trauma

Unloading That Extra Weight: Tools to Release, Heal and Thrive

/ Debbie Frakes / Leave a comment

So many of us have a weight problem.

But it’s not a number-on-the-scale problem.

Or a clothes-too-tight problem.

It’s the emotional weight we lug around like a bag full of rocks. Disappointments. Resentments. Regrets. Shame.

These negative emotions – these rocks – serve no helpful purpose. None.

They make our lives heavy. Hold us back.

The rational and commonsense solution is to “just let it go.”

But remember, this emotional weight is more akin to a boulder, not a balloon. You can’t just grab one, open your hand, and it floats away. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t be schlepping them around in the first place. We’d be flinging rocks away like a flower girl scattering rose petals at a wedding.

Plus, “rational and commonsense” is not the language used by the part of us that’s carrying around this trauma.

So how do we release them?

1. Start Small:

    Which of the rocks should we get rid of first? Most of us would probably vote for the big ones of course – the ones we’ve dragged around the longest time. But in this case, it might be easier to start with the pebbles. Maybe a negative thought. Or an irritation with a rude driver. Try to let breathe and let those go.

    It’s like deciding to work out. You wouldn’t walk into a gym and immediately try to bench press 200 pounds. You’d start with 50. Or 20. Or 5. Or whatever you could handle. And work up from there.

    Eventually, you’ve got some strength and tools for disposing of the big rocks.

    2. Let them:

    This one might be a bit tough, depending on those face is impaled upon which rock.

    Author and podcaster Mel Robbins recently published a best seller, “The Let Them Theory”, which she describes as “a simple mindset tool that has two parts. The first part is telling yourself to, ‘Let them,’ during any moment in life where you feel annoyed, frustrated, stressed out, or worried about a situation or another person. As soon as you say those two words, you are releasing control of what another person thinks, says, does, believes, and feels.

    “Any psychologist will tell you that whenever you try to control something that you can’t, it just creates more stress and frustration and anxiety for you….

    “Once you say, ‘Let them,’ you recognize you can’t control what another person thinks, says, or does. Therefore, it is not worth your time and energy to try. Then you say, ‘Let me,’ reminding yourself of the things that are in your control: what you think about another person or situation, what you do or don’t do in response to another person or situation, and what you do in response to your emotions.” A good Q&A with Mel on her book is here: https://www.wondermind.com/article/let-them-theory/

    3. Share them:

    A beautiful thing happens when you pick up the phone (yes, dial and talk live) to a friend or family member about whatever rock is weighing you down most. I just did that this morning. And even as I started talking, I could feel that weight lift, and I felt lighter, almost buoyant by the end of the conversation.

    4. Write about them:

    I just learned about something called the Pennebaker Protocol (sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel, right?) created by James W. Pennebaker, a renowned social psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Here are the steps:

    1. Pick a topic you worry about – something you worry or ruminate about, or avoid thinking about because it’s too overwhelming.
    2. Write about it for 15 minutes – set a timer, focus on your thoughts and emotions, and free flow – no grammar, spelling or style checking.
    3. Repeat on four consecutive days – chances are new insights will surface

    Sounds suspiciously simple, but there have now been over 2,000 studies on the benefits of expressive writing and the results are clear: It not only provides an outlet to vent pent-up emotions, but it also reduces the cognitive burden of rumination and intrusive thoughts (which frees up our working memory to deal with more constructive tasks), and it allows psychological closure, among other things.

    I hope some of these tools help with whatever rocks you might be carrying. Drop a comment below and tell us what worked the best for you.

    The 5 Biggest Insights I Learned in 2024

    / Debbie Frakes / Leave a comment

    1) Make your bed. But get out of it first. Admiral William H. McCraven delivered a famous commencement address to the University of Texas-Austin in 2014, in which he outlines 10 lessons he learned in SEAL training (https://news.utexas.edu/2014/05/16/mcraven-urges-graduates-to-find-courage-to-change-the-world/). The first was “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” Great advice; however, I need to add, “but get out of it first” because that was the harder part of the equation for me this year. I suffer from depression, and there were many days when I simply didn’t want to, nor did I feel the strength to, get out of bed. But here’s what I’ve learned. Probably 80% of the time, if I got up and did one small thing, like take a shower, or go into my office, the depression lifted, even if just a bit. But for the other 20% of the time, there was another lesson.

      2) Give yourself grace if you’re in a bad place. I am a high-achieving perfectionist, and I wore that identity as a badge of honor for years. To live up to my own flawless standards, I’ve always pushed myself hard. Really hard. If I struggled, I pushed myself harder. I’ve always believed that if I let up on the pressure, I would just slack off and spend the next year on the couch eating truffles or never get out of bed, ever. I’m learning, albeit slowly, that there’s no honor in believing you need to be perfect, and no honor in baseball-batting yourself when you’re struggling. When you choose grace, find your gentle voice and tell yourself it’s okay to be where you are, your body and mind relax too, and that allows healing. As my yoga teacher said the other day: “We cannot shame ourselves into change, we can only love ourselves into evolution.”  

      3) Find what moves you and move. I’m talking about what puts you in flow – that state identified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in which you are completely absorbed in a task. I’d been feeling a bit stuck this year, and in looking for ways to enhance my leadership skills, I discovered a leadership course offered by Yale. So I signed up, immersed myself, learned so much, and felt a sense of accomplishment I haven’t felt for a long time. I felt in flow. After completing that course, I completed a second one. I’ve always had an intense need to learn, which is one reason I’m an avid reader, and these university-level courses sparked that passion in me again.

      4) Trauma can trigger powerful actions. I will do anything to protect my friends, colleagues and family – from people who want to take advantage of them, people who are bullies, situations that are unfair. I’ve always jokingly referred to this as my “Mother Hen” instinct. But it goes way, way deeper than that. I realize I’m so fervent about protecting the people I care about is because no one protected me from school bullies as a child and teenager, and I had no way to protect myself. That realization led to another one: the people I’m so passionate about protecting now are adults and don’t necessarily require the level of protection I needed all those years ago. These insights helped me ease off the control pedal, release some angst and find some peace.

      5) Don’t believe everything you think. Perhaps my most powerful insight of all. We have over 60,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of them are repetitive – generally worries, fears, what-ifs, old grievances, and so on. I can get myself in a panicked state within 20 seconds of wakening, thanks to my brain’s creative scare-mongering. But, at least for me, 99% of these thoughts simply aren’t true. So I’ve started calling them out as intruders. If you watched Star Trek at all, you’ll remember the disembodied voice saying “Intruder alert, intruder alert!” anytime some unwelcome alien got on the Enterprise. This does a couple things: It separates us from our thoughts and it helps us recognize the “fake news” our brain tries to pass off as truth.

        What are your biggest insights from 2024? And how can you use those learnings to make your life more joyful, peaceful and fulfilling in 2025? Share your thoughts in a comment.