“You became who you needed to become in order to survive. Now it’s time to become who you need to become in order to thrive.” -Unknown Author
I wish I could shake the hand of whoever wrote this, but it was not credited in any way, so hopefully if by some strange circumstance the person reads this then let me know who you are and also THANK YOU.
I have been trying to get this message across to people for decades. Back in the ’80’s, when the consciouness of abuse and the ripple effects of it became vogue, it seemed like everyone and their dog were suddenly “survivors.” I am not saying that abuse was not rampant. It was. But what I did notice was that many a therapy was ill equipped to handle the subject matter. What then developed was what I personally refer to as “survivor syndrome.” What I am referring to here is the place in a person’s healing where the person does not know and is not guided or encouraged to thrive, despite the abuse that was experienced in the past.
It made me angry when I would ask people how long they had been in therapy for this and the answer was over 2 years…and they were no further along than when they had begun said therapy. For me, this was an indication of a few possibilities. First, did the person get something out of being a perpetual victim? THAT was something that would need to be addressed. It only leads to self-sabotage. Second, did the therapist not think that the healing should be progressing instead of remaining stagnant? If they did think it should, then why were they not insisting that the person do constructive things to enable the progression of healing? Third, was this all just a therapy scam to keep people in a victimhood loop so they would continue to pay for more therapy?
Now, having asked those questions, I must also say that I am not the type of person who thinks that everything can be completely dealt with in 10 sessions or less. There is something to be said for going at the pace that the client requires and not rushing things. However, one must, as a therapist of any type, know that there is a fine line between that and allowing the person to spin their wheels while you collect a paycheque.
So, I began asking harder questions. You see, as a shamanic practitioner it is my job to help people to get to a point where they actually are thriving. Sometimes they would think that I was a cold-hearted bastard because I would challenge them every time they would be acting like someone who thought of themselves as a “cripple” on any level. I would invite them to reframe that so that they can heal successfully. Some really wanted to milk the victimhood so that they would have a excuse to not function in society. This, I must admit, was frustrating. We would address their anxiety, their PTSD, their fears and phobias and so on. Some of these things would be being addressed by other therapists (thank the Gods!).
But I wanted to take them deeper into their healing. Those who ventured in would find that it truly helped on levels that they never thought possible. It is one thing to perform cognitive therapy, but quite another thing to help a person to heal on a deep soul level. And once the person would allow that level of soul healing to take place, they would be off and running. They would find within themselves the desire to thrive. They would start taking right action to get their lives in order. Yes, they would likely continue therapy, but they would come at it from a completely different angle. They would also become a LOT less dependent upon their therapist and would let go of codependence within other relationships in their lives. They would find themselves becoming successful within themselves, within relationships and at work as well. They began stepping up to their lives. They no longer felt the need to wait for life to happen while they were doing their healing. Life was happening anyway. So they would decide to heal while they took their lives by the horns.
They became who they needed to become in order to thrive.