Dear Soft Hearts,
Okay so there’s no clitoris to trauma recovery and healing. Yes that loss or struggle or pain very much did happen to you.There’s no special Influencer’s advice, or magical vagus nerve, or just this one movement or type of therapy to make it all go away. You were never broken to be fixed in the first place. Your wounds are acknowledged and can be healed, but you weren’t broken to need a quick fix either. The way we say this one deep breathing, pose, or video will fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place reminds me of two things.
- A pill without change. If we provide a pill without any change there can still be some shifts, and sometimes not what we’d hope. For example, for someone suffering from schizophrenia people may ask them to take such and such meds without providing housing, safety, spiritual, and therapeutic supports. We might even hear said suffering spirit to be blamed for not wanting to take meds alone. A magic pill to “fix” something or someone that was never broken can be helpful to some in some situations and often times it is just a bandaid. Hey we all need a bandaid sometimes. I’m not over here walking around with my open, bloody blisters everywhere. They’re covered. But then I look at my shoes, where I walked, why I felt the need to walk that long, and if I was connected with my body in the moment. We look at the stuff around the stuff to see what’s up and how we can be most supportive. Plus just a bandaid may mean we need a million more bandaids without ever looking at our shoes.
- American consumerism. We often market and sell this one type of therapy to repair your marriage or this one type of vitamin to fix your dysregulation. Sure do the therapy or vitamin or whatever, but one thing in of itself isn’t the Fairy God Parent. We’ve been marketed to for generations. We’ve been told and sold to that if we buy xyz we’ll feel better and be better. We have NOT been told to sit with distress. I myself am included. I too believed for most of my life that if and when I obtain xyz I’ll be happy. Consume consume consume was what I thought could fill the hole. Consuming an influencer’s product to feel better isn’t the most concerning aspect of this for me as a mental health provider. What’s concerning is when we don’t acknowledge trauma recovery. Trauma recovery is a thing and it’s a path and a flow. It’s a whole thing. It’s not one big breath or one supplement. We are SO WORTHY of sharing our stories, feeling our feelings, and doing what we need to do for our trauma recovery. We can take up space to have more than one trauma recovery aspect.
I’ve seen folks come in with complex, complicated, intergenerational trauma stories start with self hugs and deep breathing and end with being able to express their story to a trusted person, self soothe, feel their feelings, and heal those wounds. I know there’s no magic thing to heal the pain. If there was I would’ve tried it before becoming a healing provider. As a licensed psychologist I have to say I’m concerned we make people think they have to do or buy xyz to feel better. It’s okay to feel your feelings right now, sad or mad, and not lash out, not binge eat, not text that ex, but just to feel it for a few seconds before moving to self soothing. We can breath into the sadness or hurt or loss for a few seconds, and then do what we’d like to love on ourselves with gentle affirmations like “I’m enough” or “I’m worthy”, wrap our arms around ourselves, deep breath, or whatever.
Join us next week for a not clitoris magic pill surprise! Wishing you ease today.
With kindness,
Dr. Joharchi
Soft Heart Psychology 