The problem with saying “Be strong”
By deciding to be strong no matter what, we give our will governance over our body. Why shouldn’t we do this? Because the body remembers. Your mind and your heart might agree to forget, but the body…it’s a whole other scenario.
We are so focused on thinking, on thinking our way through and out of stuff that we forget this incredible vessel we inhabit.
We decorate our body’s in clothing and in makeup whilst simultaneously criticising its lumps and bumps. As a society, we understand little about trauma and how it’s affecting and influencing our communities. We have become accustomed to hearing about abuse, pain, injustice and our collective response?
Be strong! Be strong no matter what! For your children’s sake, be strong!
Don’t be strong. Be you. Feel the pain, look at it and talk to it. Get whatever help and support you need to do to face your pain, your knots, your dark matter. Don’t hide because your body remembers the pain is there and it will find a way to remind the rest of you. The body is patient too…you think you’ve outwitted it, you think it’s forgotten. It hasn’t! It doesn’t!
If you run away from your hurt and pain, if you self-medicate in the hope you will drown it out, you are fooling yourself, you aren’t fooling your body. It knows. It remembers.
I’m not suggesting that facing our pain is easy. I’ve spent 40 years hiding, ducking and diving, then last October I woke up unable to walk. There was no physical reason why this should have happened: MRIs and blood tests all confirmed that my pain came a knocking on my door! Don’t let your body go to extremes to be heard.
You’re reading this post for a reason, so go find out more. The process will start to set you free because you will let in light with each step. There’s some phenomenal work in this field. Check out this research about ACE’s which will show you that most of us have experienced some form of early life trauma. I also got a lot from Gabor Maté’ book When the body says no.
If you do one thing going forward, I implore you, please stop telling your community to be strong no matter what.
