Trauma

I am a firm believer in the idea that everyone has suffered some sort of trauma, even small traumas count. Nobody has escaped, and nobody really acknowledges just how damaging trauma is. Many people say that trauma builds character, it's a good thing that makes you strong. No, struggles and challenges make you strong. Trauma just hurts. Trauma is unnecessary and we need to come to the realization that society itself needs to heal. The trauma that we all experience in varying degrees is worth healing, is worth taking the time to learn how to prevent future generations from experiencing the trauma that affects us.

We live in a society (at least here, in America) that glorifies pain. We have action movies that, while exciting, only measure success in how much pain and suffering the hero survives, and how much violence they can put the villains through. I'm not saying that we should stop making action movies, I enjoy them as much as the next person, but maybe they shouldn't be the measure of peak 'Alpha' personality. (By the way, I saw a social media post that makes the argument that people are like in gaming development where alpha is the weakest, buggiest, least finished playable version of a game, which says a lot about the Alpha Male personalities we find all over the internet.)

Anyway. What is the cure, the alternate possibility to trauma? I think it's forgiveness. It's the willingness to be vulnerable. It's having the space to be vulnerable. That means that instead of reacting with shame, with fear, with anger, we have to allow each other to make mistakes and learn from them. It's community, which is very strange coming from the most introverty introvert ever. We are a species that needs other people. In the most basic form, humans need physical contact as infants or else we die.

Our current culture glorifies 'rugged individuality', definitely to our detriment. We are lost in petty tribalism where we are actively pushed towards fear. My parents are afraid of everything that is 'different'. They don't scream racist, at least not outwardly, or at least not around me. The fear leaks out however, in petty comments and barely contained anger. I've often wondered why they're so angry. My parents are solidly middle class, white, and are from the Boomer generation. Yet, every day in my memory, my dad has come home from work furious about traffic. Why? Why waste the energy being angry at complete strangers who just want to get home too?

Anger is addictive. To a degree, it feels good. It feels powerful. It's hard to pull yourself out of anger. You feel justified in your irrationality, your inability to empathize with the people around you. The inability to see the people around you as people. I've struggled with irrational anger. I'm medicated in a large part to help me see past anger. Medication works for me, but it's an expensive option. It can be out of reach for many people.

So what then? Community. Forgiveness. The willingness to be vulnerable. We need to take care of each other. We need to empathize with people, hell with the earth and all of it's inhabitants. We can use tools like books (Brené Brown is a life changing author), journals, meditation, and simply having someone who will actively listen as you talk through your anger.

Not to sound like a commercial, but that's what we're trying to do here at Clearview Works. We're trying to bring together community. With these blog posts, we are demonstrating vulnerability. Many of us have actively engaged with forgiveness, even forgiveness for those who hurt us. We hope to pass on that community, that support that we all need.