Trauma & Time

It’s Been a Year

At this time last year people were panicking—stocking up on water, toilet paper, masks, food, cleaning supplies and who knows what else!?! None of us knew what to expect, but we wanted to do something. We overbought and sometimes hoarded supplies in an effort to help us feel safe.

Then the world suddenly stopped. Well, the world didn’t actually stop, just our old lives as we knew them. You don’t need me to rehash all the stress-filled circumstances.

Today, you might be remembering where you were a year ago; what you were doing, thinking and planning. You may be asking yourself, Where did this year go? What have I done? It might feel like a “lost” year.

Trauma Then and Now

What most people don’t realize is that very often, when we experience trauma, we’re so busy just trying to deal with the situation, we’re not actually processing it. It doesn’t matter if it’s big-T or little-t trauma. We go into survival mode and focus on trying to solve the challenge-of-the-minute.

Avoidance Strategy

We are smart souls and do not like being inside a stressed-out body, so we leave. We distract ourselves with the news, social media, shopping or a million other ways we can use to avoid feeling unpleasant emotions.

The problem with this usually unconscious strategy is we then become a shell. We end up going through the motions of life and are not present to it. Our goal becomes to survive the day and before we’ve realized it, the days have turned into weeks, then months, and even a year or more.

Year Mark

When milestones come around such as the year mark, we may actually experience our emotions even more acutely than the first time around. When you’re not in the immediate crisis or survival mode, you have the capacity to actually feel your emotions and that’s why they can be more overwhelming.

I experienced this during the year milestones of my cancer diagnosis and treatment.

I remember thinking:

• This time last year, I didn’t know I had cancer

• This day last year, I received the diagnosis

• This time last year, I met Malik who made me my first visualization tape

• This day last year, I started chemo

• This time last year, my hair fell out

• And on and on and on…

Over time, the days, weeks, and months stopped meaning so much and the whole experience blurred together as just one big experience. But that first year-mark—wow, that can bring up powerful feelings!

A Good Time to Process Our Emotions

We’re collectively experiencing the year mark from the shutdown and now is a good time to go within. Purposefully check in with your body. Ask it what it’s feeling. Our bodies talk to us through our emotions and when we take the time to listen to these messages, we can learn a great deal.

What does this look like in real life?

First, quiet your mind through walking, yoga, meditation, or my favorite way—grounding. Then simply ask your body: What is the primary emotion you are feeling right now? Then be quiet and listen. Your body will answer, I promise!

Go as deep as you like. If your body answers, anxious, explore where that feeling originates (most likely from future tripping). Your body may respond, lonely, sad, depressed, or angry. Each of these emotions is a treasure trove of information and guidance for you. Listen to and learn from your body’s emotions!

Going Forward

It’s powerful to be able to learn from our experiences and emotions in real-time. We do this when we have the courage to feel uncomfortable feelings. If we do this the first time around, we reduce the chance of reliving the experience over and over in the future.

The sooner you experience your emotions and listen and learn from them, the better. So even if you didn’t do it consciously at the time last year, now is just as good a time as any. At the very least it’s better a year from now or 2 or 10 or 20!

PS If you would like to learn how to listen to and process your emotions, join us in the Practicum!