Let's Talk About the Wisdom of Trauma, Literally!

I'm so excited to let you know about a movie that is being re-released online this week - starting TODAY!

I love the wisdom this movie reflects to viewers in an accessible way. I hope you choose to watch this documentary with intention to learn a bit more about you and your experiences.

Honoring your pain and trauma is one of the first steps in your healing and growth. Using a lens of wisdom as you work with your trauma can leave you with insight and hope.

Link to sign up for this week's Free Viewing

I love the title simply because we rarely hear wisdom and trauma in the same sentence. One of my favorite quotes from the movie is:

“How do we make the world safe enough for one another to be ourselves?” Gabor Maté

How much are we ourselves at work, home, social gatherings? And…what does it mean to be ourselves?

Safe connection with ourselves comes first and then we can learn to cultivate it with another person. It takes practice, especially when something challenges the feeling of safety with that person.

I first watched "The Wisdom of Trauma" with Gabor Maté in June. The film is available for free again starting Monday. It's produced by the Science and Non-Duality Network (SAND).

To experience Gabor is to be with someone who has clearly done and continues to do his work. He is deep and soulful. He catches people’s emotional moments and doesn’t let them slip by. He is more present than the experts with whom he is conversing and he speaks from his heart.

Compelling Heart Opening Conversations

He and others are calling from me the willingness to be more transparent and present in ways I have not been…even though I would consider myself a transparent person.

He asked this question of Sia (apparently the #1 female singer/songwriter in the world with over a billion YouTube views). She shared her struggles and her triumphs and is still very much in the process of healing, but she talks so courageously about being transparent and open.

Amidst tears she is able to regulate her emotional experience and express, rather than act out what she is feeling. She is plumbing the truths and the pain of her own attachment issues from childhood and how they are related to addiction and chronic health issues.

"Safety is not just the absence of threat, but it’s the presence of connection." (Stephen Porges via Gabor Maté)

So…we make more connection.

And we make safe connection…what is that?

I describe it as a sharing in which people are listening to each other not just to hear, but also to take in, to be present with. "To be present with" includes not just our attention, but our heart, our body…our ability to bring all of us to possibility of connection in the moment.

We listen with our hearts, not with them on our sleeves, but firmly where they belong, so we are not stepping outside of and losing ourselves in the process (this would be a form of anxious or preoccupied attachment), nor are we only listening while thinking of what we want to say, or not fully listening, or challenging what the other is saying (all of these are examples of avoidant attachment).

As humans, we've not been raised to know how to talk to people in ways that help grow relationships, that deeply honor the other, that make room for us, though, too.

And yet, we have gotten here. That unwounded part of ourselves has brought us here and, as we explore ways we can become safer for others, while learning to speak our truths in ways that don’t increase the possibility of disconnection, the more we uncover the beauty, wisdom and joy of our wholeness. We become resilient…