Show me your elephant

Unresolved trauma is like an elephant. A big, clunky, loud creature that moves into your house and won’t go away. Every elephant is different, but the thing about elephants is that their presence, try as you might, is really hard to ignore. Elephants need a lot of time, care, and attention. You might have never planned to be an elephant owner; that was not part of your vision for your life—yet here you are: the reluctant owner of an elephant.

There are many reasons to avoid being around an elephant. Elephants are inconvenient, loud, and huge. Understandably, you may try to ignore the elephant, or tell yourself you don’t have time to deal with an elephant. Perhaps the elephant will give up and go away on its own. The more you avoid your elephant the needier it becomes—at some point it becomes so belligerent that you can no longer ignore it.

You might be excused for fearing an elephant if the only time you interact with it is when it’s misbehaving. It’s not the elephant’s fault that it’s a big animal (an average African elephant can weigh 7 tons). It’s not the elephant’s fault that it needs a lot of food (Did you know an average adult elephant can eat 300lbs of food in a day?). All the elephant knows is that it’s here and it has needs.

Elephants are pack animals. They are kind, intelligent, compassionate, and communal. Traumatized parts of our selves can hold beauty and wisdom. Traumatized parts need compassion and community to heal and be able to share their innate wisdom.

We all have our own elephants and even though some of our elephants are bigger or more belligerent than others, all our elephants deserve to be cared for. The goal behind good trauma treatment should not be to exile our elephants but rather to learn how to befriend them and care for them.

Activity suggestion:

Take some time to create your own elephant. This can be a drawing, a coloring book page, a collage or some other visual representation. Decide on your elephant’s color, size, and name. Add any features or accessories you think are important for your elephant to have. Carry a picture of your elephant with you as a gentle reminder to attend to yourself for as long as you need to.

As always, if you would like some support learning how to best care for your elephant, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

As we approach the world reopening I can’t help but reflect on the past year and a half. It feels as though we’re all re-emerging after a very long and very weird hibernation; like waking up from a collective bad dream. As we adjust to this new world, slowly, tentatively shedding our masks, seeing people, returning to our offices and sharing space again there is room to celebrate and there is also room to grieve. You may also find yourself, like many others, struggling with compassion fatigue and burnout. In more extreme cases, you may encounter your own trauma or, if you are in a helping profession, vicarious trauma.

Let’s do some term definitions before we dive in.

• Compassion fatigue: the psychic strain experienced when holding other people’s pain repeatedly or for an extended period of time. Symptoms can include exhaustion, disrupted sleep, irritability, emotional numbing or disconnect, and existential dread. When left unattended, compassion fatigue can develop into vicarious trauma with symptoms similar to PTSD.

• Burnout: the feeling of mental, physical, and/or emotional exhaustion caused by overwork and stress. Symptoms can include increased distress, irritability, difficulty concentrating, procrastination, and lack of motivation.

Burnout can typically be address by reducing workload, taking a vacation, or taking a break to refresh and reflect. Compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma may require you to do some deeper work. Both have a major impact on our quality of life, happiness, and overall fulfillment. Long term caregivers, medical workers, social workers, and therapists are among those who are particularly prone to experiencing compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.

Now you may ask, why I am bringing this up now that the world is reopening? This is because as the world reopens and we shift out of actively dealing with a crisis a lot of us may find that we begin to feel the strain of the past year and a half more acutely and in different ways without the immediate crisis to distract us. As we all emerge, it’s a good time to mindfully notice, reflect, and recalibrate our boundaries, expectations, and energies.

I encourage you to start with a simple daily practice:

Take 10 minutes each morning over the next couple of weeks to tune in to your body. Start with 5 deep breaths, filling up all the way to your belly and exhaling slowly. Then, slowly scan your body for any tension, aches, pains, and strains. Allow yourself to move or stretch in any way that feels good to you. You may take a moment to massage any areas that feel particularly tight. Then, allow yourself a moment to ask the question: “What do I need right now?” Don’t overthink it. Just go with whatever show up first. It might be a drink of water, a snack, a hug, a snuggle with your pet. Allow yourself to meet this need.

For bonus points: allow yourself to become curious about how often we identify and immediately begin talking ourselves out of our needs. “I’ll have a rest after I do the laundry/finish this paper/clean the whole kitchen/finish this project for my boss.” Allow yourself these 10 minutes each morning to meet your own needs first, before anyone else’s.

For even more bonus points: try journaling about your experience over the course of several weeks or even months.

You can also check out the books below for more reading and information on these topics:

• Trauma Stewardship, by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky

• Burnout, by Emily Nagoski

• My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Manakem

I recommend completing this scale as a check in about every 6 months for a quick self-assessment: Professional Quality of Life Scale (PROQUOL)

As always, if you are struggling and would like professional support, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I’d love to hear from you!

What is Trauma?

You might be familiar with the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), typically portrayed in movies and TV shows through heavy use of blurry flashbacks and sudden outbursts. In the real world, trauma tends to show up in much more nuanced ways, though flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, irritability, and hypervigilance can certainly be part of the experience.

First, let’s define what I mean when I say trauma: there are what we call little “t” traumas and big “T” Traumas. Big “T” traumas are typically events that are somehow life threatening or physically harmful to you, your community, or your loved ones. Examples might include: sexual abuse, physical violence, or a really bad car accident. Little “t” traumas might include non-life threatening but equally disruptive events such as divorce, sudden job loss, immigration, or micro-aggressions. All of these events disrupt our sense of safety, belonging, and security in the world and in our connections with other people. These disruptions constitute trauma.

There is also a difference between a single-incident trauma, such as a car accident and complex or chronic trauma, such as an abusive relationship or community violence. All of these types of traumas can impact us in a variety of ways. Some traumas can lead to the development of PTSD or Acute Stress Disorder, which has the same symptoms as PTSD but only lasting up to one month. Some traumas may develop into other diagnoses such as Generalized Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Eating Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder, ADHD, Bipolar Disorders, Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is not to say that all these diagnoses automatically indicate a trauma history; rather it is to acknowledge the role of trauma in contributing to and exacerbating underlying conditions and altering our neurological wiring.

The reality is that the impact of a traumatic incident is often less about the incident itself, but rather about the ripple effects of trauma over time and across different life areas. It might be helpful to think of it like throwing a rock into a still pond. The initial ripple is small, but grows bigger as the kinetic energy flows across the pond. In a similar way, trauma may start as one specific incident and ripple out into relationships, work, food, education, body image, emotion regulation, etc.

As you might imagine, trauma treatment is complex and often challenging work. Treatment will depend on the type of trauma being explored. In my view, the best treatment involves a holistic approach that incorporates relationships, behaviors, self-exploration, and somatic awareness to help rebuild a sense of safety and connection. It takes time to develop trust so my advice is to be gentle with yourself and honor your needs in the process. And remember: I’m here to help!