How Can We Deal With Catastrophe and Trauma?
Sunday, October 16, 2005
How Can We Deal With Catastrophe and Trauma?
Robert Elias Najemy
With Hurricane Katrina, the Twin Towers, the Tsunami, earthquakes, mud slides, flooding, forest fires, crashing airplanes, wars and increased violence in the world we are being challenged to feel safe and happy in extremely unsure environments.
We all desire happiness because that is our life destination. Our challenge is to learn to create inner happiness regardless of external factors. We are generally happy when we have what we want in life in order to feel secure, worthy, free and satisfied. Our prerequisites for feeling that way are usually a safe, violence-free environment, good relationships with family and friends, a home to protect us, a well paying job, professional status, social acceptance etc. When these are in danger or lost, we usually lose our peace and happiness.
No one wants unpleasant experiences. Losing a home, business or worse of all a loved one is a deeply traumatic experience that takes its toll on our emotional health and nervous system. Facing physical danger or being almost injured or killed or raped has the same effect.
Facing physical danger and significant loss are our greatest life challenges.
Common emotions would in such situations would be:
1. Fear of danger
2. Pain, injustice and anger of loss
3. Weakness, helplessness and feeling overwhelmed with the idea of having to rebuild our lives.
4. Depression because we cannot recreate what we want – or because everything is meaningless fro us now.
5. Guilt or shame that we were unable to save someone
6. Feelings of unworthiness because of our situation
7. Feelings of being discriminated against or punished by God.8. «Survivor guilt» – because we are alive and or okay and the others are not.
How can we be happy when we are faced with such events?
It is especially important to deal with such trauma and stress as immediately as possible so that the fear, anger and other negative feelings do not implant themselves deeply in our subconscious making them even more difficult to dissolve.
We can create peace and happiness in two ways:
1. By creating the external reality we need in order to feel that way.
2. By learning to feel secure, worthy, peaceful and happy even when we cannot have the external environment we prefer. We transform our attachment to specific external factors into preferences. We do everything we can to create and maintain the relationships, home, job and physical environment we need to feel secure and happy, but we also have contact with an inner strength and power that allows us to be okay even when these are in danger or lost.
It may seem inconceivable that we could feel okay even when we have lost our home, job or a loved one. It is natural and understandable to react against such an idea. But the reality is the following:
1. Life is temporary and all that we have and relate to is temporary. Danger and loss are a basic part of our lives. We will all loose everything and everyone at some point. Either because they gradually leave our lives or cease to exist or because we leave or cease to exist as physical beings. There was a time when we did not have most of what we have now and our lives were not miserable. And there will be a time when we will not have what we have now.
2. We all have tremendous strength, power, resilience and resourcefulness. History proves that we humans can overcome any pain, horror or catastrophe. We have all had the experience that we felt that we would never be able to deal with or overcome a feared event. And then when what we feared actually happened, we eventually dealt with it and moved with our lives. This has been the experience of humans for many thousands of years facing many millions of catastrophic events – natural and man made.
Act rather than worry
The first step to recreating happiness is to make all the necessary physical efforts to rebuild our lives. We need to be practical and step by step, day by day take the actions necessary to create the reality we desire. Many millions have done so in the past and we too can do so today.
It is natural to feel pain, fear, injustice, guilt, weakness and anger. It is natural to grieve and feel overwhelmed and depressed. It is also natural for all those feelings to pass and they will without doubt some day. That moment can be in some years, in some months, days, hours or now. That is our choice. At some moment we will let go of our pain, fear and loss and move one. If it does not seem appropriate at this time to let go of painful or angry emotions, then accept that and wait until you feel that it is appropriate. At some point it will be. That is a personal choice.
But letting go of painful emotions will allow us to direct our energy more efficiently towards the process of rebuilding. Subsequently the act of doing something about our situation will help us feel much better. They go together – doing what we can and letting go of the past. At some point it will dissolve – why not now?
Having in mind the following positive beliefs and perceptions will help us overcome the above mentioned negative feelings:
1. Life is temporary and all is in a process of change. Birth, growth, decay and death are all natural stages for humans, animals, plants, relationships, buildings, machines, professions, jobs, organisations, nations and even the planet and the solar system. All is in a process of change and has a beginning and an end.
2. I do have the power to overcome this and recreate my life. I am strong, powerful, capable, resilient, and resourceful and can recreate my life.
3. I did the best I could during this event. If I could have done better, I would have. I accept and love myself as I am.
4. There is some reason why this has happened – I may not understand it. But I believe that it plays some role in our personal and social evolutionary process.
5. I can gain something from this and become and a stronger and better person. This is an opportunity to find resources, values and strength within me that I did not know was there and would not have know was there if I was not being tested in this way.
6. Life gives us all at each moment exactly what we need in order to continue to grow and manifest ever more beautiful, powerful and harmonious aspects of our inner self.
7. We are souls in a process of evolution and we are given the lessons we need and have the inner power to deal with. We are never given more that we can handle.
8. There is no death, but simply the departure of the soul from the physical body. All of the souls who have left still exist and continue their evolutionary process on other levels. They perhaps are the lucky ones. We are still in our bodies and need to make an effort to solve these problems of physical existence.
9. This is in no way a punishment – but rather and opportunity for a new start and growth.
10. Each person’s destiny is personal, unique and wise. I need not feel guilty because I am okay nor feel injustice because others are in a better situation.
Share this with someone who might benefit from it.
Be well
~~~~~ .. ~~~~~
