We’re all on a journey of growth and transformation, though it doesn’t always look the same. Some of us move forward with intention but struggle with clarity, while others resist change altogether. Growth is hard, and it can be even harder when we’re also dealing with the impact of trauma. This week, we’re exploring how trauma, both big and small, can create resistance toward our goals—and how we can support ourselves through it to flourish on the other side.
When I talk about trauma, I mean both the big and small events that can deeply affect us. These can be major life events or smaller, repeated experiences that still make it hard for us to cope and reach our goals. But before you push back against the notion of trauma in your own life, consider the definition. Trauma is a lasting emotional event that disrupts your ability to cope in certain (or all) areas of life, and begins when you have a need that goes repeatedly unmet. So to be lighthearted, no – my child is not traumatized by a continual denial of dessert on a weeknight. She would possibly be traumatized by a continual denial of dessert if the denial was attached to behaviors, shaming, or control. Whether or not that becomes a traumatic event depends on her other protective factors.
So when we move into this goal setting work, we need to recognize how our trauma histories play into our abilities to succeed and flourish. The intention of healing work is to move forward into a new experience, and setting smaller targets along the way is a much more sustainable approach long term. But as we start considering what targets we’d like to aim for, things like automatic negative thoughts, emotions, or memories can make it harder to focus on what we’re trying to achieve. Think of a time when you wanted to pursue a new dream, but fear and doubt held you back.
When trauma surfaces in the form of doubt, fear, or anxiety, we must pay attention to it. As a coach, you can imagine how many targets I set for myself and others on a daily basis. Without knowing someone’s whole story, how can I helpfully assess if someone is ready for a specific target or if there is a traumatic experience holding them back from their ideals?
By noticing resistance.
We all resist hard work from time to time, but trauma-related resistance feels different. It’s not just hesitation—it’s your body reacting to memories or past events that make the task feel impossible. This kind of resistance comes from deep within, often tied to things we’ve been through. We can notice resistance in a target setting practice by paying attention to our physical responses, our automatic negative thoughts or push back, our emotional states, and our energy levels. When we’re ready to approach the hard work, and a target is meaningfully aligned with our values, our whole selves respond with higher energy, anticipation, and even a sense of physical opening – it’s like our inner self sits up a little taller at the hope of satisfaction in the process.
The hesitation we feel committing to a goal is not just in our heads, by the way. When we have a gut feeling about something, that’s embodied! Resistance in the body is a sympathetic response. In this instance, we might dysregulate into fight mode and offer excuses or past evidence as to why the target is unrealistic. Not all push back is resistance; sometimes it’s wisdom limiting a target to a reasonable expectation for a timeframe. For example, if someone sets a target for graduating from a four year program in one year, push back is reasonable. We may also dysregulate into flight mode, assessing our ability to engage the target as impossible, too much, too fast, too everything, and retreat with claims like, “I can’t do this. I’m not ready. This isn’t for me.”
When resistance shows up, our job is not to argue back. Our job is to ask questions. The first question being an embodied one – what can I notice in my body, right now? Is there an area that feels strained, tense, stuck, etc.? Bringing our attention to this area is the work of focusing, which we’ve talked about before. In this place of embodied resistance, our curiosity is the tool we need.
Once we make a little space to honor what arises within us, we can move into asking my favorite curious question: I wonder what this is? Put another way, we might question what within us is saying that a goal or target is not going to work? We tend to make declarative, black and white statements when we’re dysregulated. Maybe we’ve set a body based fitness goal, but declare that it won’t work because we never stick with our fitness routines. But curiosity would not say, “What’s wrong with me that I can’t stick with a routine?” That’s the language of judgement. See if you can hear the difference between that question and one of curiosity couched with compassion. “What’s going on within me that holds me back from creating a consistent fitness routine that I can achieve? Where do I need to shift my expectations?”
Curiosity softens the resistance because it makes space for us to explore what is possible without trying to force ourselves into change. As grievers, we’re already tired of being forced into a change we didn’t want. Why would we make our healing targets just as complicated and painful?
If we set our targets with curiosity, instead of force, we are creating space for our resilient selves to surface. Within our hope for growth, we become flexible. Our targets can change, rather than being fixed points of success or failure. This type of grief work is like archery. We are aiming for a target with varying areas of success. Every time we lift our gaze toward our target, we recognize the factors impacting our ability to hit the bullseye. What’s the wind speed today? Have I cared well for my arrows, or are they looking disheveled and bent? How far away from the target am I? What would a partial success look like?
As people with a growth mindset, aimed toward healing, we don’t discount the little steps. We celebrate the 1% growth as often as we can! That celebration reinforces success in our brains, driving us to want the next success, no matter how small.
Discussing growth as targets rather than fixed goals allows us to be more open to possibilities. Success can be seen on a spectrum, which helps us embrace setbacks without judgment, and even reframe our awareness of obstacles as stepping stones or information that teaches us to adjust our timing or effort.
Within this flexible approach, we also learn to attach ourselves not to the outcome, but the process. This is one of the hardest parts of growth work for me. The productivity culture we reside within is demanding and without mercy. If we don’t score the points, the effort doesn’t matter. If the deal isn’t closed, the work was a failure. How can we expect healing if we have such a specific definition of success or growth?
We owe it to ourselves to see our healing as process. As ongoing; not as journey, necessary, but as an integrative and expected part of humanity that like all things, flows on a spectrum. Somedays, the grief work is more accessible than others. Does that diminish our positive grief work experience on less productive days?
Unequivocally, no. We are grieving in a healthy way when we pause to celebrate the actions we take for ourselves, not because we took an action that demonstrably moved the needle. Others may not recognize our progress, but we will. And we will continue to allow ourselves to be in process, not arriving but still leaning toward a more lasting sense of integration.
Lasting integration is experienced through self-compassion. In grief, our holistic parts are sent into chaos – heart, mind, body, and spirit are suddenly misaligned with who we want to be and the values we want to live with. It’s too painful to look at our areas of life, knowing something is missing that impacts each one. So as we work toward realignment with ourselves and our values, we cannot operate without self-compassion.
Acknowledging the resistance we have toward growth with compassion is how we find the loving care we need to feel safe enough to begin moving forward. Instead of forcing ourselves to minimize the pain and push through for the sake of some goal, we can experience our resistance in a space of understanding.
Before we move on, it’s important to address something called spiritual bypassing. This is when we try to use spiritual practices, like praying more, as a quick fix for deeper issues. I’ve experienced this myself, having been in evangelical circles. Setting a goal to pray more might sound helpful, but it often overlooks the deeper emotional work we need to do, especially when dealing with trauma.
While a prayer habit can be spiritually uplifting, goals like “praying for ten minutes daily” does not alleviate the pain in itself. To offer such advice is reckless, supremacist, and painful for the person you’re speaking with. Let me explain why.
As always, we want to address the holistic parts of ourselves. While a target may be aimed toward one specific area, we still recognize the other parts are present. A spiritual practice as a target requires openness for the other parts of our whole selves to participate if possible. We are not only physical beings, thinking beings, feeling beings, or spiritual beings. We are all – both/and. Insisting on one’s prayer life as the problem eliminates curiosity about why their prayer practice might be less than they desire.
Have you ever attempted to pray or meditate and been fully distracted? I have. Does that mean my prayer goal of ten minutes a day has failed? It might, if I’m using the time frame and the active definition of prayer as my parameters. Suggesting that someone just needs to pray more, without considering their personal situation and context, overlooks their individual needs and circumstances.
I used the term ‘supremacist’ deliberately to highlight how suggesting one fixed way to heal, like praying more, can create a hierarchy. It places my own approach or beliefs above the individual’s unique experience and understanding. This kind of attitude doesn’t allow for empathy or a true understanding of what the other person needs. It assumes that my way is superior, rather than acknowledging and respecting their personal journey. In this way, I’m eliminating curiosity as well. I’ve already got the answers to what ails ya, so why would I need to ask any questions? This perspective removes the person-centered care we want in grief work. It slaps spirituality as a band-aid on a bullet wound. And ironically, when you offer that advice as a source of wisdom and insight, what it actually tells your listener is that you aren’t aware enough to recognize how one-sized fits all advice fits no one. Who wants a wisdom teacher that lacks wisdom?
Lastly, the pain grievers experience within spiritual bypassing creates another secondary loss for them to manage. When spiritual bypassing language or goals come from a person who lacks curiosity, wisdom, and frankly, love, they are now faced with grieving the safety and belonging in that friendship. Maybe the person wasn’t a close friend, so they’re not feeling much of a loss. But speaking from experience, I spent a lot of time realizing people offering me these spiritual goals just wanted me to be okay…and in as short a time as possible.
Target setting in a grief atmosphere is for the long haul. It is for the courageous and compassionate people willing to tolerate discomfort. For those of us able to see through the spiritual and relational bypassing, and to lean into the reality that grief can be accompanied by trauma, trauma informed target setting allows us to become open to the possibility of a non-linear healing path, and to me that’s beautiful. That’s real. That’s lasting in a way that we are transformed as people long term, instead of being able to repeat pithy encouragements and hope that heals the broken heart within.
Pushing back on resistance to a trauma aware approach often starts with self-awareness. Where have I let myself become accustomed to or even welcoming spiritual or relational bypassing? Am I simply trying to force myself into a process that seems to have a desired outcome, or have I failed to ask myself what I really want here?
Giving yourself permission to drop the goal setting and lean toward the transformational process of trauma-aware target setting is a gift all grievers deserve. If you need permission from someone else, then consider this permission granted. But I’m sending you all the love and hope for you to offer it next to yourself.
Thank you for listening to episode 164 of Restorative Grief. Trauma informed support tends to offer a more nuanced and intentional approach for growth, but I won’t lie to you – it’s much harder than slapping a good vibes only sticker on your journal. Different ways of minimizing our story, bypassing the difficult details in order to survive is a natural human response. And when the intensity of suppressing those pains gets too great, trauma informed support is available to help you through the deeper, more lasting work.
If this is your first time listening, thank you for making space to join this conversation. This week’s workbook for the podcast is full of reflective questions for this work as well as a little quiz to help you determine if you are setting growth-limiting goals or trauma-aware targets for yourself, too. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the workbook – either as a one-off growth tool or by becoming a Patron of the show. Thank you, as always, to every one of my faithful and generous Patreon supporters. Check out the show notes for links to become a Patron or snag the workbook, and consider sharing this episode or a snippet that inspired you. You never know who in your circle needs a boost of support.
And as always, before we go, one last thing. Please remember, the only solution for grief is to do the work of grieving. Thank you for listening. I’ll see you next week.
Links + Resources from this episode: