Fuck trauma, heal joy
There is so much fkn ‘work’ to do in the world isn’t there?
I’m not talking about the earning money kind of work either, I’m talking about our western civilization, middle class, eternal quest for self improvement.
You know that one? Where we vision quest our way to perfection through healing, sifting and working through intergenerational trauma before we release it through working our somatic body in order to cleanse the world and put our spirits to work?
Whilst I believe, with all of my might, that this kind of ‘work’ is necessary and beautiful,
I disagree with one thing that is radiating throughout the whole process/ cult… It’s called work.
The fuck?
“I’ve been working on myself”
“Oh you know, I’ve been really working on my hips and releasing trauma”
“My family has such a long history with trauma, so we’ve just been working on the trauma, in order to grow past the trauma and you know like work together on working together with trauma”
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know that my spiritual journey is my own, and each person will have their own relationship with the lessons, and learnings from the cosmos around them, but let’s not forget that the universe is a pretty bloody mighty creator, and it gave us the power to play for a reason.
It wasn’t ‘working’ on my trauma that helped me to regulate the fkn chaotic screw-up I used to be… I didn’t ‘work’ on my back in order to lessen my chronic pain. I didn’t ‘work’ on my mental illness in order to enter remission from my eating disorder.
What I did was validate what was happening and then I went out and found some joy.
I found it in pieces of paper coated in glitter, diamantes and fluro pink covering my canvases.
I found it in tarot cards and learning about the esoteric.
I found it in eggs and sunshine every morning.
I found it in finding funky beats and making playlists on spotify.
I found it in planting a garden and watching it live or die as it was meant to.
None of these actions addressed my ED, or my pain, or the origins of either of them. They didn’t address my relationship with my biological father, my attachment stories or my levels of self worth. What finding joy does is that it makes the rest of you matter at least as much as the parts that hurt.
It’s fine to ‘work’ on our trauma, of course. I will always advocate for endeavouring to learn about every part of ourselves, but it would be silly of us to assume it is only through focusing on pain that we will be rid of it.
When I’m painting a portrait and the nose looks weird, I don’t just focus on the nose. I look at the whole damn picture.
The moral of the story; if your life is filled with trauma, work and endless not-enough-ness masked by self-improvement, I highly recommend you go sit with some glitter paper in the sun and marvel at how fkn cool shiny stuff is.
XXXX ALi
