Trauma vs. A Sustainable Mind

From domestic violence and childhood neglect to addiction, chronic fear, and intergenerational pain, trauma shows up in everyday life and often hides behind choices that look self-destructive. Someone returns to an abusive partner within hours of the police removing him.  Another person makes a life choice about career path because a 15 minute occurrence when they were 9.  Trauma can be shaping force in human behavior and long-term relationships.  What more can we do to limit its effects?

Sustainable values can help us to become more adequate beings.  We can improve our emotional resilience through the development of more enlightened and supportive communities.  Sustainable thinking and proper use of our time and resources will help us build practical tools that can help us, as a society, reduce the impact of trauma before it becomes a reality for an individual.  How can this be possible?  A community deeply involved with sustainable values can accomplish more than we can imagine.  

Transcript

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Why We Challenge The Status Quo

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, my name is Todd Francis. Welcome back to the It's Sustainability Time Podcast. The podcast where we do, in fact, challenge reality, challenge that people can tell us who we are by forcing us to work 50 hours, 50 weeks out of the year to support ourselves in such a unbearably prosperous land. It's not necessary. Challenge people who'd like to tell us who we are by offering us an education that is so unbearably limited, so lacking in many ways. Far beyond the ABCs, the one, two, threes, the two plus twos equals four.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

We challenge those who tell us that we should be happy with what it is that we have here. This whole society. We should be pleased.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

We should want small advances, work for them, and be pleased with what we get or do not get. We challenge these assumptions that were just plain, not savvy enough to get or just deserve, which is an advancing society. We want it a developing society, a more supportive society. We challenge those who tell us that we don't deserve better support from our community. All of us. A society that is more equipped to support ourselves.

Peer Support Work That Matters

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Someone who uses his own lived experience, has been certified to use their own lived experience to support other people with persisting mental health challenges. I've done many things in my life career-wise. I've worked in corporate America and finance. I've worked as a chief organizer for a major auction house in New York. I've worked overseas selling cars in the hills of Scotland. I've done a great many things, and I have to tell you that in all these years, my work as a peer support specialist is the most rewarding. It's the most challenging. But what I'm doing is meaningful. What I'm doing is meaningful as well. Love it. If you qualify to be a pure mental health specialist, look it up. It's a great thing to do. Even if you're not sure, you can do it.

A Client Returns To Abuse

SPEAKER_01 6:13

One of our female clients had been involved in an abusive relationship. The police had removed the man from the building. This guy had been warned that if he returned, he would be arrested. After they left the police, I spent about an hour and a half with this woman. She cried. She talked. She became more distraught and more upset as time passed, not less. Just escalating and escalating to a point where she was really quite disconcerned with everything but reattaching to her boyfriend, her abusive boyfriend. So she walks outside, crosses the street to a nearby park where he's sitting there with some of his friends. And she reconciles. Reconciles with the very man who just been removed from her apartment for being abusive within hours.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Sometimes actually now he won't return to the building.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

She will actually go outside across the street and sleep with him outside at night.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Because she cannot bear to be without him.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Many people who hear that story ask a simple question. Why? Why would someone do that? Why would someone knowingly return to suffering abuse from another person? And he doesn't have any money, he doesn't have he has nothing materially. He's homeless. What could he possibly have to offer her? So that's a fair question. But I think there's another question, a more important question, which is what happened to her long before that afternoon? You think you should think what happened to her at some point in her past or in her past,

The Past Behind Risky Choices

SPEAKER_01 10:12

that today she's making decisions that are not in her best interests. Human beings, you see, were shaped by experiences. Sometimes by one, sometimes by a single experience that's overwhelming. Sometimes it's a series of experiences that does the same. Sometimes it's hundreds of smaller ones. Negative ones, I'm referring to, who have my brought her to the point where she feels as though it's good for her to be with this person who is far from supportive to her. But she considers him to be. Was she abused as a child? Was she assaulted? Was she orphaned? Was she manipulated? Neglected?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Or is she carrying out continuing forward a family history of abuse? Trauma, prior trauma, it makes people, it helps to make people make these decisions.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

So that's either your own trauma or trauma that's been passed down from parents. One of the greatest advances in modern health care has been their growing understanding of trauma. It's no longer viewed as simply something that soldiers experience after war. We now recognize trauma in abused children, survivors or survivors of domestic violence, victims of assault. A first responder can experience trauma, people struggling with addiction, people living through long periods of neglect, people growing up surrounded by fear. And sometimes people whose lives just simply accumulated more hardship than their ability to cope could comfortably manage it.

Trauma As A Human Constant

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Let's say we all understand this. Building a society that takes this new knowledge and uses resources to inspire growth. The point is that trauma, to understand this, it's not the same as building a society that can take new knowledge and use resources to inspire growth. Trauma's a difficult thing for us to deal with, resources or not. Trauma, it's one of the permanent realities of the human world. So perhaps the question should no longer be, can we eliminate trauma? Perhaps the better question might be, can we educate our children? Can we make them more capable to support themselves or others when facing circumstances where trauma becomes a reality and must be faced down? Every society produces trauma, every single one. No government operates without policies and actions that cause it. No economic system does not support it. No religion does not passively sit by as it occurs. No philosophy can deal with it. No political party can care enough, no civilization can produce what's necessary to control it.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Nothing we have ever come to know can has ever eliminated suffering.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Or maybe ever will, but imagine the schools taught children not only mathematics, but taught them an understanding, a deep understanding of personal resilience. Not only history, but an understanding of the meaning of emotional development. Not only science, but learn how fear warps clarity and shapes decision making. Not only literature, but learn to understand the principles of how human beings recover from loss. Imagine a society that intentionally developed capable people, not simply educated people. Educate children to be more capable of understanding themselves. Educate children to be more capable of understanding others. People capable of recognizing when fear rather than reality has become has begun to guide their conclusions, their assumptions about themselves. This type of learning is sustainable behavior. These types of initiatives are what build the foundation of a sustainable society. Woo! It's the truth.

Teaching Resilience In Schools

SPEAKER_01 19:35

When many people hear the word sustainably, they immediately think about recycling. Solar panels, electric cars, climate, conservation. These are worthwhile discussions. But we have to be sure that we understand the powerful nature of the word sustainable. When it is a term that we use to describe potential benefits to society. I'm not moving away from trauma. What I'm saying is something else. A sustainable society is one that is supportive. It does far more than support our efforts to develop and maintain a cleaner natural environment. A cleaner natural environment is a given.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

It's a default.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

For a sustainable society. A cleaner natural environment is a given for people who are living in a sustainable society. Sustainability is for people. It's for our imaginative conquest of something that has been very difficult for human beings to achieve. But we've done more of it and more of it over time. And it's time for us to continue to develop humanity. A developed humanity will take care of our natural environment.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

It'll do many things, and it will also provide us with a better ability to support what happens to us all collectively.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

When bad experiences affect someone among us. In ways that reduce their ability to cope. So don't think of please don't think of sustainability as being something as being as primarily about is about protecting nature primarily. It's not. It's about supporting you and our children. A sustainable society develops people. A sustainable society develops people. It develops wisdom. It supports relationships, communities, health and wellness, strong ideas. Strong ideals. More powerful ideas. A healthy natural environment becomes one of the wonderful consequences of living in a sustainable society. It's not its defining purpose. Now small

Small Traumas Shape Whole Lives

SPEAKER_01 24:00

traumas, not to be confused with PTSD, which are felony offenses against the person's emotional center. PTSD can develop with an accumulation of life stress, not just singular events or a period of them. Now let's look at trauma, misdemeanor level trauma, which is small experiences that affect all of us. Smaller ones that cause small scars. A smaller level of lifetime assault on your emotional center. Misdemeanor assaults, relatively speaking. Great pains to everyone at the same time against our emotional centers. They influence nearly every aspect of human life. These misdemeanor assaults influence our relationships. They influence our politics. They influence our spirituality. Misdemeanor assaults on our emotional centers influence our philosophy. The stories we tell and admire and appreciate. The music we write. The art we create, the sports we admire most, the leaders we trust, misdemeanor assaults on our emotional centers do a lot to determine the people we marry and spend the rest of our lives with. Or insist that that's a good thing. And whether we recognize it or not, our experiences are relatively small burdens. Maybe. Our experiences, our experiences may be relatively small burdens to than those of others. If that's not so, and if that's not the case, we're all telling you right now we love you more than anything. Education in a sustainable society supports stronger emotional growth. There's no better commitment to peace than this. But every one of us, we've been shaped by disappointment, by rejection, by loss, by fear, by success, by kindness, and by betrayal, by hope, by scorn and by love. The question is not whether experiences change us. The question is how can we best take advantage of the good and heal from the bad to ensure that we maintain space to grow

Beyond Slots, Build Capable People

SPEAKER_01 28:12

and develop? A sustainable education can do a lot more with that that's happening currently. We're not developing capable individuals, we're developing people that can fit in slots. We can work and be educated, we can come together and discuss and figure out ways that we can better help other people hear and heal and ourselves. We can discover better ways to support ourselves. We can discover better ways to help ourselves and other people heal from trauma, small and large. We can pass this knowledge on to our children. Is it a perfect scenario? No. Things happen to children by the time they get to school. We understand this, it's not being forgotten. But we have to we have to intercede in the best possible point, which is everywhere. But one of the most fundamental points to intercede is when our children are in school in early education. Yeah, we know knowledge of all of this does not change society. You need to ask yourself, how do I begin cultivating the society I hope to see around me? Let's say you all, let's say you understand all of this regarding the need for improved trauma care. You believe it, you know it's the most essential thing for human beings to develop. Doesn't mean that you're going to be able to convince enough people to push resources in that direction. With all your friends and best focus, you're not necessarily going to be able to adjoin your interests to produce a better society as you would like to see it, or that you know with all certainty would be the best thing for our humanity. So the question becomes is how do I begin to cultivate the society I hope to see around me in my personal space, in my personal environment? How do I cultivate this?

Cultivating Change Where You Live

SPEAKER_01 30:55

If the world isn't giving my value a high enough rating to begin to work to achieve a result that I'd care to see. If the world isn't giving your values enough support or attention, we need to begin to create you need to begin to create let's create these new societies around us individually where we are.

Practical Ways To Build Community

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Read, talk with your friends, learn, support organizations doing meaningful work, support organizations doing meaningful work. Start your own organization with yourself as the only member. Call meetings at any time you choose. Be formal about it. Consider the issue that you think to be, that you know to be the most important. Wear a t-shirt supporting your cause. Wear it on a community charity walk or a family barbecue or on a lonely beach. Write thoughtful letters to elected representatives. Speak at public hearings, give meaningful books to your family, give gifts at Christmas related to your interest. Do your part to help society heal. Support recovery, support education, support your own health and wellness. Not because you expect to change the world tomorrow, but because now you're already living because now, right now, you can be already living inside of the world that you hope will someday that you hope will someday exist. And that realization changes something for me, and I hope it does the same for you. Which is why I started this podcast. I want to be more in the world that I want to be. Which is one where I'm continue where I'm which is one where I'm con which is one why I'm which is one where I'm continually, which is one where I am continuing to share of myself and receive through communication, open communication related to improved wellness in society.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

To be involved in the fascinating world, I hope to be in to be involved in the fascinating world, I hope to be a part of one day, or in the next life, which is a fully sustainable society.

Guided Journals And Quiet Reflection

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Ideas matter, so do experiences. That's why I began to write my guided journals, live with rose colored glasses, guided journals. They are for you to sit back and enjoy the part of you that lives in a sustainable world right now. I invite people to sit down with what they already have. Whatever you have that is counter to the harshness of the world and its cruelty. Whatever you have today that likes to be able to simultaneously participate in the economy that allows to live, that allows you to live in a house.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Even if you hate your job, you have a side that appreciates your own rose-colored glasses.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

When you live in a when you live in a position when you live in a world where you hate your job, your rose-colored glasses are powered up right then. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

And they tell you how appreciative and happy you are to have shelter around you.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

So much of the happy so much of the happiness that you're going to have this week.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Or the moment.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Not because writing is difficult, but because the format forces you, the format suggests that you think carefully, reflect upon your thoughts, and write it and write a few well and write a few well thought out sentences about an important subject concerning yourself and your life. Write a few thoughtful sentences. That's all there's room for, because there are small illustrations and original affirmations there, fortune cookie layouts that'll prevent you from taking up the whole page with your glorious thinking. Because on one side, you'll be told that you are the road dog of love, a virtual sweetheart, and it'll take up a third of the page. And you'll have the other two-thirds to write. So if you'd like to be a virtual sweetheart for an afternoon, pick up one of my journals and have a good time with yourself. There's no emotional excavation there, no essays, just quiet time with a constructive part of yourself. My journals allow people to experience those ideas quietly. One speaks to society and yourself as a part of it. The other speaks to yourself as a part of a society. Together, my intent is they speak to you as one individual together. And that's my small contribution to supporting and cultivating healthier human beings, which I appreciate. So if society's not ready to value the changes that I believe are important, or yourself, perhaps you can become one small vehicle for those changes. Become a building block. Grow in knowledge. Continue learning. Continue refining your ideas. Continu treating people well.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Allow yourself to become enriched today.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Every society, every healthier society in history was made by ordinary people who quietly refused to abandon worthwhile ideas and ideals and passions. People who believed humanity deserved their hearts and their courage in large amounts and small. The definition of a sustainable society is one that quietly cultivates a better society and gives this enriched gift to our children and our children's children, and all the future generations hereafter. Your destiny may be to be a cultivator, to be a building block, an important one. One person, one conversation, one thoughtful act at a time. Are you down? Are you game? Can you appreciate that as part of your life? Can you approve? I believe that you can, I believe in you.

Closing Thoughts From The Shoreline

SPEAKER_01 43:14

So I'm here from the Connecticut shoreline right now in a park in July, just relaxing. It's a bit hot, but that's okay. I'm doing the same. I'm going to thank you for spending a little time with me on this beautiful summer day in Connecticut. We can do this, we can improve, we can take the society by its bootstraps and pick it up, enjoy ourselves more, and create havoc by being more of ourselves in achieving things that are important to us today. Thank you again for spending time with me. Thank you for enjoying the It's Sustainability Time podcast. Hope all is well with you, and we'll see you next time.