In a too much, too fast, too soon world
slow, still, ease.
In a hard, sharp, brutal world
soft, gentle, safe.
In a loud, harsh, cruel world,
quiet, tender, sweet.
I have heard trauma described as anything that is “too much, too fast, too soon”.
This is not a comprehensive definition, but what I appreciate about it is that it opens its arms wide to all of humanity and wraps us in a unifying embrace. It amplifies the often-unspoken intimacy between us. An accident. An illness. A pandemic. A heartbreak. A death. An assault. A violation. A violence. A war. A fire. A lineage that stretches back to the beginning of becoming that has faced all of those things and more, many times over. We can all find something that came at us too much, too fast, too soon. In the onslaught of the mechanization and objectification of our Earth and all of Earth's blooming bodies as us and around us, it might be said that heavily subsidized, exploitatively dependent industrialized modernity itself is the trauma of too much, too fast, too soon.
As I unfold that concept and spread it out, as I reflect on how this has shown up in my life, I feel into the ways trauma is anything that:
overwhelms our capacity to respond in a way where we are in choice, embodied, and empowered
overrides our self trust, our inner voice, by suppressing our ability to listen deeply to what's true for us, and then act in alignment with ourselves and our values
floods us with stimulus at a rate that isn't possible to even make sense of, let alone digest and integrate
pushes us into an edge zone where we can only respond reactively, defensively, and destructively (including to ourselves)
restricts communication, expression, and processing opportunities to recognize harm and repair wounds
severs us from autonomy over our own body and our ability to execute our free will
exceeds our ability to even understand what's happening and to remain in our sovereignty – especially when we are young and don't have the physical/emotional/developmental capabilities to navigate the kind of experiences that children should be protected from
What I am exploring in my life now is how to move at a pace that is supremely generous and divinely spacious. Slow, soft, still. Exactly the opposite conditions from which my (and collective) trauma was (is) borne. And as I do, pleasure arrives. I am dialing down the tempo. I am letting things breathe. I am stretching the space between stimulus and response.
We don't have to rush this.
What if we give this the time it takes to reveal itself on its own terms?
What if we treat truth with its own sentience, and allow it to surface when it's ready, but for now, what if we are meant to be in the unfolding exploration?
What if we remember that trust is built in a dozen small moments, not grand, sweeping gestures?
What if urgency is the distraction? What if scarcity is the manipulation?
The activated nervous system is designed around fear-based defense mechanisms. Our ability to think clearly is biologically impaired so that we can remain vigilant and reactive. It is not a generative experience. It is a conservative one. The world caves in, threats grow, trust weakens, perspective becomes myopic. Self-obsession for the sake of survival becomes primary.
Our nervous system governs our relationship to reality itself. If a nervous system is on overdrive, the world becomes a terrifying place full of danger and despair.
I think about how this dominant world order functions on nervous-system overdrive. Pushing the limits, exceeding the boundaries, exhausting the resources, perpetuating the pain, replicating the trauma, chasing the intoxicants, devouring the stimulants... I didn't realize that in the most subtle ways that the level of devastation in my nervous system was itself creating conditions of constant re-traumatization. I walked repeatedly into traumatizing relationships and experiences in brutal paradox out of desperation. My nervous system was a bunch of loose boards nailed together hastily to build some kind of functional scaffolding to meet the demands of this too much, too fast, too soon world, and it left me irritable, reckless, compulsive, disassociated, exhausted, hypervigilant, depressed, emotionally isolated. My journey through trauma recovery has invited me to completely dissolve this original operating system and build a new one entirely. I didn't know such a thing was possible until I spent two years walking this excruciating and exquisite path of slowly, methodically dismantling what I'd built without entirely falling apart, doing so with many buffers, having the resources available to replace the brittle decay with formidable integrity.
What does a world look like when the vast majority of humanity is struggling through our days with devastated, unregulated nervous systems? I think it is what we see all around us. Mass shootings, militarized police, accelerating fascism, raging insecurity, narcissistic celebritization, live-for-today materialism...
I see the way we are unintentionally traumatizing ourselves and each other when in our deepest hearts we actually seek so immensely, so achingly, to love. I currently work for an organization that is pressing at the very edges of what is possible in transforming our relationship to land and housing. It stands in technicolor contrast to one of the most hostile inventions of white supremacy: housing as a commodity. The organization is plagued with trauma, threatening to collapse from the inside out. And the tragedy is: the trauma spiraling within the organization is the product of internalizing and reproducing the very trauma they're seeking to transmute without -- exhausted by burnout, pushed into nervous system intensity, fighting each other as an outlet for all that they're holding. Fear looms large: fear of making mistakes, fear of patience, fear of experimentation, fear of slow and deep change, fear of anger, fear of big feelings... and all of those things are exactly what they need to counteract these systems of violence.
We cannot measure our worth against the system we're seeking to dismantle. We must find new ways to see ourselves, to meet ourselves, to free ourselves.
At the same time, in the face of exacerbating brutality, the calls and the cries for swift collective action grow understandably louder. And it's true. The times are urgent, catalytic transformation is needed. A coming together, a coherence, a remembrance into unified consciousness and organismic intelligence is needed. Or we may end up obliterated.
And yet, how do we build differently if we don't feel differently? When we don't have a clear sense of our loving inner "no", we might build walls and wage wars instead. When we don't have healthy resources of protection, we might cling to toxic substitutes like cops and nuclear missiles. When we don't have generative conflict, we might hide behind avatars of despotic patriarchs, with their own decimated nervous systems, performing control and security.
We live in systems too harsh for our tenderness, too fast for our gentleness. We are tripping and crashing into each other to try to survive a sense of madness because we have lost ourselves inside the insanity. We can fuel trauma by bracing against our suffering, or we can cultivate the conditions for ourselves and each other to have the space and time for alternative ways of being to blossom. We are sensitive, vulnerable, gentle beings. Our nervous systems thrive in the presence of soft, slow, still... the path to pleasure... the pleasurable liberation.
Slow time. Deep time. Timeless time. Meeting myself and all beings with a warm gaze and an undefended heart, made possible through spaciousness, grace, curiosity, humility, awe, wonder.
What worlds might we build this way?
my best self comes alive in the presence of ease.
ease arrives in the deep breath of safety.
safety allows my spirit to soften through trust.
softness enables my heart to dismantle its defenses.
my undefended heart learns the subtle energy shifts of comfort.
comfort supports my body to heal and release lifetimes of tension.
release invites wellness and pleasure to flow through my being.
pleasure reminds me of a permeating presence of love for this body that feels so deeply.
fully feeling returns me to my truth over and over again so I can access a deep well of joy.
joy guides me to the abundance that blooms through enoughness.
enoughness emerges in the embrace of my wholeness.
enduring wholeness fuels creation as an outpouring of love.
my love made manifest is my gift.
my gift expands in its fullness when it is received by your presence and reciprocated through a culture of mutuality and interdependence.
mutuality nurtures care.
care cultivates ease.
my best self comes alive in the presence of ease.
With spacious, slow, timeless love and abundant gratitude beaming out to you,
Rachel
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I've been meaning to get here to finish the full read of this after seeing the snippet posted online earlier this week. The timing of this sharing coming on the heals of so much interaction with a human I have had a relationship with for so many years where we continue to perpetuate trauma toward one another, a cycle we both actively seeking a way out of, but that seems so hard and the journey so long sometimes.
I was reminded while reading this of all the slow things that have held me since I was a child, and now as an adult still learning.
Laying in the grass with my brothers finding shapes in the clouds. My mothers family stopping their bickering while my grandfather read his traditional christmas story, never a dry eye in the room after. Following my son, slowly, through the rosegarden as he learned to walk. Sitting on my surfboard at sunset as the waves passed, because being was just enough. Being free enough to Dance. The volunteering of ones time. Listening without interuption to a friend, a coworker, a child, a stranger. Holding their gaze. Curiosity.
This is all so poignant, so relevant.
Thank you for what you share. Thank you for setting the pace.
So beautiful and such needed words today, dear friend. <3