Hope can feel complicated when you’re living with toxic stress or trauma. It’s not always a bright or effortless feeling—it can be quiet, cautious, and sometimes hard to trust. And yet, hope is often what begins to shift the way we relate to our own recovery. Not because everything suddenly becomes easy, but because something inside starts to register that change is possible. Recovery is not about denying what has been difficult; it’s about recognizing that difficulty is not the end of the story. There are meaningful, evidence-informed reasons to believe that healing can unfold, even in small and incremental ways over time.
This post is part of a series: toxic stress and trauma.
Toxic Stress and Trauma, including Complex Trauma are Recoverable.
Recovery is More Effective than Ever Because of Breakthroughs in Understanding and Recovery Approaches.
At the core of trauma(s), whether a traumatized individual is in touch with it or not, is the experience of intolerable, unbearable overwhelm with a side of profound distress, threat, and helplessness. The core of toxic stress is prolonged stress response activation and overwhelming challenges or circumstances that did not allow for resolution.
People understandably don’t want to experience or reexperience these feelings. And quite often they believe that if they do, they will become completely overwhelmed by them to the point of becoming nonfunctional.
Depending on the type and nature of the toxic stress or trauma(s) there is often some shame in the mix, which is also very difficult to tolerate. Most of us do what we can to avoid experiencing a sense of shame or unworthiness.
The fear and survival reasoning conclude that it is better to steer clear of everything stress and trauma related, keep moving forward, and pretend we’ve left it behind.
The problem is that it isn’t left behind. The internal distress is encapsulated in subconscious traumatic memory and emotional learning, and is continually and actively broadcasting inside us, keeping our nervous system dysregulated and fuelling an array of stress and trauma related symptoms that we are continually contending with. Nothing has been left behind.
Yes, unresolved toxic stress and trauma can feel very big.
It is more easily recoverable than ever because of some significant breakthroughs in understanding toxic stress and trauma and how we approach recovery.
It’s not easy, but it is manageable. And it is worth it to truly leave it behind.
Some of the breakthroughs that have made a remarkable difference include:
- Gaining a much better understanding of the nervous system and how to regulate it through the Polyvagal Theory.
- Ensuring that difficult content is tackled in small manageable doses that do not overwhelm.
- Recognizing that a mix of approaches is needed, because trauma(s) affect many aspects of the brain, including what are known as bottom-up approaches that work with the body, reptilian, and limbic brains, and top-down approaches that work with the prefrontal cortex and limbic brain as well as engaging the right, feeling experiential side of the brain and the left logical, analytical brain.
- Understanding through brain scans how and where traumatic memory is stored, as well as ways to access it.
- Relying on methods that utilize the memory reconsolidation process to resolve and transform encapsulated traumatic memories and the accompanying emotional learnings.
- Developing ways to process trauma that do not even require people to tell the painful story unless they want to and doing so would have therapeutic value.
The most effective recovery makes good use of all of these breakthroughs.
Toxic Stress and Trauma(s) are not the End of the Story.
Recovery brings Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth.
Toxically stressful and traumatic circumstances can leave us feeling victimized and responding to life from that victimization in various ways. Our pain and suffering are important and need to be acknowledged and felt, but it is not necessary to carry them forward in a manner that defines the rest of our lives.
Recovery offers the opportunity to write a different ending for our story.
Research shows that many individuals who lean into their recovery grow. Through recovery, they grapple with rather than avoid things. They self-reflect rather than disconnect. They regulate their nervous systems rather than remaining dysregulated. They tolerate what seems intolerable rather than dissociate. They reframe how they see things rather than maintain rigid thinking. They heal their wounds rather than endlessly bandaging over them.
As a result, they gain post-traumatic growth.
Post traumatic growth occurs when individuals are able to lean into and be changed by the adversity. Initially they are shaken to the core in terms of their sense of self and/or the world. This is followed by considerable struggling and suffering. With time, they are able to position their suffering within larger experience. This acts as a catalyst to think about things differently. They emerge having shifted themselves as a result.
Some of the most common shifts that they experience include:
- Clearer understanding of or revised self image, identity, and values.
- More insight into themselves.
- increased optimism.
- Enriched or clarified relationships.
- Altered priorities.
- Enhanced appreciation for life.
- Openness to new possibilities in life.
- Stronger sense of spirituality.
- Increased inner strength and resilience. Resilience is a multifold concept that involves cognitive, emotional, and behavioral flexibility in dealing with challenges as well as the ability to experience difficulties and bounce back stronger, wiser, and more able.
Toxic Stress and Trauma Ripple Out into the Larger World No Matter Our Intention.
Recovery from Toxic Stress and Trauma Changes How We Ripple Out.
Our impact does not stop at the door of our own lives. In whatever ways our toxic stress and trauma affect our thinking and core beliefs, our feelings, our energy, and our behaviors, it ripples out, often beyond our awareness.
It impacts how we see and judge others, especially those who are struggling.
It affects how we hold power and how we empower or disempower others.
It impacts the political beliefs we hold and whether or not we are able and willing to acknowledge larger issues of harm and social injustice.
It impacts the dignity and kindness we extend to others.
It impacts how we expect others to behave and expect ourselves to behave toward others.
It impacts if we only take or only give, or are able to engage in reciprocal ways in relationship.
It determines the amount of energy we have to ripple out with.
It affects how we show up in our communities.
It impacts whether or not and how we try to contribute to the world.
Recovery not only changes us and our lives, it changes the impact we have in the larger world.
Once the trapped internal distress and trauma symptoms are no longer driving our thinking, core beliefs, feelings, energy, and behaviors, we ripple out very differently.
Even if we don’t deliberately try to change how we are rippling out, it is the natural unfolding of restoration and recovery.
Many times, although not always, our toxic stress and trauma(s) are connected to larger societal issues that also impact many others. Recovery invites us to open our eyes to these issues and happenings and to reorient ourselves accordingly.
Even if we don’t go on to do what the larger world defines as something “remarkable”, our healing and our change in energy shifts the larger balance.
And the more common reality is that recovery does result in some, naturally unfolding and deliberate, changes in how we ripple out in the world. Many survivors who have gained their recovery go on to bring kindness, dignity, empowerment, support, and social justice in some way to their small corner of the world.
If you or someone you love has been struggling as a result of toxic stress or trauma, perhaps these hopeful reasons will influence you to leaning more fully toward winter and its promises of restoration. Recovery is more effective than ever and often involves post-traumatic growth which can ripple out into the larger world in a way that helps us all.
With Humility, Hope, and Heart,
| Related Posts: Blog Category: Stress and Trauma |
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