3AM after six hours in the ER and two Percocets.
On November 1st, I had an electric scooter accident that ended with me fracturing two elbows. That night, my family was on our fleet of scooters to see my newborn nephew who had just been brought home from the hospital. On the way, my scooter hit a major heave in the sidewalk which caused the front wheel to jolt left. My body however continued its forward and eventually downward momentum. As I fell, I instinctively covered my head and summersaulted, resulting in bilateral fractures of my radial heads.
Trauma comes from the Greek word for wound. As a psychotherapist and author, I am well versed in maneuvering through emotional trauma, but my scooter accident cornered me with physical trauma in a way I had never experienced before. As 2021 comes to a close and a new year begins, I wanted to share three thoughts that my broken elbows have revealed to me about trauma. I hope you see how much commonality there is between physical and emotional pain and how trauma, just like unwanted behaviors, have the potential to reveal our way to healing.
#1 Trauma Necessitates a Higher Level of Care
Seconds after my fall, I knew the pain surging through my body was different than any other physical agony I’d undergone before. Intense pain was my body’s way of letting me know I needed a higher level of care than I’d ever known. I hated this. I wanted a few bandages, some Tylenol, a cocktail, maybe a warm bath, and a few days to let the pain gradually subside. I remember walking back up the hill to my apartment, pushing my scooter like Sisyphus and hoping I could walk the rest of the night into the wilderness rather than returning home. I preferred hard work, tireless walking and tasks to distract myself from the long journey of healing that would start when I got home. Home is where pain can be fully faced.
Implication for 2022: Trauma asks, even demands we find healing. There are certain traumas we have all experienced that exceed our capacity to cope and heal on our own. We need emotional x-rays, radiologists, and physicians that can help us discover, diagnose, and direct us to the level of care we need.
What level of care have you been putting off? It could be as simple as a dental appointment and as complex as dealing with sexual abuse from your childhood or an unwanted sexual behavior that has stolen decades from your life. Schedule those appointments now when your motivation for healing and defiance against self-destruction are high.
#2 Unprocessed Trauma Leads to Scapegoating
Trauma creates a context for grief and powerlessness. We don’t naturally surrender to these experiences and as a consequence, we often ask someone to pay. Rene Girard says it like this, “Everywhere and always, when human beings either cannot or dare to not take their anger out on the thing that has caused it, they unconsciously search for substitutes, and more often than not they find them.” As I waited in the ER, my mind began searching for a scapegoat: someone to pay for the trauma I endured.
Here is a window into the scapegoat perseverations within my mind the evening of my accident:
- “I knew the scooter neck connection was a bit loose. Why didn’t I just secure it before I went any further? I’m an idiot for not dealing with it.”
- “Bird scooters are awful. It’s been a hassle since we got it. The Segway scooter is so much better. Bird needs to pay for my ER visit. Why didn’t I get rid of the stupid scooter sooner? I missed all the signs.”
- “The guy who mockingly laughed at me after my fall is an asshole. I want something to harm his body. What did Richard Rohr say about sin? We are not punished for our sins as much as by our sins? Either way, I hope the guy who laughed at me is punished for and by his sins.”
- I can’t believe it’s already been 4 hours waiting for these radiologists and orthopedic surgeons. I am probably being charged a fortune for each hour of their mismanagement. The healthcare system is broken.”
Amid trauma, it was easier for me to target myself and others with contempt. It’s not that any of my thoughts did not contain wisdom or warrant eventual attention. It’s that I was using the scapegoat function to avoid the necessary, unwanted work of facing and caring for my body. I was reactive rather than practicing radical hospitality for what my body needed most: care and comfort.
Implication for 2022: Avoiding trauma sets us up to find a scapegoat. M. Scott Peck said that mental health is a commitment to reality at all costs. One of the realities I see consistently in humanity is that we seek to dispense anger at ourselves or a substitute enemy rather than turning to the wound or formative stories that negatively shaped the trajectory of our lives and maybe more importantly, our perception of the experience. Rather than crafting an enemy, curate a space for healing.
Who have you made a scapegoat rather than dealing with your wound? It could be yourself, your spouse, a sibling, or a dear friend. You will always have credible evidence of someone else’s failure. Those failures, including your own scapegoating, need to be explored, but only after your wound is fully faced.
Rather than transmitting your pain in 2022, seek to transform it. Take an online course and read a book on scapegoating and healing unresolved pain.
#3 Trauma Changes Your Nervous System
In the weeks after my accident, my perception of the world transformed from one where I believed I had a measure of dominion to one where I sensed danger lurking all around. On my first run around Central Park following my fall, I remember seeing a father on a bike with his daughter in a rear frame child’s seat behind him. My amygdala surged with danger out of concern for his daughter. I imagined and then replayed a nasty fall where his daughter’s defenseless body would slam and then violently skid across asphalt. I wanted to confront the father and accost him for being so seemingly careless. A few days later, I boarded the subway, and a woman carelessly bumped my right elbow as she hustled to her seat. I wanted to chastise her for not moving with an abundance of caution and expected her, somehow, to have a sixth sense for my condition. The world was becoming an increasingly caustic place for me when I read a post on Instagram where someone said, “Trauma changes the nervous system.”
Prior to the Instagram post I mentioned, I did not have language to describe what was happening within me. In Brené Brown’s latest book, she quotes philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Unbeknownst to my rational mind, my scooter accident changed my nervous system and therefore my perception of the world around me. I projected violence on others rather than learning to increase my window of tolerance for distress. In trauma, we often want the world around us to change, so that we do not have to deal with our updated, or perhaps downgraded, nervous system.
In moments like this, it’s helpful to recognize that we have (at least) two features in our brain that are attempting to work for us: the amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala is essentially a smoke detector that is always on, constantly scanning the environment to alert us to danger for the purpose of keeping us alive. In addition to the amygdala, we also have a hippocampus, which trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk refers to as the watchtower. The function of the hippocampus is to scan the world and integrate our history, present threat levels, and perceived future. The amygdala and hippocampus work wonderfully together…until there is trauma.
Some traumas have been shown to decrease the size of one’s hippocampus by as much as 8-12%. This means that we become more aligned, if not subservient, to a world of fear rather than limbic partnership. The good news is that we can increase the size of our hippocampus through mindfulness and learning to tolerate discomfort for the purpose of growth. Healing requires we pivot from an external locus of control (living fearful, protective and controlling) to learning how to develop an internal locus of control. This means we seek to regulate our own nervous system rather than militantly controlling or attacking the world around us. When we develop inner calm through kindness and not control, we aid in the growth of our hippocampus. The hippocampus then returns the favor by providing us the capacity to engage life with greater wisdom.
Implication for 2022: Most men and women I work live highly reactive to the world around and within them. Reactivity inevitably sets up detrimental behaviors: we scapegoat others and indulge in dissociative behaviors rather than self-soothing. These behaviors feel good in the moment but only serve to compound the effects of trauma.
This year, instead of scapegoating others or attempting to change your unwanted feelings through a show, porn, or other substance, learn to increase your tolerance for distress. One way of doing this is to focus on your breathing for at least a minute when you are sensing distress. To do that, inhale for five seconds, exhale for five seconds and repeat this for about five or six cycles (roughly one minute). Breathing, like trauma, has the power to change our nervous system. Good breathing encourages a parasympathetic response, which tells our body it is okay to rest. In doing so we learn to calm our internal state rather than needing to control our external world.
In what ways have you seen trauma affect your nervous system? What is one ritual you can use everyday to help you find inner calm? What is one behavior that inhibits you from feeling good about yourself that you need to outgrow this next year? Consider downloading an app like Headspace for daily mindfulness practices.
Conclusion
Trauma is agony, but it does not have to be a life-sentence to despair or relational conflict. The reality of trauma is that it overwhelms us with pain and therefore necessitates a higher level of care. When we do not pursue grief or healing for our traumas, a common outcome is the search for a scapegoat to dispense our anger. In trauma, we would do well to remember that our perception of the world has changed because our nervous system has been changed. As a consequence, we are more susceptible to dispensing our anger through scapegoating or indulging in behaviors that aid in helping us dissociate from pain.
If you are considering making a goal to heal from trauma or outgrow a particular unwanted behavior in 2022, here are some recommendations. One of the best thoughts about goals I have ever read comes from James Clear who says,“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” A goal to outgrow porn, practice self-care or heal trauma is good in that it might motivate us to change, but we need to create systems to help us pursue the freedom we seek.
Here are three practical systems you can build into your life to accomplish your goals in 2022.
- To 0utgrow porn or other unwanted behaviors, don’t simply rely on a book or willpower. Ask a friend to be your ally and go through a five-month course to help identify and transform your unwanted behaviors. One evening or morning a week, set aside and hour or two to connect with them about what you’re learning from the videos and your personal story. Don’t make a goal to outgrow porn, develop a system to outgrow porn.
- If you want more self-care, take your calendar out now and block off 4-5 hours every weekend. A general goal to take more baths or ride your mountain bike will not succeed. Instead, add desirable activities and destinations into your calendar. For example build a list around seasonal activities (e.g. Ski 6 different Saturday mornings at Crystal Mountain, Killington, or favorite local resort in the winter OR visit four national parks or local swimming holes in the summer). Compile and extensive list of different or favorite cafes, breweries, or restaurants to visit each year and add them to your calendar after your weekly self-care activities. Enjoy traveling? Plan to visit 3 different cities or national parks. Tired of being exhausted after the holidays? Plan a holiday that does not include your family of origin. Developing new traditions for you or your marriage can be one of the hardest, yet most rewarding gifts. Plan your holidays now, otherwise you will default to orbiting around your family system.
- If you want to understand and heal trauma or unwanted behaviors, apply for a 1:1 intensive with me, apply for an excellent narrative-focused trauma certificate program, or sign-up for a conference on understanding your sexual story. In the same way that you set-aside funds for end of year giving or Roth IRA, contribute to your future healing.
In 2022, let’s commit to pursuing the level of care we need, refrain from our impulse to scapegoat others, and heal our traumatized nervous systems with kindness.
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