Let’s Go Inside
You are thriving in some areas of life, what pioneering trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk calls the “islands of safety.” But there’s a catch. Nothing feels quite enough or good enough. A sense of emptiness or hollow discontent permeates the recesses of your psyche and becomes the soundtrack to your life. Sure, there may be moments of elation or aliveness but they quickly succumb to relief, then numbness, then shame, and then finally onto the next big problem, milestone, project, or goal. This is how you know you have unresolved trauma as a high performer or high achiever.
You may experience extreme oscillation between self-confidence and self-flagellation. You can muster up superhuman strength and resilience one moment and the next you’re down on your knees at the hands of a relentless inner critic or perfectionist part of yourself. Worst of all you feel like an imposter because your insides don’t match your outsides. You have a life worthy of celebration yet you feel dissociated, deadened, or even resigned to the gilded cage of success and performance. At the heart of the matter is a deep spiritual misalignment. How can you become an authentic leader or gain genuine mastery in the external world when you feel so untethered from your own inner world and sense of Self?
As a trauma therapist and mom, something that has been on my mind and in my heart as of late is how our Western culture and society causes our experience of Being to be shaped and defined by external factors. The message we receive is: how worthy, good, or valuable you are depends on your academic performance, relationship status, career success, social status, money, power, sex, etc. As a result of these messages, we become motivated by avoiding punishment, failure, rejection, or abandonment and receiving approval, validation, belonging, admiration, or praise. These sources of extrinsic motivation have a rightful place as they play an essential role in the outward expression of human experience, endeavor, and adventure.
The problem arises when extrinsic motivation emanates from a trauma orienting us to the outer world as a means of disconnecting us from our inner world. The result is extrinsic motivation being the sole motivation fueling our sense of a coherent Self. Extrinsic motivation does not provide a center or sense of groundedness from which to launch into the external world and engage with life. “All too often, your decisions are based on the fear of getting in trouble or getting abandoned, rather than on the principles of having meaningful and equitable interactions with the world,” states psychotherapist Pete Walker. I would add that all too often decisions are based on working for, fighting for, chasing after, or pleading for the love that you should have received freely, happily, and openly for being you—for just being alive. High performance and achievement become survival strategies to get what you didn’t get back then and there. Success is born from the lacking void instead of the nourishing Love that was your birthright.
When we witness our woundedness and heal from our traumas, we have more access to intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is fueled by meaning, purpose, growth, fun, play, passion, curiosity, mastery, pride, agency, and the peace that comes from becoming immersed in the flow of life as it's manifesting through you in this moment. High performance and achievement can and will be born from a deep sense of enoughness, aliveness, and Love when traumas are resolved and wounds are healed. There is another way to live. There is another way to achieve and succeed.
I will leave you with this personal story. I noticed a few months ago that my mother would say to my son, “I love you,” at very specific moments during her visits. Moments when he was performing, doing something “smart,” “special,” or generally “achieving” a hard task (for a 3-year-old, that is). Something inside me clicked into place, and I heard a part of me say, “Wow, that’s what happened to me.” Although there was nothing overtly traumatizing or catastrophic happening in these encounters, I recognized the part of me that got the message, “Achievement equals love.” If we want to go down the rabbit hole of narcissistic abuse, I could see tiny glimmers of how my achievements served as narcissistic supply for my caregivers who were themselves disconnected from their Self and spiritually misaligned. I could witness and hold space for the part of me that had been living alone on my" “island of safety,” namely achievement, surviving and fighting for scraps of love, crumbs of worthiness and acceptance.
I say this to you because chances are you’re in the process of healing and reparenting your inner child and/or parenting your own child. As adults in the present day, we have the choice to free ourselves (and future generations) from the gilded cage of accomplishment as reward. Achievement doesn’t have to be a reaction to the love we didn’t receive. Achievement can be an expression of the love that we are. Success can be a manifestation of the inner attunement with your Highest Self and the greater spiritual alignment with Being, God, or however you define your Higher Power.
Questions
How has high performance or achievement become your island of safety? In what areas do you thrive? How does this thriving (and striving) give you a sense of self or add meaning to your life?
What are the extrinsic motivators that fuel the high achieving and striving parts of your psyche? What would happen if you didn’t achieve? What is the worst case scenario?
What would it be like if you had more access to intrinsic motivation while striving? What is the best case scenario? What visions of your future self may come true? What concerns, wishes, or desires come up?
I have less of a question and more of an invitation here. Is there a past version of yourself (a young, vulnerable part of you perhaps) or, for that matter, any person in your life that just needs to hear I love you? I love you for being you. Thank you for being here in my life. I love you with no strings attached. You don’t need to be, do, or perform in any way to receive my love. Can you express that love in a way they can absorb and take in?
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Invitations for Exploration
I'm Reading:
The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit by Donald Kalsched. A beautiful book that takes you on a journey inside the trauma survivor’s self-care system and what it does in an attempt to survive and preserve the Spirit through a Jungian lens. Kalsched writes, “Trauma is about the rupture of those developmental transitions that make life worth living.” He shares stories, myths, and folktales that acknowledge and give credit to the parts of us that have worked hard to protect our Spirit from the potential annihilation of unbearable trauma.
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigal Shrier. This is a book that challenges preconceived notions when it comes to the utility and effectiveness of talk therapy for children and adolescents. It is sure to ruffle some feathers as it looks at how therapists, teachers, parents, and caregivers may be doing more harm than good, reinforcing trauma inadvertently. Although I don’t agree with all of her takes, Shrier accurately reflects what I believe to be a detrimental aspect of our culture, namely—an overidentification with our woundedness, vulnerability, brokenness, victimhood, and traumas which leads to not only the the missed opportunity to instill resilience in our children and in ourselves but also the reinforcement of fragility and learned helplessness.
I'm Watching:
Awakening from the Meaning Crisis with Dr. John Vervaeke. Dr. Vervaeke, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, has provided 50 free lectures online that tackles the questions of meaning and aliveness from the perspectives of evolutionary biology, philosophy, psychology, religion, and cognitive science (to name only a few). The breadth and depth of these lectures is not only enlightening but also healing for those yearning to understand themselves and humanity on a multi-dimensional existential level. So much food for thought!