Lesson 1: Is This the End of Your Story? Or the Beginning?

First, welcome to the Post-Traumatic Event Club. I know, I know. You really don’t want to be here. Honestly, none of us do.

This isn’t one of those places people seek out. In fact, this exclusive group never really crosses anyone’s mind until they end up here.

For most, life is what we call normal; well, maybe a better word is familiar. This includes how we feel about our routines, our behaviors, our reactions, and our demeanor.  We have a firm grasp on who we are and how we act. Then, for some, a traumatic event occurs. In an instant, we lose the handle.

We become like a professional fireballer who picks up a baseball one afternoon and suddenly has no idea how to pitch it. Every ball placed in his palm feels like a foreign object. It’s beyond frustrating. It just doesn’t make sense.

If you fail to act post-trauma, that’s the end of the story. You never recover. You never get your pitch back. Even worse, your relationships with others erode when they can’t trust who you are at any given moment. That makes sense to you because YOU can’t trust who you are at any given moment.

I had to learn this the hard way. I lost a wife, a fiancée, and a job in part because I couldn’t loosen trauma’s grip on me. Yet even losing those things didn’t seem to matter until I was ready to answer one question: “What was I NOT willing to lose?” Once I had that answer, I was ready to do the work.