Outthink Your Trauma: Mindfully managing your thoughts

By Deborah Horton

Outthink Your Trauma - Mindfully managing your thoughts is a collection of self-care writings to help change the way you think about your trauma and yourself. Mindfully managing your thoughts provides a way of acknowledging your trauma and moving through and beyond it. Trauma and the responses that happen as a result can impact every aspect of your life. Outthink your trauma and start mindfully managing your thoughts and live beyond your trauma.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781304948137

Book preview

Outthink Your Trauma

Mindfully managing your thoughts

Deborah Horton, M.Ed., LCPC, LPSC, NCC

Copyright © 2021 by Deborah A. Horton

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2021

ISBN  978-1-304-94813-7

www.deborahhortonwriting.com

Preface

As a licensed clinical professional counselor in private practice specializing in the treatment of trauma, I work with clients who struggle with letting their trauma outthink them.  People who have experienced trauma will have internalized thoughts that direct their responses in every aspect of their lives.

These thoughts are acquired in early childhood from those who are our main caregivers.  People are not born thinking they are ugly, stupid, not good enough, or the thousands of other internalized beliefs that begin in the words and actions of those around us.

The internalized thoughts then lead to responses to every life situation we encounter.  Relationships, school, work, everything we do is influenced by these false beliefs that have now become our only perception of ourselves.

How do we change these responses?  We outthink our trauma.  Acknowledge where the thoughts started and work from there.  Release self-blame and negative self-image.  Replace these thoughts with positive truths and repeat and reinforce.

It is an everyday process to undo years of negative trauma thinking.  It can be done and this collection of writings can help you do so if you commit to acceptance, replacement, and reinforcement.  Outthink your trauma.

Table of Contents

Starting Point                                                             8 

Comfort Of The Familiar                                                11

Control Yourself                                                            13

Meditate This Way                                                      15

The Boss Of You                                                            18

Enhance Your Calm                                                                     20

Free To Change                                                            23

Choose Happy                                                            26

What You Feed                                                            29

Building Walls                                                            31

Be Proud Of Yourself                                                      33

Where Is Your Proof?                                                      35

Response Time                                                            38

Choices                                                                  40

I Love Me                                                                  43

You Are My Sunshine                                                      46

Free Your Mind                                                            48

Change                                                                  50

Right Now                                                                  54

It Is Never About You                                                      57

Reborn                                                                  60

Growing                                                                  62

Circles                                                                  65

Ties That Bind                                                            68

Boundaries                                                                  71

Just Be Happy                                                            73

Laughter Is The Best Medicine                                          76

One Thing                                                                  78

Be Grateful                                                                  81

Pros and Cons                                                            84

Keep Trying                                                            86

Hold the Line                                                            88

Illusion Of Control                                                      91

Mindful Communication                                                94

Fear Of Being Alone                                                      97

Be Happy Where You Are                                                100

The First And The Last                                                      102

Mistakes                                                                  104

Best Laid Plans                                                            106

Do Or Do Not                                                            110

Losing Yourself                                                            113

Ways To Find The Good                                                117

Living Better Through Trauma                                          119

Pick Your Battles                                                            122

Regrets Have One Purpose                                                126

Informed Versus Overloaded                                                128

Self Care Is Not Selfish                                                131

Be Proactive                                                            133

Moving Towards Margin                                                136

The Hardest Word In Therapy                                          139

Who You Are                                                            143

A Different Truth                                                            146

Two Words                                                                  149

The Cost Of Trauma                                                      153

Free To Decide                                                            157

The Blame Game                                                      160

Failure Is Not Final                                                      163

Intentional Space                                                      166

Red Flag Warning                                                      169

Stop Saying Sorry                                                      172

Happiness Starts With You                                                175

Conclusion                                                                  178

Starting Point

Everything has a starting point. Everything including thoughts, beliefs, emotions. Everything starts somewhere.

When we say we have always been sad or angry for as long as we can remember. Or we say we have always been anxious, we do not generally associate it with a starting point. Always implies no starting point. It implies that we were born with these emotions, these thoughts, these beliefs we hold. That is simply not true. We are not born with these things, they occur at a later point and they occur because of something outside of ourselves.

We are born as a blank slate. We do not enter this world sad, angry, anxious believing any number of things we decide are true. It just doesn't happen. We receive messages from outside forces - people, social media, TV, news, etc. We receive messages in the way people treat us - neglect, abuse, abandonment, words and actions. We receive messages from the things that happen in our lives due to other people - divorce, domestic violence, drugs and alcohol, death. We receive messages from bullying. And then we form beliefs about ourselves because of these things and accept these beliefs as true. And we carry them for so long that we then think we have ALWAYS had them...that we were born this way.

Think carefully about when your emotions and/or beliefs started. Think very carefully. What was happening in your life at the time or what had happened around the time you first noticed these emotions or beliefs. Notice everything that was going on - everything. Write it down. Then look at it carefully and you will find your starting point. This is the place where therapy should begin. Addressing the starting point is like starting at the top of a waterfall, if you address the beginning it flows down to everything that comes after because it is ALL connected.

Almost all of the beliefs that we hold about ourselves are created from birth to age seven by our caregivers.  They are created in our caregivers' words and actions or in some cases their lack of words and inaction.  They tell us what to think about ourselves and how to feel about ourselves.  If they tell us we are stupid, lazy, slow, annoying, fat, bad, or any number of other things these are what we internalize and believe.  They should know right?  They are older authority figures who we are now modeling our every behavior after. 

They teach us to eat, drink, dress, bathe, read, write, speak. Why would they not teach us what to think and believe about ourselves?  Think very carefully back as far as you can in your life.  What were you taught to think and believe about yourself by someone else?  Remember, you were not born thinking about any of these things.  Someone taught you.

This doesn't mean that just because your starting point came from something outside yourself that you can blame everything you have ever felt or done on someone else or something else. In fact, the truth is that it is always your choice what to do with any outside message. Do you let it go because it is not your truth or do you take it on and make it your reality? That is your choice. Everything you do after that is your choice. Everything.

Recognize your starting point and address that. Then recognize your choices that follow. Accept the responsibility for your choices. Let go of the starting point that was not yours. And then work through them. And yes it is work. You worked very hard to get where you are today at believing everything, you can work just as hard to stop believing it.

What is your TRUE starting point?

Comfort Of The Familiar

Humans are content to remain in the comfort of the familiar. They dislike change. They dislike the unknown. They fear letting go of what they know. They fear letting go of what they are used to. Where they live their lives.

If you let go of the things that have taken up residence in your minds, in your hearts, in your emotions, what then takes the place of that? If you let go of negative things that you have built your life around, what comes next? Something worse or something better? The truth is, until you let go of the things you are familiar with, you will never know what waits for you.

You will make assumptions about what it is, and they will take the form you choose, negative or positive, but the truth is not discovered until you let go of what has become comfortable. What is familiar. What you have decided to live with, blame yourself for, hurt over, be sad over, be stuck in.

How do we gain the strength to venture into the discomfort of the unfamiliar? By peeling off the layers of the familiar in which we live. Years spent in adding more and more to what we are comfortable with, what we allow ourselves to wallow in, what we choose to feel every day, what we never stop thinking about. How do we undo this damage? One layer at a time.

In my practice, I always have a worst first approach. If you cannot work through the worst thing first, you cannot get beyond anything that comes after. Everything else is informed by what happened first - what affects you most - what worst is for you. Everything else follows along after that, is added to that, is layered on to that. It is the hardest place to start and it is the most important for letting go, for learning lessons, and for moving on.

The comfort of the familiar is very difficult to change because it is frightening. The layers we have added provide a way to not look at the things that started us on the path we walk over and over day after day going nowhere. If we remove the layers, then we have to look at the truth and the truth is scary, difficult, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar.

Freedom is the only condition for happiness - letting go gives us happiness. If we truly desire to be free of events, thoughts, emotions that keep us stuck - we must let go - to move towards happiness.

Control Yourself

In all of the universe there is only one thing any of us can control - ourselves. Our circle of control resides