My Week In Recovery
The Buried Pain of Childhood Trauma
My Week In Recovery is a weekly update about my recovery from childhood trauma. I hope it shows you that you are not alone.
Generational pain has a way of bringing up the pain from my childhood. It reminds me of pictures or videos of archaeological digs that uncover ancient villages. My trauma is the village, and sometimes what’s inside me only comes up when I deal with the trauma passed down to me.
I used to fight the pain that came up. I didn’t want to feel it, so I would use tapping, meditation, and deep breathing to try and relieve myself of it. Of course, it never worked. I only managed to bury it again. In August 2023, my then-therapist lent me a book, Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. Something shifted within me as I read the introduction. I realized that I had to accept the pain as it came up.
Radical acceptance is “practicing a conscious effort to acknowledge and honor difficult situations and emotions.” Radical acceptance requires that we accept reality. It means accepting our lives--our feelings, circumstances, and past--with our whole being. Radical acceptance is not approval of abuse or injustice. It is not against change, and it is not passivity.
Radical acceptance requires that we accept reality. It is not approval of abuse or injustice. It is not love or compassion. It is not against change, and it is not passivity.
Radical acceptance has changed my life. I am no longer afraid of feeling the pain from the past. I can feel what comes up and let it move through me. I am at peace within myself because I surrendered to the pain. The only way out is through.
On My Mind
Studies show that radical acceptance helps trauma survivors. In one study, researchers had 120 people write down personal negative events during six training sessions. The radical acceptance group used a dialectical behavioral skill (DBT) that promotes acceptance of negative events. In another group, the participants reappraised their interpretations of the events but did not use a DBT skill.
The ones who practiced radical acceptance improved their ability to use emotional acceptance and cognitive reappraisal. The other group improved only in cognitive reappraisal. Researchers concluded that “cultivating acceptance can subsequently improve the ability to reinterpret reality for coping adaptively with negative events.”
Quote
“The heart’s job is not to play seesaw with life and death, with joy and sorrow, with peace and fear. The heart’s job is to stay open to all these territories at once.” Mark Nepo, The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born To Be
Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer
Journaling Prompt
Set the timer for 10 minutes, and write about what you feel now.
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