Trauma & Loss
Trauma is often linked to an experience of loss. Loss is often the invisible thread in trauma. Maybe loss of something you should have received, but didn’t (such as affection or love). Maybe it was a loss of something or someone you had, that got suddenly removed or slowly, and painfully removed. A job, your health, a loved one.
Loss is often like a terminal illness, nothing we can truly do except perhaps put it off for awhile.
We tend to quantify and compare loss with statistics, numbers, length of time, severity, and difficulty. How many years did they suffer? Who had it worse?
But loss is loss, and no two losses are the same. Each loss (or trauma) inflicts a unique kind of pain. It is impossible to quantify and compare losses.
When we quantify and compare, we deprive an individual of the validation they need to move through the experience. Or we deprive ourselves.
We suddenly feel like the boy who scratched his finger but cried too hard to receive much sympathy. It is suddenly dismissed and unworthy of attention.
So what can we do?
The goal is not to compare “how bad is it?”, it’s to gain meaning from the suffering so that we can grow through it.
Processing or healing grief isn’t about getting over it either. It’s about learning to live through it. It’s to absorb it and allow it to become part of who we are, and who we choose to be from that experience.
We cannot “recover” what loss we’ve experienced, but we can learn to grow in our loss by understanding the power of response.
*recover defined as expecting to resume the way we lived prior to the loss.
*response defined as the choices we makes the grace we receive, and the transformation we experience during the loss .
A response, is the find meaning in what you have lost. Not right away, but by feeling it, processing it, and sitting in the pain. By allowing that pain to penetrate so deeply that it creates something new in you, something wonderful you didn’t think was possible.
Reference: A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser
-With deep sorrow comes deep joy- with the power of response.
Change begins with understanding the self-sabotaging patterns we engage in
When conflicts arise, we want our partner to change their behavior, or our child to change their behavior. Sometimes we even want our own parents to change their behavior. Here is what we rarely understand: Those are our survival responses, and If we want our circumstances to change for good, it starts with inner work.
A crucial aspect to any change we want to see, is change within ourselves. But, what often gets us stuck is self-inflicting punishment we place on ourselves. Thoughts like…
Why did I do that??
Why can’t I calm down?
I really need to stop doing ______
I can’t believe I acted that way. It would be easier to just pretend it didn’t happen
She has her life together, and I don’t
People my age are married, clearly I’m not there yet because of _____
I’m being so lazy
I need to stop doing _____
I have to do _____ otherwise what if this happens?
I’m too nice. I need to set more boundaries.
I did it again. What’s wrong with me?
I shouldn’t watch TV because I wasn’t even productive today
This isn’t who we really are. These are voices and patterns that have been ingrained in us at some point in our lives growing up. Here is what all of these examples have in common: shame, rules, unrealistic expectations, comparing, minimizing, labels, judgement, and criticizing. All forms of punishment we give ourselves. The punishment we inflict on ourselves, becomes a reflecting of how we treat others and perceive others—which can then turn into a harmful interaction.
As I always say, how someone treats others or talks about others, is a reflecting of their own insecurities and inner demons. Recognizing this or reading this in itself may prompt you to dismiss, but I urge you to resist. Instead, learn how to offer self-compassion. Self-compassion is often the antidote to shame and punishment, but self-compassion is a skill we often are not taught growing up. Consider replacing one of the above thoughts with one of these…
Would I say this to my friend? My child? My colleague?
“There we go again, I can see part of me is struggling and that’s okay”
“What am I ignoring?”
“If I know how to be a good friend to others, I can be a good friend to myself. What would I do if my friend was suffering?”
“You are not your mistakes”
“It’s okay to feel frustrated and hurt”
“I’m not lazy, I’m struggling”
“I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve been given”
“I’m scared, and I choose to be present with it. My emotions are my friends, not my enemy”
“You care so much that it’s making you angry, that must be hard”
“I have a need under that criticism. What is that need?”
“you don’t need to do anything in order to be valuable and loved”
Remember that as you practice self-compassion, it is likely a muscle you’ve never used or rarely used. Like any muscle, it will take time, practice, and consistency to build up and become effective.
Can you accept the word “no”?
Can you accept the word “no”?
•You ask your partner if they can help you with something and they say “no”
•You ask your friend if they want to hang out today and they say “no”
•You ask your child to clean up their toys and they say “no”
Do you get reactive, upset, or offended?
If you find it difficult to hear or experience that word, it might be worth exploring this within yourself. The word “no” can be paired with previous experiences of rejection, abandonment, or neglect in your past. It can also be associated for the need to control, whether that is the ability to control a person or situation.
A no could be received and interpreted as “this person is going to leave me” or “this person doesn’t value me”. It could also be interpreted as “If this person doesn’t do what I say, something bad is going to happen”. All of the above are fear-based thoughts and are typically created as a way to protect ourselves from previous painful experiences of “no’s”.
But remember a “no” is not a good or bad response. It is merely just, a response. For some, it may be used to set healthy boundaries. For some, it may be used because they don’t know what else to say. For children, it may be to the extent of the language they have to self-advocate.
Remember to ask yourself the next time you feel reactive to a no:
•How am I defining a “no”? How does the other person define a “no”?
•Am I putting my self value in a “no”?
•What am I trying to control and why?
•What is my childhood/history with a “no”?
•What have I been taught in the past when someone says “no” to me
•What is the core issue?
#NonCompliance #Defiance #traumainformed #individualhistory #sayingno #appliedbehavioranalysis #rootissues #behaviors #sayingno
Shaping your Relationships: Reinforcement vs. Punishment
Wouldn’t it be nice to have more control over your relationships? Albeit, there are some things we inevitably do not have control over, such as our partner's behaviors or how a stranger treats us. But here is what we can control: our own responses and our own actions. This is powerful because our own actions can influence and shape our partners or strangers behaviors in the way that we desire them to be.
If you want to take more control of your life, here is a different take on how to influence your interactions' direction. One of the most important concepts from behavior analysis is the concept of punishment and reinforcement and understanding how it applies to everyday life. If you aren’t familiar with applied behavior analysis (ABA), it is the scientific study of behaviors (both internal behaviors such as emotions and external behaviors such as our daily actions). Those who have studied in the field use a data and analytical approach to create positive change in a person or animal's life through individualized strategies catered to them.
Let’s review a quick recap of the difference between reinforcement and punishment from a behaviorally scientific perspective. See below:
Positive Reinforcement (adding something pleasant): A mother gives her son praise (reinforcement added) for doing homework (behavior)
Negative Reinforcement (taking away something aversive): Bob does the dishes (behavior) in order to stop his mother’s nagging (nagging is taken away)
Positive Punishment (adding an aversive stimuli): Making a child do an unpleasant task when they misbehave (positive punishment)
Negative Punishment (taking away something pleasant): A wife tells her husband that she is feeling frustrated with him, and the husband ignores her (attention taken away)
*Key Note: Negative punishment AND positive punishment both provide negative results and can increase an undesired behavior, and should always be used as a last resort
With reinforcement, a behavior or action is likely to increase because they are motivated by either something unpleasant that was removed, or something they desire is provided in response to the behavior. However, the consequences of punishment can result in…
A harmful emotional response ( feelings of shame, fear, anxiety, guilt, self-punishment, or low self-esteem)
potentially increase aggressive behavior (because it models aggression)
Suppress a behavior (i.e. they may stop communicating to you because you don’t respond to them anyway or they don’t feel safe)
It does not teach a replacement: It does not teach, replace, or model to them the appropriate alternative, so they are likely to repeat the behavior
Temporary Boomerang effect: once the punishment is withdrawn, the behavior will come back again
Punishment doesn’t just come in the form of actions, but also in words. Verbal punishment can look like this..
“If you don’t do X then I’m leaving you” (negative punishment)
“You’re grounded because you didn’t study hard enough/get straight A’s” (negative punishment)
“That’s not good enough” (positive punishment)
“You’re not listening” (positive punishment)
“Why can’t you get this right?” (positive punishment)
Does any of it sound familiar? Typically, we do better when we are offered reinforcement such as acknowledgement or praise for something we did “Wow nice job I can tell you’ve been working really hard”. However, punishment can make us feel less of a person, feel like we are not good enough (or never will be good enough), and frustrated– which can lead to suppression of emotions and unhealthy emotional responses. This is the cross-section of where we tend to encounter harmful or frustrating behaviors from others. In children, unhealthy responses can look like tantruming, grabbing, hitting, screaming, biting or simply refusing to listen. In adults, unhealthy responses can look like yelling, road rage, slamming doors, getting defensive, shutting down, blaming, or verbal name calling.
It’s important to think about if our own actions and responses offer reinforcement or punishment to those we interact with daily. The more we engage in punishment behaviors, the less likely we are going to gain access to what we want from a person, which is someone who reciprocates in a cooperative, loving and respectful way. The good news is every response is a skill, and new skills can be acquired, shaped and changed.
Here are some ways we can influence what we want in a relationship, whether that is with a friend, family, stranger or partner.
Think of replacements for toxic responses. Instead of nagging, learn how to share a need or boundary. Instead of throwing a dangerous item, is throwing is helpful, learn to throw soft pillows.
Avoid attention or reinforcement for undesired behavior. This is especially big for children who learn at an early age to behave in ways to get their needs met. Instead of giving attention or reacting to the behavior, respond to the child’s underlying needs. A child is throwing a tantrum? An underlying need may simply to be comforted and held by mom (the item they are tantruming about will eventually fade if the parent knows how to meet their needs, believe me).
Be consistent with your reinforcement and responses (and mean what you say). Consistency is linked to trust. So if you are say one thing but do another, or you say you will doing something but you only do it occasionally, it will be difficult for parent, child, colleague to believe what you say. This is where challenging responses come in.
Model what you want. If you want your husband to emotionally support you, how well are you offering that yourself? If you want your child to stop responding a certain way, are you modeling that response in any way?
Consider self-reflecting: How are you responding to yourself? Are you reinforcing or punishing yourself, when bad things happen? What about things that happen that are not in your control? How are you responding, and how is the world responding to you? What is that teaching you?
If you feel you have healthy relationships, here is a challenge:
How are your actions and responses reinforcing or shaping those around you? In other words– what behaviors are you reinforcing on social media, at work, in friend circles, children, etc? Are you reinforcing the right ones?
For example, say person A posts a comment on an article Person B posts and person A writes “That’s stupid, they have no idea what they are talking about”. If person A gets a response (thats not a reprimand), or even a “like” to their comment, people just socially reinforced that behavior. Therefore, that person is going to think it is appropriate and okay to respond to just about anything that way.
Another example: say your friend is stating “wow I don’t think that girl showers, she has a bad smell”. And you respond “oh yeah I see what you mean”, just to appease and go along with your friend. What you just did was reinforce a behavior for speaking badly of others and thinking lowly of others. Therefore, those types of statements will continue with others.
One of my own personal goals that I made was that I was going to stop acknowledging and responding to negative comments pro-actively. If it’s a self-pity comment, a condescending one, a blaming one towards me– I’m going to do my best to provide a response that does not encourage or continue the conversation. However if they are showing vulnerability, they are communicating their needs, they are apologizing or acknowledging differences, I’m ALL in and I’m going to reinforce that to its fullest.
This is why it’s important to reinforce appropriate behaviors for kids at a young age, they are our future generation!
How to communicate during conflict: Voice your EFN
Many of us were rarely taught how to communicate in a healthy way. Here is a simple acronym to communicate safely and effectively. Voice your...Emotion, Fear, and Need (EFN)
Step 1: Understand Context
Remember that this is a new skill that you and your loved ones are practicing. A skill takes practice, time, failed mistakes, patience, and compassion. Have realistic expectations.
Step 2 : Preventative measure
Practice this skill when....
You are not fighting
You are not in a heated situation
You are not angry or frustrated
You are in a good mood
This requires commitment, planning, and discipline to do but it will make your practice much easier
Step 3: Prerequisites
To voice your EFN, you need to be in a regulated state (not heightened, and in control of your emotions). This goes for the person you are conversing with as well. If you are not, recognize that this is not the time to communicate.
Step 4: Self-Awareness
Recognize signs of being triggered,/dysregulated
Blaming “You are not listening” or “You’re doing this, that’s why we keep fighting”
Mind reading/assumptions: “you don’t even care”
Getting reactive “Why did you do that?” or “I already told you”
Shutting down, not responding, or walking away
Defensiveness “no that’s not what I said” or “I’m not doing that”
Rationalizing or explaining behavior “This is why I said this…”
Fixing the problem or trying to offer a solution
Forecasting: “but this could happen later”
Deflecting: changing the subject or bringing up the past
Criticizing: “You’re not doing it the right away” or “You’re always forgetting”
A trigger can be a tone, a phrase, a look, a sound, almost anything! When we are triggered, it means a past memory that has become a wound or a painful experience, is brought back into the present, as if it were happening again. When this happens, our bodies go into fight or flight mode (survival mode), unable to process what is happening in the present moment. We can’t be open, collaborative or receive.
Step 5: Implementing EFN
Be very specific with your need. Instead of saying “You need to comfort me”, tell them what comfort looks like.
“I need you to hug me when I cry”
“I need you to stay quiet when I talk”
“I need to tell me “It will be okay”
Here are some example statements of using EFN:
Context: Partner Being Defensive
“I feel unheard right now (emotion). I’m terrified this is disconnecting us (fear). I need you to take a deep breath, and just say ‘I hear you’ when I share” (need).
Context: Delegating responsibilities
“I feel really frustrated right now (emotion). I’m scared that I will end up doing all the chores and hit my breaking point (fear). I need us to split some of the work and write this down so I don’t feel so overwhelmed” (need)
Recognize that the other child or adult WILL have triggers (that are not in your control) and you may not recognize you’ve triggered them. If they seem dysregulated or not in a place to listen to you, set a boundary, request a break, and schedule a better time to talk.
This may look like…
“Let’s take a break to calm down and return in an hour to talk. I’ll set a timer.”
“I’m not in a place to listen right now. I’m going to the room to take a break. I’ll come to you when I’m ready.”
“I can tell you’re feeling upset. Let’s talk about this tomorrow when we both feel better.”
A few additional reminders if you want to try EFN:
Ideally, the listener should engage in reflective listening as a response to your EFN. Reflective listening is not about being right or wrong, or you giving them your opinion or experience. Reflective listening is about the listener (the person receiving the EFN) recognizing and acknowledging the speaker’s need. We have to remember that saying “I can see what is important to you” or “I hear this is what you are saying” does not = “I agree with what you say”, it simply communicates that they are worth listening to.
When you are “taking your break”— this does not mean you use this time to shut down and zone out. Break time needs to be intentional and focused on calming your body and nervous system down. This could look like talking to a friend, practicing breath work, or journaling what you are frustrated about. Some of this can include zoning out as well if you just need a mental break, but carve only 10% of your time for this.
To truly be able to practice this skill requires you to have a strong identity, awareness of your needs, and emotional self-awareness. It doesn’t mean you need to be perfect at this, but it does mean that any choice we make (to have a child, to get married, etc) it comes with some work. This will be an especially hard muscle to exercise for people who struggle with people-pleasing or get stuck in fawn mode. Those who have unprocessed trauma and engage in avoiding their emotions will also equally have a much harder time, but remember that the more you exercise that muscle, the stronger it gets.
Last, remember to come back to the topic instead of leaving it hanging. This is called repairing.
Significance of Learning Styles for Professional Development
It is important to note that every individual processes and learns differently. The tips below are catered to working individuals in the working field. Here are 8 methods for maintaining professional development for professionals, clinicians, teachers, and more!
1) Social media: (I know, this is a debatable one but it can help you keep up with current trends in your field)
2) Reading Literature: reading evidenced based articles & trending researchers!
3) Conferences: Gaining new knowledge AND networking (they have small and big international ones)
4) Mentorship: someone to meet weekly to keep you accountable in your practices AND as a guide as you make daily decisions in personal life and the work place
5) CE/CEU trainings: (ideally in person). Yes this one is technically required for many to maintain their certification, but I hope you do this with intention and take advantage by taking courses in the niche areas you are interested in!
6) Collaborating with your supervisors and supervisee’s at work: yes this is one! “Teamwork makes the dream work”. We can do and learn very little on our own, but by making the effort to truly reach out to our colleagues and learn from them (yes, even those we supervise), you can learn things you never thought you would. This one requires an open mind.
7) Teaching: This is THE best way to kinesthetically learn (to learn by doing). Teaching the content yourself, even if you already know it well or have been in the field for several years, will assist you with being more competent in the material on a deeper level. Most importantly, you learn a lot about yourself. This can also include training others.
8) Journaling: There is evidence that by writing down our thoughts (on paper or computer) it can increase memory, communication skills, self-confidence, critical thinking skills and even a higher IQ! And we all know we need soft skills in our profession Did you know posting on social media or writing notes can be considered journaling too? Get creative!
Why is growing yourself important? It is part of our ethics in ABA “maintaining competence through professional development”. On a personal level (for just about any professional), this helps us stay connected and not be stagnant. By engaging in professional development, we are continually reminded of why we do what we do, and those values of “why’s” are super important. As a cherry on top, it helps us become better human beings by practicing our soft skills.
How many of these do you engage in? We all have methods that may not be of interest to us, and that’s okay. The good news is there is a variety of methods to grow yourself. Ideally as a general rule of thumb, consistently doing at least 2-3 of these on a regular basis is the most optimal!