Dealing with Lacks and Building Ladders
First - rest is top priority in healing
Please make sure you’ve slept at least a week between the last page and this one. Your brain needs the reset time. We give ourselves far too little reset time in our attempts to get better faster sooner….but the faster you go, the wounds do not heal correctly.
Like doctors say…rest restores sanity, and don’t rush healing. Process things as they come up, ride the after-effects waves as they come, let the memories and feelings come out as they do.
Bookmark this and come back when you’ve rested and processed enough – and try to stay away from social media…it actually creates a type of built-up stress where you feel unnerved and like society is collapsing. It takes away your feeling of control over your world.
Lacks are a combination of simple and hard
You’ve already identified some Lacks, but I bet now that you’ve dealt with your Traumas, a few more Lacks have come up. Feel free to add them to your list. Here’s the Hierarchy picture again.
Step 1: Identifying the Lacks
Let’s make sure we’re calling a spade a spade here.
Those lacks you’ve written – are they truly lacks, or were/are they a hidden trauma?
For instance you may have written Friendship as a lack…but is it really a trauma response you’ve set up to protect yourself from someone who did harm to you? Perhaps it’s a trauma that says “People harm, don’t get close to them” or “No one can love me because my parents never did, don’t put myself in a position to be loved by someone.”
This can get dark, this may be deep rooted into cellars you do not wish to go…but look for anything that might be masquerading as something. Follow any pain you feel, identify it’s place in your body, and then find the roots, and process them the same as you have with traumas. Go back a page and follow the steps the same way.
Most lacks wear masks.
“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”
– C.S. Lewis
Step 2:
Remember to let your brain process and rest a few days if you had any masks-wearing lacks!
For any lacks that aren’t masquerading and feel just “yeah no, I just don’t have this thing but I want it” …good. Good place for them to be.
So, we’re going to do the same thing as Stressors.
A. Assign a number (if you haven’t already) of how badly not having them is affecting you.
B. Write two things you can do Today/Tomorrow, one for each Lack you can tackle.
C. Do the thing!
D. Once done with the Thing, mark it as Done/cross out the task.
E. Write two more tasks. Do….repeat, but sleep after doing a total of 4 things. Four things is enough per day, more than enough. Some days you may not get all 4 things done and that’s fine…you still got done all you could.
F. Celebrate yourself, you have done a good job and you have accomplished as much as you can.
G. Re-evaluate the number you gave each. Repeat all steps until you have the Lack fulfilled.
Wait...but what if the Lack is unfillable?
Here’s the good thing.
Unless you are medically missing something that prevents you from having something fully, in the bottom row….
Everything is fillable.
The only thing standing in the way is one of two things:
1. Time
2. Hidden Trauma
Pretty sure you’re sick of hearing that last word by now…so go ahead and assume time is needed because usually it is just that.
The search for love or a job or confidence will not come within a week. Keep working towards it, until people start giving you subtle feedback that can help you identify those stupidly hidden traumas, or re-navigate, or learning how to interact with others to ultimately get to your destination goal.
If you have autism or ADHD…let me say now that I get that it is much harder for you on some of these and you are amazing for getting to this point – and yes your struggle will be worth it.
Daily, evaluate what you can do today that moves you closer to your goal. Applying for 3-5 jobs a day, or getting that doctor appointment set up, or chatting with old friends to re-establish a relationship, talking to new people while out, whatever you can do is still a step towards the goal!
Building from the pieces
I spoke from building from the pieces but haven’t addressed that fully yet, because it’s the last piece to help you get to your goals faster.
Your pieces of broken down traumas, lacks, pains, are amazingly useful.
They are your story.
There’s one thing that social media hasn’t broken or over-analyzed yet about humans. People still want connection – social media is just a masked, false way of providing it. While keeping our brains focused on it and foggy…it’s obvious why.
Telling your story is one powerful way to connect to people and build the ladders, the connections, to fulfilling your Hierarchy needs. It’s the pieces that, put together – get you into the upper 2 parts of the triangle.
I want you to reframe your story so it’s a solid wood ladder capable of holding three strong people and lifting them 20 feet high, even if you started with broken pieces of driftwood and bits of frayed rope.
Your traumas were not trivial wood bits, your pains were not fragile threads. They were building tools.
Building the Ladder
1. I want you to write me your story (history). Write it to me as if you’re now on the other side of it all (which you are!) and how those traumas defined you in the past.
2. Then tell me how you will be using them to build your future. What pieces will you use to teach others about how to overcome similar traumas? What career may you be going into now that you can now build with those pieces of wood? Who can you now help out of their Marianas Trench? What Lacks have you already fulfilled?
I cannot wait to hear your story. Please send it to the Contact button in the menu!
Now that you’re out of your traumas, I invite you to look at my Skills Analyzer course to see if it can help you achieve your career goals….because that’s what I usually do. I wrote this set of blog pages because I noticed many clients had a lot of things holding them back mentally from having career and life success. I hope these pages have gotten you closer to your dream life – but we can go even further. Click the Home button or this to take you to the course information!