The Unexpected Gift of Trauma by Dr. Edith Shiro

Author:Dr. Edith Shiro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

STAGE 3: A NEW NARRATIVE

Often in this stage a community realizes that what has worked in the past isn’t working anymore. This is when they consider a new way of being and the need to create a new paradigm and a new group identity.

This is a natural extension of the previous stage: people felt safe enough to tell their stories on an individual and communal level, but now they’re expanding those narratives and, together, seeing what’s possible. They know what hasn’t worked, what has caused them pain; now it’s time to imagine something new. Jack Saul calls this a “dialogical process,” in which the group can “open up by letting the stories breathe,” by moving from static to dynamic stories of the difficulties their people have had. Communities do this in dialogue with one another as a “way to get out of the constrained narrative” of their collective past and move toward a freer future. In this regenerative stage, everything is on the table—how they tell their collective story, how they define themselves, what kind of narratives they use to describe who they are, how they envision their future. They begin to realize they can shift the discourse and the narrative of their traumas they’ve been carrying on a familial, cultural, national, and global level. And from that realization they can come together to reimagine, re-create, and reframe their narrative and their future with more freedom.

The Cambodian refugees who fled the Pol Pot regime and the genocide inflicted upon their people by the Khmer Rouge and settled in the Bronx in New York City and in Los Angeles offer a beautiful example of reimagining and redefining who they are. After coming to the United States, the Cambodians slowly began to create a sustainable community in their adopted home. They had to navigate their new cities, a new language, and for many, new ways of making a living. They began to figure out how to survive, adjust, and even thrive. They realized they could bring the strength, resources, and resilience that allowed them to survive the wars to their new situation and build a new life.

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