Distancing in Relationships and Finding Relief in Nature and Animals

What is the difference between external and internal Attachment Restoration in healing from Complex PTSD?

The topic of internal versus external Attachment Restoration plays a crucial role in understanding and healing from Complex PTSD, offering insights into how individuals can recover from the deep-rooted impacts of childhood trauma. Tanner, an advocate for holistic healing, highlights the necessity of both external and internal restoration, with a particular emphasis on the latter as the true source of personal empowerment and core strength. Drawing from experiences within trauma ecosystems, Tanner believes that while supportive relational environments are necessary, profound healing is achieved by addressing one's own inner dynamics, untangling fear-based beliefs, and fostering self-awareness. By facilitating temporary separations or compassionate space in relationships, Tanner suggests individuals can focus on internal restoration, ultimately transforming both internal and external relational patterns.

Key TakeAways

- External Attachment Restoration and internal Attachment Restoration are crucial in healing from CPTSD.

- Protective parts influence how an individual views the world, interprets emotions, and responds to threats.

- Fear-based beliefs and survival strategies can lead to codependency and burnout.

- Childhood experiences can impact individuals' ability to trust others and create challenges in relationships.

- Autonomy wounding patterns from childhood can influence choices, approval-seeking behaviors, and relational dynamics.

- Embracing imperfections, authenticity, and self-care are essential for overcoming patterns related to love and sex.

Actionable Insights

- Create safe relational contexts to support recovery work

- Address relationship difficulties early through temporary separations or compassionate communication

- Engage in evidence-based healing activities to build trust within oneself

- Establish healthy boundaries to counteract codependency tendencies

- Understand imperfections and allow oneself to make mistakes

- Prioritize self-care and shift away from seeking validation through external attractiveness

Quotes:

“In CPTSD recovery, what we're trying to do is raise your baseline of functioning, raise your baseline of nervous system regulation.” — Tanner  [05:38]

“There's a lot of collateral damage from childhood trauma that results in complex trauma, or complex PTSD.” — Tanner [11:12]

“Protective parts are a hugely important thing to pay attention to in a CPTSD recovery journey because they hold so much wisdom of what the system has been doing to make it to this point.” — Tanner  [12:57] 

“These unwinding mantras are about increasing tolerance for uncertainty and vulnerability in the relational field.” — Tanner [21:00]

“You can have several of these wounding patterns. You can have all of these wounding patterns. I suggest, in a recovery sequence, you pick one to focus on at a time and then bring in other ones as you feel settled and integrated with the one you started with.” — Tanner  [42:27]