Trauma & Subjective Reality?

[Kulitero]

I recently read Steve's Subjective Reality & Nonviolence blog entry.

I think I understand how using SR to interpret violence observed as an event can be enlightening and useful for personal development & growth.

However, what about violence experienced in real life? (emotional trauma, shock, physical danger, helplessness, PTS, etc)

People respond and process traumatic events differently. However responding with some form of fight or flight instinctual survival reaction is quite common.

Can SR be used to process and get out of this fight or flight/panic state, hightened emotional alert state, or hypervigilence level?

I've read that some who have observed or experienced traumatic experiences have never been the same the rest of their lives.

[Love]

Interesting question! Hmm.... don't know!

[Dharma]

Can SR be used to get out of panic? No. Someone in a panic will not get cooler if the dead body on the ground is now them. Knowing (and remembering) in that moment you have a choice to respond is the only thing that will move you.

I've been a firefighter and EMT for 12 years. I've seen lots of trauma, death, you name it. I'm sure anyone involved in law enforcement or military has had the same experiences.

You need to practice catching yourself in reaction and pull yourself back into the moment. Emergency responders make it look easy, I'm sure. We have a lot of practice.

What's funny is we have stress debriefings after a big call. That is where we let ourselves get out of the moment for breather. At these debriefings we say we are letting ourselves experience the emotions that we didn't let ourselves experience at the call, but what's really happening is we're just slipping out of the moment and letting the past activate our reactions. For some reason we need to do that (too much the-moment for one day?? )

After a big trauma we all feel weird inside, and I think we layer on the denial of past and the reactions so we won't feel the weirdness. Probably too much movement and too much space was created by having to be in the moment for so long. This is a way to close down the space to a more comfortable level.

So the key to getting out of panic is to realize you are panicking and choose to do something different. Panic is a habit.

If anyone is a scuba diver, you know the rule "do not panic". I did a lot of diving after I got out of college and that rule came in handy one day. My regulator hose got caught on some plants in very choppy surf. It pulled out of my mouth and I couldn't find it or see it to untangle it. I went right into panic and then my instructor's voice came into my head and said, "the first rule is... do not panic". Immediately I fell back on my training and reached for my second regulator and got breathing again.

Recognizing the panic state is key. It usually starts as an internal "oh s**t!". From there you can get back in the moment and choose your response.

[betlamed]

I think that SR is a model, a philosophical concept, or an experience. It serves well as a foundation for a method to deal with traumas.

As to the actual method, use NLP, EFT, hypnosis, or one of the other proven methods - there are plenty good ones around, and all of these combine nicely with a SR model.