Choices

Often enough, my clients hit a moment that could potentially become traumatic for them. In those moments, I give them a gift my therapist gave me when I was having my moment.

I ask them if they know what all trauma has in common. They say they don't. 

I tell them no matter what kind of trauma it is, big or small, physical or relational or material, trauma takes away our choices. Every time.

I pause and wait for them to voice an objection. No one has. 

I go on to tell them the most critical thing we can do in moments like these--moments that threaten to fracture something inside of us--is to remember we have choices. Remember your choices.

What are your choices, right now? 

These choices won't always be fun or easy or ideal, but they don't have to be any of these things to be good for you. They can be true for you. They can be new for you in a way that you'll appreciate once the hard part has passed. They can be something you're proud of later in part because it wasn't fun, or easy, or ideal, and you stepped up and did it anyway.

Hard choices carry a lot of good nutrients for the soul.

But no matter what your choices carry, right now, in this moment, they are yours. Your choices belong to you. They are your greatest tool for shaping this moment, your moment, your life, your relationships, and your future.

And that alone–that they are yours–is the thing about them that matters the most.

Because if we allow our choices to be taken away in this moment, the impact of trauma is that we will have to fight like hell to heal those choices back to life within us.

That's what people are doing when they heal, you know. They come to me saying "I can't" about something and I walk alongside them as they figure out how to give themselves the option or the permission to "can" again. That's the work.

And it could be anything. Giving yourself permission to say yes, or no, or anything we want in the moments we want to. Some people want to be able to choose to believe. To trust. To sleep without waking. To love, to grieve, to feel something.

Trauma is the thing that has us fighting our way into arguments we "lose control" of ourselves in either by shutting down or blowing up, and no matter how much we try, we can't seem to choose to not do that.

What's harder is finding that choice to regain control. How it requires us now to turn over our insides and be more courageous and vulnerable than we ever thought we'd need to be to do this thing.

This is what happens when trauma takes choices from us. It can feel impossible to get these choices back once they're gone. It isn't. But it can feel that way, and that's hard.

But if there's one thing we can do, it's check in when moments are hard. Do not dissociate from it, or distract yourself from it.

I supposed the first choice is to get present. Get honest with yourself.

"This is the dilemma or hardship I'm facing right now. This is the truth of it."

Then, remind yourself:

"But I still have choices. I always have my choices."

Reflect on what they are, and decide. Consciously and willingly, for yourself and your sanity, decide. 

I'm rooting for you, 

Tori