Resource, resilience and collective trauma

Resourcing is about what is outside of us, too.

It’s about the systems we live in.

It’s about the people in our lives.

It’s about .. what or who or where can we turn to when shit is hard?

It’s about .. are the helpers actually helping or retraumatizing or further oppressing us?

Resourcing can be this beautiful piece of nervous system regulation where we hold our own hearts or sway back and forth or tune into our breath and feel more grounded and present.

Yes. And.

Resourcing can also be about OUR RESOURCES.

Affluence. Proximity. Access. Privilege. Support. And/or lack thereof.

It can also be about the protective factors that help us to be resilient through traumatic experiences.

In this world, not everyone is resourced equally.

And not all resources come from the inside (although yes, those practices are powerful, too, and if they feel supportive please keep doing them!).

I hope that as we heal, as we hold our own hearts and nourish our own nervous systems, we can also hold that our systems need healing, too.

More to come on nervous system nourishment that doesn’t erase trauma (and healing) as a systemic and collective phenomenon soon.

XO Jess

Image description: an open window into a lush dark green forest and a tweet that reads: Nervous system regulation happens when we’re resourced. THIS is why healing is collective and trauma is systemic. THIS is why as we heal I hope we heal these systems that leave so many underresourced. 

Corrective experiences can bring up so much grief

If you receive the very thing you’ve always needed, the very thing you didn’t get that is inextricably linked to a traumatic experience, and this corrective experience brings you to your knees, you are not alone.

If you witness someone being treated the way you’ve always needed to be treated on a television show or in a book or a passing conversation with a friend, and this opens the griefy floodgates, you are not alone.

If you have experienced sexual assault, and someone lovingly and respectfully checks in with you for consent, this can be a corrective experience.

If you have lived through abuse and manipulation, and someone is kind to you, this can be a corrective experience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you if these experiences bring up big emotions and overwhelming grief.

If you were not protected, and someone offers you protection - this can be a corrective experience and it can bring up so much grief, resentment, anger, and sadness. Because the protection might be hard to receive. For the times you needed it and didn't have it.

Sometimes waves of grief and sadness emerge when we experience hurts similar to our past experiences. Sometimes pain and sorrow visit when we directly experience or witness a corrective experience. Corrective experiences can include receiving kindness, love, validation, attentiveness, and consent when we haven’t previously.

If you are treated with kindness and it moves you to tears, you are not alone.

If what “should” be a healing experience brings you grief, you are not alone.

Healing can be complex and layered, just like we are.

Jess

Even if we can’t get the apology or acknowledgement or accountability from the person who harmed us, we might get those things from other folks in different situations. And while it’s not like the math works out where that makes it all okay that we didn’t get it from the person who we really needed it from, it might still feel really healing to receive it. Corrective experiences can be really tender, they can bring up a lot of grief and resentment - and they can touch into the parts of us that have been desiring and deserving a certain response or way of showing up. It can be healing to know that this sometimes can happen. It can be tender to be with the grief of the times we really needed it to happen and it didn’t.

If it was as simple as letting go, wouldn't we all have let go by now?

I’m sure a lot of us can relate to this one. Working with a practitioner who seems to think it’s as easy as loosening our grip. Seeking support from someone who tries not-so-gently to unfurl our fingers. Sharing our story with someone whose words roll their eyes at us - why aren’t we over it, by now?

(See also: what’s specifically wrong with us that we aren’t over it by now? And you can bet folks have some ideas about that, and maybe even a solution they could sell us. See also also: We should really be over it by now, by yesterday, by months ago.)

And here’s the thing. Our beings are so fucking wise. We let go when we can, and not a moment sooner.

Our choices are powerful, mindset can matter, and so too does the nervous system woven through our body - and this world we’re living in. These things often dictate our choices, help us to know when it’s safest to let go, and also when it’s safer to hold on.

In this world we are living in, safety can be hard to come by and letting go isn’t as easy as just deciding to do it. We are powerful, yes, and so are the systems we live in.

Being rushed to just let go can bypass the wisdom in holding on.

Being rushed to just let go might assume we can make this choice in a vacuum.

Being rushed to let go can assume a level of safety that may not exist yet.

Today I’m wondering if we can hold space for the brilliance in grasping as well as the release, not rushing either one, just trusting that ebbs eventually flow, and flows might stand still at an ebb every so often.

And what if there is wisdom in the tide going both ways?

And what if there is wisdom in us going both ways, too?

And what if the letting go is a thing we grow towards, all the while holding tender the parts of us that are holding on?

What might it feel like not to be rushed?

What might it feel like to be trusted in our timing, our holding, our grasping and the slow unfurl of releasing?

Asking the big questions gently,

Jess

The Intersection of Privilege & Regulation

There is inherent privilege in not needing to be hypervigilant. In co-regulating. In a settled nervous system.

So while yes, practitioners can offer supportive tools for regulating the nervous system... this offering is incomplete without addressing, naming, and transforming systemic oppression.

Shaking is great, and can one shake their way out of oppression? Somatic experiencing is great, and can one voo their way out of anti-Black racism? Bodywork is great, and can one receive their way out of a nervous system that constantly receives threats to its very existence?

May this be at the forefront for all practitioners. May practitioners not only empower folx with tools for nervous system regulation, but work individually and collectively for a world in which less tools are needed.

woo-woo washing

Let’s not do this, please and thank you. It’s dangerous and harmful and insulting and agenda-pushing and it’s n-o-t client-centered OR trauma-informed.
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Get outta here with your healing light unless I️ specifically requested healing light, basically.
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Get outta here with “my soul asked for this” or “your trauma is your greatest gift”.
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Get outta here St. Germain, who is probably lovely, but I️ also never (ever ever) find surprise visitors lovely. Text me first thx! And you too Archangel Gabriel.
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Get outta here with... what else would you add?
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Sound off below. 🗣🔥⚡️

Anything can be comfortable, including discomfort

Question why you’re comfortable.

I’ve been learning a lot about my attachment style, and coming face-to-face with some patterns. Getting curious about my choices and if they’re made in present time or rooted in past conditioning and storylines. Wondering, in everything I do, about my “why”s.

Sometimes we hold onto something and it feels comfortable in our hands. Our body knows we’ve held it before. But that doesn’t mean we should keep cupping it. Maybe it fits because we’ve wrapped ourselves around it. Maybe now our hands are achy from the grasp and we’ve stopped, just a little bit, breathing. Maybe we’re used to that, too.

Familiar isn’t always in our highest good. Humans, ever adaptable, can adjust to anything. We adjust because we had to, we needed to. But do we still need to?

This is the question, and a hard one to answer. Living in present time is tricky when threads from the past are tugging at you. When you’re two places at once. If the threads are tangled.

Some gentle wonders as you begin to untangle:

Is what you’re carrying serving you, or are you accustomed to the weight of it?

Do you still need to pretzel yourself to survive, or can you begin to take your own shape?

If something feels like home, does it feel like the home you are wanting to call your own or does it echo of something darker?

Ask yourself: How do I️ know this is comfortable? And let your body answer.

Take care of yourself as you move forward and inward. Love to you all. 💛