Triggers and Traumas

 Triggers and Traumas:

जगी सर्व सुखी असा कोण आहे? विचारी मना तू चि शोधून पाहे..

This couplet is a well known one out of a series of verses written by Samarth Ramdas addressed to the mind. These are known as Manache Shlok. In this couplet Samarth is giving a task to the thinking mind : Go find a person in the world who is totally happy. 

This is an enquiry assigned to the mind. The key is: totally happy. What does that mean? One who is free of any discontent, disturbance, problems, pain, discomfort, suffering, sadness or sorrow. Always feeling happy. 

The answer is obvious in the question. Where there is human life, there is struggle, there are problems, there are disappointments, failures, losses, grief, disease, pain, aging, anxieties and worries. No life can dodge such things. 

And yet every mind dreams of the utopian life where it will not have to endure any of this. If its own dream is shattered it begins to dream of a perfect world for others. Especially for its offspring and loved ones. 

While the mind is engulfed in its utopian fantasy, it reacts to the slightest situations that cause discomfort. A missed meal, a hold in traffic, a fall down the stairs, a walk in the heat, a lost wallet, a sprained ankle. And reactions are bigger and longer lasting with more serious things like a lost job, a major traffic accident, broken bones, assault from a mob, cheating by a friend or family member. And then those that leave nearly permanent scars like desertion by a parent, loss of one’s child or sexual or physical abuse. The event could be a one time thing. Yet it leaves imprints on the mind. A memory. These imprints are deeper when they happen to younger minds.

For most period these imprints remain tucked inside, safely, like a a fierce dog inside a cage. Until something unlocks and releases the animal without a warning. It will shake up unsuspecting passersby as well as the owner of the dog. Neither will completely understand what happened in that moment. 

This is how triggers and traumas work. They get unleashed at odd times and unnerve those who witness the unscripted moments. In a society that is largely flawed yet idolizes decorum and etiquette, these are ugly blotches and bring shame and ridicule. But reality is that moments when we put on our best behaviors teach us nothing. It is the imperfect ones that are most important in human evolution.

The usual tendency is to put a blanket over such random missteps or eruptions. Either we cover up for our own mistakes or others who love us do that on our behalf. It may help us get through life to a large extent. But it still becomes a disservice to ourselves. 

The unpleasant memories that remain locked away in our brains, when they make an unscheduled appearance, they are seeking to be recognized, acknowledged, processed and set free for good. They are tired of being suffocated without a proper burial. A human mind is denied healing as long as these suppressed memories are not given a legitimate channel to vent.

Human civilization marches through the corridors of time transferring trauma from one generation to the next, though not usually consciously or deliberately. If we try to understand our parents or grandparents, we will find that they endured much different childhoods and life experiences than we did. On one hand, they dreamed of a better future for us. What they perceived as lacking in their lives, they tried hard to give us. Yet they never had a chance to process their own traumas. Unfortunately those traumas spilled on to us, often without our parents realizing fully its impact on our lives. We in turn tried to do better for our kids but made the same mistake of not dealing with our traumas. So now the kids got better lives in many ways from the lessons we learned yet bore the brunt of our unhealed wounds. These are almost universal truths.

At some point this domino effect needs to stop. And for that each person needs to gather courage and confront those uncomfortable memories that we refused to revisit for a long time because we didn’t want to experience the pain all over again. If only we can understand that the pain is constantly swimming below the surface like a hungry shark and admit to ourselves that it periodically raises its jaws above the waters and tears off some flesh out of someone, then we may  allow it a controlled audience and set it free once and for all. Traumas that are allowed to come into consciousness and understood in better light when we have reached greater maturity and at that point have acquired more compassion to understand the perpetrators of the trauma and their own life situations, can be transformed into learning lessons capable of bringing about a positive change in our behavior. Such processed traumas are like diffused time bombs that can no longer explode. 

High standards of behavior enforced on eldest children often makes them intolerant of deviant behaviors from others. When they are given insights into why they react negatively to certain behaviors, they can tone down those reactions. Reasoning that settles into understanding is often the best therapy to modify behaviors. Best behaviors though sought after by all, only bring a sense of feel good and perhaps gratitude. But bad behaviors provoke thinking and provide incentive for learning and reform. Once we understand this, we will embrace the toughest moments in our lives, each day, with the same warmth as the good moments. Both happy memories and not so happy memories will begin to bring a smile on our face. We may still keep making mistakes, but instead of shoving them under the rug, we will put them on the table and solve the jigsaw puzzle that they hold. 

To get cross with someone may be normal for the human mind. But with that let us always remember that forgiveness is also an option in the menu. When staying upset begins to have a shorter half life, and outbursts become less frequent and less intense, that will be a sure sign of our evolution.