After my Father’s Day blog, I received an email that really made me stop and think:
“I wish I was ‘no-contact’ like you. It would be so much easier to deal with than the constant guilt, grief and stress I’m facing.”
I reflected on those words for a long time.
I remember being in this same exact position some years ago. Where I felt like every text, every call demanded a response and every missed visit, birthday, holiday or other special occasion, required justification, and an apology. 😔
It was a time that caused me a great deal of stress and struggle:
The endless doubt. The feeling of never being good enough; never being able to do the right thing, always failing to please my family of origin.
No matter how much I had been hurt by them – my gut contorted itself into guilt-laden, thought-spaghetti:
⚡️“I should show up”
⚡️“I should call”
⚡️“I should send a card”
⚡️“I should be a good daughter”
⚡️ “I should, I should, I should”…
This kind of pressure to behave or show up in “expected” and conditioned ways – is not only exhausting, but often futile, and is unfortunately, a pattern that’s extremely common among trauma survivors of all kinds.
I can vividly remember this place of longing for peace amidst the turmoil and pain that our fellow community-member describes, and perhaps you’re familiar with it too.
Because it speaks to a deep truth about our healing, which is the difficult fact that there is no ideal or pain-free way to go about this process! 😮💨
No matter whether we choose to cut ties or retain some form of contact with our family of origin (or whomever may have caused us pain) – ALL of it is difficult and ALL of it requires us to grieve what we’ve lost along the way.
If we remain in contact – we will likely need to grieve our perceived inability to break free, and if we do “break free” – then we may grieve the “idea” of family. The “idea” of roots, lineage and a shared history.
And this is what I truly wish I’d understood when I started my healing journey: that there is no “best way” – no “one-way” – no “right way” for us to heal. And, the more we heal – the more there is for us to grieve and release.
Grief is an unavoidable part of healing from trauma. No matter which path you take. 💔
But, far from being a sign that our healing isn’t working – or that we’re doing something wrong – our grief is actually proof that it is. 🌱
When we’re in survival mode, we simply have no bandwidth for grief. All of our energy is spent just trying to make it through each day. But, as we begin to create safety and stability, our hearts – and bodies finally have space to feel the magnitude of what we’ve lost through trauma.
And the losses? They’re staggering. 😔
(Though my hope is that with my gentle teachings, this “magnitude” can be processed safely in smaller, more manageable pieces) 🥰
What we grieve, often in layers and waves, throughout our healing journey may vary according to our own unique experiences. But here are just some of the things that I – and many of those I’ve worked with over the years – have encountered along the way:
Take a moment as you read through these to notice anything that particularly stands out for you..
💔 The childhood and innocence that was stolen – The innocence, the carefree moments, the feeling of being unconditionally loved, safe and protected. We grieve the little one who had to grow up too fast.
💔 The protection that never came – Why wasn’t I kept safe? Why was I placed in harm’s way? Why didn’t anyone notice – or if they did – why did they turn a blind eye? Why didn’t they care or step in? Why didn’t they choose me over their own needs, addictions, or denial?
💔 The unfairness of having to do their job – Why was I parentified or thrust into the role of “care-taker?” Why should I have to re-parent my inner child now when they should have parented me for real back then? Why am I spending my adult years learning basic self-care and emotional regulation that should have been modeled for me in childhood?
💔 The injustice of abuse – Why am I struggling to release the negative beliefs, patterns and self-loathing that they instilled, while they carry on as if nothing happened?
💔 The time we’ll never get back – Years spent just surviving instead of thriving. Watching peers grow, thrive and succeed while we feel stuck or stagnant, perhaps battling depression, anxiety, addiction or living with pain or a chronic illness. Feeling like we’re stumbling through life, decades behind.
💔 The relationships that could have been – The healthy family dynamics we deserved. The secure attachments. The people who should have protected us but didn’t. What does “love” even mean?
💔 The milestones celebrated alone – Achievements without safe family to share them. Holidays that highlight what’s missing. Birthdays or anniversaries that bring sadness instead of joy.
💔 The questions with no answers – Family history, medical information, shrouded in secrecy; stories about our early years that died with broken relationships or a childhood peppered with people who excelled at gaslighting back then and cannot be trusted to tell the truth now.
💔 Unfulfilled potential and lost hopes and dreams – Wondering “who we could have been” without the trauma. The dreams that were squashed or stifled. The bright, bubbly spirit that could have soared – had it not been squished.
All of this – and more – is what we have to grieve.
What do you find yourself grieving, missing or longing for most?
For me, this grief hits hardest around Christmas-time. 🎄I miss the idea of mixing fruit-cake batter and licking the spoon, eating English candies and mince pies while singing carols and decorating the tree.
I do my best to recreate the moments that bring me joy, inter-weaving new traditions that we’ve built with our kids: puzzles and movie nights with hot chocolate in our matching pjs are new favorites! 🧩☕️
But, as I listen to my husband’s family laugh and reminisce, I can’t help but feel melancholy.
I feel separate, far from “family” and the country where I grew up, and at times, deeply lonely. 🎄💔
There are also the losses that are harder to name, and injustices that can feel especially raw:
✂️ The basic emotional needs that went unmet – We shouldn’t have had to beg or bargain for love, safety, or attention. These should have been given freely.
✂️ The burden of responsibility that was never ours – Managing adults’ emotions, keeping family secrets, being the “parentified child” or “care-taker” who held everyone and everything together.
✂️ The healing work that should have been theirs – Why are we still learning to love ourselves when they should have shown us that we were loveable? Why do we still blame ourselves for the pain they caused?
✂️ The feeling of safety we never knew – Grieving the cost of hypervigilance. What joy and connection have we lost to our constant need to scan for danger – instead of experiencing ease and peace?
✂️ The trust that was shattered – Mourning our natural ability to believe in people’s goodness, to feel secure in relationships, to assume positive intent.
✂️ The struggle to form loving relationships – for those of us who experienced sexual trauma – there can be a deep and visceral grief that surrounds our struggles to feel safe enough to be open to intimacy in our relationships today.
✂️ The confidence that was stolen – Grieving the self-worth that should have been nurtured. The voice that was silenced. The visibility that still scares us. The dreams that felt too dangerous to pursue.
One part of grieving that is not talked about enough, is how our grief often goes hand – in – hand with anger.
This kind of “righteous” or “protective anger” is like a loyal friend. It’s the part of us that’s been trying so hard to keep us safe. The part of us that’s showing up now that we’re finally able to recognize the ways our boundaries were violated or not respected back then.
But anger can be challenging for many trauma survivors to sit with.
Grief and sadness can feel passive and therefore somehow safer or more acceptable. (I know this was certainly true for me growing up; if I was sad, I was “docile and manageable!”)
Anger, on the other hand, especially if we grew up around explosive anger or rage, can feel deeply unsafe. And can lead us to wonder:
“But if I feel my anger, doesn’t that make me just like them?”
Far from making us like them, our anger shows us that something was not right. It shows us the places that we need to grieve. And – it creates the necessary space for us to grieve.
This rage/grief has a very particular voice that’s heavily rooted in ideas of fairness and justice. You may have heard it say things like:
🌀 Why is it my job to heal this?
🌀 Why should I have to learn to soothe myself when they should have taught me I was worthy of comfort?
🌀 Why should I have to practice saying “I love you” (and believing it!) to myself in the mirror when they should have said it every day?
🌀 Why should I have to create the safety they should have provided?
Please know that this anger and this grief is valid and it’s an essential part of our healing – it’s healthy. It’s proof that we’re beginning to understand that we deserved better. 🔥♥️
Even though the abuse we experienced was never, ever our fault – our healing is our responsibility. And that truth is simultaneously difficult and empowering.
They couldn’t give what they didn’t have the capacity to give back then.
And waiting for them to do the work they should have done decades ago will likely keep us stuck in childhood, waiting for parents or caregivers who will never show up in the ways we needed back then or still need today.
I know! Ooooof! That’s a tough one to take in. 😮💨
I truly wish I could wave a magic wand to take the pain away – or at least make it easier. 🪄
But I want you to know that I’m right here with you. And, if you’re feeling the weight of these losses and injustices, grief and anger, this tapping sequence will hopefully help you begin to safely process the emotions while gently moving towards a tiny bit of self-acceptance and a whole lot of healing.
Before we begin: Rate your emotional intensity around this grief on a scale of 0-10. Take a moment to notice where you feel this in your body. (Does your belly feel tight? Is your breathing shallow? Are you clenching your jaw?)
Setup (Side of Hand): “Even though I’m carrying so much grief about everything that was taken from me, I accept these feelings and honor my right to grieve – as much as I need to – a little bit at a time.”
Tapping Sequence:
🌿 Top of Head: “All this grief about what I never had”
🌿 Eyebrow: “The childhood that was stolen from me”
🌿 Side of Eye: “The protection that never came”
🌿 Under Eye: “I should have been kept safe”
🌿 Under Nose: “I deserved love and care”
🌿 Chin: “Instead I had to learn to survive – and I did. But at what cost?”
🌿 Collarbone: “So much time lost just trying to make it through”
🌿 Under Arm: “Grieving everything I missed, everything I lost”
Setup (Side of Hand): “Even though I’m so angry that I have to heal what they broke. I can feel this anger in my [body part]. It’s not fair that this is my job now. I acknowledge my anger and I give myself permission to honor it and feel it safely, one drop at a time.”
Tapping Sequence:
🔥 Top of Head: “This rage about having to fix what they broke”
🔥 Eyebrow: “Why should I have to re-parent myself?”
🔥 Side of Eye: “They were supposed to protect me”
🔥 Under Eye: “They were supposed to show me I was loveable”
🔥 Under Nose: “This shouldn’t be my job”
🔥 Chin: “I’m angry that I’m doing their work”
🔥 Collarbone: “It’s not fair that I have to heal myself”
🔥 Under Arm: “I shouldn’t have to undo all their damage or unlearn all this self-criticism – it feels so unfair”
Setup (Side of Hand): “Even though this healing journey feels unfair and overwhelming, I choose to do this work in teeny-tiny increments, because I am worthy of love, healing and self-forgiveness.”
Tapping Sequence:
💛 Top of Head: “Yes, this is unfair, but I’m choosing to do it anyway”
💛 Eyebrow: “I choose to heal because I deserve to heal – and they cannot break me or take that away from me”
💛 Side of Eye: “I cannot change the past – so I’m becoming the parent or safe person I needed back then”
💛 Under Eye: “I’m learning to love myself little by little – the way I should have been loved”
💛 Under Nose: “My healing is me reclaiming me – from the harm they caused”
💛 Chin: “I’m creating the safety and freedom I should have been given”
💛 Collarbone: “Even though this is hard, I’m not alone in this work and I have the resources and capacity to do this, one day at a time”
💛 Under Arm: “I’m choosing healing, I’m choosing growth, I’m choosing me!”
Take a deep breath in and out and check back in with your body. What do you notice now? Has anything shifted? Is your breathing a little deeper? Is the constriction in your belly a little lighter? What number 0-10 are you at now?
This grief isn’t something to “get over” or push through quickly. It’s a necessary part of reclaiming our wholeness.
When we grieve what was taken from us, we’re actually honoring what we deserved. Our sadness is proof that some part of us has always known that we are worthy of love, safety, and care and that we should have been treated better.
Our anger demonstrates that we value ourselves enough to feel outraged on our own behalf.
This grief is clearing space for us to feel and to begin to build the life we truly want and deserve today. 🌱
You don’t have to choose between grieving and growing. You don’t have to put life on hold until you’ve finished grieving or healing. Both can happen simultaneously. And there are some tangible things we can do to help the process.
🌱 Name the feeling when it arrives: “I’m feeling grief and anger that I have to heal what they broke.” Simply naming how you feel reduces its power to overwhelm you.
🌱 Set aside time for feeling: Give yourself time to feel it fully (in small, safe increments). Cry, rage, or just sit with the injustice. Then gently transition to something nurturing like a walk or enjoying a warm beverage.
⏳I like to set a five minute timer on my phone. Sometimes I’ll end up journaling or crying or punching pillows for longer – but the timer sets a manageable parameter around the process. This lets my nervous system know that I have a choice and helps manage any sense of overwhelm or emotional flooding.
🌱 Honor the unfairness: Acknowledge that yes, this is backwards. Yes, you shouldn’t have to do this work. And also, you’re the only one who can. You know yourself better than anyone. You can explore your needs and wants and nurture yourself in ways only you understand.
🌱 Mirror Work (Louise Hay has a great book on this): I’ve been practicing loving eye-gazing and kind self-talk daily in the mirror. It has been a profound experience and one that I highly recommend if you struggle with self-loathing or criticism.
🌱 Connect with others who understand: Find people who get the complexity and the rage. It’s so important to be around safe people who can make space for your very valid anger without trying to brush it off, minimize it or push it – or you – away. You don’t have to carry this alone.
As painful as this grief can be, it carries something very precious within it: evidence that you’re healing.
It shows that you’re no longer just surviving day to day. You’ve created enough relative safety in your life-circumstances and within your Nervous System for healing to be possible. (Yay you! 😃)
You’re becoming able to feel the full scope of your experience (in safe, titrated increments). You’re honoring what was lost while building what’s possible now.
Every wave of sadness is your heart making space for more joy. Every moment of anger is your spirit refusing to accept that neglect was ever okay. 💛
Yes, it’s unfair that you have to learn to love yourself now. That you have to create the safety you should have been given freely. That you have to grieve childhood while simultaneously trying to build an adult life.
But here’s what I want you to know: You’re not just doing the work they should have done. You’re doing it better.
You’re becoming the parent your inner-child needed so desperately back then. The safe protector. The nurturer. The one even now, today who will say “This isn’t okay” and “you deserve better.”
And every step forward – even the ones that hurt, even the ones that feel unfair – is an act of rebellion against those who tried to convince you that you were unworthy or unloveable. 💪
Whatever you’re grieving in your healing journey (and whether you’re in contact with your family-of-origin or not), I want you to know that I see you. The sadness you feel is real, the losses matter, the feeling of injustice, ambiguity or stress – along with any other feelings are completely valid.
You’re not alone in this complex dance between anger, grief and growth. You’re exactly where you need to be on your path. 🌷
I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below and let me know – what resonates most with you about this topic?
With you on this path,
Karen 🌼☀️
P.S. If this feels overwhelming, remember: you don’t have to process it all at once; one second, one moment, one memory, one percent at a time. 💕
The Grief Nobody Talks About: Why Healing Hurts More Before It Gets Better
Father’s Day Healing: From Forcing to Allowing Yourself to Be
How to Soften the Struggle When Life Feels Out of Your Control: 5 Things I Learned From Losing My Voice
Beautiful. I’ll be coming back to this post often. I’m looking forward to doing the tapping sequence.
Hi Diane – oh I’m so glad. I hope you find the tapping sequence helpful.
Karen 🤗
I completly resonate with this blog. And while I have been off medication s for a few years, I am temporarally going back o to make it a bit less overwhelming. It is gruesome to discover I was sexually molested by an employee of my parents when I was 2 and 1/2 and they never suspected it so I was raised as the overly sensitive , too emotional child who was probably jealous of the new baby , and who had to be disciplined harshly by dad and preached to be a soft good girl by mom. Then she died, when I was nearly 15 and I was left with the responsibity of taking care of the rest of the family, icluding a rage-aholic authotarian father , and sibling who felt safer ganging up with him against me. And the consequences for the rest of my life. I am the only one in my lineages of origin, as well as the families I married into , who joined 12 step recovery work, and there is a lot more to heal. I am the ancestral cycle breaker . Now realizing that I chose this before this incarnation makes it far worse. What I did this to myself? I am certfied in Quantum Energetic Disciplines TM and have bought a lot of programs from healers, BUT now this is an marketing system for healers and it promises quick fixes. No-one talks about the overwhelming side of healing . Thanks for your honesty. Much appreciated.
Hi Ingrid.
First of all – I’d love to commend you on knowing that you need some extra support right now. It’s so important for us to know that medications are not bad and that they can most certainly be helpful for us in reducing overwhelm as you say. There is still sadly a lot of stigma attached – and I really appreciate you sharing your insight and self-awareness here. 🙂
I’m so very sorry to hear about your experiences and your abuse. I really appreciate your vulnerability in sharing -especially because it helps others to know they’re now alone on this path.
How incredible that you’ve been able to break cycles and enter recovery. I’m sending you so much love and courage as you continue your journey. Karen 🥰
Reading and tapping along with this post from a hospital bed healing from a 12-hour surgery to put back together a broken leg from a car striking my body in a crosswalk in a city hours away from where I live- while here in the hospital feeling very dysregulated having flashes of repressed trauma from almost twenty years ago – so very grateful for the eternal timelessness of this post and wrote down this takeaway #KarenOrtnerQuote: “Every wave of sadness is your heart making space for more joy. Every moment of anger is your spirit refusing to accept that neglect was ever okay.”
Giving Thanks to everyone putting in the energy to heal and love our selves.
Oh my goodness Melissa, I’m so sorry to hear about your accident, injuries and surgery. I hope your recovery goes smoothly from here on out and that your leg will be ok.
I can only imagine all that this is bringing up for you. If you feel up to it – keep trying to look around your space. Look for all the blue things you can see. List everything you can see that starts with the letter M. What can you hear? Orienting to the here and now will help to keep you grounded in the present and this will help to keep the flashes somewhat contained.
I’m not sure if you have a journal with you – but if you do and you have the energy to jot down what’s coming up – it will likely help your nervous system let down its ferocious need to express through flashes. Just knowing that these pieces are recorded and won’t be lost, will help your system settle and know that you will process this as you recover – in a safe and gentle way.
I’m thinking of you Melissa. 💕
Thanks for the 5 minute timer reminder
You’re so welcome Colleen – I’m glad you found it helpful. 🙂