Poonam Bhuchar: Shifting from Pain to Regain Control of Your Life

<p>•    I use the acronym S.A.F.E., and it's about being emotionally safe. A lot of us will hide our emotional trauma and not address it and will shove it down instead of processing those feelings and being able to move on. So the S.A.F.E. method is my method of moving on from that emotional trauma to lead a more fulfilled and purposeful life, so the S stands for stop and accept that you're in pain. A lot of us will just keep going on the hamster wheel, will keep ourselves so busy and will say that we don't have time to think about anything and we just keep walking through life being numb and not processing our pain. The first step is to stop and actually acknowledge that you're in pain. Many of us don't realize that we are. Sometimes there's enough medical evidence out there to prove that it can manifest in physical ways, so for me, I had a lot of health issues because I was denying that I was an emotional pain. So, the first step for S.A.F.E. is stop and accept that you're in pain, which is one of the most difficult things to do. (01:50)</p><p>•  The second one I talk about is A, which is accept your responsibility for where you are, So... Sometimes in life, there are things that happen to us that we have no control over, and the minute that you start to say, I accept where I am, can be very empowering. And sometimes we've made incorrect decisions in our lives or decisions that weren't the best for us, and it's just accepting some responsibility for that and empowering yourself to move forward. A lot of us play what I call the self-righteous victim. I was a grade a self-righteous victim, I was pissed at the world, I blamed everybody for everything, and I blamed everyone for where I was. And what happens in that is, you keep repeating the story, you keep acting like the self-righteous victim and you don't empower yourself to do anything. The minute that you accept where you are today, and the minute that you accept, I have some responsibility for whatever it may have been that has happened to me, you empower you