Trauma, Trust, and Tough Choices

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Driving up the broad, gently winding streets, I could already feel my feet itching to explore the sidewalks. And as I crested the summit and spied the gently rolling tree covered hills of the other valley doused in late morning sun, my heart sang. This was the view I could see each time I stepped out my door. I lingered at the edge of the slope to trace the handful of trails trickling off in myriad directions into the trees and along the creases down into the ravine, then followed the sound of bubbling water to peek tippy toe over the garden gate. A charmingly weathered bench sprawled under a grapefruit tree, surveying a field of clover and plantain itching for double digging and the roots of herbs and squash. The hostess saw the twinkle in my eye and led me to the garden to begin my tour, speaking of apothecary while I shared of sheet mulching, continuing the conversation that had begun on the phone as we recognized the names of each other’s teachers and our own learnings in each other’s wisdom.

Inside, the great room was nearly as vaulted as the mid-winter sky and the sleek and certain protector cat curled up in my lap as a blessing of welcome. The sun streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows north and south, while west was reverently and ecstatically strewn with books, art supplies, and buddhist relics. The house poured forth generously through doorways, landings, half levels all cluttered with beauty – pillows, produce, pantry, views of the hills in all directions, a pot of earthy herbs boiling on the stove. This is a place to be lived in, I was told, to be respected and to be oneself, heart-first, whatever it holds. It is a hope for shared practice, shared meals, shared stories, without expectation, without urgency. One chapter closing and another beginning in trust.

On one of the bedroom walls was a previous boarder’s list of gurus, which included “believing I can’t”, “believing I am not enough”, “believing I am small”. And as I descended down the stairs to the cluster of rooms I could afford, those familiar gurus surfaced in my own doubts. There in the dark, with footsteps above, with a bathroom to one side and a couple’s suite to the other, could I find the ease I now have in my bright attic space with sun-splashed eaves and a bathroom accustomed to lingering? Would the spacious light of the garden and great room and acres of hills provide enough space for what has been brewing and straining to emerge? Would the solid intensity of my hostess’s eyes draw me forth into an expanded version of myself? Or would they provoke rebellion, recoiling?

I once heard and have never forgotten that the greatest difficulty of being a grown-up lies in having to make important decisions with not enough information. We do our best to vet, to inquire, to envision, but the time comes when we must decide. And as my hostess shared, after listening intently and in alignment, fear and excitement feel the same in our bodies. They respond to the unknown and to not being in control, and what makes all the difference is knowing that, no matter what happens, we will be okay. But for someone like me, whose past choices took me right up to the edge of death, my wiring is not for expansion, but for survival. I believe in my bones, no matter what my romantic heart feels, that whatever I have is better than the reality of what lies out there. The only real safety is in ultimate escape.

What is different now is that I have adopted the framework and practices of polyvagal theory. As the anxiety and doubts began to rise, I saw the shame creeping in, cutting me down for over-thinking, for being a coward, for being paranoid. I recognized what was happening: my nervous system was responding to a perceived threat by wanting to run, and then attacking myself. The fact that my hostess validated my doubts as totally normal and supported my need for a few days to sit with my feelings helped me feel safer with her and with myself. But I also noticed that as someone who makes decisions based on intuition, and associates intuition with feelings, I am lost over how to find guidance in my contradictory feelings of awe, expansion, anxiety, tingling, warmth, constriction. Is my nervous system onto some hidden danger my mind missed or denies? Or is it over-reacting based on past associations to a fresh start I sorely need? If I am serious about giving up the war with myself and recognize all of these feelings as right, how do I make a choice?

One of the most valuable things I learned in the resilience toolkit training on working with the nervous system is that story follows state. If we are in fight or flight, we will believe the world is a dangerous place and people are out to get us. If we are in freeze, we will believe things are overwhelming and we can’t do it. If we are well-regulated, we see options, opportunities, and connections, and experience a sense of adventure with inherent safety and fluid ethics. Viewing my life through this lens has led to the painful discovery that I have lived much of it in freeze. It was made very clear to me on many memorable occasions as a child, from within my family and out in the world, that fighting back, talking back, and even getting angry would make me the target not just of rejection, but of verbal and physical harm. I learned how to hide – physically at the edges of the playground and in the garden, and inwardly through writing stories, inventing games, and fantasizing about my crushes.

As I got older, I became adept at freeze – becoming a chameleon to fit in, appeasing in moments of abuse, staying still, and keeping quiet. The times I did speak up and push back, I was met often enough with the usual aggressive response that validated the necessity of retreat, and I slipped deeper into despair. Suicide lives in freeze, the ultimate surrender in the jaws of life. From that place, it is very hard to believe in the possibility of safety and connection, let alone expansion and fulfillment.

Now I know that a sense of hope, belonging, and deep vitality lie not in anything I achieve, anyone I impress, or any place I arrive, but in getting my very own nervous system back on-line and to a place of rest. I know this because the tools I practice are shifting me into this state from time to time, and I see how surprisingly close it can sometimes lie to that place of tugging despair. But despite this, I recognize a deeply rooted and insistent fear of waking up because when leave the safety of my burrow, the very next state I encounter, the valley I need to cross to a place I can more deeply settle, is one of fight/flight where the world is out to get me. What brings me out is faith. What makes me hesitate is a sense of self-preservation for which I am beginning to feel more patience, and even gratitude. I have so, so many reasons to feel scared literally to death. And yet I do not want to live my life withdrawn and afraid.

This evening, while researching the specific practices hosted in the home I have been invited to join, I felt a deep suspicion and resistance arise. I was able to stay with it and saw the two spiritual communities I have been a part of – how I lost myself in those practices and those people. I remembered how I had trusted them and felt betrayed, criticized, and abandoned. I felt in myself the enduring longing to connect, to bond, to have a shared practice and belief that makes me vulnerable still. I scoured the website, dug between the lines of testimonials, burrowed into the teacher’s eyes for signs of danger. Should I call it off? Should I call a friend?

I know I am beginning to recover from my trauma because the next thoughts that arose were that it’s been a long day, that no one but me is pushing for a decision this second, that the solution isn’t simply lying there for someone smarter or more resourced than me to pick up, dust off, and hand over. This stuff is just hard. Period. Can I sing along loudly enough to some soulful tunes on my commute to bring my nervous system back on-line? Can I settle into the silence of my own self, write out all the jumbled words, sit with it all long enough to let it all shift and unfold? Because if I can steady myself enough to lean a little further into the enigmatic question of what’s truly best for me, and listen with openness to whatever arises, perhaps I can trust myself not to be so dominated by whatever dangers I might encounter down whatever path I choose.

Ultimately, this has far more to do with my relationship to myself than with what decision I make or what comes of it. I don’t know if this teacher is legit. I don’t know if being a part of these practices or not is really that important for living in this house. I don’t know if the room will feel too tight or the commute too long or the encounters too intense. But I know these are all questions I can ask and elements I can explore. I know home is beautiful, the land is beautiful, and that this is an invitation to step out of my burrow into the air and feel vulnerable, feel afraid, feel alive. I do not know what is ultimately best for me, and I probably won’t find an answer to that before the time comes to decide. But I am committed to being a compassionate companion to myself whatever I choose – whether I retreat from what feels like too much of a risk or take the leap into what feels like a refreshing new beginning.

As I was driving home, feeling the strength and light-heartedness rising in me as my voice wove between the banjos and harmonies, I saw myself enter this new home with suspicion, feeling cramped, unwelcome, and out of sync. And I saw myself enter this new home with curiosity, gratitude, and warmth for each one of my new friends. The way I experience my life comes from the state of my nervous system. And the story I tell has a tendency to be self-fulfilling. It sets the tone, for myself and for others. If I feel safe, others are much more likely to feel safe as well, and respond in a way that deepens my sense of security and belonging. We co-regulate. And it starts with each and every one of us. I sense in myself that feral cat poised to run, and I whisper, “Stay. Please stay, dear one, for just a moment longer. Feel how loved you truly are. If by no one else, at least by me.”

Nancy