Trauma and the Afterthoughts

All the thoughts, ideas shared in this blog article are the conversations that I had with myself, which were part of my journal entries and now for the ones who can relate to these and somehow take assistance of any kind if it could serve them in their struggle when the question of life being meaningless arises after having dealt with a traumatic experience.

Feeling sad, hurt, betrayed, anxious, lost, helpless and stressed is normal.

It’s okay.

The emotions that are running through your body in these moments are normal to have after what has happened and what you have gone through. You have the permission to feel badly about those circumstances and the turn of events. You don’t have to push those emotions down. Just let them be whenever they arise. Accept them; accept yourself fully in those moments. Don’t fight them. These won’t stay forever. Nothing stays the same forever. Change is already happening even when you “feel stuck” in those moments and circumstances. The only constant in the universe is change.

Although feeling sad, hurt, betrayed, anxious, lost, helpless, stressed is normal, yet these feelings being valid is one thing and feeling entitled is another. We cannot feel entitled to something, to almost anything because bad things happened to us. We cannot and should not act as if the world owes us anything. No one has the right to feel entitled. The state of entitlement is where wrong and biased lines of thinking, decisions and behaviors originate. We might end up hurting someone when we ourselves are hurt. It’s natural but it is never justified. We cannot take it for granted.

And while we are struggling with those emotions, feeling victimized can be a byproduct and also the reason for those thoughts. It can become a vicious cycle. In today’s times, we have more leverage, more options to assist us while we are trying to deal with and grow from our struggles, only if we could stop feeling like a victim even though so many of us might be. We might not change everything but we can change many things for the better. 

Things don’t happen for the better and they don’t happen for the worse. In the bigger scheme of things, those traumas don’t matter. The universe doesn’t give a damn. Nature doesn’t give a damn. Things just happen. But that is NOT to mean that it is hopeless. Yes, things just happen. But then we have a choice. We can CHOOSE to make them be the base for our strong self to be erected at that very demolished part of ours or we CHOOSE to be bitter towards everything and everyone around us and worse, towards ourselves and we end up burying ourselves under the debris of that very demolished part. Sometimes by giving hope to someone around us, we become hopeful within ourselves and sometimes by creating the hope within ourselves first, we end up giving hope to others. This is what the universe is about. This is what Nature is about. It accepts its dark side, its dark phases and it celebrates its bright sides and blooming phases. Accepting dark realities of circumstances doesn’t have to be a hopeless acceptance. Learning from those and creating something out of it is hope. Spreading hopelessness is against the universe. It is against nature.

It is our responsibility more than the people around us to raise ourselves out of those dark times. Seeking support and kindness from the ones around us is natural and we should not hesitate to do so but we should not feel entitled while doing so because it is selfish on our part. No one can get us out of it no matter how much they try until we show the will not through words but through our actions that we want to stand again. And it’s okay to keep falling but trying should continue. The path to growth and recovery is not always linear but hope shouldn’t die.

The continuation of life’s suffering from generation to generation, which is called, “Samsara” by Buddhists, we can try breaking the link in the chain.

“Give more; give what you did not get. Drop the old story”