- Hi, I'm Anna Runkle,
also known as the Crappy Childhood Fairy.
And for the next several weeks,
I'm sharing a weekly series
on resilience for people with childhood PTSD.
And week by week, I'm going to be talking
about the major obstacles that hold us back in life
and the strengths that we can cultivate
that allow us to move forward.
If you follow me online,
you know that I'm always teaching people
childhood PTSD is at its root a brain injury.
And I teach people how to start healing that.
But what can happen is we have periods
where we kind of go into resistance to that healing
because we have inner obstacles.
So that's what I'm going to talk about.
Eight inner obstacles.
And today I want to start with the first one,
the mother of them all
that can keep us looping in the side effects of trauma,
and it's fear.
Now this is not some lecture where I tell you,
just don't have fear.
That's not how it works.
This is about where fear comes from,
what it really does to us,
and it's worse than you think,
and what to actually do to get free of your fear.
Because no one tells you that, have you noticed?
Lots and lots of celebrities and athletes
and self-help gurus tell you not to have fear.
And it sounds so appealing
but when you have childhood PTSD, you're like,
I can't just let go of my fear.
And then you start to think,
there must be something really deeply wrong with me.
And there's nothing wrong with you.
You have PTSD,
which is a normal reaction to trauma in childhood.
What works for other people,
maybe you noticed it's like water running
through your fingers.
Nothing happens.
It can't even touch the problem inside
because the problem is something different.
And so if you're like me,
you have tried and tried to just act normal,
to handle yourself with less anxiety and panic
and more confidence to just get out there
and try things and meet people and enjoy yourself,
but PTSD is hard.
And when the symptoms are happening,
people are so stressful to be around.
And that's kind of what used to drive my whole life
before I recovered.
I was terrified.
And I'm not sure everybody knew it,
not if they hadn't known me for awhile,
but they'd find out soon enough.
I wanted to be around people
and I had a whole way of acting lighthearted
and I would pretend to be tough, probably too tough.
And I tried to be funny
and actually I probably was kind of funny.
And for a while I would have people fooled.
They thought maybe I was kind of insensitive
but they believed that I was confident.
Now appearing confident is not the end all be all
of being awesome, by the way.
The thing about convincing people
that you have it all together is
that they can't see when you need help.
You don't get the support you need
and if you try to go without help
and then you hit your limit,
all of a sudden then you start yelling
and demanding that people help you now.
That also doesn't work all that well
and you're not going to get the support that you need.
The worst thing about fear,
and I don't mean the useful kind of fear
that gets you out of danger,
or that helps you be realistic about things.
I mean the kind of fear that keeps you trapped in your mind,
worried about random possibilities in the future,
tripping about what people think about you
or worrying about what they're about to do,
fearing you're not good enough.
This kind of fear is essentially a fantasy
and living in a fantasy means you're not living in reality.
And reality is where you have to be
if you want to actually love people
and be loved and solve real problems
and feel good about yourself and serve the world.
Living in a scared fantasy that everything's bad
and people are out to get you means you're not really here.
And if you feel like your life is passing you by,
this could be why.
This was definitely what was happening for me.
There was this one day, and my whole life is divided
between the time before that day and then after that day,
when this woman I knew asked if I wanted her
to show me how to get rid of fear.
And it's funny, I needed that so badly, but I was defensive.
I didn't quite understand
that fear was what was driving me
almost a hundred percent back then.
I was walking around terrified all the time
that any moment people were going to pull away from me
for reasons I didn't even know.
Maybe I was inappropriate somehow
or hurt their feelings or was too needy,
or I don't know.
Maybe I was awful.
But having my brain and emotions dysregulated all the time
from childhood PTSD made it really hard for me
to just know what was what,
or to be aware of my effect on other people
or to act appropriately.
And I could see it by the expression on people's faces.
I'd be like,
Hmm, did I just say something wrong?
And that's one of the hardest things
about the effect of early trauma is, you don't know.
You don't have a normal sense of what's weird
and what's okay.
So I have some good news.
You don't have to live like this.
You are not broken forever.
And in fact, you have a real self inside under all that fear
who knows exactly who you are,
and what you came to do.
You know that.
You've always known that.
This is what happened to you
and then this is you.
And the part that's overwhelming you is not so much
what happened to you, but it's all the fear you have
about what that means for you.
Fear it's a terrible world,
fear you'll be damaged forever,
fear no one cares, whatever it is.
The thing that happened, it's over.
Your fear about what it means lives on
and this fear is not your friend.
This fear is consuming and limiting
and until you get free, it's like a belief system that,
Oh yeah, you're one of the abused people
and that is what you are.
The abuse and neglect happened,
but they are not you.
You are not damaged forever, you are not broken.
You are not pitiful.
You are not a magnet for crazy people.
You are not your trauma.
What happened to you is so sad and it's real,
but it's not you.
Your story began long before that stuff happened
and it will go on a really long time after you get free.
And this way of getting free that I'm going to show you
is very gentle.
It works over time, it's free
and you get to keep control over the process.
Now, sometimes you're going to have
to keep doing these techniques again and again
before you make progress.
But a lot of the time you'll get a big burst of freedom,
like right then and there.
So it happens quickly and slowly at the same time
and the result is that
you get to be right here where you belong,
freer, stronger and more your true self.
And when you have less fear,
your whole life opens up to good things.
All of that love inside you can be shared more
and it's not all bogged down with sadness
and craving to get that caretaking you never got enough of.
You might find you feel more self-contained and content
and not so out of control.
And if you keep this up, next thing you know,
your natural talents and gifts begin to show themselves.
And that is where the joy begins.
You, sharing what you came here to give.
You, being yourself and not taking any more crap.
You, free with more connection and less fear.
Now more connection and less fear means more freedom
to make mistakes if you want to,
cause you know that if you screw up,
you'll just get free again.
Can you feel what I'm saying?
This is really powerful.
And I promised you I'd tell you how.
So, maybe you've tried it
or maybe you've just heard me talk about it,
but it's the writing and meditation technique
I call the daily practice.
And I'm linking you to more videos
in the description section below,
because it takes about 40 minutes
to teach you this daily practice.
So it's all in a free mini course,
and you can link to it below.
It's three videos and a workbook
and you don't have to make a commitment to it.
You can try it one time and just see if you like it.
If you want to get a real feeling for what it does,
do it twice a day for a month.
And if that's too much, just do what you can.
Now, your mind may try to match what I'm teaching you
to something you've tried before.
But honestly, it's not like anything you've done before.
I've seen people who tried it and go,
Nah, you know, and I've seen people who take to it
like a fish to water like I did 25 years ago.
I had immediate good results, namely
that I learned to reregulate my brain and emotions,
which were all over the place back then.
And I then had a tool I could use any time
to deal with upsets and have less fear.
And I won't even try to just keep explaining it here,
you got to just try it.
So learn the techniques, if you like
and then come back to this channel
and see the next videos I'm releasing each week
where we talk about more obstacles to healing
and the strengths that you can build now
in your life to get free.
And I'll see you there.
(gentle music)