Don't Follow Your Dreams

Hello, hello, hello....good to see you!

Join us this Saturday for the Trauma Book Book Club where we'll be talking about how part of the brain that's the alarm system for our brain and a few tools that can help us remind ourselves that we're safe.

Recently, a friend made a big leap in following her dreams and all hell broke loose. I've seen it again and again with other Advanced Bitches, clients and myself. Sheer panic, complexes and trauma responses abound! I joked around about how dare that wall art and toxic positivity memes gaslight us into thinking following our dreams will be fun and easy. For trauma survivors, following our dreams is dangerous for many reasons. One is that following your dreams and being self-actualized is a betrayal to the toxic family system. Another reason could be that we are used to our mirror neurons mirroring back to us the experience of not being seen and deciding to live your dreams is asking the world to see us. Yuk.

And yet it's the thing we long for. When you understand how trauma impacts your brain and the tools we can use to override that, we can make following our dreams so much safer.

The video clip from the last Trauma Book Book Club discusses mirror neurons and how that explains repetition compulsion (our unconscious compulsion to repeat destructive behaviors) and relational healing (having a healthy relationship with someone safe and who sees and gets you).

With love and fairy dust,

Elizabeth