https://pixabay.com/users/Rappellingusa-13786882/
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Life has enormous challenges or adversity as some would say.
Some seem to have greater adversity, large loss and meager assets.
Yes life is not fair.
Instead of feeling sorry for myself, acquiring PTSD in childhood, I have gratitude for having the skills to escape that prison.
My journey has given me the skills to help others heal from PTSD.
Seems there is a bigger good or picture on my journey.
Gratitude has helped me cope with loss and life.
I would not changed my childhood, my suffering, my life, it has made me who I am!
Was this the lesson, I was to learn?
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PTSD - A Way Out 
Posted by sergism on January 25, 2020 at 6:35 pm
👏👏👏💚
Posted by Marty on January 25, 2020 at 7:50 pm
Thank you
Posted by Ali on January 25, 2020 at 9:35 pm
Hi Marty! Thanks for your recent posts … so helpful to hear about your path & how dramatically life changed for you just because your trained your attention with persistence & care. Have you read William Irvine’s books on stoicism? If not, you may enjoy The Stoic Challenge, as a lot of the themes echo your recent posts, and is a light-hearted, quick read. He offers a lot of helpful cognitive strategies including the power of reframing events to counteract our natural & default response of blaming externals for our inner experience. In one section, he observes that feeling victimized by undeserved ill fortune frees us of the responsibility of many of the aspects of our lives that have gone wrong, but at the cost of increasing the anguish we feel. That really resonated with me … what a devil’s bargin! He also refers to anger as anti-joy which I found true & helpful.
But it takes a lot careful observation & curiosity & remembering to really ‘grok’ the self-destructiveness & futility of a lot of my default responses to pain, adversity, & loss especially when those solutions were the best I could do as a kid and thus got entangled with my sense of self. I am having to go though a process of constructing a new sense of self, calling upon consciously a “warrior” or “hero journey” type archetypes, as I didn’t know who I was if not not in emotional pain, not a helpless victim on the run from a chaotic & overwhelming experience, internally or externally in the world. Stoicism, Constructive Living based on Zen, and practicing self-compassion and/or receiving love visualizations (check out Daniel Brown & the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol if you decide to train as a therapist – which would be great!) have all been very helpful in helping me weave together an alternative view. For me, mindfulness, awareness, & disidentifying from thought/mind states was one key piece but also there had to be a reconstruction of a wiser, more skillful self too. I had to learn new skills; new ways of looking. Best wishes on your journey as a mindfulness teacher & therapist!
Posted by Marty on January 26, 2020 at 12:56 pm
Amazing journey
Thanks for sharing
Anger is anti joy l like that
I applaud you for not giving up, finding ways to let go and find your true self
It is always there even though some of us never thought we were worthy
I have healed a lot but my life is not easy
I have learned it is our expectations that life should be this way or easy
That leads us to judge our life instead of narrate it
Thanks again for your wisdom
Posted by Don't Lose Hope on January 26, 2020 at 1:54 pm
It’s so good that you want to turn your pain into helping, and demonstrating compassion for, others. That is powerful. No-one understands something we’re going through like someone who’s gone through something similar.
Posted by Marty on January 26, 2020 at 2:10 pm
I had a void when I healed
All the time I spent worrying, avoiding, thinking was
Gone
I had to fill that time
So an idea came to me
Why not fill in the spaces I faced healing
So my blog was born
Posted by mirrorgirl on January 26, 2020 at 3:38 pm
Your so good at expressing what’s happening inside of you. And I just wanted to say: there are many ways of taking risks, healing and finding new ways to cope doesn’t need to happen all at once, sometimes one can take small risks and see how it goes and then go from there.
Posted by Marty on January 26, 2020 at 3:46 pm
Thank you
Oh I took small risks
I was scared as hell
It matters we take the smallest risk and then continue
We do not complete our journey with the first step
This is not a sprint it is a marathon of living one moment to the next until we leave this planet
Thank you for your insight