Life Tip Tuesday

After working on the exercises my counselor gave me to work on, we could start doing some digging. The first step was coming up with a list of the 10 worst and the 10 best memories of my life. The memories on that list that stirred up the most negative emotions, were the ones that needed attention.

Although I’ve never been through a terrible, life-changing event like fighting in a war that would traumatize me, my counselor explained it as big-T trauma vs little-T trauma. Little-T trauma is still valid and needs to be acknowledged, but it’s usually easier to manage, treat, and is caused by smaller things that might not be immediately obvious.

By going through EDMR therapy with my counselor, I was able to make much quicker progress than I otherwise would have by just talking. It provided a safe space to revisit those painful memories while triggering brain activity to process them more efficiently. That therapy allowed me to see how small events and negative experiences had grown the roots of my anxiety.

I came to realize what I never wanted to admit, that there was something wrong with my beliefs, including, even my relationship with God.

As a child and teenager, I had subconsciously formed beliefs based on my experiences, particularly how my relationship with my parents had been. These were beliefs like “I’m not good enough; I don’t deserve love; I’m not safe or able to defend myself”. I had also equated some of my father’s attitudes to how I thought God felt or thought about me.

I needed to admit those mistakes to myself and acknowledge the hurt caused by others before I could start to forgive and form new, true beliefs. The more old, negative beliefs I replaced with positive ones, the smaller my anxiety became.

Takeaways for Today

• Just because you don’t have big Trauma, doesn’t mean you don’t have little trauma

• Anxiety is often a sign of unresolved issues; a warning sign that something isn’t healthy

• Like almost any mental or emotional illness, the first step is admitting that you need help and acknowledging truths you’ve been ignoring

• Give yourself compassion and grace; this stage of healing is hard and there will be some rough, intense therapy sessions

• It’s ok to cry and make time to take care of yourself

• God does and always will love you

As always, thanks for reading!

Faith Smith