Author Mary Firestone has an MA in clinical psychology and is on a mission to let others know they are not alone and there is light on the other side of the darkness of PTSD. Her new book, ‘Trusting the Dawn’, was released through Sounds True Publishing on August 23, 2022 and is the story of Mary’s survival and transformation through healing. It is an offering for survivors of all kinds of trauma. In Trusting the Dawn, Mary draws from both her own real-life experiences and her background in clinical psychology and English (she graduated with a BA from Princeton) to offer a radical, integrative handbook for not only healing from trauma but awakening to even more joy and meaning because of your experiences.
Mary has been featured in numerous outlets including goop, Well + Good, Santa Barbara magazine, Forbes Travel Guide and Angeleno. Mary, along with her sister Lucy, is also the co-founder of Firestone Sisters, Inc. which aims to provide others with healing and growth opportunities through experiences and products. They produce and curate their Wild Precious Life Retreats which have featured well-known speakers such as Joe Dispenza, Dr. Jennifer Freed, Lauren Roxburgh, and the pair also created an essential oil-based perfume called “The First,” as a way to capture the essence of their retreats in a bottle. Their second scent, “Open”, will soon be available. She currently resides in California with her family. Find more about Mary on https://www.maryfirestone.co/
Below is an excerpt from ‘Trusting the Dawn: How to Choose Freedom and Joy After Trauma’, by Mary Firestone. Sounds True, August 2022. Reprinted with permission. Chapter 3: The Reframe, and Why Now?
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LANGUAGE
We use language all day long, every day, whether we think it, write it, or speak it. The power of our words isn’t often considered. In ancient Celtic and other Anglo-Saxon cultures, the spoken and written word were considered magical, in the sense of weaving a spell. This belief is the origin of the word spelling.
Subtle shifts in our language are available to us all in each and every moment, particularly around a traumatic event and ourselves. Begin to notice the story you are telling yourself—how are you speaking to yourself?
There can be a familiar traumatic story loop akin to: “After the event, my life was over. I was such a bright, happy person and then this ruined my life.”
Although there is significance in speaking the story while moving through the shock, anger, and grief, if we don’t move beyond this point, we allow the trauma to color our present and future despite the fact that it occurred in the past. Staying in this place leaves you in a perpetual trauma loop, and the trauma is continuing to emanate from YOU.
Is your internal dialogue one of blame and excuses? Are you present in your daily life or giving your power away to events of the past or a future out of reach? What did you learn about yourself, gain access to in yourself, come to understand because of what you survived that made you a more multi-dimensional, faceted, capable person? As James Gordon, a Harvard-trained trauma expert with more than forty years in the field, says, “Trauma is the soil from which wisdom and compassion grow.”
- Consider Your Narrative: Considering that our thoughts, ultimately made up of words, shape and create our reality, being impeccable with our words is the difference between a desired existence and an undesirable one. Become conscious of where you are focusing your attention and how the mere fact of focusing on what you do desire brings more of that into your life. And be aware that a thought like “I don’t want to be depressed” is focused on feeling depressed. Alternatively, “I give thanks for feeling joyful” is a positive statement for what you desire. Giving thanks as if this state already exists tricks the brain into believing that it does.
- Show Up for Yourself: Be mindful about how you speak to yourself about yourself. Do you cancel on yourself? Tell yourself you’re going to do something and not do it? When we do that, we are teaching ourselves we’re not worth showing up for, and our words are empty and not believable. If we don’t honor ourselves, why would we expect others to honor us? It’s helpful to think again about how you would speak to a friend or someone you care about. Often, we are much harsher with ourselves than we are with others.
- Speak in Third Person: Srini Pillay, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who coaches others on leading more dynamic lives, suggests in an interview with Anna Cabeca that speaking to ourselves in the third person is actually more effective. For example, I would say, “Mary is going to rock this” rather than “I am going to rock this.”
- Banish the Not: Pillay also asserts that when we use the word “not,” our brain doesn’t register it and simply hears the rest of it. “I will not get upset” translates to us getting upset. Instead, saying “I will remain calm” is more effective.
