How To Find Meaning In Your Life By Healing Your Past | EP 883

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:11If you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your copy today. I believe that there is a lot of the mental illness that exists in the world that has an undercurrent of trauma.

0:47And we just haven't talked about that undercurrent or that possibility as much. But I don't know if we'll be able to absolve ourselves of 100 % of the mental illness in the world. But I think that we can do a really good job in this generation to break cycles. I want full integration of that person. And I want them to see, really see their authentic self. Some people have never even had an opportunity to see, like, who they could be at their true core self. Because it's been masked by so much of the trauma and the symptomatology that's associated with the trauma, like the depression and anxiety and all these things.

1:22When we're talking about what happens after trauma, meaning making is at the center. It's like one of the biggest things. You have to see your life having some sort of value and that there's meaning associated with your life and with everything that's within your life in order to actually like even feel motivated to do the heavy lifting that is the healing work to get yourself to the other side. So you have to have meaning in that journey. Meaning making, it's alchemized in that journey. It's created in that journey, right? But I think at the very least, you have to have hope that meaning making can be possible.

2:02I think people, you know, just haven't been trained to ask themselves the right questions around meaning making, right? And so... What's the right questions? Well, the right questions are, you know, well, let's talk about what was learned in that circumstance. That's a really hard question to ask because sometimes people will be like, you really, you think that that needed to happen? No, it didn't need to happen. It did happen. It happened. You can't change it. You can't. That's in your history now. But what can we take from that experience? And it doesn't even need to be the traumatic event itself, but your response, your reaction.

2:34What can we take from that to learn how to now create a healing protocol for you? And it's about, you know, being able to ask questions that get people thinking outside of the box. Because what happens when you're in a state of trauma is that you're frozen in many ways. Your thoughts are frozen. You start thinking a lot of the same things, right? Like it's a lot of protective functions. Your feelings are frozen in time. Like people like constantly feel worry, anxiety, like a lot of things that are them being in a protective state. And so we can start asking questions to freeze some of that up.

3:08that's that's going to be like really key if someone stays committed to their story of meaning that it was this horrible event and it ruined my life what happens if they hold on to the meaning in a negative way as opposed to that was a traumatic event i don't wish it upon anyone but here's what i learned from it here's what i gained from it here's what i'm going to do with it in a positive way what happens well the way that i interpret that is that that person is one, still in a state of fear. They're not ready to really get curious about what other definitions meaning can have in their life. They're just really stuck on the one definition, that it harnished their lives, that it got in the way, and they're just stuck there, right?

3:55If that's the case, then my role as a clinician or their role as a person that wants to get out of it, hopefully, is to work on the fear. You got to work on where is fear trapped? How is the nervous system operating around fear, right? Like where can we free them up in a bodily sense because the nervous system requires a lot of that body-based work. And so we have to like really get curious about that and like go in that direction. The questions are very mind-focused, right? But we need the body-based practices in order to create safety in the body. To release also, right? To release the fear, the pain, the trauma and reconnect to the safety of your body.

4:34Is that right? Exactly. And so that when a person can feel that there is safety in their body, they can feel that they can actually go into the depths of their minds in a way that doesn't feel scary and existential.

4:52Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

5:47Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

5:58Thank you.