Are You Ready to Start Your Season of Change?
Summer wanes first in the north. The switch flips subtly. If you observe closely enough, you’ll find it in the frond of the fern. Of all the plants that blanket the floors of our forests and fields, the fern is the first to shed its vibrant green — for a shade of dull gold.
I feel a tinge of sadness each August when I spy the faded fern because our already short summer has begun its turn. But I also swell with anticipation of the vast change about to sweep the landscape. The season of decay is also the season of color. The maples flip first to orange and red. The birch and aspen follow with their puffs of yellow. The air turns crisp, filled with the haunting honks of geese flinging themselves like arrows southward. It’s the season of preparation.
Feeling Stuck As the World Around Us Changes
For those living in the shadow of trauma, the changing of seasons can be difficult to digest. Trauma’s tentacles reach far and deep. The world around us appears to move with rapid fire, the changing seasons denote this, while we feel frozen in place. It frustrates. It irritates. Yet we continue to feel an overwhelming sense of numbness.
We desperately yearn to return to normalcy yet have no idea how to get there. It seems a wall too high to climb or a gorge too wide to leap.
The First Step? Understanding Your Trauma
As I’ve moved through my journey of trauma, at my own pace, I’ve come to realize that this seemingly unending season of post-trauma occurs when we don’t yet understand our trauma. Surely we recognize that it exists. We know that something inside us is off. But we haven’t taken the necessary action of understanding what the trauma is doing to us, how the dots connect to other possible traumas, how our upbringing affects how we react to our trauma, and how that trauma is affecting our relationships with others. All of these combined can easily trigger despair and contribute to our feeling of being stuck.
Why Being Honest With Ourselves Is So Important
To understand, we first must be honest with ourselves. We can’t will the effects of trauma to disappear. We can’t be “better” than it. We can’t ignore it either. Instead, we have to admit its power. We have to be willing to confront it. We have to commit to allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. Doing so allows us to peel back the layers, confront the gunk, and open ourselves to admit some harsh realities and believing that we deserve healing.
When we can do this, usually with the help of a mental health professional, we can start to feel movement. The wall begins to shrink. The chasm begins to narrow. We start to unthaw, we begin to move, and the world around us decelerates.
There was a time during my journey where I thought that I would never be able to genuinely smile or laugh again. If you feel stuck or numb following a trauma, know that there is a way through it, even if currently you feel immovable. You could be standing at the precipice of an amazing, colorful change. Yes, it takes some work, but the reward is a return to feeling forward. And that can be the best feeling in the world.
If you haven’t I invite you to check out my “A Stone’s Throw” podcast, where I interview others who either have or are currently walking their own journeys through traumatic events. You can check it out here: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ebling
