The Impact of Trauma on our Pursuit of Meaning & Purpose
Trauma is inherently disruptive - it disrupts our lives, our relationships, and our sense of self, safety, and wholeness. For this post, I want to focus on the ways trauma impacts our lives and how therapy can help get us back on track.
Trauma occurs when one is exposed to overwhelming danger and personal threat, which creates a strong emotional and physiological reaction. Yet, with trauma, these strong reactions continue to linger in the mind and body, leading to prolonged difficulties across many domains of experience - in our body, mind, and relationships.
The Acorn & The Oak: Understanding our Human Potential
To think that a towering 60-foot oak tree began its life as a tiny seed that fits in the palm of your hand is truly remarkable. The acorn becoming the oak is an apt metaphor for many things, because it highlights the ability for living organisms to change and transform into something more.
It also poses a larger question about potential:
If there is potential in an acorn to become an oak tree, might there also be hidden potential in us as humans to become something more?
A New Year, a New Life? Reframing our Pursuit of Meaning and Purpose
There is immense societal pressure, especially in America, to set resolutions in the New Year to improve our lives with new habits and lifestyle changes. But for most of us, if we’re lucky, our resolutions will only last a few months before our motivation peters out and we find ourselves back at square one.
However annoying this cycle of started and failed resolutions may be, I believe that this annual burst of motivation to better ourselves reveals our longing, as humans, to live a fulfilling and meaningful life