by Pete Walker
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the
darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you
chances.
know them, take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life,
sometimes.
and the more often you
learn to do it,
the more light there will
be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have
it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in
you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you progress in recovering from the multidimensional wounding of Cptsd:
[1] as increasing mindfulness decreases your unconscious 4F acting out,
[2] as your critic shrinks,
[3] as your brain becomes more user-friendly,
[4] as grieving your childhood losses builds your emotional intelligence,
[5] as your body relaxes and your mind becomes more peaceful,
[5] as your healthy ego matures into a healthy sense of self,
[6] as your life narrative becomes self-compassionate and self-affirming,
[7] as your emotional vulnerability creates authentic experiences of intimacy and
[8] as a you attain “good enough” safe relationship.
And let me reemphasize once again that recovery is not an all-or-none phenomenon. It is a gradual process marked by ongoing growth in any of these arenas, and most especially in a decreasing frequency, intensity and duration of flashbacks.
I hope and pray that much sooner than later you will experience an increasing access to the silver linings I described in chapter 4. I hope you sense the ongoing resolution of your developmental arrests. I hope you will notice an increasing kindness to yourself and a pride in the beautiful uniqueness of yourself. I hope you become as fierce in your allegiance to yourself as you need to be to feel that you safely belong to the world. I further hope that the benefits of your improved emotional intelligence will bring you at least one intimate relationship where you can ongoingly discover the benefits of safe and multidimensional relating.
TOOLBOX 1
SUGGESTED INTENTIONS
FOR RECOVERY
Here are normal and safe wants and needs to wish and hope for . . . to cultivate with mental, spiritual, emotional and physical energy. As usual, focus on the ones that most appeal to you. Skip the ones that do not feel right for you or that you do not feel ready for.
I want to develop a more constantly loving and accepting relationship with myself. I want an increasing capacity for self acceptance.
I want to learn to become the best possible friend to myself.
I want to attract, into my life, relationships that are based on love, respect, fairness and mutual support.
I want to uncover a full, uninhibited self expression.
I want to attain the best possible physical health.
I want to cultivate a balance of vitality and peace.
I want to attract, to myself, loving friends and loving community.
I want increasing freedom from toxic shame.
I want increasing freedom from unnecessary fear.
I want rewarding and fulfilling work.
I want a fair amount of peace of mind, spirit, soul and body.
I want to increase my capacity to play and have fun.
I want to make plenty of room for beauty and nature in my life.
I want sufficient physical and monetary resources.
I want a fair amount of help (self, human, or divine) to get what I need.
I want God’s love, grace and blessing.
I want a balance of work, rest and play.
I want a balance of stability and change.
I want a balance of loving interaction and healthy self sufficiency.
I want full emotional expression with a balance of laughter and tears.
I want a sense of meaningfulness and fulfillment.
I want to find effective and non-abusive ways to deal with anger.
I want all this for each and every other being.
TOOLBOX 2
HUMAN BILL OF RIGHTS
[GUIDELINES FOR FAIRNESS
AND INTIMACY]
I have the right to be treated with respect.
I have the right to say no.
I have the right to make mistakes.
I have the right to reject unsolicited advice or feedback.
I have the right to negotiate for change.
I have the right to change my mind or my plans.
I have a right to change my circumstances or course of action.
I have the right to have my own feelings, beliefs, opinions, preferences, etc.
I have the right to protest sarcasm, destructive criticism, or unfair treatment.
I have a right to feel angry and to express it non-abusively.
I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone else’s problems.
I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone’s bad behavior.
I have a right to feel ambivalent and to occasionally be inconsistent.
I have a right to play, waste time and not always be productive.
I have a right to occasionally be childlike and immature.
I have a right to complain about life’s unfairness and injustices.
I have a right to occasionally be irrational in safe ways.
I have a right to seek healthy and mutually supportive relationships.
I have a right to ask friends for a modicum of help and emotional support.
I have a right to complain and verbally ventilate in moderation.
I have a right to grow, evolve and prosper.
TOOLBOX 3
SUGGESTED INTERNAL
RESPONSES TO COMMON
CRITIC ATTACKS
The attacks of the critic often operate below the radar of self-awareness. Unless we can identify them, we are at their mercy and helpless to deconstruct them. Once we learn to recognize inner critic attacks, the simple techniques of Thought-Stopping and Thought-Substitution are powerful tools in short-circuiting the critic.
There are two categories of attacks. Perfectionism attacks, fueled by toxic shame, create chronic self-hate and self-flagellation. Endangerment attacks, fueled by fear, create chronic hypervigilance and anxiety.
PERFECTIONISM ATTACKS
1. Perfectionism. My perfectionism arose as an attempt to gain safety and support in my dangerous family. Perfection is a self-persecutory myth. I do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved in the present. I am letting go of relationships that require perfection. I have a right to make mistakes. Mistakes do not make me a mistake. Every mistake or mishap is an opportunity to practice loving myself in the places I have never been loved.
2. All-or-None & Black-and-White Thinking. I reject extreme or over generalized descriptions, judgments or criticisms. Statements that describe me as “always” or “never” this or that, are typically grossly inaccurate.
3. Self-Hate, Self-Disgust & Toxic Shame. I commit to myself. I am on my side. I am a good enough person. I refuse to trash myself. I turn shame back into blame and disgust and externalize it to anyone who shames my normal feelings and foibles. As long as I am not hurting anyone, I refuse to be shamed for normal emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate the self-hate habit.
4. Micromanagement/Worrying/Obsessing/Looping/
Over-Futurizing. I will not repetitively examine details over and over. I will not endlessly second-guess myself. I cannot change the past. I forgive all my past mistakes. I cannot make the future perfectly safe. I will stop hunting for what could
go wrong. I will not try to control the uncontrollable. I will not micromanage myself or others. I work in a way that is “good enough”, and I accept the existential fact that my efforts sometimes bring desired results and sometimes they do not. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
5. Unfair/Devaluing Comparisons to others or to your most perfect moments. I refuse to compare myself unfavorably to others. I will not compare “my insides to their outsides”. I will not judge myself for not being at peak performance all of the time. In a society that pressures us into acting happy all the time, I will not get down on myself for feeling bad.
6. Guilt. Feeling guilty does not mean I am guilty. I refuse to make my decisions and choices out of guilt; sometimes I need to feel the guilt and do it anyway. In the inevitable instance when I inadvertently hurt someone, I will apologize, make amends, and let go of my guilt. I will not apologize over and over. I am no longer a victim. I will not accept unfair blame. Guilt is sometimes camouflaged fear: “I am afraid, but I am not guilty or in danger”.
7. “Shoulding”. I will substitute the words “want to” for “should” and only follow this imperative if it feels like I want to, unless I am under legal, ethical or moral obligation.
8. Over-Productivity/Workaholism/Busyholism. I am a human being not a human doing. I will not choose to be perpetually productive. I am more productive in the long run, when I balance work with play and relaxation. I will not try to perform at 100% all the time. I subscribe to the normalcy of vacillating along a continuum of efficiency.
9. Harsh Judgments of Self & Others/ Name-Calling. I will not let the bullies and critics of my early life win by joining and agreeing with them. I refuse to attack myself or abuse others. I will not displace the criticism and blame that rightfully belongs to my original critics onto myself or current people in my life. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself”. - Jane Eyre
ENDANGERMENT ATTACKS
10. Drasticizing/Catastrophizing/Hypochondriasizing. I feel afraid but I am not in danger. I am not “in trouble” with my parents. I refuse to scare myself with thoughts and pictures of my life deteriorating. No more home-made horror movies and disaster flicks. No more turning tiny ailments into tales of dying.
11. Negative focus. I will stop anxiously looking for, over-noticing and dwelling on what might go wrong or what might be wrong with me or life around me. Right now, I will notice, visualize and enumerate my accomplishments, talents and qualities, as well as the many gifts life offers me, like music, film, food, beauty, color, books, nature, friends, etc.
12. Time Urgency. I am not in danger. I do not need to rush. I will not hurry unless it is a true emergency. I am learning to enjoy doing my daily activities at a relaxed pace.
13. Disabling Performance Anxiety. I am reducing procrastination by reminding myself not to accept unfair criticism or perfectionist expectations from anyone. Even when afraid, I will defend myself from unfair criticism. I won’t let fear make my decisions.
14. Perseverating About Being Attacked. Unless there are clear signs of danger, I will thought-stop my projection of past bullies/critics onto others. The majority of my fellow human beings are peaceful people. I have legal authorities to aid in my protection if threatened by the few who aren’t. I invoke thoughts and images of my friends’ love and support.
TOOLBOX 4
TOOLS FOR LOVINGLY
RESOLVING CONFLICT
This is a list of techniques and perspectives I’ve gathered over the years to help couples resolve conflict as lovingly as possible. When I give it to couples that I work with, I ask them to take time at home to read it aloud together and to discuss each one as much as necessary to see if they can agree to adopt it as a guideline for handling conflict.
When I first got together with my wife eleven years ago, we spent considerable time on a weekend trip discussing these guidelines one at a time. We aired our concerns, enthusiasms, caveats and reservations about using them. Over subsequent years, we refined our usage of them, and have evolved a communication style around our conflicts that has helped to keep our intimacy healthy and ever growing.
Normalize the inevitability of conflict & establish a safe forum for it. Discuss and agree to as many of these guidelines as seem useful.
The goal is to inform and negotiate for change, not punish. Punishment destroys trust. Love can open the “ears” of the other’s heart.
Imagine how it would be easiest to hear about your grievance from the other.
Say it as it would be easiest for you to hear.
Preface complaints with acknowledgement of the good of the other and your mutual relationship.
No name-calling, sarcasm or character assassination.
No analyzing the other or mind reading.
No interrupting or filibustering
Be dialogical. Give short, concise statements that allow the other to reflect back and paraphrase key points to let you hear that you are accurately being heard.
No denial of the other’s rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights above.
Differences are often not a matter of right or wrong; both people can be right, and merely different. Be willing to sometimes agree to differ.
Avoid “you” statements. Use “I” statements that identify your feelings and your experience of what you perceive as unfair.
One specific issue, with accompanying identifiable behavior, at a time. Ask yourself what hurts the most to try to find your key complaint.
Stick to the issue until both persons feel fully heard. Take turns presenting issues.
No interrupting or filibustering.
Present a complaint as lovingly and calmly as possible.
Timeouts: If discussion becomes heated either person can call a timeout [one minute to 24 hours], as long as s/he nominates a time to resume. {See 1 below}
Discharge as much of any accumulated charge before hand as possible.
Own responsibility for any accumulated charge in the anger that might come from not talking about it soon enough.
Own responsibility for accumulated charge displaced from other hurts. {See 2 below}
Commit to grow in your understanding of how much of your charge comes from childhood abuse/neglect.
Commit to recovering from the losses of childhood by effectively identifying, grieving, and reclaiming them.
Apologize from an unashamed place. Make whatever amends are possible.
Include your intention to correct your behavior in the future. Explain your extenuating circumstances as evidence – not as an excuse - that you were not trying to be hurtful.
1. More on Timeouts, #16
Two of the most common reasons that relationships break up is irreconcilable differences and irreparable damages. The latter could have been prevented in many cases if couples knew how to use timeouts judiciously.
This is especially true for fight-type trauma survivors, who when flashing back, can easily lose control to the outer critic and say intimacy-destroying things. Survivors benefit greatly from learning to recognize the signs of being over-activated so that they can then take timeouts to stop the bleeding caused by a critic on the rampage.
Things said in the heat of a flashback can wound deeply and engrave themselves in the psyche of the other in ways that cripple trust. So much of this needless intimacy-destruction will be prevented if both members of the couple agree that either of them can call a timeout whenever they feel too triggered to be lovingly confrontive, or are experiencing the other as flashing back into being overly aggressive.
Timeouts can range from one minute to 24 hours depending on how long it takes either or both partners to achieve good enough flashback management.
Timeouts work best when the person calling them nominates a time to resume conflict resolution, so that timeouts do not become techniques for dodgi
ng issues.
Timeouts can be used individually as a time to release any accumulated charge. This can be done by using the safe “angering out” techniques I describe in chapter 5 of my book, The Tao of Fully Feeling.
2. More on Transference, #19 & #20
In using this list with couples, I notice that those who are most skilled in conflict resolution, have achieved significant skill with steps 19 through 21. These steps are about learning to handle transference.
For trauma survivors, transference is often a type of flashback whereby we unconsciously react to our significant others as though they were our childhood caretakers. When this occurs, we displace onto them a great deal of our unresolved childhood emotional pain.
One common example of this occurs when a partner’s fair and minor complaint triggers a torrent of rage, fear and/or shame that is left over from decades of a parent’s overwhelming and rejecting criticism.
Another instance of this occurs when her failure to say what he was hoping to hear stirs up the pain of decades of his aloof, detached mother or father’s neglect. All gender combinations can of course fall into this trap.
The composition of most conflicts that I witness in my office eventually seems to be approximately 90% re-experienced pain from the past and 10% actual current pain. Harville Hendrix’s
Getting The Love You Want, is a wonderful guide for working through this dynamic in a way that heals childhood wounds and enhances intimacy at the same time.
In my experience, the vast majority of conflicts between consenting adults involve a dynamic where both people play a part and have some responsibility for a disruption in their loving connection.
Truly healing resolutions to conflict typically occur when each partner owns their part and expresses an apology about their contribution to the conflict. For deep level resolution this usually includes an apologetic reference to your transference. A good apology sounds something like this of this: “I’m sorry for the amount of charge I had in expressing my disappointment. While I believe I have a fair complaint, the intensity with which I expressed it was too much. I’m sorry I responded to you as if you were my constantly withholding mother.”