Category: Discharging Trauma

The Destructive Dance

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, Everything Mental Health

Does anybody remember “Hell Is For Children” by Pat Benatar? The line that always gets me is where the child is being told to lie. All the creative lies abusers use to entrap the child, and it causes them to believe the greatest fault of all: you are the one who is bad, and you are the one who did the wrong or bad thing.

No, the child is an innocent.

Lies spin off into secrets, and many times those who abuse are let off because the child firmly believes the lies they are told and are commanded to tell. It is this hell that brings adults to my Zoom-based office.

When I tell someone seeking treatment that the cycle can be broken, there are times when I’m not believed, and with good reason: they’ve been lied to so much that what I say is perceived as just another person spinning a tall tale.

The sad part of all of the above is that the abusers involve the innocent “other” in the process. The parent, grandparent, sibling, or another is unknowingly manipulated to become part of a destructive dance. This dance serves the perpetrator, and no one else. In a child’s mind they, too, become part of the hellish secret they are commanded to keep.

While kids are becoming more aware of abuse issues and other psychological issues such as suicide, it doesn’t mean that they will talk about it. They may talk about it with a friend, and the friend might have the wisdom to get to adult help.

It isn’t always that way.

When, in my twenties, I finally shared what had happened to me, my father asked why I didn’t speak up as a child. “Daddy, do you remember a conversation you had with_________? Do you remember that he spoke up before I could say anything to you?” My father began to cry. Yes, he remembered. I was never given a chance to tell, because in the 1960s things like abuse didn’t happen, and if they did, they weren’t spoken of. The pervert knew this, and knowing the dynamics of marking one’s targets for repeat offense is an art. It damaged my parental relationship. The perp got just what he wanted: me, and countless others.

Ironically, my saving grace was that before I was eight, my parents had a group talk with me and my older siblings about healthy touching. So, when the abuse happened, deep inside I knew I wasn’t at fault.

Still, it was a secret, and I couldn’t tell because I’d been set up to not be believed. Part of the setup was the patriarchy dynamic of the Mormon Church.

This leads me back to secrets.

Mormonism, and Mormon homes, hold many secrets.

Church secrets range from “don’t say anything about your new church assignment” to confidential matters. The issue with this is, what, really, is confidential? This leaks into the home, where you aren’t supposed to talk about your new assignment or “calling,” and bleeds off into the unhealthy dynamic of family secrets, such as someone’s pregnancy or mental illness.

No matter what religion or non-religion a family participates in, secrets are a sign of dysfunction in a home. Should there be boundaries? Yes. Should we respect a family member who asks that their privacy be respected? Yes. There is a big difference between the command not to tell anyone, and the person asking someone to respect another’s privacy and to keep things confidential. At the same time, confidentiality is not about holding back information that places another person in physical or mental danger. When a child discovers that Santa and the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy are Mom and Dad, a healthy parenting style will bring the child into the “let your brothers and sisters discover this for themselves” place. Children are able to understand that type of knowing vs. being told not to tell. This positive regard for healthy behavior also enables the child to grasp what is safe to hold inside, and what needs to be told.

Having said all of this, what’s a kid to do? Most children in a situation where abuse and secrets are involved hold it all in and arrive at the therapist office not able to trust or believe in much.

When I saw children in my practice, I could work with them in the places they were. I‘ve found that most kids get to adulthood and need to do more work in an adult way.

What about the kid that can’t bring friends home? They know their home is different from their friends’. Once again, it’s the secret that the child is keeping to themself. Not because they’ve been told to bury it, but because of shame or fear: “What if my mother or father’s awfulness is discovered?” Young children learn to hide what isn’t good.

In the past two decades, research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse is also showing a decline in the use of drugs (alcohol is a drug) by younger adults. Maybe younger adults are cluing in to the damage done by the past behavior of their parents. My observation is that they want something better for themselves and their children. Maybe older sober adults want that same better thing for their children and grandchildren.

Is there hope that the cycle of secrets can be broken? It is all about speaking up, and then doing the healing because of the damage that has been done. Abuse, to secrets, to a dance of destruction will end when the victims give voice to it.

Just Another Day

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Beyond Grief, Discharging Trauma, The Suicide and its Aftermath

The rain is falling outside, and finally my plants are drinking water. It wasn’t this way ten years ago: the day was so different from what I’m doing today.

PTSD holds one’s mind captive, and you only free yourself from it by sending the order out to the iceberg, calling a summit at the battlement, and declaring personal war on the mind. I didn’t know I’d be doing this ten years ago, and I couldn’t imagine what a peaceful day this has been. It was worth it all.

Wow, did I just do this?!!!! Yes, I’ve done the navigation in several different boats. Looking back, I started out in a dinghy, and while it was stable, it wasn’t sleek. Part of the river I went down was all about Styx and getting to new shores, and then getting back on a new boat and going further. The thing about Styx is that I can’t tell you where that ugly and dark place began. I can tell you where it dumped me out: it dumped me out when I realized that there was hope in all of this. I went inland and took a look around. When I got back to the water, once again a new and sleeker craft was there for me.

Tonight I will gather with four friends, and we’ll celebrate all that I’ve done. It will be good to eat cake and to have a friendly chat.

Today, ten years ago, I was in shock, and I was traumatized. I was on the phone to family, and while I know I was doing it all, it is as if I’m looking back on events that happened, and in my mind as if someone gave me a “forget-it-all pill.” I have no memory of the stuff that happened that day. Clearing the trauma took it all away.

Today, while out, I spoke naturally, used Dutch, and smiled at people, and all along the way I’m marveling at how normal it all is. This is an experience that hasn’t happened in the last ten years of doing August 28th.

I’m not on drugs. I’ve experienced the seasons of grief and come out in good shape. I’ve discovered that grief is a soul journey calling us to attend to ourselves as gently as possible. We ride the train until we’re expelled at the central station and forced to find a new line. In our wanderings we discover shops and hiding places we haven’t seen before. We take delight in the new discoveries and understand that, while it doesn’t seem like it at first, our loss and the grief it has brought is a gift. You can’t see this at the beginning because all you can do is cry. For weeks and months, it seems as if your universe has done a number on you—it has!!!

You are not in a dream; you are in a place feeling things you never knew about, and never in your wildest dreams could have imagined for yourself. And then the tears change, the river changes, and you exit the winter of grief to find the first vestiges of hope. It is spring! Slowly and gently, spring will move us into summer. We stay in summer, learning and growing, until finally, one day, we’re seasoned well enough to invest in the warmth of fall, with its rich and deep colors, and now, with our wisdom, we understand that the tearful winter of grief enables us to exercise new freedom.

While some of this has been really hard, I won’t take it back. It has made me who I am, and I understand that it all links together.

I waited for the right day to say goodbye to Jon: I did that in 2022 at Bracelet Bay in Wales. Today I greet the next decade with curiosity and hope in my own tiny home, and with a new future. The woman sitting at her dining table on August 29th of 2016 did a great thing. I really did this! Today, it was a non-event that has for so many years been an event. Today, it was just another day.

Reflections, Part 6

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, Soul Peace and Journeys, The Suicide and its Aftermath

Read Part 5 here.

The Dissection

Giving that outfit I wore on the day of Jon’s death a send-off was hard, and it opened the door to other life changes. Like the outfit, I gave other changes time and sat with each one over a period of time. The first major life change was my exit from the Mormon Church. It had been brewing for years, and when I finally did leave, I left peacefully. No regrets or looking back: only looking forward now.

The spiritual direction program I became involved in was about my soul journey and being led to a new place in my life. That happened four years after I became a widow and took a full two years to complete. It opened up a new way of framing spirituality in my life. It taught me that “fixing” a perceived wrong in someone is not the only path to healing. Therapists fix; spiritual directors don’t, and whatever needs healing happens. Sometimes the healing comes from within, and spiritual direction facilitates changes in its own powerful way. Prior to 2016, I had not been aware of what power “direction” could hold. I had to be out from my former church for that to happen.

Covid-19 taught me about staying safe and challenged me to accept my own vulnerability. While we as a world sat isolated in our homes, we each came to grips in our own way that this thing could kill us. When I was told by a doctor to not risk going out, I listened, and that choice was a no-brainer for me. It also made me realize that this was one thing I was glad that Jon wasn’t around for. He’d have been unreasonably scared. Part of his bipolar pathology revolved around outside threats. We were all scared of something we couldn’t see, and watching friends and family get sick and die was hard. Knowing it could kill us was worse in many ways. And so, in 2023, when the doctors told me to not travel anywhere where I couldn’t get to a hospital fast, I listened, and I cancelled a planned trip. Four years into the process (2020), I listened because I was learning to make choices that kept me safe. This would serve me well when, in 2023, I listened to a friend, and then to myself. It saved my life—twice.

Walking this new path enabled me to admit to myself that it was time to do the personal therapy I needed to take on. I needed to stop stuffing it in and jettisoning the entire trauma. My captive iceberg needed to be freed.

Looking back on all of it now, I see the chain of events that led up to where I am now.

The freedom of exploring my life after I left Mormondom also allowed me to look at who I am as a woman. As women in the Mormon Church, we have a narrow field of options: sister, daughter, wife, and mother. Being raised in the 1960s and 1970s, the options in adult life were wife and mother.

I knew early on that marriage was not in the plans for me. I understood that I needed to follow a professional path. The problem in the Mormon Church is that you are taught from an early age to trust fifteen old white men. You are at their mercy, and if they are super conservative in their thinking, your options get quelled. In the 1960s and 1970s, women started finding jobs out of the home, and the war within raged as it did with me in the 2000s when I was married. With a prophet in the 1970s telling women to stay home, and a prophet in the 1980s telling women to leave jobs and to go back into the home, women were pulled and torn between what was best for them on a personal level and what church leadership was saying they should do.

I made the choice while in the Mormon Church to pursue my professional goals, and to work as a therapist. This was a personal choice, and one that only I could make. Like other women of my generation, I made the choice that would enable me to pursue the goal I’d set at sixteen: becoming a therapist.

When I married in 1998, the war waged on in my mind. Wife vs. wanting and needing to do what I loved doing: working in my profession. The good Mormon wife stayed home. We didn’t have children, and we’d never have children. I was torn between guilt and what I knew my personal truth to be. Whether it was volunteer work in the early 2000s, or paid work later on, I chose to work.

Once I left the Mormon Church, it all opened up! I didn’t have to play a role. I could enter into life not having to ask if I should walk a path that would allow me to be seen as Gail the woman, and not the wife, the woman who was not a mother, the woman who loves her profession, the woman who is even free to explore her sexuality—no matter who she is. This was just as liberating as the day in September of 2016 when I walked into the hair salon and announced that I wanted to go grey. Oh my, the women celebrated my newfound freedom from the bottle. That journey took six months and has been something I’ve enjoyed. Yes, Jon, I will never bottle my hair again.

And so, like the grey hair, I settled in to enjoying the real Gail.

I stand in my petiteness, and I claim myself as I am. I understand that who I am is mine alone to claim. I honor the process of releasing the trauma of my life—all of it had to go. I sit here and recall the mail I got right before the therapy session. My therapist sent it to me. It was the story of an iceberg. I crushed on the iceberg. “She” gave me courage. With her in my thoughts and at my side, I tore into the trauma, and I set it free. I owe my happy iceberg a huge thank you. I owe myself a thank you. Where will this journey head to next?

Facing the Storm Head-On

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

When I wrote “Psychotherapy Soup,” I failed to mention one thing: showing up authentically to the therapy session. This might sound like a strange statement that I just made, and it was an omission on my part. So, I’m making up for it now.

I’m finding in screening clients who call me that those being referred from a list produced by a third party might be sent to the wrong therapist, or the right therapist at the wrong time!

It is my job to understand when you are ready for me, and when there might be a step before you begin work with me. You may not know, until you talk with a therapist, the path you need to take. This is why we offer consultations, and the chance to figure out if it is the right time for the fit, and the right fit for both of us.

For example: you might want to avail yourself of the hospice chaplain before the person dies. Then you might want to give it a while to see IF you really need to do more work around your loss. In this age of the “instant” fix, waiting is a good thing, and it is becoming a lost skill. On the other hand, when you are a year out, and you or someone else notices your lack of functioning, it might be time to give yourself the opportunity to get connected with the right therapist for you. This means that you may have to vet some people.

How can you vet a therapist when your brain isn’t fully functioning? Take the time to ask friends. I say this because in this period of your grief, your concentration, sleeping, and moods may all be out of sync. It can take time to get back into a synced space. In 2026 we’re still in that place of the instant everything. People want to move on to the next relationship, but they might not want to walk the path of the journey, and it is a path that does serve a purpose. People are avoiding the work of going through it to get to the place of being raw and sitting with some super uncomfortable stuff. Some people want to get to the other shore before they’ve done the work of crossing Styx.

The catch in all of this is that you need to be able to show up authentically so that you can do the real work of healing.

Healing is really hard work. Grief is not for wimps! It takes major guts to sit in a session, and to let it all hang out, and then to claim the pain, the loss, the sorrow, and to face the truth in the relationship that has been lost. The fact is that even good or great relationships need a good sorting out! Fear is one of the reasons people may be quick to find someone new and not go through all the grieving process that they need to complete before moving forward in a healthy manner.

I recall at somewhere between year three and four, when the ugly crying was all cried out and the new tears came into being, that I realized I could finally face the sorting of this marriage I’d been in. Here I was, and then, and only then, was I able to do the work of facing the caregiving, and the fact that his bipolar disorder had put me into a place of compassion fatigue. This was close to the four-year mark of his death! He’d done the deed in 2016, and now, smack, in the middle of the pandemic, I’m coming to terms with having to face the truth about what I’d lived through, and what I’d done. 

It is known that people who have to settle complicated estates may not begin to grieve until the last meetings with lawyers and the courts are finally behind them. It is then that the real tears come, and people in their lives think to themselves, “Why are they falling apart now? They’ve been so strong.” NO, they were in survival mode. Now, two or three years out, they can finally let loose with the grief.

Grief takes the form it needs to take until the body and the mind can let it all out.

And so, showing up to a therapist’s office in an authentic way might take time because while you know you may need to do the work of healing, you aren’t ready to do the work because the time isn’t right.

Therapists lack crystal balls. While some of us might possess a gut sense for things because we’ve hung out in this space for some time, our knowing is limited.

I’m pretty good at sensing in a call or a first session if this is a good fit. I’m also not afraid to tell you I’m not the right person for you. I think that some people view finding a therapist as a shopping excursion. You go into the shop and see something you like. You figure that it will do just fine. Then, you get it home, and you find that it is all wrong. Now, can you take it back? Maybe, and maybe not.

What would the experience of shopping be like if you did some research before you purchased something? In March I was looking for a new dress, and my usual online sources were not working for me, and so, like the intelligent soul I was, I put out feelers on Facebook. Two friends responded, and they told me about an online source I didn’t know about. It solved my desire for dots, and it allowed me to discover a place that had dresses I like. It also answered the question of how I will rebuild my wardrobe for the spring and summer.

The fact is that it is OK to research until the right person is found. That being said, don’t be so selective that you pass over a good therapist.

I’ve spoken about my own journey of healing with grief and trauma. It took me about four months of meeting therapists and screening them out to know that I needed to see if a therapist I knew would be willing to work with me. I knew after shopping around that I’d found the person. The question for me was: Am I willing to give up one relationship to benefit the relationship of healing? Was I also ready to do some intense work, and take the time it would take to do that work? I realized that there would be no perfect time to do what needed to be done. I wrote a mail, and we met. I told him that I expected him to treat me as a client/patient and not like a therapist who knew about therapy. I would show up as myself, do the work in an authentic manner, and I was enabled to clear the battlement and the iceberg out in the ocean. The deal was that I had to be willing to show up and not mess around.

The other part of the deal was that I had to be willing to go through some scary stuff, and do it alone. I say that because the stuff I cleared isn’t stuff you really should put on friends.

Doing the work of healing is all about courage. Facing the work in the moment it happens takes guts, and it isn’t for wimps. It’s about facing the storm head-on and believing that you can get past it by going through it, because on the other side there is a better way of being. Well, in 2026 the storm has blown out.

Exiting the Stuff-It Club

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

The battlement is empty, the communication office has shut down, and unemployment has been granted to all. I think they are sipping drinks on the warm beaches of their dreams. Hmm, did those imaginary souls have imaginary bucket lists? Oh, before I get too silly, I’ll move forward.

I want to note here that it is somewhat risky to admit that I sought treatment for trauma. I have done the writing I have to inform people, and to normalize what I have done. I’m exiting the “stuffing-it club.”

If you had asked this former professional “stuff-it” expert at any age if I’d be writing these words, I’d have laughed you out of the space we were both in. I flash back in my mind to the young Gail in her twenties, and the therapist that should have been able to see a wee bit more than she did. I give her grace and grant her a pass. She walked me out of one mess, and it was good.

The fact of psychotherapy is that in the 1970s we didn’t know enough about PTSD or any form of trauma to treat it effectively. Some of what is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statical Manual (DSM) wasn’t there, and is only present now because of what we know now, and have learned, and will continue to learn. Cut us some slack.

In the late 1980s it was a short encounter with a therapist who enabled me to ask myself one or two vital questions. The guy served his purpose well.  

In the 1990s two therapists taught me about approaches to healing that I needed to experience. I was able to count those hours as part of the state requirement for therapy. However, I’d stuffed childhood into the deep reaches of my mind. It lived there until in 2023. I knew I’d need to pull it out and finally take it all apart. You’ve read the posts about the journey. A few hundred words into this post, I want to talk about what is happening to me now.

About two weeks ago the end of the process happened. OK, not the full end, but the end of the process of working through all the trauma.

As the dust settles and I sit with myself, the things I notice are good, and at the same time I understand that I’m going to need to grieve some things that could have been different: things that could have been and never will be. Saying goodbye to the past in a healthy way also means greeting the present in the spirit of grace and mercy for myself. Saying hello to the present means facing what has been missed out on and making peace with it. I did the stuffing, and I’ll claim it.

Well now, this is a new type of grief. I can do this!

I started to notice the changes in my responses to everyday things shortly after the end of the process came. This first one is huge: I don’t say shit and fuck the way I once did. Swearing is shorthand for getting what we’re feeling out fast. Fine, go ahead and let it rip, and then after the shorthand try to do the long response. I believe that because the calm has come into my life. I’m in a place to react to the nutty things in a calm manner. Here’s an example: I got a mail informing me that the government wants a crazy amount of money from me. I did what many would do: I let a few choice words rip. Then, I pulled back for an entire weekend and thought about how to do this ugly thing. Both responses were needed, and I was able to work through possible solutions. Am I happy about what I’ll have to do? NO. However, getting there in a calm fashion is a great outcome. I’m also liking myself better for what doesn’t happen to me now. The anger was not who I am.

Another positive outcome from doing this kind of work is that I see things in a new way. I’m a good therapist: this I know due to client feedback, and being in touch with myself. Because of what I’ve done for myself, I’m an even better therapist. The reason why I can hold out with grace for my past therapists and myself is that I get that they can’t be judged for what they couldn’t and didn’t know. I wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened to me.

In 2026 we now understand how trauma affects the body and the mind. We understand about feedback loops and responses to things, and we get how the brain and body learn to respond to trauma. I can also send someone to a psychiatrist to see if medication is indicated. At the appropriate time I might also refer someone to needed allied specialists that are out of my scope of practise. Now, within mental health, we’ve got options that your parents didn’t have!

I want to mention that all therapists should keep a supervisor on the payroll. We also need to have the ability to take things to our own therapists. A second pair of eyeballs on our own issues is a must. I’m thankful that I have the needed eyeballs.

Twirling in My Mind and Heart

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

Moving into a place where I can say that the work of healing is complete has been a process of reclaiming my heart, my head, and a few pretty new dresses. I feel like I’m on a fantastic journey.

I’ve crushed on an iceberg and fallen headfirst into a delightful new place of being. It only took forever to get here! I’m alive!

What can I say but “Welcome to your new world, Gail.”

If I had known then what I now know, I’d have taken my own therapeutic advice and done all of this sooner. Or would I have?

I think part of getting professional help is all about timing and feeling good about doing it. This process comes from within, and one of the challenges people face is finding the right fit.

Sometimes people get lucky and they connect with the right fit from the first try, and other times it is a series of calls and sessions. Sometimes a person will not understand why the therapist wants to refer—yet again—to another therapist. We’re doing it for you, the client, because whatever the reason, it isn’t a good fit.

In my journey, I went through several therapists before I found the right professional. My process was helped by the fact that I knew and understood what I needed to be looking for from someone who did the work I needed to be guided through. I had more than one “nope, not it” situation. I followed my gut, tapped into my resources, and finally said yes to a gifted mind surgeon. We matched well. I’m glad I had the patience to ride it out.

Things have changed in so many ways, and now as I near the finish line for one portion of the process, I begin to see what needs to happen next.

Soon, it will be mop-up time: the time after the battle when you do the cleaning and are able to see the new area for real.

I don’t feel sad; I feel a sense of peace. I can claim my life in a new way.

Yesterday I was interviewed for a podcast. I put on a pretty dress, did my hair, and sat in a calm state of mind. When it was done, I realized that this would be a two-parter. I spoke about the process I’d been through in the last ten years as it related to my church life. For the first time in a long time, peace ruled the process. I’m finding that, in a happy way, I’m unpeeling the new, yet old, personality of Gail. It is the Gail who enjoyed a pretty dress and always will. It is the Gail who can twirl in delight over happy things. It is also the Gail who now stands as a new adult to say, “This is the real me, stand aside, I need to do new things in my life.”

Healing is about being able to calmly think and reason through the essential things of life. It is about being intact in new ways and allowing for reason to rule where it once failed because you were too busy broadcasting out to the captain on the vessel. We can now look at the stuff we had to send out to the iceberg, discharge it, and celebrate a life built and based on safety and a peaceful heart and mind.

Recently, a friend began a GoFundMe for her disabled son. I heard her words, read the post, and decided what I was willing to give. In the past I would have made a choice to give but I would have jumped through the hoop of being unreasonable in my donation. It felt good to press the button on this, and not vacillate over doing so.

Lately, I’m thinking that I’m liking my personal life much more than I did a year ago. I’m not hiding anymore. It is liberating!

Last week I splurged on myself and allowed myself to buy two fine dresses for my birthday that will arrive in April. Hopefully, the warm weather will come too.

I realized that I’ll need some warm things for the winter, and this time it will be things that I really like because settling is no longer an option. This is all exciting and wonderful, and I’m liking this part of the process.

I couldn’t have done this in any other way, and I celebrate the time it took. Moving towards the real me is a gift. I’ll be twirling in my mind and my heart, and I can’t resist the smile that is breaking out on my face. The end of this portion of the journey is close!

Icebergs and Admirals, Part 2: Reshaping the Self

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

This is Part 2 in a series about trauma. Please read Part 1 here.

The admiral, in her boat, realizes that this gatekeeping for trauma must be shut down. Her text goes something like this: “Look, I get that there is trouble landside. If this destructive protection continues, I can no longer guarantee that the iceberg will remain stable. We need to shut this down, and do it in a controlled fashion. Let’s get the loyal soldiers of the mind sent out to retirement!”

What happens when the soldiers find out they will be let go is a joyous celebration. The soldiers didn’t want to have to serve as warriors. Who does? Trauma happens, and they get the job.

The process of releasing all trauma stored in the mind is a slow and careful one. With willing participants, it will be hard: it will also be worth the pain of it all. Going through the process is not a pleasant experience.

I mentioned in Part 1 that many people avoid the work of releasing the trauma because they fear that if they do so, they will fall apart, and dysfunction will ensue. Here’s a news bulletin: they are already in that dysfunctional zone! It is sensed by those who are avoidant to the work, and by those who are not able to see what is really going on underneath it all. Those in the second group feel that something is “off,” and while they don’t say anything due to a social contract, they do know that, deep down, things aren’t right.

This can set up clients to embark on a healing journey alone. Sometimes the client gets lucky and has one or two friends who get it. The friends agree to stand with the client in the journey.

Way back in “postland,” I wrote about being in the room with someone going through hard things. This is what good friends will do. I had two such people in my life, and while I knew there would be times when I had to sit with things all alone, I vaguely got where the boundaries and the limits were in that support. Trauma can mess that up for people, and relationships. I came to find out that I didn’t have the full understanding I needed with limits and friendship.

With all things in place, I went into the hard work of getting things repaired.

One by one, the land soldiers were called to the front of a battlement where, for the first time ever, their hard work was acknowledged, and they were excused with honor. Each time this process happened, the iceberg that was out at sea would shrink in its burden and grow in its beauty to become its full and true self.

The therapist allowed my words to stand, and honored them as I did. It was safe to claim my words. Sometimes the sessions left me in deep and dark places, and at other times the session was liberating. All of it worked to create the ability to come to terms with the awful, and to give thanks that I had done what I needed to do to heal the pain of the past.

The healing enabled me to understand that it wasn’t my fault. For some things that I had to let go of, I had been a child at the time. For other things, I had to come to terms with things that happened in my adult life. There were reframings and realizations that I had to revisit loyalties in relationships. All of it was hard and painful and sometimes lonely.

Each time I was able to release a soldier from the burden they had so loyally defended, I felt something float away from that iceberg, and the reason for the solider being there to defend things was no longer present. Over a period of months, things changed—until one day everyone had cleared out of the fortress that had stood for so long.

Now, the work of rebuilding could take place.

Rebuilding means that you can reach for the sun. We grieve the past and begin to celebrate a new future. What healing looks like is a slow discovery of a new life: a life where warriors are no longer needed, and they are sending text messages to admirals guarding icebergs. Now the admiral sends out messages to reject an attempt to ugly up the iceberg, and to get to work on addressing the present issue so that the iceberg will not become something unwanted and sent out to sea.

Healing means accepting the responsibility of facing the stuff head on. Where we once stuffed our trauma and sent it out to sea—to the iceberg—we are now able to assign ourselves to the greater task of dealing in the present. This is functional, and at first it will seem strange. Learning to know when to seek help is a new skill that we now come to face willingly.

It is strange because, for so many years, you did things that led you to feel yourself that you could cope—just like others. You went to school or work, the bills got paid, you did normal life stuff—and you did it stuffing everything away. You fooled yourself into believing it was all OK. It is the ultimate lie.

The ultimate truth is that humans are not made to live in a state of trauma for their entire lives. Trauma can cause illness, the inability to function at our highest capacity, and shattered relationships. Trauma will lead us to believe that all is really well when, in reality, all is not well at all: it is the ultimate lie masquerading as truth, and the ultimate truth is that it must all stop. And so, the delusion of safety shatters. The real sobbing is the signal that, at last, the soldiers of the mind can be released to go sip drinks on the warm beaches and relax from their labours.

Healing is all about doing the right things for the right reasons. Healing is about grieving what once was, and celebrating the light of discovering that there are better ways to do life.

Healing also means that the admiral guarding the iceberg is given permission to send what was once hidden beneath the surface back to land. The admiral now protects the iceberg in new ways. She tells the land folk that they are strong enough to handle what comes up in life.

As we strengthen muscles that have been dormant for some time, we learn what we missed out on. We celebrate the new life before us.

We have WOW moments, and we learn that we can move ahead. For the first time, the carnage of the life we lead is seen clearly. Healing is a series of incidents that lead us to new self-discovery. The work of healing from trauma is about being willing to say WOW as much as we need to. It is about finding the courage to do something real: heal ourselves.

Icebergs and Admirals, Part 1: Melting

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

This post is going to attempt to explain how the mess of trauma operates in the mind. There are players in this post: the iceberg, which serves as a safe place to store the trauma, and the loyal soldiers who are assigned to defend the fortress on land, or the mind. The soldiers send the trauma to the admiral, who is in a boat by the iceberg. The admiral is a gatekeeper who lets trauma in to be stored inside of the iceberg and can alert the players to the situation as needed. The therapist is a neutral facilitator of the healing.

Walking out of trauma is tricky. We believe that trauma is completely “land based,” guarded in our personal land fortress, as we explored in “Soldiers of the Mind.” But that isn’t the whole story.

While our “soldiers” have been busy protecting the “battlements” of our minds, the real action has been going on out in the blue ocean waters, where “icebergs,” the storage centers of our trauma, have been building over time. On the surface, they look steadfast and serene. The trouble lies beneath the surface, where they grow and expand, slowly but menacingly. The beauty of the iceberg is deceptive, and each time more growth occurs, it is at the expense of its beauty. Underneath is where the ugly resides. Below the surface, jagged edges form, and they pierce anything that touches them. It is bloody and painful.

On constant surveillance of our iceberg is our “admiral.” Sitting on her ship, she tries to forestall the inevitable: the heat wave that will cause the iceberg to melt in an uncontrolled manner. Melting happens, and it happened to me.

Melting, or the discovery of how significant the trauma below the surface is, caused me to sit in my living room on my sofa and sob. Sobbing was the awakening of how ugly the underside of my iceberg was. It took three more months to commit to a step that led me to do the work of healing what was below the surface. The jagged edges had to go.

I’m all about rubber-meets-the-road solutions, so I’m going to tell you how to find what you need to heal the iceberg.

I had to talk to a great many therapists to sift out the right therapist from wrong fits. This is where my journey began.

I wanted someone who was reliable and intelligent, someone who had done their own deep soul work, and who understood trauma. I wanted someone who would call me out if I tried to raise walls and distract myself from the process of the work. I quickly established the places where I would not find this person. I finally found the right person, wrote an email, and had something set up when, kerplop! I broke my left femur and I had to delay the onset of treatment.

Who and what I found was someone who was qualified, had done their own work, would be able to treat me like the client in the relationship, and hold me to this role. While I am a therapist, this is about me doing some hard work. I didn’t need someone who could not hold that boundary. Adam (not his real name) could do all of this. Gender wasn’t an issue for me with finding the right person. Qualifications were the top priority. And so, with the admiral guarding the iceberg both above and below the surface, the work of reconfiguring the iceberg began.

The admiral’s role in all of this is to serve as a safety while the real work beneath the surface occurs. The therapist is going to take things apart in a safe manner and move cautiously to rebuild what soldiers on the iceberg’s mass have defended, while the soldier’s job is to defend on land what is actually occurring beneath the iceberg and out at sea.

The best way of explaining it is that while the trauma happens on land, it sends out messengers who can deliver the needed information to be stored in the iceberg. Trauma is a two-front war.

How this all happens with things getting sent to the iceberg is not our fault. If we did not send things to the iceberg, we’d be in an even larger mess.

Healing from trauma is going to destabilize the iceberg. It is a good thing, this shrinking of the iceberg. Lots of stuff that has been sent out to sea to be protected is going to get knocked free, and with the freedom, a healthy, pretty iceberg will float proudly on the surface of the water.

So, with the admiral controlling the iceberg, the job is to alert the mind to when critical mass has been reached. Once again, and this time in reverse fashion, the admiral contacts the land forces, alerting them to the fact that the iceberg is in a dangerous situation, and that destruction is certain should things go any further.

In a very real way, this is what caused me to sob on the sofa, and to finally, after decades of filling my iceberg to dangerous capacity below the surface, let the admiral know that it was time to clean the mess out.

I think what most people do is bargain with their subconscious and strike a deal to coexist and believe that they can stuff things away. The crazy of it all is that we are not at fault for trying to survive. There comes a time when stuffing away no longer works. If we look at the iceberg as a container for what we are not willing to take apart, then it will all eventually blow apart on us.

The reason people don’t seek treatment is that they have come to believe that they can get by without addressing the pain. They keep telling themselves, “I’ll just do what I normally do with my inner pain and let it sit below in my iceberg.” The thing is, the iceberg just wants to be a beautiful part of the ocean landscape, and it didn’t ask to be made a most ugly thing: it got assigned to that role. Not our fault, in so many ways.

Closed Doors

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, Musings and Insights

My therapist said, “This is the you that you are without the trauma.” This is the person that I am now. It is a strange feeling. I notice myself reacting calmly to what once upset me.

It’s been twenty-four hours since I heard those words, and I find myself mourning the past, and wondering about the changes that have come about. It is a gift that I want, and yet I find myself asking the question: Would I change it if I could go back in time? That door is closed because I’ve been formed by life events. I’m a stronger soul for it. The trauma has vanished, and though I’ll know of what happened, I won’t feel the pain of it.

If the work around the trauma is deep and well thought out, the result is that it leaves our lives, and in its place a calm and quiet comes into being. I’ve not had this type of peace in my life… ever. The adjustment is mind-blowing and surprising to me.  

As I thought about things last night, after my client sessions were done and the dishes washed, that is when I let myself relax into the newness of what is happening to me. The soldier really left the battlement because I told them to go. The therapist keeps checking in with me, and at first I thought, why is this being done? I do this work. And I didn’t think it all the way through when it came to myself. It was the past talking. I’ve changed. In the beginning I told the therapist that I was presenting myself as a person who needed help, and that I was going to be the client/patient in this situation. I tried to leave the therapist at the door. Maybe I left just a tad too much at the door. I’m glad I did. I’m grateful that I didn’t try to become a therapist in my own therapy sessions. I believe it made all the difference.

The above doesn’t mean that I had not done much of the work before I entered the therapy process to discharge what I shouldn’t be discharging without guidance. You know the saying “Physician, heal thyself,” or the one about a lawyer defending themselves? Well, I’m not a fool, and I know better than to think I can see it all and be aware of everything. And so, I left my therapy hat at the door.

Some people who are receiving ketamine therapy for the treatment of depression say that they can’t remember the depression. They know they deal with depression; it feels as if it was never present. I’m not certain that I’d argue that depression in and of itself is traumatizing. On the other hand, I can argue that psychosis is traumatizing, and that being in a hospital mental ward is traumatizing.

The closed door that separates those on the outside from those struggling to relocate themselves can be traumatizing. When the brain tells us that our reality is off, and we know that the “off” thing is not supposed to be that way, it can get very confusing and scary, and the trauma of the inside ward might not be such a bad place for someone—if debriefing is a part of the after care. I’ve learned this truth from listening to my husband and others. Clearing trauma is the same way: debriefing is needed.

Jon and I had more than one conversation about the trauma associated with a psychotic episode. He shared with me the horrors of what happened to him during the single episode, and his recovery from it. He was never hospitalized. At the end of his life, he wondered if he should check himself into the hospital for a short stay. It didn’t happen.  

This brings up the question of whether it helps to seek hospitalization. Sometimes, the depression is so debilitating that the person needs to be in the hospital, and then process the results of the stay with renewed energy and insight. The risk is that, when the person is discharged, they have the energy to carry out a plan. When you can’t get out of bed, you can’t think well enough to formulate the way forward. That door is only open when energy is available for that type of thinking. A good discharge plan can serve to help someone through this phase. Remember that suicide happens when the resources run out. Two things that lower the possibility of suicide are a feeling of a sense of belonging somewhere, and resources that can help to support the needed issues.

Living without the trauma is new, and so, like someone who is getting good treatment for depression, good post-trauma work should include the adjustment phase of the process.

So why bring all of this up in a post about healing from trauma? Trauma alters lives and minds go to strange places, and while I’m celebrating the strangeness of it all, and moving forward in my life, someone else might not choose to cope in the same way. I can see how someone could become overwhelmed by it all. Now what do I do? I spent years stuffing it all down. I don’t need to do what I once did to cope. I understand how someone might feel a wee bit out of place in their world.

Accepting new things and new ways of being can be challenging for people, especially if you don’t like change in your life.

I sit here with my mind free of what was. I wonder where all this newness is going to take me. I remember the past life, where the trauma came to greet me so often, and I realize that the timing was just right for me to do the work I needed to do. What an open door.

External or Internal?

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

I sat with someone as they went through a memory of an event. They were in the past, seeing it in the present. My job was to calm them down. It took a while.

Trauma is both internal and external. Surviving a heart attack is internal, and we also witness it externally. We’ll carry the memory with us inside our head forever.

Trauma can also be deceptive. What we experience as being within ourselves is actually outside of the self. A physical reaction to external cues might cause internal reactions. We might come to believe that what we experienced was internal rather than external trauma. And so it goes that we might live years believing and thinking about our experiences in one way rather than another.

When I was six, I was abused by those who used water to traumatize me. I wasn’t able to learn to swim… until one day when I was seven, and I figured out that the water would hold me up, and I’d be able to float on the top of it. Once I figured that out, I was able to take my feet off the bottom of the pool and kick. At first nobody could tell I had my feet off the bottom of the pool, and then I got it and you couldn’t keep me out of the water. Water is an equalizer. The memory of the water stayed in my head as I conquered the physical act of swimming. It was an external thing that lived in my head.

What we fear might be the monsters in our head, and for some people with mental illness the monsters become quite real. For most of us, the monsters we live with are easier to cope with.

Sometimes our liberations come via a comment, something others say and do with us that causes us to rethink the vision of ourselves. Trauma can cause a great deal of self-doubt and second-guessing who we are. We second-guess who we are to ourselves and to the world. What if we need to cut ourselves a great deal of slack? Most of the time we need to offer ourselves kindness.

I’ve witnessed the trauma perfection cycle, and I believe it stems from thinking that “if I just do this right, all will be well.” The problem with this type of thinking is that you can never do it well enough.

When trauma is discharged, and we set our loyal soldiers free, something amazing happens. Our ability to love ourselves increases and, with it, the loss of perfectionism. Along with this loss comes the ability to react differently to what once bothered us. We tend to look at those old rainbows in new ways, and our minds are blown away by our new actions. Now the rainbows are alive with vibrant colors that we may have never been able to see before!

I’ve talked about arriving on new shores after crossing the river Styx, and this is different. Whatever this is, it brings deep peace. It satisfies. This is a different internal that resolves the external stuff. I think it is to be defined for each person in their own way. What I understand isn’t what you will understand. Once again, I thank the loyal soldiers who served. Once again, I stand in amazement for what they did for me. For now, peace has come and made a home in my soul.

Please Do! Suicide and Trauma (Revisit)

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, The Suicide and its Aftermath
blue sky and ocean

Originally posted September 30, 2019.

When someone takes their own life, what do you say to those left behind who must rebuild, pick up the pieces, and move forward?

If natural death is difficult for people to deal with, traumatic death and death by suicide are far more complex. This post is about what I call “the death bubble” bursting and making a mess. Oh, what a mess a traumatic death can be! And a death by suicide is far more complex than any other type of death. Why? Maybe it has to do with the unthinkable, and that the person taking their own life, in a sense, is “playing God,” or choosing to control a process that society says, and believes, should come at a natural end-of-life sequence. To so many it is “taboo.”

Maybe this taboo is what makes others pull back and not say anything to those affected by the death. In so many ways, those who are faced with a death caused by trauma or suicide need different support than others. I’ll try to say some helpful things here.

This Grief Is on Steroids 

The grief that surrounds suicide is intense and feels like a volcano erupting. The catch here is that it erupts in stages, each of them violent. It quakes, it steams, and at some point in time it will explode, and then all that lava slowly runs down the sides, burning everything it touches. Everything about the event and its aftermath will alter how most people who survive those they love will alter their world view. This subject matter can be addressed in another post. For now, the reader can choose to accept that the above-stated fact is fact.

As I’ve stated in other posts, grief does not have stages—it never has. Grief, at its best, is messy, and grief that surrounds suicide is best likened to a catastrophic eruption in slow motion.

During the first days, people might have to deal with a biohazard team cleaning up a very unpleasant mess. There might be a loss of possessions. These possessions could be meaningful to family and friends. The biohazard team takes it all away. If authorities in the area the person resided in still place crime tape at the scene of a suicide, there is that added burden on loved ones.

There may or may not be a viewing. There may or may not even be a funeral or memorial service. The closure that these events offer to those who mourn can be shadowed by the difficulty of these events.

During the first few years, those who mourn are forced to come to terms with their own lives, deal with the contents of a note, or the lack of a note, ask the “Why,” say over and over “I should have,” process guilt, come to terms with the death on a spiritual (not religious) level, as well as process any religious beliefs around suicide and possibly confront them. Simply stated, many survivors of a loved one’s suicide face an existential crisis. Supporting such a crisis is challenging.

What Can You Do?  

Everything I stated about death still applies here. There is more, and here it is:

The First 24 Hours

If the death has occurred in the family home, please, if possible, provide another place for the survivors to sleep. Try to keep everyone together. Ideally, a hotel should not be on the list of places to gather together.

If sleeping somewhere else will not work, the next best thing is to move in with them for the first two nights, make sure the family is fed, cared for, and assured that for right now, they aren’t required to show up for life. They are going to need to deal with arrangements for the service if there is to be such an event. They will need help on so many levels.

If there are young children involved, and if schools are in session, ask the children what they would prefer to do and arrange for it. YOU be the one to make school calls. Empathetic staff will understand the gravity of the situation and support the children in their needs.

Assistance with meals and errands can be helpful. With meals, consider the fact that clean-up needs to be kept to a minimum.

The Death Bubble 

If you’ve been through a death, you know what I’m talking about: that place where the world stops for you, and the focus isn’t about getting it done. And for however long it takes, you are in this place, or state, of surreal being. The world has stopped. Then the memorial or funeral happens, and society tells you that you have to get back to the races. You step outside, see the cars and people whizzing by, and you think, I have to get back on this grand people mover that is whizzing by me a million miles an hour! How? So you jump for it, and maybe you make it, but most likely you fall off again and wonder, Why? What is wrong with me? Then you stop and you think, I forced myself to move, and I tried to leave the bubble, but I’m still really in the bubble, and HELP! With suicide, it is as if you jump into the people mover, but you are hanging in the air and you miss the people-mover, and you get all banged up. Re-entry into the bustling world happens at a slower pace.  

When someone finally reaches a place of resolution and forward movement, it is because the hard work of grief has been journeyed. And while all might not be as it once was, a new normal is emerging.  

I tell you all of this so that you, the reader, who have not been in this place, can be aware of how to help in the beginning, the middle, and the continuing future. You get through it, but you don’t get over it. For those of us who have faced this in our personal lives, there will be differences in our process, but the understanding is there.  

Please Do! 

1. Look with your eyes. Act with those eyes and be proactive about bringing in meals, coming to clean the house, take the children for playdates, or whatever else is needed. In other words don’t ASK when; TELL your family, or friends, when you will show up! Then show up.  

2. Listen to, and provide a place for, someone to talk—if and when they want to do so. 

3. This is about them, not you. If someone is behaving in a self-centered manner, they are doing so because the pain they are facing is raw. Gentleness is needed. 

4. Keep in mind that no two suicides are alike. Once again, make no assumptions that what your friend or family member is now dealing with is anything like what you dealt with. Ask what the experience is like for them. 

5. Never ask about how the suicide happened. It isn’t any of your business. If the person wants you to know, they’ll share it. The fact is that you might not really want to hear the details that would be shared. This is not violence on a screen—this is real.  

6. What was in the note? Once again, this is private. Some people leave a note, and others don’t. Some notes give detailed reasons, and others don’t. To share a personal example, my husband worked on several versions of a note which I have. In the end, the note I found was only for me, and it was short and signed in a way only I understood. The note doesn’t get shared with others for that reason.  

7. Please stay near your friend and family member. Now, more than anything, they will need you to be present. They won’t need “fixing,” just lots of love and support.  

8. Please support them and remind them that while they may have the urge to make major life decisions, now might not be a good time to do so. If a major life change has to happen before the first year is completed, be present to support it.  

Why is #8 important? If you are in a place of dealing with trauma, the chances of making a good decision in your life is slim. Staying in a routine can help to calm the eruption that is occurring during the first part of the process. When a volcanic eruption happens, you are in “fight or flight” and survival modes. This means that cognitive functions might not be functioning as they need to in the realm of competent life choices. Offer to be a sounding board and sit with them to help them flesh out the “why” of the process.  

9. While there are no set stages to this process, there might be some feelings that are common to suicide. Some of the most common feelings and emotions that arise are anger, guilt, shock, hurt, “If only I’d known,” and being stunned into inaction by what has happened. This is normal. You don’t fix it; you listen to the survivor. In understanding this, you might also be better placed to listen as someone works through #8.  

10. Could this suicide have been stopped? This might seem strange, or out of place, on a tips list. It isn’t. I’ll share some things I learned from living with a man who was bipolar, and who discussed his ideas about why some people decide that suicide is an option.

People in emotional crisis need resources that work. They need psychiatric and other mental health people to be fully present and fully willing to serve as holding containers for their pain. The family and friends that surround them need to be open to serious listening. For instance, I had to go to some very dark places with my husband. It was going into these places that enabled me to understand the magnitude of the pain he was in. He had a workable cocktail and a great psychiatrist, and psychologist, who were extremely supportive. It wasn’t enough. For this post, it doesn’t need to be explained.  

One of the things he shared is that when the urge comes, it could be just that: an urge. I would remove what he asked me to remove from the house and get him calmed down. Those three seconds of non-access to tools made all the difference for years. He knew that I understood.  

I’m glad that places like NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and Suicide Prevention are around. They do good work. I’m especially glad that they are present for children, adolescents, and those in early adulthood. When the brain isn’t fully developed, understanding the consequences can be challenging at best.  

I’ve said it often: no one should have to find the note or the body.  

The above is complex. No, not all suicides can be prevented. There are several reasons why this is so. I’ll list them in no particular order: 

  • Lack of accessible resources
  • Lack of support, or ability to get to the resources
  • Undiagnosed mental issues that could have been treated had the person sought help
  • Family structures that are too rigid and do not tolerate outside assistance
  • Religious beliefs that prohibit mental health consumerism 
  • Lack of understanding by others of what the person is really dealing with 
  • The person masking the severity of the symptoms
  • Secrets that are thought to be so terrible that they can’t be shared with another person
  • Intense mental health issues that are so painful and untreatable that the only way out for that person is to end it
  • Uncontrollable impulsivity
  • Isolation that has gone on for decades

I’ve listed just a few of the reasons the person who completes their suicide chooses this route.  

I’d like to make a plea to the Western world: Please do take the time to know your family and embrace them for who they are. Please recognize that while we can’t save everyone, we can support and help those within our reach. A smile, a hug, sincere concern, and understanding go a long way to stopping the flood that causes so many to cross over and reach for whatever they have that will end it forever.

Please Do!

Reaching towards the Sun

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, Soul Peace and Journeys

I ended a recent post with these words: “Maybe a candle will be lit, a chocolate offered, a sunflower presented as a means of closure on this chapter of my life. Maybe a new dress? I know it will be meaningful to me, and to what the future can bring. I’m beginning to cry just thinking about it, and that’s a sign I’m on the right path.”

As I stepped away from writing that post, my heart was full. It’s been a very long journey, and it is ending in being able to say goodbye to the old, and welcoming in something new. Discharging the warriors of the past has been a labor of both love and pain. I wasn’t certain where I’d be led to in future days.

I’m choosing to say goodbye slowly and treating each warrior with respect, cutting them some slack for the hard work they did in my life. I’m welcoming them all in with open arms, and dismissing them with love in my heart. To do less would be to dishonor the process of the discharge, and myself. I needed them to stand for me when I couldn’t stand for myself through painful times.

I’m discovering that, in saying goodbye to the old in my life, I’m also saying goodbye to old things that served the process of defending me, thereby preventing me from moving forward. One such thing is podcasts that I no longer need to listen to. And so, after sitting with the concept of not needing them, I unsubscribed. The algorithms will show them for a bit and, in time, these unneeded coping tools will fade away.

Doing the deep work of the soul is also about accepting the birth of new things in my life. This work takes us into the liminal or thin spaces. You will find it spoken about by Richard Rohr and other authors.

I’m in the process of replacing some plants. I’m discovering that what I might want now is far different because of the change in my life direction. This change is opening me up to new ideas and new colors. The cool colors of the past need to be greeted by warmth along the fences of my garden. I want the colors to embrace me. I think it is about the sunflowers that have become a place of connecting in spiritual ways. I first considered them as spiritual friends after reading Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements by Christine Valters Paintner. She took me on a journey to places I hadn’t been before, and I engaged with the sunflowers.

Deep Shadow Work

I believe that if I haven’t done my own deep work, I won’t be effective with those I work with. You can’t ask someone to heal wounds that you haven’t looked inside yourself to heal. You may not have the exact same issues, but everyone has wounds and, left unchecked, they cause problems for us. Henri Nouwen wrote on the wounded in The Wounded Healer. Nouwen had his own set of challenges. This priest found rest in his own way, and by doing his own soul work. His writing is telling.

What I understand is that one of the most powerful places we can dwell in is the place of uncertainty. When you don’t have all the answers for all the things everyone wants answers for, it brings a sense of humility to our lives. Saying “I don’t know” may be the wisest thing we can say. I can tell my clients that I can lead them to healing. They have to do the work and discover their own answers.

Engaging our shadow side brings us knowledge and understanding of ourselves that we can’t bring to the surface in any other way. We are also faced with the reality that there isn’t much we know because we’ve just dug deep into the ground of ourselves and unearthed our deepest truths. This place leads us into the liminal places that cause us to rethink it all.

Not knowing is a gift not only to ourselves—it is a gift for others. As we engage with others and have the attitude that we’re open to learning their truth, we add to our knowledge base and maybe recognize within ourselves a portion of our own truth that had been blocked by our arrogant knowing.   

Having written “Solidiers of the Mind: Honorable Discharge,” I find myself sitting in the quietness of more uncertainty. I find myself asking who or what will show up in my garden to teach me something I need to learn. I think I instinctively knew that sunflowers needed to become a symbol in this process. And so, I will reach towards the sun.

Soldiers of the Mind, Part 2: Honorable Discharge

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

Continued from Soldiers of the Mind, Part 1: Walking the Battlements.

As I write this days after my therapy session, and having sat with my thoughts, I still don’t know how I will discharge this soldier that defended me from something that wasn’t mine to defend. Decades of living, and I realize now I held on to an order of defense that wasn’t mine at all but had gotten routed to me by others who failed to soldier properly.  

Why hadn’t logic and reason won out in this situation? In moments of reflection, I felt relief. I hadn’t seen things in the proper perspective. I kept thinking at lightning speed that I knew better! No, I didn’t. Not really. 

How Our Soldiers Trick Us

The lie I was telling myself was that I needed to protect the people who should have been protecting me, and who failed to listen to the child and young adult in a vulnerable position. My own inner warrior was hurt, angry, and tired of carrying something that wasn’t mine to carry. This heavy backpack had been placed on me at a young age by people who turned their heads instead of seeing the wounded.

Here I was, in a war of the mind because I had not been able to let go and say that it wasn’t my responsibility to defend. As I write this, I’m angry. I’m angry at people who should have cared enough to stop the circle of violence that raged in my life. I’ve not had one broken bone due to abuse—the brokenness was in my head. The warrior screams out patriarchy! Now there is new understanding surrounding some of the choices I’ve been guided into making over the past decade.

Our soldiers believe what they are programmed to believe. It starts when we’re young, and it creeps in slowly. By the time we’re adults, our thoughts and behaviors have become ego-syntonic. All seems normal. We don’t question what is present, and we defend our inner normalcy. The disruption comes when the cracks begin to form, and what we once believed as syntonic, or in harmony, with ourselves becomes ego-dystonic.

A good way of thinking about this is to think of how you first thought of your home as normal, and then you went to friends’ homes where there wasn’t chaos, or a parent or sibling wasn’t abusing someone. There was a different feeling in the home. Things were done differently.

Inside your head, that soldier is having to sort it all out. Wait a minute! Slowly, how we once viewed our world is altered. In healthy adolescent development, we begin to challenge and to rethink it all. We rebel to grow and to find our own personal normal. It is when we fail to question our own status quo that trouble begins to brew, and our soldiers light torches to signal threat when there may be no threat at all.

Soldiers must be called off because they are trained to act according to procedure. Most soldiers don’t question the orders because questioning can get you into a court-martial situation. Teaching our soldiers to question in intentional ways and to break cycles in our minds is needful.

A year ago, my head began to spin after a close encounter with death. It took about five months for everything to unravel and for me to really understand that my soul was not at peace. It was a thought that began to nag at me and to challenge the ego in new ways. Syntonic became dystonic, and I knew I had more shadow work to do. For that, the soldier had to leave my head and be told thank you and goodbye. The defender of my mind needed to be honorably discharged from service. It was time to stop a raging internal war and to survey the carnage. This run of the river would be much different than other stretches I’d run.

Running the River

It would take months of research to find the new therapist, and that would be helped along by an incredible spiritual director who would support what I was about to do.

In The Way of Discernment, Elizabeth Liebert lays out the framework I used to enter into the process of discovering who to see for this healing process. I found a gifted healer.

As an enneagram type eight, I understood that I’d need to let myself navigate the entire circle to bring to the forefront everything I’d need to prepare for the crash that was about to arrive. I’d let myself prepare and plan for the journey by spending time thinking about what might happen and planning for the unforeseen that would arrive. I’d observe myself closely and track it all, and I’d not stop the emotions from surfacing. I’d also ask for some helpful companionship. I’d do all of this prep before the first session, and so when the first day of talking came around, I was ready to have the soldiers of the mind face confrontation.

With many soldiers ready to be discharged, the last one stood, steadfast in her knowing that she alone was right. She wasn’t right at all. This warrior woman was not going to leave the castle battlement without a good reason to do so, and I was being handed reasoning that made sense. It wasn’t I who needed to protect anyone! The fault lay elsewhere.

Ritual and Healing

For me, rituals that I construct have always played a role in freeing me to go to new places.

In the fall, winter, and spring, my home is filled with the scent of burning candles. I breathe in the scent of a room and move to peaceful thoughts and days where the light and darkness move me to a quieter place. As the spring returns light and new growth to the earth, I hope for new things.

This past spring was a time of preparation for the castle battlements to be cleared.

My first therapist had created a story for me. It featured a lost girl who sat on the edge of a forest, and she knew that she had to go into that place, and she was scared. She went in with a guide, and in a meadow beyond the scary she discovered a butterfly with a gift: a lavender pearl.

That pearl has traveled with me for decades. I’ve crossed through many hard places, and the butterfly and pearl have been with me.

Building our own rituals of healing is a multi-level thing. It requires finding our spiritual, emotional, and mental epicenters.

I do know that my goodbye ritual began with a prayer of healing, hope, and understanding that I was not walking into this particular forest without two friends by my side.

I admit to not knowing how I’ll send this last warrior away, but she is on notice. It has been a week, and as I make my way to the battlement to hand this warrior woman her honorable discharge orders, I’m uncertain of what the goodbye ritual will look like.

Maybe a candle will be lit, a chocolate offered, a sunflower presented as a means of closure on this chapter of my life. Maybe a new dress? I know it will be meaningful to me, and to what the future can bring. I’m beginning to cry just thinking about it, and that’s a sign I’m on the right path.

Soldiers of the Mind, Part 1: Walking the Battlements

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma

“Gail, this is not your shame. This is your x and y and q’s shame.”

I sat in my chair, stunned, completely speechless, and relieved. I was also feeling so many other things in that moment. At the end of the session, my therapist looked at me and said that I looked exhausted. I was, and it is taking time to sort out what happened to me in that hour.

Decades of sadness, anger, and a feeling of needing to protect something washed over me. Logically, I understood I’d been protecting something. But what? I loved those people, and yet I didn’t love what had happened. I’d ripped the duct tape off the final wound and insult in my life, and there was nothing to say at first.

First, I needed to think about what had just happened in order to open up the way for the words to come.

What I was feeling in that first moment with my therapist was the shame of a burden that had been placed on me by others. Vulnerable, and with my heart wide open, I sank. And then I asked a question only I could answer: How do I resolve this? How do I jettison decades of damaging thinking? 

My usual process after such a session of deep shadow work is to let the heavy stuff sit in its juices, and then return to it hours or days later.

This time, things are slightly more intense. I’m sitting with the verbal release of the burden and am now asking myself how to let go of things spiritually and emotionally. It is going to take time to figure out what I need to do to let go completely. This is new for me because other issues have healed naturally.  

The difference between knowing what to say and feeling what has to be said is vastly different.

Feeling what needs to be said is about more than empathy; it is a different type of knowing. It is a real understanding of what is at the bottom of the dark well shaft where the light doesn’t reach. It’s dark and cold, and it doesn’t smell so good down there. At times people live in the well shaft, and people need to know how to find an exit.

Most of the time the help we need to exit the well comes from within ourselves. Healers can guide with questions so that we can find our way out of what might be equated to crossing the river Styx.

Richard Rohr, in Falling Upwards, speaks of the need to discharge our loyal soldier. This concept stems from Japan and the end of WWII. Soldiers had returned to communities where their warriors were no longer needed, and yet the communities still needed the men. How could they become useful in new ways? The soldiers needed to be released to make way for the new.

Many times, our old defenses are like soldiers walking the battlements of our castles. They are alert to our needs long before we realize we need to defend ourselves. They send the signal by lighting the torch. Slowly, as the message gets passed from one waypoint to another in our psyche, the soldiers that are needed are called to the front to defend us from our own monsters and goblins.

This journey is rarely pleasant, as most soul work isn’t easy. Acceptance is the process of facing what our psyche would have us deny. Our soldiers stand strong in defending our status quo. Our status quo is all about having us stay in our comfy clothes when we need to put on the clothes of work so that we can leave the safety of sheltered environments and look at the hard things of life.

Next week, in Part 2, I will share how it was to leave that safety of my sheltered environment to look at some very hard things.

Editor’s Pick: The Relationship File

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Discharging Trauma, Everything Mental Health

As Gail’s editor, I’ve had the pleasure of reading and editing all the posts here on The Gift of Being Heard. This week, to conclude a series of “author’s picks” of posts from the last several years, I am pleased to have my own pick. While there are many pieces that stand out for a variety of reasons, I decided to revisit this one, as it poignantly touches on several issues that resonate with me, such as how we can avoid antagonism in the midst of sweeping changes in one’s life, and how relationships really do continue after death, regardless of whether one believes in an afterlife. Most memorable for me, however, is the insight Gail shares about veterans returning from the First and Second World Wars, and what this meant for their processing of trauma and grief. For better or for worse, we live in a different world now. We have gained so much. But what have we lost? I hope you enjoy this post, especially if you missed it the first time around.

-Claudia

In the last decade, I’ve lost my husband, mother, brother, and sister. I’ve jokingly told my younger brother that he’s under orders not to die on me. I’ve also said goodbye to an old faith home and welcomed a new place of faith into my life. All of this comes with grief, loss, mourning what was, and needing to reexamine relationships.

Of those who have exited life, only one was old enough to do so; the other three were all far too young to go. The reality is that they are all gone. The relationships now stand for review in the memory file, and what is done is done. The past faith home also stands in a memory file. Everything is up for discussion and it’s all fair game; nothing is sacred, not even my mother, whom I love deeply.

In looking at all of this, I must turn back the clock to the year 2006, when my husband’s questioning of his faith began. At the time, I wasn’t questioning, but I did want to hear about what he was thinking, feeling, learning, and what was making him angry about it all. The process altered the way we communicated, and it led me to my own path of discovery. It was a good thing, and ultimately, I took from it that relationships can change and that the change can be for the better. We didn’t need to go to antagonism. The concept that we could be different and have a healthy relationship was new to him. We could talk and nothing was off limits. That was where we were when he made his exit. Because examination of things was possible while he was alive, it made it possible to return to the relationship after his death and turn over some of the things that I needed to look at.

Relationships don’t end at death. We carry them forward; they are woven into the tapestry of our ongoing existence. As much as we may wish to erase someone or something from our lives, we can’t. We learn through turning over the rocks to look at it all.

This is also true of my relationship with my mother. I was fortunate that for approximately eighteen years, my mother and I spent every Monday in conversation. We’d giggle, laugh, cry, learn from each other, and talk about things that were deep and serious. Obviously, we spent hours before that time in conversation. When she made her exit, the “I love yous” had been said, and the one question I never asked—the one that I’d like to go back and ask now—I think I know the answer to. Her death came less than six months after Jon’s traumatic death, and I did not go to the memorial. My not attending was a bad choice, and I learned from it. Being there is needful in so many ways.

As I examine my relationship with my mother, I can make peace with what negatives there were. I think the fact that we had that conversation base to draw on has really helped. Pushback was allowed.

Then I look at my sibling relationships. My two older siblings and I didn’t always understand each other. I’m sad about this, and I also know that it wasn’t of my making. I tried. Could I have done more?

In looking at the hard question of putting things right in life, and after they’ve made their exits, I’m challenged by the meaning of our relationship. What is “right?” I love them both. I know that they, each in their own way, loved me. As I take relationships apart, I arrive at the same nasty conclusion that I did in life: They never understood disability the way they needed to understand disability. They were never able to completely understand me. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can be at peace with my end of the relationship and that is the best I can do. This brings up another question for me, and it is one I’ve been musing on for some time.

Why is it that in death, loss, and grief, many people choose to move forward without the work of examining the loss they’ve had in life? The urge to replace someone or something can be strong, and it can also damage us. The more I sit with this question, the more I wonder if it has to do with the fact that our society has radically changed relationships, trauma, and life in general. I’ll explain using WWI and WWII.

Both of my grandfathers were veterans of WWI. They came home on ships. They came home together with war buddies, and in large numbers. On the ships they had time to process the violence and the trauma, and they supported one another. WWII came around, and their sons enlisted and went off to two different fronts: Europe and Japan. They also witnessed violence and trauma, and they came home on ships. They also came home to a hero’s welcome. Their fathers had processed the war and now could mentor their sons. War breeds atrocities, and WWII left the world with several that can never be undone. Old times weren’t any simpler, but they were slower. What’s changed? My grandfather knew the wisdom of allowing his son to prune the rosebushes and tend the garden. He worked through some of the trauma that way.

Leaving the site of battle is a matter of days or hours now. People now come home by boarding a flight that will carry them home. Veterans now come home to a fast-changing society, fast tech, and a culture that is in constant motion. They return traumatized and, in many situations, misunderstood by loved ones and society in general. It alters relationships. This is not to say that my parents’ and grandparents’ generation didn’t suffer from PTSD and other war-related issues. I’m pointing out that their return was slower and allowed for a different type of processing time.

I’m suggesting that maybe we’ve become immune to the damage we’re causing to each other by not slowing things down. In the past seventy-plus years, we’ve moved forward in both healthy and unhealthy ways. This applies to how we treat our relationships.

Are we willing to slow down and take the time to process our lives a wee bit more gently? Parting is hard. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, the past does catch us, and sooner or later what we failed to look at in the near or distant past resurfaces to bite us when we’re not looking!

I reflect back to a night around the dinner table when my father lost it over food. I realize now it was a war memory that he should have sought therapy for, but in those days doing therapy wasn’t common. At the time, it had been about thirty years post war—pruning the roses had not resolved it all. I wonder what would have happened had he looked, talked, and resolved? I wonder how our family would have been changed had he looked. I know how I’m being changed by working slowly and deeply on the past, whether it is peaceful or difficult. I’m moving forward in a healthier manner than had I rushed into my future life. I’m walking into something new, and I hope I’m doing it with grace.

Author’s Pick: Sanctuary

Posted on by Gail Shurtleff in Beyond Grief, Discharging Trauma

For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some “author’s picks” of posts from the last few years. This first one was originally posted on May 23, 2022.

There is a musical trio known as The Kingston Trio, and during their recording career they recorded a little ditty called “The Merry Little Minuet.” While it might have been humorous, it was also a serious commentary on the times. That little minuet has been playing in my head lately. The world seems to be falling apart. Wars, discord, unhappiness, and a pandemic all seem to be conspiring to bring us individually to a point of asking: How do I create a safe place of sanctuary for myself?

Those of us who have walked in the grief zone may be one up on this—but not necessarily. It depends on where we are in the process and how we’ve managed our self-care.

Sanctuary can be defined in many ways. The religious may see it as a place of worship. The spiritual person might see it as a state of being or a place in the heart. Still others may choose to view sanctuary as a specific location: their happy place. For this post, I’m going to use a bench found along a walking trail sheltered by trees that let the sun in so we feel its warmth.

How do we find this safe place? My experience is that it only comes to us as we shed the tears of pain, longing, desire, and uncertainty. It comes with the casting off of old certainties and beliefs and diving headfirst into the blackness of the unknown. It comes to us as we search for what we need and hope will spring forth from the ravages of trauma and personal havoc. In our recovery and rebuilding process, the hard work of deconstructing what was tires us out.

During our deconstruction process, we wonder about the ending. At first we stumble into momentary places of relief, but they are fleeting. Our work propels us forward to other new places of discovery. Slowly we encounter a place that offers us more than a brief rest and begins to take shape as a place of reflection and pause for our weary souls. Soon this place of the heart begins to heal us and to hold us in a place that we come to think of as sanctuary. It might hold us in a sacred place where only we’re allowed. It shelters and welcomes us. We can go there as needed.

With time, our reconstruction requires that we view our journey with both its pain and new hopes. We re-examine the old and discover the gift of the new. While what we’ve been through may have been hell, the place where we’ve arrived is a gift we’ve given ourselves.

Whether your personal grief was the loss of a loved one, the loss of health, mental illness that has left you debilitated, loss of faith or a faith transition, a failed relationship, or whatever hard thing life served you on your platter, you know this journey and place.

What does the above have to do with all of the crazy that is occurring in our world today? Those of us who have been to these dark places hold wisdom that will be useful to us in making peace with the world as it is.

We can and often do serve as witnesses that there is hope and support for you. We understand that pain can go away. We’ve asked the “When will this ever end?” question and discovered that we must hold space for searching our hearts. We’ve faced our personal realities and given them permission to blossom into something new and powerful.

We’ve come to learn that meditation, yoga, or a new spiritual self leads us to a park bench that we had no clue existed. We now sit on that bench and offer the questioner a place beside us. We can serve as life witnesses and companions for the weary because we did our own work.

As I reflect on the good, bad, and unpleasant of the past decades of life, I’ve come to realize that a topsy-turvy world can calm itself best if we center ourselves and take the time to quiet our souls. I look back and see how I didn’t have the skills to make it to a park bench. While I could manage a life-crisis situation and come out on top, I did not understand how to walk to the bench. The loss of my husband taught me to find the park bench and to be able to sit quietly on it. There is no drama here—only peace for my soul.

I think back on “The Merry Little Minuet” and reflect on my concerns for our present world state. Yes, I’m concerned that the U.S. is falling apart. I’m concerned that there is a war going on about a two-hour plane ride from here. I’m concerned that we’ll never feel as safe as we once did about viruses getting loose and infecting the world. I search my head and heart and in them I find peace because I’ve created a sanctuary for the soul. It is mine, and no one can take it from me.

Come, sit by me.