Healing Through Reflection

Today's topic is healing through reflection. 

This can be a bit of a slippery slope because anytime you reflect on something in your history, particularly something painful that has caused trauma, such as group bullying or being scapegoated or mobbed out of a job, there's the danger of excess rumination. 

What's wrong with rumination you ask? 

A certain amount of it is normal, so nothing really at the beginning. 

I think when you first get out of a bad situation if you're not ruminating you're probably a robot, because we all ruminate to an extent. But the danger in continuing to think about things that aren't pleasant is that it does affect you after awhile. It makes you less productive, less able to focus, more depressed, and a lot of us find that we're falling into that trap while trying to recover from a really bad situation. I'm going to share with you something that really helped me get over that hurdle.

Your brain is kind of like water. 

Water in and of itself can’t absorb everything. You can put things in water, but they have to be really small in order to be absorbed. Sugar can be absorbed in water and salt can be absorbed. You're going to have a hard time absorbing things like carrots or celery, or potatoes or mushrooms, or broccoli. Your brain, after you've been through a really traumatic event is inundated with salt. The salt is all those really terrible memories that you can't stop thinking about in a loop over and over again: insulting things that people said to you, the way you were treated, the way you were made to feel inferior. This is all salt, and the more you think about it, the more those thoughts cycle and accelerate until you have so much salt in the water of your brain it's the equivalent of taking a cup from the ocean. 

I wouldn't drink it because then it will dehydrate you, taste awful, and doesn't really provide you with any nutrients. So how do we heal when our brain is so saturated with salt?

It is toxic to us. It's unhealthy, and we can't not think about this. 

If you're one of those people who tells someone who has just gotten out of an abusive relationship that they need to just put it behind them and get over it, I want to slap you. That's not how it works. You cannot snap your fingers and just stop thinking about it. If you're one of those people who's like, “Oh yeah, your life is hard. Start making gratitude lists. You just need to be grateful.”  I want to slap you for the same reason. It's not how minds work, or how we work as human beings. You can't just move on and pretend nothing happened when you've been through trauma. Your body holds onto it. Your body remembers, and let's say that you do succeed at not ever thinking about it or remembering it during the day: You better believe that when you are asleep, you will have nightmares. You will have nightmares and you will remember. 

Let’s talk about those nightmares for a moment, because I think those are important if you're one of those people actually having nightmares because the trauma was so severe. First of all, you should definitely make sure you have a competent therapist. There is one thing that sometimes helps, and that is waking up right after you have a nightmare, writing it out, and then changing the ending. Write it out. Change the ending. 

Write it out. 

Change the ending.

Keep doing that every time it happens for at least a month. This works for some people, not everyone, but for a lot of people this really helps their brain retrain. Because at some point those nightmares are going to start ending the way you’ve written them. 

This made a gradual easing out of those kinds of traumatic nightmares for me. I have religious trauma. I went to my therapist and told him about this recurring nightmare I sometimes had where bad things would happen to my children because I wasn't Mormon anymore and there was nothing there to protect them, there was no God or religion because I was a terrible parent. It was a recurring theme. 

So for me, I would go into my therapist and tell him these nightmares and he would have me change the ending. I didn't write them down, I just changed them verbally in front of him. I got in the habit of doing that, and even though I still sometimes have those recurring nightmares, it's not as often now. If you cannot write the nightmares down, it may help to verbally change it or alter it while talking to someone. This can relieve that particular problem for some people, not for everyone, but that was a tangent so moving on...

Your brain is like water. The molecules have little pockets in them and they can take in small particles but they can't take in large particles. The really bad memories naturally fall into those small pockets of the water molecules because dwelling on them is like adding salt. It just naturally is integrated into our brain and this effects us after a while. So what's the solution for that? Doing gratitude lists, as mentioned before, and thinking about all the happy things in our lives is sort of the equivalent of taking potatoes or carrots and cutting them up and putting them in the water. The nutrients from those vegetables are not going to end up in the water in your brain because they are too big. They don't have the same power as those terrible salty traumatic memories. So what's the solution?

The solution is finding a way to expand the pockets in the water molecules so that they will take in a little bit more of what's good and not just salt. When you boil water and it heats up, the water is able to take in more of the nutrients from vegetables like sweet potatoes and broccoli. Turning salt water to vegetable broth is what we want. Reflection is the equivalent of heat, or the amount of time we spend dwelling on good memories. Instead of trying to not think about the terrible time that you just went through, go ahead and go back. 

Go to that terrible time, and then you're going to do something which I think a lot of therapists call re-framing.

Back when I was being mobbed out of my job there were a lot of people who were against me, who tried to make me feel like I was incompetent, a corner cutter, and a terrible worker. It was hard not to believe those things. However, the one thing I had to my advantage was I had this really wonderful and empathetic boyfriend, Nick, who wanted me to be happy and who believed in me. 

Whenever I go back to that time now I think about specific memories I have of Nick. I have this one memory of lying down, looking up at the ceiling as he runs his fingers from the base of my neck down to the top of my cleavage and then back up really lightly, like butterfly wings. When I dwell on this, I remember how relaxing that was, how comforting the stroking motion was; and I will close my eyes. I will breathe slowly. I will remember his fingers. I will remember the emotion that I felt, the peace, and the fact that I was relaxed. 

I dwell on the memory. 

I hold it in my mind until it becomes more than an intellectual exercise but also an exercise in feeling, in grounding myself in the physical sensations of that moment. 

The longer I can do that, the more effective it is.

Here's another moment I have a memory of from that dark time. I was sitting in Nick’s apartment on his bed. It's getting dark and the lights aren't on, so it's sort of getting dark around us and I feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder. It's very warm, a little bit heavier, and then I feel my hair being swept to the side and his breath on my neck. He is nuzzling my neck. I can feel the warmth of that sensation and how my breathing sort of hitches and then relaxes, and I can feel how my stress level goes down. The longer I can remain in that memory, and not just the intellectual exercise, but the moment of relaxation, the more effective it is. 

Another memory I go to is where he knows everything that is going on, but he doesn't think any less of me. He doesn't believe what people are saying about me. He only believes me, and he knows I'm in dire straits. So he’s sitting next to me on the couch in my house, and I have the computer open.  I'm looking at job openings and applying. He's coaching me, actively coaching me, “You can do this. You're smart. You're going to apply for this job and that job. You apply for every job.”  And this is more than an intellectual exercise, because I'm remembering that he’s keeping his voice happy and optimistic, infusing it with confidence, because I don't have any at this point. He is telling me that I'm fantastic, that I’m qualified, that I can do this to the point that I'm able to take some of that confidence in myself. I have it in my head and I'm remembering how his confidence effected me personally, how it infused into me like I was a sponge.

Another moment, memory number four, is in the Silver Diner where I met him one weekend. I remember the big note cards that were bright colors like purple and yellow and blue and green that he'd written possible interview questions on, and how I sat across from him in the Silver Diner with my pen scratching against those note cards. I came up with answers. I wrote them all out, and he read what I had written and helped me make my answers stronger, pointing out what I could add to my answers to make me a better interviewer. 

He was there with me. 

I remember the sound of the footsteps of the waiters and waitresses as they walked past,  the smells coming out of the kitchen of chocolate cake with chocolate drizzle, the smell of the eggs, the draft that came in when people opened the door and the bell ranging. I remember the way Nick looked at me, how intently he looked at me, and how much faith he had in me. It was then I began to feel that faith in myself. 

When we were done eating, I still wasn't done preparing. I have this memory where he held my hand and we walked to his car. I sat in the front seat, him in the driver's seat and me in the passenger seat, the sun coming through the windshield. His hand was on my knee, very comforting; and I practiced answering just one or two questions over and over and over again, messing up, getting words wrong, getting answers wrong. “Okay, sweetie,” he told me. “This is normal. Keep going.” His faith in me coming out through the firmness and the gentleness and the warmth of his voice, the warmth in his hand placed on my knee solidly. The warm sun came through the windshield and hit my face, and the way his eyes, with his long lashes (big brown eyes) looked down on me. There was so much confidence and faith and belief, like we were in this together. It was unlike all of the fear I had inside.

I didn't learn until after I had found my new job and everything ended up okay how terrified and  scared for me he was, but he hid it. He hid it really well, because he knew that's what I needed. He recognized that I was the one in the hard position, so his own fear for me was less important than him being my rock in that moment. 

When I go back to that time now, the time when I was being mobbed, there’s a certain amount of remembering the terrible things that were said and done. That's going to be in there, and I don't try and stop those thoughts, but I try to spend just as much time on the good memories. At the beginning that was hard, but it gets easier. Picking a memory of the person who was there for me during that time provides comfort and security. I pick a memory and then try to live in that memory for as long as I can.

When I first started doing this, I couldn't do it for more than 2 minutes. It's really difficult, but the more you practice the better you get at it. So I would practice each day living a little bit more in those memories that were happy memories and supportive memories that came in the midst of a very terrible time. 

This is where the heat added to the water comes in. 

When you first put heat under a pot of water, the molecules are not moving very much because it's just a little bit of heat; and that's really the same as when you start this exercise.

As you start dwelling on good memories in the midst of your terrible traumatic time it's like adding just a little bit of heat. Your brain can't take very much in besides salt. It's only 2 minutes at a time that you can do it, but as you keep practicing, progressively adding more time and heat to the water, the molecules begin to move faster and they begin to take in more nutrients from the good things: potatoes and carrots broccoli. Two minutes of remembering may turn into 4, and then 4 minutes eventually will turn into 8.

I really believe you're changing your brain by dwelling on those beautiful moments in the midst of trauma, because your mind increases its capacity to take in the nutrients from the supportive wonderful memories the more you focus on them. I don't know what the scientific explanation is for that but I swear it works. I swear it works, because now when I look back on that time, I feel a lot of gratitude. 

Yes, the pain is still there. 

I can't get rid of that. It will always be there, but I feel just as much gratitude. 

I started immersing myself more in music during that time because it was mostly when I was playing my viola or violin that I felt happy and confident and like I was good at something. So I  also focus on memories of that. 

I would encourage you, if you are trying to recover from any sort of terrible experience that was abusive and that lasted a long time, not to block off that time from your mind. That's not going to heal you at all. Don't block it off and pretend it didn't happen. Don't just focus on the good things afterwards, because the trauma is going to come back. It always comes back. 

I would urge you, when you reflect on it: Go back, find the person who was there for you.

Find the hobby that made you feel like you were strong. 

Find the tender moment with your child. 

Find the time when you were jogging and felt capable. 

Find the memories that allowed you to get through that tough experience, and then recognize that there are resources for you.