Ask A Results Coach: Tackling unhealthy patterns as a survivor of trauma

Posted on 1 February, 2022

January 2022 has perhaps not been the ‘fresh new start’ we all hoped for.

Enter Alex Wright-Moore, a Results Coach who has kindly offered to answer some commonly asked questions she gets from clients—and share her knowledge with the HerCanberra audience.

Each month, Alex will explore some of the ways we can better understand what challenges us and empowers us to find solutions.

“I am a survivor of trauma and have developed some unhealthy patterns in my life which I find hard to escape. I don’t always make good decisions—but sometimes I feel hardwired to fail. How can I break free of this cycle and live better?”

When we experience something profoundly distressing or unpleasant in life, our minds, bodies and hearts can respond in a variety of ways depending on the circumstances. This reality means there can never be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to overcoming trauma and healing ourselves.

The impact of trauma can be subtle, insidious, or outright destructive in our lives. It can also influence our responses, reactions and ability to make decisions in a way that can feel overwhelming and life-altering.

In the modern world, the psychological reaction to trauma is commonly known as ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ or PTSD. Yet trauma (including one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events) affects everyone differently and does not always result in a PTSD diagnosis. For this reason, seeking appropriate medical and mental health supports tailored to suit our individual needs, is critical to navigating the after-effects of trauma with the required level of care and attention.

Nevertheless, additional resources and strategies do exist which can help us make headway in building a future with increased confidence, healthier decision-making habits and more hope. While not all-encompassing, here are some ways we can start.

We can empower ourselves with knowledge and understanding of how the mind works

While experiencing trauma and its impacts is challenging on a mental, physical and emotional level, it is important for us to understand (with the logical, reasoning part of our brain) and believe (with the feeling and thinking part of our mind) that it does not hardwire us to fail.

The most effective way to do this, is by increasing our knowledge of the mind-body connection and how our brain, mind and body function together, so we can understand the practicalities of how it all works when we throw trauma into the mix.

Fortunately, the world already has a number of experts working on this subject, so this exercise doesn’t necessitate that we become neuroscientists or masters in human behaviour overnight. For example, the work of cognitive neuroscientist, mental health and mind expert Dr Caroline Leaf, has been specifically developed to speed up our collective education in this space.

In Dr Leaf’s words, “Toxic thoughts, depression, anxiety (our mental mess) is frequently aggravated by a chaotic world and sustained by an inability to manage our runaway thoughts. But we shouldn’t settle into this mental mess as if it is just our new normal. There’s hope and help available to us, and the road to healthier thoughts and peak happiness may actually be shorter than we think.”

Dr. Leaf’s recent book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple, Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress and Toxic Thinking, is a valuable guide to help us understand how the science of directed neuroplasticity can help us to unwire toxic habits and trauma.

Similarly, Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative coach and the best-selling author of six books including Creating the Impossible, The Inside-Out Revolution and The Space Within. By his own admission, Michael has spent the past 30 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor, and creative spark plug to people who want to get more out of themselves and their lives.

In this vein, his TEDx talk, ‘Why Aren’t We Awesomer?’ emphasises why it is essential for us to understand that our minds are projectors and not cameras if we want to live a happier life.

But what does this actually mean? Watch his TEDx talk below to find out.

Essentially, the key message is that we live in the feeling of our thinking and not the feeling of our true life circumstances. So, since we have the power to create our thoughts, it follows that in most circumstances we have the power to direct our thinking and feelings wherever we want them to go.

Despite that fact that it can sometimes feel as if our thoughts are directing us, Michael advocates that with deliberate action and consistent practice we hold the power to change our lives. Therefore, it would seem we have two choices:

OPTION A: We can either consciously or subconsciously invest our energy in directing our thoughts towards the things that help us feel good.

OR

OPTION B: We can do the reverse.

If struggling to redirect negative thoughts, some techniques to help can be found here and here. But if this ultimately comes down to how good we are at recognising, triaging and directing our thoughts—then focusing on what brings us clarity, health, happiness, balance and confidence is a good place to start.

We can choose to see ourselves as a process (rather than an object)

As humans, many of us have been conditioned to think about ourselves, our goals and our lives along a linear timeline and trajectory with ‘BIRTH – INNOCENCE – DREAMS’ at the beginning and ‘SUCCESS/FAILURE – EXPERIENCE – DEATH’ at the end.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with this way of seeing the world. But it can come with unforeseen limitations—one of which may be looking at our lives with fewer dimensions than they have.

When we see ourselves as objects, we tend to think we are a human body/mind navigating our way through time and space and bumping into other objects (other people and things) which generate the ups and downs of our lived experience. In large part, this is because our brain likes to ‘objectify and thingify’ our world to better comprehend it.

However, in Just a Thought: A No-Willpower Approach to Overcome Self-Doubt and Make Peace with Your Mind, life coach and psychologist, Dr Amy Johnson, emphasises that if we choose to see ourselves as ever-evolving processes, it can fill our life with greater possibility, resilience and self-compassion.

Even better, due to the added layers of fluidity, feeling and nuance embedded in process thinking, this can often result in a powerful ability to drive the changes we desire in our lives so we can thrive.

For those curious to learn more, episode 170 of Amy’s Changeable podcast, specifically discusses how and why—and you can access it here. Similarly, there are a range of available podcasts designed to help us break our bad habits, change our thinking and transform our lives. If looking for inspiration, here are some of my favourites.

We can decide that our well-being is non-negotiable and prioritise healthy decision-making

It is one thing to say that we value our well-being and want to make healthier choices in life, but it is an entirely different matter to turn our words and hopes into actions which make up our reality. Hearteningly, when we set about trying to achieve any goal or transformation, there are three essential ingredients which can get us there: Clarity, Conviction and Consistency.

If we want to genuinely live in a world where our sense of well-being is non-negotiable and prioritise healthy decision-making, it is imperative that we draw upon these three ingredients if we are to succeed in making the changes we yearn for.

Getting clear about what we want in our life, what result we are working towards and our ‘why’ is an essential place to start. It can also help if we take the time to put pen to paper to answer some key questions at the start of the process. Below is a list of suggested questions we could ask ourselves in this specific scenario:

• What does my life look like when I make good choices and decisions?
• How do I define ‘good’? Is it by how I feel, by the consequences of my decisions, or both?
• How do I want to feel when I make decisions in the future?
• What does ‘living better’ mean to me?
• Am I looking for an easy-to-follow process with expert steps to help me strengthen my decision-making muscles? Or do I prefer to simply go with what feels right to me?
• What negative or repeating patterns do I want to break or eliminate from my life?
• What factors are currently enabling those unwanted patterns to continue in my life? (and what is within my control to change here?)
• Are there ways I can adapt my environment or put supports in place to help me make the transformation I desire?
• What is the end result I am ultimately trying to achieve?

Taking the time to ask these questions and having the courage to answer them provides clarity and an initial springboard for conviction. Then, our sense of deep conviction is borne when we uncover the compelling reason why we want to change.

We can do this by asking ourselves, ‘Why is this so important to me?’ and listing these reasons somewhere easy for us to access so we can come back to our motivational reasoning when we need reminding.

Putting our written answers to these questions in a place where we can see them every day as a visual cue can often help us to stay focused and on track—whether it be it using the Reminder or Notes App in our phone, a sticky note on the bathroom mirror or in a bookmarked page of our journal. We can even take a photograph of the piece of paper and save it as the screen saver on our computer—whatever works!

Finally, once we have clarity and conviction, consistency is the part where the magic really happens and comes from consciously prioritising time and effort daily to create new positive habits. Building in measures for accountability to keep ourselves on track is also vital and tips on how to do this are available here.

If looking for a little more, check out psychologist and Internationally renowned author Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match Your Desires. Research conducted by the Greater Good Science Center affiliated with the University of Berkeley in California also offers unique insight into the pillars of enhancing wellbeing here for anyone aiming to live a more fulfilled and healthy life.

At the end of the day, it is important to acknowledge that trauma and its impacts is an incredibly complex subject. Not only are there are multiple contextual and personal factors which can exacerbate the severity of one’s experience, but trauma can also trigger us to act in uncharacteristic ways or form unhealthy habits as coping mechanisms—be it consciously or unconsciously.

However, no matter what happens to us in life, one thing is certain: None of us can ever actually “fail” in the true sense of the word. This is especially so, if we appreciate that, as with all life on Earth, we ultimately exist as a species to develop, grow, learn and evolve through lived experience.

This statement is in no way an attempt to minimise the validity or pain of one’s experience with trauma or its impacts upon their world. But it is essential to remember that we have the power to glue ourselves back together and remake a life of our own choosing.

Just sometimes we need a little help to see a clear path through the fire, some support for the journey and sufficient resources to help us navigate the road. May these resources give you a place to start.

Want to ask your own question?

Neither Alex Wright-Moore, nor HerCanberra receive any kickbacks, commissions, gifts or fees for mentioning anything contained within.