TRAUMA & 'DOWNLOADING'

• In this workshop we looked at the realities of 'downloading' and 'co-sensing' form the perspective of trauma. 
• "Downloading" is about reenacting habitual patterns of action, conversation, and thought.
• Before we sense the other we are invited to sense our very bodies (process of embodiment).

• Shared experiences about trauma (brainstorming): 

• It is an experience which I have lived that has put me down and has prevented me from going on and it has affected the way I see reality. 
• It is a painful experience that touches my life and I am not ready to look at it.  
• It brings distress, tension, anxiety, a negative energy takes over and frizzes me. 
• It is a wound. 
• It is a body reaction towards a painful event that one has experienced

• Insights about trauma (from the presentation):

• Trauma is not much about the event itself, but about the way I have responded or integrated the event. If it is an event that I am unable to cope with, then my body develops the tendency to protect itself, it creates barriers. Our muscles will contract.

• The body has the mechanism to release that stored energy that is used to protect the body instinctually. The problem comes when that energy wants to get out of the system and our mind refuses to do so.

• Once we allow the natural releasing process to occur, then the process of overcoming trauma begins. 

• Overcoming trauma makes us more resilient in life.

• Life is traumatic. Trauma is part of life. Trauma is part of the evolutionary process of the universe. Trauma often starts at the very beginning of our lives, in the mother’s wound. We do not have a memory of that moment of our lives, until around three years we do not have images, memories of ourselves.

• Our bodies are memory banks. All we have lived is registered in our body, the joyful and painful experiences. They will be with us forever and ever, but what we can do, is to transform the effects that painful experiences have in our lives.

• If the trauma is not processed, creates post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) with its own effects. If trauma is processed, we can talk of post-traumatic growth (PTG). A person who has suffered a lot, but who has gone through it and has transcended it, he / she experiences a tremendous growth. She/he becomes a wounded healer. Trauma keeps us in a superficial, low level of consciousness as we keep functioning from the ego level (in Theory U is called the 'downloading state')

• We cannot force a person to talk about her/his own story, we can only create a secure environment where the person may feel he / she can flower. For this to happened, the person needs to take his / her responsibility.

• A person, who always takes the place of a victim identity, takes refuge in suffering in order not to grow. We are invited to move from the victim to the survival identity. This puts us already on the journey and from there if we are able to heal the trauma, to integrate it in our life, then we become wounded healers.

• Let us not be afraid to show our scars, as Jesus showed his after the resurrection.

• In front of a traumatic event, an overwhelming experience, there are three different ways to react immediately: Fight, Flight, and Freeze.

• One of the symptoms of trauma is apathy towards oneself, towards others, towards life ("I do not care"). There is no emotional connection.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRAUMA

• Primary trauma: This is the trauma that occurs to someone while in the womb of the mother and/or in the first years of one’s life. We are especially vulnerable to the emotional state of our caregivers and to all that surround us. This period of our lives is pre-verbal. We don’t have images related to the traumatic events, nevertheless the body registers everything, the body has a memory.
• Secondary Trauma: Secondary refers to the effects experienced by rescue workers, caregivers, and others who respond to catastrophes and attend to direct victims firsthand. The effects of secondary trauma are similar to those experienced by victims and survivors themselves.
• Structurally Induced Trauma: Trauma created by policies that result in unjust, abusive, racist, or unsafe systems that cause hardship often on a long-term, continuous basis.
• Developmental Trauma: Ongoing and structurally induced trauma
. Living under abusive or unsafe conditions that are long-term and continuous can cause trauma. The ongoing violence of poverty and systems that make people unable to meet basic needs such as healthcare is called structural violence and is a cause of trauma. 

• Historical Trauma: Historical trauma is the ‘cumulative emotional and psychological wounding’ over the lifespan and across generations emanating from massive group trauma. Slavery, colonialism, and persecution or genocide of one faction or religious group are examples. The ‘event’ or institution is in the past, but the effects are cumulative and are seen in individual and group attitudes and behaviours in succeeding generations.The trans-generational transmission of these traumas can occur even when the next generation is not told the trauma story, or knows it only in broad outline. A ‘conspiracy of silence’ surrounds events for which grieving and mourning have never taken place. 


• Cultural Trauma: Cultural traumas are created when attempts are made to eradicate part of all of a culture or people. This has happened for many native and indigenous groups worldwide.
• Participation Induced Trauma: Another cause of trauma is rarely discussed: being an active participant in causing harm or trauma to others, whether in the line of duty or outside of the law, such as in criminal activity. What are the emotional and spiritual implications for groups or nations that bear responsibility for events such as the holocaust, genocide, suicide bombings, state- supported assassinations?
• Societal or Collective Trauma: When a traumatic event or series of events affects large numbers of people, we speak or societal or collective trauma.
• Witnessing Trauma: Trauma can be directly experienced, but it can also occur when witnessing or merely hearing about horrific events.

• Source: Carolyn Yoder, The Little Book of Healing Trauma, Good Books, 2005

INTORDUCTORY EXPLORATION TO TRE

Some feedbacks: Some people felt released and relaxed, they appreciated the exercise very much. Others found it a bit miraculous and some were tired.