Rebuilding self-trust

From emotional suppression to an inner compass you can rely on

Many of us begin to look at what really happened in our childhoods quite late in life. We want to understand how we became the way we are, why some patterns keep repeating, and why we feel like we have never really arrived.

The moment you start your childhood trauma healing journey, something strange happens.

Instead of gaining clarity, we fall into an abyss of darkness. Old painful memories come to the surface, we wake up in the middle of the night, sweating from anxiety or overwhelmed by the intensity of our feelings.

How could things get that bad?

Why have we lost control?

And who are we really, after all?

Thoughts like these made me question my reality. I felt like a total failure, was full of self-doubt, and lost all trust in myself. I had no idea how to turn my life around.

That’s when I was finally ready to let go of a version that was never me.

Image by Erriko Boccia on Unsplash

When you realize you were living a role

You can only trust yourself when you know who you are. Sounds simple when in fact it isn’t.

When you grew up in a dysfunctional family system, you were never really seen for who you are. Instead, you were forced to fit in and play a role you never chose.

You learned to function, to cope, to read the room. That’s how you survived.

It was an adapted life. Functioning in it may have brought you far in life.

At some point, the lie you were forced to live with collapses.

Then it’s quite natural that you have no idea who you are. How could you, when in the years that shaped you the most, you were not allowed to be yourself?

But what you do know is the price you had to pay for all that.

By this, I mean the emptiness, the disconnection, and the feeling of never really belonging.

How your self-trust was broken

I believe that deep inside, we have some sort of understanding of who we are, no matter how old we are.

If you go back to your childhood, you will find moments when you rebelled against your role or felt that something was deeply wrong. You probably brought your concerns to the table, which just made things worse.

That’s when:

- Your feelings were dismissed

- You were called too sensitive

- You were heavily criticised and made to feel small

- You were punished for speaking up against the family

The lesson you got there was that showing or expressing feelings was dangerous. So you learned to suppress them. And in turn, this made you neglect a big part of who you are.

The real miracle is that you found ways to function despite living against your nature. Or in other words: You have no idea how strong you really are.

Keep this in mind. If you had the strength to function in a role that was never yours, you also have the strength to find your way back to your true self.

The importance of self-soothing

The first step in rebuilding your self-trust is to reconnect with your feelings. That may sound more complicated than it is. In essence, it means allowing yourself to feel your feelings until they fade. No matter how intense they become.

I know that anxiety can feel life-threatening, and all the thoughts that spin around this feeling make it even more real. Telling yourself that “this too shall pass” will sound like an evil cosmic joke — and won’t help at all.

But let’s roll back to what would happen in a healthy family...

You would run to mommy for cover. She holds you tight and makes you feel safe like only a mother can. After a few minutes, you go on with life and finally forget about what scared you.

When you are a little older, your parents will teach you to face your fears directly. It’s a bit like daddy letting you jump into the water to learn to swim, while making sure to give you a hand when needed.

Of course, now you are not a child anymore. Nevertheless, when feelings overwhelm you, and they sure will when you deal with your childhood trauma, you need ways to soothe and calm yourself down. Only then will you find the trust that you can actually hold these feelings and finally process them.

Personally, it helped me a lot to replace my inner voice with that of a loving and caring older brother. So whenever anxiety, worthlessness, or whatever heavy feeling overcame me, I let this older brother speak to me.

You can choose any person or role model you want. The only important point is that you can trust that inner voice. Only then will it help you to calm down.

It can take a while until you have learned to handle your strongest feelings from the past. You will notice that you feel safer overall, are less triggered, and become more at peace with yourself.

At that stage, you can do more things that help you even more to connect with your body (e.g., Yoga, Reiki, breathing exercises, etc.).

Rebuilding trust

Once you have reconnected with your feelings, you will naturally regain a sense of who you are. You will become conscious again of what feels right and wrong.

In other words: You have your inner compass back.

The struggle at this point is that you will be a bit in no-man’s land. You will no longer be in your old assigned role. It can feel unbearable. And if there’s one thing you know for sure, it’s that you never want to go back. You want to live your life the way a tiger demands to be a tiger.

The only problem: You don’t fully know who you are yet.

This stage is also known as the void. It’s the space between your old (false) identity and becoming your real self.

The emptiness you feel in the void is of a different quality. It has a peaceful character. You know you are safe, but you may still have doubts here and there.

You can’t rush this stage. Instead, you can learn to use your compass. By that I mean: try different things and notice how they feel. Walk in a direction of your choice. Take small steps — but keep walking. If something feels wrong, change course.

The magic happens when you realize that you feel connected to the path you are walking. You learn to trust the steps you take — and that finally leads to trusting yourself.

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