Can I use trauma to motivate myself? Why or why not?

[UpperMaster]

I get extreme motivation when thinking about my past trauma. I feel angry, and ready to do whatever it takes to achieve my goal. It is somewhat acts like an antidote to laziness. Many people refer to this as one's dark side. Should I use my dark side? Is there any negative consequences to using trauma as a source of motivation.

 

Let me know. 

[nhoktinvt]

no because you'll just transfer your trauma onto other people unless you resolve them with forgiveness

[UpperMaster]

@nhoktinvt This does not make sense, how can you possibly transfer trauma? 

Edited February 13, 2023 by UpperMaster

[Thought Art]

 

[mmKay]

You kind of already answered your own question.  You can use negative motivation to take action ( for example, you don't like how you look in the mirror -> you work out) 

The problem with that is that it may create a yo-yo effect where you stop taking action once the pain point is gone. Once you're content with your weight you will stop working out and the cycle continues. 

In fact, traumatized people have more potential to develop themselves because they can leverage their trauma to snap out of apathy. 

People that have lived a quiet normal life may end up just being average,  and derping away their lifes. They don't have much to leverage themselves from good to great. 

Also you can only rely on negative motivation so much. It comes and goes. Ideally you want to rely on an intrinsic positive authentic vision. 

That's just one possibility. Other traumatized people numb their trauma with drugs, alcohol , entertainment, distractions etc rather than making use of that " dirty fire"

 

If you want to clarify about your trauma and your goals we could develop this further. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by mmKay

[nhoktinvt]

@UpperMaster nvm what i've said then

[Zedman]

Unintended consequences. Your emotional world is extremely complicated and works in counterintuitive ways. And you have no access to how it works. It is composed of millions of variables and mechanisms and all you can see on the surface is ME ANGRY ME STONG, ME HURT ME DONT WANT HURT SO WORK HARDER.

[Thought Art]

It’s a good goal to heal your trauma and develop healthy motivation. 
 

The life purpose covers stuff around healthy motivation. 
 

Trauma can be healed through many ways. 

[Zedman]

Example: You fail with a girl and afterwards feel sad, regretful, weak, unworthy so you start training and improving but wounds like that fade away with time. So your subconscious in its infinite wisdom will sabotage your next attempt so that you have motivation to improve and keep being healthy.

Basically you want to associate bad emotions with good outcomes? You will then naturally lean towards creating yourself bad emotions because remember? You thought yourself its somehow good.

[vladorion]

You can, but you'll probably end up pursuing stuff that is not what you truly want.

Motivation that comes from trauma is usually along the lines of trying to prove something to yourself and other people. Trying to prove that you're good and loveable, essentially.

[Emerald]

Careful. If you’re successful at motivating yourself in response to trauma… then it might be difficult to heal it without totally losing your motivation.

I used to unconsciously motivate myself primarily with fear of inadequacy and self-hatred. And my self-discipline was iron clad. No one I knew was as disciplined as me.

Then, I became conscious of how my motives were based in shame and self-hatred… and I couldn’t do it any longer. This is especially true since healing much of the deeper issues. And my motivations totally tanked because I was used to hating myself into action and I couldn’t do it anymore.

And even now (over a decade later) self-discipline is much more difficult to cultivate because I associate it with coping and shame.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Emerald

[UpperMaster]

On 2/14/2023 at 3:05 AM, Emerald said:

 

And even now (over a decade later) self-discipline is much more difficult to cultivate 

Do you think your life is better after healing your trauma? 

Maybe trauma isn't a bad thing.

Do you know any way I could get disciplined without using fear? 

 

Lmk. Thanks for responding.

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

On 2/13/2023 at 11:50 PM, vladorion said:

You can, but you'll probably end up pursuing stuff that is not what you truly want.

Motivation that comes from trauma is usually along the lines of trying to prove something to yourself and other people. Trying to prove that you're good and loveable, essentially.

Yup your right, but I think it can be useful. Probably not the best to use it all the time

[UpperMaster]

@Zedman Where can I learn more about these complex processes 

[Emerald]

7 hours ago, UpperMaster said:

Do you think your life is better after healing your trauma? 

Maybe trauma isn't a bad thing.

Do you know any way I could get disciplined without using fear? 

 

Lmk. Thanks for responding.

 

It’s best to avoid this issue if you can. But things do unfold in interesting ways.

[Leo Gura]

Yes. That's the function of anger.

[Kshantivadin]

Good question. I would need to contemplate this. 

My intuition would say that since you already have it, leverage it, while also working on healing it. If you're afraid to lose your trauma by healing it, look into the reasons why. 

I think a healthy/healed person who's been previously traumatised will outperform the still wounded person in most cases. You can tap into other sources of energy which are in my opinion more conducive towards positive outcomes 

[Kshantivadin]

The power of love, for example. 

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes. That's the function of anger.

Channeling your anger at external situations toward productive work is one thing. 

But using trauma for motivation is a totally different animal.

It can create a situation where people become motivated only to run away from retraumatization. And atrophy and lose sight of positive motivation.

And it becomes dangerous to heal from trauma because your whole motivational process is scaffolded upon your trauma.

I used to be motivated mostly by fear of my own self-hatred. And I built my discipline and motivation “muscles” up in relation to self-hatred.

And now, since healing quite a bit of my self-hatred, I’m still trying to find ways to be as disciplined as I used to be.

But I associate self-discipline as a coping mechanism and as a sign that I still hate myself. So, it creates quite a bit of turmoil.

My view is that its probably best not to build your motivational strategy on a foundation of trauma.

[Leo Gura]

If you got truama, you got trauma. It's already there. It will fuel you one way or another. Just channel the energy towards good rather than evil.