Rebuilding Your Life: How To Build A New Life After Trauma Takes The Old One

Megan Maysie
Sep 11
7 min read

Updated: Sep 18

Trauma destroys everything in its path, including life as the victim knew it. But trauma is also an opportunity to learn, to grow, to heal, and to make a new life and make it spectacularly amazing.

Everything in life, they say, is either a blessing or a lesson, but when we're struggling with the debilitating after-effects of a traumatic event or events, everything becomes murky, often for years, before we can start seeing a light at the end of a very dark, very long tunnel. But it's there — calling, tempting, teasing us — a permanent reminder of what life could be if we let go of our past and our uncomfortable comfort zones of suffering.

Yet, we are a collection of the events of our past, a patchwork created by millions of years of evolution, our ancestors honed into what it means to be a human being in the 21^st century, woven into the threads and patches we add in this life we are given. We have an identity. But it's not static; it grows and adapts —the entire purpose of evolving.

Rebuilding Your Life After Trauma

Eventually, we emerge from trauma, but not unscathed. We aren't the people we once were, and we struggle to cope with the loss of identity alongside the many other debilitating effects of trauma- with all the signs and symptoms of PTSD.

The certainty of knowing who we were is replaced with “Who am I?” The simple answer is: whoever you want to be. But it takes a little introspection and learning to find the path to rebuilding your life, or figure out how to build a new life, and a whole lot of courage to take the first few steps.

Read: Overcoming Trauma: Is Trauma Recovery Even Possible?

The 3 steps to building a new life after trauma are:

1. Make a conscious decision that you want to heal, you want a better life.

2. Awaken your Wabi Sabi: Find beauty in imperfection, and accept things as they are.

3. Accept that you deserve a better life: You do

Deciding You Want To Heal

It sounds ridiculous to say someone doesn't want to heal. Nobody likes being in the clutches of a post-trauma life. PTSD is horrible. Yet, we struggle to find a way to heal, veering off course despite the best intentions, regularly, as we reach out, sometimes in big, bold steps, sometimes in hesitant, tiny gestures. And still, healing eludes us.

Healing is often a two steps forward, one step back path- even sometimes one step forward and ten steps back. But getting back on track after 10 or so steps back is often the obstacle to taking a step or two forward.

It's worth remembering what struggle icon Nelson Mandela said:

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

But getting our mindsets refocused is perhaps the most difficult part of taking another step forward- of rising again.

But, like “The Little Engine That Could” in the 1930 American folktale by Arnold "Watty Piper" Munk, who thought he couldn’t, he could- after he managed to refocus his thoughts and concentrate on the task ahead.

The great engine looked at the load and said,

"I can't; that is too much of a pull for me."

But, despite the heavy load and steep uphill, the little engine takes up the challenge, and starts chugging up the railway track, saying, over and over:

“I think I can, I think I can...”

And, as he gathered some momentum, the little engine said,

“I know I can, I know I can!”

And as he cruises down the other side, the little engine says,

"I thought I could, I thought I could."

Just that small thought, “I think I can,” is all you need to take the first step.

In a more adult tone, motivational guru Tony Robbins, who guides others to achieve their "best version of themselves," says, "Information does not change your life, decisions do.” Robbins says,

“Winners take imperfect action- action is the most important key to any success. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”

While this is his advice on business mastery, the advice is universal. After trauma, deciding to heal needs action. But first, the decision must be made.

"Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

Nelson Mandela

Awakening Your Wabi Sabi

The traditional Japanese concept, wabi-sabi (侘び寂び), is built on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It’s about finding beauty in the imperfections of nature and life and accepting the natural cycles of growth and decay.

There is beauty in ugliness and meaning in suffering. Traumatized people tend to ruminate far more than is healthy, but if the overthinking and dissecting are redirected to understanding that life is not perfect, its perfection lies in the meaning and personal growth painfully inflicted by traumatic events. We can then embrace the second part of wabi sabi: Nothing is permanent, not even imperfections.

These imperfections are all part of the human learning curve, to be experienced as a lesson and a stepping stone to a better understanding, guiding us on the path to understanding who we are (our identity) and where we are going.

Accepting You Deserve A Better Life

The most difficult of all three steps for traumatized people whose self-esteem has taken a battering, along with the beating from the traumatic event, is to accept that we deserve a better life. Children with a narcissistic parent, for example, are also carefully trained to think they have no right to existence outside their duty to serve the narcissist. They do not deserve it.

Similarly, rainbow babies may know from when they are born that they do not deserve to exist- the miscarried child was the deserving one. And there are countless other experiences, like empaths and others who turn themselves into emotional punching bags, that make us think we don’t deserve a good life.

Yet, we do. Many philosophies and psychological approaches suggest that everyone deserves fundamental well-being and happiness, while others argue that deserving happiness hinges on inherent human value.

Every human being was born with a value. A vicious predator may inflict untold suffering, but it is in the healing process that their victims find that meaning, reducing the value of the perpetrator's life to serving as an example if they face consequences, or the value to be found in what may feel like a cruel, hard life lesson for the victim.

We all know our value, although it is sometimes hidden under layers of fear and pain. We all have something to give the world, something meaningful: ourselves. And this value may be where we can finally learn why we are deserving of all the blessings and happiness life has to offer.

And once we accept that we have value, our own particular, unique gifts and skills to offer the world, it can make sense that this is the price to pay for a better life, and an exchange, so to speak.

Until it dawns on us that life is a gift, there's no price to pay outside of living our purpose: to grow and evolve, to contribute our unique state of being for the benefit of the world around us. And it is that purpose that makes a better, happier life.

A Few More Tools To Rebuild A Better Life After Trauma

The three steps —decide, wabi sabi, and accept —will take you to the top of the mountain, and it's all downhill from there (in a good way). But some days are more difficult, as triggers emerge from nowhere, and a fog of depression descends without warning. There are still some tools that will help us reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

13 ways to rebuild your life and make it spectacularly amazing

Forgiveness: Forgiving others, and especially forgiving ourselves, may be one of the most liberating things we can do
Managing Triggers: Trauma leaves scars, which become portals that loop back to the trauma, taking us back ten steps on our healing path. Learn to manage your triggers.
Self-Esteem: Find value within yourself, own it, and move forward with confidence.
Visualisation: Paint a picture in your head of the life you want - the life you could have if there were no limits - or put it on a piece of paper pinned where you can see it often. Imagination is one of the most powerful tools we humans can deploy- use it to deploy your best life.
Take action: A dream is just a dream without a plan, and a plan is just a plan without action. Plot your path and commit to taking small, consistent actions. Every. Single. Day. Even if some days it's as small as stopping to smell the roses, it still counts and changes your mindset for the day.
Accept that your progress won’t be linear: There may still be a few steps backwards, but if you work on taking three steps forward for every two backward, it’s still progress.
Develop Trust: Believe absolutely, whether it's in yourself, your life, the people around you who can guide you, or the spiritual Being with dominion over your life.
Be kind to yourself: When you stop and smell the roses, collect some petals for a bath. And make a habit of noticing when you trash-talk yourself —and stop yourself immediately.
Gratitude: Being grateful for even the smallest thing has a way of multiplying the things to be grateful for. And when you don't focus on the negative, it dissipates.
Give up other people's expectations: It's your life to live, not theirs. Know who you are and live your life accordingly.
Discipline your mind to stay in the present: You can’t change the past, but you can change the present moment to create a better, happier life that your future self will love.
Keep the sunshine people close: Those who shine their light will guide you in your dark moments.
Never ever let your trauma dictate who you are.