Some social media post (sub in: relative, headline, political view, humor) – strikes a dagger through your heart.
suddenly, you ask – where am I?
do I belong?
how can I tolerate the pain or fake fit in? do I even want to?
This is the sad side of twenty-first century ‘isms and pace of reality. Sad is the mild mannered emotional vibration that evokes stillness and tears. Traumatic is the major way the world feels to most of us, and yet most of us are told to temper the frequency of this term.
Trouble is, too many of us are living in a trauma state of mind.
I want to walk you through self-care steps to handle the tough moments in life, right now. Because, if your life or relatives around the holiday table or news/social media stream is anything like mine: we need all the self-care tips we can get.
While micro-aggressions are a specific tending to for a specific form of anxiety: complex post traumatic stress (in which relationships or related reminders of original or recurrent stressors) leave persons in a high arousal, on edge, and vulnerable to WHOOSH like flashbacks – much of the world is dealing with some form of high stress this year.1, 2
Here’s how to TLC high arousal, on edge, and vulnerable WHOOSH (aka stress that leaves us in a too-routine state of fight it, flee from it, freeze, fixate or fix it, and/or fawn-the-bleep-into-people-pleasing submission).
HOW TO RESET THE PRESETS:
VALIDATION: validation nation is my way of (driving. my spouse bonkers when I’m like, “Babe, at least validate my feelings…” And they cross their arms till mid-day ‘morrow then…say something like, “It makes sense you were hurting.”) Validation is the state of making something VALID, or – in other words – that something makes sense. It is realistic and understandable. We need validation from others to calm the bleep down and we also need validation from ourselves. Repeat after me and then ask a trusted someone to do the same for you, “THAT MAKES SENSE YOU ARE SO UPSET BECAUSE…”
MIX and MATCH, ALL THE PARTS AND FEELINGS: yo, if yo’ mama or papa or parent or gparent didn’t say so – now I will – WE ARE CAPABLE OF MULTIPLE FEELINGS AT THE SAME TIME. I can: 1, LOVE MY SPOUSE and 2, BE IRRITATED WITH THEM. Sound familiar? Good. You’re human too. The second step in RESET is that we need to sort out the multiple emotions. If compassion percolates, great. If forgiveness is in reach – even awesomer. However, like one of my fav recent TAY TAY interviews revealed – sometimes people don’t deserve a 3rd or 4th try and we just MOVE ON. Which leads me to…
SUPPORT NETWORK: not everyone will be your teammate all of the time, but I betcha there is always SOMEONE who wants to be in your corner. Take your first two steps of VALIDATION and MIX N’ MATCH, reach out to that trusted someone and recruit support. Begin w/ a phrase like, “I NOTICED WHEN xxxx HAPPENED….” and this will set the stage to show what went down or what happened. Then, further explain, “THAT LEFT ME THINKING/FEELING/SENSING IN MY BODY yyyyyy.” X’s and Y’s allow you to explain your unique situation to taste. The formula is my skillset for Mindful Communication, which allows us to share both the objective and personal/subjective aspects of a situation.
GROUND: grounding work is a foundational coping mechanism for high anxiety or trauma recovery. When we are grounding, typically, this is a prompt to emphasize sense based (specifically, soothing sense based) focus. Pay attention through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch for a few minutes, particularly with a joyful meal or immersed in nature. The nervous system resets. It’s like a mental soaker bath. In addition, the more psychological energy we give to GROUND our being, the less energy we lend to the THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, and PHYSICAL SENSATIONS that could leave us in a cycle of high arousal.
CLOVERING:clovering is may way of saying, construct your own good fortune.2 Take a moment for pause, draw a three or four leaf Venn diagram. Each leaf represents a core value or big ticket area you wish to grow, kind of like setting an intention for the day. For each leaf, identify one or two productive actions or positive thoughts that will allow you to feel reset along a path to keep moving forward.
When we begin to move through a reset to the preset process, we come through the other end with sense of belonging. Sense of belonging is one of the most powerful healing tools, no matter the mental health stressor. To belong, we need to be welcome as we are; good enough. Foremost, we need to be clear and valid to ourselves and then to others. In the end, we move forward in our most prosperous direction when we feel a sense of belonging to the actions and thoughts of our lives.
Keep moving forward. And keep me posted.
I’d love to hear from you in comments or at my Instagram platform on what matters to you, now, for anxiety answers.
Cleveland Clinic. Complex PTSD Retrieved 6 November 2023
ANXIETY ANSWERS 