Wounds into Wisdom by Tirzah Firestone

Author:Tirzah Firestone [Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Published: 2019-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

PRINCIPLE TWO

Harnessing the Power of Pain

“We have an enormous ally on our side: the power of pain. It is very much like nuclear energy. You can use this energy in order to bring darkness and destruction and pain, or you can use this energy to bring light and warmth and hope.”

—Rami Elhanan

TRAUMA DISCONNECTS US FROM OUR bodies. Once we have turned to face our situation, we must learn to reinhabit our physical selves. By reclaiming our bodies, we can begin to harness the overwhelming intensity of our experience and put it to use.

In Chapter Two, we saw how the shock of overwhelming events disturbs the balance between the sympathetic nervous system (which arouses us to danger and calls the body and brain to action) and the parasympathetic nervous system (which helps us rest, digest, and heal).

To cope with the hyperarousal that can result from traumatic experience, some may take refuge in numbing activities like television, video games, sleeping, or overeating, which serve to dull our minds and bodies from the endless replay of memories activated by trauma. Or we may take to more sensation-seeking behaviors to compensate for the intensity of our pain, like gambling, heightened sexual activity, or aggressive behaviors like cutting ourselves, or fighting with others.

Our society’s modes of coping often contribute to the problem. Many doctors still rely heavily on medications to help their patients alleviate the intensity of post-traumatic symptoms. Antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Effexor, commonly used for depression and anxiety, are often prescribed and may indeed be helpful in the short run, to blunt the terrifying emotions and sensations that arise after a traumatic loss. But the residual images and sensations remain embedded in the nervous system, reminding people that they are still susceptible at any time to further triggering and that their inner state is still volatile.

All of these responses are attempts to gain a sense of control in a world that has gone unmanageably awry. Whether we numb or heighten our sensations, we risk losing connection with what is going on inside our bodies. And it is our body awareness that is the bedrock of our ability to become our own witness so that we can guide ourselves more effectively in the world.

What we are talking about here is getting back the inner feeling that we are in charge of our own lives. Many people call this inner feeling agency—knowing you have at least some ability to shape your circumstances. As Dr. Van der Kolk puts it: “Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them.”1

Body awareness is critical to reclaiming our lives.

I think of Orna, whom I interviewed several years after she lost her only child in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Badly shaken, Orna withdrew from life. After several months of sequestering herself in her apartment, she began to experience disturbing sensations in her chest, a heart arrhythmia that frightened her.

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