This You Cannot Optimize

Trauma Recovery Cannot Be Hacked. Healing Is Not Hustle.

Ana Mael explores one of the biggest misunderstandings in modern trauma and PTSD recovery: the belief that healing can be optimized through endless productivity, discipline, nervous system hacks, biohacking, routines, self-improvement, and performance culture.

She speaks about the hidden exhaustion many people experience in therapy, healing spaces, wellness culture, startup culture, hustle culture, and social media optimization culture — where even healing itself becomes another form of over-functioning and survival.

why trauma survivors struggle to slow down
somatic healing and emotional integration
why productivity culture harms trauma recovery

Ana also explores the concept of the “unwept soul” — the grief that remains stored in the body when survivors are never given permission to mourn what happened, what was lost, and who they had to become in order to survive.

Transcript

Welcome to Excel & Rising. I'm Anamaya, Somatic Experiencing Therapist for PTSD and Trauma Recovery. So let's begin. One of the biggest misunderstandings in modern healing culture is this idea that healing is primarily about optimization. We therapists we can see and hear talking about this all the time in case consults and when we get together is how grind and hustle startup cultures corporate culture. Is moving into healing spaces. And now we can see people who are recovering from trauma and PTSD, They want to optimize by more routines, More discipline, More tracking, More regulation systems, More productivity, More information, More performance. And many trauma survivors become extraordinarily good at this. Why? Because survival itself, Train them to become strategists. One of the best strategists are trauma survivors. People with PTSD. Because they know how to anticipate. You know that. We're the best to anticipate. To control. Tuning through. To optimize. The over function. To keep moving. So these are our trauma and PTSD, Superhero skills we learned. I'm calling this terrible knowledge. There is an episode named terrible knowledge. And these strategies are excellent because they helped us to survive. If I didn't have those strategies implemented in me. During my almost eight years living in a war, I wouldn't be alive now. And I am so grateful for them. I perfected them. And also, I know, It stopped me. In my own healing journey and I can see now working with my clients. How this is a block for them. And these strategists are very adaptive. They're very intelligent. And we survived unbearable realities because we learned how to override exhaustion, Mass distraction, Grief, Vulnerability, Abuse, Devastation. And what saves the nervous system during trauma can later prevent the same nervous system from recovering. And that is the paradox. And what is not helping nowadays is Grind and Hustle Culture. You can hear this on almost all podcasts and social media. Everyone is optimizing. Everything. Even making lunch needs to be optimized. How you take a shower needs to be optimized. And What your body is saying is, I cannot survive my healing anymore. Because your body is now seeing even your healing recovery as a form of surviving abuse. Or displacement, Or betrayal. It has the same quality of survival. And this is the plateau many people are now reaching in therapy. In drum recovery. Not because something is wrong with you or not because you fail. But because trauma recovery cannot be optimized. Recovery cannot work on the urgency. And this can be terrifying for many trauma survivors because survival identity is built around movement. We know this. This is where we are at best, To move. Moving, Doing, Fixing, Improving, Achieving, Performing. Everything. And if we stop, What would happen? What might emerge. And what often emerges is grief. In menstruation. Not only grief over what happened. But grief over who you have to become to survive. Who is that person who had to adapt and build so many new parts, Personas to survive? And grieve over true identity. Your head. To minimize, To cut out, To dismiss, So you can survive. So there is enormous amount of grief over innocence, Grief over lost years, Grief over lost safety. Grief over relationships. Grief over homeland. Grief over identity. What was never able to fully emerge. Or grief over the body that was, You had, Grief over health. You once had. Or the life you never got to live. And please listen my episode around optimizing our grief so with today episode i really would like you to start observing and seeing where we are going as a culture in this healing because this is not healing anymore. Because it looks we are not doing justice and proper care to trauma healing. Healing is not endless optimization. The endless efforting, The endless overriding, The endless denying, The endless survival mode and I feel this culture of hustle and grind is failing many people in their own trauma healing. And it's not doing justice. For people who are spending. Thousands of dollars to heal and they feel like they're failing their own healing because now well in a healing spaces we have productivity systems achievement systems optimization systems performance systems you now need to perform even in your therapist's office. And in your own mental health, Healing. And we don't have grieving systems. We don't have it. Any education, There is no curriculum. In high school. How to grieve. There is no communal tending. Of heartbreak. No teachings around devastation which is a life. There is no rituals. For emotional collapse, Trauma recovery cannot be cognitive. Trauma recovery is not another start-up. Culture. It's not an art. It's not AI. It cannot only be informational. It cannot only be strategic. And what nervous system. A German PTSD recovery requires is trust, Is slowing down, We need to slow down to go fast. So I'm not saying don't optimize when you stabilize, When you grieve. But you cannot optimize first when you're denying deep wisdom in your body to recover in own pace. Your nervous system requires stillness. Witnessing silence, Tears. Enough safety for your body to finally stop racing for another day, Then you need to over perform, Over do, Over achieve, Over optimize even your own mental health healing. So please. Be Less Highly Functioning Be Less Highly Disciplined Be Less Highly Informed Be less highly articulate and be less highly productive. And if you need permission. You have permission. To stop performing healing. You have permission to collapse safely. You have permission to grieve. What happened? To ask yourself. What is remained unwrapped. In my life. You have permission to not optimize your pain. Functioning is not always healing. And many times in trauma, I'm talking about trauma and PTSD recovery, Functioning is sophisticated survival. Which saved us once in trauma living. But it cannot save us in our recovery. And ask yourself, Am I allowed? To slow down. To feel what I went through, To grieve, Not to explain, Not to intellectualize, Not to optimize, Not to transcend, Not to bypass, But to slow down. Gently and to breathe. Slowly, Humanly. And you're not failing because you cannot optimize yourself out of trauma trauma recovery was never meant to be optimized greed was never meant to be optimized So my recovery is meant to be witnessed. Sheld, Move through. Gently. With help of your therapist, Of your friend. Of your loved one. Of support group. Of your animals. Of your rituals. Of you being gentle with yourself. Take time, Be with this. I'm Anamaya, Somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery. I run somatic trauma recovery center here in Toronto, Canada. And until next time. Be gentle with yourself. Much care.