Paul Conti

Instead of
logical and limbic processes integrating in a series of controlled leaps, what happens inside of us can become more like frantic lunging, as if we were fleeing madly from pain. But the pain of the past has us springing madly toward more pain in the future.

For this reason, it’s crucial that we learn how to help our brains stay calm enough to pay attention to logic, use prior knowledge, and recognize how linear time works. We must help our brains use these limbic system flags in ways that can best serve us because when the flags are more like signs twisted in the wrong direction, or bombs ready to detonate, or panic buttons that trigger more trauma responses, all the flags are going to do is propel us toward unhappy and at times dangerous outcomes.

AVOID EXAGGERATIONS. A flood that devastates a town is horrible and terrible. Using words like horrible and terrible to describe the results of a democratic election you don’t like or people who have different political opinions than you cheapens the descriptive power such words hold and diminishes their true meaning.
2 ABSTAIN FROM LABELING. Far too often, language is employed to generate false similarities and false differences between groups of people. This applies to the two political colors we affiliate with states, to gender and sexuality, to race, and to the nature of our origin in our given country. For example, the word immigrant is used as a charged and binary term in the United States despite the fact that most of the people in the country are here today as a result of immigration.
3 DON’T TRIVIALIZE. Qualifiers that trivialize especially matter when the topic under consideration involves personal trauma and doubly so when the topic is about a type of widespread societal trauma. For example, I’m regularly alarmed at how the term “sexual assault” is employed in health care and the media to minimize the severity of the violence endured, as if the assault were somehow excusable or less impactful because of the sexual nature of the attack. Trivializing traumatic experiences in an offhanded way might not be deliberate, but it can create more trauma nonetheless.
4 THINK ABOUT THE IMPACT. This suggestion applies to the examples above and to countless others. One example that deeply troubles me is the use of the term “burned out” to describe what happens to people in the health-care industry after they’ve reached their breaking point in a system that overworks and devalues them. Instead of decrying problems in the system, the impact of such a term places the responsibility on individual people, unfairly implying weakness and lack of self-care. When we don’t think about the language we use to describe others, we can often become accomplices to trauma, fueling shame in others as opposed to working with them to right unhealthy environments.

CONSIDER OURSELVES AND OTHERS WITH COMPASSION. So much of our lives are lived inside of our heads, and what we think
and tell ourselves there matters immensely. This is where we can harbor angry or hopeless thoughts, which can then turn into destructive fantasies, which can eventually turn into destructive realities. Our minds are the places where we can berate ourselves repeatedly, beating ourselves down without the need for any outside persecutor to do it for us. So, the first goal begins with us transforming whatever trauma might be occurring inside of us and replacing what’s toxic with compassionate thinking. First, we need to be aware of our own thought patterns, and I’ve briefly offered some proven techniques to help with that. We can also use our own understanding and other innovations offered by science (e.g., psychotherapy and psychiatry) and religious traditions (e.g., mindfulness and prayer) to foster a mental environment marked by kindness and compassion.