Trauma & Art

Continued from previous post…….                                                                                          

“If you believe your dignity is anchored deeply inside of you, you can endure just about anything.” – Donna Hicks

1. Very briefly on the physiology of trauma

Somatic bottom up approaches are essential when dealing with trauma because trauma impacts our physiology

Our trauma response system is an evolutionary compelling force with survival value

When we ‘perceive’ danger we opt for flee or fight, but when this is not possible we have another biological choice – our vagal circuit leads to freeze and shut down responses automatically

Neuroception is our human capacity to detect safety and risk or danger in the environment without cognitive awareness

We have a nervous system that allows us to participate in other people’s nervous systems for better and for worse

Our bodies require co-regulation, but we live in a world where many people have lost their capacity to co regulate with each other because they don’t feel safe enough

Our physiological states shift with cues of trauma and this can script our expression and interpretation of others

Prosodic voices can soothe our physiology

1. Trauma and dignity

“No power on this earth can destroy the thirst for hunah dignity”  Nelson Mandela

Dignity can be defined as our inborn sense of value and worth, which cannot be stripped from us, but it can be wounded, abused and violated

Dr Donna Hicks’ 10 essential elements of dignity in brief:

Acceptance of other people’s identity and authentic selves without prejudice and bias always assuming that others have integrity

Inclusion; fostering a sense of belonging for all

Safety that involves both physical safety and protection from humiliation and allows freedom of expression without retribution

Acknowledgement: attention and responding to people’s concerns, feelings and experiences

Recognition: validate people for their talents, hard work, thoughtfulness, and help

Fairness: treat people justly, with equality and without discrimination or injustice, honoring their dignity

Benefit of the Doubt: treat people as trustworthy. Start with the premise that others have good motives and are acting with integrity

Understanding: believe that what others think matters

Independence: encourage people to act on their own behalf so that they feel in control of their lives and experience a sense of hope and possibility

Accountability: take responsibility for your actions

Some insights on individual and collective trauma from the Collective Trauma Summit-2019

One of the first things I had written to post on this site when I was putting it together was about how individual innate trauma responses like denial and dissociation, projection and transmission, and so on, also operate at a cultural and collective level, and that all our experience is embedded in bigger contexts, all the way up to the cosmos.  Our individual and inter- generational traumas are embedded in and informed by larger cultural and collective traumas. We are all situated in social containers where collective traumas dynamics are being played out constantly and which inform our circumstances and thinking. Thomas Hubl talks about a collective trauma web we are all entangled in. We cannot escape this because there is probably no place or country on this planet where, across generations, there has not been massive scale trauma experiences like wars, famine, dire poverty, dislocation and exile, occupation of territories and genocide, dictatorships, oppression and marginalisation of groups, slavery, racism and sexism, to mention but a few. If we add natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis and the massive environmental destruction and climate trauma we humans have been inflicting upon Mother Earth, which is now an ongoing, accelerated experience, then it is easy to understand how trauma is relevant to all of us.

Some valuable insights I gleaned from the talks of this summit from diverse fields are:

Lack of resolution of trauma and loss emerges in children and others, even with the best of intentions. When leaders of countries carry unresolved traumas the consequences can be dire and can create massive suffering and wounding on communities and the planet

Trauma separates and separation in itself causes trauma and disempowerment

Trauma fragments, disconnects, disembodies, creates absence and blindness on the nature of reality

Trauma is an assault on integration, wholeness and presence, which is what health and resilience are made of

We have become blind and often desensitized to trauma because it is ubiquitous and because there is barrier of ignorance we need to break through

Trauma does not dissipate on its own. It is cumulative and is passed on until it is acknowledged, discussed, embraced and resolved

Trauma impacts the development of brain areas and affects epigenetic regulators, which may result in the transmission of trauma responses and behaviours for many generations to come, according to research on mice and observations and qualitative research in holocaust survivor families, and other communities with cultural and collective trauma

Unresolved trauma depletes our physiology and impacts our capacity for secure attachment

Another hallmark of trauma is lack of self-acceptance and self-compassion

Trauma teaches children to shut down their body and it stifles their growth and potential

Trauma narrows our consciousness and has a disembodying effect. Maybe that is why we are so disembodied from nature and blind to the fact that we are part of a living organism. We are not mechanical objects or creatures separate and independent from nature and each other

The importance of somatic approaches, movement, contemplation and mindful stillness to return to embodiment and presence

Trauma tears down our spiritual world, which starts to come alive once we start healing and tapping into a more expansive sense of Self

More in the next post…….