Affirmations & Intentions for Trauma Recovery
Shadow Work for PTSD and Trauma Therapy in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Affirmations can feel really silly. Have you ever tried to look in the mirror and say to yourself, “I am lovable”? Affirmations were a fad that felt pointless to many and frustrating to others, including myself. No matter how many times I might have tried to convince myself that those magic phrases were true about me, they felt ridiculous to say and a waste of time often.
Abuse and Neglect
Recently, I’ve been learning about the concept of system orientation. For example, if our systems were created in an atmosphere of neglect or abuse, we learn how to function in the world almost expecting more neglect or abuse. Our orientation can inadvertently draw those feeling states in to us. This is not about blame or self depreciation; it’s an interesting concept that can be really powerful to become familiar with because once we see our own patterns, we gain more agency to be able to shift them. Here’s how:
Trauma Patterns and How to Shift Them
1. Get to know your patterns: Just notice the states you find yourself in the most often. You might want to journal them down or even make a note in your phone. You might find things like intensity, absence, conflict avoidance, rage, depression, flightiness, spacey or dissociative, etc. Everyone has their own way of orienting, so it will take a bit of pattern recognition to see them.
2. Notice when they come up: Do these patterns arise in relation to others? In your family of origin? At work? Do they prevent you from finding motivation? Do you find yourself avoiding friendships or other types of relationships in order to protect yourself from feeling the impact of your patterns?
3. Hopes and dreams: What do you want to orient towards? What are you looking for more of in your life? What feeling states are you craving and wishing you could cultivate? This is where those funny, not funny, affirmations can come in. Find an affirmation or a feeling state that you wish you could orient towards that would help you shift out of the one’s you’ve found yourself in. For example, if you orient to betrayal and see it all over your life, you might find the state of loyalty to be something you want to call in.
Here are some other examples of trauma patterns and feeling states or affirmations:
Absence —> Presence
Violation —-> Cohesion
Limitations —> Creation
Illness —> Trust in the body
Despair —-> Hope
4. Intention setting and Affirmation: Now that you’ve looked at what is relevant for you and your system, do an experiment, set an intention or pick an affirmation that you really want, even if you don’t believe it’s possible. Say it out loud, write it down and focus on it. As you go about your day and engage in interactions, remind yourself of your intention and notice what happens.
5. Working through trauma obstacles: Here’s the big difference from where we’ve left things with affirmations historically, see what comes up in the resistance. Take trust for example. Once you set the intention to draw more trust into your life, you will start to see all the pieces that get in the way between you and your trust. This is where the hard work comes in. Rather than throwing in the towel and accepting that you will always have that original orientation towards betrayal or whatever is relevant for you, trust that what comes up is an offering, an agenda item for where to focus your work. Begin to consider what causes the betrayal. Are there boundary issues that arise? Is it the types of people we have in our lives? Perhaps there’s an old friendship that continues that betrayal sense in your system. Begin to explore what you get from that friendship. Why do you choose it? What is in it for you? What are the pieces that come up that prevent you from feeling trust for others or for yourself? Bring those into your journaling, mediation, therapy, coaching or whatever you use to process and explore yourself.
6. See yourself in it: When we discover shadow places in our system, our urge is to shame ourselves and label ourselves bad and wrong for having them. We can become very skilled at hiding our shadows from even ourselves. The key is to see your shadow and find compassion for it. Think of these patterns similarly to your Inner Children. These patterns were created by our Inner Children in order to survive traumatic situations. The wounded child deserves compassion.
I call some of my shadow parts my gremlins. They become hurtful when they’re triggered. I rejected my gremlins for all my life and tried to hide them and make them go away. Once I turned TO THEM and saw the pain that was driving them, I was able to have compassion. I visualized these gremlins tearing things apart in a fit of pain. I sat with them and held them and they began to cry. I could see them for their pain rather than for their actions and this was a key piece that helped me have compassion. Rather than allowing them to act out their pain, I went inwards and tended to them. I found what they needed was to be validated and so I validated them by telling them their pain was understandable and that I was here for them. You’re welcome to borrow my gremlin concept or create something that is more pertinent to your own patterns. Can you see yourself in your own hurt and pain? Can you find compassion and validate the urges that come from that pain?
7. Explore the darkness: Our society shies away and tends to hide from our shadow work. This creates defenses, deflections, distractions and big ways for us to avoid looking at our patterns in the name of feeling “better”. In IFS, we call these parts Firefighters. They run in to distract us from the pain of the trauma. They can be things like addiction, self harm, eating disorders or alcoholism. When we explore our shadows in this way, we can find the gems that can eventually set us free from those patterns. They follow us around anyway, even if we’re ignoring them, so why not shine a light into those dark spots and take a look at what’s there?
8. Choose yourself: This is hard, especially for those of us who orient to codependency or people pleasing. Many of us had to do this in order to survive our childhoods. And we can build will in order to make the shifts we are looking for. What would it look like if all your choices were in service to your best interest? What would it look like for a day or a month? It might feel like the world would fall apart, but it might also bring a completely new layer of freedom to try this one out.
9. Self care: We are taught that self care is about bubble baths and massage and these are great things, but the real self care comes in when we choose ourselves and we give ourselves a break sometimes. What this can look like is to take time for shadow exploration like this and then to take a break from it and lean into the feel good and distractions, then come back to the shadow, then lean back out of the dark and into good feeling places. We all have various windows of tolerance. The goal is to work within our windows of tolerance so we can continue to function. For some, that might be tapping into the shadow for a minute or two. And then play those video games or binge watch your current show. Give yourself permission to dip your toe in and then come back out and take a break. As you continue down this path, you’ll learn how big your window is and build will around broader windows. Eventually, when you choose yourself and you build your will, your system will see that it doesn’t need to orient to the shadow places as much or as compulsively anymore. In this way, you can integrate in new feeling states that you want in your system. Your patterns can shift and you can master the way to play with them and work with them with self compassion and care.
PTSD and Trauma Shadows in Bryn Mawr and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Shifting patterns is really difficult especially when they’ve been entrenched in our systems for lifetimes, even ancestrally. We are pulled back into those shadow patterns easily and so it becomes a practice with an intention or affirmation. We can choose to build will around our urges and our desires to explore our shadows. You don’t have to do this alone.
Trauma Therapists and Coaches in Philadlephia and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
We have trauma specialists here in Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia and throughout the state of Pennsylvania and New Jersey who are highly trained to help you identify and navigate your shadow patterns and know how to help you draw in the feeling states you desire. We can help you orient more to yourself and shift those shadows into creation. Let us know your thoughts and questions about these concepts.