Trauma Tolerance
"People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance
for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things.
But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave."
-Assata Shakur
"People get used to anything...", I think trauma is a lot like this. So many people are not conscious of the trauma their bodies are processing and have gotten used to the aches, pains, confusion & frustration of the trauma in their lives. After a while, people begin to believe that they are broken or flawed and that they are doomed to a life of numbness, disconnection & discomfort.
Trauma, or the symptoms of it, can easily be adopted as personality traits or a life sentence rather than the residual residue of an overwhelming event in our past. When we begin to personalize our pain, it can change the core of who we are. Depersonalizing trauma symptoms, understanding that they are the natural way your body tries to regain balance, can allow us to address the symptoms and gain a sense of resilience.
This is why I love the trauma healing work. Learning and sharing ways to be present & awake in our bodies, aware of the traumas we have absorbed & committed to staying in the discomfort until it shifts. This is the powerful work of healing. It's not easy, by a long shot. But it is absolutely worth the work.
To become free from trauma, we have to be acutely aware of our trauma. It can be a form of slavery & oppression if we let it. Or we can acknowledge the trauma & work actively to free ourselves from it. And we can free more of our fellow trauma survivors if they know how trauma impacts their lives and how freedom can feel...
