In Spanish, "to give birth" is expressed by "dar luz" - to give light. So beautiful.
Recently, I listened to an NPR podcast: Hurricane Katrina Had a Silver-Lining for Some: Post-Traumatic Growth.
Yeah, yeah, there are all of the cliches, such as "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger," and alas, that unfortunate decision to reference another in the podcast title: "every cloud has a silver lining." (There is truth to these and other cliches, but there is no silver lining for all traumas. "Growth" is quite different from silver linings.)
Thus far, I've experienced three discrete, negative, life-changing events. The first pushed me into deep financial poverty, but I knew - I knew - that this would eventually pass. Furthermore, it was an unavoidable consequence of a responsible decision to exit an untenable situation for me and my very young child. The second event was a heartbreak that felt bottomless in its depths, and which prompted a radical new turn on my life's road.
As profound as these events were, neither was what I would call trauma. And did I experience growth following these two events? Absolutely. With time. And with support of others.
Note: What I call trauma or not-trauma is only for myself. I do not presume to define trauma for anyone else's lived experiences. Furthermore, trauma is not a comparison game; it's not a perverse competition.
But the third event - not an event, really, a situation, a process, still ongoing - has been trauma. The nature of this trauma is that I do not have the power to make it stop. I do not have the control to undo the damage already done. I don't even know how widely the harm has been disseminated.
This post, however, is not about the trauma itself.
It is how the podcast I listened to hit me in a fresh way that told me I can expel the unhelpful brain loops of trauma and create new pathways - dar luz - toward liberation.
(But I'm ready for my epidural, please!)
