As trauma survivors, we crave certainty. The concrete security of certainty is a pre-requisite for the traumatized nervous system to have permission to rest, relax and soften.
Certainty creates a sense of safety - even if what is certain is objectively unsafe. This is what makes it difficult to leave toxic workplaces, relationships and everything in between: we feel safe in the certainty of what we know than the uncertainty of what is unknown.
Without certainty, the traumatized nervous system remains hypervigilant, always looking for, striving for certainty.
Doom scrolling creates a sense of certainty because at least then we KNOW what is happening - even if what is happening is objectively unsafe. (this is not license to be misinformed but as trauma survivors, we need to be aware of how we relate to certainty) Doom scrolling allows us to calibrate for what is happening, for our nervous systems to know exactly how activated they should be.
But doom scrolling simultaneously creates a deep sense of powerlessness (along with a nugget of certainty) because there is so much happening outside of our control.
When Life is certain, we don’t have to be aware (let along vigilant) and we don’t have to be afraid. Certainty gives our nervous systems permission to trust in the world, but is it real trust if we control?
Certainty itself is an illusion because the only certainty of life is change itself. Nature, Time, Being, all resist certainty & concretization.
Once we think we know something, someone, Time changes them. Nature changes them.
The trees I came to know in the summer have shifted form and become something New.
When our Bodies have associated change with trauma (change we do not consent to), when the natural changes in life come, we can resist them out of habit, not out of intention. We are reminded of all of the changes we haven’t consented to - even when “Good” change happens (a promotion, a milestone in a relationship, moving into a more aligned life).
Change is uncomfortable because it is an upheaval and is especially hard when we’ve experienced trauma because our bodies find safety in the familiar, in the status quo.
It is interesting because change is the only guarantee of life. Life is change. Nothing in the world or in our lives stay the same. Clouds are always moving, our planet is always in orbit, the sun is always rising or setting. Change is the only guarantee in life and yet, we are in constant denial of its existence.
In sameness, we find a constant sense of control but that control isn’t real. There is so much outside of control; in fact, most things are outside of our control. The sense of control we crave in our lives is an illusion. It is rooted in fear. Fear of the unknown. Really what this is is death anxiety. We are afraid of our mortality, of the impermanence of life. We would rather sit with our hands over our eyes pretending life will carry on forever. It won’t.
That is terrifying.
What makes global events impact us so deeply is the powerlessness and the reminder that our death, as is our life, is largely outside of our control.
It is terrifying to know all that we know will come to an end. It already is. It is terrifying to know we will, at one time or another, lose the ones we love. We already have.
Fear of the unknown is the most human thing we could possibly experience. We are limited to imagine only what we’ve experienced and there are infinite possibilities of what could go wrong in the unknown. It is unknown, unfamiliar so it is coded in our trauma brains as unsafe. It might be; but not necessarily. Sometimes the unknown is exactly what we need because the unknown requires trust & surrender.
Sometimes the unknown is a divorce, relocation, being fired from a job. Sometimes we choose the change and sometimes the change is thrust upon us.
What makes stepping into the unknown even fathomable is our capacity to trust in our Selves, others and the world. (also the very thing impacted by experiences of trauma - can you see the feedback loop?)
Trust is a tricky thing because we have to offer opportunities to gain trust and that require vulnerability. If we never offer opportunities to build trust, trust is guaranteed to never happen. Self-trust is the same; if we never take risks to prove we can be trustworthy to our Selves, that we can hold our Selves even through the Unknown, we will never trust our Selves to hold our Selves through the Unknown.
Surrender is another tricky thing because it fundamentally requires safety. And usually when we’re being called into surrender, it’s because there’s change and upheaval (coded in our trauma brain as fundamentally unsafe). This is why embodiment work is so important, when we can create a safe containers within our Bodies, we can have a sense of safety with us at all times, even when life is changing all around us.
Surrender is an intentional act of passivity, not one of relinquishing power but a posture of receptivity.
To receive is vulnerable.
Full surrender requires fundamental trust. Trust in my own being to hold and contain my experiences. Trust in the world to hold and contain my process. Trust in others to witness the un and re becoming in full acceptance.
To surrender, to fully relax into receptivity, is a Herculean task.
It requires letting go, trusting we don’t need to be in control. The release that beckons us from surrender is completely contrarian to the ways we have learned to exist in the world. Trauma teaches us we cannot trust in others, the world or ourselves.
To surrender allows us to write our own narrative, instead of having ghost writers submit chapters to our life.
The process of letting go is not a simple one for trauma survivors. Surrender goes against all of the protective strategies our psyche builds up to protect us from the reckoning of trauma. Surrender has to be coupled with oodles of self compassion, grief, anger, baby steps and embodied self dialogue.
Surrender is an unconditional acceptance that This Is, I Am. As It Is, As I Am. It is not ambivalent detachment, but a resting flow.
When change comes to our traumatized nervous systems, we can clamp up, grasp tightly and try desperately to control the outcome. To no avail.
It is the false equation that our nervous systems make with the best of intentions to keep us safe that trips us up. Equating change with danger kept us safe at one point but keeps us from evolving with life. It makes it feel like life happens TO us, instead of recognizing our active agency within life.
Change isn’t always dangerous; it can be scary but not everything that is scary is bad. A surprise party is startling but not dangerous.
We have to develop the nuance to inquire of our Selves the nature of this change - is this change dangerous? Am I afraid of the change itself or of the unknown?
If we were to live in acceptance of the inevitability of change, how much different would we live? Instead of gripping tightly to the life we have, could we open our palm and step forth with an open curiosity to the possibilities life has to offer? If we were to live in acceptance of the inevitability of our own mortality, how much different would we live? Could we invest our time and energy in more authentic ways instead of spinning our tires trying to find acceptance in an impermanent world?
Change doesn’t get any easier the more it happens because we are human. We want sameness as humans and that’s okay. It is good and normal and okay to be afraid of change, to be afraid of our mortality. I would be concerned if we weren’t! The fear is not the problem. What we do with that fear matters. Our relationship with the fear matters.
Will we tighten and clench and hold onto rotting spinach in our fridge or will we open and loosen and surrender the rotting spinach to the compost? May we live each day in honour of our impermanence.
Developing change tolerance is developing inner nuance in our very nervous systems so our Body can learn the difference between danger, unknown and uncertainty, instead of conflating these concepts together.
Developing inner nuance requires a sense of inner safety, a sense of the Self.
If our inner world is chaotic, external adversity, change & uncertainty can feel life-threatening & debilitating. Sometimes it is - but sometimes it isn’t. When we have our own inner existential ground, we can handle adversity, change and the unknown in our outer world.
This doesn’t mean we should have to endure adversity and change because we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t experience trauma - no one should. Resiliency isn’t a license to excuse violence - we shouldn’t have to be resilient. We should be human.
There are many elements of life that are objectively dangerous right now. We become overwhelmed at the gravity of all that is happening and drown in guilt for not doing enough. This polarity of overwhelm and powerlessness mirrors experiences of trauma in our body.
I know how trivial self-regulation can feel amidst global adversity and I also know how bracing in my own body is retraumatizing. I know how impactful a traumatized nervous system is for me and my collective because our bodies are always coregulating with each other.
I know how difficult it is to hold the Both-And of being informed and how digesting traumatic information can feel more normal than a regulated nervous system because my body has decades of experiencing bracing. I know that powerlessness and overwhelm shut down my Body and that being informed creates a sense of certainty.
I don’t have any easy answers for holding this Both-And but what I have found is that balance has been my anchor in this last week. I stay informed and also set a timer on my phone so I don’t get down a rabbit hole of trauma porn. I intentionally seek dopamine in value-based ways to gift my body what was required to stay informed because I won’t ever leave my Body with the bill.
For me, this looks like getting from Level 1 to 21 in 4 days of playing Pokemon Go because the simplicity and task-based achievements was exactly the dopamine counterbalance to doom scrolling Twitter.
Take time to experiment ways to find what balance looks and feels like for you - there is no formula because you are a full human person, not an algorithm.
Next week, we’re going to get into the psyche politics of global events but for now - find pockets of safety and certainty in your life. Notice how water boils over heat - a constant certainty. Ask your body one thing they need at this moment. Remember to drink water.