Treating PTSD: What’s Your Post-Trauma Identity?, Part 2

On Monday I asked you to imagine yourself without your trauma — could you do it?? What did you see when you closed your eyes? 

When I first tried to imagine myself trauma-free all I could see in my mind was a blank white screen — no picture. To imagine myself without my trauma was absolutely impossible. Did you have better success?

The symptoms of PTSD condition us to an attitude of accepting the state in which we live.  Our mind is full of pictures but not the good ones! We don’t walk around with pictures of who we are without trauma and who we could be. No, instead we walk around with pictures in our head that reinforce trauma, PTSD and a life of deep and abiding pain.

Part of healing PTSD lies in changing the pictures in our minds. It’s important to work at seeing ourselves outside of our present state.

Healing is about making choices. We have to choose what pictures we see, who we are and who we want to be.

My challenge to you today: make a picture in your mind that is you without PTSD.

I know this is tough. If it doesn’t work the first time try again and again. Trust yourself that the picture already resides in your mind. You’re on this blog, that means you have a picture somewhere in your head that you would like to be PTSD-free. Some part of you is already imagining the idea of a PTSD-free self.

Let that impulse come forward. Let it GROW.

BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise

Sit in a quiet place. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it when your lungs are full, let it out through your mouth. Do this 3 times.

Now, allow a picture of yourself form in your mind. Let it come into focus slowly. Tell this picture you want to see who you are outside of PTSD. Ask it to allow your symptoms to fall away – to just slide off you like an unbottoned shirt – and let the rest of yourself be visible.

Sit still and let the picture fill itself in. You can see your head, your neck, your torso, your hips, your legs, your feet…. What do they look like without PTSD symptoms? What expression is on your face? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste?

A part of you knows who you are without post-traumatic stress. Your subconscious knows. Let that part of you come forward. Don’t try to control the picture. Let your imagination fill it in so that you have a 3D image that is bright, in technicolor, big and squarely in front of your face. Give it time. Be patient. Relax.

When the image feels complete focus on it. Notice the details. Take a good look at what your imagination shows you. Be deliberate in looking at each part of the image. Highlight things you like. What do you see that feels right? That you’d like more of? Let those aspects further define themselves.

Take a deep breath in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Take a mental photograph of this picture.

This is the you beyond what you’ve grown accustomed to. This is the raw material you’re going to use to become your next and greatest self.

Stare at the picture until it becomes more and more and more real. The more you stare at it the more real it becomes. 

Reach out and bring that image to your chest. Imagine it shrinking down to an inch and landing in your heart.

Slowly open your eyes. See the room as the person you just imagined would see it. How does it look, sound, feel?

(Photo: Andre Contiu)

Tags: Constructing Post-Trauma Identity, healing, Healing and Overcoming PTSD, Identity, post-trauma, post-traumatic stress, ptsd, symptoms