Glimpses into the wisdom of Peter Levine are held in these quotes that I am sharing today. I am called to bring forth the insights and wisdom of Peter Levine, Gabor Maté, and others because I see again and again, both personally and collectively, the impact of unaddressed, denied, minimized, and unhealed trauma. It also needs to be stressed that, through my own personal journey and what I have also witnessed in countless others — including my many treasured teachers — that when faced and embraced with support, curiosity, and courage there are deep and powerful blessings to be found within the healing of trauma. There are so many gifts waiting to be claimed through the healing and transformation of how we've been wounded in our lives, the ripples of which will increasingly spread through and across ourselves, our families, our communities, our nation, and the world. May it be so. 🙏 Molly
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The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.
Trauma is about loss of connection — to ourselves, our families, and the world around us. This loss is hard to recognize because it happens slowly, over time.
Trauma has become so commonplace that most people don’t even recognize its presence. It affects everyone. Each of us has had a traumatic experience at some point in our lives, regardless of whether it left us with an obvious case of post-traumatic stress. Because trauma symptoms can remain hidden for years after a triggering event, some of us who have been traumatized are not yet symptomatic.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.
The effects of unresolved trauma can be devastating. It can affect our habits and outlook on life, leading to addictions and poor decision-making. It can take a toll on our family life and interpersonal relationships. It can trigger real physical pain, symptoms, and disease. And it can lead to a range of self-destructive behaviors.
We may deny that an event occurred, or we may act as though it was unimportant. For instance, when someone we love dies, or when we are injured or violated, we may act as though nothing has happened, because the emotions that come with truly acknowledging the situation are too painful. In addition, dissociation may be experienced as part of the body being disconnected or almost absent. Frequently, chronic pain represents a part of the body that has been dissociated.
When people have been traumatized, they are stuck in paralysis-the immobility reaction or abrupt explosions of rage.
Physicians and mental health workers today don’t speak of retrieving souls, but they are faced with a similar task – restoring wholeness to an organism that has been fragmented by trauma. Shamanistic concepts and procedures treat trauma by uniting lost soul and body in the presence of community. This approach is alien to the technological mind. However, these procedures do seem to succeed where conventional Western approaches fail.
Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods.
* * * * *
What I do know is that we become traumatized when our ability to respond to a perceived threat is in some way overwhelmed. This inability to adequately respond can impact us in obvious ways, as well as ways that are subtle.
Our sense of safety and stability in the world and our interpersonal relationships become undermined by childhood abuse because we carry these early thwarted—that is, deeply conflicted—survival patterns into adulthood.
If
frightening sensations are not given the time and attention they need
to move through the body and resolve or dissolve, the individual will
continue to be gripped by fear.
The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning that they can come and go and be triggered by stress. Or they can remain hidden for decades and suddenly surface. Usually, symptoms do not occur individually, but come in groups. They often grow increasingly complex over time, becoming less and less connected with the original trauma experience.
To experience embodied awareness, take notice of the underlying sensations that actually inform you about how you feel. If you were to be asked how you feel when you are stressed or in pain, a common answer might be, “I feel anxious” or “I feel upset.” It’s important to go further by becoming curious about how you know that you’re feeling anxious or upset. Is there a tightness or burning that is happening right now inside of you that you are labeling “anxiety” or “upset”?
Trauma can be prevented more easily than it can be healed.
Trauma happens when any experience stuns us like a bolt out of the blue; it overwhelms us, leaving us altered and disconnected.
In order to stay healthy, our nervous systems and psyches need to face challenges and to succeed in meeting those challenges. When this need is not met, or when we are challenged and cannot triumph, we end up lacking vitality and are unable to fully engage in life. Those of us who have been defeated by war, abuse, accidents, and other traumatic events suffer far more severe consequences.
Trauma is the great masquerader and participant in many maladies and “dis-eases” that afflict sufferers. It can perhaps be conjectured that unresolved trauma is responsible for a majority of the illnesses of modern mankind.
* * * * *
There’s one more symptom we need to look at before looking at how trauma actually gets into the body and mind and causes long-term problems. This one is a little less straightforward than the others. Here’s one of the more unusual and problem-creating symptoms that can develop from unresolved trauma: the compulsion to repeat the actions that caused the problem in the first place. We are inextricably drawn into situations that replicate the original trauma in both obvious and less obvious ways.
Re-enactments may be played out in intimate relationships, work situations, repetitive accidents or mishaps, and in other seemingly random events. They may also appear in the form of bodily symptoms or psychosomatic diseases. Children who have had a traumatic experience will often repeatedly recreate it in their play. As adults, we are often compelled to re-enact our early traumas in our daily lives. The mechanism is similar regardless of the individual’s age.
Often, traumatized people either feel nothing or they feel rage, and often the rage is expressed in inappropriate ways. By beginning to get a sense of what healthy aggression feels like, the extremes of numbness and rage can begin to give way to a healthier middle ground.
Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame.
When the moral judgment is removed, individuals are able to acknowledge and experience their authentic life energy freely.
Recently, a young Iraq veteran took issue with calling his combat anguish PTSD and, instead, poignantly referred to his pain and suffering as PTSI – the “I” designating “injury.” What he wisely discerned is that trauma is an injury, not a disorder like diabetes, which can be managed but not healed. In contrast, posttraumatic stress injury is an emotional wound, amenable to healing attention and transformation.
* * * * *
In virtually every spiritual tradition, suffering is seen as a doorway to awakening. In the West, this connection can be seen in the biblical story of Job, as well as the dark night of the soul in medieval mysticism. The transformative power of suffering finds perhaps its clearest expression in the Four Noble Truths espoused by the Buddha. Though suffering and trauma are not identical, the Buddha’s insight into the nature of suffering can provide a powerful mirror for examining the effects of trauma in your life.
The first truth, Buddha taught his disciples, is that suffering is part of the human condition. If we simply try to avoid confronting painful experiences, there is no way to begin the healing process. In fact, this denial creates the very conditions that promote and prolong unnecessary suffering.
The second noble truth states that we must discover why we are suffering. We must cultivate the courage to look deeply, with clarity and courage, into our own suffering. We often hold the tacit assumption that all of our suffering stems from events in the past. But, whatever the initial seed of trauma, the deeper truth is that our suffering is more closely a result of how we deal with the effect these past events have on us in the present.
The fourth noble truth states that, once you have identified the cause of your suffering, you must find an appropriate path. I believe that the exercises I’ve developed and that you’ll be learning in the Twelve-Phase Healing Trauma Program can serve as the path to lead you out of suffering and help you recapture the simple wonders of life.
When people have been traumatized, they are stuck in paralysis—the immobility reaction or abrupt explosions of rage. Because of this, they lack the healthy aggression that they need to carry out their lives effectively.
When this stuck energy is restored to the whole organism, we can begin to live more fully—to create, accomplish, communicate, collaborate, and share. Instead of being engaged merely in survival, we can then come back to our balanced place, where we’re basically social animals. The fear and paralysis and dread drop away, and we come back into the present, because we have access to all of the energy previously bound up in our freezing and immobility, in our incomplete fight and flight responses.
* * * * *
I have come to the conclusion that human beings are born with an innate capacity to triumph over trauma. I believe not only that trauma is curable, but that the healing process can be a catalyst for profound awakening—a portal opening to emotional and genuine spiritual transformation. I have little doubt that as individuals, families, communities, and even nations, we have the capacity to learn how to heal and prevent much of the damage done by trauma. In so doing, we will significantly increase our ability to achieve both our individual and collective dreams.
The
body has been designed to renew itself through continuous
self-correction. These same principles also apply to the healing of
psyche, spirit, and soul.
I
am often asked how I can work with a subject as morbid as trauma
without becoming burned out or depressed. My answer to this question is
that witnessing the transformation that takes place in people when they
master their traumas has proven to be a deeply sustaining and uplifting
experience in my life.
For someone who’s been traumatized, that feeling of balance and wholeness is such a surprise, it can cause an “identity crisis.” We don’t recognize ourselves because we’re no longer filled with shame and fear and collapse.
We have a lot going for us; we can conquer our fears. With the full use of our highly developed ability to think and perceive, we can, through the felt sense, consciously move out of the trauma response.
When we reclaim our enthusiasm for life, we are drawing closer to God, becoming more spiritual.
Wisdom is the result of trauma without the emotional charge.
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