The end of self-sabotage

My friend broke her leg recently. She went through the expected period of pain and discomfort, and then the less painful but annoying period of lugging around a cast. 

Once the cast came off, she noticed how many of her day-to-day habits had changed in just 8 weeks. She sat differently, slept differently, and walked differently. 

“What should I do to help my body get back to its old way of doing things?” she asked her doctor. 

“Um… just do your normal routine and your body will re-adjust,” he said. 

It wasn’t great advice. The body, post-trauma, will often continue doing things the way it needed to when it had an obstacle, even when the obstacle has gone.

Emotionally, we do the same thing. 

When we have a parent who is volatile, we learn to constantly read the room, and take note of everyone’s mood. 

We’ll even take responsibility for the feelings of the most distressed person in the room. While this was a survival tactic in childhood, in adulthood, it can become self-sabotaging, de-centering, and unsustainable.

In therapy we look at our patterns and decide which ones serve us and which ones are residue, like limp limbs, from a past trauma.

An outside eye and healer can help find a new way of walking, limp-free, through our lives.

It’s time to take that cast off.