What To Do When There Are No Good Options

Ever felt like life's got you cornered with no way out? That's the Betrayal Trauma talking, and we're here to journey through it together. This heartfelt episode takes you along the transformative path of the CTFAR model, with a client's powerful story highlighting that even in the midst of disabilities and toxic relationships, options and hope are still very much alive. With a little bit of self-love and guidance from our highest forms of love or a higher power, we uncover the steps to reclaim joy and courageously pursue our dream lives.

Humor and personal anecdotes light the way as we face our fears and turn them into faith, championing the notion that progress trumps perfection. Join us as we explore the vast resources available at our fingertips, from YouTube to our robust online community, designed to foster growth in relationships, finances, and personal development. Whether it's a habit of daily scripture study or joining the conversation in our Facebook group "The Other Side of the Struggle - Healing from Betrayal Trauma," this episode is your invitation to break free and start crafting the life you've envisioned.

For the Powerful and Profitable Trauma Informed Coach 5 Day Challenge, click on this link to join the challenge: https://www.kushlachadwick.com/5day-powerfulandprofitable

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Hey everyone, it's Erin Anderson with the Erin Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching. I am super excited that you have tuned in. Today. Let's keep talking about how to heal from B-Trail Trauma. Welcome to the other side of the struggle. This is a podcast where we talk about trauma, how to heal it and then how to take it and use it to unlock your mission and your potential and to use it to live your very best dream life. When you're dealing with B-Trail Trauma, it can be hard to know how to heal it, how to stop the pain and to know what your next steps are to take in your own life, and these are the questions that we try to answer here. Trauma has the ability to rob us of our joy and identity, which is why it's so miserable to experience. But with the right tools and with the right mindset, we can totally reclaim that joy and even use this trauma to strengthen ourselves, so that way, trauma does not knock us off of our joy again. Living your dream life should be a non-negotiable, but trauma tends to try to negotiate that with you and even though trauma is not something that we will completely ever be free of in our life, the pain is negotiable. This is why I created Aaron Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching and this podcast is because I want my listeners, I want my clients, to live truly live free from the prison that trauma can put you in. I want you to live on the other side of the struggle. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle.

Speaker 1: 3:39

This week, you know, I've got to be honest, like I've really been considering like topics that are really going to stand out to you guys, that are really going to help you and really going to help you move forward, because, you know, one of the things that I hear a lot from you guys is just how stuck you're feeling in the situations you're in. And, honestly, I was actually chatting with a client about how stuck she was feeling recently, to the point, actually, where she was feeling like there was no point living life anymore. And she's probably going to listen to this episode and she's going to hear herself in this. But the thing is she's disabled, she's got a lot of toxic relationships happening and she just feels like there's no good options out there. She's feeling really, really stuck and as I got thinking about, you know, talking with her and everything, I got thinking that there's probably a lot of you out there that probably have similar thoughts and similar feelings to what she herself is dealing with, and for that reason, I really wanted to do a podcast about this topic, like what to do when there are no good options.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Well, number one, let's actually get into the CTFAR on this right, or the five-step thought process and if you remember CTFAR, that means circumstance, thoughts, feelings, actions, results right? Well, let's write down what our circumstances are, what are our thoughts about the circumstances, how do we feel about that, how are we acting because of all this, and what is the result. And you can even work this backwards by saying, well, what is the result I'm getting? What actions am I taking to get this specific result? How am I feeling about this? Like, what am I really thinking about this? And, obviously, what is the, what is the circumstance that's causing all this? Right, you can work it backwards or forwards, either way, whichever works best for you. You can even work it in the middle, right?

Speaker 1: 6:05

The whole idea is just to simply get clear with and just step back from yourself for a few minutes when you really feel like your nose is to the grindstone and you can't see any other way. This is an invitation to pull back, to just pull back and not necessarily surrender to the situation, but simply surrender and stop trying to do things the way you've been doing them. That's really all it is. It's just an invitation, okay, and again, I say this with so much love to you guys like no judgment whatsoever, I've been there feeling like there were no good options, that it was all on me, that whatever I did was just gonna suck, and I felt so stuck and I suggest, like back then I didn't know about the five-step thought process, right, but I really am gonna suggest you guys taking that you can even listen to, like look back in the previous episodes. There's one about the five-step thought process, right, listen to that episode again and try to figure out like what is it? You're just really thinking how you're feeling and this is one of the ways you start having your own back. You start actually listening to yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Okay, and when you sit back without judgment, you can also sit back without excuses, right? I don't blame you for feeling like there's no good options. I don't blame you for feeling like you want to strap a rocket to people's pants and just see them shoot up into the sky. Don't do that, by the way. Okay, I'm just saying that I don't blame you. I don't blame you for feeling like there are no good options, for feeling sad, for feeling like poor, poor me. I don't blame you, right? Anybody going through your hell would probably feel very similar to the way you're feeling.

Speaker 1: 8:29

But if we keep saying that there are no good options and that there's nothing we can do, the more we're going to believe it and the more stuck we're going to feel. And the truth of the matter is this is where we really start getting to have our own back. Like, we may think that we need to kick somebody out, we may think this, we may think this, we may think this, but the truth of the matter is, is what we actually think matters? See, when we turn to our highest form of love or we turn to God okay, for me it's God. Obviously I'm going to ask what is and this actually comes down to the number two thing to do what is it I'm really afraid of? Why do I not dare taking, like, making a move and taking a step in this direction? Because of the fear. Like, what is the fear? What am I really truly afraid of? Now, the reason why this is powerful and it's such a good question to answer okay is because when you're saying there are no good options, really what we're saying is I'm terrified, I'm terrified of the judgments of other people. I'm terrified of how my husband is going to react. I'm terrified of not having enough money. I'm not terrified, I'm not terrified listen to me. I'm terrified of not having relationships that support me. I'm terrified of consistently living this way. I'm terrified, I'm terrified, I'm terrified.

Speaker 1: 10:21

One thing that I hear a lot of people talk about is how they're terrified of having either too much money or not enough, so they have to stay in this one situation. But the problem with that is is it creates a situation where you can't act. You can't move forward, you're not able to do what it is that you really want to do, because you know that you've got to fund it to some degree, right. But here's the thing Money can be created. We are in the time where you have a computer, like it doesn't matter what's happening in your life, you can literally make money online. You know, there are a lot of people right now that are learning how to make audiobooks online and they make in the upwards of thousands of dollars per month just by writing an audiobook and about something that they know, right, and then they sell it for a few dollars a piece and they tell people about it. People go buy it, they market it right. Now, marketing might sound really, really scary, but if it can help someone and if you listen, like get a good listening boundary on you, right, if you listen to people, you can find out how your particular audiobook can help them.

Speaker 1: 12:06

You know, before I started coaching, I was into essential oils and to this day, I really really love the oils, right. But that being said, I had to really listen to what other people were saying they were struggling with and how a specific oil could possibly help with that specific ailment. So, for an example, you know, I really love, obviously, talking about emotional things, right, and peppermint oil can help bring you energy, it can help bring you clarity, it can kind of just put a little bit more life into your step just simply by smelling peppermint oil or putting it under your tongue or diffusing it, right, or putting it on your hands, like be careful with it, because peppermint can be very hot to some people, right. So you might want to dilute it with, like, coconut oil. But I would listen to things like that. If somebody was telling me that they felt like their muscles were sore or something like that, I would say, oh, you know, lemon grass is really good to help relieve some of the soreness. And so I would listen for what they were struggling with and I would make recommendations to them based upon what I knew and how that particular thing could meet and meet right. That's all marketing is. It's just making connections and talking to people and also understanding, like, what kind of people we really want to connect with. If you're constantly telling everybody about essential oils, right, some people are really going to love what you have to say and some people are going to get really irritated with what you have to say. So our products aren't for everyone, and that's OK. What we're trying to do is find the people that it is for and having a specific person in mind that this can help, and that specific person is actually wanting help, right?

Speaker 1: 17:09

This is why I do podcasting is because I know a lot about healing trauma. I'm not perfect at it, I don't claim to be right, but I know a lot because I've healed my own traumas and I consistently, to this day, still work on healing traumas, and you've heard me say this many times that trauma doesn't just leave you. It's something that still comes up right. But the tools that I have have made current traumas that are pretty tough, to be honest with you Sometimes a little scary, but they're not anywhere near throwing me completely off my game.

Speaker 1: 18:02

I know to take time for myself. I know to take time to really get clear with what my thoughts are on the situation. I know that maybe I need to step away a little bit from doing things I normally would do, so that way I can give myself time to simply just be in feel. I know to dive into scripture. There's nobody to put on this earth to tell you how to heal from trauma than scriptures. I know to journal. I know to listen to healing music. I know to meditate. I know to get into my oils, because oils are very, very good to help with trauma.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Actually, the science behind that, for anybody that's thinking I'm a wuhui, is your amygdala is actually right next to your olfactory bulb. I think is how that is. It's basically your amygdala, your memory center and your olfactory bulb all right there. Smells actually have memories. Memories have emotions attached to it. Emotions have meaning. Anyway, that's basically the basis of it that when you smell a certain thing, it can elicit an emotion and an experience that can help you relieve some trauma. Anyway, that's one thing that we can do.

Speaker 1: 19:33

We want to get really, really clear about our fears and start educating ourselves about how to turn those fears into a faith. You heard me say this in the last episode Faith and fear cannot exist in the same hemisphere. It doesn't work. But when we start actually making tiny little steps towards healing that fear simply by doing research. Guys, youtube is a great place to ask some questions, right, like how to heal relationships. I'm on YouTube. There's a great guy named Jimmy on relationships on YouTube. I think he has fabulous advice and fabulous examples for you if that's something you want to learn more about.

Speaker 1: 20:31

If you want to learn about money, there is ways to learn how to make money even if you're in a very, very disabled situation. If you want to learn how to increase your faith, there's YouTube videos for that. You can learn almost anything you want to and start researching almost anything you want to for free. Yes, some of it is going to have to be paid for. Education is valuable, but you can't know what you don't know until you start researching what you don't know.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Right and this is why it's important to get really clear with what our fears are is because our fears are going to stop us from knowing how to move past them. If you're clear on what your fears are, then you can start researching how to move past that particular fear. Okay, number two look at me Like if you guys are watching me on YouTube. I'm holding it four fingers, not two fingers. I can count. I am well educated, trust me. Anyway, number two one, two fingers. I've got this. Ask yourself, am I willing to continue living in fear of this and consistently get the same result?

Speaker 1: 21:55

Okay, see, when hopelessness creeps in and we feel like there's no good options, like there's nothing else we can do, that is us honestly not facing the fear, and we're kind of getting back into the second piece here. Right, but you've got to get honest with yourself. If you believe that the only way out is for you to either hurt yourself maybe it's to live alone for the rest of your life or maybe to avoid all men, that is a piece of the trauma cycle where we're getting into coping and avoidance. We try to avoid actually doing something about the situation because, again, we're afraid, and fear like when we're afraid, we want to run the other direction. So there's no judgment. This is your brain working against you big time, big time. Your brain wants to keep you safe and if something is scary, it wants to get as far away from it as possible. But the problem with that is when we don't face our fears, we have to eventually face the result. We have to face one or the other, and if we're not loving the result but we're not really willing to face that fear and ask what it truly is, well, yeah, you're going to feel stuck.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Being clarity is so essential in my lives to moving past any type of trauma, any type of stuckness and any type of I can't move forward. That is essential. Number three, four I'm sorry. Oh my gosh, you guys, I'm really struggling with counting today. What is my deal? Number four now I can hold it four fingers right. Start educating yourself as to how to move forward. We talked about this just a little bit already with saying, hey, get on YouTube, start researching. Guys, I can't tell you how much I learn through researching online, going to a library and checking out a book about trauma. Talking to my therapist friends that I do trust and I know are fantastic therapists, we discuss stuff like this all the time and I learn so much from them.

Speaker 1: 24:55

It's so important to educate yourself. This is something that tends to move when we gain information, and I'm not asking you to jump off a cliff here, kay. I'm definitely not saying that. Please don't do that. What I am saying here is it's time to start learning. How can I be more healthy? How can I be more emotionally healthy? How can I set boundaries? How can I stand up for myself? How can I earn money? How can I stand up to someone when I'm feeling judged, when I'm feeling victim-shamed? How can I create that e-book? How can I make $2,000 a month from the comfort of my own home?

Speaker 1: 25:59

Great questions, but they're going to be really hard for you to answer if you're not willing to move the stuckness, if you're not willing to educate yourself, if you're not willing to get clear with what the fear is and to give yourself some grace on how to move past it, to be patient with yourself and last take action. Even if it's imperfect, you're going to learn something just simply by taking action. See, we think that because things are so imperfect in our lives that we have to have things completely perfect in order for things to move, and that's not the case. Change comes with tiny little steps of consistent action. So, for example, one of the biggest changes for me in healing my trauma and getting unstuck was for me to be consistent in my scripture study.

Speaker 1: 27:01

Maybe it was just one verse a day, but it was to create a habit. 90% of our results are created by habits and those habits are created through our thoughts and our feelings and our actions. Right, it's not actually about the circumstance, it's about the habits we create from the circumstance. So, when we shift our habits to, I'm going to go research what I need to do. I'm going to research how to move past this particular fear. I'm going to get clear with what the fear is. I'm going to create boundaries for myself. I'm going to create some consistency in a schedule for myself. This is what creates the change. To get you out of the no good options, that stuckness feeling.

Speaker 1: 28:05

There are so many things we can do and, going back again to my own story, one of the things that, one of the first things I did, besides just reading scriptures and creating that habit was, I created the habit of holding myself accountable. Now, that doesn't mean I beat myself up over things. I would ask myself a simple question like how could I have handled that situation better? How could I have responded in a more emotionally mature way? How can I set a boundary here? How can I learn about boundaries? I started asking myself really good questions.

Speaker 1: 28:54

I started getting really consistent by saying, ooh, I don't like the way that turned out, I don't love that result. So how do I change my actions? What do I change in my thoughts and what do I change in my feelings? How can I change that? That was one way to help me be consistent with myself and to hold myself accountable, without judgment, without anger, without a lot of self-negativity. It wasn't necessary, and I also realized that just and I started realizing this like I had to be consistent with reminding myself of some things, such as just because somebody shows up negatively for me Doesn't mean it's true. It might mean that there's something within me that's reflecting back to them, that that's the way they need to show up for me, that maybe I just need to listen to the feedback, but what all this is is just simply feedback. But I don't need to be abused, I don't need to be yelled at, I don't need all of these different things happening. So how can I respond in a way that helps me take their feedback, extract the truth from it, change what I need to change or simply create a boundary that needs that I enact?

Speaker 1: 30:35

I hope this is helpful for you guys because my loves, you really, really do deserve to have the very best in your lives and if you're feeling stuck, that is a sign that you are actually stuck in the trauma cycle. Remember trigger, retraumatize, not coping in avoidance, sorry, reaction and blame coping and avoidance and control. And to give you a little bit of insight back into the trauma cycle. Or maybe an example that really is going to resonate well with you guys is perhaps somebody says something unkind to you or does something unkind to you. Maybe your husband looks at porn, maybe somebody tells you that they don't like you, maybe somebody wishes you dead. Right.

Speaker 1: 31:39

That can be a major trigger and that retraumatizes us by making us feel abandoned. It's reiterating some sort of a truth quote, unquote quote, kind of a thing to us that we're not worthy, we're not lovable, nobody wanted us around, and that's going to re-trigger us and then we get into reaction and blame. We get angry. We blame our ecclesiastical leaders for the way they showed up, we blame our husband, we blame our grandmother, our mother, our mother, the people that didn't want us in our lives, right. We blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. Maybe we even blame ourselves. None of it's helpful, right.

Speaker 1: 32:30

And then we get into coping and avoidance. We get tired, we just want to get away. Maybe we kick them out of the house. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, okay, definitely not saying that Sometimes some distance and some space from people is very healthy, okay. But it can also be an avoidance mechanism. Maybe we don't actually take the time to look at the truth, like, how can we be more emotionally healthy, right, maybe we sit down and we just start feeling really sorry for ourselves. And again, there's no judgment. You've been through a lot. You truly have. But if we become chronic self-pityers and consistently replaying the horrible things that have happened to us in our mind, that's going to give you that feeling of stuckness too and keep you in this feeling of coping and avoidance.

Speaker 1: 33:43

And eventually we get really sick of that and we get into control, right, like I'm going to take control of all of the electronics so that way my husband can't deal with or can't look at pornography again. I know that it can possibly be. I'm going. I feel like there's no point in my life anymore. I'm going to get rid of it. Please don't do that. That's actually part of the control cycle. Maybe it's getting really bossy or getting mean back or fawning, like letting somebody else walk all over you and you try to people, please, to the point where you become non-existent. That's all a type of control and that triggers us again because we get so focused on what's not going right. That's all we start to see and it gets us in this really, really nasty, nasty cycle, consistently going over and over and over again.

Speaker 1: 34:58

So to get us out of that cycle we have to find the love, to focus on the love. You know, a couple of days ago I was feeling pretty just low. It happens right. And instead of getting stuck in the trauma cycle, one of the things I did is I envisioned myself sitting on my Heavenly Father's lap and just crying. And I started crying and him just sitting there, stroking my cheek, just holding me. And you know he gave me a really powerful insight that sometimes things are too heavy for us to hold. It's kind of like asking your two-year-old to carry the suitcase that is like 150 pounds, like there's no way your child can do that right. And so it's up to us to carry the heavy burden sometimes. But we are a child of love, we are a child of God, and sometimes that means that we let our perfect parent carry the heavy burden. Let him carry us. It doesn't mean we have to have all of the answers right away, that maybe the answer is just a teensy little step right now, and that step is just laying your head on the chest of God and letting him comfort, letting him soothe you, writing him a letter and writing his answer back.

Speaker 1: 36:55

I so suggest this, my loves. You can gain some very beautiful wisdoms from doing just that one thing. All right, my loves, I hope this podcast has helped you. I hope that you can take it and really use some fantastic advice and some help from this, that you can draw something to help get your gears going and get you unstuck on your path forward. And you know what I actually have one more thing to say to those of you that are interested in business and creating more for yourself, but yet you're feeling stuck Again. This same thing still is going to apply to you.

Speaker 1: 37:52

Get out, find out what the fear is. It'd be fear around money, most likely. Actually, most business owners do have this issue. Fear around relationships A lot of business owners have this, and you know that business relies on relationships. It can be a fear about failure, a fear of and if that's the case listen to last week's podcast a fear of maybe you're not in the right thing, like. There's lots of different fears that come from creating more. Get clear with the fear. I'm just going to say that again for you guys that are here feeling stuck in your business as well. And last again, feel free to reach out to get some support.

Speaker 1: 38:45

My loves, I am offering you a call. It is in the description. You are welcome to click on that link and book a call with me. I am happy to chat with you and again, there's no judgment. If we're not a great fit, no problem. I'll recommend other places for you to go. I've got a lot of people that I know that really are amazing at helping other people. I've got a list of therapists and a list of coaches that can totally help you too. My only thing that I ask is that you or someone ready to make a shift, ready to change, ready to take action? And if you're ready just to simply take action and to change the no good options, what's that call? If you're ready to stop living in fear book, that call All right, my loves, I will see you next week and, from my heart to your heart, I'll see you on the other side. Bye, my loves.

Speaker 1: 40:14

Okay, so I've got a question for you. Have you joined my free Facebook group or Instagram page yet? If you haven't, go and do that, and this is the reason why I always post my freebies, updated information and all kinds of goodies for my community in that page. I'm also really active. I post videos, I answer questions. So if you guys really really want to get in and interact with me, go like me on Facebook.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Go join my group the other side of the struggle healing from betrayal trauma. Come find me on Instagram, aaron Anderson betrayal trauma coach and come follow me, because I always have something good there just for you, my audience, and I love connecting with you there. I also post anytime that I have groups going on. I talk sometimes about my programs. So if you guys are interested in working with me or even just following me and getting as much free content as you possibly can. Go, hang out in my group, go connect with the ladies that are there. Also, come and join Immune and Unashamed for those married couples that are following me, because in that group, me and my business partner, kaisin Kidd, are also talking and offering some great content.