It’s taken me a while to write this next installment of this newsletter–in part, because of my topsy turvy summer schedule, and in part I’ve been deeply mulling over this next topic, and it’s taken me a while to distill my thoughts. Thanks for being patient!
If you’re new around here, or if you’re wanting a refresher on where we’ve been, you might enjoy (re)reading the first two issues I’ve shared introducing the topic of post-traumatic growth. You can find those here and here.
You probably don’t need me to tell you that trauma is not the most cheerful topic in the world. It can, however, catalyze a very positive process of inner transformation. This phenomenon is well-documented. This silver lining that can bloom in the aftermath of trauma is known as post traumatic growth.
Post traumatic growth (PTG) is not uncommon. What I think is particularly interesting about it is that you don’t need to be fully healed (whatever that means) to experience it. A positive inner transformation is possible even if we’re still struggling or meeting the criteria for PTSD.
No matter where we are on our healing journey, it’s possible to experience growth in how we see ourselves, what we value, and how we connect to the world.
This transformation can look very different for each of us. We may gain a completely new outlook on life; some of us come to discover new depths of our personal strength; some of us adopt new, healthy habits; some of us find ourselves with a new life mission.
Though growth can come in many different forms, researchers have identified five common categories that PTG tends to occur in:
Perception of self
Relationship with others
Philosophy on life
Spiritual-existential changes
New possibilities (new life path, behaviors, etc.)
You do not have to experience growth in all 5 domains in order to experience post-traumatic growth. Growth in just one domain absolutely “counts!”
I’ll write about each of these categories separately over the next couple months. But for now, I want to skip ahead and get to the good stuff…
How can we set ourselves on the path to post-traumatic growth?
That’s the million dollar question. And thankfully, research sheds light on some answers.
In order to experience PTG, we must create new meaning out of our experiences. This doesn’t mean that we need to be grateful for our experiences of adversity, or think that they’re “a good thing.” We don’t need to deny our distress or wear rose tinted glasses.
It does, however, require that we experience something new and meaningful in addition to what still may feel challenging. We need to be able to create new meaning from our old struggles and stories so that we can come to view ourselves, our relationships, our sense of purpose, or our values in a positive new light. The key to all of this is a process known as reflective rumination.
If you’ve ever found your mind endlessly churning over that stupid thing you said at work the other day, or beating yourself up over that time you had toilet paper hanging from your sneaker back in junior high, then you’ve experienced brooding rumination, reflective rumination’s annoying cousin. Brooding rumination is not productive. It’s where we get caught in the vortex of self flagellation and go round and round, thinking about ourselves negatively in a cycle of distress.
We’ve all been there.
Reflective rumination, on the other hand, happens when we take a look at our problems and work to find productive solutions. It’s a type of thinking process where we reflect on our experiences, especially difficult ones, with the intention of making sense of them, learning from them, and integrating them into our understanding of ourselves and the world. We turn toward what’s hard and engage with it until new insight emerges that supports us moving forward.
Turns out, reflective rumination is a critical mechanism through which we achieve post-traumatic growth. By intentionally engaging with our stories in a reflective and constructive manner, we can foster positive changes and personal development in the aftermath of adversity.
Easy right?!
Not exactly. In order a ruminate productively, we need to be able to sit with our stories without becoming so overwhelmed that we dissociate or shut-down. This requires us to remain present—keeping in contact with our internal and external present-moment experiences and tolerating what shows up, even when it’s difficult. This can be really hard.
That’s where body-based modalities like Somatic Experiencing and Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) come into play. Both modalities support our ability to stay present with our embodied experience, which in turn can help us stay present with ourselves long enough to engage in reflective rumination.
Let’s focus specifically on TCTSY for a moment:
Dissociation, while not an inherently bad thing (it’s an amazing tool to have in our arsenal at times), is an obstacle to reflective rumination. It involves disconnecting from our bodies so we’re less aware of our internal sensations, like our emotions, pain-signals, or the feelings that tell us when we’re hungry or thirsty.
Dissociation takes us out of the present moment. It also coincides with inhibited activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the most evolutionarily advanced part of the brain that helps us think critically and self-reflect. We can’t do reflective rumination without the prefrontal cortex!
TCTSY was specifically designed for those of us who have experienced complex or developmental (childhood) trauma—in other words, those of us who tend to have a propensity for disconnecting from our bodies when we experience stress or other triggers.
When we do TCTSY, we practice interoception, which you might think of as the opposite of dissociation. Interoception involves internally sensing ourselves, which in turn strengthens our capacity to stay present with our bodies. This is necessary to keep our prefrontal cortex online, which is necessary for reflective rumination, which in turn is necessary for… drum roll please… post traumatic growth!
(There are actually a whole lot of other reasons TCTSY may support PTG, but I’ll save those for another day.)
Now, of course the trajectory from A to Z–from embodied presence to post traumatic growth–is easier said than done. However, if you find yourself called to go on the Hero’s Journey of growth and transformation, it’s helpful to know what tools you’ll need in your kit as you set off on your path.
And for many, many reasons, your own body is the most important of them all.
You truly can’t go anywhere without it.
A song I’ve had on repeat recently (originally by Townes Van Zandt):
Registration now open for Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) in Greenfield, MA:
❂ Thursdays at 10:30 am (6 week series begins 9/12)
❂ Tuesdays at 4:30 pm (6 week series begins 9/17)
To live is to fly
Low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes.
-Townes Van Zandt