Episode Description:
How Grit and Resilience Can Help You Heal Trauma helps you consider a balanced approach to healing trauma that works. Many of us have been shamed for not knowing how to heal, and we've been told that we don't pray enough or have enough faith. We've also been told to bootstrap our healing, and if we can't, it's our fault. This approach is toxic and retraumatizing, and it doesn't work.
Likewise, many of us have been taught helplessness through example or because we've experienced so much abuse, neglect, pain, and disappointment that we no longer believe healing is possible because we feel we've tried everything. We begin to feel beaten down and hopeless. This is learned helplessness, and while it's not our fault, it CAN be overcome with a trauma informed approach. We CAN heal trauma when we balance grit, resilience, and learned optimism as skills that can be cultivated with self-compassion and body based resiliency techniques. With the right tools, healing is possible!
Breakdown of Episode
1:15 Introduction to the Episode and Topic
3:58 Why a Balanced Approach to Healing Trauma is Important
29:43 What's Grit and Resilience Got to Do With It?
35:29 What Is Learned Helplessness?
45:12 The Spoon Theory
49:14 Ways to Build Resilience
Bulleted List of Resources
- Building Your Resilience by the APA references the definition of resilience. This article discusses how resilience is a skill that can be learned to heal trauma.
- What is Learned Helplessness and Why Does it Happen by Kendra Cherry in Very Well Mind gives a definition and explanation of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a research based concept that is the opposite of resilience.
- Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman is a book I recommended in the podcast. It gives you a more detailed approach to overcoming learned helplessness and learn resilience.
- The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino is a famous article I referenced in the podcast that discusses how many of us do have realistic limitations that we must work with, but I also mention that we still have a lot of control, agency, and power to heal and grow.
- The Trauma Resiliency Model: A 'Bottom-Up' Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy by Linda Grabbe and Elaine Miller-Karas in the Journal of Psychiatric Nurses Association is an article I mentioned in the podcast that gives you the science behind resilience to heal trauma and a research based model of nine steps to apply resilience to trauma.
- Trauma Resiliency Model: Why Trauma Rehab Therapy Might Be Right for You by The Dawn Rehab is an article that discusses the nine steps in the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) in layman's terms so you can research them and apply them to your own trauma recovery.
- Growth After Trauma by Richard G. Tedeschi gives you research based steps you can use as you heal and become more resilient. Note that you won't go through these linearly, but may go back and forth and in and out of these, but will do the latter steps more as you heal.