Posts tagged with “trauma”
The Secret to Letting Go (And Why It’s Okay if You Can’t Right Now)
“It’s not a matter of letting go—you would if you could. Instead of ‘Let it go,’ we should probably say ‘Let it be.'” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn
When I was in my twenties, I went to see an acupuncturist because I’d been through a bad breakup and felt uncertain about my life path and purpose. “Went” is a kind way of saying it; I was dragged. I didn’t want to go, but my family was going and thought it might be supportive with all that I was going through.
I was dealing with a lot of rough emotions and felt like I …
Looking Back: The Silver Linings of the Pandemic and Why I’m Grateful
“You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful, not hateful.” ~Karen Salmansohn
The 2010 decade was difficult for me. Hardly a year went by without someone close to me passing away.
When the tragic decade started, I was in the midst of my residency training and free time was a luxury I did not have. When I graduated and became an attending physician, I was too busy caring for patients on my own to take a break.
In 2018, my world was shattered …
How I Stopped Being Everything I Hated About My Parents
“The beautiful thing about life is that you always change, grow, and get better. You aren’t defined by your past. You aren’t your mistakes.” ~Unknown
When I was an angsty fourteen-year-old, I remember screaming at my parents that I never (ever!) wanted to become like either of them. And I meant it.
My dad was a workaholic who was never at home. When he was at home, he was emotionally unavailable, arguing with my mother, or he’d escape the stress of our house by going to the betting shop to gamble.
My mother had erratic mood swings, did not allow …
How ‘Griefcations’ Helped Me Heal from Loss and How Travel Could Help You Too
“To travel is to take a journey into yourself.” ~Danny Kaye
The brochure read, “Mermaid tail, optional.” What forty-something mom doesn’t have a shimmering fish tail tucked in her closet for just the right occasion? Not me. I live in Minnesota. I’d borrow one when I got there.
I took a flight from Minneapolis to Panama City, and then a water taxi to a backpackers’ resort. Not the kind with frozen cocktails and bad DJs. The next thing I knew, I was on a sailboat, swinging from an aerial circus hoop suspended over the sparkling Caribbean Sea, dressed as a …
9 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self to Help Her Change Her Life
“You are one decision away from a completely different life.” ~Mel Robbins
At twenty-six years old, I lost my dad to suicide. I was heartbroken and so angry.
My dad was not the best. Ever since I was little, he would criticize everything I did. I was never good enough for him, and I was a place he discharged his anger through emotional insults.
It never stopped, and I was always on high alert around him. Right until the moment he took his life.
He could also be loving, kind, funny, and warm, but my nervous system could never …
All the Things I Didn’t Tell the Men I Dated Because I Was Afraid
I’ve recently been reflecting on my relationship history and how often I did things I wasn’t comfortable with instead of speaking up.
It would be easy to solely blame the men I’ve been with, but I’ve recognized I played a role by remaining silent instead of communicating my wants and needs and telling them when they were pushing my limits.
I have played a role in my own disrespect by swallowing my truth and showing a smile when I really felt uncomfortable.
I realize that everyone’s experiences are different, but if you can relate to what I wrote, perhaps you …
7 Ways Childhood Trauma Shows Up in Your Romantic Relationships
“Love is the greatest miracle cure. Loving ourselves creates miracles in our lives.” ~Louise Hay
When you are unlucky in love, you tend to blame yourself for not being enough and maybe blame fate for not giving you a break already! Everyone else around you is in happy, long-term relationships, but you just can’t get there.
You might come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with you—you’re too old or too fat—and all the good ones are already married, and you will just die alone! You never think for one moment that your relationship history is playing out …
The Major Aha Moment That Helped Me Stop Fixating on Fixing Myself
“The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.” ~Maya Angelou
My newest friend ended our three-month-long friendship on a July day when I’d just returned from a dreadful summer vacation. Her Dear Jane email read, “It’s not you, it’s me.” The lever had been pulled, I was dumped, and I thought, “Ha!” I’d spent the last three months trying to help her fix her problems. I knew she had more problems than me.
But then an anxious, obsessive thought loop began. What did it really mean? How could it not be about me?
This wasn’t the first …
The Agony of Anxious Attachment and How to Attract Better Relationships
“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be looking for someone else to fill the void inside you, but no one will ever be able to do it.” ~Lori Deschene
There are four attachment styles including anxious, avoidant, anxious/avoidant, and secure.
Attachment theory teaches us that the way in which we attach ourselves to our romantic partner mimics the relationship we had with our primary caregivers growing up.
So, if you were like me and had parents who were not physically or emotionally present, you grew up feeling a void within yourself and always worrying if you were lovable. Because …
Why Trauma Doesn’t Always Make Us Stronger (and What Does)
“Literally every person is messed up, so pick your favorite train wreck and roll with it.” ~Hannah Marbach
You’ve probably heard this before: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” A beautiful saying, based on what Nietzsche wrote in one of his books (Twilight of the Idols). It always makes me feel like life can’t go anywhere but up. Forward and up.
According to Nietzsche, suffering can be taken as an opportunity to build strength. No matter the pain, sickness, or trauma you experience, you will come out stronger for it—as long as you take the …
4 Things I Needed to Accept to Let Go and Heal After Trauma
TRIGGER WARNING: This post references sexual abuse and may be triggered to some people.
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli
My family immigrated to the U.S. from India when I was sixteen. Being Indian, my traditional family expected me to have an arranged marriage.
At twenty-two, as a graduate music student, I fell in love with an American man. When my family found out about our secret relationship, they took me back to India and …
You Have Just Five Minutes Left to Live – What Are Your Deathbed Regrets?
“Yesterday was heavy—put it down.” ~Unknown
Death is still taboo in many parts of the world, yet I must confess that I’ve become fascinated with the art of dying well.
I was thinking about the word “morbid” the other day, as I heard someone use it when berating her friend for his interest in better preparing for death. The word’s definition refers to “an unhealthy fixation on death and dying,” but who gets to define what’s healthy? And why are so many of us keen to avoid discussing the inevitable?
We talk about death from time to time on our …
Healing from Abandonment Trauma: 3 Things I Learned from Being Cheated On
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~Rumi
I want to share an experience I went through that hurt like hell, but that helped me so much in the long run.
The experience was being “cheated on,” though the woman wasn’t my girlfriend. Nevertheless, I was very attached and it felt awful.
So, let me start with the backstory.
I met Diana through mutual friends in late 2021. I thought she was cute, and a little anxious, which I seem to gravitate toward. That’s just my savior complex coming out, which is another story for …
10 Ways to Calm Anxious Thoughts and Soothe Your Nervous System
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” ~Jack Canfield
Freezing in fear is something I have done since I was a child.
My first home was an unsafe one, living with my alcoholic granddad. Once upon a time, I didn’t know life without fear.
I learned young to scan for danger. How were everyone’s moods? Were the adults okay today? I would freeze and be still and quiet in an attempt to keep myself safe and control an eruption.
Unknown to me, between the ages of conception and seven years old, my nervous system was being programmed. …
Children’s Movies are Obsessed with Death, but Don’t Show Healthy Grief
“Grief is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ~Jamie Anderson
I knew my son was watching me. We were inhaling fistfuls of popcorn while Frozen 2 played on the screen above. (Spoiler alert…)
Anna has just realized her sister, Elsa, is dead, frozen solid at the bottom of a river. Anna must carry on life without her.
My son …
How I Learned to Love My Body Instead of Hating Her
“Your body does not need to be fixed, because your body is not a problem. Your body is a person.” ~Jamie Lee Finch
I was thirty years old when I realized that I was completely dissociated from my body.
I grew up in the height of the purity culture movement in American Evangelicalism. Purity culture was based on one primary concept: abstain from sex until marriage. But the messaging went further than this.
I sat next to my peers in youth group while the male pastor stood on stage and told us young women to always cover our bodies. For …
Why Codependents Don’t Trust Themselves to Make Decisions and How to Start
“Slow, soulful living is all about coming back to your truth, the only guidance you’ll ever need. When you rush, you have the tendency to follow others. When you bring in mindfulness, you have the power to align with yourself.” ~Kris Franken
Codependency previously created a lot of pain and agony in my life. One of the ways it manifested was in my inability to trust myself. I would overthink decisions to death, fearful that I would choose the “wrong one” or upset someone if they didn’t agree or were disappointed by my choice.
I was terrified of “making a …
After the Assault: What I Now Know About Repressed Trauma
TRIGGER WARNING: This article details an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some people.
The small park down the street from my childhood home: friends and I spent many evenings there as teenagers. We’d watch movies on each other’s MP3 players and eat from a bag of microwave popcorn while owls hooted from the trees above.
Twigs lightly poked against our backs. Fallen leaves graced skin. Crickets hummed in the darkness. The stars shone bright through the branches of the redwoods.
Eight years later at a park in Montevideo, Uruguay, darkness again surrounded me. Leaves and twigs …
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