Opening Up the Path for Your Partner’s Complex Trauma Recovery
Today, we drop into more specificity about what the partner of a human recovering from complex trauma is likely going to have to dance with, steward, come to acceptance with, and support along the way. All humans have what we refer to as Protective Parts, but for survivors of complex trauma, a lot of the protective survival coding is woven into their DNA at every level. That’s what makes recovery so challenging. During this episode, we dive deep into how to respond to your partner’s different Protective Energies to best provide a container that facilitates and supports them on the path to healing. Our focus is on restoring dignity from the inside out in the context of our intimate partnerships, the closest relationship to our early attachment experiences. Join us today to hear more!
Key Points From This Episode:
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Context for CPTSD Medicine leading up to the timely message of this episode.
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What a partner of a person recovering from CPTSD is likely going to have to be able to do.
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The difference between the continuum of the effects of tricky to traumatizing family dynamics.
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Reserving the perspective of, ‘If I were this human,’ and adopting ‘I can do this first,’.
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Why the sacred union is such a powerful context in which to do CPTSD recovery work.
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Tanner’s process of gaining clarity on what was in front of her in her life.
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How working on our partnership directly affects our children.
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Acknowledging the challenge that our partners are not our parents.
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The true challenge of dating someone who is recovering from CPTSD.
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What we really want to highlight for our partners.
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Four main protective part energies and one central energy for childhood trauma survivors.
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What it might look like to lead with the vulnerability.
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Differentiating between ‘I won’t’ and ‘I must’ energy.
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The ‘I can’t’ protective instinct and what triggers it.
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Restoring dignity from the inside out.
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What triggers the ‘I will destroy’ energy.
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How to respond to a partner in this energy to illustrate that you are willing to meet them there.
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Your role in facilitating the unburdening work.
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Dropping into awareness of your protective instincts when they come online.
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A very important explanation of the danger of weaponizing parts work.
Quotes:
“It’s very hard to change behavior, especially if it was an adaptive strategy or something that you inherited or were socialized to believe is the way from your family of origin.” — Tanner Wallace [11:02]
“Working on our partnership directly affects our children as well.” — Tanner Wallace [17:29]
“You’re keeping the path clear for your partner to do the healing work, but you’re not doing the work for them. You’re simply keeping everything open and clear so that the work is easier to do.” — Tanner Wallace [42:44]
“If you weaponize Parts Work, you are creating an unsafe experience for parts of each other to feel that they can trust to be vulnerable.” — Tanner Wallace [45:24]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
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