Moving through trauma to trust
Over the last several months, I’ve had the joy of getting to know Amilya Antonetti, one of my recent walking partners on the On This Walk podcast. Amilya is creator and CEO of Designing Genius and a world-renowned human behavior expert. She helps individuals and leaders in and out of workplaces move through challenging moments in their lives, find their purpose, and unpack their trauma.
On our journeys of healing and wholing (to borrow a phrase that I first heard from Bill Plotkin of the Animas Valley Institute), trauma can feel like something that we want to move past and leave behind. But if we aren’t consciously choosing to regularly visit the narrative that is running in the background of our lives, we’re missing an opportunity to take a deeper look at our own stories.
Amilya has a unique perspective on trauma. She doesn’t see trauma as a limitation, but as a tool to unlock great insights and power within us. Trauma can be used as a device to find powerful light even amidst incredible darkness.
It’s our impulse to diminish the pain that we’ve experienced or put it in comparison with others, but everyone has experienced trauma to some degree. And the best-known secret to working through trauma?
We can’t work through our trauma alone.
For people who have experienced trauma, this probably isn’t what you want to hear. Often when we’ve been hurt or let down, the first thing we want to do is isolate. And there are plenty of reasons for that.
People who have experienced trauma are constantly evaluating their surroundings to find danger. This is a learned response to ensure that we can protect ourselves. We want to detect certainty because uncertainty feels dangerous. We tell ourselves to constantly stay alert while scanning for things to go wrong because that’s how we hold onto safety.
So then, when we’re in relationships, we expect the other person to be consistent. But sometimes the consistencies we feel we need are part of a story that we have created for ourselves.
There are three major downsides here:
- We fall in love with the story we’ve created, not our reality.
- The other person may have no idea what role they play in this narrative or that it exists at all.
- When the story doesn’t align with our reality, we isolate ourselves.
We continue with this story because it feels safer. We don’t want to be present in the moment because that is where the trauma occurred in the first place.
But when we’re able to work through our trauma with another person, we start creating a platform of real safety.
So how do we put this into practice?
We need trust in our relationships in order to work through trauma. We have to talk about it. We have to teach people how to have relationships with us with great responsibility. Amilya emphasizes that if that responsibility is too much for people, that’s okay.
One of my favorite parts of the episode was when Amilya described her relationships like the rings of a tree:
“You have to demonstrate to me my ability to trust you based on your ability to take responsibility for it. And so my inside ring of a tree has very few people in there, and then I have a next layer and a next layer and a next layer. And those layers are based on my comfortability of how they can or cannot trigger me and work through that. So not everybody is invited into the inside circle. And they shouldn’t be because there’s a lot of responsibility there. And then I loosen the responsibility as I move out, and then I’m always gauging where somebody really should live to honor them and honor myself.”
It’s a two-way street. We can’t expect our loved ones to walk on eggshells all the time. We work on healing ourselves, releasing our hurt and false narratives, and share that work with those we trust. Meanwhile, the people who choose to be a part of our inner circle will work with us on building that trust every day.
Amilya points out that when most people are triggered, they overcompensate to communicate that everything is okay. Her suggestion is to do the opposite. Let your inner circle people know when you’re triggered — through mindful yet clear sharing, not ranting and raving. This way, the other person knows that you aren’t at your best self and it has nothing to do with them. It’s about your trigger, not them pressing it. You can both slow down and look into what’s happening.
Amilya says, “The reason people go to extremes when they’re experiencing trauma is because it feels like the trauma will never end.” It isn’t easy, but when we build trusting relationships, we’re able to get a glimpse into relief from our trauma. Learning to and taking responsibility for how we communicate with others is how we ask for help. And when someone can help you carry that pain, it builds a bond of intimacy that strengthens lifelong relationships.
We can be grateful for our trauma.
Rather than thinking of your trauma as this monstrous thing to overcome, try taking a look at the ways in which trauma has also taken you deeper into understanding yourself, what you wish to free yourself of, and what aspects of your humanity it has connected you to. You are not alone.
Until we go On This Walk again, be well.
If you’re experiencing trauma or have trauma that is deeply impacting you, we encourage you to please seek the assistance of trained professionals.
Here are a few great resources:
- Better Help
- Top 10 Recommended Trauma-Informed Care Online Resources (Crisis Prevention Institute)
- Dr. Gabor Maté
- Open Path Psychotherapy Collective
Want to go deeper into your winding path? Check out my free Alignment workbook and live what matters most. You can also listen to my podcast on your favorite podcast app.
And remember, this is just the start of our conversation. To keep it going, ask questions, and add your own thoughts, join the ongoing conversation… just head to www.onthiswalk.com and click on community in the upper right hand corner; it’s free to join.
