Trauma changes us. For some, the change may be relatively minor, whereas for others it can be life changing. We often hear stories of soldiers and first responders struggling to overcome traumas they have experienced. If you google the word trauma, there will be over 131 million hits. But for those who experience trauma with any significant negative impacts, it is a very personal experience that alters all aspects of their lives from work through to relationships.
Trauma never lost leads to intrusive thoughts and memories. Meditation and mindfulness are very useful in recovering but also very hard as these intrusive realities creep in. The work of Jon Kabat-Zinn has shown that mindfulness can play a very useful role in trauma recovery. Slowly, learning to tolerate and manage emotions, observing and not reacting, being present are all skills that grow with practice.
When using mindfulness in trauma recovery, it might be thought of as learning to be a passenger on a train - watching the landscape go by but not having to attach or hold on to what passes. I make this sound easy. It is not. Mindfulness is part of recovery it is not "the recovery".
In meditation, we begin to learn that our thoughts are not "us". They do not define who we are. We have many thoughts that we dismiss for quite a variety of reasons. We can be upset with a colleague in the moment and wish them harm - later acknowledging the idea was silly. Part of mindfulness meditation and presence is learning to not react to the colleague. In trauma work, it's about not reacting to the memories and other physical and emotional intrusions.
Meditation with trauma recovery is a long term activity. The neurobiology of trauma means that the brain has been sort of rewired by the events. Mindfulness helps to build new connections that reduce the impact of the trauma. I have yet to meet a person who has had significant trauma effects speak of the impacts going away. Rather they talk about less reactivity, more capacity to manage day to day events, more presence in relationships and more ability to expose themselves to situations that used to cause trauma triggers to go off.
I write this as I worry at times, that meditation and mindfulness are seen as the cure. There is just too much that trauma changes to see it that way. And yet, in combination with other work, meditation and mindfulness are supportive of trauma recovery.
The poem today is a very personal reflection on trauma. I share it hesitantly but I believe it shows the yin and yang of trauma recovery; the pathway of rubble that must be traversed. Each moment is a moment to take a step through meditative mindfulness but each step can be very hard.
Trauma never lost leads to intrusive thoughts and memories. Meditation and mindfulness are very useful in recovering but also very hard as these intrusive realities creep in. The work of Jon Kabat-Zinn has shown that mindfulness can play a very useful role in trauma recovery. Slowly, learning to tolerate and manage emotions, observing and not reacting, being present are all skills that grow with practice.
When using mindfulness in trauma recovery, it might be thought of as learning to be a passenger on a train - watching the landscape go by but not having to attach or hold on to what passes. I make this sound easy. It is not. Mindfulness is part of recovery it is not "the recovery".
In meditation, we begin to learn that our thoughts are not "us". They do not define who we are. We have many thoughts that we dismiss for quite a variety of reasons. We can be upset with a colleague in the moment and wish them harm - later acknowledging the idea was silly. Part of mindfulness meditation and presence is learning to not react to the colleague. In trauma work, it's about not reacting to the memories and other physical and emotional intrusions.
Meditation with trauma recovery is a long term activity. The neurobiology of trauma means that the brain has been sort of rewired by the events. Mindfulness helps to build new connections that reduce the impact of the trauma. I have yet to meet a person who has had significant trauma effects speak of the impacts going away. Rather they talk about less reactivity, more capacity to manage day to day events, more presence in relationships and more ability to expose themselves to situations that used to cause trauma triggers to go off.
I write this as I worry at times, that meditation and mindfulness are seen as the cure. There is just too much that trauma changes to see it that way. And yet, in combination with other work, meditation and mindfulness are supportive of trauma recovery.
The poem today is a very personal reflection on trauma. I share it hesitantly but I believe it shows the yin and yang of trauma recovery; the pathway of rubble that must be traversed. Each moment is a moment to take a step through meditative mindfulness but each step can be very hard.
I stood on the edge of the abyss
The abyss I have been on many times
I look
Convinced that if I walk through or go over the edge
I will revisit
I will re-arrive
I will be there again
In the trauma
I have feared the presence of that trauma
It is like a cousin, a bad cousin that always comes back
I can't seem to let it go
It's an unwelcome guest in the night
It arrives in the day
It creeps into my head
With a voice
That thunders and drowns out
Everything else
I look at it
I know that my thoughts are crazy
I know the trauma is over
So why
Why, Why Why
Do I bring it back
Why does it revisit me all the time
Why do I let it in
Why do I open the door
What is it about it that I insist
Letting it arrive yet again
I'd like to think its a ghost
Because ghosts are not real, are they
I'd like to think it's a figment of my imagination
Because
Then it wouldn't be true
I's like to think I am not its slave
Yet it arrives
Again
And Again
And Again
There I am
No longer in control
I grasp control
From moment to moment
There are times when I have it
But then it returns
That trauma
I seem to whimper in the corner
Lonely
Dejected
Misunderstood
I can hear them
Hear them say
Just get over it
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps
I so want to grasp that
But each time my arm goes out
It lands in thin air
Unable to find anything to grasp onto
And so there I am again
At the corner
Facing the abyss
There it is
There is nothing for me to do about it
I just seem to stand
On the edge of the abyss
© Peter Choate, 2016
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