences were proof that she should not be dating and that she was still unworthy of love. It took several sessions to untangle this idea and help her move forwards once more.

Can you relate to this kind of identity sabotage? Perhaps you’ve said things like ‘but I don’t know who I’ll be if I let this go. It’s all I’ve ever known. I have to hold on to my hyper-vigilance because if I let it go, I know bad things will happen again. I’ve stopped smoking, but now I feel anxious all the time and I just want to stuff my face. I can’t be too visible or successful or else I’ll be punished.’

These are all examples of identity-based challenges that can de-rail our healing journey if we don’t bring them into our conscious awareness. Take an addiction or a craving for instance. If a person is a shop-aholic and they quit their habit, unless they address the underlying identity need that the habit was meeting – eg. ‘wearing new clothes helps me feel confident and out-going’ – then they will be left with a chasm or an identity void that will likely be filled with a different negative coping behavior or strategy.

This is why, if we only address the symptom or behavior (such as smoking or self-harm) without considering the underlying core issue, the person who was a smoker may choose to comfort-eat, gamble, shop or form some other addiction. It is essential when working with identity to create a bridge of sorts from where you were before healing work began, to where you are going. You may not be there yet, but conscious awareness is the first step to choosing and creating our new identity that will grow and expand as you continue to heal.

 

 

This is a wonderful tool for helping us recognize our otherwise unconscious core identity beliefs. When we can bring these beliefs to our conscious awareness and tap to release the intensity around them, we can gradually shift our identity in a way that feels safe, congruent, and authentic. This reduces our need to sabotage our healing journey and keeps us moving forward towards the life we want and deserve.

As you can see, there are so many different ways in which we can sabotage our progress. I hope that this article has given you some insight into the fact that you are not alone. These patterns are common among all trauma survivors and sooner or later, we all face these challenges that make us want to quit. But hopefully, by bringing these major types of sabotage out in the open, you can recognize and avoid the major pitfalls that could otherwise derail and sabotage your healing journey.

As ever, if you need support, please reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook or go here to set up a free healing consultation today.

*Please note that all client names have been changed to protect their identity and that the information shared is used in a generic way only – to facilitate healing and understanding among my readers.