Childhood Trauma: Take Steps to Fill the Gap

welcome back everyone so let's get started so today we're going to continue we're almost um at the end of the seven steps of the healing process and we're going to be discussing how to take steps to fill this gap what's missing of what we needed when we were younger or what we need and now that we're older we can give it to ourselves and that's the positive piece over here that's the good part of all of this it's actually possible to to do it to ourselves we don't need to get it from others yes we could get it from others and um seeing how our life is realizing that um we're not the way we think we are the beliefs that we picked up but we can get it from ourselves also so let's get started before we start let's get grounded see where we are take a deep breath how am i feeling where am i coming from what did my day look like and you can check around you know with your physical the room where you're sitting become aware of where you are and then you become aware of inside of yourself how you're feeling and if you've been with us on this journey you can start identifying feelings letting them be seeing where you feel them in your body and just to see what it looks like what does it feel like and let it be doesn't mean anything it's okay so like we discussed till now we've learned how to connect with our inner child what it means that there's something inside of us might be shut down we might it might be many years that we've not been in touch with that peace with that little kid and we've done some meditation some guided meditation how to meet that inner child our wants and our needs to let it talk and the first few times some people when they meet it doesn't talk too much because it doesn't really trust because it tried many times and it decided that it's not going to talk because it wasn't a positive experience or nobody was there to be for it just to accept it but now we're learning how to how to actually be there for that inner child and when you finally meet it see what age it is see what it looks like might be very upset or it might be happy positive negative we've gotten both feedback finding playing and having a good time we're actually waiting for you and running to you to hug you sit on your lap to be there finally you're aware and you want to see it talk to it or angry negative where have you been all of these years and we're not judging whatever it is let it come up that's the second piece to validate whatever it brings up like a little kid complaining let it just listen whatever ideas there's no right and wrong if it feels a certain way then that's how it feels be there for it hold it give it space to bring up those feelings again it's a little kid doesn't always understand what you understand you might be an adult you might tell yourself that's so silly but when you say that that little child is gonna have to shut down again you want it to come up you wanted to talk a little bit you wanted to express those feelings once it can express those feelings we identify of what came up what are the stories what type of neglect what are the experiences that we've gone through it might be six-year-old five-year-old three-year-old or maybe older 10 12 whatever it is you've tried to be friends and they didn't accept you there was an adult that didn't listen so you decided subconsciously that feelings are not something that we need to discuss just put it away and all of these years you might be living that way you know we need to grow up fast like one example somebody mentioned was if somebody's the oldest in the family responsibility they have to grow up pretty fast when they're five already they have to take care of the you know the next child or you know we expect from them because they're the oldest we expect much more and you didn't have that time that you can just be have fun and now you're meeting again that little child their inner child and it's complaining it wants to just let loose so listen to it we become aware of the neglect or um of parenting style how our how we dealt how our parents dealt with our situation with our emotions were they there to [Music] to let it be to listen or maybe they weren't aware maybe they also grew up that way that emotions are not something that we should discuss and like we mentioned last week holocaust survivors were the only way they were able to continue was with logic and we can't judge them and it makes sense because there was so much that they went through if they if they would be tap into their emotions they wouldn't be able to continue the only way they continue is with thanking hashem that they're alive that they have food they have a roof on their heads and now let's do what we need to do and when the kids try to express emotions there's no place for that there was no place so just being aware of that and once we're aware of the experiences we embrace those emotions let it come up if it's too hard it might be a good idea to do it with a therapist it could bring up a lot of hard emotions and if somebody finds themselves in bed for many days well yeah um therapy works and it helps and give it to yourself if you need it but what we're discussing here is even those who feel that bar hashem they're fine they have a functioning life by hashem and uh pretty much beautiful from the outside but there's some something missing not always can you pinpoint it can be a feeling of of emptiness which we'll see soon so we identified what happens embrace the emotion let the emotion come up and then last week we discussed where it makes a difference in our life here are some ideas of how it can play out even as an adult and we might not be aware of all of this before we started this uh wednesday nights it could be you that you didn't know anything about um the stresses and and the anxiety or the or the experiences that you went through as a child we think we get older we're smarter we're logical and things are okay whatever happened happened and now we're good but we don't realize that it does have an effect it does go over even later even if you're much older if it's not something that we've dealt with and uh he'll heal it in in the right way then it stays there so here are some examples again these are if it happens once in a while that's okay but if somebody finds these ideas more than you know pretty often then it's probably something and a belief about yourself about your surroundings about your life so i i want to do tonight if we can do a little bit um a little bit interactive if you can let me know in the chat again the chat is private it comes only to me just put in one or two words things that came up whether it's you identified something when you were younger or a feeling about yourself and you can put put it in the chat while we're going to go through these ideas and if something triggers if you feel um it resonates put in put in the chat so i can see yeah you know the feedback okay just a second can you open the chat over here okay so sometimes stress coming from trauma post-traumatic stress disorder depression right somebody who's unavailable unavailable for themselves for their spouse their kids increasing likelihood for an eating disorder feeling deeply personally flawed you're always walking around thinking yourself something wrong with me there's something wrong or there's a feeling of emptiness you know you can be a successful person which i've met many times people from the outside they have a business or family their life from the outside is really really beautiful and they'll even tell to me and that's you know they're wondering why they're looking around you know everything is working everything is fine why do i feel that there's something missing you think you know maybe if you make a more money or if that would change there's a chain but people have all that and there's still some emptiness and some and most of the time it really goes down to that core belief core idea about yourself poor self-discipline you want to do something and you push it off you're not in control of your wants and needs for some reason you find yourself all over the place guilt and shame about about it could be something that you did wrong but it's taking over it's taking over too much and you're walking around with that guilt and shame about yourself anger and aggressive behaviors again we are human and once in a while we could find ourselves getting angry and i believe it's healthy it shows that you're in tuned and you're not suppressing however if you're walking around with this this idea you're walking around with it very often wherever you go you get triggered and there's a lot going on you feel angry and aggressive behaviors then there's something to look into just a second one there we go beautiful okay thank you very much for the feedback please continue if anything comes up put it in those feelings so we can do some ideas based on that so personally flawed feeling bad um about yourself or a lot of your day is is an example that comes up um some people people mention that they have a hard time eating certain foods and that's you know it's a very good indicator maybe when they were younger it was something they have to eat so we had to eat up everything we had on our plates this is an interesting story that my my grandmother she's not alive anymore but when i went i was 10 years old i went to her for shabbos and i remember the dessert it was very sweet and i didn't like it so i didn't finish it before you knew it that was friday night on shabbos day i got the same desserts the same plates got it for dessert you know you left over this there it's still good so you didn't want it for now so you'll leave it at a different time which which again we we understand we're not hit the judge but just to see of our reactions today if it's based on the way we grew up the last one over here is difficulty trusting others or relying upon anyone else see it's interesting because you're not trusting other people that means you're doing everything yourself right so that means you you believe you're okay you don't need the help of others and if you do need help of others that's a weakness so you think you're strong okay i don't need anybody's help i can do it myself but let's think about it for a minute you don't trust other people so you're going to do yourself so that means really it's it's it's something inside of you that you you would love to have other people helping you out being in your life but you're too you know you think you're strong but it's too weak to be able to identify and say could you please help me i can't do everything myself that means i'm still okay if you help me but we sometimes we can't do that see i'm not okay only if i can do everything myself if i need your help that means i'm flawed something is wrong with me but what we really need to realize is that we're okay even if we need help because sometimes we need delegates whether it's at work or it's at home and sometimes because we're human sorry i know we're human we want to pretend that we don't need any you know anybody i can do everything myself i'm fine i'm good but really deep down deep down you believe that if you do need help from others if you do need help from other people then it's a weakness so i can't show it i can't show other people that i'm human i need to show them that i don't need anybody i can do everything myself and so it's very very important awareness here's an example of emotional neglect if a child comes home and wants to share any story with their parents so here's the the child comes home and wants to share sad that they feel sad about a friend that's cool and the parents probably because they're not aware of how to hold these feelings how to be there and just create that space which we're learning here it brushes off and instead of listening and helping the child figure out how to cope with the situation you say you know why why are you so worried about that child what what what difference does it make to you or no that's not true it doesn't feel that way or you shouldn't feel that way why are you feeling bad for that child and what does the eight-year-old say when his parent the adult says that they start thinking maybe there is something i'm not aware of maybe these things aren't something i should be thinking about it shouldn't make a difference so they might even try to come home and share again or three times or four times but after a while they learn from the adults that's feelings that they feel about whatever is going on is not something that's or they don't feel the right feelings you shouldn't feel that way and over time the child begins to learn that their emotional needs are not important and what happens when our emotional needs are not important i better put it away even though i do have emotions i do have feelings i have positives and negatives but i need to put it away and when i feel i need support i'm sorry there's no one to go to because i tried many times and what happened was basically was shut down subconsciously perfectionism is also something that comes up i just want to read this um thank you very much for putting it into the chat if you have a perfectionist and critical parent so this person had a mother like that always asked me to tell her something happy because she needed you to make her happy and as a young kid what are you supposed to do and then eventually all of these ideas yes and then when you get older you're confused a lot of confusion thank you for sharing and this is why it's very important to go back again if it's something that it brings up emotions that are very very hard to feel and go back to those stories then it would be a good idea to have somebody to sit with you to hold your hands to listen slowly talk about it and realize what you're feeling now is based on something that you picked up when you were younger but if you could go back to you know realize these ideas if it's not too heavy to go back and see what we needed when we were younger childhood emotional neglect can damage the child's self-esteem and i believe if somebody is lacking self-esteem automatically there are mental health issues it teaches them their feelings are not important the consequences of this neglect can be deep and last a lifetime many are not aware of it we're not here to make others aware we're here for ourselves to see where we are and if there's any connection treatment for childhood emotion neglect and help children who were neglect neglected overcome the feelings of emptiness and inability to handle their emotions not understanding their emotions to be able to handle it first me to understand it parents can learn to better relate to their children and prevent the cycle from happening again here we are now wherever we are whether we're a grandparent a parent a child listening to this presentation wherever it is we can be there for for the people around us so when they share we can listen we understand that that's what need what's needed doesn't mean we need to fix anything just to be able to listen and be there so that's what we really need to discuss tonight which we're going to do it you know it's something that we we're just gonna touch upon is to take the steps to fill the gap and again yes we can take care of ourselves now as an adult we can see what we were lacking when we were younger and give it to us so an example is if you didn't have any friends you felt you weren't accepted so that's a deep feeling that you've gotten when you're very young whatever the story was whether it's in school or your neighborhoods and there was no one there to to help you with the situation you could be trying to share with the parents but they they said what's the big deal just just play with them but it didn't work so now when you're older it's you know if you don't have you could make you can have new relationships you can realize that you have and everybody does most people dog has you know we have something to look at and say you know i'm i'm accepted people like me i'm okay and you come up with these ideas which you can give yourself what you needed when you were that eight-year-old finances an example is if you grew up poor and you weren't able to buy what you wanted maybe you couldn't eat too much there wasn't a lot in the house and it did bring up an emotion which you felt scared worried maybe fear of the unknown and now when you're older it could be you have you know you're you're making enough money but you still have that fear again you should learn how to budget don't go spending you know so some people just spend much more than they can because of that way they grew up but try you know now as an adult figure out what do you have how you can spend it and not continue the cycle of the way you grew up and the acceptance like we discussed and really it's self-acceptance where you are now where am i in my life no matter what's going on there obviously there are positives and negatives nobody's perfect but to accept myself the way i am now and that can be hard self-acceptance can be very very hard and i do want to mention before we go to the next slide and we finish with the night we have to remember that when the when the inner child brings up an emotion don't dismiss it and say well now you have enough money so why do you feel that way so this is a piece that we i just want to stop here for a minute because this is very important if for example somebody grew up with no money in the house okay so there's that fear that feeling of we don't deserve we don't have there's a you know some some deep feeling of fear of the unknown and you get to talk to your inner child and it brings it up so you say okay but big deal why are you bringing that up from then now you have enough go take care of yourself what you just did was you pushed it away you pushed away that thought that emotion that it brought up we've done that for many years we want to stop doing that let the emotion come up feel it and say i understand where it's coming from i hear you don't run right away to the solution be there with the emotion spend time with that idea that it brings up and then you can say okay so what would you like now what can i give you now that make you feel a little bit better but it's only after you've let that emotion come up after you let that that that voice that idea come up because if you tell yourself the whole time don't be nervous don't why are you making why are you feeling that way well don't no it's it's over it's fine everything's good again you're feeling that way and then next day you wake up the same idea pushing away thoughts is just making them stronger you're making them louder so like we discussed in the past let it be let it come up see it and understand it be there for it and after you've given that give it that space you can go to the next step and say okay what can i give you now that will make you feel better so that's a very important piece of not dismissing so basically that is what were really discussed in the you know since i began this presentation and this is just uh wrapping up the ideas that we've discussed from class one until we start we started this seven steps of healing but the idea is to let the emotions come up understand emotions i'm just gonna go over this slide very fast and these are the concepts that we discussed from day one so in class number one to understand why many people are busy why our brain keeps ourselves busy we don't want to stop because it brings up emotions but what we're looking for that inner peace feeling for that relaxed feeling so that really letting our body relax not only our mind our body to relax we need to accept let those emotions come up because that's the reason why we're running away because we're scared of those negative emotions sitting in the space we discussed like what viktor frankl mentions between stimulus and response they're stimulus all day if we're not aware of the stimuli in our life and then how we respond to it we're always running and fixing things making sure there's no problems take care of take care of this put on a band-aid just continue routine don't stop we're always running and if we're going to stop and become aware of what's going on negativity we have to build some positivity everybody has some positive there's no thing of no positives start building the list deep breathing to help relax to be in the moment even though negative things come up we become comfortable with the uncomfortable when the inner child it when it it shares things that you don't like to listen to you don't want to hear it again you don't want to bring it up it's been many years that you've buried it but you can bring it up and it's okay you feel uncomfortable start learning what emotions are to understand what it is it doesn't stay there for long it comes and goes like the waves let it come and breathe mindfulness helps to be in the moment the havening technique also very powerful technique mentioned that it helps for people who come back from from war to be able to give them that space and to be able to relax positive affirmation again to to find the positivity which many people are not aware of there's always negative thoughts to identify and release emotions become aware of what comes up and to release them which we're learning now these seven steps when thoughts come up understand that that doesn't mean anything about you but we're so used to listening to those thoughts it says i'm a failure so that means i'm a failure because i just heard i'm a failure but if you can just back up and hear what you've what your mind is saying that doesn't mean you're a failure your mind might say it you have to learn how to see it and let it go detach from it and then it boils down to some self-love self-love affirmations be able to love yourself accept yourself again acceptance before love love can be hard for many people but to be able to accept yourself no matter where you are no matter what's going on in your life continue breathing might be hard so that you can be able to love yourself and only then you can love others and then we started um with the guided meditation to meet our inner child and actually practicing these things that i've learned to be able to be there for that inner child and then the seven steps that we've done and the next week we'll wrap it up in its hashem and that's it for tonight so i want to thank you very much for sharing you can share now whatever came up any ideas whether it's positive or negative something that helps you now as an adult even though you've come up with some things that you don't like it opens sometimes can open a can of worms you become aware of it and you learn how to see it listen to it and what you can do about it so thank you very much and i will read what you share in the chat if you would like to ask live go ahead i was always accepted as a friend as a rabbi's daughter as an adult some people excluded me still was hurtful to be excluded and now i am a very inclusive person which is beautiful look around and realize that you are inclusive and the ideas that come up it might say people are not interested in you you can say you can see it let it be let it come up again don't right away run to that solution say it's not true listen when you're in a child shares don't say it's not true look around i if you feel about yourself you feel unworthy you feel unaccepted you tell yourself it's not true look everybody's accepting you but then again you're pushing away that child let it come up i try to use positive messages to dispute the negative voices beautiful i just want to put in a little bit of space going right away from listening to the negative voices and right away coming up with the positive verses right which we think is going to help just continue with positive positive but then you're really fighting those negative voices and you're not letting that negative voice come up the negative voice is coming from that inner child that feels a certain way and you're going to tell yourself a positive for example if your negative voice says you're unworthy you don't deserve and you're going to sit there and say i do deserve i do deserve i do deserve so basically you're fighting that that voice and you're shutting it down you're trying to shut it down let's not do that let it come up sit there for a few minutes breathe and see that voice saying you are unworthy and smile just listen to it that's the inner child sitting on your lap and saying i feel unworthy well whatever story you might be aware of of the story you might not be aware of the story let it come up and listen and breathe say i hear you that's it you could say just come up with like i hear listen if that's how you feel and that's how you feel it's it's it's uncomfortable wow i wonder what happens if you're not aware i wonder what happened when you were young maybe you can tell me and if they could let them talk listen if they don't just sit with that feeling and after you've given them the space you've listened you've let them voice their opinions now you can say you can go to that positive you know look around in your life and tell yourself yes you are worthy and you have things to show for that and you're you're okay with who you are for those who are afraid of the negative voices so you can start slowly again again i don't want you to open the can of worms we we are coming up with a lot of negativity here you might think why in the world why are you taking me back to those negative stories ideas days that i don't want to go back to but like we mentioned if we're not going to go back and heal it slowly it really runs our life our life today is based on those ideas what we do today is based on those ideas so we want to go back there and if we need somebody to sit on the side hold our hands go ahead find somebody but we do want to go back to those stories and listen to those negative voices if we know that the negative voice is not really us it's our mind saying something you can listen to it and smile it doesn't mean it's you that's how it feels let it come up thank you very much for for sharing and for coming tonight that's it for tonight it's hashem what's next week i don't know if we're gonna meet next week on wednesday nights or maybe we should meet and have a party so uh let's see next week wednesday nights looks exciting on my calendar so happy purim for everyone and it's another good time like i mentioned before these um different days come up it could be a jump to something that's different than your routine that's where a lot of things come up you know when we're in routine doing every day the same thing so okay we know ready what to do and we could busy and we don't have to go back to those feelings of what we're discussing here but when we need to figure out things what to do about purim where we're going to go if the family is going to come they're not going to come emotions emotions emotions sometimes it can be heavy it could be heavy find some time write it down let things happen let it play out see how you take it keep on breathing and um bring back your feedback in two weeks a minute hashem and uh happy purim everyone and we should be able to slowly but surely give ourselves what we need so we can heal you sasha have a good night and a good week you