Member-only story
Healing Is Never a Solo Journey
Developing intimate connection with even one other person can create fertile soil for social transformation.
Is it selfish to focus on healing my personal trauma? Shouldn’t I care more about people who have it far worse? The very question comes from the heart of a spiritual warrior, someone whose history makes them acutely aware of injustices done to other people. Such a person is primed to question the status quo. The good news is that healing from personal trauma is an intensely social, even a political act.
Healing is a movement from isolation to connection. As psychotherapist Matt Licata, PhD, points out, virtually all trauma involves relational wounding. Someone we should have been able to trust has violated us. Trauma makes us “other,” “weird,” brutally aware of our separateness. Perhaps the essence of trauma is shame. There’s something wrong with me.
In fact, even the most self-toxic symptoms offer a hopeful message: A wound is pressing to be healed. Even something as painful as self-hatred is trying to help me in some way. Believing I am loathsome might protect me from the potential dangers of intimate relationships.
When trauma symptoms are so fused to our sense of self that we don’t seek healing, our view of reality is extremely…
