Have you felt the pain of losing someone that you love followed by the frustration of thinking about how difficult starting over would be? Post Traumatic Growth can show up from failed relationships. If you are hurting or keep repeating the same cycle of relationship- single- relationship tune in to this podcast interview with Katrina Goff.

Katrina Goff, CAPP, CRT, is a positive psychology practitioner, and a certified resilience trainer, licensed to facilitate the Bounce Back Better(R) system, a Flourishing Center Program.

The interview is available on the Podcast: Here 

Katrina spent the majority of her career working in Health Care and with the Military. She came across the term, Post Traumatic Growth in a Psychology class she was taking and was able to share it with several service members in active duty over the years. It gave them some hope, and she could help them to see a different side of life other than just Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She is passionate about helping people have happier and healthier relationships and helping people see there is something else outside of just being stuck in the trauma of a situation, that you can find good in situations and you can have maybe a different life than you anticipated but that it can be even better than you dreamed.

Mindset

It’s all about how we choose to look at things and really being aware of the thoughts that come into our minds and what we do with them.

Sometimes we are getting something out of holding into trauma and are not ready to let it go. The longer we entertain a negative or painful thought the quicker it will pop back into our head. We have automatic thoughts and we have the power to take control over it, we do not have to entertain them.

We may not have had control over the initial situation but what we think and feel about it is definitely in our control.

PTSD

We often think of war, a serious illness, death of a loved one, rape or anything traumatic but when we think about a failed relationship that can be one of the most traumatic events that ever happen to us in our life.

We have invested our time, our heart, our mind into believing we are going to have that relationship forever. Perhaps that person is your best friend and you never imagined not having them in your life. Due to some circumstances regardless of fault, it can be debilitating.

We can want to lay in bed and our thoughts can focus on the negative like how our life will never be the same and that we won’t have it back again. These thoughts don’t lead us forward.

Post Traumatic Growth (PTG)

When we can see it and know how it shows up we can build more of it into our lives. One way that it shows up for Katrina is in Spirituality. Knowing she has a Heavenly Father that loves her and being part of something bigger than herself is very important to her. She knew when she was hurting that she was never alone.

She tells us that when our heart feels it is breaking we tend to want to isolate ourselves and we feel we are the only person that ever felt that way but we are not alone, everyone feels this way and have had a heartbreaking experience.

Meaning – I can make an understanding of what happened and expect that something is going to be better in the future because of it.

We are meaning-making creatures and want to figure out what we learned so we can share it with others. PTG comes from asking questions such as, What was my part in that breakup, what did I miss? How can I help other people?  It is hard to do but if we don’t get to the heart of this, we can end up in that repeating cycle of relationship, single and heartbreak or we never believe we can have it.

Purpose – Future focuses, What am I going to do with that info that came from meaning?

What gifts, skills, abilities, and talents have I come across that can help other people?

Katrina’s Journey

Before her Marriage Fitness Training had a name she knew she was going to find PTG from her experience. She had a failed marriage followed by relationships that didn’t end well and she came to a point in her life that she would NOT settle. She said we can all come to a point that we see we are good enough, we will not accept less than what meets our needs.

She offers some words of wisdom, if you are at that point of failed relationships, Stop!!! Don’t jump into a relationship until you can clearly define in your heart and mind, What do you need, what do you desire and how can you clearly articulate that?

She shares, with vulnerability, that this comes from a place of been there done that.

Links

• https://www.facebook.com/WellnessforWarriors/
• follow her on facebook 
• Music credit to http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/
• Listen to the podcast interview: Here
• More about Katrina:

Katrina is the creator of “Marriage Fitness Training: What’s STRONG with your Marriage” and “Building Post Traumatic Growth”, and many more. Katrina’s mission statement, simply put, is to help people discover their goals, develop their strengths, and determine the path to their success. She is passionate about the science of well-being and resilience. Katrina is the co-owner of Goff Impact Consulting with the love of her life and husband Jay Goff also a John Maxwell speaker, trainer, coach. Katrina is passionate about helping people have healthier and happier relationships. She uses a strengths-based approach and teaches others to first answer the question “what’s right with me, what’s right with others?”

Gina Johnson