I have spent decades transmuting my own trauma. Moving through trauma is no small task, rather it takes dedication and tenacity. The opportunity is that rather than punishing people for their deep wounds that create unskillful behaviors, we educate and extend loving kindness to each other. As best as I remember from the series, over 60% of inmates had extreme trauma as children. Since that time, many more practices and organizations are becoming trauma informed. When I was in graduate school for spiritual and counseling psychology, trauma was not part of the curriculum. Mate gives us a new vision: a trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms, and judging, but see instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul.” The Wisdom of Trauma website offers this hope. He explored how trauma is not just what happens to us but whether or not someone is there to help us be with our feelings and emotions to process what happened. Levine spoke of being hit by a car yet not being traumatized since a stranger offered to hold his hand! Gabor’s vision is that we make the world safe enough for each other to be ourselves. In one of the talks, it was said that for 90% of people who go to doctors, no cause for the ailment is found. Porges urges people to “treat people like they are human beings.” Children who are more bold tend to be deviants from the family system which creates its own suffering. This is an impossible choice that creates great harm. Too often children are forced to choose between being authentic and being attached. Later Mate spoke of how important it is to support children in being authentic and how all of us need to rediscover our own authentic expression. Mass media aggravates trauma by emphasizing all the horrors of the world without much attention on the loving actions of so many. Policies related to the lockdown such as lack of social contact and not seeing faces is extremely traumatizing, particularly for children, adding further to the crisis. Clearly the lockdown has further induced trauma into society.
They explored ways to support the polyvagal nerve and thus mitigate trauma with long exhalation, dance, singing, playing a wind instrument, face to face contact and socializing. They talked about how surgery does not always improve back pain and how it can be more important to listen to people and support them in being aware of their emotional state which relates to the pain. In a talk with Stephen Porges whose work on how the polyvagal nerve is related to trauma, they explored the knowledge that safety is not just the absence of threat, it is also about the presence of connection. Here are just some of my notes from the various talks.
THE WISDOM OF TRAUMA SERIES
The series featured expert Gabor Mate’s lifelong work on trauma and how it impacts addiction and other conditions. It was widely viewed and my sense is it woke up many to how insidiously trauma shapes both our own lives and the world around us. June 8-14 a wonderful film called “The Wisdom of Trauma” premiered. Yet being neglected, unseen, misunderstood, yelled at can have long term effects. Many may think of trauma as big events like accidents, war, crime and so on. Perhaps all of us have been traumatized in big or small ways. To get to this remembrance of our true identity, we must pass through the gateway of trauma. This is the New Earth now emerging from the rubble of the past. Resources are shared, children are raised with kindness and respect. We respect each other and no one is or has more. We have forgotten our true nature which is joyful and interdependent. So much of our conditioning, religion, education, beliefs and media have kept us locked in fear and a distorted view of our inherent worth. Many of us are waking up to the fact that we are a traumatized species.