Healing from Trauma Starts with Permission to Rest: The 1 Thing You Must Be Willing to Do

Now, trauma can come in many different shapes and forms.

It can be heartbreak, it can be disappointment, it can be something physical, something emotional.

All of that is trauma.

And today, what I want you to understand is that first and foremost, you have a reason to need a pause from life.

You have a reason to need to just take a step back, to take a breather, to take a little afternoon nap from life, because you've just endured a lot.

And so today we're gonna be talking about why that is, how to accomplish it, and what's gonna happen in the end.

So, my friend, that's all what's happening today.

Of course, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and as always, I am so happy you're here and can't wait for us to dive in.

SPEAKER_03: I got grid, racing inspiration on my mind.

I got grid, grace and inspiration on my mind.

SPEAKER_00: Today, I want you to understand that the essence of what I'm talking about is honestly quite simple.

The strongest thing you can do, the best decision you can make after experiencing trauma in your life is honestly gonna be probably one of the hardest.

And that is to slow down.

Because for some reason, we are bred to believe that we need to push through, we need to keep going, we need to move a little bit faster.

Because the faster you move, well, the faster you get out of the hard times.

But in fact, what I found is that the opposite is true is that we have to give ourselves time to slow down, to reflect, to understand that we've been through a lot.

Our physical bodies, our emotional, spiritual, all of it has just endured a lot with this traumatic event.

And at some point in time, we have to give ourselves time to just pause, to rest, to recover.

Because the simple truth is that some wounds, they take time to heal.

And the deepest wounds, the emotional ones, they're the ones that oftentimes take the longest.

The wounds that no one else sees, it's only the wounds that you feel.

The wounds that you feel in the middle of the night, when you're remembering the loss of the person who you loved, who's no longer lying next to you.

It's the loss of the life that you wanted, the dreams that never came true.

It's that kind of hurt that I'm talking about.

And I believe these invisible wounds, they require more than just time.

They require patience, they require grace, and they require kindness to ourselves.

So if you're in a state in your life where you're feeling like you need to just keep moving, you got to keep hustling, you need to do the next thing because, well, there's so much to do, and you don't want to stop, and you don't want to think about the hurt and the pain.

My friend, I'm just gonna tell you that obviously you're the only one who ever knows when it's time, but at some point, you're gonna have to just give yourself time to sit in it, to understand it, to feel it, to let yourself move through it, through the act of taking a pause, by taking a break.

Remember, this is an afternoon nap from life.

If you want to use a metaphor, think your trauma is a hurricane, a storm.

And after the hurricane comes through, there's gonna be damage.

There's gonna be limbs that are down, trees knocked over, shingles ripped off of the roof.

And you can't just rush outside and start fixing things.

You can't immediately start watering the grass, you can't start immediately mowing the yard, putting trees back up.

No, you have to first be able to survey the damage, to understand what you're left with, what damage was caused, what is the impact going to be?

And the essence here is if you rush out too soon, all you're doing, my friend, is you're trying to rebuild your life on top of the debris.

You no longer have a solid foundation.

You're building upon wreckage of disappointment.

And that's no way to build a new life.

So instead, if you take a pause, if you give yourself the time, the grace to survey the damage, that little bit of a pause, that little bit of a break can give you the time to have the mental clarity you need to come up with a game plan, to understand what you're looking at, and therefore you can begin to move forward.

Now, when I talk about taking a pause, this intentional pause, or as I was using the uh relation to an afternoon nap from life, what does this exactly look like in terms of being sure that you're getting the most out of this time?

Well, I broke it down into three simple steps.

The first step, and is oftentimes the most difficult, is literally giving yourself permission to take the pause, to take that afternoon nap from life.

Because at some point in time, you have to give yourself permission to just stop.

You keep going, you keep striving, you keep trying to do the thing, but at some point you have to just realize you know what?

Maybe I just need to take a break.

Maybe I need to stop trying, stop doing, and I need to just sit in it, to understand that it's okay for me to not be doing, to not be moving forward, because I've just been through a lot.

The fact is, is that in the pause, in the silent, it isn't weakness.

That's where strength and clarity is found.

It's where you can begin to understand what you're even feeling.

Because when we continue to move forward in life, always pursuing and pushing through because we don't want to face what we've gone through, my friend, we're never gonna have that clarity.

We're constantly dragging a bunch of crap with us that doesn't belong.

You have to be able to give yourself a chance to just catch your breath, to understand that it's gonna be okay, and to understand how you're feeling.

My next little step here is understanding that the type of soul-nurturing rest I'm talking about, it's not just physical, it's emotional, it's spiritual.

And in this moment, it may give you the opportunity to finally feel the feels, to scream, to cry, to rage, or maybe it's to laugh, maybe it is to cry, maybe it is to find somebody to lean on, a pillow to hug, a dog, your best friend to snuggle with.

And it's in these moments, I believe, when we can actually begin to heal.

When we begin to finally allow ourselves the opportunity to let the emotions come out.

Now, again, I'm not here to pretend this is easy.

And I believe every single one of us are on our own timeline.

Some people can go through this immediately.

Some people, it may take years.

I did not fully get to a point where I was ready to move through what happened to me, becoming blind, for the better part of about 10 years.

Now, in that 10 years, of course, I cried.

I struggled.

Even to this day, there are days that I mourn the loss of the life that I thought I was gonna have.

I mourn the loss of my ability to see.

It doesn't mean that this makes everything better.

No.

It just gives you the opportunity to finally move into the next chapter of life free of all the hurt and all the disappointment that you've been carrying with you.

It gives you an opportunity to just free yourself of all of that crap and get yourself where you can enter into a new season of life.

The third step in this process of taking an intentional pause, a pause with a purpose, a pause that I hope and pray will make a difference, is being willing to ask yourself the tough questions.

How am I really doing?

How am I really feeling?

Not what I pretend to be, not what I post on social media, not what I tell my family or my friends.

How am I really doing?

Where I am right now, what do I need?

What do I want?

What do I dream about?

What do I want to come true?

Not guarded by this idea of, well, dreams never come true and there's all this hurt and disappointment.

No.

Forget about all of that stuff right now.

I want you to think about what you really and truly want, what you desire.

This is just between you and you.

Ask yourself, where am I hurting?

How do I feel right now?

Where is the pain?

Where am I carrying the burden?

You can answer these questions however you like.

Maybe it's as simple as you getting out a journal and journaling each one of these questions every day when you wake up.

Or maybe it's you just literally talking it out to yourself.

It's you lying in bed and thinking about these questions each morning.

It's you just literally giving yourself time to be with you, the person who needs the attention right now.

The biggest thing here is I want you to understand that you matter, that your life matters.

And just as maybe a little bonus item for how to approach this intentional pause, is seek out sources of inspiration, of motivation, of things that might have you thinking about things in a way you hadn't thought of before.

For myself, that comes mostly by way of a book.

I love being a good audiobook.

Thank goodness for Audible.

They make life so easy.

Go download an audiobook.

I mean, yes, if you're into reading a regular book, go for it.

But maybe you're at a point in your life where you don't feel like reading.

Your eyes are tired.

You want to just be able to lie in your bed and listen to something.

Well, go grab a book.

Find a book about something that interests you.

A book about a real life story of somebody overcoming something that maybe you've gone through.

Something that I guarantee you, by listening to their story, you might find something that they say that is that little piece that you needed.

I know for myself, that was the case.

When I was in that period of my life, when I wasn't ready to move forward, I was still holding on to the life that I had wanted.

And it was only because of a book that helped to set me free.

So don't underestimate the power of listening to a book during this period where you're just taking a pause from life, from pushing forward.

Now, I understand that you may think, yeah, this is great, but he doesn't know that I still have a life I have to live.

And yes, I get it.

I understand that you may still have to go to work.

You may still have a family you have to take care of.

But what I'm talking about is you just pausing in the essence of you're not constantly pushing forward.

Instead, you're just putting a pause on all those plans, all those ideas.

Even if it means you telling your family, your spouse, your loved ones, hey, listen, I gotta just take a break for a bit.

I need to take a pause from all of this stuff that we've been doing and pursuing.

And I just need to take a break for a little bit.

And maybe that means over the course of a week, over the course of a month, maybe it is just a few days.

Enough time and space for you to get clear on you.

I wanted to leave you with one last image in your mind to help you illustrate the power of the pause.

I would love for you to think of your life like a bow and arrow.

If you've ever shot a bow and arrow before, you know that you have to pull the string back.

You have the arrow locked on, and you have to pull the string, and it's hard.

It's hard to pull that string all the way back.

But what you do, you pull it back.

Before you release it, what do you do?

You pause, you steady your arm.

The tension is eased off, and you're holding the string, the arrow is in place, it's ready to soar forward.

Give yourself time to pause, to aim, to see exactly where you want that arrow to go.

And when that arrow is held in the pause, it's not failing, it's not giving up on life.

It's literally preparing to soar forward.

It is gaining its potential for greatness.

You, my friend, are that arrow.

And the pause is literally you just taking an opportunity to take a break, to take a pause so that you can soar forward with direction, with intention into the life that you want.

My friend, I get it, life isn't easy.

I'm not here to pretend that it is.

And that is why I just want to encourage you with today's episode that it's okay, that I understand that you've been through a lot of stuff in life.

And I get that you might be struggling.

And that is why I want to give you the encouragement, the permission to just take a pause.

My name, of course, is Kevin Lowe, your host, as well as an inspirational public speaker.

Matter of fact, if you belong to an organization, a company, anyone looking for a speaker for your next event, please be sure to go check out my website, which is kevinspeaks.org.

I have that inside of today's show notes.

I am more than happy to get to speak with you or anybody at your company or organization about coming on as an inspirational speaker.

That link is in the show notes.

Again, kevinspeaks.org is the website.

Listen, I hope that today's episode, more than anything else, just gave you permission to take a break and to realize that what you've been through is meaningful, it's a lot, that it's okay for you to just take a break from a life.

SPEAKER_03: I will not fear the storm, my hopes well defined.

I want my faith, not by sight.

I want fear design, rising higher every day.

Oh doubts left behind, cause I got grit.

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