6 Popular Phrases Translated for Trauma Survivors
In this work, I have met people who have tried many healing modalities. Let’s face it. We are all looking for a way to feel better. We are tired of the physical, emotional and mental exhaustion coming from complex trauma. But there is a problem. Traditional self-help concepts were not written for us. In some cases, I am not sure who they were written for. And while they sound good on the surface, they can make us feel bad about ourselves, causing us to take on masks because the concepts seem out of our reach.
For this reason, I tend to stay away from the phrases that are used in main stream self-help. I don’t use them. I don’t want to confuse folks, and I certainly don’t want to trigger them. But I am going to say something a bit shocking right now. These phrases are right. Yes. I said it. The over-used, over-clichéd phrases are actually on to something. But they are being used in very simplified ways that will never bring deep healing to anyone, let alone trauma survivors. So today I am going to continue my tradition of translation by giving you my perspective on how these common self-help phrases are actually true. And before you yell at me, hear me out. There will be time to yell at me later.
“Positive thoughts will create positive manifestations. Think positive.” This statement can trigger the hell out of survivors. We immediately think, “If I could think positive, I would think positive, damn it!” What good is it going to do to think positive while swimming in negativity in the unconscious? The answer? Not much. But I interpret this a little differently. It isn’t about covering up negative thoughts with positive thoughts. It is about having a conversation with self. If our inner parts are responding to the world with negativity, we can answer them with something different.
“Don’t trust anyone.” “What if there were some trustworthy people in the world?”
“The world is a dangerous place so stay inside.” “What if there were some safe places to go?”
This is very difficult to do when we are enmeshed with our inner parts, but this is exactly how we re-wire the brain. Little by little, it makes a difference.
“Reject, oppose or ignore your inner critic.” This approach won’t work in its simplest form. Our inner critic is an inner part (or a conglomeration of them). If we reject or invalidate this inner part, it only grows stronger. It gains strength when we try to push it back in to the shadows. But when we approach this phrase differently, it has some merit. Instead of rejecting the part as a whole, we reject what they say as the truth (without invalidating the part).
“I am ugly.” “What if that was something I was told by mean people who were jealous of me?”
“I will never be worthy of a good life.” “What if that was projected on to me by people who were drowning in their own unworthiness?”
When we reject the part, it runs our life. But when we reject the validity of the statements, we begin to heal our lack of worthiness.
“Let your inner child play.” Mainstream psychology does a pretty good job of acknowledging the inner child. And they do tell us we must let them play. And that’s a great start. But when our inner children are inundated with trauma, that isn’t the only thing they need to do. As a matter of a fact, we may not even be able to let them play or access them at all until we allow them to do something else. They need to feel. They need to share memories and emotions and trauma. They need to be heard and validated. Only when we begin to meet their other needs can we open up to play as a healing modality.
“Be at peace.” There are very few people who would not invite a life of peace. We all want it. It sounds great. The problem is that life is not peaceful. Life is messy. And for those of us who have been through trauma, our inner world is even messier. So when we are encouraged to be peaceful, we tend to put on our peaceful mask. We can even fool ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, peace is a great thing to strive for. But the way to peace is by embracing the mess. We must embrace all that is the opposite of peace. We need to feel the worst of it. We need to process the worst of our narrative. After that, we can be at peace. The external mess no longer matters.
“Forgiveness is the way to healing.” or “Just let it go.” These phrases may be some of the worst triggers in the recovery world. There are meanings attached to these statements that invalidate our pain in so many ways. But forgiveness was never meant to be about the abuser. It wasn’t even meant to be about our relationship with the abuser. It was never meant to be a way out of responsibility for the abuser or a reason to continue abusive relationships. And it was certainly never meant to encourage us to honor our abusers above ourselves. It was meant to be about us. It was meant to be about processing all those emotions so we could heal ourselves. It isn’t even something we can consciously do. It happens organically as we process our pain and memories from our trauma.
“Our emotional state is a conscious choice.” Let me be clear. Our emotional state is NOT a conscious choice. Our traumatic emotions show up when they want. They don’t even need a trigger. It is like a baseball from left field sometimes. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. This is why so many of us are frustrated with this statement. We can’t choose to be happy when we are riddled with painful emotions from the past. It just doesn’t work like that. But there is one aspect of emotional work that is a choice. We do get to choose how long we let our mind feed the emotions in our body. It is easy? Absolutely not. But when we are able to quiet the conscious mind and sit with the emotion, it passes much more quickly.
These are a few of those phrases that get thrown around in self-help work. In their cliché form, they aren’t all that helpful to trauma survivors. But when we can dig beneath the surface, we can acknowledge the value that comes from them when doing the deep healing work necessary for trauma recovery. The next time you hear one of these phrases and roll your eyes, remember there is truth in there somewhere. And maybe this can provide a little bit of solace as you listen to those well-meaning and invalidating self-help gurus that seem to show up on your Facebook feed at the wrong moment.
I know you will be shocked to know that I had more, so there may just be a second part to this blog post. If you have a self-help phrase you want me to include, please write it in the comments.
“Do the work”. What does that even mean? Or look like? How?
When I speak of recovery work, I am talking about writing from our inner parts, building awareness of our unconscious beliefs and expressing emotions. We can start by building our understand of our mind chatter and where it comes from. This is something I guide my clients through in my guidance program.
Some of the others I have heard that would have really helped and that I still question at times how helpful they actually are:
“We have a choice in how to respond to situations.” We don’t always and didn’t at the time.
“Pain is part of living; suffering is a choice. Pain+avoidance=suffering.”
“Forgive yourself; you didn’t know better at the time.” What if we did?
Thank you for these great examples. I will add them to my next blog post on the topic.
Describing cPTSD behavior stemming from profound emotional pain and lack of tools at the time as “manipulative”. :S
Yes. This happens often.
You’ve done the work, enjoy it.
I was riding high on feeling joy and a true sense of self for the first time in my life, like I reached a new mountain range and there was no turning back or so I thought, I was sharing it to the world and riding the wave. A few family issues came up and wham, I forgot to continue to talk to my Littles and tell them how much I appreciate what they did for me and listening to them and I ended up spiraling down, Not eating well, not exercising, isolating, shame, denial, crept in for about a week, My migraines which had stopped, started again. This is good good work we’re doing but it is relentless, I was apparently looking for a break and obviously scared the heck out of some on my parts because they shut me down flat, surely in their own fear; mindfulness, reassurance, awareness, compassion, can’t stop. Whew!!
Thanks for listening.
There are so many cycles like this. It happens to me all the time. I forget to focus inward or check in and my system gets jacked up. This work really does require consistent attention to have the full impact we want it to have. Sending my love and light to you.
Thank you Elizabeth, that means a lot to me!!
Constant attention, Ughh…. which is an attitude not in my best interest.
You recently said writing from those parts 10-15 minutes a day….. that would help stopgap my downward spiral. Yes, Then it requires self-discipline for the good, OK OK OK
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Telling someone who has been traumatized to quit thinking about it, or quit ruminating about it, as though it’s a choice. So often it isn’t a choice, it just happens and there you are in the middle of the memory looking for a way out.
I also just want to thank you for writing this. Many of these are big triggers for me personally and every time I hear them I feel like I need to launch into an explanation of why they aren’t appropriate.
Thank you Daphne. It is really hard to get people to understand how these don’t work for us at all.
“I am “poking” at you so you will change your mindset and stop seeing yourself as a victim.”
– said to me by a therapist after I discussed being abused by narcissists.
I’m sorry you experienced that Joanna.
A great example. It isn’t a choice.
I needed to be reminded of this. Thank you. Going through a hard time so thats all i can really say right now
Sending my love and light to you.
Thank you AGAIN Elizabeth! You are a gem and your writing is a gold mine!
Your words are Validation 101! I am always so grateful for them and share them with others.
Some of the comments that I have heard are
“You dont have to think/feel that way”,
“You dont have to hold on to that belief!”
And anything that starts with “Just…”
(just move on, just change and lots of blah blah blah!)
Yes! I have stricken “just” from my vocabulary in my writings and with my clients. There is nothing simple about any of this recovery work.
Great points, as always. Thanks for giving me a different way to see these things. Sometimes I feel like I should be anti all of this self help stuff and other times I want to embrace it. This is really helpful for that.
Thank you Victoria!
This is something I have wanted to hear all my life. I knew I was traumas but somehow I thought self help was the solution. I now know better but I was shocked at how. Our words sent me home. Thanks for you!
Thank you Civia. I am so glad this helped you.
Great post Elisabeth. Thank you.
I would like to know what “surrender” means and how I can do that when I’m drowning in the pain of this trauma, being devalued and discarded IN ONE DAY by my hub of 26 years. I had NO idea and it hit me like an atom bomb. So what am I surrendering to?
Surrender is another tricky word. I translate surrender as meaning to give in to how we feel in the moment. Don’t try to fight how we feel. If we feel grief, let it be there. If we feel shame, let it be there. If we feel rage, let it be there. It doesn’t mean we love where we are or how we feel, but we let it be what it is.
The mother always gets the blame. (Mine was a narcissist.)
I have noticed that the mother wound tends to run a bit deeper. But ultimately both parents need to be responsible for generational trauma.
In my new situation I decided I needed help processing all these mixed feelings of feeling threatened, corralled, thieved from and stalked in a sense. I joined a group while waiting for a new therapist, it seems so elementary after only two meetings. It focuses on about four different things and I feel a contradiction within it. I’ll try to get a handle on it and hope some good will come of it.
I hope it is helpful.
The phrase you are good enough triggers me and I dont know why
I could see how that might be triggering.
One of my most triggering self help comments is to think of people worse off than you..cause I know it’s true! But I already struggle to validate my own responses to the past!
Also be grateful 🙂
Oh I know that one. Yes I KNOW there are people enduring terrible situations but their trouble does not mean mine is less important. It is like telling a kid to eat their dinner because there are starving children in Africa! It
was one of the statements that put pressure on the dam I was already holding back and finally broke a few weeks ago.
I agree. Neither of those comments are good for us. They don’t help us heal.
“You can always count on family” or “they’re family you must forgive and forget”. Phrases like these that put family in a rose-colored light always upset me because family was the cause of my (and so many other’s) trauma.
Yes! That’s so invalidating.
Now I know why the phrase you are good enough triggers me. It is making me feel that I am stucked. That this is as far as it goes, that I will never improve, never be more happy og feel more love. Never change.
You might find my latest blog interesting. I wrote about “good enough”.
Yes we are meant to be more than good enough that was very helpful for me thank you so much
I don’t like “all emotions are preceded by a thought. Change your thoughts and you will change your emotions”
We can stop the cycle of “emotions fueling thoughts fueling emotions” by paying attention to our thoughts and making changes. But emotions live in the body and they don’t change or release until we express them.