Complex Trauma

Desire, pleasure, & trauma

May 16, 2019 By gwynn

The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect. ~Peter A. Levine

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. ~Eleonora Duse

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. ~Washington Irving

Earlier this week was Mother’s Day here in the United States. It’s a day that is mixed with many emotions for me personally, and there are few Mother’s Days I can look back on as 100% good or precious memories. Mother’s Day, for me, is a day of grief, a day of frustration, as well as a day of love.

I know for many this day can be a mixed a bag. Perhaps our mothers weren’t the mothers we needed them to be. Perhaps they have died. Perhaps we longed to be a mother and aren’t. Perhaps we never wanted to be a mother and are. Perhaps we desperately wanted to be mothers, are now, but are filled with frustration or regret. Perhaps this day brings other emotions up for us.

I know without a doubt, that Mother’s Day has never been about pleasure for me. It has historically not been a day just for or about me, as a mother. It has never been a day of rest or doing what I wanted. Last year was a particularly hard Mother’s Day filled with grief, heartbreak, anger, and frustration.

It is funny sometimes how much our lives, how much we, can change in a year. Twelve short months and we look back and wonder at the person we were, are in awe of the changes and shifts we’ve made, are surprised to see where we are now.

A truth is that I didn’t do a very good job of receiving on this day. Another truth is, I rarely spoke up and stated what exactly I wanted. I didn’t do a very good job of advocating for my own pleasure, for my own joy, for my own enjoyment.

I know why this is, of course. There was my own ingrained messages of how asking for what I want isn’t acceptable, that pleasure is bad, and then all the stories about whether or not I “deserved” or was “worth of” doing what pleased me.

The why I didn’t advocate for my own pleasure is a tangled web of complex trauma, fear, and shame. There is also a heavy dose of the narratives about wanting, about desire, about pleasure, saying they are all bad and only “bad people” want or desire any thing beyond what they have. Or more specifically that a woman should want, should desire, should seek pleasure in any form.

Desire, in an of itself, is a complex notion. We are all taught on so many levels to be thankful for what we have and that wanting more or different is not a good or healthy thing. I’ve written in the past about how the whole gratitude movement makes me want to scream, because at its roots can be shame around wanting more than what we have, in wanting different.

We can both appreciate all that we have and want something more, something different. It is possible to hold both, for both to be 1000% true.

Learning to explore our wants, our desires, has so many levels to it. Unraveling the indoctrination by our culture is one level. Looking at the ways our families approached desire and wanting is another. Examining the shame we carry from our childhood traumas is yet another layer.

We have learned from so many places that wanting is bad. That desire is bad. That we aren’t deserving or worthy of pleasure, of peace, of feeling full, nourished, complete.

We learn to strive, yes. To keep reaching for that carrot. But we aren’t taught to examine if that is the carrot we even want. We are sold an idea of what success looks like and if we don’t meet that standard then we are failures and that is even more proof of how unworthy and undeserving we are.

Slowing down and taking the time to unravel, explore, examine, and experiment with what we actually want, what we truly desire, what brings us undeniable pleasure is no easy feat in and of itself. Learning to allow ourselves to experience pleasure, joy, fun – takes practice, time, intention. And yes, coming home into our bodies.

Learning to be at home in our own skin, to tolerate both discomfort and pleasure, is an important part of the work. And it is not the whole of it all. We also need to consciously examine the stories we hold in our minds (and yes bodies), and practicing new ways of thinking, to do the work of growing new neuropaths and allow the old ones, where all these old stories live, to atrophy.

It is not easy work. And, as I have said many times before, I do believe it is deeply worth it.

/../

Embodied Writing :: Pleasure Edition is a seven week program where we will explore different aspects of pleasure, our internalized narratives about pleasure, and learning to reclaim pleasure as a part of our lives through stream of conscious writing and embodiment practices. To learn more click here.

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My response to “not all men”

May 13, 2019 By gwynn

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
~Leonardo da Vinci

Domination is a relationship, not a condition; it depends on the participation of both parties. Hierarchical power is not just the gun in the policeman’s hand; it is just as much the obedience of the ones who act as if it is always pointed at them. It is not just the government and the executives and the armed forces; it extends through society from top to bottom, an interlocking web of control and compliance. Sometimes all it takes to be complicit in the oppression of millions is to die of natural causes.
~CrimethInc.,Contradictionary

I’m a member of several different online groups related to trauma. In general I basically quietly observe because at this point in my life I don’t have a lot of time to have hours and days long discussions online about anything, not even one of my most favorite topics ever (trauma). Even so, I am observing and reading, and sometimes learning, and sometimes nodding along, and sometimes shaking my head and needing to walk away.

One thing that has me shaking my head vehemently and wanting to shake people is this particular reaction that certain “leaders” in the trauma processing (or “healing”) world have about sexual trauma and what is and isn’t okay to say in reference to these topics.

Specifically what I have seen happen is a women or femme makes a post about her own experience of sexual abuse or harassment or trauma. Other women jump in to support. Eventually someone says something along the lines of “Men are pigs”. And then the “leader”/facilitator of the group will jump in, always also a women, and tell folks to “tone it down” and “not all men” and “all people, regardless of gender, have trauma and deserve to heal it”and “remember there are men in this group and we don’t want to offend them,” and perhaps my all-time favorite, “my husband and the men I work with are all Good Guys™ so we can’t talk about men like that.”

As you can guess, I have a bit of an issue with this.

First, it’s silencing and shaming at best and exacerbates trauma at worst. Not allowing women and femmes to express their outrage, frustration, fear, anxiety, or sadness about the state of the world, that women are unsafe in this world, is gaslighting. These types of statements are saying that an individual woman’s experience is invalid because “not all men” are bad. (More on this “not all men” crap in a few). It is saying that our anxiety of being unsafe in the world is “all in our heads.”

A truth is, the world IS unsafe for women and femmes. A truth is that actually, yes all men. No, not all men rape, not all men assault. But I’d be hard pressed to say that “not all men” harass women (though they might not call it harassment). And absolutely all men benefit from the privilege bestowed upon them simply because they were born with a penis (and that privilege includes women being fearful for their lives around men and therefore being compliant and docile and “supportive” of “their” men in an attempt to survive).

Do I believe there are good men in the world? Yes, absolutely. AND my definition of a good man is one who acknowledges his privilege and utilizes it to bring about change for women. A good man calls out other men. A good man notes when he screws up, apologizes, and then does the inner work he needs to in order to do different the next time. A good man doesn’t silence women or say “not me” or “not all men”. A good man listens and creates spaces for women’s voices to be heard and respected.

A good man doesn’t need a woman to silence other women on his behalf.

Which brings me to the second part of my issue: women defending “innocent” men at the expense of other women.

A truth is, men don’t need us defending their “honor.” Their actions in the world defend their honor. The ways they speak up and out against rape culture defends their honor. Every time they call out another man on some misogynist “joke” or comment they defend their honor. Every time they listen to a woman and don’t interrupt or “mansplain” they defend their honor.

They do not need us defending them. Or making statements like “not all men” or “my partner/colleague/friend” is a Good Guy™.

They, as the cultural oppressor and ones with the upper hands, can defend themselves just fine.

What women need to be doing instead of making statements like “not all men” is standing in solidarity with other women. We need to not be silencing women who are sharing their story and pain and trauma. We need to not gaslight each other. We need to to not throw each other under the bus so we can maintain our own status as “good” (and by “good” I mean obedient, complicit, and compliant) women in the eyes of men.

We need to stand in solidarity with each other.
We need to support each other.
We need to believe each other.
We need to encourage each other to speak up and out (when we are ready).

Looking at the Senate race in Alabama in December 2017, I was frustrated at see again how much work we have to do. That 63% of white women voted for Roy Moore is disgusting to me. That 63% of white women threw the safety of their own daughters out the window to maintain the patriarchal status quo (and their own place in the hierarchy in doing so) is nauseating to me. (There have been multiple similar examples since then, including most recently Jill Biden jumping to the defense of her husband Joe around the Anita Hill hearings.)

Our daughters deserve better.

Our daughters deserve to live in a world where men in power don’t have the right to sexually, physically, emotionally, or psychologically abuse or assault them. A world where there are real and dire consequences to harming women.

Our daughters deserve us to stand up and protect them.
Our sisters deserve the same.
Our women and femme friends deserve the same.
Women and femmes we have never met deserve the same.
WE deserve the same.

When we, as women, make statements like “not all men” or try to defend men from the atrocities they as a collective have and continue to commit, we are only being complicit and compliant players in our oppressive, misogynist, patriarchal culture.

Because a truth is, yes all men.

Even your husband. Even my (ex)husband. Even your son. Even my son. All men have their own work to do. And us loving them isn’t going to change the reality that they were raised and conditioned and trained in a misogynist culture and that, through no fault of their own, they internalized these messages.

There is not a totally innocent man out there. And unless they are actively and intentionally doing their own inner and outer work to tear this shit down and atone for their own wrong doing and the that of other men, they are that much more of the problem.

Men don’t need us making excuses for them. They don’t need us defending them. They don’t need us say “Well, not MY man.”

Men need to do their own work.

And we, as women, need to do our own too.

Which includes taking a deep look inside to explore why we may feel a compulsion to defend the “innocent” men of the world. Why we feel a compulsion to make statements like “not all men.” Why we feel a compulsion to disregard and discredit the experiences of other women in favor of the “reputation” of a man.

Yes, we are all in this together. Yes, we cannot change rape culture into consent/nuturance culture without men. Yes, men are also harmed by our oppressive, misogynist, patriarchal culture.

And we need to stop coddling them and instead begin pushing them to prove to us that they are indeed one of the Good Guys ™ through their actions, not just their in-actions.

Not being a rapist doesn’t automatically make one a good man. It takes a lot of intentional internal and external work to get that title.

We all need to remember that.

This essay was originally written for my weekly newsletter in December 2017 and has been edited for publication here.

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Learning to tolerate pleasure

May 9, 2019 By gwynn

A revolution is the solution.
Sex is not the enemy.
~Garbage, Sex is not the enemy

If you want to break through to the multi-orgasmic level, you have to be willing to kind of push through something that feels like discomfort the first few times.
~adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism

A couple weeks ago I wrote you about learning to tolerate enjoyable emotions as well as uncomfortable ones. Today I want to hone in on the feelings – emotions and sensations – of pleasure and how it does take work to learn to enjoy them.

A little over a week ago I wrote this on IG:

For the last couple years I’ve been unraveling, exploring, and reclaiming the idea, emotions, and sensations of pleasure. This started with my own personal therapy, coming into my body, learning to tolerate all the different feelings that swirl within and throughout me.
It hasn’t all been about sex, though that’s been a part of it most definitely. It’s also been about resting (and taking naps) when I not only need it, but also when I simply want it. It has been about reading and writing. It’s been about watching shows and movies I enjoy. It’s been about being in environments that are calming and soothing or if my mood wants it energizing. It’s been about being around people who feed me: emotionally, intellectually, physically. It’s been about allowing myself to experience, on a deep and visceral level, happiness.
There have actually been times that I have been so overwhelmed with happiness that I cried, sobbed. Learning to regulate “positive” emotions is just as intense as learning to regulate the generally less desirable ones. We can use the same tools, and it also takes practice either way.
We aren’t taught how to tolerate pleasure, let alone enjoy it, anymore than we are taught to tolerate grief, anxiety, or anger. It is something we need to choose to learn. And learning to tolerate pleasure is as uncomfortable initially as learning to tolerate grief or sadness.
When I started this journey of coming home to my body over a decade ago I never imagined I’d come to a place of enjoying some of the sensations and emotions this life as a human has to offer. I just wanted to be a better mom and not yell as much. Now, while I still continue my work in part so I can be the mom I never had for my kids, it is at least equally if not more true I am doing this now for me, so I can thrive in my life and truly enjoy it.
I share this all to say, it doesn’t matter why we enter into this work. And we never know where it will lead us. What is important, I believe, is simply that we enter into it.

Pleasure isn’t only about sex and sexuality. Pleasure is also about joy. Pleasure is also about love. Pleasure is also about contentment, happiness, satisfaction. Pleasure is about feeling good in our own skin, in our work, in our relationships, in the world and in our lives. Pleasure is about feeling alive.

Part of our cultural conditioning and socialization is the demonizing of pleasure or those who seek and enjoy pleasure. In Christianity the Seven Deadly Sins are almost entirely about pleasure; specifically::

sloth (resting, going slow, enjoying the moment)
greed (wanting to be satiated, satisfied)
lust (sexual pleasure)
gluttony (satiating oneself, taking in until we feel ful(filled))
pride (feeling good in your own skin, feeling good about your accomplishments)

The other two, wrath and envy, can also be about pleasure, in that they show up when we chronically deny ourselves pleasure.

For those of us with complex trauma, any type of body sensation – even ones that are “normally” pleasurable – can feel uncomfortable, even gross or “icky”. Living outside our bodies is a matter of survival, and so feeling any type of sensation or emotion, be it painful or pleasurable, can overwhelm our systems.

Just as we need to learn to tolerate uncomfortable sensations and emotions in order to recalibrate our nervous system and fight/flight response, we also need to learn how to tolerate and enjoy pleasurable sensations so we can not just survive, but also thrive in our lives.

Another aspect of all this is allowing ourselves to slow down and enjoy our lives. We live in a culture that is all about busy-ness, that does not celebrate the slowing down, the doing nothing. If we aren’t accomplishing something, if we aren’t producing something, we are taught we then have little to no value or worth.

Many of us also have a need to “prove” our value and worth, due to the abuse and or neglect we experienced as children. We do this by hyper-performing; being the best at All The Things, and if we aren’t The Best then the thing isn’t worth doing. We constantly strive for approval and validation from others, be they “superiors” or peers, and in this striving we also do not allow ourselves rest or enjoy who and where we are now.

So not only are we not able to enjoy pleasure because we are unable to tolerate sensations in our body, we also have a generations old narrative about how pleasure is bad and if we partake in pleasurable experiences then we are also bad.

As we come into our bodies we can also begin to unravel these narratives and do a bit of rewiring in our brains. It is true that I strongly believe in the importance of body-centered trauma work; and it is also true that in tandem we need to use cognitive and verbal ways to reinforce new messaging.

I often encourage my clients to argue with themselves. When they have a “negative” or harmful thought about themselves to fight back and remind themselves that no, that is not true and this helpful statement IS true. Then after a minute or two of the back and forth to move onto something else – be it a nervous system exercise to focus on or any other task to disrupt that thought that is causing us harm.

We can do this with any of the non-helpful narratives we have within our psyches, including those around pleasure. Yes, we need to also be learning how to tolerate the physicality of the emotions and sensations that go with these narratives; and we also need to grow some new neuropathways, and the only way to do that is through our actual thought process.

I am learning the importance of pleasure in my own life, for myself and for those who matter most to me. The importance of doing what feels good to us, be that the food we eat or the clothes we wear or the ways we move our bodies or explore our creativity or yes, experience our sexuality. It is a shift from just getting through each day to actually enjoying my days – perhaps not every single moment because life, but enjoying more and more moments nonetheless. It is the difference between surviving and thriving.

I highly recommend we all find our ways to thriving and including more pleasure in our lives, whatever that may look like for each of individually. It is a process, it takes time and practice and patience, and I so deeply believe it is worth it.

This was originally written for my weekly newsletter 5, May 2019. It has been edited for publication here.

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Admissions, “apologies,” & other patriarchal nonsense (aka I am furious)

May 6, 2019 By gwynn

We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic. ~bell hooks, Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism

In late 2017 I watched celebrity male after celebrity male come forward and admit to having assaulted or harassed women or other men. And with each admission and pseudo-apology, my eyes rolled a little bit harder and wider. I had the same response to Joe Biden’s recent string of non-apologies to Anita Hill as well as the women who have come forward stating he had hugged or touched them without their consent.

My initial response to all these “admissions” is No shit. No shit that a man in power wielded that power to get sexual gratification from those who couldn’t, for any number of reasons, say no. No shit that these men didn’t think this was “bad.” No shit that it would appear that every man in the world has done this.

Just like, #yesallwomen have been sexually assaulted or harassed, #yesallmen have at least harassed, if not assaulted women or other men.

(I know there are a few men who read this. Please don’t write me and tell me #notallmen or #notme. Yes all men and yes you. I’m not open for a discussion on this particular point. Complicity is as bad as an actual act as far as I’m concerned.)

I don’t find it surprising or shocking that all these men have done what we all know they have done. I do find it surprising that other people are shocked by these admissions.

I don’t even find it particularly shocking that they are coming forward. Because what a great publicity stunt. What a great way to get yourself, the perpetrator, centered instead of those you assaulted. What a great way to make this, again, all about the men and their power. Or worse, they twist the narrative in such a way as trying to appear to be the actual victim, like Biden seems to be trying to do by saying he won’t apologize for his “intentions” or making quips about how “times have changed”. This is all a re-centering of the perpetrator and pushing the actual victims out to the margins. Again.

I do find it irritating that now that the men are coming forward and saying “oh yeah, I did that” that now women are finally being believed. Because lord knows we need a man to corroborate our story in order for it to be true. (Please note the dripping sarcasm there.)

I also find it to be telling that now that these men are either coming forward or admitting guilt to allegations against them that they are losing their jobs and careers. Because let’s be real honest and clear here, everyone knew this shit was going on. All the studio and theater executives were crystal clear that this behavior was happening and they normalized it, “looked the other way” (at best), encouraged it (at almost worst), and participated in it themselves (at worst).

There is the term “casting couch” for a reason, folks.

So that now these executives are firing male perpetrators tells me a couple things. The first is these executives are very smart. The second that in their smartness they realize that at least 50% of their revenue comes from women. The third is that they realize those women who make up about 50% or more of their revenue are pissed and are speaking up and out more and more and more and are beginning to no longer tolerate this behavior.

Let’s not think for one moment that these executives are firing folks out of any sense of ethical or moral outrage.

They are following the money. End of story.

And.

As I am watching as some of these men make pseudo-apologies, I am also watching to see what their next step is. How are they going to behave moving forward. What are they going to do to make reparations, not only to their own victims, but also to women everywhere?

Because talk is cheap.

And actions speak louder than words. (As a note, since this was originally written over a year ago, the actions of apology and reparations have been sorely lacking.)

Isabel Abbot wrote this on her Facebook page in November 2017
just so it is made plainly clear.
here in this space #notallmen will not be tolerated.
victim blaming will be shown the door.
defending perpetrators and praise for shitty apologies and hand wringing over critique of apologies because “what about redemption” is not worth my time and will be asked to leave.
expressing fear over a perceived witch hunt of even the good ones and claiming men can’t even have a hug or say a word without the threat of being misunderstood and accused of assault is not welcome and if it shows up here it will be called out quickly and completely.
what is happening now is the truth coming into the light. we burn it all down together, all the idols made of our father’s house and false power. nothing spared. this is where the life lives.
and here in this space, i will not qualify my critique of patriarchy and mysogyny with professing i do still love men. i don’t have time for that bullshit.
here, in my spaces, women and femmes are trusted,
and when women speak of their experiences of harm, i believe them and link arms in solidarity with them.
and we keep our eyes on them, keep the attention on their voices and narratives and truth and do not center the frantic scrambling to keep men and patriarchal power forever our focus.
here, we continue to center the margins and celebrate the righteous rising up of those who say no more.

I am weary of the idea that women are on some sort of witch hunt and that “good men” are going to be persecuted and that we need to think about the trauma that the perpetrator endured as a child and well, she didn’t actually say no or stop lines of bullshit.

Even “good men” are complicit. Even “good men” have looked the other way. Even “good men” have not spoken up. Even “good men” have harassed and assaulted. Even “good men” benefit from the fear that rape culture instills in women and femmes.

Because this isn’t about “good men” or “bad men”.

This is about living in a culture that normalizes and justifies the objectification and dehumanization of women. And all men benefit from this.

I am neutral about these men coming forward. I question their motives in doing so. I question the executives and their motives in firing these men. I really don’t care that these men are finally admitting their guilt and complicity in our culture. I don’t care that some men find it “confusing” or feel like the “rules have changed”.

I do care that up until now women have not been believed.

I do care that women have been told “oh it wasn’t that bad” or asked “well, what did you do to encourage him.”

I do care that dress codes are still focused on sexualizing girls instead of having a conduct code that punishes boys for objectifying these girls or even better yet creating and teaching and modeling a culture of consent.

I do care that these men have gotten away with this behavior for hundreds and thousands of years. And that, frankly, they will continue to get away with it, because the old boys club is real.

Not only do I care about these things, I am also furious and filled with rage.

I am furious that women have been gaslit for millennia.

I am furious that 1 in 3 women have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime.

I’m furious that 1 in 5 women in the United States has been raped in their lifetime.

I am furious that these numbers are likely much higher because these are only the numbers that are reported and the entire process of reporting this type of assault is rife with victim blaming and actually discourages victims from reporting.

I am furious that 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.

I am furious that 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.

I am furious that between 21-60% of victims of intimate partner violence lose their jobs due to reasons stemming from the abuse.

I am furious that between 2003 and 2008, 142 women were murdered in their workplace by their abuser, which is 78% of women killed in the workplace during this time frame.

I am furious that men think they have a right to touch or talk about a woman’s body without her permission.

I am furious that some people seem to think the men who are finally coming forward and admitting their guilt deserve cookies and medals and praise for being “so brave.”

I am furious that in my circles I need to differentiate between a sense of safeness within our bodies and actual physical safety out in the world.

I am furious that I have to remind the women in my circles NOT to do any of the exercises and practices I offer them when they are not in a physically safe environment.

I am furious at the amount of trauma that lives in our bodies, because of the culture we live in and the normalization of rape, objectification of women, and victim blaming and silencing.

I am furious that women earn less than men yet are often more competent and do better at their jobs.

I am furious that reproductive rights is even a topic of conversation, let alone that “heartbeat” laws are being passed across the US, the Roe vs. Wade will be challenged at the Supreme Court level within the next decade and that the current Supreme Court will likely reverse RvWade.

I am furious that those who would take away my reproductive rights, also would take away my ability to care for and feed a child (by cutting funding to social services that benefit women and children).

I am furious and repulsed by the excuse making for pedophiles that crops up periodically.

I am furious that we have all suffered in relative silence for far too long.

I am furious that we have not been believed and need men to corroborate our stories.

I am furious, about all this and so much more.

Remember:: Our rage is valid.

And please, don’t ever forget that.

/../

This was originally published as one of my weekly newsletters in November 2017 and has been edited for publication here.

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Grief, trauma, resilience

April 29, 2019 By gwynn

No one ever told me how sorrow traumatizes your heart, making you think it will never beat exactly the same way again. No one ever told me how grief feels like a wet sock in my mouth. One I’m forced to breathe through, thinking that with each breath I’ll come up short and suffocate. ~Sarah Noffke, Awoken

Grief is its own beast. It comes and goes in waves, in blasts, in trickles. In the early days of a loss or trauma, the grief can be erratic, unpredictable, and seemingly constant all at once. With time, and processing, the sensations of grief become less pronounced; in some cases and ways we can predict when it will crop up. And even with the growing ability to predict, it will still come out of nowhere, shocking us, and sometimes bringing us back down to our knees.

We can grieve many things. The obvious death of someone we love(d). The death of a relationship, be it a sexually intimate one or a friendship. The endings that come with changing jobs, or moving homes, or starting or graduating from school. The endings that are also associated with beginnings – marriage, birth of a child.

We often don’t acknowledge all the things we need to grieve. Especially when we are told that we should be happy all. the. time. Especially when perhaps we are actually happy about the change. Like the birth of a child.

And yet, beginnings mean endings. And those endings, even if joyous, carry some amount of grief.

When we start to look at the ways trauma affects us, and our grieving process, things can become even more complex. Our grief can be around a mixture of events. A new traumatic event can trigger any or all of our old ones. Loss can also trigger those older traumatic experiences, whether the loss itself could be classified as traumatic or not.

Our nervous systems get hijacked. Our emotions seem to run rampant. We can’t find a sense of ground or stability or perhaps even reality.

What also often happens with loss and traumatic events is a deep wanting for things to be different. A resistance if you will to what now is. This wanting different, this wanting events beyond our control (or even within our control) to not have happened, can be helpful. It can be information for how to move forward.

It also has the potential of keeping us stuck in that wanting and not finding ways to, slowly, gently, delicately, take those next steps in moving forward.

I don’t like the word “acceptance.” There is much that is implied in that word, that our culture has put on that word, that I do not like, that I believe is actually harmful.

In our current culture the idea of “acceptance” is used to silence. If we would just accept that life is the way it is, then we’d shut the hell up about it. We’d just accept and become compliant. We’d just accept and stop feeling about it and going on about it already.

That’s not really what acceptance, in mindfulness terms, is supposed to be about. And it’s definitely not what it is about for me.

Acceptance is about perhaps wanting things to be different, and also acknowledging that they aren’t. It is wishing we would have done something different, or someone hadn’t done something to us, and also knowing that those events did in fact happen. In this acknowledging and knowing, we can make decisions on how to proceed instead of remaining stuck in the wishing and wanting only.

Perhaps that means offering an apology and doing the work of repair and making amends. Perhaps that means going into therapy. Perhaps that means unraveling some of our own story and moving forward. Perhaps that means setting boundaries.

Regardless of how we proceed, there is a moving forward. A letting go in some ways, an embracing in others. An acknowledgement that things are not what we may want them to be, and even so we will find a way to move forth.

This is what we also call resilience.

Those of us with any type of trauma history, and perhaps especially those with complex trauma, have often had our resilience taken from us. That is part of the definition of trauma in fact, that inability to let go and move forward. That stuckness.

This is not to say that those of us with trauma histories should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get over it already. Because we all know that doesn’t work.

Instead, to develop our resilience, we need to process our trauma. We need to find ways to help release it from our bodies. To soothe our nervous systems. To connect to our boundaries and reclaim our bodies as our own. To find ground and our sense of center. To acknowledge and utilize our resources. To come into our bodies and listen, deeply, to the stories they have to share and to allow them move out in such a way that while the story is never truly gone from our memory, it is no longer living in our body.

As we process the trauma that lives in our bodies, we build our resilience. As we build resilience we are able to respond to new traumatic events in a different way, so that they do not impact us in the same, often debilitating, ways of past traumas. As we process old trauma, we learn how to process new events.

Grief is part of this process. Both the process of grief that these things have happened, as well as the grief of change, of letting go and setting down old ways of being and creating space for new.

Grief, like trauma, lives in our bodies. When we experience the death of a relationship, be that the other person actually died or we are no longer in contact with them, our bodies respond. We physically miss them, whether we were sexually intimate or not. (There is science behind this).

So like trauma, the ways to process grief involves coming into our bodies, listening to them, finding ways to soothe them, learning where we end and another begins (i.e. boundaries and body reclaiming), connecting to ground and center and the present moment.

This process is not easy. It is often not fun. It is also often incredibly uncomfortable. And in my personal opinion, it is so deeply worth it.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weekly newsletter in October 2017 and has been edited for publication here. If you’d like to read my most recent essays, you can subscribe here.

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