If you went through a psychological trauma, you will find yourself re-visiting that place often - even after you've done lots of work to heal, reconcile, and restore sanity. The aftermath of a psychological trauma is some irreversible change to the psyche. Yes, we can achieve significant, even full, healing. But in many cases, there are still some changes that require ongoing maintenance and care.
This phenomenon also applies to physical trauma - it fundamentally changes your life. Physical scars are just more visible; psychological ones are less so, and much more subtle.
Let’s say someone has anxiety as a result of a childhood trauma. Anxiety fluctuates, taking space, time, and resources for its management - sometimes hourly, sometimes daily or weekly. That anxiety management consumes resources we could otherwise invest somewhere else: in learning a new skill, reading a new book, or spending time in enjoyable social contact. It is like paying a ‘psychological tax’ with resources you could invest elsewhere.
Trauma changes us and our lives irreversibly: it takes from the ‘bank’ of our resources. This viewpoint adds a bit of grief – we lose a little of our resources every day. Those of us who need to manage some of our internal conditions are forced to spend those internal resources that could be invested somewhere else.
I have seen people whose weeks are eaten by depression, or whose days are swallowed by anxiety. And I know – they could practice a new skill or enjoy their hobby at the same time, instead of spending their time on that management. It is a constant little loss, rather invisible on a daily basis, but it does add up over a lifetime. We have to invest in this inner maintenance during some ‘hard’ days to simply make ‘good’ days available to us. For many with PTSD, these are lifelong strategies. The psychological stamina is not GIVEN after trauma; it is EARNED. Daily.
And I also want to offer a reframe that could help you look at things in a more positive light:
Many people don’t work on themselves AT ALL over the course of their lifetime. Whether they are on the healthier end of the psychological continuum or the less healthy end, the majority live their lives with a limited focus on their internal world. If you are one of those people who work on yourself, you will have a PROFOUND IMPACT on your soul over time. On a daily basis, it is not traceable, but it does ADD UP IN TIME.
If you consider that your psychological health maintenance is a part of the working on yourself that's available to you in this lifetime, then things SHIFT TREMENDOUSLY. And irreversibly!
If we zoom out on this picture: this inner psychological maintenance, building our soul stamina, is a part of a larger, beautiful endeavor of self-development. And not everyone is on this path - or will ever be. This self-development is the evolution of the soul that you will be able to take with you into the next lifetime, from a spiritual perspective. You are building soul-level mastery, and that is priceless.
In other words: we are not only re-building ourselves after a psychological ‘demolition’ that resulted in a trauma, but we are actively building ourselves up INTENTIONALLY. And when we do ANYTHING with more awareness and more intention, we get MORE MASTERFUL at it, and we accumulate more and more RESOURCES around it.
Those who work on themselves, including those rebuilding themselves, get a chance to acquire such RESILIENCE that we could never have if things never derailed.
Keep building. Keep going.
This phenomenon also applies to physical trauma - it fundamentally changes your life. Physical scars are just more visible; psychological ones are less so, and much more subtle.
Let’s say someone has anxiety as a result of a childhood trauma. Anxiety fluctuates, taking space, time, and resources for its management - sometimes hourly, sometimes daily or weekly. That anxiety management consumes resources we could otherwise invest somewhere else: in learning a new skill, reading a new book, or spending time in enjoyable social contact. It is like paying a ‘psychological tax’ with resources you could invest elsewhere.
Trauma changes us and our lives irreversibly: it takes from the ‘bank’ of our resources. This viewpoint adds a bit of grief – we lose a little of our resources every day. Those of us who need to manage some of our internal conditions are forced to spend those internal resources that could be invested somewhere else.
I have seen people whose weeks are eaten by depression, or whose days are swallowed by anxiety. And I know – they could practice a new skill or enjoy their hobby at the same time, instead of spending their time on that management. It is a constant little loss, rather invisible on a daily basis, but it does add up over a lifetime. We have to invest in this inner maintenance during some ‘hard’ days to simply make ‘good’ days available to us. For many with PTSD, these are lifelong strategies. The psychological stamina is not GIVEN after trauma; it is EARNED. Daily.
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And here I want to say to those of you who have to invest this forced self-work in yourself: I am sorry this happened to you. I know it saddens and likely frustrates many of you. And I hope you need less and less time invested in that maintenance as time passes.
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And I also want to offer a reframe that could help you look at things in a more positive light:
Many people don’t work on themselves AT ALL over the course of their lifetime. Whether they are on the healthier end of the psychological continuum or the less healthy end, the majority live their lives with a limited focus on their internal world. If you are one of those people who work on yourself, you will have a PROFOUND IMPACT on your soul over time. On a daily basis, it is not traceable, but it does ADD UP IN TIME.
If you consider that your psychological health maintenance is a part of the working on yourself that's available to you in this lifetime, then things SHIFT TREMENDOUSLY. And irreversibly!
If we zoom out on this picture: this inner psychological maintenance, building our soul stamina, is a part of a larger, beautiful endeavor of self-development. And not everyone is on this path - or will ever be. This self-development is the evolution of the soul that you will be able to take with you into the next lifetime, from a spiritual perspective. You are building soul-level mastery, and that is priceless.
In other words: we are not only re-building ourselves after a psychological ‘demolition’ that resulted in a trauma, but we are actively building ourselves up INTENTIONALLY. And when we do ANYTHING with more awareness and more intention, we get MORE MASTERFUL at it, and we accumulate more and more RESOURCES around it.
Those who work on themselves, including those rebuilding themselves, get a chance to acquire such RESILIENCE that we could never have if things never derailed.
Keep building. Keep going.