Trauma-informed care

 

It’s wonderful that there’s a larger conversation happening on trauma.  The recent book, What happened to you? By Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, explores a trauma informed approach and describes specifically how our brain develops and is impacted by trauma.  For me, it’s encouraging because it allows people to see beyond how people might show up and it challenges us all to think about what happened and how they learn how to love, specifically as opposed to reacting to our perceptions of how people show up. 

We have to be better than giving people what they give to us.  It’s like a game of hot potato, everyone keeps passing on feelings until it lands on someone.  This cycle just plays out over and over again without no one moving forward and everyone just feeling stuck.  This is where burn out and frustration stall relationships on both sides. 

If you take the approach that everyone suffers from trauma and wonder what their trauma story is then you begin on the path of NOT making it about you.  You will be able to practice not taking things personally and focus on getting to know what is going on for the other person.  This allows success in building a supportive and forward moving working relationship.  The type that sets up a win-win situation for both parties. 

Feeling safe?

 

I speak of feeing safe and unsafe often.  I struggle myself with feeling safe when I know I am in a hostile environment.  Hostile environments are filled with emotional violence, assumptions, bias.  Most of the time there Is an unawareness of any of these perspectives being present.  The fear displayed drives some people to dominant the conversation, others to push their individual agendas and for some to take a small, narrow worldview. 

How do we push through when all of this is happening? Day to day we are always assessing how safe each minute, each interaction, each setting is for us.  As a person of color, I have to decide whether I am going to fully commit to getting involved or completely engage when I feel there is not a space for me at the table.  Overall, I do my best to contribute in the most productive way I can in the moment. 

Individually we all must commit to ensuring that everyone is welcomed and feels safe.  When you feel safe, there is a confidence and security.  You are assured and are in a great mindset to even advocate for the good of all.  The most important part is to check in and check ourselves.    We must all practice self-awareness and self-reflect in order to make room for everyone at the table.  I know for sure I don’t enjoy these experiences so I want to reduce the chance that it happens to others.  It all starts with us as individuals and how we contribute to the space.

Where is the Love?

 

Love is so powerful and yet LOVE is not well defined.  Everyone has their perspective not only how they love but also how they want to be loved.  Naturally, we have been taught from our life long relationships and from modeling our parents, the first relationship we watched up close from the front row.  Consciously or unconsciously we internalized and carry out what we witnessed. 

Love is a feeling and one of the purest emotions.  It is permanent and the ways it is shown changes from person to person and situation to situation.   Being permanent particularly when we talk about unconditional love, you are loving someone no matter what.  It doesn’t mean that you stay together for long even when a commitment was made.  My parents tried to stay together for the seek of myself and my sisters.  It taught me that marriage is different from LOVE. 

For me, I spread love and light through kindness.  It also connects to acceptance.  If you accept me fully, you are showing me unconditional love.  You love without expecting anything in return.  Unconditional love is quickly associated with the love a parent has for their child.  As human beings, we really try hard to apply this permanent feeling to more than just our children, we hope it between friends, lovers, partners and biological family. 

The love languages show us how we express and hope to receive love from others.  Be grounded in LOVE, you can’t go wrong.  What’s your favorite expression of LOVE?  Notice how easy or challenging it is to bring into different situations with different people.  Let’s see WHERE is the LOVE?  It should be everywhere, seek it out and bring it in.