Welcome back to the Primal Question Newsletter.
My name is Mike Foster. If you’re new around here, I’m an Executive Coach who works with all sorts of world changers, from Navy SEALs to reality stars to nonprofit founders to executives of billion-dollar companies.
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Today, we’re talking about…
Trauma Karaoke
The couple sat in front of their therapist, 23 years of marriage hanging in the balance.
Three kids at home. Mounting tension. A marriage on life support. The therapist turned to the husband and asked a simple question: “What do you need from her to feel more connected?”
He didn’t ask for much. No grand gesture. No big favors. No expensive vacation.
Just this: “I want to have dinner with you once a week. No phones. No kids. Just us. We never get a chance to connect anymore. I want that back.”
His wife shook her head and turned to the therapist.
“I just can’t do that,” she said.
“All these years, I’ve been people-pleasing, meeting everyone else’s needs because of how my father treated me. This just feels like another demand. More manipulation. I need to protect my boundaries.”
She felt empowered saying this, like she’d finally found her voice after years of being silenced.
Like so many people I talk to today, she’d been reading lots of books about trauma bonding, emotional manipulation, and childhood wounds. She was in therapy. She was journaling. In her eyes, she was “doing the work” to finally understand herself. All of this was her way of “working on her”, which in her mind would “save the marriage”.
Maybe…
But here’s what was also true.
Four months earlier, she moved into their basement apartment. She rarely came upstairs. Every night, her husband ate dinner upstairs either alone or with the kids. She convinced herself she was finally healed from the pain of her past because she was setting up these boundaries, and the therapist agreed.
To be clear, this isn’t about one specific couple.
This is a pattern I’m seeing in over a dozen marriages right now.
I’ve altered the details to protect the people involved, but this exact dynamic is at play in countless homes.
Someone reads the self-help books, learns therapy language, and thinks they’re “growing”. But really, they’re using it all as a weapon to justify staying exactly where they are, while they demand that everyone around them change to accommodate their new journey.
This is what I call Trauma Karaoke.
What is Trauma Karaoke?
It’s when we learn the song of our pain. We memorize every lyric. We sing it to our spouses and kids and siblings and strangers. We perform it in therapy. We sing it to our friends over coffee.
We sing it to everyone who will listen.
“This is why I am the way I am. This is what they did to me. That’s why I can’t change.”
Put simply, it’s when someone learns “therapy speak” and instead of using it to understand themselves and step into their power to grow and heal, they use it as an excuse to stay exactly where they are.
Quick pause: when reading something like this, it’s easy to start thinking of other people.
Your spouse. Your dad. Your sister. That guy at work.
But when I’m coaching, I only coach the person in front of me. Right now, that’s you. I’m not writing this so you can assess your spouse or your brother or your colleague. I’m writing this so you can see where you’re singing Trauma Karaoke in your own life.
The question is…
Why do we settle for Trauma Karaoke?
Because pretending to be a victim has some serious benefits.
Remember, I’m not talking about real victims here. I’m talking about people playing the victim. When you play the victim, you get a built-in excuse for every behavior.
Why won’t you take that risk? Because my siblings made fun of me growing up.
Why won’t you open up in relationships? Because my ex betrayed me.
Why won’t you try something new? Because my parents expected perfection.
I know this is sensitive ground I’m treading on, so I want to be really clear.
I have tremendous empathy for anyone who’s experienced trauma. Life can be brutal. People hurt us in ways that leave real scars. That pain is valid, and it deserves to be acknowledged, processed, and healed.
In fact, I’m not upset with anyone singing Trauma Karaoke.
I’m angry with the industry that perpetuates it.
We live in a culture that rewards victimhood.
There are entire industries built to keep you singing that song. Algorithms that validate your coping mechanisms with viral affirmation. Books that validate your stuckness, saying it’s okay to move into the basement and call that “healing”. Therapists who say it’s okay to avoid dinner with your spouse and call that “growth”.
These therapeutic explanations feel good in the moment because they let us off the hook.
The problem is, they cause us to miss out on the real life and real growth available to us.
We trade actual healing for the appearance of healing.
We become experts at trauma theory but amateurs at living.
We can quote Bessel van der Kolk, but we can’t hold down a relationship or finish what we start.
And the worst part? We think this is progress.
We think that because we can name our patterns, we’ve changed them. Because we understand our trauma, we’ve healed from it. But understanding isn’t transformation. Insight isn’t change. You can know exactly why you’re afraid of intimacy and still end up alone.
That’s why I’m angry at a system that helps you settle for the song of your pain.
Because the truth is, you can sing a new tune whenever you want.
There’s so much more available to you.
The victim mindset is powerful because it protects us, and like I said, it comes with some benefits. But here’s what nobody tells you: The victim identity trades massive potential for pocket change.
Those victim benefits are like accepting $20 for your life when you could accept $200k.
So how do you collect a fuller, richer, more vibrant life instead?
You have to decide what you’re committed to. I saw this great quote the other day that sums this up perfectly: “You can never help a person who is committed to the story that suits their dysfunction.”
If staying connected to your past story is more important to you than your growth, you will stay exactly where you are. If your pain is more valuable than your potential, nothing changes. The question isn’t whether you’ve been hurt.
The question is whether you’re going to let that hurt write the rest of your story.
So let me ask you what I ask every client:
What outcome do you actually want?
Not what you say you want while you’re singing Trauma Karaoke. What do you genuinely want for your life? Your marriage? Your career? Your relationships? Your health?
Now here’s the harder question:
Are you willing to live the lifestyle necessary to create that outcome?
Because you can’t have a thriving marriage while living in the basement.
You can’t build deep friendships while keeping everyone at arm’s length.
You can’t create a successful career while avoiding every risk that makes you uncomfortable.
If you want the outcome but won’t live the lifestyle that creates it, you might as well let go of the vision.
Look, no one is stopping you. You can keep singing your song. But you can’t sing Trauma Karaoke and expect to create the life you say you want.
It’s $20 or $200k.
And the choice is yours.
Action Item For This week:
Write down one outcome you say you want. Then, write down one behavior working against it. Get brutally honest about whether you’re willing to change.
If you’re not willing, stop saying you want the outcome.
If you are willing, it’s time to write a new song.
Warmly,
Mike Foster
P.S. Was this helpful?
If so, don’t click away without giving this post a like, comment, or share! Your engagement helps other people discover their Primal Question. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate you!
This is a phenomenal article, Mike. Thank you for speaking the truth in love! Your point is clear and actionable, not punitive and shaming.
Thank you for saying the silent part out loud!