Finding Meaning in Trauma

We all have a way of looking at life and assessing what it has value to us. Whether we are aware of it or not, our value system is based on very specific conclusions we’ve drawn from experiences we’ve had, and those conclusions are operating unconsciously in our mind, and determine what value we look for, and what things we avoid.

There is the Christmas effect, where when we are young it is easy to get excited for Christmas, and then slowly over time, Christmas brings a bigger to-do list that stresses us out, than things that excite us.

We likely started off life with an optimistic value system, and then as we notice how those expectations fail us, we replace them with a more pessimistic assessment or value system.

Our original value system was naïvely optimistic, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a wise optimistic value system. We could have upgraded our original naively optimistic value system, but we assess any new value system by our old one, and what reason would we have to adopt the new value system, if the old one has evidence that it produces some happiness, when the new one doesn’t have any proof that it works?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… right?

This is the problem, it is extremely difficult when our old value system, naïve or not, produces positive results, to switch it for a new one. The only time we can give up our value system for a new one, is when the results are clearly more negative than positive… or in other words, after a trauma, when our naïve value system seemed to have failed us big time. We only let go of our old value system when it totally shatters, and we challenge all of the assumptions or conclusions it was made of.

For some reason though, we challenge our assumptions when they are naïvely optimistic, but not when they are naively pessimistic.

This is why trauma is good, is because at some point, whether we are trying to collect data to prove it or not, we realize that our now naively pessimistic value system is also failing us, because it doesn’t help us find value, which is what a value system is for. An optimistic value system has to be shattered to be replaced, but a pessimistic value system is one that we can swap out just because it does us no good. This means that our only way to grow, is to have an experience shatter our value system, then after it is replaced by a pessimistic one, to challenge it, and put in a new one.

Until we become very self-aware, we are more like a train on a set of tracks than a person walking in an open field, and traumas are those switch points, where we can turn the direction we want to head. The unconscious drives keep us on a set course, until a traumatic experience shows us that they are there. When we think things are good, there is no reason to look around for more—in this way, comfort is a form of captivity, because it makes us willingly blind to anything more than what we already see.

Trauma by no means is fun, but if we are willing to challenge the pessimistic assumptions that come from it, we will eventually develop a value system that is both realistic and brings us happiness. There is no use holding on to a pessimistic way of looking at life, you might as well challenge it and see what you find.