Do you ever wonder why the planet is wracked by so many crises? Do you ever wonder why humanity seems unable to meet the challenges of creating peace, protecting the living systems that support us, and ending poverty? We believe a root cause is trauma. Trauma warps our personality, blights our health, stunts our development, and condemns us to living well below our potential.
Most of us think of trauma as something that happens to other people as a result of childhood abuse, war, famine, accidents, or sickness. But trauma is universal. Few, if any, of us are unaffected by it. At every stage of life, from conception to death, we are exposed to potentially traumatic experiences. Your mother may have smoked or taken drugs, been malnourished or stressed during pregnancy. You may have had a difficult and painful birth, or put in a hospital nursery away from your mother.
As an infant, your distressed crying may have been ignored, or you may have been treated roughly and angrily rather than with gentle love. In childhood, you may have been harshly punished for bad behaviour, or sexually, emotionally or physically abused. At some stage of life, you may have lived in a war zone, in constant fear of injury or death. Or you may have been a refugee from conflict, famine or a natural disaster. You may have had cancer or another life-threatening illness. And so the list goes on.
Not only are we all exposed to potentially traumatic experiences, but also we inherit trauma from our parents and grandparents. Partly, trauma is transmitted by social learning and education. But the new field of epigenetics is rapidly revealing how it is also transmitted genetically. Traumas suffered by your parents did not change their genes, but they did affect which genes are active - which are switched on, and which are switched off. And those patterns of gene expression will have been passed to you.
This effect even extends to your grandparents. The egg and sperm that became you were formed when your mother and father were tiny embryos in your grandmothers’ wombs, and were affected by their life experiences at that time. This effect has been recognised in practice by the Australian Government which offers some free therapy to the grandchildren of war veterans.
Trauma has been linked to many life issues. In severe cases, it can lead to debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also implicated in most mental illnesses from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia. It may lead to angry, aggressive and violent behaviours. It is a factor in eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. It is linked to heart disease, cancer, immune system dysfunction, chronic fatigue and other major illnesses. It also is associated with migraine, lower back pain and other psychosomatic conditions.
Many of us think of trauma as affecting individuals, but it also impacts on families, communities and whole societies. In the family context, emotional and behavioural effects of trauma can lead parents to abuse their children or each other. At the community level, traditional beliefs, ways of life and social norms may be shattered by war, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes, industrial development and other disasters. Afterwards, it can take generations to recreate community from anarchic chaos. Just imagine the difficulty of rebuilding trust and social relationships after years of civil war and genocide.
Once we recognise the prevalence and impacts of trauma, we can take action to change the situation. In our book “Hope for Humanity: How understanding and healing trauma could solve the planetary crisis”, we document the nature, history, prevalence, mechanisms and impacts of trauma in more detail. We then go on to develop strategies for healing the huge numbers suffering from past trauma, and for reducing the creation of new trauma. We also provide general guidance on choosing a healing modality and therapist.
Perhaps the most important step is for each one of us to recognise and accept that we are probably personally affected, and to start our own inner journey of healing despite our natural resistance to facing the hidden pain. Spiritual approaches such as meditation work in some cases, but often need the support of skilled therapists to enable us to break through the terror, or to open our awareness of memories that we have locked away in secret vaults. Similarly, therapy often needs the support of spiritual practices to achieve long-term personal transformation.
For there to be real Hope for Humanity, it is vital that we each embark on our own healing journey.
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