Are Traumas the Scars That We Need to Dispose?
Trauma; Its dictionary meaning is “a local wound that occurs as a result of an external mechanical effect that disrupts the structure or form of an organ or tissue.” or “an experience that leaves significant and effective signs of injury to the living being, in terms of body and soul.”
All these explanations; We can consider trauma as a set of experiences that remain on us due to an external factor and whose effects we do not feel very pleasant. Nowadays, all these things (events, violence, harassment or lack of attention from parents, etc.) can be talked about more easily, so this word has started to take up more space in our daily language. We even started to feel comfortable making self-diagnoses: “I think I have borderline, my mood changes immediately. Yes, I am borderline.” or “Yes, I am a victim of sexual harassment, it is normal for me to feel bad when someone touches me throughout my life.” “You're treating me like this right now because you're on bad terms with your father.” We started making sentences with endless variations such so.
Because there is no person in the world who has not experienced any trauma. “If we poke around enough, we can encounter a lot of trauma in our lives.”
Because there is no person in the world who has not experienced any trauma. If we poke around enough, we can encounter a lot of trauma in our lives. Even in the lives that seem "perfect" from the outside.
The important question here is: Does understanding or identifying the trauma lead you somewhere, to a solution?
Understanding the trauma and gently shedding light on it can have both supportive and disincentive affects on our lives. Especially if we adopt the information we have acquired by simply reading and not internalising by making diagnoses for ourselves; In fact, we are imposing a new trauma on ourselves. Because it is very difficult to get rid of the labels that people attach to themselves. All our labels have a weight on ourselves.
On the other hand, people also feel the need to define themselves in order to acquire an identity. At this point, the risk of owning traumas begins. Why would we recover from a trauma which we define ourselves with? We choose to carry it.
How do we build our relationship with trauma?
In body-focused therapies, we listen to the problem in the language of the body, not in speech stories. Stories are so open to interpretation and creativity when told by a person; It is almost impossible to make a simple transfer. Such that, we could hear an event from three people, who experience it with completely different elements. This is an inevitable fact of being human; we all perceive what is happening through our own mental filters.
Of course, movement is open to interpretation, and so is the body. However, we cannot embellish our actions as much as we embellish words; our movements convey the truth to us more simply and clearly. We watch what is happening with our deeper perceptions rather with our intellect. And instead of focusing on the problem, we turn our eyes to the body's own natural rhythm (homeostasis). Then there it suddenly appears, the paths that our minds cannot conceive.
In other words, without losing our respect for the trauma experience nor ignoring it; but also without putting it at the center, we lead the body to some of the more basic functions of being human. The soothingness of touch, the invigoration of movement, the immediate happiness of connection, the purification of creative expression, stepping on the ground, breathing, feeling the rhythm... etc.
Now let's see what we can all solve by putting traumas into words.
The more we talk about the traumas, the more things be remain missing about it.
Maybe we can approach to it with another way.
And so we could move forward in life.