Terrible things happen. 

All. The. Time.

The sad fact: it’s just a part of life. It’s inescapable. While there are things we do that can increase the number of terrible things happening around us, thinking that the way we live our life can stop them is an immature perspective.

And it is an immature perspective I used to have. I thought that if I lived my life “right” that I could prevent bad things from happening. That idea is rooted in mysticism. It’s magical thinking. 

Life happens.

We live in a world where others’ choices have a significant impact on what happens in our life. Take for instance a young person who chooses to drink and drive. That choice may result in a car accident causing others to be hurt or even killed. The innocents in this scenario did nothing “wrong” to “deserve” this challenge in their life. It was simply unfair.

Trauma is real. We all experience it to varying levels, and it always has an impact on our lives. However, we, ultimately, get to choose what impact it will have on us.

Some of you may be thinking, “Nathan, that’s not fair. How can I choose what impact it has on me?” 

Well, to a degree, you’re right. There are some effects of trauma that we don’t pick. We may lose a loved one. Our bodies may function (or not function) in different ways that are out of our control. But the impacts that are out of our control are external.

We CAN choose the internal impacts of our trauma—how we interpret what happened, and how we think about ourselves and the world around us.

When we start to understand what we do have control over, our lives can change. We can find greater meaning and purpose. We start to heal.

Types of Trauma

There are so many ways we can experience trauma that to try to list them all would be an impossible task. Trauma has degrees of severity. Those levels are often dependent upon the perspective of the one experiencing the trauma.

For the sake of understanding, there are three levels, or types, of trauma. These are:

• Acute – resulting from a single event
• Chronic – repeated or prolonged events such as domestic violence or abuse
• Complex – exposure to multiple and varied traumatic events which are often invasive and interpersonal in nature.

These classifications are helpful in understanding manifestations of traumatic events. However, they don’t fully identify the intensity of the event. Another way trauma is classified is Big T or little t trauma.

Big T and little t

Big T trauma is more intense in nature. It is a response to deeply disturbing, life-threatening events or situations. This can be natural disasters, wars, violent crimes, the sudden death of a parent, physical or sexual abuse, or anything similar in nature. They are big and intense. These events often lead to a diagnosis of PTSD. They are events that typically think of when we hear the word “trauma”.

However, there is a trauma that is far more pervasive and far less recognized. Little t traumas are events or situations that are ongoing and create distress, fear, or a sense of perpetual helplessness. They may be subtle, slowly seeping into our psyche creating further challenges in how we see and interact with the world.

Today’s youth are particularly susceptible to this form of trauma due to the pervasiveness of cyber-bullying through social media. Any time someone feels perpetually ostracized or criticized in any way it will lead to that sense of isolation and helplessness. It erodes our sense of belonging and loveability. Our self-esteem can be suffocated in exclusion. We drown in a lack of compassion and understanding.

Perspective is Paramount

With this understanding, we need to look around and realize that we all have experienced trauma in one way or another. We are all in this healing process together.

Yet, to join each other in the collective healing of trauma, we must learn to abandon judgment. I have been in conversations with people speaking of their trauma which quickly turn into contests of who’s trauma was the worst. It becomes this odd sense of one-upmanship. For some reason, we begin to think that if someone else has been through something hard (and possibly harder than our own experience) that it somehow invalidates our difficulty.

This is dangerous ground. The battleground of contention over trauma and hardship can only perpetuate the harm and feeling of isolation. We ALL have a different perspective of life. My perspective does not invalidate yours. What might be traumatic to me might be normal for you, or vice versa. 

What is most important is the perspective of the one experiencing the event(s). To tell someone their experience was not trauma is to invalidate their perspective. This will do more harm than good. It won’t lead to healing.

So we must begin by accepting and understanding each person’s unique perspective. The framework and worldview we have developed throughout our life create the narrative we give to life events. 

Start with understanding.

Understanding of yourself… and of others.

The Healing Power of Empathy

One of the most powerful elements to overcoming the impact of trauma is to have an empathetic witness.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” — Peter Levine

Many articles have been written on what it means to be or have an empathetic witness. An empathetic witness is someone who can be present with us, without judgment, to hear and feel with us in our pain. They help us reframe our experience and encourage us to see what we can do to move forward.

We all need empathy. We crave it. It is the balm for what ails our souls. 

Imagine what it feels like to have someone truly hear you. To see you without criticism or contempt. To feel your feelings with you in the spirit of compassion.

Think of one of the most challenging experiences in your life. Remember what it felt like at the time. Think of what it feels like now. Imagine having the presence of an empathetic witness. Feel their empathy embrace your pain.

You might be feeling the ease of tension or self-consciousness. Or, you may feel an increased capacity to manage the difficulty. Either way, you are now more likely to be able to look forward to the future with hope. You are less likely to let your past define your present. Resilience will blossom within you, helping you to get back up and move forward.

This is what each of us needs.

This is what each of us must strive to be.

The first two steps to healing trauma are; understanding without judgment, and empathy.