The Road From Trauma

I used to visit a support forum online for people recovering from various types of trauma. It felt like a wonderful place, and I know it does a lot of good for people. But after I was there for a while I started to wonder, "why don't I see anyone getting well here?" Out of all the people there, you would see lots of people having "insights," but the insights didn't seem to translate into anything but small improvements in their actual lives. The more time you spent there, the more you saw people repeating the same patterns. Once in a while people would suddenly quit coming and I'd wonder, "what happened to them?"

I really wanted people to get well and to feel better myself so I kept thinking what to do next, what was the next step? ...and then suddenly one day it occurred to me:

You can't become happy and healthy without doing the things happy and healthy people do.

And happy, healthy, people didn't spend hours every day reliving the most tragic and painful moments of their lives! Instead they were out playing with their kids, taking a class, going to the movies, working, whatever. They were going on with life.

It taught me that there is a subtle, but very important distinction between "healing" and "healed." We need sometimes to reflect and discuss, but we should never lose sight of our goal. The goal is not the healing process, but rather to feel good again. Focusing on healing is akin to someone pointing to the moon but you stare at the end of their finger. Too often leads you into your pain and limitations and not to where you wish to be.

Since then I often think of my personal growth as one big matching game. If, for example, my dream life includes being very healthy and feeling youthful, well then today I might try to match. A healthy person has healthy eating and exercise habits. Or, say I wish to be confident. Today I might try to speak better of myself and hesitate less.

Self-help is like a middle step that sometimes we need and use, sometimes we don't need but we worry ourselves into thinking we do, or sometimes we discuss the self help but fail to apply it.

By: CD Mohatta

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