Real Time Trigger Process
My legs are shaking. And I'm sitting. My hands are shaking as I write this. My heart is skipping around like a lost bunny rabbit and my mind is threatening to enter panic mode.
This moment, this exact time of day on this exact day three years ago is the moment my trauma occurred.
And life changed.
Everything changed.
I lost my faith, because I couldn't understand how God had been blind to my plight.
I lost the future I had held on to for years.
I lost hope.
I lost me.
I lost my memories - now tainted with truth.
I lost my fire. My Passion. My heart shattered in to a thousand pieces, and I would spend the next six months in shock, trying to breathe, unable to eat or sleep. Curled in a tight ball of tension, gasping for air and begging the day to end so I could sleep. But I wouldn't be able to when that time finally came.
In the face of so much loss, my mind broke along with my heart. This is what trauma does to a person. I panicked, I went directly in to survival, fix everything mode.
I could not beat the shatter of everything around me crumbling in to nothing. I scrambled to keep what I'd thought I had, I fought tooth and nail for a life I would later realize I could never return to. I became hyper vigilant in every aspect ... my mind was a cruel tornado of thoughts battling the hurricanes of my new reality.
The shock of it. Of the Truth.
Such is the sudden loss of innocence. It can rob us of our sanity. It can silence us, isolate us, throw us in to depression, as it locks us into the darkness of our broken mind.
It is three years ago today that this happened. I'm sitting in the very same room. It feels like longer than three, it feels like a lifetime ago now. I shake with the memory of it.
BUT the mechanisms I've learned are helping. The breathing to receive, the hold, the exhaling to release.
The self talk I've learned and have shared here with you, replacing the nasty voices with love.
I hold on to the non negotiable fact that the Divine lives in me, and is more powerful than any circumstance or disappointment. Any shock or trauma. The Divine is stronger.
I am of love, of light.
I am worthy of love. I am worthy of a fulfilling life.
I have this Divine power within me that I will continue to nurture, and that will carry me through the darkest, loneliest chapters of life, and I will come out stronger, healthier, happier, with eyes wide open.
This is me dealing with a real time, soul crushing trigger. This is me processing through it. Right here, right now. Again, practicing an uncomfortable level of vulnerability with you, my readers. Why? Because every single one of us will have that annual moment of remembering, reliving. It is the birth day of our new selves, we will not be the person we were before again.
There's pain in that acceptance, but also power in the knowing that we can grow into a better version of ourselves. But, my friends, we will need to fight for it. The healing journey will not travel itself, we must take the reigns and make the decision on the destination we want to find ourselves in.
"Truth is Truth. It doesn't care if we like it or not. It just is."
I've shared with you before that I wrote these words in my journal. I wrote them, I stared at them, and I did my best to accept them. It gets easier with time, this acceptance.
Once we accept, we can focus our energy in to our tomorrows, the newly revised ones. Remember, where focus goes, energy flows. I challenge us all today, to maintain that diligent focus toward the future.
Triggers will pop up out of nowhere, yes, they will sometimes bring us to our knees, and other times challenge us to fight with sheer willpower. That's okay. Every time we encounter them, and we traverse the tightrope successfully, they lose a little more of their power.
We do not need succumb to a free fall !
Honor the pain, the moment, and then release it. You no longer need it.
Be encouraged. Be empowered now.
"Jewelle, if you don't conquer this now, if you don't get through this hard part, we will be having this same conversation next year this time. Do you want that?"
Those are the words of a very dear friend, who brought both compassion and reality to me during some difficult decision processes I needed to get through. These words of strength were timely reminders, 18 months in to my recovery, when I was still living in the excruciating, debilitating, fear of loss, of the unknown. Not easy to hear at the time, but a question that would give me courage in the tough months ahead.
What decision are you facing? What part of your life has been cruelly interrupted by your circumstance? Can you decide to accept your new you? Can you decide to accept your revised vision of the future?
Be encouraged. Be empowered. Believe. The Divine lives within you too, and you can RECEIVE and RELEASE with every breath you take.
Say this out loud with me now:
Every day, I am getting better and better.
Every day, I am getting better and better.
So much love to each of you - sending you healing and strength, and courage for your journey.
~Jewelle
FYI - it's been proven by psychologists that when this phrase is repeated daily, healing is expedited :)
"Every day, I am getting better and better" - You got this.