May has been an interesting month for me. A bit of an emotional roller coaster, yet stabilizing as well. In reading over this month’s journal entries, a clear theme didn’t surface as in previous months. So it is a bit more challenging to summarize where I’m at on my healing journey. However, because of the focus on Heffalumps, this could be considered a continuation of last month’s blog on cPTSD (see April 2025)
One of the concepts on repeat this month came in the form of a little ditty I conjured up inspired by memes exhorting me to reclaim my power and “step up” in one form or another. This prompted a cPTSD response akin to a minor rebellion, or in the context of my Internal Family System (see Nov 2024), my Heffalumps got a tad restless. My brain and body declared they did not want to “power up” for fear of being pushed too far: “It’ll be too much for me.” Ergo, yet another trauma loop to complete (see July 2024). I am no longer a “dependent” (either child or spouse) without personal power and choice. I have options previously unavailable to me.
I can say no I can say yes I can stop to take a rest
This led to more musings of my teenage years, my marriage, and the various contexts in which I felt pressured to perform. “I am terrified of being pushed beyond my limits.”
In my journal, I also wrote about loneliness more than once this month. Especially acknowledging that this may be an off-and-on struggle for me my entire life – primarily in regard to a sense of belonging. Using my Internal Family System analogy, at least one Heffalump is always hungry – much like Winnie-the-Pooh – and steals his honey. 😊 But the hunger is a perpetual feeling of sadness, a loneliness – a hunger for belonging, for being seen, for feeling connected.
This hit home again later in the month watching a webinar of two indigenous survivors of the broadly-named Sixties Scoop. I could rant about that vicious cycle for hours – apprehension of children is higher than ever now; and the system which causes the issues then circumvents extended family from stepping into the gap. Heartbreaking stories. But I will take my one foot off that soapbox and step back. I think it’s hard for me because I can personally (as well as professionally) relate to their trauma stories even though the context differs. A system perpetuates the problem – a system they are stuck fighting. At least I could leave the religious institution(s) that contributed to my intergenerational trauma. I am not stuck fighting them.
Mid-month, a minor incident occurred that triggered a significant cPTSD response.
“When you were left emotionally alone as a child, even small signs of disconnection can feel like abandonment all over again. That intensity doesn’t mean you’re weak – it means you’re remembering, and your nervous system is trying to protect you.” ~ Tiny Buddha
It felt like the Heffalumps were stampeding past the internal family members standing motionless, gaping at the charging herd, panicked by the sight of dust flying everywhere, the cacophony of sounds, and smell of ‘danger’ thick in the air. Everyone was frozen in place, unsure what to do. Things didn’t settle down until I, the narrator of my Internal Family System story, could process the following:
“There’s a part of you that fears things will go wrong even when they’re going right. You got so accustomed to inconsistent results earlier in your life that you carried the pattern of thoughts that went with it; and it’s time to drop that. A big part of loving yourself involves you accepting that you deserve every single thing you’ve manifested and attracted into your life. Including everything you’ve yet to…” May 12 Source Message
I had to refocus on what was consistent versus what could be interpreted as abandonment or being judged inferior. I had to recognize I was remembering, not reliving. I also had to revisit entrenched patterns of behaviour designed to protect myself by placating and appeasing others. The ‘disconnect’ was that I didn’t need to so with this particular person. They weren’t expecting that of me. It was not my responsibility to make or keep them happy. That was their choice in that particular moment. The trigger was that I was trying to placate them, then felt written off as a disappointment. I was operating from survival mode, not thriving.
“If you find yourself constantly trying to prove your worth to someone, you’ve already forgotten your value.” ~ unknown.
I do not have to prove my worth or make myself lovable or acceptable. That is old programming that I need to release and to upgrade my operating system to one of a strong inner core that knows my innate value. It required a significant inner shift – from one of seeking external validation to one of knowing my worth – that I was important. It is hard to explain, but it is different to operate from a place of knowing you are important rather than always second guessing it and needing proof – or if things go awry that it is interpreted as proof of being unacceptable.
That Source Message from May 12 really hit home for me. A message that was reinforced a couple more times by others: “You no longer carry the weight of your past into new experiences. Which is why things are opening up for you, why you feel new moments more deeply. Where your energy used to close off, it now invites…” (May 16); and “Your vibe is becoming more in tune with who you really are, and less of a reflection of the environment you were brought up in. That innate space is where your unique gifts reside; it’s where your purpose lives; and it’s where you’ll find the consistent peace of mind that comes with no longer carrying the responsibility of being who others want you to be…” (May 22).
In some ways, my healing journey came full circle this month, back to levelling up. But in a different way than my brain first perceived it. It isn’t about ‘doing,’ it is about ‘being.’ I tell my clients all the time it is about expressing your True Self rather than accomplishing or achieving. Reclaiming power and preparing for ‘greater things to come’ doesn’t have anything to do with strengths and limitations. It is being in tune with our True Selves and living from that inner core rather than any external influences. While hard to explain, when you experience the internal shift, everything changes.
It is no longer about being pushed too far, pressured to perform, placate, appease, or people-please. It becomes a gentle inner strength that influences how we perceive incoming information as well as how we choose to express ourselves through our words, actions, boundaries, and choices. It is like changing the filters on your inner filtration system. Not only is there less gunk to sort through, but the very nature of the filter is upgraded to process with greater clarity – like upgrading from basic to anti-allergen filters. 😊
Not sure where this will land for my followers, so feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with thoughts gone awry like stampeding Heffalumps, internal shifts, or filters that you’ve upgraded.
This month I have decided to write about cPTSD (complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which differs from PTSD in subtle ways. In broad terms, PTSD may result from a life-threatening experience or witnessing trauma resulting in death or life threatening in some way. It is generally a one-time event or of short duration – like a vehicle accident, plane crash, or natural disaster. War can fall into either category depending on duration and/or if there is a repeated threat to life.
War veterans (starting with WWI) have been the catalyst for studying and recognizing what was originally labelled shell shock. Soldiers were expected to recover from battle wounds and return to service unless permanently injured (e.g. loss of limb). Shell shock was not a visible, treatable wound; and therefore, soldiers were often shamed for what is now understood to be disabling PTSD.
Complex PTSD refers to repeated exposure to life-threatening situations over a period of time such as domestic violence (witnessing or experiencing partner abuse, child abuse/neglect), childhood trauma that impacts development (witnessing abuse or tragic event, loss of parent, bullying), or war crimes (genocide, Holocaust, prisoners of war, torture) to name a few. Both forms of PTSD deal with intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares/terrors, insomnia, cognitive impairments, depression, anxiety, self-isolation, and the like.
One webinar I watched differentiated between the variations of PTSD in terms of safety. In PTSD, there was a sense of safety that was destroyed and needs to be re-established. It’s disorienting because what was taken for granted as foundational to living is no longer reliable. For cPTSD, a sense of safety was never established and needs to be built from scratch – the foundation needs to be created, not rebuilt.
As one’s sense of safety was never properly developed, there is no starting point for re-establishing safety and security, and is often a foreign concept to grasp. The sense-of-self is constantly threatened and often negative or shame-based. Emotional flashbacks are also common and interfere with assessment of perceived or actual danger. In PTSD, the amygdala (danger detector of the brain) had a very real sense of danger that it can’t shake off and gets overlapped with the present. In cPTSD, the amygdala is always “on” – hyper-vigilant and highly sensitive without apparent reason – the triggering event is harder to ascertain and danger is perceived in harmless situations (no actual threat to life, but the amygdala is sending warnings as if there is reason to be ready to fight, flee, or freeze). In essence, we have significant trust issues because we never know when danger will strike.
In both cases, the amygdala needs to be reset to accurately assess for danger requiring fight, flight, or freeze responses. In an oversimplified nutshell, traumatic memories are improperly stored and need to be filed away appropriately to restore or establish stable functioning. Baseline functioning can be interrupted or impaired by triggers: sights, sounds, smells, words, images, etc. that elicit emotional and/or cognitive memories that feel like what is remembered is happening in real time. Our ability to differentiate past from present is impaired. Our recovery mantra becomes remembering, not reliving.
The reason I’ve chosen to write about cPTSD this month is that I had a ‘new’ symptom that took a couple days to figure out. Mid-month, I was experiencing excruciating pain in my lower back and left hip. One morning I could barely walk, and stairs were akin to climbing Mt Everest. I kept reviewing recent activity and couldn’t think of anything that would have pulled a muscle or strained a joint. By the second day and after no relief could be found via the usual treatments (baths, heat, ice, pain medications), I started journalling – revisiting prompts in Your Body Speaks Your Mind by Deb Shapiro.
The lightbulb moment occurred when I reread the connection between my particular area of physical pain and PTSD. So, I worked backwards looking for the trigger – the sensation that twigged my amygdala to sense danger where there was none and prompted my body to remember an unprocessed memory. Using the prompts in the book, I was able to identify the trigger: preparing for company for Sunday lunch – the cooking and cleaning – none of which was an imposition. And the visit was lovely and long overdue with members of my tribe – like-minded people who are trustworthy and true friends. Kinfolk in the figurative sense; or to use a phrase of Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame: kindred spirits.
The trigger puzzled me as it wasn’t the people or the visit – it was the preparations. My body/brain was remembering what it was like to cook & clean for and serve guests when I was a teenager. It was never by choice but required for survival. Always verbal, sometimes physical, abuse was part of the preparations for and execution of having guests over. And while often complimented on my abilities and service by guests, it landed skewed due to the circumstances. Pleasing people became necessary for survival (attempt to appease abusers) and for an externalized sense of self (what others thought of me over what I thought of myself). Remember that shame-based sense of self? External validation helps to appease its constant demands for ‘better.’ It becomes a vicious cycle.
My triggered body was informing me of unfinished business: I needed to complete the trauma loop to reprogram my amygdala. So, I set to work to do just that. I never again have to cook or clean or serve to gain anyone’s approval or appeasement. I cook and clean for my own purposes: genuine love & concern for myself and others, nourishment, hygiene, etc. I never have to be reminded of those former conditions to keep myself safe. I am free to cook and clean as I like – not for survival or for a sense of self via external validation.
I have been working hard on my healing journey to establish a sense of safety and security at my core. I know certain things about myself to be true regardless of external approval or lack thereof. I also have replaced the negative sense-of-self with a healthier, balanced one: recognizing my light and shadow sides – what I am capable of, both good and bad. But my core remains pure, untainted. It is my choice how I express myself and my values from that core – which always remains intact even when assaulted by tragedy or disapproval. Something I never knew until I did the hard work of trauma recovery – putting emotional and cognitive memories where they belong and filling the space left behind with accurate information.
To re-iterate, regardless of what my brain or body deals with, my core is safe. I had to get acquainted with it (my core) in order to establish that innermost sense of safety and security – a missed development stage involving basic attachment needs. Unlike PTSD, there isn’t a single memory or set of memories to contend with and file away appropriately. I am “constantly” facing triggers that I need to process and put in their place. It is a near daily experience on some level to reprogram my amygdala that it is remembering, not reliving. However, the return on investment is incalculable!
And so, I encourage my readers to consider how they have handled tragedy in their lives. What have you done to keep a healthy, balanced sense of self? How do you maintain a sense of safety and security deep within yourself regardless of what your brain or body experiences? Feel free to submit a comment or question or send an email.
This month’s blog entry is going to be a little different as it isn’t based upon discovering a theme in my journal entries for the past month. It is actually based upon conversations. I have talked about anxiety a lot this month. And I have never developed a handout exclusively about anxiety. So, I decided this blog entry would be an excellent springboard for both objectives: blog and handout.
Along with depression, I have struggled with anxiety my entire life. However, it was given a name a little further along the healing journey – and even further when it was added to my alphabet soup of diagnoses (GAD – Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and ‘treated’ in some form. Anxiety is somewhat challenging to address as it is many different things to different people; and it serves different purposes in the grand scheme of psychology. It can be both a symptom and a disorder in its own right. It can be a learned behaviour and part of faulty brain circuitry.
For the most part, I have seen anxiety as falling under the umbrella of trapped trauma response – namely the freeze response of fight, flight, or freeze – a way for our brains to ‘play dead’ – spinning our wheels instead of actually dealing with the threat. When we complete the trauma loop (see July 2024), we can help our bodies shake off the perceived threat and rejoin the land of the living, our tribe or community. But often our brains and bodies get stuck in hyper-vigilance – the facet of anxiety of being on high alert, always on the lookout for danger.
Or we overthink situations – what we said or did, what someone else said or did – looking for the missed cue or message that will get us in trouble or show us in a bad light. This is also a factor in OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) – we get stuck in spiralling thoughts or think we must get something right in order to prevent something bad from happening. In a nutshell, anxiety in any form is a way our brains and bodies are communicating that something isn’t quite right – whether the unfinished business of trapped trauma, learned behaviour from being raised by anxious parents/guardians/systems, or survival mechanisms gone awry.
Regrettably, I have limited my therapeutic approach to anxiety through the lens of trapped trauma – if we complete the trauma loop, the anxiety should abate. It came to my attention this month, that the recovery from anxiety is much more nuanced than that; and I had to dig into my arsenal of personal coping strategies to assist some people. Above all, anxiety is about retraining the brain to recognize and/or manage perceived threats – the brain is in overdrive, and we need to help it downshift – to override the autopilot system. And often this is necessary before we can consider how the anxiety came to be in the first place.
There are a number of ways to downshift our anxious brains depending on the situation at hand. A few coping strategies (versus default mechanisms) will be explored briefly (in no particular order): the 3Rs; slowing the spiral to get to the centre of the cyclone; worry assessment formula; developing a fourth option to the default fight, flight, or freeze when danger is detected; deep breathing.
One of the first ‘tricks’ I learned in managing my anxiety was slowing down the spiralling thoughts and sensations to get to the underlying core belief fuelling the storm. At the centre of my cyclone or bottom of my spiralling thoughts was the belief that “I can’t do this.” The first time I used this trick, I had to ask my professor why he thought I could do the task at hand so that I could counter the flawed belief with “I can do this because…” Or as my counselling supervisor used to say to me: “You can do this – you are doing this” when I had doubts about my effectiveness as a counselling therapist. That belief that I was already doing what terrified me helped immensely.
A client recently shared with me a podcast clip that identified the antidote to anxiety was the statement: “I am capable” which totally fits with this ‘trick.’ The reason we are anxious is because we think we do not have what it takes to deal with the perceived threat (such as a challenging assignment or an intimidating boss or difficult co-worker or getting back into dating). When we switch up the inner dialogue to recognize we are capable to face our fear, it loses some of its fury.
Another approach is to identify the perceived threat: determining what the worst-case scenario is and developing a game plan of how to manage it. This is the worry assessment formula: 1) what is the worst-case scenario; 2) how likely is it to happen; 3) even if it has only a 1% chance of happening, what would I do? I used this formula without knowing about anxiety or coping strategies back when I was living in the Yukon and there was a case of West Nile Virus reported in southern AB (a long way from the Yukon!). While chances were low that I would contact West Nile Virus, if I did, there were two options: I would either die (and I believe in an afterlife, so was that really so terrible?), or I would be taken to hospital, receive treatment, and recover. This helped reduce my anxiety knowing I was capable of handling whatever came my way.
Sometimes, our thoughts spiral so out of control that we can’t think straight. In these moments, we may need to start with deep breathing in order to engage our parasympathetic nervous system (as our sympathetic nervous system is the one in overdrive when we are anxious). This type of breathing is called a few different things such as belly breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, or singer’s breath; but the principle is to inhale through the nose, hold it a moment, then exhale through the mouth. The idea is to breathe deeply past our lungs into our bellies (technically the diaphragm). My personal practise is to take three of these slow, deep breaths followed by checking in to our bodies to see if our parasympathetic nervous system has engaged (such as lower heart rate, regular breathing instead of hyperventilating, decreased shaking or trembling, lessened chest pain, etc.). If still agitated, take three more slow, deep breaths followed by another check-in. Repeat until body is in a normal, regulated state.
Once our brain is back online and functioning reasonably well, we can attempt coping strategies like the ones already mentioned or try practising the 3 Rs: Relabel, Revalue, Redirect. The full version is 4 steps (courtesy of Jeffery M. Schwartz in Brain Lock); but we tend to recall information in groups of three. So reducing it to only three things to remember sets ourselves up for success – and works just as well. When we catch our brains in an anxious mode, we can relabel the thought as intrusive (unwanted), revalue it as unhelpful, and redirect to a helpful or even neutral thought such as practising the mindfulness technique of taking note of your surroundings. If driving, take note of the objects in your car, the people with you, the scenery passing by. In any situation, you can take a moment to pay attention to your surroundings and identify what you see, hear, smell, touch, etc.
The Fourth Option ‘trick’ is usually most helpful when our anxiety is specifically trauma based rather than learned behaviour or a more general condition. The ‘tricks’ already mentioned can act as a ‘fourth option’ when we are trying to reprogram our amygdala to not overreact to perceived dangers based on past experience rather than the present moment. Sometimes our anxiety is actually an emotional flashback to previous trauma; and we need to take note that we are remembering and not reliving – grounding our self in the present moment by the mindful practice of paying attention by what we see, hear, taste, smell, etc. or to our current situation instead the traumatic one (such as no longer a vulnerable child, but an adult with choices).
A broader approach to anxiety is to understand it in terms of unmet attachment needs (see Nov 2023). As this blog is already pretty long, I will condense this last point by noting that when our early attachment needs are not sufficiently met, it hijacks our systems from developing a core sense of safety and security. In the absence of this solid core, the vacuum is filled with anxiety. We are always on high alert trying to ascertain how to keep ourselves safe and secure. In this way, it is a form of trapped trauma that can be addressed by identifying the unmet need(s) and figuring out how to meet that need retrospectively through inner child work and my version of narrative internal family systems (see Nov 2024).
Much of these tricks are what I use myself to manage my anxiety whether it is from trapped trauma, unmet attachment needs, my OCD, GAD, or cPTSD. Please let me know if any of these tricks are helpful for you. And please share any coping strategies that you have found helpful in managing your own anxiety. If you are one of the lucky few who doesn’t struggle with any form of anxiety, hopefully this blog sheds some light on what your friends, family members, peers, and others might be going through and feel free to encourage them to see how they are capable to meet the challenges and perceived threats that they face!
