--Alan Watts
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"Trauma is nothing more than being stuck in what you believe."
--Byron Katie
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"Therapists have told patients that, "The body remembers what the mind forgets,"
and that memories and traumas are recorded in cellular DNA.
Absolutely no scientific evidence supports these notions."
--Aaron T. Beck, MD
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Lately I’ve seen several friends post about their trauma, their inner work, their feelings about frequent triggers from the past. All of them say some version of, “This pain will be with me forever. My inner work will continue for the rest of my life.”
Which makes me sad.
Because decades later, these folks are still feeling pain over situations and events which are long gone.
The trauma is over.
But apparently it’s never ending, and there’s always some trigger, some reminder to hurt all over again.
Y'know, in case they forgot.
So from here, their pain starts to seem like an old friend, a pet, a reliable go-to when things get too quiet. It starts to seem like a thought-path for explanations, excuses, and problem-solving,
when things have the nerve to go too well in life.
(Yes, I said that. See? Angry.)
Replaying, revisiting, remembering. Sitting with feelings. Over and over and over.
The thing is, if one is forever triggered, forever feeling old pain, forever trying to figure out what happened so it doesn’t happen again,
then all that trauma work isn’t working, is it?
Because there’s no endgame. There’s no way out. It's a forever project, and there’s always more work to do.
Meanwhile, if it’s necessary to have a peaceful past in order to have a peaceful present, do you know who’s screwed?
Everyone.
Because everyone has some trauma, everyone has a less-than-desirable past experience. No one has a life of no-pain, no intensity, no I-hate-this-this-is-awful-make-it-stop.
Yet everyone thinks their suffering is special, and worse than others’.
The old pain becomes an identity. The self becomes identified by old hurt.
That’s how you know who, and what, and that, you are.
While meanwhile, really being just exactly like everyone else.
Reliving, replaying, re-feeling.
Rehearsing.
Memorizing.
The opposite of setting free. More like setting in stone.
All while supposedly trying to be free of it.
The actuality is, you don’t want your trauma gone. That’s why you do those methods, and revere those “healers,” who don’t actually help the pain leave.
Because the identity of hurting-you, a you formed and based on pain, is precious.
It feels like crap but at least you know what you’re dealing with.
Whereas whatever peace or freedom might replace that pain and that story, is unknown, unfamiliar, uncertain.
And leaves you with nothing.
That’s scarier than the old trauma.
So a whole current life gets ignored in favor of a mental movie.
Because that’s all "the past" is.
It's not reality.
Maybe it was, once. But now it’s just a movie.
Still, it feels so real, because it’s bolstered by popular ideas such as, “It’s stored in there- in the unconscious, or in the body, or in the DNA.”
As if those storage ideas are anything at all more than reasons to continue holding onto and never releasing,
pain you don't even want.
So if change is truly desired, wouldn’t it be interesting, or at least different, (and different is what’s needed at this point if you truly don’t want to hurt forever,) to notice actual present life instead of the movie.
Noticing all the literal, actual, non-threat that is happening right now. The literal actual present. The literal actual safety. The literal actual okness happening this very second.
Yes, the mind dismisses all that, finding it uninteresting and “unhelpful.”
And yes, everyone else supports that same useless reinforcing of story.
Because let’s face it, they have the same mind you do. So of course everyone agrees that, once burned, you must remain screaming in pain forever.
But if that’s true, then why even bother with trauma work? If it’s stuck in there, then it’s not coming out. No point in the busywork of trying to make it leave.
Still, it's fine to keep at your forever project anyway.
But if freedom and peace is truly what you want, it might make sense instead,
to notice the abundant freedom and peace
you already have.
It might make sense instead,
to notice where that's stored.
And then it might make sense instead,
to see what's left
of trauma,
and of you.
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