If this pandemic world has taught us one thing it’s that trauma will happen to EVERYone. Trauma-trauma, an important distinction in my field:
T-trauma, or what we can big-T trauma is happening right now in Afghanistan, Kazakstan, Kentucky, Louisville, the Bronx, Philadelphia. Total and complete devastation in one felled swoop.t-trauma, or what we call little-t trauma has been coined to talk about less swoop-like experiences… heartbreaks, unsafe homes, unpredictable communities, destabilized societies, illness, sickness, lack of care, isolation, hiding in plain sight, having to pretend to be something you’re not, pleasing others to gain acceptance… loads of t and T in this world.Despite having a booming therapy practice, not a single person who walks in and out of my doors gains an immunity to any of this. Death will always come, hearts will get broken, trust will be lost, checklists and expectations will be placed on all of us.Every. Single. Person. Reading. This. Post.Every single person living, breathing, and walking.Despite the glamorous, happy go lucky, look at me and my perfect family, kids, car, house, job, life posts we see out there, I’m here to tell you it’s a massive scoop of Internet bullsh*t.Do we all experience times of joy and happiness? Elation and ecstasy?Hell yes.But by propping yourself up as immune to feeling and healing are you going to live in that world and swim swimmingly through life’s untroubled waters by repressing, rug sweeping, and forgetting?Nope.Nope nope-ity nope nope nope.Not a single soul.
What healing work and the rooms like the one that I work in provide are roadmaps. A roadmap of your HONEST design with the central focus being you. A whole, empowered, wise, self-trusting you in the face of life’s adversities. This will look very different from the big fun fa-la-la posts we all like to share and see on the Internet.
There will still be fun and fa-la-ing… but there will also be a kind, self-compassionate and honest recognition when sh*t’s not right, and a way through it. Not hiding under it, drinking it away, selfy-ing our way away from something that will never go away: pain.Healing work does not create immunity to pain, to trauma. Healing work provides tools and resources to address conflict and suffering in the face of life's inevitable.Trauma heals!