Shame, Survival, & Safety
How safe, inclusive community resourcing and relational support stop the shame cycles that compromise survival -- and create access points for recovery
Evan Jacques writes,
Worried about saying the wrong thing?
. . . that'll be the trauma.
Shame is just as much an ego trap as arrogance.
Panicking about whether you've said the wrong thing
Wishing you could hold up a sign saying "I'm Sorry, I Don't Mean Any Harm" in every moment
Wishing others could hold up a sign saying "Correct" or "Incorrect" in every moment so you could instantly know if your words were okay or not
None of this is about compassion for the other person's feelings and needs.
All of it is about the terrified, traumatised ego trying to protect itself.
The problem is that when you're traumatised enough to feel this way — and if you feel this way, you are traumatised enough to feel this way — knowing it's an ego trap, wanting to get out of it, and trying to get out of it may be useless against the titanic power of your fear.
That's because it's survival fear.
Once again, even if nobody has directly tried to kill you, neurologically speaking… you are traumatised enough to be in fear for your life.
This is one of the reasons community is so important.
Having supportive people around tells your trauma brain, "It's ok, you're not alone, it would be difficult for anyone to kill you right now," which enables you — with effort, with courage — to rise above your survival fear and talk to others from your heart.
This is incredibly important when it comes to advocating for your own needs.
Without it, you're terrifiedly begging.
With it, you can discuss things reasonably with understanding of the other person's perspective.
This can make the difference between literal life and death.
Max Morris writes,
When we build community structures together that center a full understanding of the interpersonal and environmental dynamics that survivors of invisible violence are navigating, we create opportunities for all living beings (locally and non-locally) to know and respect one another.
All community environments profoundly benefit from safe, inclusive resourcing; where safe, inclusive resourcing is prevented, we typically find human trafficking pathways.
Shame activation being a prime toolset of human trafficking organizations, it’s especially important for all communities to recognize more resonant ways of navigating shame-related challenges.
Wherever we notice particular shame accumulation in an environment, it is the trafficking-purposed infrastructure facilitating it; when we make new and different choices together in our community environments, we dismantle that infrastructure and its harmful effects.
Then we are in a much better position to build new infrastructure together, new conditions, new containers, and thereby hold the space of caring and belonging much more successfully with one another.
It’s hard to navigate shame experiences. For shame to be used purposely against us is a formidable kind of weapon, and traffickers do know this.
But we can totally change the energy of it.
And eventually, we start to realize that we no longer have to be harmed by it.
We’re doing this already, just by talking about it.
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This peace of Intuitive Copy was compiled by M. Morris & E. Jacques (2 April - 5 June 2022). Visit our community resources at t.me/IntuitivePublicRadio.
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