Creating BRAVE Spaces — A Guide for Human Beings, Especially Self-Identified Empaths or Philosophers
“If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn’t it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived?”― Maya Angelou
I believe it’s best not to overcomplicate things. Every human being has the same basic needs: physiological, safety, and belonging must be met before we can grapple with esteem and self actualization.
Self-help practices, including mindfulness/meditation/prayer, are about the top of the pyramid.
Enlightenment is just a fancy word for self-actualization.
The problem is, when we bypass the bottom of the pyramid to focus exlusively on the top, we have no secure base for our scaffolding.
Safe spaces are a fantasy and get in the way of creating BRAVE spaces — spaces where we can be our authentic selves and where “trigger warnings” are no longer necessary.
Safe-enough spaces are spaces where we are free to be brave. It’s like good-enough parenting. We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be real. Brave spaces are found in relationships with real people where we can be our authentic Selves without fear of rejection. Without brave spaces it is impossible to heal — to recover, to work towards self-actualization, to reach for enlightenment.
The first step to feeling brave with another human being, or a group of human beings, is being able to speak our Truth while feeling seen, heard, understood, and believed.
It really is that simple, but our society is not adept at creating brave spaces or brave people. It’s up to each of us to be brave enough to change what we can.
“Self-compassion doesn’t simply mean changing ourselves. It also means changing the systems that cause us harm.” — Kristin Neff
Are you a brave person with others? How do you know? Do you have brave people as role models? How do you determine that?
If you ever feel as if you’re walking on eggshells in relationship you are kidding yourself about your safety and your bravery. Eggshells are an indication of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
Eggshells is a gut feeling that something isn’t right. It is our intuition trying to get our attention. The feeling of walking on eggshells is the result of gaslighting, and it is a salience cue telling us that change is needed.
Gaslighting (invalidation, projective identification) is something we all do and something we are all victims of.
Self-awareness lies in recognizing that gaslighting is universal and working to change the behaviors that cause us to harm ourselves and others.
We are all wounded in relationship with others and must heal in relationship with others. This is the common humanity component of compassion.
“Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships.” — Judith Herman
The most heartbreaking realization for all of us is seeing the Truth for what it is — that the people and groups whose role it is to help us are usually the ones, unintentionally, causing us the most harm. Betrayal trauma, a trauma on top of truama, is the result.
Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person’ s trust or well-being. -Jennifer Freyd
As with most researchers and writers, my quest for knowledge is very personal. I was forced to learn about trauma, complex-trauma, and betrayal- trauma in order to survive. It’s the classic blessing and curse. My own psychiatric crisis is what eventually saved my sanity — and my life. My deep understanding of trauma is what has allowed me to move from merely surviving, to the relief and joy of authentically thriving. I continue to move in the direction of self-actualization.
As I move further and further up the pyramid, I am able to look back on those who are struggling to move up towards the top. I can see the delusions in the “experts” who think they are ahead of me, but who are clearly stuck in the yellow and green. Those who struggle the most are the ones most terrified of facing the Truth. I am writing this for them, perhaps for you.
Creating Brave Spaces 101 — And what get’s in the way.
- Be Honest About What Makes a cult a Cult.
My definition of a cult (drawn from Merriam-Webster): Cult = A false or fake system for the cure of disease (disorder, discomfort) based on dogma set forth by its promulgator. A group of people who follow the ideology of a charismatic leader who is not what he or she purports to be. Followers of a fraudulent guru.
2. Understand the Basics of Childhood Development
Learn how attachment theory, ego formation etc., impacts and is impacted by cult-mentality and cultish language. Cultish language is equivalent to gaslighting abuse, which results in complex-trauma.
3. Know the True Meaning of the Word Gaslighting
“The dogma set forth by its promulgator”= gaslighting. Cults are led by toxic narcissists. Toxic narcissists are controlled by shame (weak ego). Toxic shame leads to projective identification (discharging shame onto another) in the form of gaslighting. For a deeper understanding, please refer to this article on Thought-Terminating Clichés.
“The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”
3. Explore Your Own Cognitive Dissonance
See explanation above. Cognitive dissonance is evidenced by a feeling of walking on eggshells and a fear of speaking up. Cognitive Dissonance inhibits healthy narcissism (self-protection/boundaries) which prevents the formation of self-compassion.
4. Nurture Your Own Healthy Narcissism
5. Acknowledge Your Privilege
Privilege results in a phenomena I’m going to describe as “Cult-Shopping” (from the brilliant mind of Rachel Bernstein). Privileged people with too much time on their hands tend to jump from one cultish group to another in search of meaning and purpose. Cults attract people of privilege who don’t recognize their own complex-trauma and are in search of “healing” (self-actualization, enlightenment). I know a lot about Cult-Shopping, I’ve been doing it for years — hence the intimate knowledge of the harm caused by institutional betrayal. I was an insider, now I’m Scapegoat turned Whistleblower.
5. Recognize Trauma as the Cause
I have become disillusioned by the mental gymnastics supposedly intelligent people jump through to not attribute mental health struggles (including all addiction) to trauma. What are the “experts” so afraid of?
Trauma is universal. It’s part of our common humanity. I didn’t recognize my own complex-trauma until I was 55 years old. I often think how different my life would have been if the very first therapist I saw while in college in 1985 had been able to diagnose me appropriately with complex-PTSD.
We all experience post-traumatic stress, but only some of us develop the disorder. This is simple science. It’s frustrating when the “experts” can’t figure this stuff out, or refuse to see the Truth due to their own hubris.
6. Admit That Brain Science Is The Same For All of Us
“Everyone is different”, and its endless variations, are the most egregious examples of Thought-Terminating Clichés (see #3).
It’s a meaningless statement in its inanity. In fact, our brains and bodies are much more similar than they are different. Scientists, of all people, should be aware of that.
We may have a genetic (nature) predisposition to certain conditions, but without the specific epigentics (nurture — environmental conditions), the genetic predisposition will not manifest itself as an issue that leads to suffering. For example, though there are correlations between certain genes and substance use disorder, the links are meaningless and the case for causation is non-existent.
Rigorous scientific studies into mental health conditions and their possible treatments are woefully inadequate, and, as usual, it’s those with the least amount of power who suffer the most from the flawed research.
7. Know That Labels Are Harmful — And Stop Using Them!
People with ADHD or an addiction to alcohol are treated very differently than people with borderline personality disorder or an addiction to crack — even though the processes going on in our brains are exactly the same. This becomes even more evident when we consider comorbidities — these conditions happen together because it’s all the same pathways.
It hurts my heart when I hear people wearing their ADHD or OCD diagnosis like a badge of honor — as if you’re better than the rest of us because your primary trauma responses (flight) are more socially acceptable than ours (fluctuations between fawn/freeze to flight/fight).
8. Nurture Your Own Humility and Grace
See #4. If you don’t think you have toxic narcissistic tendencies, think again. Narcissism is universal. If you are a well-meaning, polite person of privilege, you will need to work much harder at points 4 and 8. Owning our privilege is painful. If you aren’t feeling uncomfortable right now, you are not self-aware and you definitely lack empathy.
9. Get Angry About Injustice — Don’t Be Complacent — Be Kind Not Nice
“Anger is not inherently destructive. My anger can be a force for good. My anger can be creative and imaginative, seeing a better world that doesn’t yet exist. It can fuel a righteous movement toward justice and freedom.” — Austin Channing Brown
Anger in the face of injustice is righteous anger — it’s an indication of fierce self-compassion (healthy narcissism). White privilege is all about being polite and nice. Fighting oppression is all about being assertive and kind. Be kind.
Authentic brave spaces are imperative to any real “recovery.” A space that is not safe to be brave for all is not safe for anyone. Mutual Support Groups (12 steps and all the related MSGs) are unsafe for the oppressed.
The oppressed have no voice in the cacophony of privileged people seeking their own enlightenment (aka recovery).
Oppressed people (100% of whom have complex-trauma) can teach us a lot. Some of my friends who have lived with oppression their entire lives look at those of us complaining about being harmed or saved by meditation and shake their heads.
“Cry me an f-ing river.”
That’s where the shame of privilege bites us. When we don’t acknowledge our privilege, we are destined to unknowingly harm ourselves and others indefinitely.
Breaking the Stigma of mental “illness” is all about recognizing our shared humanity (an essential element of compassion).
