Be Gentle With Yourself

Understand that betrayal trauma puts you and your entire life in survival mode.  It’s likely that if it doesn’t  help you to survive it will not be important to you now. This means that you will need to become really gentle with yourself.  Give yourself some grace and realize that you are recovering from a serious wound.  You wouldn’t expect yourself to get up out of a hospital bed and make your bed or do the dishes.  This is no different.  So get comfortable with resting as much as you can. Give yourself a break.  Your healing depends on it.

Be Willing to Make Changes

Realize that your life has been destroyed to the point that you are now faced with rebuilding your life from the ground up. Some things you used to do will not fit into this new version of  your life. This can be upsetting to you. But realize that this is a very  common response to betrayal trauma.

Make Healing Part of Your Routine

Whether you like it or not, your healing has now become a huge priority.  You will do better if your schedule it in your calendar. This was something that I ended up really resenting and it didn’t help me.  What was so hard for me was coming to the conclusion that I had to change my entire life because of the actions and choices of someone else.  This reaction is very common.  But it is now time to embrace the possibility a new life that will be healthier and better than you could ever imagine!

Revisit These Lessons Often to Stay on Track

Realize that you are living in what is known as “trauma brain,” and because of that it is difficult to think clearly sometimes. Change is hard under any circumstances but it is harder when trauma is involved. Learning to keep your body system balanced will likely be new and hard to remember to do. The challenge becomes keeping track of your new way of being. So that is why a calendar with reminders is a good plan of action.

Do the Work

You are certainly welcome to listen to these lessons and not do anything more than that and it will still give you some benefit. But you won’t gain the optimum benefits that way.  The best way to approach this work is to go all in as much as you are able.  Just keep in mind that this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.  So settle in for the long game.  Take your time, do the workbook pages, and try these new tools for a minimum of 28 days before you decide it won't work for you.  It takes time to build new habits and so you won’t know if it works or not for a while. 

Keep an Open Mind

This one is really important!  I experienced this profoundly in my own healing journey.  I had been praying to ask God why I just wasn’t getting better. So I made a promise to Him that I would do whatever it took to fix this so I could feel peace again.  I told Him that I would do ANYTHING no matter how weird it sounded, or was to me.  As we go along you will have a front row seat into how He insisted I keep my promise, over and over again.  Keep in mind that I will be asking you to look at things that are very new to you and some of them will seem very foreign, but I thought they were weird before you did!  Honestly, this is what I am the most excited to sharing with you!