According to Dr. Dan Allender, we all need to look at those trauma stories we’ve written off as already resolved and say “What more am I to learn and how can I engage these stories with kindness?”

Realizing and Recovering from Trauma and Shame

Highlights from the interview:

• The Allender Center of Abuse and Trauma addresses the heartbreaking reality that nobody goes through life without some level of violation and assault. At some point in our lives, we will all know some violation of our dignity and honor through abuse.
• Can one recover from trauma and turn their life into a thing of beauty? Absolutely, Jesus turns ashes into beauty. There is the probability, if we’re engaging the story, to enter into that story without despair.
• Trauma is when our world comes into upheaval and there is no quick way to restore it.
• Time does NOT heal all wounds.  Trauma is living in a fallen world. Abuse is the experience of some form of violation and injustice in the midst of that trauma. When you combine the two….no one escapes trauma, most people don’t escape abuse.
• Those issues must be addressed forthrightly, naming what occurred, who brought about the harm, what did you experience, what did your brain do then and now.
• The byproduct of not addressing it is a lack of wholeness and therefore a lack of joy.
• When you experience trauma, the portion of the brain that regulates speech goes offline, which is why we often have no memory of what happened and/or we get numb.
• We must do good things for our fragmented selves. How do you care for the broken part of you?

Listen to the episode for the full story.

Stacy’s Journal

Welcome to Stacy’s Journal! In this segment, I let you peek into my journal as I share my thoughts on a topic or resilience resource. Today I want to talk about naming our hurt. Naming what has happened to us. Dr. Allender touched on this in our interview. Often, we don’t have names for the trauma and shame that has occurred in our lives. Sometimes because we have buried the events and the memories, sometimes because we’ve denied what happened to us, and sometimes because people have told us to get over it or we try to minimize the damage. But as we carefully step into our hurts and write about them, we start to find specific words and language for what happened.

The interesting thing is, as soon as you find words to describe your trauma, it starts to lose its grip on you. It separates you from that emotional pain and puts you in better control of your own story. That is the first step to healing. I encourage you to name your trauma, name your shame, name your heartache, disappointments, and devastations. Take that first step to free yourself from their entanglements. You might want to start by attending my free webinar – the 4 simple, proven methods to writing the first chapter of your life story in just 7 days. I’ll share how to easily get started writing your own stories and finding the words you need.

That’s all we have for today. Last episode, Radney Foster shared his heartbreak when his ex wife moved with their 4 year old son to France. He explained what he did to stay connected to his child and to resolve the anger. So, if you’ve had some heartbreak yourself, you might want to go back and have a listen. Next week, we’ll interview Rachael Clinton, our second interview in this trilogy. She discusses tending to heartbreak and I think you’ll find it fascinating.

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