Part 3 of 3: The Breakthrough
What do you do when your surefire countermeasures for sadness don’t work?
This is the place I found myself in after deploying my go to countermeasures for two months without a major breakthrough. While they did provide with some minor wins, they did not result in the major breakthrough I desired and was seeking. I wanted to be unstuck. Instead, I was gifting myself momentary pleasures of happiness.
Luckily, I had my first retreat of the year coming up at my house for my EO group. Since I am a member of the group, I could not lead the content, so I invited a world-class psychotherapist to lead it. Her name is Heather Dee Frankovich. Feel free to say hi as she is a member of this group.
So what led to my breakthrough? Heather asked us all to bring a photo of ourselves as a kid. You may remember that I did a post about it the night before the exercise sharing the cute photo I selected.
I incorrectly predicted that the point of the exercise would be to learn from our child selves what joyful behaviors we had foolishly abandoned as adults. Instead, the workshop was about what we could learn from the traumas we had as that cute little innocent kid.
At first I fought the exercise because, by pretty much every measurement, I had a very happy childhood. I had zero complaints with how I was raised. Great parents check. No physical or mental abuse of any kind check. Loved ones supportive of my dreams check. Great friends check. Nothing to see here. Keep it moving Doc.
I’ve hosted and attended many retreats before that zeroed in on childhood trauma. As a personal development coach, I have seen firsthand how trauma metastasizes and continues to play a dominant role if left unchecked.
I’m a fan of this work, but I did not feel it had a hand in what I was struggling with this time. The restless feeling I was experiencing felt way more present day. I surmissed that it had to be brought on by recent decisions and events. Definitely not something tied to my childhood.
So, I came into this exercise a wee bit reluctant. Initially I decided to ignore what was being asked of me. Instead, I tried to gift myself the wisdom of my child self. But, as others shared and Heather began to expertly guide each person to see for themselves the trauma and its ongoing role in their adult lives, my resistance faded. I got taken to another realm where visions of how I felt as a three year old on that beach in that very moment began to emerge with perfect clarity.
There was definitely some unfinished business at hand. An unrealized trauma was revealed. And while it certainly did not compare to other traumas on a gut wrenching heartbreak scale, it was the root cause of my current struggle and my path to clarity. I just needed to connect the dots.
For the rest of the exercise, Heather was my Sherpa and the rest of the group were my fellow warriors in the foxhole I had mentally dug for myself, helping to push me out.
With my trauma identified, I felt the dark cloud of stuckness begin to lift minute by minute, hour by hour. For the first time in two plus months, I began to feel aliveness again. I could once again hear tactics. Both in my own problem solving mind and from well intended others. In fact, it was easy for me to brainstorm, decide on, and put into motion multiple solutions in the days ahead. My inner-Lion is out if its cage, vibrationally alive again, inspirationally balling out, taking risks and giving generously.
What is the biggest take away that I want this story to inspire in you? If your go to countermeasures aren’t working, don’t be afraid to open yourself up to help from a trusted professional who understands traumas. Choose to be vulnerable. Choose to provide support and protection to your child self so you can heal as an adult. It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It’s a demonstration of massive, Lion-like strength.
Gratitude to you for reading this and gratitude to Heather, my wife, my EO crew, Patrick Combs and Makhosi Hefisah Nejeser who helped me get unstuck and inspired again!
