Healing is a process, a journey. It is not something that can be set as a specific finite goal with a timeline. It is work towards building a life. 

From time to time as I got stuck in my journey, my therapist would ask me what would help. How did I make it through the last time I thought I couldn’t go on. And every time I reflected, It was a series of small everyday choices and actions taken with an intent of healing with compassion. It didn’t mean that I had cracked the secrets of compassion; just that I had intended to keep that in mind. 

So when I could not get out of bed until late afternoon, I told myself it’s okay. When I finally got up and brushed my teeth I’d give myself a virtual star/smiley/cookie. The kind kids get in kindergarten for putting effort. Yes these tasks were mundane and the majority of people don’t even have to think about it. But I chose to accept that I have the ability of a kid who needs encouragement/help to do simple everyday tasks. This feels awkward/ridiculous a lot of the time. But I kept at it. I kept giving myself cookies/starts/smileys for every little thing that I found difficult even though the critic or my most prominent voice said it was stupid thing to do. How could I as an adult not be able to do what everybody else can. 

I kept at it. I kept at it when I chose to take medication, I kept at it when I first asked for help. I kept at it when I started developing awareness of my trauma triggers. I kept at it when I felt deeply insecure and unsafe in life & would either spend a lot of money or none at all. I kept at it when I went into decision paralysis. 

I gave myself a virtual cookie at every instance that my awareness grew. The combination of awareness and cookies helped me take actions contradictory to my critic’s voice. As the box of cookies grew I started making choices for my well being and not out of my fears and insecurities. The box of cookies did not rid me of the fears or anxiety or insecurity. It just helped me move. Move forward even by a little bit. 

At the time and even now affirmations seemed toxic to me. They were triggering. It felt like affirmations were made by people who had no idea what trauma does. So my cookies were not affirmations. They were an acknowledgement. That for me was a step to build compassion. 

Cookies can have different forms for you. They could look like:

Saying “good job” to yourself for very mundane things

Giving yourself a high five or low five

Checking off a list of mundane things. Brushing, showering, stepping out of the house, taking meds etc.

Actual sticker wall

These are all steps. When the future seems bleak or none at all, all you can do is take the next step. It does not matter what that step is. What matters is that you are walking on the road towards healing. 

Why did this work for me?

Growing up in a chaotic, abusive home, I never got any of these cookies that kids need for their brain development. These cookies are needed in childhood to build emotional regulations, resilience, trust, security which help us live the rest of our adult life. Since the brain of those with trauma never developed these neural networks it is inevitable that they get depressed, make poor choices, get into addiction etc. The way out of this is to actually make these connections in the brain now as an adult when we couldn’t in our childhood. Our body and mind absorbs what was fed to us. So if it was chaos and insecurity then that’s what develops. 

A whole therapy technique/theory for healing from trauma is based on this concept of re-parenting the inner child who never had a stable, secure, resilient adult reference growing up. I only got to know this in later stages of therapy. 

Step by step seemed to be the overarching theme of my healing process.