Dear Brooke,

JAM

Dear J,

This question may be short, but it’s so packed to the rim with beautiful, juicy, delicious, growing learning opportunities, that I’m pretty much beyond excited to respond. So, here we go…

The fact that you included the detail of your mother being Jewish isn’t for nothing. As it turns out, these feelings of guilt in response to happiness and success are actually in your genes. Really? Yes, really.

Let’s take a little journey through history…

In the 60s, therapists starting seeing tons of clients who were describing practically debilitating feelings of guilt. They described extremely traumatic experiences, including witnessing others around them die, or surviving as others were killed instead of them, simply by chance or blind luck. What the therapists found to be in common amongst an astounding number of these clients is that they were survivors of the Holocaust. These strong and beautiful survivors’ feelings of intense guilt, even thinking they were wrong or bad for living through the Holocaust, came to be known as Survivor Guilt.

(Currently, the label Survivor Guilt spans beyond Holocaust survivors and can be experienced by anyone who survived a traumatic event of any kind.)

So, even though there are Holocaust survivors of many ethnicities and religions, the Jewish culture has carried this survivor guilt in their bodies-minds-souls-core…since they started surviving which, come to think of it, according to Jewish text, has been happening since way before the Holocaust. But, I digress…

So, flash forward to present day.

Though the guilt you’re talking about is not directly connected to the Holocaust, the thing about Survivor Guilt is that it’s been passed down from generation to generation, and during that passage it’s shifted, changed, become diluted, even miscommunicated and misinterpreted. You, sweet darling, don’t feel guilty for surviving a traumatic event, though you are in fact a survivor; a joyful, blessed, beautiful, happy, healthy, and alive being, and you’re experiencing Survivor Guilt…circa 2010.

So, now that you have a total grasp on what’s going on with you and your cute mother, let’s talk about how you might shift your thoughts, because not only is this guilt not working for you, it’s actually not working for anyone around you either…

You can absolutely change your mindset to a place of being proud of yourself for where you’re at, and come to realize that empowering yourself actually empowers the people around you. Yes, you can actually help others by loving yourself. I know, crazy-exciting.

Like having a daily workout, the following is a daily mantra that I think fits the bill perfectly for working with Survivor Guilt, especially of the modern day variety. It’s an amazing quote by Marion Williamson that Nelson Mandela recited in his 1994 inaugural speech. I took out some “God” parts to make it more universal, but kept it in quotes nonetheless.

My suggestion: print this baby out, change it to the first person, and say it to your gorgeous face in the mirror every morning. And see what happens.

Without further ado…

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?? Your playing small does NOT serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the light that is within us, ALL of us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So JAM, go shine your amazing light all over the place…and survive like nobodies’ business.

Love,
Brooke.

Click here to read this column on Cheeky Chicago this month!

Check out the latest “Cheeky Dear Abby” article on Cheeky Chicago…

Dear Brooke,

Thank you,
Pulled to the past

Dear Pulled to the past,

Can we have a virtual hug please? You are an amazing beautiful brave gorgeous woman who has been through so much in such a short time–I’m so deeply happy and honored that you wrote in.

From your letter I can tell that you’re extremely strong (like, with a cape on) and a super woman-wife-soon-to-be-mom-and-everything-in-between kind of person. It seems time for someone to not only remind you that you happen to be human, but to also explain a little bit about what that might mean…

First of all, the good news is that you’re having a completely appropriate response to completely inappropriate treatment. The frustrating news is that just because you wish and work the pain out of your mind and your heart, it doesn’t mean your body is on board.

Here’s the deal: Being cheated on is a traumatic event, period. Not sure what happened, how it went down, etc. but this is a trauma no doubt. And as amazing and complex as our human bodies are, they don’t digest trauma the same way that they digest the rest of life. Trauma is just a different story.

Side note: you didn’t think your ex cheating on you was a trauma? Check this out… (Wikipedia my love, Wikipedia): “Trauma can be caused by a wide variety of events, but there are a few common aspects. There is frequently a violation of the person’s familiar ideas about the world…putting the person in a state of extreme confusion and insecurity. This is also seen when people or institutions depended on for survival violate or betray or disillusion the person in some unforeseen way.”

So ya, glad we cleared that up.

The thing about trauma is that unlike other memories and experiences, it’s not only stored in your mind and in your heart…the body remembers it as well. Our bodies have their own memory, and when undigested trauma is triggered (hearing about the person, knowing friends are supporting them, etc.) your body is triggered as well.

You may think about the past and get pretty upset, maybe even talk about it and feel those negative feelings etc. but when that sick feeling, that pit in your stomach, the loss of feeling in your legs, shaking in your hands stuff comes…Ya, that’s your body being triggered, and remembering. That’s your body literally, yes literally, “re-living the past”.

It seems like you’ve put in some amazing emotional work into moving past this devastating event in your life. I want, need, crave that you do one more thing: while loving yourself to pieces and being beyond proud of how you’ve emotionally moved forward, I ask you to give yourself- and your body-permission to not be fully past this…you are a human being after all.

It doesn’t mean you still have feelings for your ex. It doesn’t mean you aren’t in love with the life you’ve worked so hard for, and have right now in your beautiful present world. It just means that your body is still processing, and like any human body in trauma, it needs extra time and extra support to digest.

Your body has been holding you together, and she has not let you down. She even allowed herself to become pregnant while in the midst of this digestion process. Amazing. Do me and yourself a favor and thank that incredible body of yours ever day. Love her. Appreciate her. Your heart isn’t the only one that’s been through the ringer.

So, we’ve established that the trauma is lodged in your body…this knowledge and understanding and knowing will take you far in your healing. I love to say, ‘once we figure out where it comes from, it doesn’t have such a hold on us’.

But, let’s get real. You want to know how to get rid of it, like now.

Though I don’t have a magic wand (it’s on my wish list, believe me), two things immediately come to my mind. First and foremost, I want and hope and will support you in any way I can to make sure you have a weekly therapist that you love love love. Email me so I can help find someone in your area if you haven’t already.

Second thing that comes to mind. EMDR. My wonderful and talented friend Jill McCall MFT who specializes in EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), says “EMDR helps to move traumatic memory along the neurological paths of information processing so that it is more fully-processed than before and can be re-stored in a non-traumatic way.” So, pretty much the goal, right? EMDR is an amazing therapeutic technique for working through a trauma of any size. I recommend learning more (check out more information here), and considering it as an option as you move forward in your healing.

The conclusion darling? Talk therapy, maybe EMDR if you’re down to try it, and most importantly…permission. Permission to be the strong woman you are. Permission to have multiple layers to yourself. Permission to have a heart and a mind and a body who have all been through a trauma and deal with it differently. Permission to let your heart be present, even in the moments your body shifts to the past. Permission to be human.

Love love love,

Dear Brooke –
I found your site from Primer and recently read your article on being engaged.

I just became engaged to a wonderful woman who I love very much. We live together, have many of the same tastes and desires and get along great with our respective families. I’m really looking forward to a long and happy life together. There is, naturally, an issue that I can’t seem to get over.

And that’s my insecurities over her past relationship with her ex-boyfriend. They didn’t have the best relationship, but had a very strong and intense physical relationship. And when they broke up on numerous occasions, they always got back together as a couple or just for one night – for the sex…

Read the full question and check out my response here on PrimeMagazine.com!