Lisa J. Newell, Somatic Healing and Trauma Therapy
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Colonialist Greed and Unresolved Trauma Response in the Collective Human Organism

5/24/2020

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If we look with a macro lens, can humans be seen as one organism? One body of a collection of cells? Each group of cells having different purpose, shape, response, task, the same way one human body does? Some cells get sick. Some thrive. Some take control. Some forget their purpose. All happening at the same time and driven by a mysterious force keeping it all going. 

Sometimes, when I am in a more meditative state and less attached to this earth-based life, I can just allow this to be a neutral, benign truth. Seeing it as just the way it is, with acceptance. But most of the time, it is difficult to remain peaceful about it because tremendous injustice exists among us, primarily at the expense of oppressed peoples. 

Humans are not like other animals. Generally, we aren’t just wild out here any more, living and dying close to the earth like the deer and the coyotes who are largely unseen by humans in their struggles and survival. We have big brains with intricate skill sets as well as complex psychological wounds and flaws. To be a sensitive human that cares about other humans’ well-being seems to mean that there is always something to fight or oppose or resist, and by something, I mean Greed. In particular the Colonial, white, patriarchal variety.

From this lens of seeing humans as one organism, are activists the immune system- the cells that identify a threat and work tirelessly to contain and eliminate it? Over time, they may or may not succeed at keeping the organism alive but along the way there are fluctuations in the general health of it. Some wins here, some losses there. 

The thing that has fueled all things white supremacy, misogyny, classist, ableist, colonialist, and so on, is greed. Insatiable greed, like cancer, doesn’t give up unless it has good reason to. It has the intention (either consciously or unconsciously) of devouring land and indigenous bodies and women... of using black bodies and the working class to make more and more and more money. Never satiated. It is acting from a place of disregard for balance or for those it is devouring/using. It is acting from an automatic response, a belief that it must do what it is doing because “survival at all costs” is the only goal. As if it is engaged in tunnel vision.  

This is sometimes what it's like when unresolved trauma is taking the lead in one’s life; it causes us massive stress and overwhelm and we are unable to fully access our resilience and sometimes our compassion too. We see any harm we cause as necessary or collateral damage. In the case of systemic large scale greed, and the resulting ability to treat groups of people and animals and the planet with such profound disrespect and disregard, it is my belief that there must be a complex level of denial and pain in place. A disconnection from humanity’s pain and also joy. This type of behavior is most often rooted in trauma- perpetual, pervasive trauma. And then through the generations it becomes the perpetrator of cultural trauma. 

From this lens, is Greed an unresolved trauma response of the colonizer experience? In very simple terms, an unresolved trauma response is when part of our autonomic nervous system is stuck in a fully engaged response to defend/protect/avoid the pain/discomfort/terror of the past because it has not yet realized that the threat has passed. It is on autopilot, often getting stuck with the “pedal to the metal'' and will not stop until safety is reached. But it doesn’t realize that safety may have already been reached. (Of course safety is relative and subjective). When we are stuck in this state, our ability to see, feel, experience, or comprehend empathy is compromised. In turn, this behavior sees all things as threatening and a means to an end. [Please note that this is a very oversimplified explanation and I could go into great detail about the nervous system as it relates to transgenerational trauma but that is not the primary purpose of this post]. 
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How do activists and healers and organizers help create the possibility of collectively coming out of a trauma response? Of reducing harm and facilitating healing? How can we create collective safety and containment for the illness, trauma, fear, and denial of this colonizer mentality and behavior? Do our individual actions and behaviors really make a difference if there is not system change? Is system change even possible at this point? Has the cancer become out of control? Is it possible to just live with the cancer and have it not take over? What would the death of this organism look like?

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Part I: The White Freeze Response as it Relates to Social Inaction

5/24/2020

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(Parts II and III for Fight and Flight responses are forthcoming)

Many activists wonder why some white people won’t or can’t take action for social change or stand up for other people being treated unjustly. There are myriad reasons for this. One answer (from a body-based perspective) is that this inaction is rooted in the Freeze Response, a.k.a shell shock, death feigning, or immobility. This is the same reason that people struggle with not being able to take action for change in their personal life either.

First, some neurobiology, in simple terms. Let us remember that we are animals with instinctual responses to threats. The Fight and Flight responses (as well as Fawn) are employed first, to try to get away from a threat or defend ourself. The freeze response is employed when the other responses are failing or are thwarted. Freeze is an important resource designed as a short term strategy to either numb us out to get through something life threatening or to numb us out while we die. Our bodies are very intelligent in this way. But the more this happens without being resolved, the deeper the freeze sets in. We can get stuck there when we are faced with the same (perceived) life threatening situation over and over with no resolution and with no end in sight i.e. ongoing domestic/partner violence and childhood trauma, as well as pervasive and traumatic cultural norms such as sexism and racism. Some people are under the constant threat of non-safety because of their gender or race and find it difficult to impossible to know when to let their guard down and begin to feel safer. Without that sense of feeling safer at some point, this freeze stays in place.

When we are stuck in Freeze, our body often experiences any kind of stressful situation as a threat on our life and their nervous system is protecting us by shutting down. Sometimes our nervous system doesn’t know the difference and it over-reacts to non-life threatening situations as such. As a result, we have less access to those responses, which are important resources for our survival and ability to thrive and feel safe. 
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Some common signs of someone being stuck in a chronic freeze response are: not being connected to their body (disassociation), shut off emotionally, depressed, lethargic, constipated/gut issues, difficult trusting and connecting with people, anxiety, difficulty making decisions, isolation, difficulty feeling anything (including joy and pleasure), and self harming behaviors.

We know white European ppl have chronic freeze patterns in our nervous systems from hundreds of years of perpetrating, being victims of, and being complacent in torture, war, rape, colonization, murder of women/healers/queers and people of color, etc. We learned tremendous survival strategies, some nourishing and some harmful. Sometimes, in order to survive you need to not feel emotions and white folks can be really good at this, especially when we are perceived as being “bad”. We will go to great lengths to not be perceived as bad. We believe that to be racist equals being bad so therefore we believe we must not be racist because we are “good”. It is a masterful strategy, rooted in survival responses but also very harmful, to not be held accountable for harmful behavior.

We see this Freeze show up in white “liberal” spaces, meetings, and platforms, among folks who are actively working for change and then get called out on their harmful behavior. We see ourselves as good and therefore we must not be racist since we are well-meaning and working for change. But we act (or don't act, as it were) based on what is familiar to us (rooted in early childhood attachment styles and traumas- including ancestral). Its not an "either you're racist or you're not" type of situation; there is always more learning and unpacking to do over a lifetime. White folks tend to seek acceptance in these spaces. So when we are seen as saying or doing something that caused harm, we freeze sometimes. We don’t often realize that current situations remind our bodies of long-ago overwhelming experiences that we never processed. These get buried deep in our Somatic consciousness. This is how our collective nervous system becomes stuck in survival mode over generations; we become less and less able to respond and recover well (resiliency). And sometimes it still happens even if we have done some of that healing work. 

White anti-racists must continue to work to heal the frozen places in us around so that we can show up and face the pain of seeing the harm we continue to cause and see our complacency in racist culture. It is imperative that folks with European ancestry work through our intergenerational trauma and the freeze patterns we hold in our bodies and minds, as well as our attachment wounds so we can more fully show up and change the ways white supremacy, misogyny, and capitalism abuse us all, especially people of color, poor folks, women, and the LGBTQ community.

It is impossible to separate out the personal from the cultural but if we are aware of our freeze responses it can help us expand our awareness and help each other be able to access more of our resilient nervous system responses. From there, we can take action in ways that feel connected to ourself and our communities. From there, we can help our white friends, neighbors, and family members to thaw too. We can develop the on-going skills needed to own our mistakes, name the mistakes we see in each other, and to notice when we need to slow things down a bit in order to pay attention to what needs to be tended to with care.


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    Blog: 
    Lisa J. Newell 

    Somatic Therapist, Facilitator, Community Organizer

    These are my ramblings in progress!

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