Learning To Trust Yourself After Trauma
Have you ever felt that if you make one mistake or take one wrong step, everything will fall apart? Sometimes even the smallest decisions can trigger a fight or flight reaction and a spiral of “what if . . .” questions that cause you to doubt yourself. We can even end up ignoring our intuition and red flags we see and operate out of fear, craving a certainty we just cannot have in life. Learning to trust yourself and your judgement after trauma can feel so hard, especially if you blamed yourself for things that happened in the past or are ashamed of what happened and choices you may have made. This shame can get in the way of learning to trust yourself as it makes you feel small and unable to make decisions.
Learning to trust yourself can feel so hard, almost impossible, so what can you do to begin trusting yourself more today?
Try not to rely on the validation of others- this can feel good, but is actually taking your power away as it leaves you relying on others to feel you are doing “ok.” Then all it takes is a day where you don’t get this and all of a sudden you are not doing “ok” and might even fear your life is falling apart. Instead find small ways to validate yourself for things you do well.
Remember that mistakes are part of learning and growing. There can be no growth if we do not let mistakes happen and learn from them. This will also build confidence you can handle things even when this happens.
Collect examples of times you did things well and remember them for moments of doubt. I often suggest keeping them in a box you can look at as we often forget our accomplishments in moments of doubt.
If you are wondering about a decision, it is best to get out of your head and the overthinking that often happens, close your eyes and do some slow breathing and go inside and get a sense of your intuition through your body. What are you sensing? What is your gut feeling on it?
If you are sensing something, but unsure if you should trust it, give yourself some time to process all the information coming up and how you feel about it. This will help build trust in yourself without the panic.
Only you can truly know what is best for you, and learning to trust yourself and your instincts after trauma is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself and your healing journey.
I hope this information helps you understand how to work on being able to trust yourself more. I also hope it helps you realize trauma therapy could be helpful to help you work on this more deeply. If you are interested in learning more about the trauma work I do or EMDR in general you can find out more about the EMDR or other approaches I use here. If you are interested in the EMDR Intensives I do you can find out more about them here. If you are just feeling stuck and have questions, please feel free to call me at (707) 954- 7060 for a free 15 minute consultation. I’d be happy to hear about what is going on for you and to help direct you to the right person to help you.