Ep107_traumaAFTER
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[00:00:00] So a common scenario that I deal with. Frequently as people call me and they have some kind of goal in their life. They want to do something big. They want a big change in their life. And so they have this future that they can picture. And then they also have this default on their mind. So maybe they're getting older or [00:01:00] they have some kind of transition in their life.

Like they went through a job change or divorce or kid got married, but something's going on. So they have this default future that they can see if they don't make some changes. And where I help them is I fill in the gap. And that's what good coaching, powerful life transformative coaching helps to fill in that gap.

And I was thinking about that specifically with, as I've talked to clients over the years that are really high performers. And one of the things that they have to fill in is deal with their own trauma that they have in the past, because it's impacting their belief that they can get to this future. So today I want to talk to you about dealing with past trauma.

Three results you're going to get when you face your trauma, as hard as that may be, and as difficult and painful as that looks, but the results that you're going to get that I've seen over 25 years working with clients, when they do face their past, they do face their trauma. So today's podcast, three results you're going to get from facing your trauma.

So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host, I'm Adam Gragg, and I'm a, I'm a podcaster, I'm a content creator, I've been a mental health professional for 25 [00:02:00] years, and I am excited that you have tuned in. You know, my life purpose is to help people find the clarity they need to gain the confidence that they need to face their biggest fears.

And one of those fears, in fact, always those fears, are related to mental health. to things that have impacted them from their past that they haven't processed and dealt with. So they're going to face these fears in their life and they're going to do and live and create this legacy that they want to live, like they want to live.

And so whether they're 70, 75, 80, 40, 20, 30, you know, you can start now by getting the clarity to move forward with your life. And I do like to share one thing that I have done that's risky in my life. Recently, because nothing is more important to you than facing, than actually facing your fears and doing something.

Nothing's more important to your mental health and doing that, and nothing's more damaging than continuing to avoid and just letting life pass you by. Living a default life, it's based on fear and [00:03:00] Not believing in yourself. It's going to take some level of action to get out of yourself, to face these fears, to do something different.

So something I've done recently that is courageous is, you know, I've leaned on people more and I've leaned less on my own fears. So I've had something very stressful in my life right now. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put it at a 9. And it's a personal situation that I'm dealing with. I had a running race plan on Saturday.

I didn't want to do it. I actually ended up doing it and went out to Tulsa with a friend and ran in this road race. I've had the temptation to want to hide and run and to do things that are destructive, but I haven't. And so one of those things that I could have done is, you know, I'm on day 30 without this chemical evil nicotine crap and I didn't use it.

And I'm on actually day 31 today, believe it or not. And so, and I've been very tempted to give in and not do. And because it's a stress reliever for me and it's my own trauma coping mechanism, but I'm dealing with things in the right way and I'm happy about it. That's been very [00:04:00] hard. It's been risky because I don't know how everything's going to turn out, but I'm trusting God with the whole thing.

So let's go ahead and talk about three results that you get when you face your Trauma, when you deal with it, powerful, amazing, cool, impactful results. And, you know, and when we look in, let's define what past trauma is, okay? So you have situations in your life that your brain's not able to process, things that have happened.

It could be prolonged trauma. Over a long period of time, we have complex trauma. We have very specific trauma. That's one incident. So complex trauma can be a situation you lived in for a long period of time. Situational impactful situations that you have, like a car accident, I mean, or. Getting in a plane crash or having someone die or having a child die.

I mean, those can be very specific incidents that were not prolonged. But what I find is that most trauma is complex. It's not this situation that happened that, okay, I'm going to just. Build it, [00:05:00] define it, and put it in a box and exactly understand what it is if I go through some specific process. I mean, it's like a spiral.

You're gonna go back there to that event at times in your life. It's not this linear healing process and it is unfortunate, but it's also fortunate because you're gonna have situations in your life that are gonna trigger that trauma and then you're gonna deal with it again. And you thought you have moved past it, but it's gonna be triggered.

You're gonna deal with it again. But the Encouraging part about it is like, we have to find ways to deal with it or it's going to damage our life. It's going to come back and bite you again. And I think there's a lot of information out there that people are, they believe that they can just work through something and their grief is going to be gone.

And then it comes back and raises its head again. And it's not about that. It's about getting to the point where you can accept it. And it no longer has the Power to negatively impact your life again. It's going to still come up, but it doesn't take over and get the control that it could have and has had in the past.

That's the cool, exciting thing about facing this stuff. And for [00:06:00] me looking at my own personal life, a lot of times I've had things that was, I've dealt with one part of my life. I've realized that I had something underneath that, that was traumatic that I needed to deal with as well. So I would deal with one, I'd wonder why this happened to me.

And then. Why there's been this pattern in my life. And then another thing that happened when I was a long, young kid will come up. And it's not that I'm looking for stuff or looking for problems, but I've had this unease in my life that I've needed to face some things, but I didn't want to do it. I just wanted to go along and use other unhelpful coping mechanisms that were not.

Help me, obviously not helpful, but I mean, use other things, utilize that, that did some destruction in my life. And so facing my trauma, my own personal stuff has been extraordinarily helpful. Seeing my clients face their trauma, and I want to share some stories today about people who have, whose lives have been transformed that I've had the privilege of being exposed to their life and the transformation and see what actually happens when people face this kind of stuff.

And so the first thing, the first result. that you get from dealing with your [00:07:00] trauma in your past, dealing with your past, is you're going to get clarity. It's so amazing because people, they have this future that they have an idea of what it could be like, yet they don't know how to get there.

And they start to get the clarity to say, these are the steps that I need to take. This is what the truth is about what I went through. It wasn't my fault. Or if it was their fault, then they learn to say that I can accept That that was me at the time and it's not going to impact me anymore. I'm not going to do that again.

And they're learning to get the truth and whatever they went through and saying that this was my dad or this was my mom. This is where they were. It wasn't personal. It wasn't about me. It was about them and their experience in that situation. And it wasn't about me. It wasn't my fault. That's so amazingly powerful that you don't have to bring that into your next relationship or bring that into your retirement or bring that into your work or bring that into your next venture or bring that into your current relationship.

And make it a part of that relationship that's impacting the relationship because it's [00:08:00] causing a level of dissatisfaction with your current relationship because you haven't processed what you've brought into that relationship and you're going to have a chance to do that. So it's going to start changing the mindsets you have about yourself.

Identifying the damaging core beliefs that hold you back and creating truth in your life because you're able to unpack these damaging mindsets and say, this is not true. The reason I'm a perfectionist, which can be a damaging core belief people have, a damaging mindset, is because I have felt that if I didn't do it on a perfect level or really high standard of a level, then I was going to be rejected or I was going to fail.

I was going to get hurt. And that's related to my trauma in the past. Maybe it's related to my parents divorce or related to how I perceived my parents would respond to me. If I did things really well, I perceived that I would get their love and acceptance, but I realized through processing my trauma that I already had their love and acceptance.

I didn't need to be perfect. That was something that I. Just because of what happened in their divorce, I needed to, I felt that way. [00:09:00] So you're going to get some clarity. And I'm just going to read something off of a worksheet that I have clients go over. It's called an impactful life events worksheet. So through talking, writing, and reflecting on your past trauma, you'll gain insight into how it affects you today.

Awareness of your blind spots is how you relate to others and view yourself. The benefits of processing your trauma are immense. Hope, Clarity, Confidence, Motivation, Serenity, and more. Processing your trauma and moving towards acceptance keeps it from running your life today. That's so powerful. It keeps it from running your life today.

Facing pain is the price of freedom. And then they go through this worksheet and there's a bunch of questions on here. And this is all included in my course, Shadowproof Yourself. 7 Steps to a Giant Leap, 7 Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health, and that worksheet you get by going through this course.

So I'm going to go through parts of it right now so you can see the kind of clarity you get as you go through this worksheet. And by the way, if you're interested, you can get Shatterproof Yourself, Lite, on these [00:10:00] 7 Steps to Transforming Your Mental Health through Hitting the link in this podcast and subscribing and watching a brief 20 minute video on the course and filling out a brief to pay, I'm sorry, four page worksheet, really brief worksheet that you get to download as well.

You're only going to get that by subscribing and Watching the video, downloading the worksheet. So check that out. You're going to like that. And so impactful life events worksheets. So they're going to go ahead and they're going to identify for each life event that they have, you know, how it impacted them, what happened and write about it.

So a life timeline is the place I start with people sometimes from their very first memory to where they are today and what kind of incidents have happened, what types of things have happened in their life that have caused a lot of trauma. So if they were a refugee, If they've experienced some domestic violence between their parents, if they grew up in an alcoholic home, if they were in some kind of an accident, if they were bullied, if they were neglected, if they went through physical abuse, any kind of trauma, divorce, even their own, their own divorce.

If they had, and I want [00:11:00] them to identify that as a major life event, an impactful life event, and we're going to figure out how it's impacted them today. And so they're going to. Answer questions briefly about how it's impacted their self concept, how it's impacted their social connections, how it's impacted their ambitions and their emotional security, intimate relationships, financially, how it's impacted them, you know, what thoughts do they have about the situation now and what questions do they have about the situation they want to get answered?

And so it takes that stepping back and reflecting and going deep. And this is where I love to go through this kind of content in a group setting with people that are safe. And I go through and it's a part of most coaching that I do and has been for decades with people because they have to figure out what's impacting them today.

And so this dig deep kind of thing is necessary. And they often will realize that they didn't see something as having as much of an impact as it actually does. And they see these patterns of behavior. Based on that situation, it's really, really super powerful. So the next benefit that I find that people have is outside of clarity, which this clarity process is huge because [00:12:00] all of a sudden you're starting to see that I have some power in my life and I have sabotaged my life because I've let this specific traumatic situation, it may be just one or two specific ones that you haven't processed, I've let this impact my life for such a long period of time.

So it starts to impact their, it starts to make a major transition, I mean, sorry, a transformation on their health. a positive transformation on their health. And because they may look and say that this trauma that I had has such a big impact on me that it drove me to workaholism. And it drove me to success in my career, but at the expense.

I of friendships and at the cost of a marriage or the cost of a connection with my kids that could be so incredibly powerful in my life. And so it's been so big for me to say and look and say this, whatever it was in the past, and let's just say, for example, it was a overly highly critical, demanding, insecure [00:13:00] mother that was abusive, emotionally abusive.

And you never felt good enough. You never felt love and acceptance. And maybe it wasn't even their mother's fault because that mother had a traumatic brain injury and she couldn't, and she never got the help she needed based on that traumatic brain injury when she was in a car accident as a child. I mean, that's the stuff that can happen.

And they didn't have that kind of help back then. So. The client, as they unpacked this, they realized that it really wasn't my mom's fault. She did love me. She was doing the best that she could. And I have realized and understood that now I am overly driven and so they're a very highly successful attorney in a law practice, like super successful.

Maybe they're on this, you know, they clerked for a Supreme Court justice and the partner of a huge law firm and they just are Very, very successful, but they've realized that it's been driven by getting the approval of my mother that she wasn't actually able and capable of giving to me. How powerful is that?

And you get to learn to let go of it and see that I'm not going to let this thing impact my life the way that it [00:14:00] has in the past. And so they start to get better sleep. Wow. Even though it was 20, 30 years ago, they started to get better sleep. They stopped pushing themselves physically to such a high level because they realized that they were doing that at some subconscious level to get approval.

They stopped doing that. They stopped beating themselves up for not having achieved more in their life because they realize it's connected to getting the approval from their mother. They stopped their resentment towards their mother because they realized that their mother was doing the best that they could based on the tools that they had at the time, and didn't even realize that they were doing this kind of damage by the way they were treating me.

And it doesn't excuse the type of behavior, I'm not saying that, but when you get a deeper understanding, it does show you that people, in a lot of cases, are doing The best that they can do, but they don't know any better. And again, they didn't have the resources. And it may have been that they were horrible, evil, and did it willingly.

And it wasn't a subconsciously driven thing. It may totally have been. They [00:15:00] knew better, you know, right? Like physical abuse, they knew better. You know, but some of the emotional stuff may have deeper roots for somebody where they think they're actually helping somebody and they're harming somebody. But they're going to have, maybe you have IBS and dealing with your past is going to help you with, with irritable bowel syndrome.

I mean, there's so much evidence that depression, anxiety, that we can look and say that people have had these insights, these one moments of insight based on their past. And all of a sudden they're a new person. They have this insight that transformed their life. I don't have to hold onto that anymore.

And it does impact their level of anxiety. It does impact, you know, clinical level depression. It has a huge impact on that kind of stuff because they've actually faced things. It has an impact on the habits that they have in their life because they're going to go from habits that are destructive. Maybe they're drinking all the time, or they're overworking all the time, or they're over performing all the time, or they're engaging with people at a very guarded level.

Capacity all the time. They're not letting anybody get deeper with them and not letting anybody actually go to the next level with them. And then all of a sudden they, because they've dealt with their past, they realized I can let go of that and it's [00:16:00] not my fault and I'm not going to let this hinder me.

And then they start doing amazing things by impacting other people. And, you know, I can give you a lot of great examples about that, but I'll just give you a couple thinking about somebody. And these are all clients. that have come to me and work with me in coaching in their 60s or even close to their 70s, where I've seen them have tremendous success professionally, but they have relational and they have self care challenges.

They have relational challenges. They have challenges with their self concept. And then all of a sudden, after As they deal with this and they say, this is connected to my past. I didn't deal with this, deal with this now. They start to take care of their physical health and have the motivation to take care of their physical health because what I see is now they start believing they're worth it.

And it's worth putting their running shoes on after work or it's worth. It's worth putting their running shoes on in the morning because they're worth it. They're not going to mistreat themselves any longer like they were in the past because they felt unloved and unworthy and helpless [00:17:00] based on how they were treated in the past by somebody that loved them or was supposed to love them, a parent that may have loved them, but they internalized it in a way where they were unworthy.

And they had to earn their love and they start changing that and they start realizing I can give back to other people, which is what I love to see. And that's another part of the health aspect of it is they start giving back to other people, volunteering, they have clarity on how they can impact other people's lives.

And it's so cool to see people that have gone through the powerful coaching process and they realize, man, I have so much to give and so much to offer based on what I've been through. This is like going to transform my life and I'm not going to worry about rejection. I'm not going to worry about embarrassment.

I'm not going to get caught up in potential failure because I know the impact that I can have on people's lives. And I'm going to get stuck on that vision of what good I can do in the world. And then I see a brand new person sitting in front of me and I don't even know where the old person has been.

But I knew they were in there. [00:18:00] And I don't know where that old guy is or that old gal is. They're not physically old, but they're actually much younger now because they have this insight. And they see that they can start closing this gap between that future they want and where they are now. And that default future is no longer going to be the path they're on.

They're starting to shift. And me being involved in that is such a privilege to be able to see that in people's lives and say, this person is a completely different person than the person who hired me to start working with them six months ago or a year ago. And now they're seeing their potential and nothing's going to stop them.

I am incredibly inspired by that kind of stuff. I mean, my clients inspire me. I think about the clients that I've had the privilege to work with and they inspire me so much. They don't even know it, but just to see people that are saying, I got to deal with this stuff in my past and the traumatic, maybe it's childhood sexual abuse, and they're doing that work.

I got to deal with this rejection that I had from my dad when they left and I didn't see him for 10 years and they got remarried and didn't engage in my life. And I see that kind of hard work. It [00:19:00] inspires me so much because you know, what they're doing is changing their family tree because they're going and dealing with that kind of thing in their past, which leads me to the last result that people get.

This is the most powerful, most important one, is because they're facing the trauma in their life, because they're doing the hard work and they're going through that process, which I get to be a part of in, in these people's lives, they are learning how to love other people and they're loving themselves and they're loving other people.

And that is crazy powerful because if I see people that they love their grandkids and they love their kids and they're going back to doing the hard work in their life because they want to love their grandkids better and they want to love their kids. And they want to be able to love themselves better and not have this guardedness there anymore and not have this self doubt there anymore and not have this perfectionism anymore and unpack those damaging limiting mindsets, which is by the way, if you go through and you purchase Shatterproof yourself, you're going to get the worksheet called Be Truth Oriented, which is only accessible.

I used to give this to people, people that are my clients. They fill [00:20:00] out lots of these, lots of the impactful life event worksheets, lots of the Be Truth oriented worksheets. They fill those out, but this is stuff you're going to get if you purchase Shadowproof Yourself, the full version, and you can go through it.

And I mean, I've had clients fill out 15 of these impactful life event worksheets. I've had clients fill out 15 of these. Be truth oriented worksheets. And so you're taking this damaging mindset, this limiting core belief, and you're unpacking it, and you're finding a way to replace it and know the truth.

Because the truth will set you free. That's why I call this the be truth oriented worksheet. It'll set you free as you engage in it. So you're going to learn, by dealing with your past, you're going to learn to love. You're going to learn to love yourself, which I like to think of it as liking myself. Like I look in the mirror, I say, I like this dude.

I like what he has to offer. I like his character. I like his integrity. I like his quirkiness. I like his failures even. I like the fact that he's gotten through these things. I like the fact that he is willing to put on running shoes and run in a race when he's not feeling like it. I like the fact that he's willing to go and be at work on time when that's.

That's the last thing he wants [00:21:00] to do, and he's willing to engage in clients and put his whole heart and soul into it, even if it's the last thing he wants to do because he's stressed out with his own personal stuff. And he's willing to realize and trust that, you know, God can use him in these situations and even use him more greatly because in those situations where I don't feel like I have anything to offer my clients is when I have the most to offer them, because then that's when.

I see God working through me in people's lives as I look back on those situations. So he's willing to let go of that. You know, I like that guy. I like that Adam. And I want each of you listening to say, hey, because I'm dealing with stuff in my life, I'm able to look in the mirror and say, I like myself because of what I've dealt with.

And so I've had clients tell me that they don't want to face their past because, in fact, somebody, someone told me this yesterday. She said she doesn't want to face her past because This is somebody in her 70s who was interested in engaging with me in coaching, actually, which is really cool to be able to say that people in their 70s do reach out.

And I have a coaching client right now that is well, actually I I can think of a few that [00:22:00] are over, over 70 right now. And many over the years that I've worked with that are over 70, some, some even in their 80s, which is really powerful because why are they doing that kind of work?

at that stage of their life, but why not? I mean, that's like the coolest time to do it. Cause you're really thinking about your legacy right there. And you're saying, I don't want to have this because it maybe they have read a book or had something happen in their life. And I love the book, the five regrets of the dying, by the way, awesome, awesome book is talks about.

The five biggest regrets, this gal in interviews, people that are in hospice at in palliative care at the end of their life in Australia and gets very themes in what they're sharing about what their regrets are when they're near death. You know, in one of the, one of the big regrets is I should have stayed closer to my friends.

Powerful stuff. And I should have built relationships. I should have re engaged with friends. And I mean, another one is I should have lived life I wanted to live for me, not the life my parents or somebody else had for me. And so the fear that people have when they do what their past and somebody, this is what they told me is like, if I open up that door, I'm going to have so much regret.

And I don't know how [00:23:00] I'm going to close that door. It's so powerful. And so the challenge I had was, well, maybe it's a both and. Maybe it's that, you know, you're going to look and say, I made some mistakes relationally. I made some mistakes. By not facing my fears because of the past, because I thought I was gonna get hurt again.

But it's a both and, but I did some really great things because of it. And how can I merge that into my life now so that it's not having that impact on the rest of my life? Because all you have is today. And then you can see that, like, I can face things in my life now because I have today. And I faced my past, so I'm learning how to love people today, so I can love my son and my daughter, my grandkids in a different way, because I've faced this stuff.

And it's like, why not? And what would the value be of that to you? And what would the value be of going through a group with a group of people, a coaching group, which I have just started having some coaching groups. Well, I'm actually having my first one in March. And if you're interested in that and going through this kind of stuff with a group of people that are like minded and it's facilitated by me and my team, and we're going to get and jump in there with you, and this can be a part of it, I mean, dealing with your past is going to be a part of it, [00:24:00] then, you know, reach out and let us know because there's limited space.

I have room for nine people in a, in a coaching group. And I'm going through this process cause I'm so excited. It's not, it's about your future. But a lot of times, like I said, the first thing is having the clarity cause you can't create this great future and even picture this great future unless you've done the work to face your past in many situations.

That's what the big hangup actually is. So you're going to learn, this third result is you're going to learn to love people in the right way. Love yourself and that's going to come out in the way you love people. So you're going to interact in a less guarded fashion. I see that as a result. You're going to interact open to what good can come out, not the bad thing.

Not to be, you're not going to interact with people saying, well, how can they hurt me? You're going to interact and start interacting with people saying, well, how can they help me or how can I help them? How can this be beneficial? So powerful. It changes the whole orientation you have. And the way you interact with people is going to come out in a way that you're open and you're seeing the opportunity.

And you're going to be willing to do what's, do right and stand up and do good. But it's going to impact the way you love [00:25:00] the world around you. So I just got to close in with one other story. So I have had another client that started to deal with his past in his. In his 60s, took some time and it ended up being a situation where he, he realized that standing up to a parent as a kid wasn't his fault.

It was necessary. It was actually a good thing. He stopped second guessing himself on why he actually did these things and why he made these decisions. Decisions and then got clarity into how it was impacting his relationships. And so he's interacting in a different way in relationships romantically now, which is so cool to see because it's like a totally different approach.

It's a less guarded approach and I can't give you names and details, but I can say that I have. So many cool stories. I'd love to share more in other podcasts about how people have been impacted by facing what has impacted them in the past.

And it's just transformed their life. I mean, from dealing with parents and understanding that [00:26:00] their parents. were not handling these situations right. It wasn't their fault. It shouldn't have been a situation that we ever put in. And they learned to say, this is no longer going to impact me the way that it had in the past.

It's going to impact me in a positive, inspiring way, but not in the same way. Cause I'm aware of it. You know, he who makes the subconscious conscious, you know, that's a powerful thing right there. So, and that's what I'm challenging you to do today by facing your past. So check out. a recent, or this is a, a blog post that I wrote years ago on why you should deal with your past.

I would think that'd be a really good resource for you to check out as well. And I'll link to that in the show notes here as well. And I also, again, you know, check out Shadowproof Yourself, light that content because you're going to get information that's going to be helpful to you. On seven small steps you can take to have a giant leap in your mental health.

I want to go ahead and recap the three major benefits you're going to get by facing your past. One is clarity. You know, you're going to be able to create that vision, deal with those mindsets, and the truth is going to set you free. Second thing is your physical health. I mean, impact on your sleep, impact [00:27:00] on emotional issues like anxiety and depression.

I mean, you face those things and it can have a huge impact. Not necessarily right away, but over time. It can make things worse for a period of time. That's why it's good to go through this kind of content with somebody else and have somebody safe you're going to process with, through those impactful life events.

And the third way, third impact on your life, third result is going to, it's going to help you love yourself and love other people, which is so exciting. So what insight did you gain from today? One insight that you can apply. I want you to think about that and then think about how you're going to teach that to somebody else and apply it to your life.

So if you teach it to somebody else, it's going to stick. It's going to become something that's going to make, it's going to resonate in your life more and apply it to your life. It's going to be an emotional risk where you're gonna have to let go, let your guard down to actually engage in this one insight that you found.

So if you found this podcast helpful, tell your friends. Subscribe, give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content. I'm going to close today the way I always do. So make it your mission to live the life now today that you want to be remembered for 10 years after [00:28:00] you're gone.

When they're talking about you at Christmas, after 10 years after you're gone, what do you want them to say? What do you hope they will say? I want you to live that life now. and make a decision today to live that life now, commit to living that life now. I appreciate you so much for tuning in and telling people the podcast spreading.

I'm really excited that you're tuning in and I will talk to you very soon. Take care. Bye bye.