The Wisdom of Trauma
I saw The Wisdom of Trauma a few weeks ago and was blown away. The documentary will be screening again online from July 28 through August 1, 2021. It’s free, or by donation, so make sure to catch it by registering here.
I am such an admirer of Dr. Gabor Maté's work. He's a physician, best-selling author, a man who has dedicated his life to understanding the connections between relationship and stress, addiction, trauma and childhood development.
The Wisdom of Trauma gives us a new vision:
A trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms and judging, but seek instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul.
Why is a trauma-informed society important or necessary? Currently, how we’re managing things isn’t working:
One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness in any given year.
Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24. It kills over 800,000 people a year globally. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the USA annually.
The autoimmunity epidemic affects 24 million people in the USA.
The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr. Gabor Maté, normal. But not in the way you might think. Trauma impacts our individual lives, communities and society as a whole. According to Dr. Maté:
Trauma is a psychic wound that hardens you psychologically that then interferes with your ability to grow and develop.
What would a trauma-informed society look like? Would the world be a more beautiful place? Something tells me that it would be.
“Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside of you, as a result of what happened to you.”
If we truly understand that traumatic responses and imprints are not ourselves, not only can we can work through them and thus become our most authentic selves, we also have the opportunity to gain a more compassionate understanding of addiction, and how we as a society and culture, can deal with unwanted behaviour. Trauma can happen to anyone. We are vulnerable to it while in the womb, and especially vulnerable as children.
Trauma cannot always be conquered, fixed, or resolved, but it can be heard, held and loved.
ON THE WISDOM OF TRAUMA & AWARE PARENTING
The Wisdom of Trauma and Dr. Mate's work dovetails so beautifully with Aware Parenting, as one of the main aspects of the AWP philosophy is the emphasis on healing and prevention of stress and trauma.
For more on how Aware Parenting is in alignment with the documentary, and what it can add to the conversation (e.g. how babies and children come to suppress their feelings, what we’re called to do as parents to heal intergenerational trauma and tangible ways that we can help babies and children heal from daily stresses and trauma), check out The Wisdom of Trauma episode below from the The Aware Parenting Podcast.
Accompanying this second airing of The Wisdom of Trauma documentary are a series of talks on trauma, with awesome event speakers like Peter A. Levine, Ph. D. (Founder of Somatic Experiencing), Stephen Porges, Ph. D. (Creator of Polyvagal Theory) and Alanis Morisette, to name a few. I missed these talks last time and am so looking forward to watching them this time around!
Here is the link again to register to catch the screening and the talks this second time around.
Why I believe understanding trauma is so important, is so eloquently and succinctly communicated by the producers of this documentary:
Trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds.
Much love,
Lia