Rising from the Rubble — 3 Timely Reminders about Trauma

Hello Friend,

Today’s post is one I’ve had a difficult time writing for two weeks now.  The horrific blow of last Sunday’s shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas has left me pretty numb in the way that this type of fear-generated evil does.  I hate it. 

I don’t know how you’ve processed it, yet if you are like me, layers and layers of hateful behavior tend to leave me feeling helpless, and often as a result, apathetic. 

How can I help?  

Is our world going to hell in a handbasket? 

What next? 

The grim reality sets in and my callouses begin to peek through.  

Wait a minute though, that’s me responding to fear with fear…  or even worse, apathy!  

This is perhaps the greatest danger possible: that fear would settle into apathy, and we might surrender to a new normal of acquiescence and cynicism.  

Fear, in the very least, elicits some reaction.  Apathy does nothing.

After a week of wallowing, I feel a healthy dose of righteous anger rising up and simply can’t back down.  

I’m grateful not to have lost anyone in the tragic attack. However, I’ve witnessed several who have been directly affected, unexpectedly saying goodbye to loved ones and life partners as well as having a branded traumatic experience filed away on a cellular level.  I cannot begin to comprehend that depth of sorrow, and I sincerely pray for comfort in their desperate time of need.  

How are you doing in light of all of this?  

Do you find yourself in the throws of pain and powerlessness despite not being directly affected by the shooting?  I’ve found that highly creative people also tend to be highly sensitive to what is happening around them.  You fall in this category.  

You are drawn to the interior journey towards wholeness and integration which is something not everyone signs up for.  Your willingness to connect is in and of itself intrinsically a creative, out-of-the-box endeavor.  

Here are a couple of reminders regarding trauma as we assess the damage, lean into the conversation, and rise from the rubble:

1) Trauma is trauma no matter how you slice it. 

I like the definition of trauma that says it is anything unwanted or unnatural that happens to you.  Just because you weren’t there in that open amphitheater in Vegas does NOT mean you aren’t suffering secondary or tertiary trauma.  

Simply being victim to 24-hour news coverage of the terror can be enough to blanket you in a thick layer of indirect trauma.  Knowing our limits to information and “breaking news” is a good thing. 

We’ve all been affected on different levels, and no one is comparing trauma to trauma: it's all relative, and we’re all in this together as different parts of the collective body.  

2) Grinning and bearing it is old news and going the “stoic” route won’t cut it.  

Inevitably, when we try to stuff our trauma or any emotion for that matter, it will eventually come out somehow and not in the loveliest of fashions.  

Any time we experience loss, we must grieve it.  What I’m learning about grief is it MUST be witnessed by safe people in our court whether it be a family member, a trusted friend, and/or a therapist/spiritual director.  We cannot grieve in a void.  

3) Find a creative outlet.

For me, this is writing.  I’ve damn near filled up two journals in the past month boiling over with unfiltered and unapologetic responses to natural disasters, political conundrums, and most definitely, the recent shooting in Vegas.  (I may as well be committed if anyone were to read said journal entries.) 

I devoted several pages to Tom Petty in there as well— he was surely a brave and gifted soul, iconic and irreplaceable on every level.  

What is your outlet?  Painting, baking, sculpting, guitar, yoga, or dance?  Whatever it is, pour your heart into it.  Emotional energy must be expressed, not repressed.  Repression and avoidance are siren songs that allure numbing agents like booze, food, drugs, work, and the like to make their seductive pitches.  We’ve got to get out in front of them by tapping into our inherent creative essence.

I’ve got more resources coming to you here very soon, but for now, here’s the invitation for you and me: we all have our own work to do in keeping our interior landscapes clean so as not to fall asleep in a stagnant pool of apathy.  

If you or someone you know is currently experiencing a fall-out from recent tragedies, reach out.  Don’t let lack of resources, fear of judgement, or perhaps the unknown, hold you back.  Nashville is fighting back from a place of love and accountability.  Join me on this path to connection, integration, and courage as we bridge the gap for the broken and openly talk about our wounds.

Take heart, my friend—you are not alone.  We are all inexplicably in this together.  That is the invaluable, stunning nature of the human spirit in its purest form: our pain joins us together and binds us into a beautifully broken patchwork that heals us over time.  Let this be your anchor as chaos and loss sweep heavily over our hearts.  It has surely been mine.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

{Video} The Hummingbird Effect: 3 Things To Know About Setbacks

Hello Friend,

I hope your week is going great!

Question: How many times have you walked head-on into a (closed) glass sliding door?

Me? More times than I’d care to count.

What emotions fire up on the other side of that unexpected dose of humility?

Humiliation, shock, frustration, exasperation, and perhaps a sore nose among other things.

If people are watching, (and they always are.  This NEVER happens in a vacuum), the old ego needs a bit of time to heal from the gnarly bruise she just incurred.  

If you’re like me, unexpected setbacks feel like a punch in the gut, and all I want to do is slap myself around, dust myself off, pull up the bootstraps, and carry on pretending nothing really happened. “Keep calm and carry on” right?

Well, this approach works good and great for a while, and then eventually we begin to grow increasingly disconnected from the truth of our needs and our pain eventually masks our identity.  Our attachment to ego clouds everything.

This past weekend, I witnessed the loveliest, tiniest, kelly-green feathered hummingbird take a deadly if not accidental nosedive straight past the bird feeder on our deck and into the window behind it.  

Barely breathing and with a broken wing, he hung on to dear life for hours as we nursed him back to health.  He is on the mend at an animal shelter nearby, but I can’t help but contemplate all that this sweet hummingbird taught me.

If you are in the midst of a heartbreaking setback or find yourself still sore from a recent one, I hope you’ll check out a little video I put together for you.

I’ve been tossing around some ideas, or questions, to ask myself next time I experience an unexpected setback:

1) What am I believing to be true about my set back?

2) Is this in fact true?

3) What do I need in order to extend kindness and compassion to myself in the moment as I would a dear friend?

I absolutely love Cheryl Strayed’s quote from her latest masterpiece, Tiny Beautiful Things:

“Whatever happens to you belongs to you.  Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow.  Let it nurture you because it will.”

What setback do you currently find yourself in?  I’d love to hear how you are finding your way through and what comes up for you around these three questions.  Pray, tell…. 

Love & Gratitude,

Katie Gustafson

P.S.  Stay tuned for an exciting fall group opportunity coming your way soon! 

Magic in the Meltdown

If today’s title caught your eye, you are in the right place—Welcome.

When was the last time you had a meltdown?  You know, the powerless, ugly-cry, shut the world out because no one seems to understand how hard it is variety?  

It felt as though your body was boiling over with frustration so much so that it had to find a release so naturally, the eager emotional wheelhouse got a proverbial hall pass and skipped town on someone else’s dime.  It was a bender of a meltdown, remember?

In those moments, all I want to do is fix it, run, or somehow numb it in order to escape the tight and uncomfortable tension I’m feeling.  It’s simply too much.  

Days later and with time’s firm and steady grip around my limp hand, I realize something magical: there was and always is a clear way out.  However, against my resistant heart’s desire, that magic occurs as we willingly walk through the pain, not around it.  

I feel this sometimes when I can’t sleep.  I’ve been known to struggle with insomnia. Sometimes there’s a reason for it, and sometimes my stubborn body simply won’t shut off.

You know what the most frustrating bit of this dilemma is? It’s not the actual inability to sleep; it’s the belief that I “should” be able to sleep; that I am somehow guaranteed this right without question.  The entitlement trap is what gets me every time, leaving me resentful on top of delirious.  

What I realize after those seasons of scant shut-eye pass is something pretty basic, yet poignant: 

It didn’t kill me.  

In fact, it gave me something to learn from, write about, and understand better in order to amp up my arsenal of sleep tools.  (PSA: If you have trouble sleeping, let’s totally talk.)

Last week, I shared a very special interview with Miles Adcox, Owner and CEO of Onsite Workshops, a regular guest expert on the Dr. Phil Show, new Dad, among many other cool things.  If you missed the episode, definitely go back and check it out, he delivers some brilliant insight in there for us.

I ask every guest the same question: If you could give your 25-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be?  (For you millennials out there, let’s say 15.)   

What he said was stunningly simple and so applicable to you and me: “It’s okay to not be okay.”

Wait. What?  

You mean, when I’m mid-meltdown of the century and nothing, I mean, NOTHING, looks as it should, it’s….OKAY?

Yes.

I’ve sat with those words a lot lately, and they bring me continual peace.  In my experience, like with the sleep situation, often it’s not the actual pain of the problem that is most piercing.  Instead, it’s the belief that whatever is happening shouldn’t be.  That, I believe, is the difference between pain and suffering.  

Pain inevitably ebbs and flows throughout this life if we are walking around with anything vaguely resembling a heartbeat.  However, suffering is the delicately crafted narrative we create about our pain.  “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” or “my past was too much to bear.”

Curiously, life is made up of a 50/50 split of positive and negative feeling emotions.  

Lately, I’ve been a student of this highly valuable process called unlearning: unlearning the entitlement stories, the fixing agents, the escape routes, and the harsh judgements that accompany my pain.  

We spend so much of our lives trying to fix the flaws we think hold us back in life, and little do we know that the unlearning of these remedies will be the savior who picks us off that fast and broken road.  

We must be the un-teacher of these numbing agents as we lean into the discomfort and tension of the moment.  

After all, it very likely won’t kill us.

You don’t need fixing; you need to be understood.  If we are constantly trying to escape ourselves and our pain, we will never get close enough to understand the root of it and answer its cry.  We must gently, and with loads of self-compassion, listen and embrace the voice of our dilemma, whatever it speaks.  This is the magical crossroads of our painful experience and total acceptance.  Not only that but ironically, this is the surest route to our deepest joy.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

Emotional Fitness: An Interview with Miles Adcox

Happy Thursday!

Today’s episode is near and dear to my heart, perhaps because it’s personal.

Life is absolutely full of light and dark, good and bad, ups and downs—all kinds of colorful seasons.  Something I love about the passage of time is we get to see many of the complex questions of yesterday make a bit more sense in our today.
 Often times, our painful past experiences have birthed resilience stories that we get to carry along in our pocket and give away to those in need.  It doesn’t mean we’d want to go through those seasons again, yet it sure gives levity and meaning to the wounds.

Part of my story has been a crippling battle with depression/anxiety dating back to high school.   About a decade ago, it came to a head, despite years of therapy, cocktails of medication, you name it.

Thankfully, I heard about Onsite workshops from Cindy, a dear family friend.  I could tell by the way she described her time there that this wasn’t your typical treatment program.  No, Onsite was different; experiential in nature and truly transformative.

I was desperate, so I went.  Scared out of my mind?  Yes.  I still went.

Desperate trumped scared.

Grateful doesn’t begin to describe how I feel in retrospect.  Going through “Living Centered,” their flagship program, was an unforgettable healing experience.

Today, I’m beyond excited to share a very special interview with Miles Adcox, owner and CEO of Onsite.  As you’ll learn in the intro of today’s episode, Miles has quite an impressive resume, and yet, his humility and transparency about the shifting journey he’s been on is inspiring and endearing.

I can’t wait for you to listen and learn more about Miles’ story and upcoming projects.  Every time I talk to Miles, I’m reminded of what it means to truly make life matter, taking each day as a new opportunity for growth and change.  I have a hunch you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about after listening to this interview.

Enjoy and share away!

Love and Gratitude,

Katie

*My podcast theme song is titled “Land of the Living,” written and performed by the very brilliant and gracious Matthew Perryman Jones.

Pause & Reset — The Eclipse (and a VERY special announcement!)

Hello!

I hope your week is going well and you were able to catch the total eclipse on Monday. It was magical, eerie, mysterious, and simply moving. To be honest, I’m still very much processing it today.

In fact, it stirred up deep emotion and thought I wasn’t expecting. I’ve loved hearing friends and clients describe their experience as well. A common thread of feedback I’m getting is how unifying this mind-blowing act of mother nature was and is in light of the current chaotic times unfolding before our eyes.

The light became dark as the sun took a leave of absence for mere minutes. We dipped into the great unknown and uncertain, and all the surrounding chaos got dim in comparison to the display of pure genius we beheld.

Yes, indeed; a much-needed reprieve, though brief.

I’m struck by this powerful notion of pause: a collective joining of earth’s awareness directed in nature’s singular display of awe and wonder. Nature has an uncanny ability to ground us in the present moment.

I feel this grounding at the beach as well. Next to the ocean, my little life gets filed away in the perspective drawer and those mighty waves of relief wash over the worrisome details that seemed overwhelming. A pause…a deep breath…and a gentle reset.

As I sat drinking coffee and journaling the jumbled tangle of feelings bubbling up beneath the surface pre-eclipse Monday morning, I came across a quote from Author and Enneagram teacher, Ian Cron.

It helped me put language around what I was experiencing. Ian elegantly stated,

“Humans are the only beings that have the agency to mask their identities. Our goal is to become the true self.”

Yes!! How often do you find yourself putting on masks that disconnect you from the truth of who you are? I know I do… often.

For me, the eclipse served as this dramatic invitation to pause, notice the truth inside, and reset to the path of my essential self. This constant awareness is our collective true north.

When the light of certainty gets dim around us, hopefully we can call on courage and dig deep into that pulsing inner light of wisdom and truth that longs to lead us.

What’s guiding you? What masks do you find yourself wearing that may not be true to who you are? Perhaps this practice of pause will be an opportunity to observe, accept, and completely own our true and unique stories.

Speaking of stories, I’m incredibly excited to bring you a brand new podcast interview next week with Miles Adcox, Owner and CEO of Onsite, an internationally known therapeutic and personal growth workshop among so many other amazing things.

I’m especially grateful for him as Onsite has been a major conduit of personal healing, changing the trajectory of my life a decade ago this month. He is an incredibly effective and heart-led leader and I know you’ll be inspired by his insight, humility, and courage.

Get excited, friends!! 

Love & Gratitude,

Katie