There is a word that I’ve used a lot within these blogs, but I’ve never written a specific one about it. That word is trauma. Much of the modern trauma research started with the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study that took place between 1995-1997. Before this study, I think it is safe to say that most people understood that people who have been through hard things often had difficulties afterward. However, while they may have understood this concept, they didn’t have our current research. Terms like shellshock were used to describe veterans of Vietnam who had increased startle response and emotional difficulties. The term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was coined in the 1980s. The ACE study* had 17,000 participants and measured health outcomes in connection to ACEs. The list of different ACEs that were studied include: abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual), domestic violence, substance abuse, incarcerated family member, family member with mental illness, parental divorce or separation, and physical or emotional neglect.

This study** had many shocking takeaways. First of all, only about ⅓ of people have no ACEs. Next, the more ACEs a person has, the more likely they are to have poor health. Higher ACE scores are associated with increased likelihood of violence, multiple marriages, more broken bones, taking more prescriptions, and more autoimmune diseases. Not just that, ACE scores of 4 or more increase the odds of obesity, cancers, heart problems, breathing problems, depression, addictions, and school-age learning or behavior problems.

Childhood trauma has a major and lasting impact on a person’s growth and development, but it isn’t the only kind of trauma. This can happen at any point in our lives. The tricky thing is, though, that trauma isn’t the experience that happens, it is how we process the experience. Trauma doesn’t just happen when we go through something terrible. It happens when we experience an event that we weren’t equipped to handle. This means that what is traumatizing for me may not be traumatizing for someone else. For this reason, we can never judge another person’s reaction to trauma because it wasn’t the event, it was how they made sense of it. A trauma reaction lives on in the body long after the event has passed, and it can be easy for a seemingly innocent stimuli to cause a flashback that puts that person’s body reaction back into the moment of the trauma. For them, the past is brought fully into the present.

What can be done about this, you might be wondering. Let's start off by acknowledging that ⅔ of the people you know probably have ACEs. This doesn’t mean that ⅔ of the people you know have PTSD or adverse trauma reactions. It does mean that you know a lot of people who have probably had difficult experiences. The best way that you can help someone you care about who has been through trauma is to be a safe person with whom they can form a strong and stable relationship. Traumatic experiences involving others form attachment wounds that can have a negative impact on future relationships. That means that safe relationships that provide opportunities for vulnerability can be very healing.

The statistics I just mentioned also suggest that ⅔ of the people reading this blog have probably had difficult experiences too. If you have been through trauma you may have had to learn to survive using strategies that sometimes create other problems. Maybe you tell yourself that you always have to be alert for danger. Maybe you retreat from danger into the only safe place you’ve known–inside yourself. Maybe you’re always waiting for someone to be horrible to you so you lash out preemptively. Counseling can make a world of difference in helping people working through the trauma that they’ve experienced. If you go this route, seek out a counselor that is trained and skilled in specifically helping people recover from trauma. There are a lot of different types of therapies and therapists that can help.

Things that people can do to help themselves include yoga, mindfulness, journaling, and artistic expression. Learning deep breathing techniques as well as ways to help one to feel grounded into the present is helpful for dealing with flashbacks. Music playing at 60 beats per minute can help slow down one’s heart rate. There are numerous self-calming strategies, coping strategies, stress management techniques, etc. A quick Google search will reveal a ton. The point is to find something calming. Whatever helps you to gain back control of your body–to get your body and mind regulated again–is what you want to look for. No one asks to be traumatized, and it does change how we react to the world around us. There is hope and healing available. I want to leave you with a quote which has unclear origins. It might be Plato, Philo, or John Watson: “Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

*https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html

**www.acestoohigh.com/aces-101

A common source of stress for many of the clients I’ve worked with is a sense of frustration with the idea that they aren’t yet where they want to be. It’s as though being on the journey of personal growth is somewhat of a failure simply because they aren’t at their destination.

I’m all about metaphors, so let’s go with this image of “the journey.” We can think about our goals as points on the map. Whether we have to walk, drive, or fly, our job is to somehow find a way to reach our goals. Often I’ve found that many who are frustrated with not being where they want to be have actually been meeting many of their goals (or perhaps the objectives along the way to a bigger goal), but just like the song in the musical, “Hamilton,” they can never be satisfied. I think this is why it is important to distinguish the difference between our goals and our values. If our goals are points on the map, then our values are the direction. The goal might be St. Louis, but the value is east. We can reach St. Louis, but we can never reach east. As a matter of fact, you could circle the globe, but there is still more east to go.

Folks that get frustrated with not being where they want to be are often so consumed with a long term goal that they don’t see the progress they’ve made along the way, and sometimes they may feel that the progress doesn’t count. The person who wants to beat an addiction or get more fulfillment from their relationships needs to understand that these are huge undertakings, not small goals. As a matter of fact, being fully present and vulnerable in our closest relationships or not being controlled by addictions actually sound more like values. If we choose to see these as our values we can make our choices according to what moves us in this direction. Why is this an important distinction? Because realizing that we are working toward a value that can never be fully achieved but can always be worked on removes the pressure. The choices we make in service of our values are the choices that feel most fulfilling because they are taking us in the direction that we want our life to go. If someone’s value is to not be controlled by addiction, they can have sobriety goals along the way, but each time they make a choice with their value in mind, they are taking a step in that direction. This means that they can have setbacks and still be working toward their values. We tend to feel most lost when we are moving in a different direction than our values, and dealing with setbacks is less overwhelming when we realize that we can always make the choice to turn back to the direction of our values.

For most people, this way of looking at things could be helpful. Stephen Covey wrote a book called, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” This book was first published in 1989, but it holds up because it is all about identifying what is important to you and living accordingly. I highly recommend giving it a read. Unfortunately, even when they shift their mindset to a focus on values instead of goals, some people still continue to feel a sense of failure or that they aren’t good enough. This almost always comes down to something in their past. Usually the people that struggle the most with where they are on their journey have received the impression that they aren’t good enough from someone important to them. Often this person was a parent, but that isn’t always the case. This criticism can come from inside as well because some people have always been hard on themselves, but it is very easy for a person to tell themselves they aren’t good enough when they’ve been repeatedly hearing this from someone they love. Once this criticism becomes internal, it is very hard to get rid of. This negative voice is relentless. Speaking with a counselor is an important step in starting to understand where this voice came from, as well as learning how to fight back against it. A counselor can also help these individuals figure out what they needed to hear all along and learn to reassure the part of themselves that still has doubts.

Self improvement is supposed to be a life long journey. I think that people are meant to keep growing as long as they are on this planet. We don’t just stop improving ourselves when we reach a certain age. What I would like for everyone who struggles with this internal critic to know is that we all have parts of ourselves that we wish to change–that we’re working on. If the answers were easy to find, we’d already have them. However, we shouldn’t get upset with ourselves for being on the journey. After all, how else would we ever reach a destination?