Trauma, Healing, Compassion, & Empathy

Perhaps this would have changed everything?

Just a few right words spoken at the right time could have significantly shifted the direction of that life. Or those reassuring conversations which were vulnerably started yet were met with a defiant wall of silence, the desperately extended hand not grasped by one who could have pulled us to a space of emotional safety.

The seeds of our greatest possibility never watered, the weeds of our insecurities and fears never pulled.

As I sit here this early morning, I find I am reflecting upon some of the stories I’ve both witnessed and experienced, some deeply painful life trauma stories others have bravely entrusted me with and the painful ones I’ve lived through on my own. 

Our deepest pains are personal and seldom understood by others. Or even our self. The screams are often silent, and we carry this heaviness alone, simply moving forward the best we can, sometimes in rather unhealthy ways as we try to numb a pain only we can feel. Trauma is alive and invisibly thriving within all of us at one level or another. 

As I’ve worked with my own traumatic experiences I’ve come to respect their presence in my life. No longer do I attempt to minimize their impact upon me. No longer do I chastise myself for letting events and outcomes I did not control actually control me. The pain and its impact have yet to be fully worked through, and perhaps they may never be fully processed. But there is no longer anyone to blame, neither the ones who unknowingly inflicted a pain that would shape a lifetime, nor the recipient of the pain for letting it do so.

This is where my healing truly begins.

I often wondered what life would have been like had those few right words at the right time been actually spoken. Or if my desperately extended hand was grasped and I was pulled to that place of emotional safety. It’s only natural to look back and do so. The wondering, though, often kept me stuck and focused on the pain, as did my need to better understand why life unfolded for me as it did. 

What has happened has happened. It should never be minimized or trivialized. Those unspoken words will always remain unspoken. 

But it’s where we choose to grow from here that matters.

Those unwatered seeds of my greatest possibility are now being slowly watered, those relentless weeds of my insecurities and fears being painstakingly pulled, both by my own now-unshackled hands. 

Maybe that was the lesson Life has spent a lifetime trying to teach me?

Trauma is a hell of a teacher. But until the student is ready, only then will it be able to teach. And at some point in my non-linear decades-long process I was ready to be taught. I was ready to accept full responsibility for my own healing. I may not have created the pain, but I was the only one who could ever truly free me from it.

The work continues.

Processing trauma is often complex, complicated, and painful. As much as I have learned on my own journey, I offer no professional advice or insights which should always be left to those qualified professionals. There is no shame in seeking to resolve anything which causes pain, physically or emotionally. This is simply a look back at some of the footsteps I’ve left in the mud behind me.

We all have some mud on our shoes. 

Recently I discovered an unattributed passage which said trauma happens in the absence of an empathetic witness. Those words stopped me cold, as they speak directly to the loneliness and isolation which often accompanies trauma. Emotional pain is often a singular struggle, a battle we silently fight alone with no empathetic witness to simply be there for us through our process. No one to voice what we needed to hear. No one to grasp our out-stretched hand.

While the vast majority of us aren’t professionally qualified to treat trauma related issues, we, as humans, are all qualified to offer our own empathy and compassion to those we interact with.

It’s something I know I could have used at the source of my infliction. 

It’s something I know the vast majority could benefit from.

Because we’re all dealing with our own inner pain.

Empathy and compassion. Please?

Let’s take care of each other, shall we?

Photo by Damir Samatkulov on Unsplash

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month