How We Became A Care Constipated Society
When you have a broken bone, you get a cast. You may have crutches or a little walker to help you get around. If you have a cut, a gash, a blister, you put a bandaid over it. Sometimes, the government even offers you a blue handicapped sign to hang in your car to get you easier parking. These remind you and others that you are hurt and healing. There’s a constant reminder to be careful around it, to wash it, and rebandage it until it heals. People offer condolences, ask what happened, share their own stories or offer their help.
The thing about trauma wounds and conditions like PTSD and C-PTSD, is that there are no exact visible signs of injury. No cast worn externally over the heart, no crutches to help you move through life, no bandaid to elicit comfort and sympathy, and no blue sign that gets you better parking.
And yet, the injuries sustained from trauma run deep. They are more debilitating and last longer than a broken foot or a couple of stitches. They impact every aspect of living, mental, physical, and spiritual. Unfortunately, these wounds are on the inside where no one can see them and therefore don’t evoke the same sequences and sentiments that are so vital when it comes to healing.
Just the opposite happens, we forget or even judge ourselves. When the wound gets touched the “owwie, that hurt’’ response look like reactions, triggers, or unexpected emotions. The inner critic arrives and says, “Why am I having such a hard time? Look, this person is moving through the world so easily.” Or the all too common “it must be me” dialogue comes thundering in. People around us are also confused, “Whoa, that’s intense” or “where’d that come from?” Or it might trigger other people’s unseen wounds and then we’re off to the races.
When a wound or hurt is uncared for, unseen or unacknowledged, it festers.
Now at this point in time, after a global pandemic together, we’ve all experienced some sort of hurt, difficulty, and tragedy. Quarantine, fear for the health of our family and friends, and for many, loved ones passing away. We’ve experienced all sorts of little and big T traumas.
Imagine if you could see this — If people had bandaids, crutches, casts, and blue signs on their car dashboards for all the wounds they’ve experienced through life. How might we see or treat each other?
Try this, close your eyes and imagine an abandoned puppy, a sick kid, or someone hurting. Something inside you moves, an emotional chord is struck, the “aww” is automatically elicited. This feature is not random, it is a purposeful evolutionary design to help our species survive and is shared in all humans. The amygdala which processes emotions like empathy is activated. Mirror neurons in the brain fire that contribute to our ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Our prefrontal cortex evaluates and weighs the emotional and moral significance of helping. Sometimes when we witness distress oxytocin, the bonding hormone is released which enhances our desire to connect and help. Our brain’s reward system can be activated when we anticipate positive outcomes or fulfillment associated with doing something caring or compassionate. This combination of emotional empathy, cognitive processing, and activation of our social brain regions creates a motivational drive to care for others. We are designed to care.
So where is that in the world today?
What’s hard these days is there is suffering everywhere. You spend one day walking through any major city where homelessness is an issue and see the ever extended hungry hand reaching toward you every couple of minutes. The inherent inner parts of us that want to give, connect, share, and help are exhausted and worn out. So to survive while existing amidst the brutal cultural forces of individualism, capitalism, productivity and urgency, you build some sort of wall to preserve yourself. Eyes cast downward or the repeated nothing to offer headshake time and time again. The anger and aggravation at the whole thing, towards yourself, them, the system, stews with nowhere to be directed. We wall off and numb to get through. This is called compassion fatigue or empathy burnout.
The same processes in our brain that elicit caring and connection go into protective mode. The amygdala initiates a protective response by reducing emotional sensitivity to prevent emotional exhaustion. The constant exposure to distressing information leads to a decrease in the brain’s ability to generate strong empathic responses. The prefrontal cortex employs cognitive coping strategies to shield from distress and leads to detachment or numbing as a defense mechanism. The high exposure to distress leads to desensitization and feelings of overwhelm, powerlessness, and helplessness. The prolonged exposure of distressing information can also trigger a chronic stress response, leading to elevated cortisol levels which affect emotional processing and regulation. And the most interesting part is the brian can develop an attentional bias that focuses on negative or distressing information while neglecting positive or uplifting aspects. This can contribute to a skewed perception of the world.
What doesn’t help is that technology that has been designed to help us also has an unaccounted externality. Think about the interstitial life care moments that we once had — basic acts like lending your neighbor sugar, inviting people in for a meal, or stoop hang conversations with strangers — things that used to connect us with our neighbors and communities. These have turned into rants on Next Door, deliveries from Post Mates, and endless scrolling to a faceless audience around the world. These little moments of care have been replaced with services and technologies whose sole purpose is profit. The relationship of care has turned into a relationship of profit.
Is this how we want to live and is that the world we want to live in?
We are born with these crazy intelligent systems, capable of operating in either protective mode or the connective care mode and one is continually being hyper-stimulated over the other, I’d argue to a great detriment and with great cost. How do we tilt back towards balance? In this current care dilemma, what is so natural and lifegiving to humans is all backed up and we are care constipated.
Why does this matter? Care is vital to our health, vitality, and perhaps even the core aspect of what it is to be human. It also plays a fundamental role in strengthening communities by fostering a sense of connection, support, and cooperation. What are some things that come from care?
Trust and Relationships: Care builds trust and promotes positive relationships within communities. When people feel cared for, they are more likely to open up, communicate, and collaborate. Trust forms the foundation for cooperation and collective action.
Social Cohesion: Care contributes to the sense of belonging and unity within a community. When individuals know that they have a support system in place, they are more likely to identify with a actively participate in community activities.
Resilience: A caring community tends to be more resilient in the face of challenges. When people feel cared for, they are better equipped to cope with difficulties, adapt to changes, and bounce back from setbacks.
Inclusion and Diversity: When care if a central value, community members are more likely to embrace diversity and include individuals from different backgrounds. This creates a richer and more inclusive environment when different perspectives are represented, heard and respected.
Sense of positivity and wellbeing: When people feel valued and supported, they are more likely to contribute positively to the community and work toward its overall improvement.
Interpersonal relationship building and growth: Caring communities offer opportunities for members to learn from each other’s experiences and skills which enhances personal growth and collective knowledge.
Reduced Conflict: When care is present, conflicts are often resolved more peacefully. With deeper personal relationships and histories, people are more willing to listen and understand each other’s perspectives and find a common ground.
Longevity and Sustainability: A caring community is more likely to endure over time. When individuals feel a strong sense of connection and care for their community, they are more motivated to invest their time and effort into its future.
So how do we get back to a caring society? These are some lessons I’ve learned in trauma work.
First, we must remember. In trauma work, a long-lasting impact happens when we remember the care we have for ourselves, especially the parts of us that didn’t receive care at times of pain and hurt. When we learn to turn towards the hurt, our natural sense of care is elicited. The evolutionary evolved functions in our brain are activated to help us thrive. You see it in the flower growing between the cement cracks, the sourdough starters taped on telephone polls, stenciled graffiti reminding you that magic exists, random poems typed by strangers on typewriters, and community refrigerators throughout cities. Like the flower sticking up through cracks there is an inherent force within that pushes through and continues to be ever reaching towards the sun. That strength sits in all of us if we remember.
Second, relationships. We need to value the role of ourselves and the role of relationships in the thriving of our future. In trauma work, you learn that when trauma happens, the too-much nature of it leads us to 1) disconnect from our experience in order to survive and 2) disconnect from other humans because we become afraid of another human’s ability to hurt us. Healing involves healing the disconnected relationship with ourselves and the disconnected relationship with others. And a critical part of this healing equation is that it needs to happen in relationships. It cannot happen alone, with a device, or with AI. Human relationships are irreplaceable.
Third, recognize and celebrate each other’s inner resources. In trauma work, successful healing happens when the individual’s innate resources are strengthened and restored. The role that therapists, counselors, and coaches lend is their presence, regulated systems and they reflect qualities like kindness, compassion, and courage. Over time, the individual’s own blueprint is remembered and strengthened within themselves and their capacity to move through life, thrive, be in relationships, show up for oneself, and regulate through hard times is revitalized. The nuanced Jedi move here starts with seeing, bringing attention to, and celebrating the inner resources that are already there within ourselves and each other. This involves going against the mainstream attention sucking efforts of negative fear-mongering news that keeps you in sympathetic fight and flight all the time and asks you to go out and experience life for yourself, look for the flower in the crack, look for the glimmer in fellow humans, and be discerning in where you place your attention, strengthen the inner systems of care.
Fourth, resilience. Caring for others calls for emotional resiliency. In trauma work, I’ve learned that when people have the mental, emotional, and behavior tools to respond to the internal and external demands today’s world brings, they are more able to keep showing up to life’s happenings for themselves and their loved ones. For many of the generations before us they were strapped, stressed, and exhausted after starting from scratch from a new country, pushing through poverty, racism, classism, and sexism. Their tools of resilience were to be strong, push through, not speak up, and just get on. These tools of resilience helped them succeed with their time and are outdated for the generations today. Resilience in these days includes the lesser acknowledged world of emotions — regulation, mindfulness, presence, awareness, communication, healthy coping, relationship and conflict resolution.
Navigating the intricacies of being human in today’s world is complex. We face issues like climate change, inequality and social justice, political instability, rapid technology advancements, unreliable healthcare access, food insecurity, economic inequality, and education disparities. The problems can seem insurmountable and overwhelming and working through trauma can become an endless marry-go-around. The off ramp is to celebrate the glimmers, look for and orient toward the light, and ask how we can better incorporate care into all levels of society, community, environment, and business and economic models.