Timely words about trauma and change from The Teachers in my recently-published book, Traveling Light, Moving Our Awareness Beyond the Fives Senses (p. 154-55):

…Sometimes, cataclysmic events occur in our lives that force change. Then the psychic upheaval is so great that we cannot possibly go back to who we were before. This is called trauma.

A’riquea:  Trauma itself breaks the connection to cultural conditioning. Of course, it can also spin the other way and become a bondage, but trauma provides an opportunity to see the world in a new way, it is a chance to shift perspective. 

It is more difficult to shift when someone is working to maintain a predictable path. Then everything that occurs must be made to fit that fixed way of seeing and Being. Experiencing trauma and healing from it bring Being out into the open, where exposure to other ways is not so threatening. 

The very act of healing requires a new way of Being. That is the gift––that one cannot go back to the way they were before the trauma. That is difficult to see in the short term. There is an intense feeling of loss. Healing requires the embrace of that loss, the recognition that something has changed, and the courage to move in a new direction. Healing is a kind of rebuilding. Of course, people can choose to move in new directions at any time. Trauma is not a requirement. The opportunity is always there.

“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.”
~  Michelle Rosenthall