Treating PTSD: Are You Hip to the Power of Joy?

Wow, survivors! I think you could say we are entering the home stretch of the BRIDGE THE GAP healing workshop for 2009! Only two months to go in our quest to become more self-empowered and jumpstart, support and evolve the healing PTSD process. Thanks for making the journey with me and for letting me hear your thoughts.

Today begins our quest to achieve Healing Resolution #11: I will seek joy.

Does that sound like a strange resolution for a survivor? If it does, it’s time to cross over from the dark side! I believe inside each survivor exists a self that remains trauma-free. It’s a deep self, buried beneath several layers of time and experience, but I have seen in myself and in others I speak to and work with — this untraumatized self exists and waits to be set free.

We are born into a pure, innocent and inexperienced state. What we survive changes us to the core but it does not completely eradicate that original self – it’s strength, power and resilience remains within us and our job as survivors healing is to reconnect, re-engage and recapture our ability to see and feel and hear and live through the lens of this original self.

Sure, we will always have our memories. Sure, we will always know we have survived some horrific trauma. Of course, we will always contain the knowledge we have gained from what our experience has been. But this does not mean we have to live through this lens of fear, anxiety and panic for the rest of our lives!

We have the choice which self we live in. For a long time I let my PTSD self rule the day – she felt safe and familiar and ready for the next traumatic surprise. The truth is though, it never felt natural to live that way.

We aren’t meant to live in the hypervigilant, distorted PTSD state. We are meant to live the way we were born: seeking joy, feeling joy, expecting joy. It’s time to get back to basics.

I’ve written before about PTSD and the power of joy, the importance of joy in healing trauma, plus the incredible effect joy seeking had on my recovery. It’s time for you to begin considering how to change the state you’re in. How to begin seeing through a different lens. How to begin not only taking back your power but using it to create the life you want.

It all begins today.

BRIDGE THE GAP Exercise:

This is just a warm up, just to get you started and thinking in the right direction:

Think back over your life. There have been times you felt joy, I know there are. I’m working with a client who has had PTSD since she was a very young child; even she can remember an instance or two over the years when she felt joy; I know you can, too. Think hard and you will find the memories.

(Tip: Don’t judge what makes you feel joy. I don’t care if it’s the most bad behavior in the world. What’s important today is only that you can identify your ability to feel joy. Later we’ll refine how to access it.)

Now, sit still. Close your eyes. Look back over the years of your life. Slowly peruse them. Let the intance(s) of joy float up to the surface and surprise you. That’s right. They’re there. I know you can find them. What makes you smile? What makes you feel excitement in the pit of your stomach? What makes you feel the happy anticipation of some future moment? What has ever made you love the moment you’re in?

Your job today: Remember those moments. That’s it. Just bathe in memory.

So, was this easy or tough to do?

(Photo: ~Athena)

Tags: 2009, healing workshop, memory, ptsd, survivor, The Healing Power of Joy, trauma