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Oct. 1, 2021

E117 The Interruption Process | CPTSD and Trauma Healing Coach

In this episode, I read a chapter of my book Think Unbroken Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma and share with you about The Interruption Process into my background, my story, my journey, and what's led me to where I am today. You are not alone in this journey. We are in this together. I'm very likely been where you are. I've been at rock bottom.

When you choose to put yourself first, anything is possible and I believe that for you, for people in your life, and for everyone in the world.

Learn more at https://www.thinkunbrokenpodcast.com/

In this episode, I read a chapter of my book Think Unbroken Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma and share with you about The Interruption Process into my background, my story, my journey, and what's led me to where I am today. You are not alone in this journey. We are in this together. I'm very likely been where you are. I've been at rock bottom.

When you choose to put yourself first, anything is possible and I believe that for you, for people in your life, and for everyone in the world.

Learn more at https://www.thinkunbrokenpodcast.com/

Learn more about NW Recovery at https://nw-recovery.com/ 

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Follow me on Instagram @MichaelUnbroken

Learn more about coaching at https://coaching.thinkunbroken.com

Get your FREE copy of my #1 Best-Selling Book Think Unbroken: https://book.thinkunbroken.com/

Transcript

The Interruption Process.

This is a battle that you will fight every day for the rest of your life. You have to fight it! You cannot give in. You fight that battle and every day that you do, so you have won the battle of that day. - Joe Rogan.

The normal self-relational processes that you have experienced have been interrupted due to trauma. The way you talk, behave and treat yourself are all predicated on a baseline of abuse, that baseline can, and must be interrupted in order to fully recognize your future and full potential. I call this process, interrupting the interruption.

These are the four steps to interrupting the interruption:

  1. Allow the thought to exist without judging it, or you're so.
  2. Do not validate the thought by agreeing with it instead, notice how it makes you feel.
  3. Remind yourself that the thought was created out of fear.
  4. Tell yourself the opposite of what the thought once you to hear.

I'm going to write a book called “The 101, worst and best things that I have told myself”

I have copyrighted the title, so don't steal it.

Let me share some of them with you here.

I am stupid. I am fat. I am a fucking loser. I don't deserve to be happy. I am alone because if my parents didn't love me, then how could anyone else? I am never going to be successful because everyone is better than me. I hate myself. I should kill myself since I am worthless anyway, I'm exactly what everyone said I would be. I deserve to be dead. I don't like writing this shit and I don't want it to exist in my body-mind or spirit. You can probably relate to most if not everything I wrote, those are real things that I've said to myself and I could easily come up with 90 more.

I imagine you could too but here is a sampling of the 101 best things I've told myself;

  • I'm intelligent.
  • I am healthy and strong.
  • I'm capable of doing anything.
  • I will find love and happiness because I deserve those things.
  • I am surrounded by incredible people who love and support me.
  • I will reach all of my goals and dreams.
  • I love myself.
  • I am worthy of existing.
  • I define, who I am, and I am my own measure for success.
  • I deserve to live.

I feel so much better about myself by writing those words.

Here is what the FOUR STEPS to interrupting the interruption look like in a real-life scenario:

Step 1

I'm sitting at my desk writing and start to think. No one is going to read your book because you are a shit writer who doesn't have the authority to lead, and who is an imposter. I allow the thought to exist, but I don't give it any power by allowing it to control anything happening in my body or mind.

This is easier said than done but in time, you will be able to do the same thing with practice.

Step 2

 I know this isn't true. So I give the font, no validation. The worst thing that I could do is to confirm the thought and say you're right. There is no scenario where I would allow someone to say something like this to me. If I wouldn't allow another human being to talk to me in such a negative way. Why would I tolerate it from myself?

Step 3.

That thought is buried deep in my foundation of fear and success shape by the trauma I experienced earlier in life. I know this because as a child, people told me I was never going to be anything that I was stupid.

Instead of fearing and doubting my inner power and potential, I choose to remind myself that I am capable and I cut off that thought and replace it with.

Step 4

People will read my book because I am a strong writer who has a message to share. I am writing this book as a guide for myself and in doing so I will give others what I needed most when I was stuck in the vortex. I am a leader, authority and trauma, because I have lived it, breathed it, studied it, and own it.

Step 4

 Is the most important part because I want to live in my strength, not in the death spin that is negativity. If I get stuck in the 92nd loop of negativity, and it spins me and spins me then I am lost because I chose not to stay stuck in the vortex I started my journey to healed it. Left, Indiana found strength in my story and I wrote this book.

I learned to give myself the space to be kind of myself. I draw on my own agency to tell myself the opposite of what the vortex is raining down on me. I tell myself that my bunch of spoiled apples will turn into a flourishing apple tree grove of healthy, happy, sustainable, and nourishing fruit. Are you getting this? Does this make sense to you?

And may have put my own spin on it, but the foundation of this process is NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I suggest you spend some time researching the efficacy of this science back practice.

This was my cornerstone to getting out of the vortex. You may find yours is something else.

Do you know the best part about being in the vortex? You get out. It's a choice. Chances are, if you are reading this right now, that no one is forcing you to understand that you have full agency to have the life that you want is a choice.

Choice means that you are capable of making decisions for yourself.

Choice also means that you have to take ownership over your shit.

You can adjust your mindset and create change.

Getting out of the vortex starts with how you talk to yourself.

It will take time to get to a place that you can be kind to yourself on a daily basis. If you are like me, then there were likely thousands of moments of hurt and pain, leading up to this moment.

To this day, I still have to interrupt the interruptions and I may have to forever but each time I do, I take broken bits and pieces of my power and my truth and put them back together.

If you want to get out of the vortex, you have to make the choice to get out.

Becoming Unbroken, The Interruption Process.

Creating a process of accepting kindness as the only acceptable form of communication with yourself, comes to practice habits and understanding. Come back to this section the next time you have a negative thought about yourself, and use the four steps to interrupting the interruption to reframe the story that you are telling yourself.

Step 1

  • Allow the thought to exist without judging it or yourself.

Step 2

  • Do not validate the thought by agreeing with it.

Step 3.

  • Remind yourself that the thought was created out of fear.

Step 4

  • Tell yourself the opposite.

 

Shame researcher Breńe Brown came to my attention after her Ted Talk called The Power of Vulnerability in 2011. A co-worker sent me the video, and it made me feel so uncomfortable, but I stopped watching less than halfway through. I hated the idea of being vulnerable, even worse I hated that other people could love themselves while being vulnerable.

Years later, I watch this video again and her words continue to resonate with me to this day. Have the courage to be imperfect. The Compassion is to be kind to yourself first, and fully embrace your vulnerability to create connections.

There's no question that shame and guilt often are riddled in this place of being in the vortex alongside these thought processes in which we are constantly being consumed by our own negativity.

I mentioned Breńe Brown here because her work to me is so incredibly important. And this is my experience, I often find myself seeking an understanding and in order to gain that understanding, I find it from other sources, and with that understanding, I'm able to then take bits and pieces of it, apply it to my life and say; ‘Oh! I understand why, from this other perspective it makes sense that maybe I shouldn't be so mean to myself or be vulnerable or show up for Itself or whatever that thing may be.’

So much about this process and Interruption is about taking the information that you're getting right now to use that as a tool in the future.

The next time you are unkind yourself I want you to pause and ask yourself if the words that are in your head right now are valid. They're probably not, and look, there's something to be said about the thoughts that we have is what can push into greatness. And sometimes you need a little bit of that. I'll be honest. I know I do for myself.

However, that said, if these thoughts are in your way, if they are boundaries, if they are about keeping you held back, you have to pause and reframe and go through this process of NLP or interrupting the interruption. The power of the way that you talk to yourself is going to be the thing that makes you fail or succeed in your life.

The reason that you're listening to this right now is that you know, deep within yourself that you are destined for something greater than what the world has laid in front of you, and because of that, I challenge you, to be kind to yourself, be vulnerable with yourself, be compassionate with yourself because it is through that that you are going to continue to become Unbroken.

Michael UnbrokenProfile Photo

Michael Unbroken

Coach

Michael is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, speaker, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma.