In this short series of exploring trauma informed ways of being, we are being invited to think about developing what it is that sits behind was has been termed Trauma Informed Practice (TIP).
#1 started us off with sitting in a place of love and curiosity, not fear and judgement
#2 helped us think more about awareness
#3 asked us to think about the dance between reflection and action
Setting the scene in thinking about TIP, each post in this series will remind us what the 6 guiding trauma informed principles are that have been developed by the CDC and SAMSHA. These are:
Safety
Trustworthiness & transparency
Peer support
Collaboration & mutuality
Empowerment & choice
Cultural, historical & gender issues
For #4 I’m going to invite empathy into the room.
What is it? Empathy is often described of as the ability to stand in the shoes of another while trying to imagine what it is they are feeling or experiencing. It involves standing alongside another with compassion and ‘being with’ them wherever they are at. It is not about fixing, controlling, silencing or cajoling and it is not always easy.
We all have tendencies towards behaving in ways that can make empathy a challenge. I for one can be very practical and set about the business of sorting things out. I have definitely improved over the years but the tendency to ‘fix’, having written a long list about what needs to be done, is never far. What about you? What tendencies do you have that need keeping an eye on when you are being called to stand ‘with’ someone in pain?
Empathy is often mistaken for sympathy. Brene Brown’s video helps unpick this.
Here’s the messy stuff. Empathy is not about collusion, having blurred boundaries or preventing someone from benefitting from the learning that is available to them. Empathy is connection in the moment which opens the door for what many refer to as co-regulation, which then leads the way to any difficult conversations that need to be had. I prefer to think of empathy as making a space for deep resonance; that beautiful moment when you both hit the same note at the same moment and have that deep understanding that in that moment, there is no judgement, no fear and no them and us. We are just humans together, doing our best with what we have and where we are.
Why is empathy so crucial in trauma informed ways of being that sit behind trauma informed practice? Because where there has been trauma, there can be behaviours that we can find challenging. Bringing empathy into that sentence would be to change the word behaviours to adaptations. Surviving trauma requires adaptations that support surviving trauma, yet often those adaptations do not work so well when in other situations. Empathy helps us to not take another person’s behaviour/adaptations, personally.
Empathy helps me know where I end and you begin.
As always, these ideas are not exhaustive, rather they are support to stimulate thinking. Why not take the idea of empathy into your team meeting or supervision and discuss what it means to be empathic towards yourself. I often find that those working in the helping professions have a lot of empathy towards others and yet struggle to have empathy towards themselves. Think about why this might be problematic and how better self-empathy can be created. Another reflection might be to think about what gets in the way of empathy towards others. What biases are held that bring judgement to the fore rather than empathy? Does naming it tame it?
*Before any discussion that explores these areas, focus on safety. We will look at creating safety in more detail for #5 in this series. If we don’t feel safe, we can’t explore these things deeply as they require vulnerability.
This journey of understanding supports us in how we can respond better to the legacy of trauma. We are always aiming rather than arriving!
In this short series of exploring trauma informed ways of being, we are being invited to think about developing what it is that sits behind was has been termed Trauma Informed Practice (TIP). #1 started us off with sitting in a place of love and curiosity, not fear and judgement.
Setting the scene in thinking about TIP, each post in this series will remind us what the 6 guiding trauma informed principles are that have been developed by the CDC and SAMSHA. These are:
Safety
Trustworthiness & transparency
Peer support
Collaboration & mutuality
Empowerment & choice
Cultural, historical & gender issues
The #2 area that I am going to look at is awareness. Developing awareness of who we are, what we bring and how we impact others takes decisive action that involves learning the art of ‘noticing’ where we are in the moment. How can we know what we bring if we don’t ever stop to notice who we are?
The research completed by Dr Tasha Eurich (2018) helps us to understand awareness and support a deeper understanding as to where work might need doing in this regard. Can you see yourself in any of the self-awareness archetypes below?
The attraction of mindfulness and yoga really come into their own in developing awareness as they invite us to harness the skill of stopping and in us starting to become aware of (a) the internal chatter, (b) where we are holding tension in our bodies and (c) developing a connection with our breath. In teams that have worked on safety, starting the day or starting a team meeting taking 3 deep breaths will bring deep rewards. But a word of caution, many people have never consciously taken this moment of stillness before so anything that raises awareness of self needs to be gentle and with the caveat of it being done only if it feels safe to that person to do so. This can be modeled by those who do feel safe enough.
Alongside developing self awareness comes an awareness of others too and should enhance curiosity about the ways in which people behave through their adaptations to the experiences that they have had.
What does this look like?
Unawareness looks like:
1. Judgment
2. Defensiveness
3. Arrogance
4. Self as a yardstick for understanding all
5. Neglect
Awareness looks like:
1. Curiosity
2. Compassion
3. Boundaries
4. Perception
5. Self regulation
As always, these are not exhaustive lists, rather they are support to stimulate thinking. Why not take the concept of awareness into your team meeting and discuss what it means to each person, introduce the idea of taking 3 breaths at the beginning of a meeting or invite a Yogi or mindfulness practitioner to come and talk about developing awareness for self-regulation. When you work with trauma every day, this investment in the self, with the space created by the organisational leadership, is an investment in every single person you come into contact with.
*Before any discussion that explores these areas, focus on safety. We will look at creating safety in more detail another time, but if we don’t feel safe, we can’t explore these things deeply as they require vulnerability.
Next time I’ll look at another trauma informed way of being that supports us ‘leaning in’ on this journey of understanding how we can respond better to the legacy of trauma. We are always aiming rather than arriving!
#3 Trauma Informed Ways of Being
This is the first of a series of short blog posts that will be shared over the coming weeks that help us to reflect and think about trauma informed ways of being that sit behind the practice. This is to support us in thinking more deeply beyond the buzz word and the tick box that there is a risk that trauma informed practice (TIP) will become if we don’t work on having humility, being grounded and staying focused.
In order to set the scene in thinking about TIP, the 6 guiding trauma informed principles developed by the CDC and SAMSHA are:
Safety
Trustworthiness & transparency
Peer support
Collaboration & mutuality
Empowerment & choice
Cultural, historical & gender issues
As the principles make clear, this is deep and extensive work that involves sensitivity, action and requires leaning into curiosity and love. When I’m asked if I can provide certificates, do a twilight or am told “oh we’ve done trauma,” I take a deep breath and talk about moving from a place of knowing to a place of being; how do we ‘be‘ trauma informed? We can know something yet not embed it into the way we think, feel, speak, hold our bodies and conduct our work. This level of shifting into a way of being takes time. It’s not a tick box process and it involves going within deeply and I may as well let you know now, but it never stops.
It is in everything we say, everything we do, the spaces we do ‘it’ in and the processes that sit behind why we do what we do. It is a commitment to understanding the legacy of trauma.
So the #1 ‘way of being’ I’m going to ask us to think about is going to be: sitting in a place of love and curiosity, not fear and judgement.
What does this look like?
Fear and judgment looks like:
1. Separation
2. Isolation
3. Punishment
4. Control
5. Fear of competition
Love and curiosity looks like:
1. Collaboration – working together
2. Connection – being together wholeheartedly
3. Taking a step back and thinking about what sits underneath what is being presented to us
4. Supervision, checking in with peers
5. Humility
These are not exhaustive lists, rather they are support to stimulate thinking. Why not take one of these areas into your team meeting and discuss how it shows up in a policy, or a response to an incident, or in how you support each other.
*Before any discussion that explores these areas, focus on safety. We will look at creating safety in more detail another time, but if we don’t feel safe, we can’t explore these things deeply as they require vulnerability.
Next time I’ll look at another trauma informed way of being that supports us ‘leaning in’ on this journey of understanding how we can respond better to the legacy of trauma. We are always aiming rather than arriving!
