The inspiration for my writing sometimes comes out of the middle of nowhere. I was driving down the road and listening to my usual country music station. On the weekend, they have a program where they introduce new music and new artists, “On The Horizon”. This past weekend, I was listening to an interview with Lindsay Ell, as she discussed the release of her new album, “Heart Theory”. DISCLAIMER: I have been a fan of hers for a while, so I was excited to hear new music coming out, but I had no idea what I was about to hear. To say I was stunned is an understatement. She described the album as a journey that took her through the stages of grief. It started the healing process after going through unimaginable trauma.
As a trained therapist, I like to think that I have a good idea about what I want to say to help someone. The reality is that I cannot always find the right words. As I was listening to her discuss her situation, she nailed one of the main keys to trauma recovery on the head. For Lindsay and at my own personal level, healing and recovery are not about the trauma itself. There is a healing that can take place when we allow ourselves to appropriately process what happened and put those experiences in their own “box”. For her, this “box” was a music album. There was an incredible amount of healing through the song writing process. To describe her songs as being on the grief continuum was such a captivating idea. It made me look at trauma, post-traumatic growth, and resiliency in a totally new light.
There are a few key take-aways that made this such a powerful interview. First and foremost, recovery and healing are a life-long journey. We will never erase the past. Sadly, we cannot erase the traumas. The process of writing allows us to go back through a seminal event (a trauma in this case) and take back the control of our emotional responses. For most trauma survivors, they will describe experiences where they feel like they are reliving an event, sights, sounds, and smells. In fact, the brain responds as if the trauma was happening again. The nervous system has no way to differentiate a real threat from a perceived threat. It gets triggered and then responds. It is that “fight or flight” response that we hear about. We can begin to shake and break out into cold sweats. From my own experience with trauma, I can tell you that this is so unsettling. This is what makes trauma so difficult to work through. The ability to process trauma, whether it is through writing or any other processing tool, we are training our brains and the neuropathways how not to physiologically take us back to that point and react as if we were re-living that event.
In trauma care and treatment, one of the most important changes to make is from a focus on living in the past to being more present and future oriented. This is what this album represents so well. She described her potential and the future. She has taken unconscionable experiences and turned them into strength, resilience and healing. She is telling other people that they are not alone and there is help. The strength and courage to put out such an emotionally driven album represents a beacon of hope for trauma survivors.
In my work with others, I stress that trauma does not define us unless we give it the power to do so. Like Lindsay Ell, I have found writing to be an incredible outlet. I learned to be open to sharing my story in hope that someone else may see it and get themselves help too. I know things are not perfect. But they are so much better than they were but are not as good as they are going to be.