"The brain is able to do a lot of things that are really hard for a long time... if we don't have to do it by ourselves."
- Dr. Curt Thompson
It's time to break free,
and start living wholeheartedly...
The Wholehearted Living Coach was born out of my own journey with trauma. From the moment we’re conceived, we begin to experience the effects of a broken world. Whether your life was affected by childhood developmental trauma, or it came in adulthood (or both), the effect is the same. It causes you to move further and further away from wholehearted living.
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I believe to you need at least two things to find healing from trauma, and to live wholeheartedly:
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To be able to tell a more true and accurate story of your life by taking an honest look back at how trauma has affected your heart, mind, soul, and body, preventing you from living wholeheartedly. Your story matters, but so does what you believe about your story and the way tell your story to others. Our stories are held in our minds and bodies in a particular way (depending on how trauma has affected you), and it affects the way we see and interact with the world.
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To learn to recognize shame and how it affects your daily life, and how to overcome it’s devastating and pervasive effects on your mind, heart, soul and body. I believe evil uses shame as a tool that deeply affects each of these four areas of self in a different way. Shame is constantly working against our desire and God’s design, which is to live with whole and free hearts.
So what does shame do?
So what does shame do?
Shame minimizes the emotions and wounds of your heart. We think it’s the only way we’ll be loved.
Shame fragments and twists the thoughts and memories in your mind, which cause you to believe lies about your story and lies about God and others.
Shame isolates you, causing a concealing of your soul from others. Your soul is a combination of your heart, mind, will, imagination, thoughts, desires, passions, and dreams. It’s what makes you, you. This isolation keeps you from being seen and known. You hide your vulnerability from others and joy and connection become elusive, just out of your grasp.
Shame causes a physical turning away and a lowering of the head and eyes. We feel it’s neurobiological effects throughout our physical body. It is not only an emotion we feel but an experience that we have throughout our bodies.
Overcoming Shame
The world values perfection, productivity, and efficiency. We’ve been taught to value what others think of us so much that we’ve learned to ignore the warning signals (the shame messages) our bodies are giving us, both through our emotions and physical symptoms. We just keep striving and doing and surviving each day, all the while feeling numb, depressed and exhausted, like a hamster that can’t get off the wheel. Do you ever feel that way?
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You don’t have to ignore the shaming voices here, that are still playing like a tape on repeat. You don’t have to pretend like you’re not still beating yourself up… like all the ways you don’t feel seen or known don’t make your heart ache with grief. Do you realize that you are your own worst critic? Do you realize that the way you talk to yourself is way worse than you would ever talk to someone else? When and at what moment in your story did your self-worth and identity get stomped on? When did you begin to feel unloved? If you don’t know, it’s okay! Would you consider taking a look back?
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Gaining an understanding of why you came to believe, live and behave the way you do is essential to establishing and maintaining
long-term change and healing for your heart, mind, soul and body. We have been hardwired through our trauma experiences to believe that we are not good enough, shameful, and unloveable. Do you long to belong somewhere, but you so often feel on the outskirts? This is toxic shame at work, binding to everything good and pure and ruining it.
The desire to rush or completely ignore the process of healing will not honor you or your story. It’s the opposite of what God has for your life. It’s going to take time and intention to learn to be fully present with the parts of your story that have caused the deepest harm and wounding. These are the places in your story where your ability to live wholeheartedly has been attacked.
It won’t be easy, but the things worth fighting for never are. But it will be worth it. I would be honored to look at your story with you, walk through those areas of wounding with you, and help you identify the places where shame has stolen wholehearted living from you.
Are you ready to begin?