We are experiencing global trauma. We remember 2020 when a microscopic virus yielded macroscopic consequences, and we added exponential numbers of people to trauma rosters. Many CPTSD patients found themselves without feeling safe, and setbacks in healing. Extensive and pronounced civil unrest hasn’t helped as many of us watch violence unfold in front of us. We are witnessing events no human brain can comprehend. Two years have passed and as of the writing of this article we are watching the events in eastern Europe play out and we continue to add names to trauma rosters.
As a people, we were not created to bear such global trauma and civil unrest. It touches the very core of our fears, we long for safety within our families and communities. As a CPTSD patient, my world is rocked, my brain is full and I am out of tears. Watching the world fall apart is scary and many of us need help navigating some of these uncertain and scary waters. Besides fear, a prominent emotion is that of empathy for those who have suffered and who are suffering. Empathy alone can serve as fray in the fabric of our beings, and empathy overload can and will take us to places we don’t want to go, and the road back is difficult.
In his book, “Get Your Life Back”, John Eldredge suggests a few ways we can give our brains a rest. He cites that the amount of information we consume on any given day would crash a computer. His wisdom in this book is good for everyone but it is particularly good for the trauma tribe. I found this book and some of these principles helpful as I make my way back to a calm nervous system absent of the ills of an activated one. Paying attention to those things that activate our trauma respects the hard work of healing. A few of Eldredge’s principles can transition our emotional brain into our safe present with relative ease.
Eldredge’s principles are reinforced by one statement in the book.
“We were not created to bear the burdens of the whole world but of our village”—John Eldredge
Here are a few key points from Eldredge’s book, in deference to brevity, it is impossible to provide them all here.
- Practice the one-minute pause. Eldredge and his team created “The One Minute Pause” to get us to do just that: pause. Available also on a web browser, this encourages us to stop– twice a day, breathe, meditate and ground ourselves to our present safety.
- Practice Benevolent Detachment. This is the ability to let go of that which does not belong to you, or that which you simply cannot control. This stops empathy over-load and protects our own mental health. We can still care about the sufferings of the world yet understand our own limitations. Protect yourself from vicarious trauma, because your brain cannot delineate your own trauma from that of the world.
- Practice Beauty Hunting. When we focus on beauty, we engage our emotional brains in beautiful things, literally switching your consciousness to your present safety and not your activated trauma.
- Put your phone down. It has been said that the computers we hold in our hands are more powerful than NASA computers. The ease of information is dangerous and we must practice some detachment from the barrage of information.
A prominent California pastor encourages this about cell phones and I have found it helpful in my own journey of protecting my peace and healing.
- Divert Daily—this is the practice of putting our phones away for one hour a day. Eldredge’s research demonstrated the average person picks up their phones eighty times a day!
- Withdraw Weekly—this is the practice of putting your phone away for one full day a week. The exception is those things phones were actually meant to do, but this is a practice that has helped me immensely.
- Abandon Annually—this is the practice of putting your phone away for an entire week. This is the hardest one of them all. I have successfully done this for two years and I was a little sad with reentry. I simply had no idea what immense amounts of screen time were doing to my nervous system.
As a trauma tribe, it is so important to protect your peace and healing during these times of unrest. Perhaps utilizing some of these practices will calm your nervous system down, and you can continue to live the life you deserve because YOU MATTER!
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I am a Florida girl who loves a simple life, Jesus, family, friends, football and the beach (usually in that order). I am a native of Jacksonville, Florida, but have spent most of my adult life on Florida’s west coast.
While being introduced for a speaking opportunity a few years ago, the pastor asked me “who are you?”. The words that followed shocked even me: “I am the precious daughter of the most high God”. There were many years when I would not have answered that question as I did that day.
