It struck a nerve. It resonated.
The topic?
On the surface, it’s about why I don’t feel particularly panicked about COVID-19.
If you read on, if you read between the lines, the reason why, the Trojan Horse message is this: it’s about how we, as trauma survivors, have gifts, treasures inside of us.
Hard- and well-earned from our many trying experiences and how sometimes, these gifts serve us incredibly well.
Like helping us keep calm in the midst of a global storm.
I realized over the week as I watched the post get more and more traction, that this – speaking to and highlighting the positive, the potentiality of our often negatively and sometimes tragically viewed trauma histories – is uncommon.
But it’s incredibly important to talk about.
Today, I want to explore this more with you.
I want to go inside the proverbial cave and unearth the gifts. The treasures, that coming from a trauma background may hold.
I want to explore spaces and parts of this experience that often don’t get the attention that they deserve.
I want to paint a richer, more complex picture of what it might mean to come from a trauma background.
Coming from a trauma background is both/and, not either/or.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen
Like with so many things in life, coming from a trauma background is not either/or, it’s both/and.
What do I mean by this?
Much has, very importantly, been written about the consequences of coming from a trauma background.
We know through decades of studies and rigorous clinical work that coming from a trauma background, particularly a childhood trauma background, can adversely affect an individual on physiological and psychological levels.
I’ve written extensively about the adverse effects and impact of trauma. Particularly complex relational trauma – before on my blog archive category: Healing Childhood Trauma.
My life’s work is oriented towards helping people overcome these adverse impacts of coming from a trauma background. So in no way do I want to underestimate, minimize, or make light of the far-reaching effects that coming from a trauma history can have.
But at the same time, I do want to acknowledge that there may also be gifts.
I deeply believe that when and if we turn towards, face, process, grieve, heal, and make sense of our trauma, what may have felt like a lifelong muddy heavy burden can sometimes or often look like and feel like glittering, golden treasure.
The very things that made us susceptible to trauma, or the very things that trauma caused within us and to us, may, instead of becoming our Achilles heels, become our greatest advantages and gifts.
