The Gift of Trauma (part I)

As I read and listen to podcasts as part of learning in my quest to bloom, trauma keeps coming up.  When people talk about trauma, I've always thought about it as devastating events, like the loss of a child, being mugged or raped, being molested as a child...   

The story in my head is, I haven't suffered "trauma" in my life. I've had an easy life. I have no right to claim that trauma has affected me. That would be overly dramatic and inappropriate considering the real trauma that other people suffer.

But there's something cutting under the skin, pressing against my heart, darkening my mind...and I can only think that it's some form of trauma that I need to bring to the surface, to bring into the light, so I can banish the shame that it holds.  Something is there, and I need to allow myself to admit that it's enough to screw up my peace. It's in the way of my being fully present and practicing the things I want to practice like calm, like grace, like just being friggin' loving, when it matters most. Not when it's easy, but when it's hard, when under stress, when it's needed most.

I'd like to blame the middle-age hormone cocktail that is likely washing over me. But I'm pretty sure I have real emotional work to do that has been festering for too long, far longer than this hormonal tsunami has been on the horizon.  The deliberate look internally and the luxury of downtime (read: no job) has allowed space for real thinking. It has brought this to the fore.

Brene Brown talks about two ways that people manage hurt (emotional pain). One is Chandeliering. And the other is Stockpiling. Stockpiling affects the body. You can't keep feeding yourself hurt to contain it and expect that it won't cause toxicity in your body.  That's not what I do. I go the Chandeliering route. I think that I've got the hurt managed, but apparently I don't, so when there's a trigger, BOOM I hit the ceiling (the chandelier). Rage. Meanness. Awful awful awful. And following that? Shame.

I wrote this title thinking about another insight, from a podcast with Leann Rimes. She shared insight into how trauma connects us to others if we share it...I have forgotten the lesson there and need to go back and listen to that one again (it was amazing). So that will keep for another post.  For now, I am taking the first step and saying, yes I have experienced trauma. And I need to work it out because I'm not processing hurt the grown-up way that I want to, and I think the two things are related.