Look, the empty cup analogy is a good one for people who feel the need to put aside their own care to take care of others, but the truth of the matter is that is only part of the equation. We need rest, we need food, and we need self-care because we need those things. There doesn’t need to be another reason, and we sure don’t need to “earn” them.
Why is this so hard for so many people to understand? Why are some of you so dead-set on causing harm to people who are different than you? If your religious leaders encourage you to harm people or treat any other group of human beings as anything less than human, they are not to be taken seriously. We need to stop giving these leaders our attention or our money.
The act of going from being silent and ashamed of your trauma to talking about it without shame is not something that just happens. It takes time, and it’s a step-by-step process. You won’t one day get out of bed ready to address 1,000 people and tell your story. You’ll find one person you feel safe enough with to share your story, probably shaking with nerves. You’ll be afraid of how they will react, you might even feel a little ashamed but you’re starting to realize that the shame shouldn’t be yours.
That’s a victory. That’s a step in the healing direction. Celebrate it instead of kicking yourself for not being ready to speak to a large audience. You can’t get there without these intermediate steps. So see them as signs of healing.
This study shows us something really interesting. I don’t know that I can remember the last time I just spent a short period thinking and not doing something to distract me from thinking.
Read the whole thing. It’s important. Children amid trauma focus on surviving. Their brains focus on surviving and not development. They then grow up to be adults without a chance to develop fully.
The fix is to get kids with resources to help them develop as early as possible. (And to also get them removed from the things causing so much trauma.) The longer this goes on without any treatment, the more damage is done.
We may not be able to prevent every kind of childhood trauma, but we need to understand the impacts and how to treat them. Otherwise, we are simply leaving too many people behind.
The way to start believing in yourself is to have experiences you can look back on and draw strength from. When I feel anxious about something at work, meeting new people, moving, or other stressful situations, it helps tremendously to recall when I have already successfully done those things.
Or, sometimes it helps to remember the times I wasn’t successful, but I survived nonetheless. That can also be a huge relief, the memory that these failures, or accidents, won’t kill me.
