Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to Excellent and Rising. I am Anna Mael, Somatic Experiencing therapist for PTSD and Trauma Recovery. I run Somatic Trauma Recovery center in Toronto, Canada. And for all my offerings, my books and teachings, please check the links in the show notes.
[00:00:19] Today I want to talk about the trauma of obedience and when other people's confidence replaces your inner knowing, when other people confidence becomes your prison and what that means for people who carry complex trauma and ptsd.
[00:00:38] So let's begin.
[00:00:40] One knowledge I would like to transfer to trauma and PTSD survivors is this.
[00:00:46] Do not believe in other people confidence more than your own inner knowing.
[00:00:56] Don't assume that because someone speaks with certainty about what is right and wrong, how life should be lived, what choices should be made, or what risk should or should not be taken, that their conviction that their beliefs automatically makes it true for you, for your inner being, for your identity, because it may not be true for your values, your personality, your calling, your needs, your truth, your northern star, your journey or your nervous system.
[00:01:46] And in complex trauma, especially if you come from cultures of obedience and following, from families where the father was always right, where God was always right, the pastor was always right, church was always right, or the doctor was always right, the government was always right, or the coach was always right, or patriarchal system where men are led and women follow.
[00:02:19] We are conditioned not to question, you know that we are trained and groomed not only by individuals around us, but through generation. This is what we witnessed in our uh, mothers, grandmothers, fathers, you follow, you obey and you don't question someone of authority.
[00:02:50] And many times inside yourself you may feel a deep internal alarm telling you something is not right for you.
[00:03:03] It's visceral alarm.
[00:03:06] And ah, that alarm never reaches your mouth, it gets shoved down in your throat before you ever speak it.
[00:03:16] And that is trauma, conditioning and that is trauma of obedience.
[00:03:24] And inside these systems of obedience and power over dynamics where authority is placed above your own instincts, above your own choice, above your own voice.
[00:03:41] Many people live with a, uh, throne of false confidence, whoever placed them on that throne.
[00:03:51] And they fully believe they know better because that conviction was passed down to them through lineage, culture, entitlement, or their own fear.
[00:04:06] They rob that of course authority from someone else. They make it happen in their own narcissistic minds or they have their own rigid conditioning.
[00:04:19] And that conviction can become dangerous for your own being that conviction and confidence that they are fully right and that uh, you need to follow that.
[00:04:37] And I have also seen many people who are good hearted but who live inside very Rigid, constricted, outdated, outgrown structures in their own minds.
[00:04:55] Beliefs shaped by fear, limitations or prejudice or inherited conditioning.
[00:05:04] And yet they fully believe their way is the only right way to live.
[00:05:12] They fully believe that, and they have the right to live that way.
[00:05:19] But what becomes dangerous is when you begin believing their certainty.
[00:05:27] More than your own inner truth, more than your own intelligence, more than your own wisdom, more than your own wishes.
[00:05:40] And then you start following.
[00:05:43] You start following them.
[00:05:47] You obey.
[00:05:50] And although internally you know something feels deeply wrong, something is off.
[00:05:58] Their confidence creates confusion inside you.
[00:06:03] And you think, how can someone so certain be wrong? One thing what I observed over the years, people with trauma and ptsd, they are always doubting themselves.
[00:06:18] There is so much doubt.
[00:06:25] Everyone knows better than them.
[00:06:29] Everyone figure out their life except them.
[00:06:34] Everyone is more certain except them.
[00:06:37] And this is what trauma does to us.
[00:06:42] And because your doubt cannot compete with their certainty, you bend toward them. You comply. I have seen many women deeply regret the lives they lived because they were conditioned from young age to believe that their father knew better, their husband knew better, men knew better.
[00:07:09] And they didn't follow their ambitions, their intelligence, their plans to open up their businesses, to take risks, to build, to create, to buy the house, to leap into unknown because someone else knew better.
[00:07:35] And that better often becomes 20 years of stagnation, waiting and hoping for you.
[00:07:44] Hoping that things would finally happen, hope that permission would finally come, hope that you will be approved to start your own business, to buy your own house, to move out, or hope that someone would finally believe in you.
[00:08:11] And hope is dangerous thing.
[00:08:15] Hope is so.
[00:08:17] Hope blinds you.
[00:08:23] Hope blinds you.
[00:08:25] It leaves you stuck. It leaves you in a place of waiting for things to happen.
[00:08:33] It's very passive. Hope is a passive. It means you will wait so that someone, uh, decides for you or make things happen or change while you are not doing anything. You're just waiting.
[00:08:53] So don't lean on hope.
[00:08:58] So in a trauma recovery, I'm teaching not to lean on hope, but to lean back on trusting yourself. Trust is different.
[00:09:11] I'm trusting I can do this.
[00:09:14] I'm trusting I can start. I'm trusting I can learn.
[00:09:19] I'm trusting I can figure out. So trust is very active. Hope is very passive. But that's another episode.
[00:09:30] And nothing makes a person doubt themselves more deeply than trauma, rooted in obedience, in patriarchy, in chronic following.
[00:09:43] And I have seen this in men, too.
[00:09:46] Men who are conditioned never to outgrow their fathers, their bosses, their communities, to outgrow cult or cultures or systems.
[00:10:05] Men who Are ashamed for, uh, disobedience.
[00:10:12] If they said I passed, that I outgrew, that I am better than this.
[00:10:20] They have been condemned for individuality and women as well, punished for becoming more than what their environment allowed, what their father allowed, what their boss allowed.
[00:10:46] And this is unlived life in trauma, obedience in a place of following someone who quote, unquote knows better.
[00:11:01] It's a place of unlived life, a life shared by someone else. Certainty and someone else conviction that someone has first name and last name.
[00:11:16] If it's a system, you know the name of the system.
[00:11:23] And one of the hardest tropes in trauma recovery is realizing that someone's confidence does not mean they are right for your life.
[00:11:36] It doesn't mean this is right for your life.
[00:11:39] And to undo this conditioning sometimes requires severing and leaving. Many times actually, I believe, requires to physically leave, physically to cut out and leave. And also because you cannot change people.
[00:11:56] So do not lose years trying to change them. This is your hope gets to be coupled and this fantasy of changing someone.
[00:12:10] And do not lose years hoping that they will eventually become different.
[00:12:18] Hope can become a very powerless place to live from. Don't live from the place of hope.
[00:12:24] Live from the place of trust.
[00:12:28] Because in that hope, you slowly hand over your integrity, intelligence, instincts and vitality to another person who is fully convinced this is the best way for them and for you.
[00:12:52] And then 20 years later, you may still be standing in the same place m but now bitter and with full resentment and regrets.
[00:13:12] And I have seen people leave relationships, families, communities, countries and systems in order to finally live truthfully. And it's terrifying in the beginning and deeply liberating.
[00:13:35] And also I have seen people who stay and begin living truthfully anyway, despite being judged, despite questioned, ridiculed, condemned or shamed.
[00:13:49] But not many of them can live this way.
[00:13:58] Well, that also means you constantly allowing, ah, your integrity and your truth to remain under attack.
[00:14:09] For what?
[00:14:10] For loyalty or for love?
[00:14:13] Because there is no real loyalty or love in a space where yahushuot must continually be diminished in order to belong.
[00:14:27] That's not love, that's not loyalty, and that's not belonging.
[00:14:32] And even with good people, but people who are simply rigid, fearful or limited by their own conditioning, you may still become threatening to them. The moment you begin changing because you mirror everything they were too afraid to become, you start to poke them.
[00:15:01] So what becomes very, uh, important here is you answer your own questions, you follow your own plan, you act on your own instincts, even with doubt, because your Answers and your confidence will come through moment and lived experience, not through surrendering your life to someone else. Believes in their confidence and certainty.
[00:15:41] And do not let your doubt submit to another person m confidence or rigid conviction. This might be right for them, but not for you. Always keep this in mind.
[00:15:57] Led us in sight.
[00:16:01] Let this thought be with you.
[00:16:03] Do not let someone else confidence or false confidence becomes louder than your inner knowing. Because for trauma survivors, especially those raised in obedience based families, in patriarchal cultures, religious systems, alteratorian columns, someone confidence can feel like truth. It can feel like truth.
[00:16:41] Their certainty can feel like safety and authority, uh, can feel like reality. So this is very big.
[00:16:54] Someone confidence can feel like truth for you.
[00:17:00] And there is certainty if you're coming from the place of trauma, if you lived with trauma, living with trauma, some uncertainty can feel like safety.
[00:17:17] And authority can feel something very real you can lean onto when there is a chaos around you.
[00:17:29] I lived in a war for many, many years.
[00:17:34] I witnessed many times the worst leaders who led people to mass destruction and killing.
[00:17:49] They were confident, they were very certain, and people believed them because of authority.
[00:18:00] It felt like something they can lean on. It was real in the madness of the war.
[00:18:07] And their certainty felt for them like a safety, safe haven. There was a hope, you see how the hope is very dangerous.
[00:18:20] It was a hope that they will be safe.
[00:18:27] And their confidence, whatever they were promising and telling, felt like a truth.
[00:18:36] So question else confidence, always question before you dismiss your own truth.
[00:18:50] Because many times this combo of confidence, certainty, authority comes from person fear, a limitation, entitlement, narcissism, psychopathic behaviors and inherited conditioning. And someone's confidence doesn't mean they are right for your life.
[00:19:19] Because what happens, you abandon your own truth, your own wisdom in order to follow someone else. Conditioning, someone else entitlement, someone else fear, someone else pathology.
[00:19:40] So also keep in mind false confidence can be a trauma trigger.
[00:19:47] For someone raised under authority, certainty from another person can shut down discernment.
[00:20:00] It can shut down your discernment and always ask yourself, do I want to live unlived life filled with bitterness, regrets and resentment?
[00:20:19] Because repeatedly I have abandoned my own ambitions, risk voice desires because I learned since young age that I need to follow someone who is quote unquote, uh, above me. And also deep grief will come with this. Work with your therapist on this.
[00:20:48] What comes up, what I can witness with my clients, what was coming up in the therapist office?
[00:20:57] Grief around their lives.
[00:21:00] They never lived because they were trained to obey or to fully trust someone's confidence.
[00:21:12] Because father Knows the best or mother knows the past, parents knows the past.
[00:21:24] So your doubt is not weakness. It may be the first sign that your truth, your intelligence is trying to push back against something, what is not right for you.
[00:21:47] And the biggest shift in trauma recovery happens when you allow yourself to slowly take the person, to slowly take the person who quote unquote knows better off the pedestal of the throne where they have lived psychologically above you for most of your life.
[00:22:14] And even the possibility of doing that can make you feel nauseous with fear.
[00:22:22] So this is now core of trauma, of obedience.
[00:22:28] Thinking that you can put someone down from the pedestal they put themselves on can make you feel nauseous because of fear.
[00:22:48] This is how trauma, obedience and conditioning is so ingrained in people.
[00:22:57] And this is the level of trauma many people carry when they come from systems of authority. This is real.
[00:23:06] This is very real for many of us people m who lived in authoritarian families, in rigid religions controlling regimes.
[00:23:22] And just the thought that they people of authority may not be right, that what they are saying or doing may not actually be true for you, correct for you, or uh, align with your values can feel terrifying and almost forbidden.
[00:23:49] Even thinking differently can feel inside of your body dangerous.
[00:23:55] And for many trauma survivors, the first moment of internally questioning authority creates a visceral nervous system reaction.
[00:24:06] So please slow down here. This is very important to recognize.
[00:24:12] It can create visceral reaction.
[00:24:17] You can start feeling nauseous, fear, panic, guilt, dread.
[00:24:25] It can feel as though they will somehow find out what you're thinking, as though your mind is being watched and as though punishment is coming simply because you dare to question them in your mind.
[00:24:45] That is not irrational.
[00:24:48] That is trauma.
[00:24:51] That's trauma.
[00:24:53] And that's the reality for many people raised under authoritarian parents, rigid family systems, political regimes.
[00:25:11] They're questioning authority was emotionally, psychologically and physically unsafe.
[00:25:22] And to internally question authority can really feel like life threatening because for many people it once was, it was or it was witnessed.
[00:25:37] If you're gunning from communist countries.
[00:25:42] How many people died because they question authority?
[00:25:50] How many kids were beaten up because they questioned their father?
[00:25:59] How many people were cut out from teams.
[00:26:08] Because they question coach or boss.
[00:26:16] Cult leaders?
[00:26:20] How many people were continuously abused and then more because they start to question cult leader.
[00:26:35] So this is very real.
[00:26:37] And what's really important is to slowly experiment with this, bit by bit question, start questioning gently and observe what happens inside your body. And you can work with this with your therapist at support groups and to slowly realize that you can survive your own thoughts that no one can scan your mind, what's inside your own head.
[00:27:08] No one knows what is happening inside your head.
[00:27:12] And from there, slowly you begin building the capacities to trust yourself. More than authority, you begin finding your own answers, your own wisdom, your own knowing and how to do this.
[00:27:32] Please check my programs. The link is in the show notes where I go step by step on somatic level, how we can gain back that innate confidence, integrity and boundaries in your own life.
[00:27:49] Where you find your own wisdom, you find your own knowing.
[00:27:53] And also how do we use four pillars to get to this place is through the space, time, weight and movement.
[00:28:07] So you will find all of this in my programs. And also you can listen the episode of four Pillars for trauma Healing. So it's trauma of obedience.
[00:28:18] We need to know that this is not only about people who are controlled, it's also about authority becoming embedded inside the nervous system itself.
[00:28:34] Because many trauma survivors often experience questioning authority as a threat to survival physiologically.
[00:28:47] And the body reacts as the danger is about to happen next second, because a person had an independent thought, To have independent thought in a family of authoritarian father.
[00:29:18] Or a group could cost you a life, could cost your own existence, your own dignity.
[00:29:34] And many times people think obedience is personality, respect, politeness, some culture and morality.
[00:29:42] But obedience, trauma is nervous system conditioning. It's survival adaptation.
[00:29:49] It is somatic fear.
[00:29:52] It's our ancestral inherited terror and its identity suppression.
[00:30:02] Many people think they're weak because they, they are not questioning authority easily.
[00:30:12] And the reality is. So this is the core of the Trauma We Don't Talk about.
[00:30:19] This is the name of my books, the Trauma We Don't Talk About.
[00:30:26] The core is that you are not weak.
[00:30:33] Your body learn questioning equals danger.
[00:30:39] And that's why you're not questioning authority easily. That's why you're not questioning doctors.
[00:30:46] That's why you're not questioning your boss or someone with more years of work experience and you know they did something wrong. You're not questioning that because. Not because you are weak, because you have learned and witnessed that questioning someone who is above you will lead you to terror, to humiliation, to embarrassment, to being ostracized, to be killed. And what comes with this? Living in authoritarian systems, people often feel mentally watched, like they're observed all the time, that they're emotionally monitored.
[00:31:44] Oh, is this okay if I express this level of joy or this level of fear or this level of anger or this level of excitement?
[00:31:58] So. And they're very internally unsafe guilt. Enormous amount of guilt can come from having independent thought.
[00:32:14] It feels like disloyalty if there is independent thought.
[00:32:21] And they're afraid of disagreement and afraid of internal disobedience itself. We can see this in churches a lot.
[00:32:33] When people start to question God because of abuse, what happened inside of church, they're afraid of internal disobedience or questioning the system.
[00:32:52] So what's developed is internalized surveillance. So not only external surveillance, it's internalized surveillance. This is where we start to cutting out our sovereignty, our clarity, our. Our wisdom, our facts are knowing what's right, what's wrong.
[00:33:24] And this is how we develop doubt.
[00:33:28] So it's so common to see this in cults, rigid religions, abusive relationships with narcissistic or sadistic personality, controlling communities.
[00:33:48] And then you're coming to the place where authority figure no longer needs to be physically present because your nervous system carries them internally.
[00:34:03] You start to be this authoritarian figure to yourself.
[00:34:09] And many people think, if I feel terrified questioning someone, maybe they are actually right. But no, your body is simply reliving punishment, shame, fear, emotional danger, attachment, threat, abandonment, threat.
[00:34:32] And questioning authority activates your survival states.
[00:34:37] And this is why the reaction feels visceral.
[00:34:40] Because we want to separate here, nervous system activation from actual truth.
[00:34:51] And we as a therapist, we need to start talking more about obedience, trauma.
[00:34:58] What does it mean? Chronic obedience conditioning, authoritarian nervous systems or internalized hierarchy, fear of independent thought and this inherited submission.
[00:35:14] I'm minority, my parents are minority, my grandparents, grand grandparents.
[00:35:21] If you're a person of color, you know that inherited submission I witnessed being Serbian, Croatia. I witnessed this in my parents, in my grandparents, in me.
[00:35:39] You submit and become very quiet because you truly believe.
[00:35:51] They are right. Their confidence, their certainty, their beliefs are right, that they are better than you. Your work is to take the authority figure or systems of the pedestal.
[00:36:09] Because many times in these setups, we think our experience of authority figures is as they're emotionally superior, they're morally superior, they're more real than us, they're more right than us, they're psychologically above us.
[00:36:34] And this is what's important here.
[00:36:39] This healing requires psychological deconstruction of false hierarchy. This is a false hierarchy.
[00:36:48] It's not hatred, it's not rebellion, it's humanization.
[00:36:58] Seeing authority as human instead of godlike.
[00:37:05] It's equalization and it's liberation. It's a human right.
[00:37:14] So I want to leave you with this, your fear. Questioning authority doesn't mean you're wrong.
[00:37:25] It means your nervous system once learned that independent thought, autonomy was dangerous.
[00:37:40] And healing is reclaiming the right your right to think, to question, to discern, to choose, to disagree, to trust yourself, and to live your own life without fear.
[00:38:04] Inside of your nervous system, inside of your heart, inside of your soul.
[00:38:13] There is also course I developed on, um, critical thinking. How do we develop this critical thinking?
[00:38:22] Please check the links in below.
[00:38:26] This is all for today.
[00:38:29] Please support podcast ah and leave, review, share and as always, be gentle with yourself.
[00:38:39] I'm Anna Mayo. This is Exiled and Rising.
[00:38:44] More about me and my work. Please check somatictictraumarecoverycenter.com until next time. Much care.
[00:38:53] Much care.
