Creating beyond PTSD

How are you going?

I was speaking with a client the other day. We were talking about creating and claiming your one true life.

It was a good conversation. She spoke about getting frozen with plans and ideas, with putting her vision into action, which is an across-the-board very human problem.

And I listened, And then she said, "but Camilla, this is something different to that."

And I replied, "ooh, I know. I remember...I know...."

You see, if you're anything like this client, or like how I used to be, your ability to create may have been affected by CPTSD or PTSD symptoms, and this can be exceedingly difficult to navigate on the healing journey. 

The bounce around between fight and flight, fawn, freeze and more can lead to cyclic episodes that punctuate life like a series of bullets that keep firing out and into your day or week or months or seasons with rapid certainty and simultaneous upheaval and disruption. 

And while at times, you may be able to chuckle about it, in real terms there's a gravity and grief that goes along with it, and it makes living both difficult and restricted.

Rather than embracing and living in a state of flow and joy, where there's the possibility to grow and change and transform and make and be and do in new ways that are very grounded in who you know yourself to be, you instead skim a surface of symptoms.

These are like a constant tumbleweed - a whorl of energies that bang up against you and even consume you. 

Completely.

It's as if you start believing these full-on symptoms are YOU.

Personal Experience of PTSD Problems

So, when I write and talk to you about this about this stuff - the stuff you relate to because you frequently message me and connect with me about it - I talk from deeply held experiences that have now been shaped to guide you.

These beliefs, views, strategies and practices (a consequence of a lifetime of healing from trauma and adversity,) work and help you to make profound change in the same ways I have.

I watch clients just like you transform in the most precious and spectacular and regenerative ways.

And that means something. Because it matters. And you matter.

I've been doing this for over 24 years now, and I've helped countless hundreds of women along the way to heal, both in one to one mentoring/coaching and in programmes.

So when you feel that whorl and that tumbleweed, when you experience the bounce around that is the bullet-fire of trauma symptoms ruling your life, I understand. 

When you source the programmes and coaching we offer, you source from a lived-experience coach. You can be assured your story and your history and symptoms aren't a grab-bag of textbook ideas that leads to a reach for the DSM-V Manual to try to understand. (Well yes, I do read those for fun to stay up to date and to question things...but that's a whole other geek story for another day!)

Instead, when you share with me about your trauma journey, I can and do reflect, and I remember (25 years back,) and empathise. And what that actually means for you is that I fully understand the feelings you experience and I know the tender wounds and I know the questions to ask and the guidance to give you to help you to heal.

I understand how these forces operate within women like me and you, to shape and constrict, to carve and restrict the course, quality and magnificence of your One True Life.™️ 

Symptoms of CPTSD and PTSD

Before going into deeper consideration, it's important to refresh and list the basic symptoms you might experience day to day,week to week or month to month as a trauma survivor. 

These can include:

• restlessness
• insomnia
• defensiveness
• heightened anxiety
• aggression
• struggles with relating
• eating issues
• deep seated fear
• overly sensitive reactions to others
• struggles with intimacy
• nightmares
• flashbacks
• struggle to cope with time management
• executive functioning issues (planning and performing systematic tasks)
• isolation
• struggles in the workplace
• relationship problems 
• and more.... 

And even though you might experience these, it's important to work through them so you are not beholden to them or hijacked to the extent you view these issues as part and parcel of who you are.

Gaining objective distance from these experiences is very important, and the best way to do that is to commit to the ongoing strategies that help you separate out self from symptom.

Yes...this can mean making a decision.

Yes...it means taking action too.

Yes...this takes work.

Yes...this takes commitment.

Yes...this can feel unfair.

Very unfair.

After all, it's likely the symptoms you experience are there because of trauma caused by other people, and coming to terms with this unfairness can feel like a grand and awful double whammy!

The unfairness is another separate issue that you will want to work through with me on your journey. And while its seeds might be justifiable and caused by trauma (or by ACES or adverse childhood experiences in early life,) getting to a place of roll-your-sleeves-up practicality about this issue is very important.

Very important.

Unfortunately you cannot in any way change your past but you can change your future. 

Nightmares into dreams

So...you live with the reality of your history, and you know the impact of it on your daily life. 

You know it's coursed and shaped you to date and you know that it's even propelled you into directions and life choices that haven't been that great.

Poor choices in relationships, living small and playing small, an unhealthy and low sense of self, believing in the cloak of shame and guilt that was laid on you at an earlier time...the list goes on.

And if you're still stuck in these it's possible you want to move into a different kind of life and a different kind of experience.

A different kind of dreaming...that isn't filled with nightmare remnants of the past that disrupt safety, security, esteem and belief in yourself. 

So there are a few basic approaches you can use to achieve this. Some of these are

• maintain a healthy environment
• eat well
• listen to calming music before bed
• Create a good trauma-informed daily or morning programme. (reach out as we offer one as part of elite coaching and our programmes)
• Use essential oils for their stimulating and/or calming properties 
• Seek out other people with trauma-histories who are actively working on themselves
• Stay away from those with a "victim mentality"
• Journal daily - yes daily!
• Learn how to apply creative and creating energy to your daily life
• Regulate your system consistently
• Own and claim who you are
• Learn how to effectively manage your flashback and nightmare symptoms
• Start to understand the power of fantasy
• Surround yourself with doers and dreamers who convert ideas into reality
• Let go of the old stories you hold about yourself
• Create new stories

One of the most important strategies to master and put into practice is also our ReStory strategy.

This is a process that we focus on here at Camilla Slater Coaching. Ultimately it's about creating a comprehensively supportive environment that both allows and inspires you to move beyond PTSD constraints into a process of dreambuilding in action.

For the most part, human beings are great at fantasy and fantasising.

But how do you move from simple common daydream into the realm of real change and practical action?

This is really difficult terrain for the trauma survivor who might also have the added complication of executive functioning impairments.

Executive function and trauma

Executive functions are a set of clear and necessary skills or cognitive abilities that help you manage, control and regulate what you do in day to day life.

These can often be impaired or compromised in women with a trauma history. They include:

• Self-control (the ability to stop and think before taking action)
• Flexible thinking (the ability to respond and adapt to changing circumstances and conditions by altering strategies or plans)
• Emotional Regulation - the ability to manage your feelings so you can complete tasks and achieve your goals
• Task Initiation - the ability to start and complete a task without procrastinating
• Organisation - the ability to use and create and develop systems to keep track of information and materials
• Time Management - the ability to create steps and stages within timeframes to achieve a goal
• Self-Monitoring - the capacity to objectively evaluate oneself
• Working Memory - the ability to use information held in your memory banks so you can achieve your tasks

Women like you and like me can have struggles in these areas because of trauma. And struggle in these areas can mean struggle with transforming your dreams into the real!

But how is it that I once had these struggles and these days they're healed and gone?

If you have PTSD or residual PTSD you might scan the list above and note any number of areas where your "doing" is compromised. You might struggle to control emotions (which lead to conflict with other people and therefore makes working in teams fairly tough. That can mean you aren't able to fully actualise your big dreams.

Or you might be overly rigid and stay in your lane to such an extreme degree you miss the potential for life expansion and risk-taking which is a very necessary and important part of dream actualisation.

You might even have a poor working memory, causing you to slow down in the middle of tasks to such an extent you never actually finish anything! (I see this a lot with clients.)

Or you might have a real struggle to use any kind of system in work and in life, which can lead to unnecessary inefficiencies and a lot of wasted time and frustration and energy.

These are the very difficult realities you may have faced in earlier life without actually understanding the link back to trauma or adversity or even ACES. (Adverse Childhood Experiences.)

Healing over time

And this is why it's so important to have programmes and coaching and support and extra levels of identification within community settings.

Support is key. So is structure. So is strategy. And so is working with someone who's fully healed this stuff and understands this from the inside out and from practical experience. 

This is also why your previous attempts at healing over time may have fallen flat...again...and again...and even again! Because in order to change, and in order to transform the dream into the real, you will need to know how to work with these issues over time so you can really achieve transformation. 

Time is of the essence. Pace yourself. Focus on addressing your dream to real process for a number of weeks, using a more intensive structure or strategy such as a clearly defined path/programme. We firmly belief in the several week intensive programmes to kickstart you in the right ways.

This can then be followed by a gentle approach over, say, a year (in an affordable group membership coaching programme) where you have a constant reminder and accountability environment that supports lasting change. 

Then over time, you will see changes and you will notice uplevelling of your life and your behaviours and you might even experience neuroplastic shifts in thinking, mindset and mental processes that lead to a lessening in executive functioning impairment.

So good. So doable. So real. So true. 

Minimise your shame

This information that outlines the link between trauma, executive functioning, creating or being unable to create your dreams is just so important to you as a woman with an adversity or trauma history. 

The link between these various issues are real and influential, but once you understand these complex connections you can begin working to change them and lessen their impact. 

Your abilities as a woman in the world - in the professional or family or relationships sense - may have been compromised. Your trauma and its impact on your executive functioning may have meant lost opportunity, grief, an inability to scale up in business, a struggle to communicate effectively.

It might have also led to you being really flummoxed and perplexed by who and what you were and are, about "WHY" YOU DO WHAT YOU DO and why you've been unable to achieve or reach goals or turn your dreams into lasting realities in the way your friends and the people around you have. 

It is tough to come to terms with this in the second phase or half of life.

Yes, it involves loss. and grief.

But the upside is you learn to let go of the internalised shame you've carried about this stuff - the private questioning, the sense of "feeling different" and not measuring up...and even feeling as if you were somehow broken or permanently flawed.

There's real freedom and healing to be had when you begin to make these links and learn how to change it. It's also great and courageous to make meaning out of this pain, and to use it as a way to propel yourself forward  - into a deeper sense of grace, self-acceptance and lasting peace.

Where to from here?

There are real possibilities ahead for you.

Real ways to change. To grow, to heal, to flourish.

That doesn't mean I spin you a load of hogwash and tell you that every dream you have and every fantasy you construct can be miraculously materialised and manifested in the space of 6 months or a year or two. (That's not how we roll, even though it's the way some other coaches fluff it.) 

While we are in the business of dreambuilding, you need and want to know that it can really happen in a doable and constructive and supportive manner that takes into account where you are right here right now.

So remember the following

• Trauma impacts you and your life
• Knowledge is power
• Be realistic while aiming high
• Make sure you work with what is, right here right now
• Work in with a programme or coach who understands these issues firsthand
• Let go of shame and guilt
• Use the knowledge to propel you forward
• Give yourself permission to grieve
• Never stop working towards LIVING YOUR DREAM. 

Take care, gorgeous human being. 

Look after yourself and reach out.

There is a path forward for you.

We can do this work for real. And together.

You are worth it.

 Much love,

Camilla xx

You can book in for your free mentoring session with Camilla here

If you're ready to start one to one sessions, book in for your elite coaching here. 

Group settings and coaching with discussion, you can join Heroine's Journey group coaching programme here.