The Life Changing Question

Trauma isn't what changes us, it's the question we must ask later that does.

There are moments in life that make their mark on us forever. Moments where we can pinpoint a before and after, often only in hindsight, but a clear I-am-no-longer-who-I-was change. Sometimes that moment hits us like a brick in the face, others sneak up as an annoying drumbeat slowly getting closer and louder until we can no longer resist the pull.

Trauma is always such a moment.

The moment that changed my world is forever tattooed onto my heart, but in reality, the moment was only the spark of change because the wall of my pain bubble was still too opaque. I couldn’t see beyond the hurt to know how and what would change. I couldn’t yet imagine ever being happy again.

Trauma does that to us. It traps us in a snow globe of hurt. All we can see is the debris floating around us in the thick, murky amniotic fluid that is keeping us alive, although barely.

We think the trauma is what will transform us forever. No, trauma is the kick-start of a process. The true agent of change is the question that you will eventually have to ask yourself.

That crucial question is, “What if this is as good as it ever gets?”

That question deals with the aftermath.

The moment tattooed on my heart was learning my husband had a secret life. The knowledge that my entire marriage had been a lie shrouded me in a pain bubble. I couldn’t feel anything else.

But that trauma wasn’t the event that changed me because I wasn’t yet able to question what came next.

3:00 a.m., a few years later, unable to sleep, the question came. I stood at the window in my high-rise condo, watching Lake Michigan roil below. As I watched the waves, I wondered what it would feel like to slip into the cold, dark water and disappear. I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t suicidal. I was just utterly empty emotionally and suddenly afraid that this state of being might be permanent.

Those thoughts terrified me, and that’s when I finally asked myself the vital question, “What if this is as good as it gets? What if emptiness is all I have left?”

We think time and therapy will work their magic, whether the issue at hand is a trauma or a major life decision. We’re told time is supposed to heal. Therapy is supposed to deliver insights. And there is truth to those beliefs, but I find them incomplete.

Incomplete because they rely on outside forces for healing. Yet, we all know people who remain stuck in pain years after an event. We all know people who’ve attended therapy and remain bitter or sad.

What I think the crucial question, “What if this is as good as it gets?” does is force us into a conscious choice. It flips the narrative. It demands an honest look-at-ourselves-in-the-mirror that we don’t always do even in therapy. And if we’re in a pain bubble, that’s damn hard to do.

Time and therapy help us get closer to the place of being able to answer what we are willing to settle for and what we will demand for ourselves.

Once we ask ourselves “is this good enough”, and if we’re really honest with ourselves, there are only two choices: live with the pain (I settle) or set your determination to find a way out that changes you for the better (I demand).

I pondered my reality and said No; it wasn’t good enough. Only then could I stop waiting for time to magically reward me. I took charge of my healing and my future emotional state. I demanded more of myself and for myself.

It’s the consciousness of asking ourselves to decide what we want in life and how we want to feel that the question, “What if this is as good as it gets?” brings forward to be examined.

This is the question that changes us, regardless of why we are stuck or in pain. Our stuckness needn’t be trauma-driven, but it’s always pain-driven when we face an uncomfortable decision.

“What if this is as good as it gets?” is the life-changing question we all need to ask at least once in life.