Learning To Have Your Own Back

By Janet Bentley

This is such an empowering concept in my trauma recovery.  My trauma responses can happen in an instant and before beginning my trauma recovery journey, my most often response would be to look outside of myself for the answer.  Where could I get relief from the shame or extreme fear I would feel during these moments? Who could I call?  Therapist, Sponsor, Friend? How could I fill up that bottomless pit of worthlessness I felt?  I truly felt that the only way to get relief and to get some of the self-worth I was missing, was from outside of myself. The problem with that solution, among others, is that it never lasts.  Oh, it may last for an hour or two, possibly even a day, but then it would need to be filled up again to ward off that monster of worthlessness and shame.

For the past few years of trauma therapy, as I have learned and continue to learn self-compassion and acceptance, more and more of that self-worth has begun to come from inside of me.  I am learning to forgive myself for being human and flawed.  Perfection does not exist and the attempt to achieve it as an ultimate destination - to be everything that I think others want me to be, has gradually been replaced with a feeling of a shared human experience.  What a relief and so less lonely.

I have a lot of compassion for the little girl that was me who, as my therapist reminds me often, came by her coping strategies honestly. I experienced a lot of severe sexual, emotional, and relational trauma and those strategies saved my life. However, as an adult, I now have choices and I am choosing to have my own back more and more as I heal.  I obviously cannot do this completely alone – I need support and guidance and that is okay.  It’s called interdependence.  The shame and fear of being too needy is so much less now.  The wall I built to keep me safe was so lonely but It continues to crumble brick by brick. Having my own back is starting to feel really nice.