It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma - Trauma, PTSD, Abuse, Anxiety & Recovery - Joe Ryan

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In this episode, Joe covers one of the biggest & most frequent questions he gets! How do I get my partner to change? How do we get my wife to change? How do I get my husband to change? How do I get my brother to listen? How do I get him to go to therapy? It's simple…Here is the answer…. YOU DON’T

This episode outlines the steps a person needs to take to stop trying to change your partner but to change what you are doing (or not doing) in the relationship for you to remedy the situation and take control of what you can change!

In this Episode:

This episode will help you realize where you are currently, what you need to do, and how you need to do it without expecting any help or change from the person you hoped you could change! You have to start looking at yourself and stop looking at somebody else because, more than likely, the person you hope will change and stay the way you want them to will never happen! Heal yourself. Stop trying to change your partner!

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Empowering Individuals To Break Free From Childhood Programming, Emotional Paralysis, and Family System Roles. This is not traditional talk therapy. Inner Work Coaching is a raw, honest, personalized experience.

It’s Not You – It’s Your Unfamiliar Peace

You finally stop waking up hating yourself, the desperate drive to prove your worth vanishes, and suddenly the old fire is gone. What remains is an unfamiliar quiet inside—a space where you can just breathe. The real terror hits: who the hell are you without the constant fight, and can you trust this fragile new normal before life demands you prove it again?

Coming Home to a New Normal

You've done the brutal work—connected the dots on your original pain, peeled off the protective layers, faced the shame hangover. Relief floods in, but so does raw vulnerability. No more default armor means you feel exposed, untrusting of this centered feeling because it's brand new. The old polar extremes—frantic proving or self-destructive escapes—fade, leaving an empty middle ground of peace. You pull back, not from depression, but exhaustion. Decades of survival mode leave you needing time to settle into skin that doesn't require constant performance. Self-compassion replaces the usual self-hate; you allow the lack of motivation without piling on shame. Recovery isn't a finish line—it's arriving at enoughness and learning to inhabit it without rushing to fill the void.

Three Important Takeaways

• Big emotional growth spurts leave you vulnerable and distrusting of your new peace—protect it fiercely by pulling back without self-shame until you can trust the shift is real.
• The drive to prove your worth fueled both hyper-achievement and addiction; its absence creates space for authentic being, but demands you tolerate the unfamiliar emptiness and redefine success on your own terms.
• After escaping survival mode, the next frontier is quiet confidence—stepping out gradually, accepting fear of humiliation, and showing up imperfectly because hiding in safety kills growth just as surely as old trauma did.

- Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joeryan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

- Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/joeryan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

- Coaching: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joeryan.com/coaching/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Family System Revisited builds off the Family Shame Episode (Episode 69), in which Joe elaborates on the pressures of family expectations and the toll it takes on a person in trying to fit into a family “system.”

When we're born, we're born into a system. We are thrown into an existing system and put into a slot. Family systems dictate how you are expected to act, appear in public and how you are supposed to handle actions and emotions from everyone within your inner circle. The pressure to act accordingly and do only what will get you positive attention becomes a burden you can only carry for so long. Eventually, the byproduct of all this shame, whether from someone else or your own self, as you feel you can’t live up to the standard set for you in this unhealthy system. What do you do to lose the feeling of worrying about what everyone wants, thinks, or expects from you? Learn what Joe had to do to teach himself to be ok with being able to survive and being seen in ways that weren't acceptable by his family system and move past all the guilt and shame he felt as a child for wanting things outside his place in the system.

In this Episode:

Learn to dismantle your family system's role to live and deal with the uncomfortable feelings of judgment and shame from your family system! Feel the relief and freedom that comes from releasing the bonds that have been placed on you by your family!

- Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joeryan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

- Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/joeryan⁠⁠⁠⁠

- Coaching: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joeryan.com/coaching/⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Original pain work is the most profound work you will ever do on yourself. It is also the most difficult!

In this episode, Joe talks about the abuse he experienced as a child and how he has dealt with it for many years by disassociating it with denial and by packing it away in this little dark place to be dealt at another time. Decades later (between the original pain and the fear that he continues to live), Joe shares in detail how he needed to work his way back to those places, the origins of his pain, and the abuse, hurt, and fear he has to connect the dots to determine how he got to the place he’s at today… and how he is now forced to confront and correct the issues to be able to move forward.

In this Episode:

Putting in the work to go inside yourself can be frightening, but it will be your path to freedom and peace. Become stronger than your fears! Let joy take over by moving fear out of the way. No longer live in denial and live your truth. Find someone who can help you get to that place…time is ticking away, and it’s time to lean into your fears…Joy is waiting to take over your life!

Schedule a Complimentary Coaching Session

https://joeryan.com/
Empowering Individuals To Break Free From Childhood Programming, Emotional Paralysis, and Family System Roles. This is not traditional talk therapy. Inner Work Coaching is a raw, honest, personalized experience.

It’s Not You – It’s Your Refusal to Be Seen

You already know something is seriously wrong inside. You’ve read the books, saved the posts, journaled the insights, yet you still wake up in the same emotional prison. The brutal truth is that healing doesn’t happen in your head or through more information—it only begins when you finally let another human being witness your deepest shame and pain.

The Myth of Solo Healing

You cannot think, read, meditate, or affirm your way out of developmental trauma. Your nervous system was never taught how to feel safe while feeling. That capacity was supposed to come from consistent, attuned caregivers who mirrored your emotions with warmth and acceptance. When that didn’t happen, you froze emotionally while your body kept growing. Decades later you’re physically an adult but emotionally still a terrified, abandoned child trying to manage overwhelming feelings alone. That strategy has never worked and it never will. Real change requires being seen—really seen—by someone who can hold space without flinching, without fixing, without abandoning you when it gets ugly.

Why You Keep Avoiding the One Thing That Works

Reaching out feels like walking naked into a room full of people who might hurt you again. Your system remembers betrayal, rejection, and humiliation. Asking for help triggers the same terror you felt as a child when vulnerability led to pain or neglect. So you stay in the familiar hell of isolation, convincing yourself that more podcasts, more books, more self-help will finally be enough this time. It’s a lie you tell yourself to avoid the risk of being seen and potentially hurt again. But staying hidden keeps you stuck exactly where the trauma wants you—alone, ashamed, and small.

Three Important Takeaways

• You cannot heal developmental trauma in isolation—no amount of insight, journaling, or solo practices will rewire the nervous system that never learned safety in connection.
• Avoiding being seen preserves the illusion of control while guaranteeing you stay emotionally frozen, self-hating, and dependent on external fixes that always fail.
• Freedom begins the moment you courageously allow a safe other to witness your pain, shame, and unmet childhood needs—there is no shortcut and no way around that terrifying first step.

- Website: ⁠⁠https://joeryan.com⁠⁠

- Instagram: ⁠⁠https://instagram.com/joeryan⁠⁠

- Coaching: ⁠⁠https://joeryan.com/coaching/⁠⁠

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“Relationship Triggers” delves into how we react to certain situations and conversations in our relationships, based heavily upon our history of reactions and events that have impacted us, going back as far as childhood. Even though these events involved different people, we still have this knee jerk reaction to the new and innocent person we are attempting to form a new relationship with. How do we handle these broken and damaged emotions when trying to build a new relationship with someone who may not understand the trauma we have endured?

In this episode, Joe talks about the importance of navigating through the process of allowing yourself to grow relationships instead of cutting them off at the knees once they start to really get rolling. Being in a romantic relationship feels vastly different from being alone, as you are now connected to somebody else. Your reactions are being closely monitored by someone who may not have the same past/path traveled. Everyone has pain points and things that cause us to react differently to what others may think are trivial, but because of our different pasts, these reactions tend to uncover pain points that aren’t the same for each person. How do we navigate these waters to live the life we want? What should we expect from others to help us heal? This episode helps clear up some of these questions and may change your perspective going forward. 

In this Episode:

This episode helps you discover what parts of your childhood and your overall life in general have caused you to react negatively, right or wrong. Find out what you lack in your life and what triggers you, and focus on the root source and how you can repair those feelings on your own. Don’t expect relationships with others to solve any of this for you... It’s all on you.

Can I Recover On My Own?

Joe Ryan is a Certified Peer Support Specialist who knows trauma because he’s lived it and learned to live beyond it.  Joe has been on a lifelong journey to overcome trauma, shame, and the demons that plagued him from early in life. Joe is turning his mission outward, helping others conquer their traumatic experiences through his podcast (“It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma“) and one-on-one coaching.

- Website: https://joeryan.com

- Instagram: https://instagram.com/joeryan

- Subscribe: https://joeryan.com/subscribe/

- Coaching: https://joeryan.com/coaching/

Drew Linsalata, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. I am a full time graduate student in clinical mental health counseling on the way to being a licensed therapist. I’m an author, a speaker, and proud to be both an educator and advocate in the anxiety, anxiety disorder, and anxiety recovery community. I am also a former sufferer, having struggled with anxiety disorders and clinical depression for more than 25 years of my life before finally fully recovering around 2008. 

- https://theanxioustruth.com/

- Website: ⁠https://joeryan.com⁠

- Instagram: ⁠https://instagram.com/joeryan⁠

- Coaching: ⁠https://joeryan.com/coaching/⁠

- Submit A Question ⁠https://joeryan.com/ask/

- Subscribe To All Episodes ⁠https://joeryan.com/subscribe/⁠

Are you living a lie? Do you know what type of person you want to be in life vs. the person you are expected to be? You might not know what or who you want to be, but you know you are unhappy with the person you have become because of many things, including Shame.

In this episode, Joe goes deep into the topic of shame…and how everyone he counsels lives with it, regardless of nationality, belief system, politics, religion, sexuality, etc.

Joe discusses how shame lives in the darkness, creates isolation, and doesn’t want to be seen. Follow the steps outlined in this episode to uncover your shame, bring it into the light, and eventually eliminate it.

In this Episode:

Shame has, can, and will manipulate actions. Having the strength to identify how not to allow it to take you down the road you no longer want to travel takes time, inner strength, and… lots of work.

- Website: https://joeryan.com

- Instagram: https://instagram.com/joeryan

- Subscribe: https://joeryan.com/subscribe/

- Coaching: https://joeryan.com/coaching/

- Submit A Question https://joeryan.com/ask/

Joe Ryan is a Certified Peer Support Specialist who knows trauma because he’s lived it and learned to live beyond it.  Joe has been on a lifelong journey to overcome trauma, shame, and the demons that plagued him from early in life. Joe is turning his mission outward, helping others conquer their traumatic experiences through his podcast (“It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma“) and one-on-one coaching.

- Website: https://joeryan.com

- Instagram: https://instagram.com/joeryan

- Subscribe: https://joeryan.com/subscribe/

- Coaching: https://joeryan.com/coaching/

Drew Linsalata, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. I am a full time graduate student in clinical mental health counseling on the way to being a licensed therapist. I’m an author, a speaker, and proud to be both an educator and advocate in the anxiety, anxiety disorder, and anxiety recovery community. I am also a former sufferer, having struggled with anxiety disorders and clinical depression for more than 25 years of my life before finally fully recovering around 2008. 

- https://theanxioustruth.com/

Schedule a Complimentary Coaching Session

https://joeryan.com/
Empowering Individuals To Break Free From Childhood Programming, Emotional Paralysis, and Family System Roles. This is not traditional talk therapy. Inner Work Coaching is a raw, honest, personalized experience.

It’s Not You – It’s Your Unfelt Grief

You've spent years running from the knot in your gut, the tightness in your chest, convincing yourself that staying busy or numb will make it disappear. But the truth is brutal: every distraction is just another way to delay the grief your body has been begging you to feel—and until you stop pretending it's not there, freedom stays out of reach.

The Body Holds What the Mind Refuses

Sitting with uncomfortable feelings means stopping the endless escape into thought, phone, work, or substances and turning toward the physical disturbance you've ignored for years. You locate the tension, anxiety, or ache—maybe your belly, chest, or shoulders—and breathe into it without running. This is grieving the losses no one ever let you mourn: innocence, safety, dignity. You allow the sadness, shame, and hurt to surface instead of shoving them down. The practice starts tiny. Lie in the dark, notice where the discomfort lives, and stay with it even when your mind screams to analyze or distract. When you drift into thinking, gently return to sensation. Three minutes counts. It's gym work for a soul that's been sedentary for decades.

Three Important Takeaways

• Your body stores unresolved grief and pain as chronic tension or anxiety; avoiding it through distractions only makes it persist and distort your life.
• Sitting with discomfort builds tolerance, spreads the held energy evenly, reduces overwhelm, and shrinks the power of fear, panic, and old reactions over time.
• Grieving what was lost creates internal space, lessens the terror of new loss, and dramatically increases your capacity for real joy and freedom—no external fix can substitute for this inner work.