💥#18: The Politics of Trauma | Part 2 | by Staci K. Haines - Book Summary & Key Takeaways

Hello courageous people! 👋 Welcome to Edition 18.

This week, we are featuring is Part 2 of 📚 The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice 🖋 by Staci K. Haines. (If you missed Part 1, you can read it here!)

We are answering the big question, how do we go about re-constructing our society and our systems to not only heal, but to prevent trauma from happening to our future generations?

Let’s jump in! All text in italics are quotes taken directly from the book.

✋How do we go about transforming? As an I, a You and a We

The vast majority of the second half of The Politics of Trauma serves to answer this question.

The answer is, lies in the Somatic Arc of Transformation.

It is used to help transform and heal individuals, groups and organizations - which that in and of itself (to me) seems like quite the feat!

The Somatic Arc takes into account the social conditions and systems we exist in, as well as the huge variety of traumas and their causes:

There are 5 phases, referred to as Circles that help us progress from our current shape to a new shape:

1. Commitment

2. Regenerating Safety

3. Somatic Opening

4. Connection

5. Embodying Change

Next we will dive into each of these phases and what they involve.

🙂 Circle One: Commitment. What do you care about? Why the body?

Everything in this book comes back to the body. In fact Staci usually uses a different word for it - the soma - as even the use of the word “body” comes with so many presumptions. For example:

I can’t overstate how much of this work comes back to reclaiming the body, the soma and reconnecting with it:

Being truly connected with our bodies helps us to fulfil the next part of Circle One - asking ourselves these questions:

We need to organise our somas towards something. Towards a possibility.

Answering these questions is about feeling the answer. The key to our true desires lie in our sensations and are a felt, resonant experience. 🤯

🛡 Circle Two: Regenerating Safety and Embodied Resilience

Let’s explore what is meant by Embodied Resilience in the context of trauma and healing:

In a world where the world resilience can get bandied about too often, and even have toxic implications for people, this is a definition I really like. It even speaks of resilience as a practice and asks what things support our resilience. The research has shown:

This makes sense, but the reframing here of these often recommended activities to actively build our resilience (especially given the definition above) feels somewhat new and refreshing. 😌

Now let’s discuss Regenerating Safety.

If we don’t have a sense of safety, we cannot and do not function.

(There were many biological responses outlined in the book as well which I haven’t been able to prioritise in this edition, but if you are looking for an overview of those responses, I’d recommend reading newsletter #2: What Happened To You by Dr Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey)

Our ability to regenerate safety means processing our historical traumatic reactions which are still operating in our nervous systems. Sometimes these are so embedded as responses that we believe that “this is just how I am”.

There are three aspects to regenerating safety:

It’s important to note that the body won’t let go of its current safety strategies (no matter how poorly they may be serving us) unless we have a new and better way to feel safe.

And secondly (kind of unfortunately, but we can’t be surprised 😆) is that just reading about these practices doesn’t mean we will embody them - they really are a practice at each and every single level.

🤲 Circle Three: Somatic Opening

I felt initially challenged by Somatic Opening being third in the process instead of first, but I now understand why.

Somatic Opening cannot occur first because we need to know where we are going and why we are going there (Circle One) and we need to have strategies to be able to return to safety before truly opening (Circle Two).

If we start blowing things wide open without strategies to come back from that place, we can end up in danger.

We have to take things apart before we can re-build them. It’s tough, but true.

I think anyone who has faced a past trauma head on can relate to this experience, and now we have a specific name for what that is called.

To better illustrate, here is a story demonstrating where Somatic Opening was interrupted.

🚗 Years ago Staci was driving in San Francisco down a busy street when the car in front of her ran a red light. There was a woman accompanying a group of children who had already started to cross the road when this happened, and they all scattered in the process to avoid being hit. Staci got out of her car to see what happened:

Of course, the boy did what most kids would do and he tried to comply. He tightened his jaw, held back the tears and pulled his arms into his body, breathing shallowly. He stopped the tears and the shaking by force rather than letting it run its course:

Whenever our natural processing cycle is interrupted, just like it was for this boy, it can stay with us long term as we harbour that ball of pent up energy—sometimes without even realising.

These experiences also form the blueprint for future responses in similar situations, hence why the process of Somatic Opening is so vitally important when we are talking about transformation.

😔 Circle Four: Healing Shame, Mutual Connection and Generative Conflict

This part of the work encompasses taking bigger risks, going deeper in relationships, being more accountable and (this is a big one) allowing for conflict to be a vessel through which we can build trust, not break it. 🤯

💧 Healing Shame

The process of opening to the shame or uncovering it, along with education and social context, cultivating forgiveness—including self-forgiveness help us to heal from shame and move forward.

🤝 Mutual Connection

This part of the work involves deepening our relationships in a truly authentic way, where our own needs as well as the needs of others can all be met.

😡 Generative Conflict

Trauma can leave us more susceptible and brittle to conflict, but engaging in the practice of growing through conflict has innumerable benefits.

🌱 Circle Five: Embodying Change

This final part of the circle is really embodying and embedding all of the changes of the previous 4 steps, so that it becomes our new self. It is the locking in stage of this levelling up work. (Before we rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat 🤪)

This phase will likely require further somatic opening.

How do we engage with purposeful practice? 

There are 5 parts:

Practice makes perfect, right?

So there we have it, a two part jam-packed model for individual and social healing and change. I feel both inspired and overwhelmed after having finished reading The Politics of Trauma. It feels simultaneously more achievable and accessible, as well as engrained and impossible.

Nevertheless, if we keep showing up and keep doing the work in ourselves, in our relationships, in our communities, in our institutions and in our natural environment, we will (surely 🙏🤞) get there.

Until next week,Eleanor ❤️🙏

🧠 Resources & Links

🔍 Find a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (AU & NZ)

📔 Download a free chapter of The Politics of Trauma

🖥 Generative Somatics - Resources including essays, articles, webinars, videos, and podcasts

📕 Next week’s book

Coming out next Friday 3rd June 2022 is edition #19 featuring:📚 Catch And Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators🖋 by Ronan Farrow

If you’re not already, subscribe now to get the next edition straight to your inbox! 📬