She punched her newborn baby in the face

My jaw dropped as he told me about a case of a young mother who was impregnated by a family member that subjected her to years of abuse and neglect. On the day of the child’s birth the mothers accumulated pain, stress and anger climaxed into her reaching across delivery table and punching her new baby in the face.

As I struggled with my emotions about the story I couldn’t help but notice the almost nonchalant attitude of my friend, almost a callousness towards the situation. When I asked how does he work in these situations he shrugged his shoulders and said, “People are messy.”

The Symptom:

Months later I found that my friend was involved in mess of his own and brought the same callus into his own life. As a result his callousness ended up alienating and hurting many friends and families.

The Issue:

I realized that if we don’t appropriately handle our own trauma and the trauma of our world we too can one day treat the things that should be precious with violence.

The Solution:

1. Let trauma break your heart

• If we keep ignoring our feelings we will one day forget them.
• Callousness isn’t the answer, confrontation is.
• Just because we are made to help others doesn’t mean we are impervious to the impact of their problems
• Never see yourself better than another person’s ‘mess’. Always find yourself inside of their trauma. Remember at any given time we can be one catalyst away from their struggle.
•  Our heart has to remain sensitive enough to allow the people closest to us to hurt us. Our eyes have to be open to see how we hurt others. We still have to gauge and reciprocate the emotional demands of our environment.

2. Be processed by the trauma

• The natural pull of life leads us to place of instability and ignorance.
• The natural progression of our professions makes us emotionally exhausted, cynical and divorced.
• If we are to beat the natural pull of life and profession then we must be  conscious and deliberate.
• We have to know how and when to deny our professional lives access to our personal lives.

3. Be defined by the things you value rather than the trauma you encountered.

• Identify the root behind the trauma and determine the principles that contradict it. (sacrifice VS selfishness; community VS isolation)
• Be conscious and deliberate about making a plan to uphold the principles in place of the hurt from the trauma.
• Let your actions and decision be based on a principle and not an occurrence. Remember I am therefore I do. In other words, function emerges out of identity, my identity is not dictated by function.