Trauma Informs

Trauma informs so much of how we show up in the world. And if we aren’t trauma informed, if we haven’t been able to integrate our various traumas, then we tend to show up in the world in a way that reinforces the survival strategies we’ve picked up along the way:

Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn.

When we are acting from our survivor brain, we have limited capacity. We aren’t capable of seeing all the options or reacting logically. Most likely, we aren’t even in our bodies.

There’s a lot that’s happening in the world that we can understand as illogical. Yet it’s being executed with confidence and bravado and disregard — understand that this too, can be evidence of a trauma response. To see the facts of a situation and to choose an action that’s contrary to those facts (IE: opening up schools during a global pandemic in areas hit hard by the virus) is a manifestation of the “Fight” response.  Understand that disengaging with the facts of a situation, and feigning ignorance, is a manifestation of the “Flight” response. Understand that being informed that things could get worse, and choosing to do nothing is a manifestation of the “Freeze” response. Understand that deferring to authoritarian impulses from those in charge is a manifestation of the “Fawn” response.

These are survival strategies that worked for us at some point in time - but the future demands reseting our expectations.

We need trauma informed leadership. We need to become trauma informed so that we aren’t reenacting our trauma on each other. So that we are able to lead from an embodied place and with mindfulness around nervous system regulation. So that we are able to resource ourselves, and tend to our own trauma, BEFORE attempting to show up for a collective trauma.

Normalize Trauma Informed Leadership

A lot of the people in charge are trying to “fight or flight” with a virus.

Normalize the expectation that anyone tasked with leading us through a collective trauma be capable of navigating trauma skillfully.