More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
September 9 - September 10, 2025
Individuals with poorly modulated autonomic nervous systems are easily thrown off balance, both mentally and physically.
One of the clearest lessons from contemporary neuroscience is that our sense of ourselves is anchored in a vital connection with our bodies.
Traumatized people need to learn that they can tolerate their sensations, befriend their inner experiences, and cultivate new action patterns.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. . . . Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. —Rumi
They survive by denying, ignoring, and splitting off large chunks of reality: They forget the abuse; they suppress their rage or despair; they numb their physical sensations. If you were abused as a child, you are likely to have a childlike part living inside you that is frozen in time, still holding fast to this kind of self-loathing and denial.
Every major school of psychology recognizes that people have subpersonalities and gives them different names.2 In 1890 William James wrote: “[I]t must be admitted that . . . the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which coexist, but mutually ignore each other, and share the objects of knowledge between them.”3 Carl Jung wrote: “The psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body does,”
As Schwartz states: “If one accepts the basic idea that people have an innate drive toward nurturing their own health, this implies that, when people have chronic problems, something gets in the way of accessing inner resources. Recognizing this, the role of therapists is to collaborate rather than to teach, confront, or fill holes in your psyche.”
Gradually Joan started to realize that it is normal to simultaneously experience conflicting feelings or thoughts, which gave her more confidence to face the task ahead.
At the end of nine months, the IFS group showed measurable improvements in self-assessed joint pain, physical function, self-compassion, and overall pain relative to the education group. They also showed significant improvements in depression and self-efficacy.
In other words, what had changed most was the patients’ ability to live with their disease. In their conclusions, Shadick and Sowell emphasized IFS’s focus on self-compassion as a key factor.
It is one thing to process memories of trauma, but it is an entirely different matter to confront the inner void—the holes in the soul that result from not having been wanted, not having been seen, and not having been allowed to speak the truth.
A neuroimaging study has shown that when people hear a statement that mirrors their inner state, the right amygdala momentarily lights up, as if to underline the accuracy of the reflection.
Our relationships will suffer as well. The more early pain and deprivation we have experienced, the more likely we are to interpret other people’s actions as being directed against us and the less understanding we will be of their struggles, insecurities, and concerns. If we cannot appreciate the complexity of their lives, we may see anything they do as a confirmation that we are going to get hurt and disappointed.
In order to change, people need to become viscerally familiar with realities that directly contradict the static feelings of the frozen or panicked self of trauma, replacing them with sensations rooted in safety, mastery, delight, and connection.
“Traumatic stress is an illness of not being able to be fully alive in the present.”
The challenge in PTSD is to open the mind to new possibilities, so that the present is no longer interpreted as a continuous reliving of the past. Trance states, during which theta activity dominates, can help to loosen the conditioned connections between particular stimuli and responses, such as loud cracks signaling gunfire, a harbinger of death.
Approximately one-third to one-half of severely traumatized people develop substance abuse problems.
Our sense of agency, how much we feel in control, is defined by our relationship with our bodies and its rhythms: Our waking and sleeping and how we eat, sit, and walk define the contours of our days. In order to find our voice, we have to be in our bodies—able to breathe fully and able to access our inner sensations.
Since time immemorial human beings have used communal rituals to cope with their most powerful and terrifying feelings. Ancient Greek theater, the oldest of which we have written records, seems to have grown out of religious rites that involved dancing, singing, and reenacting mythical stories.
As Doerries later said: “Anyone who has come into contact with extreme pain, suffering or death has no trouble understanding Greek drama.
Collective movement and music create a larger context for our lives, a meaning beyond our individual fate.
Keeping Together in Time,4 written by the great historian William H. McNeill near the end of his career. This short book examines the historical role of dance and military drill in creating what McNeill calls “muscular bonding” and sheds a new light on the importance of theater, communal dance, and movement.
Traumatized people are terrified to feel deeply. They are afraid to experience their emotions, because emotions lead to loss of control.
the essence of trauma is feeling godforsaken, cut off from the human race.
Traumatized people are afraid of conflict. They fear losing control and ending up on the losing side once again.
Trauma is about trying to forget, hiding how scared, enraged, or helpless you are.
We were shocked to discover that, in scenes where someone was in physical danger, the students always sided with the aggressors. Because they could not tolerate any sign of weakness in themselves, they could not accept it in others. They showed nothing but contempt for potential victims, yelling things like, “Kill the bitch, she deserves it,” during a skit about dating violence.
Then she said, “Was it painful when the doctors stuck all those needles in you?” At that moment, I just started screaming. I tried to leave the room, but two of the other actors—really big guys—held me down. They finally got me to sit in a chair, and I was trembling and shaking. Then Tina said, “You’re your mother and you’re going to do this speech. You’re your mother and you’re giving birth to yourself. And you’re telling yourself that you’re going to make it. You’re not going to die. You must convince yourself. You must convince that little newborn that you’re not going to die.”
The genius of Tina was in having me become my mother telling me I’d be okay. It was almost like going back and changing the story. Being reassured that someday I would feel safe enough to express my pain made it a precious part of my life. That night I had the first orgasm I’d ever had in the presence of another person. And I know it’s because I released something—some tension in my body—that allowed me to be more in the world.
We are on the verge of becoming a trauma-conscious society.
Discussions of PTSD still tend to focus on recently returned soldiers, victims of terrorist bombings, or survivors of terrible accidents. But trauma remains a much larger public health issue, arguably the greatest threat to our national well-being. Since 2001 far more Americans have died at the hands of their partners or other family members than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. American women are twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as breast cancer. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that firearms kill twice as many children as cancer does. All around Boston I see signs
...more
Trauma breeds further trauma; hurt people hurt other people.
My most profound experience with healing from collective trauma was witnessing the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was based on the central guiding principle of Ubuntu, a Xhosa word that denotes sharing what you have, as in “My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.” Ubuntu recognizes that true healing is impossible without recognition of our common humanity and our common destiny.
Yet institutions that deal with traumatized children and adults all too often bypass the emotional-engagement system that is the foundation of who we are and instead focus narrowly on correcting “faulty thinking” and on suppressing unpleasant emotions and troublesome behaviors.
Many psychiatrists today work in assembly-line offices where they see patients they hardly know for fifteen minutes and then dole out pills to relieve pain, anxiety, or depression.
Our increasing use of drugs to treat these conditions doesn’t address the real issues: What are these patients trying to cope with? What are their internal or external resources? How do they calm themselves down? Do they have caring relationships with their bodies, and what do they do to cultivate a physical sense of power, vitality, and relaxation? Do they have dynamic interactions with other people? Who really knows them, loves them, and cares about them? Whom can they count on when they’re scared, when their babies are ill, or when they are sick themselves? Are they members of a community,
...more
I like to believe that once our society truly focuses on the needs of children, all forms of social support for families—a policy that remains so controversial in this country—will gradually come to seem not only desirable but also doable.
In order to have a healthy society we must raise children who can safely play and learn.
More than anything else, being able to feel safe with other people defines mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.
Emotional intelligence starts with labeling your own feelings and attuning to the emotions of the people around you.
Trauma constantly confronts us with our fragility and with man’s inhumanity to man but also with our extraordinary resilience.
