Trauma, Healing and Imagination: How To See Your Future Self
This week on YOUR LIFE AFTER TRAUMA we’re tackling a very important topic: How to connect to (as my guest Deb Scott calls it) the Amazing You. Do you feel you’re living from that space in yourself? For the longest time I didn’t either!
After trauma we can live so much in the past we can’t even imagine the future, or who we are beyond our role of survivor. In my trauma recovery memoir I write about it this way:
One afternoon my therapist asks, “How do you see yourself outside of your trauma?”
“You mean, who am I if not a survivor?”
“Yes. Describe yourself as if trauma is not something you experienced.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Try.”
“I can’t do it.”
My therapist and I sit in silence. I try to make a picture in my head of what I would look like if my trauma had not occurred.
All I see is a blank white canvas. There is nothing, not even a small, modernistic black dot in the midst of all the white. Not even a starting point from which to sketch an identity without pain, fear, and suffering.
“I can’t do it,” I say. “I can’t see myself at all.”
“You’re in a new place. You’re starting a new life. Perhaps now would be a good time to try.”
I had to really work to hone the skill of being able to see myself beyond and in spite of my trauma. Whew, it was tough work and it’s never too early to begin developing that skill!
Deb Scott and I will talk about all of this and more on tomorrow’s show at 2pm EST (you can check out the archive here on Thursday).
In the meantime, today strive for clarity in imagining your future self. You know, the self that’s the reason you’re trying so hard to find a way out of the post-trauma maze. That future self exists. Part of meeting it means being able to envision it. If you could describe your perfect self, who would that be?
Michele struggled with undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for 24 years. Then she was diagnosed and went on a healing rampage! Today she inspires others to reclaim their lives by creating change they choose.
I can completely identify. Although sometimes I can imagine who/what I WANT to be – the problem is imagining actually getting there…..
@tiredfiremedic — You know what I discovered? We don’t need to imagine actually getting there (it’s enough to just hope for it). We get there just by taking actions in the present moment designed to help us act/become the who/what we imagine. By doing this steadily we actually get there… sometimes without even realizing it along the way.
Completely identify with your conversation with your therapist at the time. I live an have been living my life in the past and rarely live in the present due to my enormous fears from the past and of the future . I am artistic And my therapist has asked me to draw what living in the present looks like, and have failed to adequately illustrate the task…… Because I can’t see it! I would love to break free from my past!
@Heather — I had the same problem. Try this:
1. draw your past in all its crappy glory.
2. recreate that picture now by adjusting all the trauma-y things to what you would prefer
I found that often when I couldn’t see things I wanted to see I could back myself into them by taking as a starting point what I COULD see, and then making amendments to what I WANTED to see!
I am recovering from a traumatic separation/divorce after a 22 year marriage. It has been almost two years and I have progressed in terms of having moved to a different place and set up a new home which I love but can’t seem to get past some internal blockages regarding finding work or career moves. I feel I’m stuck in this area even though other areas have improved dramatically. I guess I should be grateful for what I’ve already accomplished but I feel like a failure because I’m not working.
@Lynn — It’s easy to feel like a failure when certain aspects of ourselves don’t measure up to what we expect. I admire your strength in physically and in other ways moving on. We can only do so much at once; you’ve done a lot to put you in a position to now start looking at what’s holding you back from completing your recovery and getting back to work. I’m sure there are very good reasons for coming to the moment you are in. And very good reasons, too, for turning your focus to this area of your life, squaring your shoulders, planting your feet, taking a deep breath and starting to do the work necessary to heal this important aspect of who you are.
Thanks, Michele. I will try that.
Running across this article felt like a coincidence. I am an artist and PTSD survivor too. My therapist recently told me to draw “courage” I have struggled with this assignment for weeks and have made many attempts. I finally got something on paper but then wanted to throw the picture away. I showed it to her, said it was all wrong and vowed I wasn’t going to finish it. Tonight I worked on it again for awhile and then decided I would rather draw pictures of my panic attacks. It feels like I want so badly for somebody to understand exactly how bad it is “in there”. I struggle with seeing what can be possible beyond.
@Roxann – I think sometimes before we can imagine what’s possible tomorrow we have to feel acknowledged, validated and understood today. I learned in my recovery to trust my instincts. So, if you want to draw panic attacks — do that until you have the desire to draw something else!
I have an MFA and did my dissertation on the psychology of creativity. Then, I spoke about it at conferences and taught it at a university in New York City. The biggest thing I learned from all that work: creativity always has an intention. Trust yours and see where it leads you…