THE JOURNEY TO A BRIGHT BETTER FUTURE STARTS WITH

  • ACKNOWLEDGING WHERE YOU ARE.

  • RECOVERING FROM YOUR PAST.

Most people, have had experiences in their lives that diminished them—experiences that were so upsetting, scary, or overwhelming that they were left emotionally scarred. Such experiences come in many forms and are popularly referred to as “traumas.”

Many people who grow up in challenging circumstances can also miss out on positive experiences that could have strengthened them, or equipped them to excel in life.

Fortunately, it is not too late to gain many of the benefits you missed.

But to make lasting change and create a more fulfilling and rewarding life, you will need to recover from the bad experiences, the ones that haunt you. Because, until they are healed, they can stand in your way or undermine your efforts.

Sometimes bad experiences can leave you prone to being emotionally “triggered.” Whenever you encounter a person or situation that resembles one of your bad experiences, you may react as though the bad experience is happening again. You may become upset. You may behave in irrational and inappropriate ways. You may not even realize you are acting this way. But others see it, and it can adversely affect your relationships.

Sometimes you may go to great lengths to avoid another bad experience—so much so that you cut yourself off from good experiences or from taking advantage of opportunities. This can make it hard to build a fulfilling and successful life.

The most debilitating traumas are those we call “life-threatening traumas.” These are experiences of physical threats so severe that, at the time, you feared you or someone else might not survive. Such traumas may be brief events, such as car accidents, surgeries, or violent assaults. Or they may be dangerous situations you felt trapped in for a long time—such as a violent home, a war zone, or a job that exposed you to danger and death.

To recover from traumatic experiences, people often invest large amounts of time and money working with a professional psychotherapist or counselor. And often, it is money well spent. However, if you find that route inconvenient, there is an easier, more affordable, and highly effective way you can bring about your own recovery.

Dr. Eric Wolterstorff has over 30 years of experience as a psychotherapist and trainer of psychotherapists, specializing in trauma recovery. Recognizing that too many people suffer unnecessarily with the after-effects of trauma, he has taken his extensive expertise and distilled it into powerful but easy to follow protocols that anyone can use to take charge of their own recovery and experience profound emotional healing and growth.

With Dr. Wolterstorff’s protocols, you can do the work of recovery on your own or with the support of a friend, partner, or peer group. You can use them on their own or as a supplement to psychotherapy. They are the same protocols professional counselors use when helping clients.

The protocols have been carefully designed to make your emotional safety the top priority, so you proceed at a pace that is right for you without becoming overwhelmed. Along the way, you will build skills that equip you to handle emotionally trying situations in your everyday life. The more diligently you follow the procedures, the more fulfilling, stress-free, and happier your life may become.

Best of all, Dr. Wolterstorff is making his protocols available at a very low cost, so that everyone can experience the benefits of emotional growth and recovery.

If you have experienced a brief, life-threatening, traumatic event that continues to haunt you, your starting point will be Life Repair 101: A guide to recovering from life-threatening, single-event traumas.

This guide features a 12-part protocol designed to help you recover from brief, isolated incidents in which you felt your physical survival or someone else’s was threatened. By “brief,” we mean the incident happened within a few minutes or hours and then was over (though the effects may persist for many years). This is the ideal protocol to help you recover from brief traumatic incidents such as:

  • Acts of violence (in which you were a victim, perpetrator, or just a witness).

  • Major accidents and injuries.

  • Medical procedures such as surgery that required full anesthesia.

The protocol has been specially created using non-technical language, to make it easy for anyone to follow. Just complete all 12 parts, in order, to free yourself from the debilitating effects of any life-threatening event from your past.

However, if you were trapped in a dangerous situation for a longer period of time—perhaps weeks, months, or even years—so long that you felt it might never end—you will need to follow a more complex protocol.

We call these lengthier experiences “sustained traumas.” They are more debilitating than single-event traumas because they force you to develop habitual ways of behaving and thinking in order to survive. For instance, you may have had a relationship with a dangerous person—a relative, spouse, classmate, or co-worker who threatened you for a long time. Or you may have lived in a part of the world that underwent long periods of war, rampant crime, or civil unrest.

The habits you build to cope with such traumatic situations may persist long after the trauma is over and may exert a debilitating effect on your life. Because of this, recovering from a sustained trauma requires a specific procedure to retrain your habits and restore your sense of safety.

The protocol for recovering from sustained trauma is available in Life Repair 102: A guide to recovering from life-threatening, sustained traumas.

Life Repair 102 works with Life Repair 101 but includes specific instructions to help you recover from longer traumatic periods in your life. It will help you relearn how to live a life in which you feel safe. It will guide you in retraining your habits so that your past no longer impedes your ability to thrive and find happiness and fulfillment. And along the way, it will prompt you when and how to do the work of recovering from all the single-event traumas that may have occurred during your sustained trauma.

But before you begin working with either of these guides, know there is a third type of trauma which is the worst of the three. We call this “environmental trauma.” And it is important to know what it is, in case it applies to you.

People who have experienced single-event and sustained traumas understand that these threatening situations were a departure from their normal lives. If this is you, you know that you felt safe before the trauma happened. Then the trauma disrupted your sense of safety. Part of your recovery will involve regaining the sense of safety you once had.

However, people who have experienced environmental trauma never had a sense of safety in the first place. Their earliest memories are of being in a traumatic situation. They may have been born into an unsafe environment such as a violent home or a community living under the threat of violence.

Because they have no early memory of safety to fall back, such people can be unable to feel safe even when they are in a safe environment. Lacking a sense of safety makes it difficult for them to recover from their traumas, let alone form good relationships or build a fulfilling life.

If you have experienced environmental trauma, there is a special procedure that will help you develop the ability to feel safe in safe places. Once you build your sense of safety by following this procedure, you can do the work of recovering from your single-event and sustained traumas and build a happy, fulfilling life. But you cannot do this work unless you know you are basically safe in your present environment.

The protocol for recovering from environmental trauma is covered in the third guide of this series, Life Repair 103: A guide to recovering from life-threatening environmental trauma.

All three of these guides, Life Repair 101, 102, and 103, are part of a series that will eventually cover many other forms of trauma recovery and personal growth. But the correct starting point for most people is to heal from the life-threatening traumas they have experienced. Until you recover from your life-threatening traumas, you will have a difficult time resolving other issues or experiencing other forms of personal growth.

Many people pay over $100 a week for several years to have a psychotherapist guide them through the process of recovering from serious trauma experiences—and even more for the services of a trauma specialist such as Dr. Wolterstorff.

But right now, you can purchase these guides for the low price of just $10 each. We are making this offer because Dr. Wolterstorff believes that the benefits of trauma recovery should be made widely available to everyone who wants to take charge of their own recovery and lead happier lives.

You may not be able to change the terrible things you have experienced, but you don’t have to let them control your life or determine your future. Begin the work of recovery today.