Trauma is in the eye of the beholder

The number one question I get asked by clients, colleagues and friends is:

"Well, it was just a tiny experience for me, is that really trauma?"

Adrial Boals' research (2018) is just one study that affirms, "trauma is in the eye of the beholder."

There is no judgment, minimizing, or gaslighting when it comes to any individual who shares they have experienced a traumatic event.

In the diagnositic/Western clinical world, we specifically identify acute (recent singular traumatic experience), chronic (ongoing stressors that may include lifelong, recurring, present-day continuing and intergenerational traumatic experiences), or complex (repeated, multiple and various traumatic experiences).

There is not enough room in this little LinkedIn box to capture the depth, layers, and transformational view of the whole person's trauma experience found in the Eastern views of narrative, script, and energy (and so much more!) perspectives of trauma understanding.

Authors and poets like Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Francis Weller are a few of my favorites for anchoring trauma work back to a simple truth that "we are nature." We are not separate from nor do we own the beautiful Earth that nourishes all of us.

It is no wonder to me then, that for 95% of my clients, when envisioning their "safe, sacred calm place" for multisensory grounding in trauma work, imagine and feel a space in nature.

No matter how the clinical world may diagnose, label, require for insurance reimbursement, a traumatic experience is truly in the eye of the beholder, and this is where we begin.

And, thankfully, we still have nature within us and around us for transformational trauma healing.

Please comment below the poets, authors, stories, narratives, music, and more that you have read and heard that have resonated with you for grounding trauma transformation with somatic and soulful connection to nature.