So over the years of my advocacy work with survivors in the court system and my coaching, I have noticed that there are many women like me,
professional, business women, women in leadership roles…
well-past the abusive relationship, trying to navigate “life” but always
Feeling like a Fraud
Feeling broken
Feeling unworthy in some way.
Women who have made it past their abusive relationships but still feel stuck in an area of their life. They feel like they are dying on the inside even though they are trying to be professional and look all “put together” on the outside.
These women have unhealed, unidentified emotional trauma that is keeping them stuck in a space in their life that prevents them from feeling like they are succeeding and reaching goals.
Is this resonating with you as well?
So what do we do about it?
Ok it is time to get serious about our lives.
What is really happening?
Well, what is happening is that we are suffering from triggers that are created from emotional wounds that occurred during stressful, abusive or toxic relationships.
Now some of you may have had traumatic experiences that did not result from a “relationship” issue.
We all have had to endure so many stressful or traumatic incidences in our lives. Many times we don’t want to admit that, Or we want to blame our pain on something else.
I recently was talking with a friend who mom passed away and she was telling me all about the last 3 days before her mother died. The experience was so horrific to her. She saw things and had to do things with and for her mother that made such a huge impact and imprint in her soul and her heart. She said she feels scarred forever by the experience.
Emotional wounds come in all shapes and sizes.
But it is all of the hiding of it….. that starts the “feeling like a fraud” syndrome to happen.
Let’s unpack this:
Something happened to us that we were hurt by or ashamed of
We don’t want to share what happened for a host of reasons. “I don’t want to talk about it, it just hurts too much.
We get good at hiding it away or burying it down deep so that we can survive or keep up our fascad that “we are ok”
We then start to build a false identity based around what happened to us and the “real us” feels gone and lost. We do this for survival.
Because we are women and we are resilient and strong, we forge ahead in the best way we know how.
Because of that, You may have landed an amazing job because damn it, you are not letting what happened to you stop you from supporting yourself or your family.
You may have started your own business or are in a leadership role in your life.
That’s amazing and good for you!!
But why do we feel stuck or sad or still hiding something?
Let me explain
What happens is, traumatic memories get stored in a part of your brain that makes the event seem like it is happening now. It doesn’t go to the part of the brain that all of your other past memories go.
I found this information in an article called:
UNDERSTANDING THE BRAIN AND BODY IN TRAUMA
Written by Dawn McClelland, PHD and Chris Gilyard, MA on August 27, 2019
When a person experiences a traumatic event, adrenaline rushes through the body and the memory is imprinted into the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. The amygdala holds the emotional significance of the event, including the intensity and impulse of emotion.
For example, if you’re on a roller coaster, your sensory information is “fear, speed, stress, excitement, not life threatening.” The amygdala can read the emotional significance of the event as it’s a fun ride which you’ll be off in three minutes.
The amygdala stores the visual images of trauma as sensory fragments, which means the trauma memory is not stored like a story, rather by how our five senses were experiencing the trauma at the time it was occurring.
The memories are stored through fragments of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or touch.
Consequently, after trauma, the brain can easily be triggered by sensory input, reading normal circumstances as dangerous.
For example, a red light is no longer a red light, now it’s a possible spark. A barbecue had been just a barbecue, but now it sounds like an explosion.
The sensory fragments are misinterpreted and the brain loses its ability to discriminate between what is threatening and what is normal.
Having learned this, I hope it makes more sense as to why your past events that were traumatizing pop up so quickly and easily during your day.
So you are living your life and you feel like you are in charge, but those
fragments of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or touch Come flooding in in the way of a trigger.
You could be going along your day or your life and just when you think you feel great and you have everything under control, something will trigger you, here is the thing, you don’t realize it is a TRIGGER, it is just a feeling that comes over you (for some reason) that sets you feeling “off”, or causes your heart to race, or makes you feel uneasy or whatever it is for you.
How we react to this feeling or trigger is super important.
Are you feeding into it? Are you allowing it to sabotage your life?
Are you managing it?
You have heard me talk about high level coping skills and low level coping skills.
When these triggers come up we either:
Freak out and lash out or try to make it go away in an unhealthy way
Or feed into them by falling right back to the time and place that they happened
We may crumble and revert back to our broken self…that is when we really feel like a fraud in our life.
So in any event, this is where I want to tell you that you don’t have to live this way,
You are stronger than this, you have had your power and control all along
You just need to be able to unleash it so that you are in control of your outcomes.
That can happen with my Triumph over Trauma coaching solution that I have put together to help so many women just like you,
This coaching solution will stop those triggers dead in their tracks, put you back in the drivers seat of your own life and give you the clarity to see that so many of your past emotional wounds were not your fault first of all and completely repairable.
About coping
You can do the high level coping techniques to manage your life and I fully recommend that ….. things like yoga, meditation, exercise, massage or acupuncture, whatever your thing is, but remember, getting a handle on how to manage triggers, past wounds and flashbacks takes some time and practice. That is why having a coach is very useful.
We call it a coaching practice because that is exactly what it is, practicing these new techniques every day and being held accountable for your own progress.
Let’s face it, how many years have you been feeling this way, in pain or stuck in your own life for goodness sake. It is YOUR life, no one else’s to live, or just feeling unhappy in an area of your life.
How much is it worth to you to fix that problem in a set amount of time.
I know we have all tried this and that to feel better,
This therapist, that self help book, those classes…..money wasted I am assuming because we end up still feeling a bit broken and unsettled.
I am not going to brag, wink wink but I have had proven results with my clients within 6 months or less. As a matter of fact they have told me that they started feeling better after the first session.
I think that is fantastic
My purpose in life is to change this cycle of pain for every woman who reaches out to me.
I want all women survivors of abuse to realize that they can overcome these feelings and not only find their lost person but be a BETTER VERSION OF THEMSELVES, a stronger and more purpose filled version.
Making progress and changing other women’s lives.
I hope with was helpful and as always feel free to reach out to me if you would like to start the process of change in your life.
Just go to karenmessina.com and sign up for your free, confidential consultation.