Ep 33 l Identity After Trauma Series: Not Recognizing Yourself (Part 2)

Identity crisis, morning pages, meditation, sense of self

Losing yourself is, unfortunately, a pretty common part of trauma. When things - perhaps many things - that were so integral to who you thought you were or your daily life suddenly vanish, it usually feels like part of you has gone with it.

That’s terrifying, bro - especially if you thought said things defined you. Whether it’s the loss of a career, your health, a loved one, a relationship, your brain, a skill, an ability, or maybe all at once (s/o me), this grief hits extra extra hard because it leaves you feeling lost.

What do I do now? Who am I now?

I can’t answer those questions for you, but I can give my two cents on how to get there, start to find yourself again & rebuild your identity. 

Win most, lose some

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Transcript

I am so much happier when I start the day with meditation. I’m not saying I have no negative thoughts or feelings—I mean, that would be, I think, fucking impossible—but there’s way less frequency of them, and my negative feelings are way less severe. I approach everything from a much more grounded place when I remember to start the day with morning pages and meditation.

Almost dying taught me how to live. Being struck by a car left me in a three-and-a-half-week coma with 15 broken bones and 16 surgeries to complete, including brain surgery. However, I woke up from that coma in an even greater place than I ever foresaw for myself. How? The universe will guide you out of the darkness and into the light if you allow it.

Often, spirituality comes off as too highbrow. I’m not about that.

Welcome to the podcast that talks and teaches about it through the lens of humor. Together, we’ll harness positive energy and use it to work with the universe, all while giggling the entire time.

Welcome to Gabriella Rebranded: Win Most, Lose Some.

Well, well, well. It seems we have found ourselves at the scariest part of trauma—perhaps.

And that part of trauma, the part that might actually be the scariest, is not recognizing yourself.

And I’m sure a lot of you have felt that way before. And again, a brain injury obviously magnifies that feeling because you literally do not have the same brain. So how could you possibly feel exactly like the same person?

But any trauma that you go through—small or large, physical or emotional—many trauma survivors do not recognize themselves after their battle with whatever kind of trauma that they have.

Welcome to part two of the Rebuilding Identity series: the moment you wake up and don’t recognize yourself. Terrifying. Been there.

Before we get into the rest of the episode, you guys know your orders: like, review—please. That helps me so much. Subscribe. Share, share, share, share.

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Okay. Done. Did that part—which I fucking hate.

Going through a life-changing trauma that alters your sense of self is so wild, because I don’t think there’s an instantaneous moment where you realize that you don’t recognize yourself. I think it kind of sneaks up on you. At least, that’s what it did for me—and for the other trauma survivors that I’ve met and conversed with.

There’s a lot of fear that needs to be accepted in order to admit that you don’t recognize yourself, because that is quite possibly the scariest thing there is to admit.

And I wish fear was something that was easy to accept, but it is grossly challenging to accept. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. But especially when you’re at the beginning of your journey accepting fear… fear is not easy to accept, y’all.

Saying “I don’t know who I am anymore”—or the easier segue, “I don’t think I know who I am anymore”—that is quite possibly the scariest thing to ever admit.

Like, we’re not talking 200ccs on Mario Kart, y’all. We’re talking like 6,000ccs. And I know Nintendo hasn’t created that. We! I just said “we.” What a throwback. God, I miss the fucking Wii.

I know Nintendo hasn’t created 6,000ccs on Mario Kart, which should show you how scary and how hard it is to admit that you don’t recognize yourself.

Feeling lost anywhere isn’t a comfortable feeling. Feeling lost within yourself is a terrifying combination of panic, hopelessness, and existential dread.

Existential… existential… existential… I think it’s existential. Existential dread.

Making decisions based on fear is never something that works out well. And when that’s what you’re constantly feeling—whether or not you’ve admitted it or realized it yet—a series of destructive decisions and unhealthy choices can be made, and often are.

It never really works out when you’re making decisions based on fear.

It can be drugs and alcohol. It can be an unhealthy relationship—trying to find yourself in another person. It can be desperately trying to do the old things that you used to like or used to feel right, or trying to make old relationships work that have expired.

And that just feels fucking miserable—whether or not it’s friendships or a romantic relationship—because the connection has expired. So you don’t feel connected to the people that you’re trying to connect with.

And yeah, that amplifies the feeling of being lost within oneself. When you’re not happy with the things you’re doing, but you used to like them. And you’re not happy with the people you’re around, but you used to vibe really well together.

Like… what is that? It’s a mind fuck.

There is no chance of overcoming any of this until you admit to yourself that you don’t recognize yourself.

That being said: you don’t admit or accept this and then everything’s fixed. Acceptance and admittance to yourself is the first mandatory step, but then there are a lot of other steps.

We can all still desperately try to find out who we are and entertain unhealthy antics while we know that we don’t know who we are. Calling my past self out a little bit right now.

So how do you come to terms with this and accept this—but then how do you rebuild?

Like, you’ve given me the groundwork, Gabriella, but then what the fuck do I do? Because everything is still wrong once I’ve admitted and accepted it. So what do I do? What’s next?

My recommendations: first things first—morning pages and meditation.

Starting the day with journaling and meditation is a big game-changer. This allows you an opportunity for introspection and getting grounded within yourself.

I’m sure a lot of you have heard of morning pages, but for those of you who haven’t: as soon as you wake up, okay—before you touch your phone—you want to grab a journal and stream-of-consciousness journal for three full pages.

What morning pages do is you write your most pure thoughts and feelings—whatever you’re feeling when you wake up, or whatever you’re thinking about—with as little external influence as possible.

Ideally, follow morning pages with a meditation. You only have to meditate for like five to ten minutes a day. I think a lot of people think of meditation as this thing that takes up a huge chunk of their day.

And don’t get me wrong—you can meditate for as long as you want to. You can meditate for hours. You can meditate for 30 minutes. You can meditate all day. There are silent meditation retreats that are like 12 days of silent meditation. Yeah, yeah—you can do all that.

But you don’t have to.

To really see benefits—just five to ten minutes a day of meditating, ideally after you’ve done your morning pages, because that’s when you’re most grounded within yourself. And that leads to full alignment—or as much alignment as possible.

Some people say they don’t know how to meditate. There really isn’t a right or wrong way to meditate, because it’s about you and what feels right for you. Like, ignore all the “shoulds”—how you should sit, what you should listen to. Fuck all the shoulds. That’s not what meditation is about if it’s really about aligning with yourself. It’s what feels right for you.

To do a true silent meditation—the one we think of in movies or whatever when we think of meditation—that’s actually very, very advanced, and it’s kind of impossible to completely turn off your thoughts.

What a breathwork teacher, Lane Jeff, said to me is that meditation isn’t turning off your thoughts—it’s not reacting to your thoughts.

For clarification: breathwork is a type of meditation that is more active than the typical meditation we all think of—where you’re just sitting there with your eyes closed—because you’re working specifically with your breath.

There are guided meditations. There are visualization meditations—where you sit and create an image or a visualization in your mind that you’re often guided to create.

There are mindfulness meditations.

There are focused-attention meditations, where you focus on one specific thing.

Kundalini yoga is similar to mantra meditation, but while mantra meditation can be done in any language—like English—and can be saying affirmations like “I am loved, I am seen, I am held,” or just the typical “Om,” kundalini yoga is typically in Sanskrit or another sacred Indian script. And a lot of times you’re, like, singing a little song. A really famous one is the Sat Nam meditation. I’m sure some listeners are like, “Oh yeah, I know that one.”

Kundalini yoga can also include hand movements and breathwork, so it’s really active.

There are movement meditations, like walking meditations. Tai Chi is considered a movement meditation.

If you’re still lost, a great book I recommend is The Hidden Power of the Five Hearts by Kimberly Snyder. That book is as close as you’re going to get to a how-to guide to meditation.

If you’re someone with a little bit of ADHD brain and can’t do the typical meditation thing of just sitting still, I think breathwork, kundalini yoga, and movement meditations are a great place to start. And kundalini yoga meditations—also mantra meditations in typical English or “Om”—also a great place to start.

You can obviously look up all of these online and find tons of free resources.

Spotify and Apple have tons of meditation music. They have guided meditations or just frequencies—like abundance frequencies, romantic love frequencies, or gratitude frequencies. I recommended gratitude frequencies in my Thanksgiving episode, if you guys remember.

I really like the Gabby app by spiritual teacher Gabrielle Bernstein for meditating. It gives you tons of meditations for all different kinds of things you want to call into your life, and it has all types of meditations. Like: it has walking meditations. It has loving-kindness meditations. It has mantra meditations. Visualization meditations. It has Yoga Nidra—another type of meditation that actually really helps you go to sleep because you do it when you’re lying down.

That’s what I do when I can’t fall asleep, and it really, really works. You can find tons of Yoga Nidra on Spotify. That’s my favorite. I really like Ayla Nova on Spotify—look into her. She’s really, really cool. I love her Yoga Nidra for sleep.

The Gabby app has prayers. It has mindfulness meditations. It has affirmation meditations.

The Gabby app even has tapping meditations, which is a type of meditation where you repeat affirmations while tapping specific parts of your body. Gabby explains how to do it in the meditations on the app, but you can also easily look up how you’re supposed to do a tapping meditation online.

Starting your day with meditation puts you in a more aligned and peaceful mood for the rest of the day.

I am so much happier when I start the day with meditation. I’m not saying I have no negative thoughts or feelings—I mean, that would be, I think, fucking impossible—but there is way less frequency of them, and my negative feelings are way less severe.

I approach everything from a much more grounded place when I remember to start the day with morning pages and meditation.

If you meditate every day… I’m like 99% sure you can’t not be a peaceful person if you meditate every day. You know, there are a few leaders we should recommend meditating every day. A few. I’m not going to say their names—you guys can fill that in for yourselves. I think it would have been really good for Hitler if he meditated every day. That one I’ll say.

You will make such better decisions if you start your day with morning pages and meditation. You will get to know yourself better, and that will put you on the road to finding who you are. That is a great place to begin.

Obviously, meditation and morning pages won’t immediately hand you your full identity right away, but it will put you on the path.

And then: just do what feels good. I’ve said this so many times before, but just do what feels good. And what feels good all the time—not drugs or alcohol, which makes you feel good for a short period of time.

What makes you feel good for all the time? Follow the positive feelings. Good feelings—and following what provides you with good feelings—puts you in a state of alignment. Because you’re essentially doing what the universe wants you to do.

If you’re doing what feels right, and what fits with the current version of you, then yeah—exactly. Obviously, that’s going to help you find your identity if you’re doing things that feel right and fit with who you are.

And taking the time to get really introspective—really understand what you’re feeling, and what exactly it is that you need—by starting your day with morning pages and meditation makes it so much easier to be pointed in the right direction to what feels good.

Because as you get to know yourself better, you get to know what you need. The closer you get to internal alignment will naturally draw you to—and draw in—people and things that fit with who you are.

With clarity of mind and soul, you can more clearly see what is right for you. You will trust your intuition, feelings, and decisions more. And when you trust yourself more, well—the more confident you will be that what you’re doing, who or what you’re pursuing, and how you’re living your life is right and fits with who you are now.

As more things fit, the better you will feel about your choices, and therefore the more you will trust yourself. And that leads to finding yourself.

To supplement all of this: I will never not recommend therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy. If you’re in a tough financial position, there are resources like BetterHelp that help you find a therapist and a program that fits within your budget.

And some people are probably going to roll their eyes a little bit at me, and then some people are going to love me for saying this, but exercise and eating healthy is never not great for your mental health.

Feeling strong and grounded within your body is obviously going to help you get close to knowing your body, and therefore knowing yourself.

I mean, exercise and eating healthy is doing what feels good—because being fit and eating the right foods is something that makes your body feel really good all the time, unlike drugs and alcohol.

Listen, I love the occasional night where I take edibles with my friends and order Domino’s lava cakes. But I would be completely lying if I said binge-eating pizza didn’t make me feel like shit the next day—or even just in the next few hours following.

I definitely could not treat myself to McDonald’s fries every single day. I would feel so ill and terrible as my cholesterol skyrocketed and my stomach constantly remained bloated.

Eating good, exercising, making the right healthy choices will make you feel so accomplished and proud of yourself at the end of the day. And that will help you trust yourself more, and therefore get closer to alignment.

So: exercise, eating healthy, and therapy—if you can do it—to supplement your morning pages and your meditations while you’re on the journey to rebuilding yourself and finding your identity.

And while you’re on the journey to finding yourself and rebuilding your identity, it’s best to quiet the external noise from people who don’t necessarily support the path that you’re on. Anyone who truly loves you and wants you to be happy would be in support of whatever—healthily—gets you there.

This can be really hard: setting boundaries, especially with people that you love and are really close to you—or with people that are hard on you and can kind of make you feel really scared.

Luckily, we have an episode coming on that: setting boundaries.

I don’t know when it’s going to be, so that’s not me saying, like, “Tomorrow we have that episode,” because I’m probably going to record it with someone else and I need to figure out when I can schedule her. So yeah—I’m not saying I’m doing that episode tomorrow, but an episode on setting boundaries will be coming.

In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

This has been Gabriella Rebranded: Win Most, Lose Some. X-O. Bye.