Trauma as a badge: Emerging cultural practices in our healing spaces (part 1)
Liberating or limiting?
The training began the way a lot of trainings do. We gathered in a circle, sitting on cushions and foldings chairs. I exchanged pleasant smiles with the people around me, made small talk.
We were about to learn the in’s and out’s of a cutting-edge healing modality. Everyone there were fellow healers, therapists, psychedelic practitioners, researchers, social justice folks, yogis, social workers. My people.
The lead trainer kicked things off, introducing himself, and then invited us to do the same. Who are you? What brings you here?
The first person went. “Hi, I’m Tonya. I’m a psychotherapist based upstate and have a long history of anxiety and depression stemming from childhood…”
The next person went. “Hi, so glad to be here. I teach yoga and offer integrative therapy to my clients. My whole life has been riddled by narcissistic relationships and an eating disorder…”
One by one, each person went, sharing their name and profession, and then divulging their most tender traumas and mental health struggles.
This cultural practice, of leading with one’s trauma in community settings, is something I’ve seen emerge within the circles I run in. Community spaces and professional spaces of people geared towards healing and transformation, who take pride in their inner work, who value healing and understand trauma, and therefore rep it as part of their identity, especially when introducing themselves.
These are spaces that seek to be at the forefront of ushering in a more trauma-informed, and eventually trauma-integrated world. A world where awareness of trauma is integrated into the way we go about things, whether it's the way we design a curriculum or engage with each other as professionals or understand a current event.
As trauma becomes more integrated into the cultural waters that makes up these spaces, new practices emerge. Practices that reflect what the culture seeks to be. That make up what the culture is. Practices that are born from good intentions and strong visions, and that all, to some degree, have unintended consequences.
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