Low and behold! I discovered that Krista Tippet interviewed Bessel van Der Kolk, MD for her podcast "On Being" that I've been listening to recently. I am currently reading his book The Body Keeps the Score.

In the interview, he makes the following statements. My personal responses follow. 
​

• “Trauma confronts you with the best and the worst”
  • I can undoubtedly relate to this sentiment. In response to and in the aftermath of traumatic events, I’ve been graced with the shreds of what I dub ‘my best parts’ and with the imperfections that are laid bare and somehow amplified under the strain of chronic stress. I have a fine-tuned level of discernment, but anything in over-usage can cripple one’s motivation. I can jinx myself out of the mustard to be social at a holiday party before I realize I commit self-sabotage. If requirement, professional or otherwise, forces your organism to analyze with abandon, soon enough you’ll find that acts as simple as appreciating,  or even improvising, become difficult anew. 

• After trauma, if “you are not allowed to feel what you feel, know what you know, you’re mind cannot integrate what goes on and you can get stuck on the situation.” 

This statement strikes me as relevant to my experience as a direct care staff in a treatment center setting, especially in the position of shift leading. Many times, and repeatedly, I was driven against my natural instincts due to procedural obligations or in the sheer effort to face my prescribed duties on any given shift. This discrepancy caused significant damage, emotionally and spiritually. Overtime, however, I became aware of other subtle effects. It was like being in a pot slowly boiling. I could not see the small changes happening as they unfolded, but suddenly I became aware of an utmost transformation of what I deemed ‘essential.’ There is a degree of confoundedness that will never dissipate I think. 
At times, there are parts of me still engaged in resolving the moments of secondary traumas that stand out. I frequently discover that I am trying to solve the unsolvable problems of the toughest shifts that I faced, mostly as a shift leader. Part of me is still trying to determine how to simultaneously help a child realize that they’re holding themselves to an unrealistic expectation, answer a call from a cell phone, and respond to a person on walkie. I am aware that these interactions are not presently making demands of me.  Yet, I can take myself back, with ease. I can yet again sense that state of palpable panic, nearing utter disbelief. 

•  “The sense of goodness and safety disappears out of your body”
  • My experience of trauma speaks to this description. There are days that I have great difficulty honing a sense of groundedness. I can sit on the ground and still feel my stomach in my throat. Longitudinally, most of the strain rests in my jaw. I clench my teeth in dread so often that some of the muscles around my skull ache of exertion with worrying regularity. I can always sense the bewilderment. Often, my brain can’t filter out it’s own judgement and shame-triggered self-deprecation symphony. Quickly, I am left with but one choice. Freeze. Forfeit all potential, all opportunity. But I can’t just freeze. I have obligations. Things are expected of me. I then chew the inside of my mouth, along the side and above and below. There’s nowhere else left I can reach, especially if I have  a good reason to worry. 

I didn’t see it until now. 
Until she shared something, so gently, it might of burst like a warm bubble.
“It’s not your fault.”
To hear that and try to truly know it?
I could only retreat my hand upon my heart and cry.

Then I saw a glimpse, with eyes closed.
Myself amidst a planting, knees tucked, resting humbly upon earth.
Earth trenched by hand and shovel,
Wafting in the air.
As I notice, my breaths falls into ujjayi. 

Tilling and caring were not enough though. 
No amount of watering, or rain, nor warmth would abate. 
To cultivate and yet yield not. 
Pushing around in the dirt, searching for unseen fruits to no avail.
Sowing pain without restraint. 
Seeding panic and hurt and strain.

On the brink of that next moment...
After her quieting words, and my crystalline halt,
I found it,
The ash, all around.

It lay thickly about.
Resting upon all, in sight and mind.
How was I to know?
I, Maek, would maek lye with just tears.
Wishing for rain, I yet tarnished my clay.

My maek has been burnt of late, 
Stricken by a lacking,
Singed by deceit. 

To be expected to generate,
When bone remains but the only support,
Erodes that source.
What stood could not, not for long.
Not in that state; 
When fuel barely suffices a flame,
And most of the charge is lost to ashen waste.

I see it now, all about.
In breathing into that,
I sense shifting forces upon my heart. 
Suddenly, I am drawn to novel wakes, and wands.
Words come up, and out. 

Monoliths of transmission, 
powerful transmutation.

It was not your fault, love.
You, yourself barely known,
Could never bare such a burden alone,
With no willing guide to follow. 
Cry now, but do not despair.

Hafiz, and Nesi, will take you.
To Temple Grand of Great Regard.
To Palace of Divine Mind 
And the Flow of Life. 
Their lead you to your Monument of Peace
But you know the way.
And your secret paths around it’s folds.

Wait not. Want more, love.
Dream. Aspire. Devote. Play. Practice.