Safety is an experience. It’s a way of being. It’s feeling calm, connected, grounded. And THEN doing the recovery work from this place as much as possible. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. We will flow in and out. But staying in a place of safety is one of the foundational components to healing well.

This Christmas doesn’t HAVE to be perfect. In fact, the first Christmas was far from perfect and such a humble beginning - maybe your imperfect Christmas honors the first one more than any other!

What I have learned is goodness, relief and calm does come. It's a process and while destruction happens overnight, healing takes longer. We learn to ride the wave.

As I step into the grief, I have to remind myself to go courageously and know that God will meet me with compassion and mercy. He is my hope.

What does growing WELL look like in difficult life situations or during our recovery process? What I have realized is - in order to thrive WELL - we must learn how to live in the present.

Bottom line: let’s do what we need to do to get comfortable in the bodies God gave us. This could mean air-conditioning and this could also mean positive self-talk or anything in between but it does NOT have to mean losing weight. The end.

I don’t even think I realized how uncomfortable I was in my own home. By evening, I could feel sweat rolling down my back; then at night, I would lie in bed with no covers over me, waiting for the heat to pass. It just became the norm, the expected. Could there be a better way? I refused, stubbornly, to see air-conditioning as an option.

The first is to develop techniques and skills that will help us navigate the actual trigger. Think of these as your breaking-point strategies when you actually get triggered. The second is to develop habits and skills that will help your brain calm down and not be in a traumatized, heightened state. Think of these as your maintenance strategies. I explain this further below.

Today I am not where I used to be, praise God. I am not trying to fix it, I am not denying it. I have moved through it and am living in a place of so much joy, peace and wholeness.

I think it’s important that we name the impact that trauma has had on our lives. And how it impacts our behaviors. Naming the pain helps validate what we are experiencing. And it also gives us a loose roadmap for seeing if we are moving in the right direction or not as we look for - are these symptoms improving? Or no?

Since reframing trauma in this way, I have also been able to reframe the implications of trauma. It doesn’t mean that there is no hope. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is the abuser.

When we name our pain, we are restoring honor and dignity.

In the last blog post, I talked about what it looks like to show up for others and to also show up for ourselves. I even included some ways I’ve showed up for myself this week - just to get your mind churning as to how you can show up for YOU.

You WILL look back and see the good.  Sure, there are tears, there is grief, there is pain - it's not easy.  We will wrestle and struggle our way through - looking for the hope.

Feeling sadness, shame, disappointment - all feelings that I'd rather not feel, but feelings that I know I must work through in order to be whole.