#122 Abandonment and Betrayal Trauma: Recovery Workshop

Struggling with trauma/PTSD and need help? Join my private recovery community here and get my 9 best relief tools 100% FREE: In today’s workshop-style coaching session, Brad and Kayleen teach three foundational mental skills that directly shape trauma recovery: gratitude, self-talk, and affirmations — but with a twist. Instead of using these tools in a general way, they show how to apply constraints to make them more powerful in moments of pain, abandonment, betrayal, or emotional stress. The core idea is simple but profound: you cannot stop thinking about something by force — you replace it by choosing what to think about. Avoidance strengthens fear. Directed focus builds strength. Through live exercises with the audience, they demonstrate how to find gratitude inside difficult situations, how to use future-focused self-talk to build hope, and how intentional thought patterns can become a trained skill rather than a random emotional reaction. This episode is less lecture and more mental workout — a practical training session for strengthening the “thought muscle” that determines how fast and how well you heal. 💡 What You’ll Learn Why trying not to think about pain actually makes it stronger How to redirect focus instead of fighting your thoughts A workshop exercise for finding gratitude inside hardship Why constraints increase mental power and creativity How to train your brain like a muscle The link between gratitude and emotional resilience Future-focused self-talk that builds hope How to turn challenges into growth instead of shutdown Why pain can become a source of strength and perspective The mental habits that accelerate trauma recovery 🧠 Key Takeaway You don’t heal by suppressing thoughts — you heal by choosing better ones and practicing them until they become automatic. 🔗 Next Steps

You can listen to #122 Abandonment and Betrayal Trauma: Recovery Workshop online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

#122 Abandonment and Betrayal Trauma: Recovery Workshop is an episode from The Overcoming PTSD Podcast by Overcoming PTSD.

This episode is 47:17 long.

This episode was published on Mar 16, 2026.

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