[00:00:00] Foreign welcome to Exalt and Rising. I am Anna Maim, somatic experiencing therapist for PKSD at Trauma Recovery. I run Somatic Trauma Recovery center here in Toronto, Canada. [00:00:15] So today I want to share something about trauma recovery. [00:00:20] One of the biggest misunderstandings in modern healing culture is this idea that healing is primarily about optimization. [00:00:30] We therapists, we can see, and we are talking about this all the time in case consults, and when we get together is how grind and hustle, startup cultures, corporate culture is moving into healing spaces. [00:00:47] And now we can see people who are recovering from trauma and ptsd. [00:00:52] They want to optimize by more routines, more discipline, more tracking, more regulation systems, more productivity, more information, more performance. [00:01:07] And many trauma survivors become extraordinarily good at this. [00:01:14] Why? [00:01:15] Because survival itself trained them to become strategists. [00:01:21] One of the best strategists are trauma survivors, people with PTSD because they know how to anticipate. You know that we are the best to anticipate, to control, to improve, to optimize, to over function, to keep moving. [00:01:50] So these are our trauma and PTSD superhero skills we learned. I'm calling this terrible knowledge. There is a episode named terrible knowledge. [00:02:03] And these strategies are excellent because they helped us to survive. [00:02:12] If I didn't have those strategies implemented in me during my almost eight years living in a war, I wouldn't be alive now. [00:02:23] And, uh, I am so grateful for them. I perfected them. [00:02:27] And also I know it stopped me in my own healing journey. And I can see now, working with my clients, how this is a block for them. [00:02:41] And these strategies are very adapted, they're very intelligent. [00:02:48] And we survived unbearable realities because we learned how to override exhaustion, mass destruction, grief, vulnerability, abuse, devastation. [00:03:07] And what saves the nervous system during trauma can later prevent the same nervous system from recovering. [00:03:21] And that is the paradox. [00:03:23] And what is not helping nowadays is groin and hustle culture. [00:03:32] You can hear this on almost all podcasts and social media. [00:03:38] Everyone is optimizing. [00:03:41] Everything, even making lunch needs to be optimized. How you take a shower needs to be optimized. [00:03:51] And what your body is saying is, I cannot survive my healing anymore. [00:04:04] Because your body is now seeing even your healing, recovery as a form of surviving abuse or displacement or betrayal. [00:04:16] It has the same quality of survival. [00:04:20] And this is the plateau many people are now reaching in therapy, in trauma recovery, not because something is wrong with you, not because you fail, but because trauma recovery cannot be optimized. [00:04:40] Recovery cannot work on the urgency. [00:04:45] And this can be terrifying for many trauma survivors because survival, identity, is built around movement. We know this, this is where we are at best to move, moving, doing, fixing, improving, achieving, performing, everything. [00:05:08] And if I stop, what will happen? [00:05:12] What might emerge and what often emerges is grief. [00:05:20] Immense grief. [00:05:22] Not only grief over what happened, but grief over who you have to become to survive. [00:05:33] Who is that person who had to adapt and build so many new parts, Personas to survive and grieve over it. [00:05:45] True identity you had to minimize, to cut out, to dismiss so you can survive. [00:05:57] So there is enormous amount of grief over innocence, grief over lost years, grief over lost safety, grief over relationships, grief over homeland, grief over identity, what was never uh, able to fully emerge, or grief over the body that once you had, grief over health you once had, or the life you never got to live. [00:06:39] And um, please listen my episode around optimizing our grief. [00:06:44] So with today episode, I really would like you to start observing and seeing where we are going as a culture in this healing. [00:06:57] Because this is not healing anymore. [00:07:01] Because it looks we are not doing justice and proper care to trauma healing. Healing is not endless optimization. [00:07:13] The endless efforting, the endless overriding, the endless denying, the endless survival mode. And I feel this culture of hustle and grind is failing many people in their own trauma healing. [00:07:32] And it's not doing justice for people who are spending thousands of dollars to heal and they feel like they're failing their own healing. [00:07:44] Because now in a healing spaces we have productivity systems, achievement systems optimization systems, performance systems you now need to perform even in your therapist office and in your own mental health healing. [00:08:15] And we don't have grieving systems, we don't have any education. There is no curriculum in high school how to grieve. [00:08:29] There is no communal tending of heartbreak, no teachings around devastation which is a life. [00:08:39] There is no rituals for emotional collapse. [00:08:44] Trauma recovery cannot be cognitive trauma. Uh, recovery is not another startup culture. [00:08:55] It's not an art, it's not AI. [00:08:59] It cannot only be informational, it cannot only be strategic. [00:09:06] And what nervous system in trauma and PTSD recovery requires is trust. [00:09:14] It's slowing down. We need to slow down to go fast. [00:09:22] So I'm not saying don't optimize when you stabilize, when you grieve, but you cannot optimize first when you're denying deep wisdom in your body to recover in own pace. [00:09:41] Your nervous system requires stillness, witnessing silence tears enough safety for your body to finally stop bracing for another day. [00:10:00] Will you need to over perform, overdo, overachieve, over optimize even your own mental health healing. [00:10:16] So please be less highly functioning, be Less highly disciplined, be less highly informed, be less highly articulate, and be less highly productive. [00:10:40] And if you need permission, you have permission to stop performing healing. [00:10:49] You have permission to collapse safely. [00:10:55] You have permission to grieve. [00:10:58] What happened? [00:11:01] To ask yourself, what has remained unwrapped in my life? [00:11:13] You have permission to not optimize your pain. [00:11:22] Functioning is not always healing. [00:11:26] And many times in trauma. I'm talking about trauma and PTSD recovery. [00:11:33] Functioning is sophisticated survival, which saved us once in trauma, uh, living. [00:11:46] But it cannot save us in a recovery. [00:11:52] And ask yourself, am I allowed to slow down? [00:12:00] To feel what they went through? To grieve, not to explain, not to intellectualize, not to optimize, not to transcend, not to bypass, but to slow down gently m. [00:12:21] And to grieve slowly, humanly? [00:12:26] And you're not failing because you cannot optimize yourself out of trauma. [00:12:36] Trauma recovery was never meant to be optimized. Grief was never meant to be optimized. [00:12:45] Trauma recovery is meant to be witnessed, held, move through gently with help of your therapist, of your friend, of your loved one, of support groups, of your animals, of your rituals, of you being gentle with yourself. This is all for today. [00:13:21] Take time, be with this. [00:13:26] I'm Anna Mail, somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and Trauma Recovery. [00:13:34] I run Somatic Trauma Recovery center here in Toronto, Canada. [00:13:40] And until next time, be gentle with yourself. [00:13:47] Much career.