Dealing with the low level but incessant agitation of Ukraine for even a few days has reminded me of this: Traumatised people and countries can be a real pain in the arse. Ukraine, I love you, but like me and half of the world, you\u2019re disconnected, sick and often act like a total dick. Here\u2019s the bit that\u2019s going to upset some: And that\u2019s not OK.<\/p>\n
I write this at an airport where for two hours I\u2019ve been drowning in a throbbing sea of dis-ease, as what could be relatively minor hassles are magnified by already powerless bodyminds. Staff are rude. People are stressed. Nobody gives a fuck about anyone else.<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t want to sound like I don\u2019t have compassion (the new crime!), but it\u2019s worth knowing that trauma is basically antisocial. Simply put, people with trauma often have a kind of brain damage which makes them more angry, suspicious, defensive, rude, cold, selfish and a bunch of other things that really don\u2019t make for living easily with other humans.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to believe that it\u2019s time to get educated and take responsibility for this, rather than using it as another excuse to be disempowered. The fact that I have a certain background is no longer a good enough reason for me to not listen to colleagues, snap at my wife or overreact at the slightest perceived threat. My healing is necessary, the right thing to do, and my responsibility. Of course, it\u2019s kind to have patience for those not yet on the journey … but that\u2019s another thing that goes out the window with trauma. Shit! See what a bind it is?<\/p>\n
Trauma can also pop up in a thousand ways that are less obvious. Yesterday, at my workshop, for example, people chose to work longer and harder than was wise, because of scarcity issues (\u201cnot enough trainer\u201d is the joke I make, having experienced a kind of clinging many times in various traumatised countries). Having said that, the historical food scarcity at the root of many of the Ukraine\u2019s issues, means that various kind mamas fed me … though I didn\u2019t have that much say in it… \ud83d\ude42 When people told me they were \u201cfine\u201d, I said that they look exhausted. I made a joke that \u201cfine\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cnot dead yet,\u201d which everyone laughed at in recognition. In most traumatised places, people push themselves (and often others) beyond what is kind. I try and watch this in myself these days, as a trainer, and laugh at my inner \u201cslave driver\u201d. Humour is a great way to flag trauma bullshit. Yup, that\u2019s a useful way to think about symptoms sometimes: understandable, but silly, and not OK. That is, bullshit<\/em>.<\/p>\n When I taught leadership yesterday, the group were smart and easily took to most of what I was doing. However, when it came to declaring a small leadership project that served others, there was huge resistance. For me, this is a pretty obvious take on leadership: The more effective, compelling leaders have a vision that includes benefit to others; they serve more than themselves (or why would anyone follow?). Yet, in a number of traumatised countries, I\u2019ve found that many intelligent, nice people just can\u2019t get this.<\/p>\n Trauma leads people to feel like their basic needs are not being met when they are (it was a relatively affluent group yesterday and Odessa is pretty safe). They get stuck in emergency, \u201cme first\u201d mode. There is actually a war happening in another part of the Ukraine, to be fair, but people were like this before that.<\/p>\n When fight-flight is a default state, it causes a retreat to lower levels of development, where people\u2019s only concern becomes taking care of \u201cme and mine\u201d. This makes extending care to strangers and the environment unthinkable.<\/p>\n Traumatised people aren\u2019t arseholes, but they behave selfishly more often, as they feel like that\u2019s the only way to survive. Survival mode can lead to loving the total shit out of immediate family and close friends … but even this can have a controlling quality. This is the essence of behaviour for those of us that feel<\/em> under threat \u2013 whatever the reality. Non-traumatised people, imagine this: going about your life with an empty stomach and a gun pressed uncomfortably to your head, in a world of prowling tigers. Welcome to Trauma Life, mother fuckers.<\/p>\n Dealing with trauma bullshit daily is frankly exhausting, and this creates a vicious circle, where nobody has the energy to deal with each other\u2019s crap. People get more irate and closed down, which winds everyone up more. Eventually, this becomes so culturally normal that it isn\u2019t questioned; healthy, connected ways of operating are considered weak or foolish.<\/p>\n To show what I\u2019m talking about, below are some comments paraphrased from Russian, Ukranian and Israeli friends over the years (along with the aspects of life affected).<\/p>\n \u201cIf you let your guard down you\u2019re a sucker\u201d. \u201cLife is hard. This is normal\u201d (thinking)<\/p>\n \u201cNobody cares about you. You don\u2019t matter. Why would the government bother to make this easy for you?\u201d (perception and politics)<\/p>\n \u201cOf course we know everything here. Admitting we don\u2019t make us afraid.\u201d (learning)<\/p>\n \u201cOf course it isn\u2019t safe.\u201d (emotions)<\/p>\n \u201cThat guy isn\u2019t even aware that his blaring music is bothering you\u201d (boundaries)<\/p>\n \u201cPeople drink a lot<\/em> here.\u201d (addiction and self-medicating)<\/p>\n \u201cBe careful of the other girls at your wedding stealing your man!\u201d (trust)<\/p>\n Huge love to all who have been through it, and all the cultures that have that have also been really good to me. As well as compassion, there\u2019s a time and a place for tough love. Enough trauma bullshit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dealing with the low level but incessant agitation of Ukraine for even a few days has reminded me of this: Traumatised people and countries can be a real pain in the arse. Ukraine, I love you, but like me and half of the world, you\u2019re disconnected, sick and often act like a total dick. Here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/embodimentunlimited.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}