Trauma and Transitions: How To Navigate Forward

Illustration by a former student reflecting on starting college

Transitions Are Tough Sledding

As a society, we have never been particularly good at transitions. This is most obvious in the context of schools. Consider whether students transition well into Elementary School. Then, how well do they transition into Middle School? How’s the transition to High School? And, reflect on the transition to college, whether a student is living at home, returning to college after years away having stopped out or dropped out or never started or living on campus near or far from home.

The Pandemic and its aftermath including our de-masking and return to engagement with others outside our pod call for a myriad of transitions. Unfortunately, we have paid insufficient attention to these transitions, as if we can all make them with the ease and with rapidity; we treat transitions as if all they require is flipping a switch. Nothing could be farther from the truth, once we understand how our minds and bodies function and respond to change. And, we need to add in that much of what has happened over the past 18 months has been traumatic — for individuals, for families, for communities, for our nation.

This piece seeks to explore some of the transitions that have occurred since the start of the Pandemic (a date that may differ among us but for simplicity, I am using February, 2020) and which are before us in the months to come. Then, I offer some suggestions for how to facilitate these transitions, most grounded in trauma for adults and children alike, within and outside the educational arena. The illustration of the Red Person and Green Person above will serve as a reference point to help us understand where we are and where we are going. Notice for starters that they are pulling against, not with, each other.

The Transitions We Are Experiencing

Since the start of the Pandemic, schools have opened and closed, often repeatedly. Learning modalities have changed from in person to online to hybrid to synchronous to asynchronous. We’ve had to transition within educational space as educators develop ways to communicate with their students, new approaches to imparting information, different tools to measure learning, and identifying and gauging mental and physical well-being. Educators have been struggling with these changes, as have students. “Zoom fatigue” is a common expression these days. So is “Covid fatigue.”

But, the just described transitions are but the tip of the trauma-laden transition iceberg. Since the start of the Pandemic, we have worn masks and remained socially distant (at least for the most part). We have experienced shutdowns of public places and spaces from restaurants to movie theaters to sports venues to workplaces. In a sense, we have developed isolation from others and perhaps ourselves, hiding our feelings behind masks of all shapes and colors and sizes.

With the Pandemic, many families have experienced losses: family and friends have died from Covid (and some have died from other causes including accidents and illnesses and suicides and overdoses). Others we know have not yet recovered from Covid’s impact on their bodies and minds; there is a reason these people are called “long haulers.”

Add to this that there have been family disruption and dysfunction. There has been food scarcity and homelessness and increased abuse and overuse of drugs and alcohol. There has been a loss of employment or employment that put workers at risk for illness, including passing it on to their family members. People have died alone in hospitals or accompanied by a nurse or doctor or other medical professional, sometimes Facetiming with their family as they breathe their last breaths. (Who could have imagined this use of FaceTime?). These are all moments of transitions amidst trauma.

There have been repeated reports of relationships ending, brought on in part due to the trauma of the Pandemic, the stresses and strains it has caused including close proximity day-in and day-out. Financial strains are real. Some people have not seen family members in person for over a year or more. Grandchildren have seen grandparents through a screen (literally whether a door screen or a window screen or a computer screen). Friendships have been stressed although we have been inventive in finding ways to connect in the absence of travel — whether by car or bus or train or plane.

Add to all this that there has been tensions in our world: racial and ethnic discrimination; floods and fires and other natural disasters (including the cyber breach of a pipeline); shootings in a myriad of locations, many previously considered safe; political discord and absence of reconciliation; and a raid on our Capital (with deaths); and a verdict and videos related to police misconduct that shake us to our core.

Then, we need to realize that many of our traditions have been disrupted or lost. Holiday celebrations, commemoration of death, religious services, time-honored get-togethers among family and/or friends, weddings, memorial services, sports activities, graduations. The list is long. For those for whom traditions have deep roots and ethnic and cultural meaning, the absence of these events is profound even as we develop new traditions from our Pandemic vistas.

Now What?

Look at the image above. For me, it represents our effort to deal with the past within ourselves (the red person) and the desire/requirement that we move forward (the green person). Yes, we are one person but we are struggling with how to release the past and embrace the future. We are literally feeling a pull within us; we are pulling apart.

We actually can’t go back. The Pandemic and its accompanying outcomes have changed us forever. Death has changed us. Relationships have ended. Illness has changed us. Learning differently has changed us. Social distancing and masks have changed us. Indeed, one of trauma’s ugly hallmarks is that it doesn’t go away. It says with us. We can pull and tug as seen in this illustration. But the reality is that we can’t actually go back, although we can certainly struggle as we try to move forward — the move that makes us feel we are going from red to green — — and leaving red behind/

So, how do we manage and find a comfortable pathway forward — individuals, families, communities, our nation, our world? Here are some suggestions. They may not work for everyone but some pieces of some of them may work for some people. And, any step forward is valuable, even as we continue our transitions from the world as we knew it to a different world.

To this end, I want to preface my suggestions with this observation, garnered by listening to Kobe Bryant’s wife speaking literally for her late husband at his enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame. To be sure, his death and that of his daughter Gigi and the others on that fated plane ride were tragic. And, Kobe had no shortage of challenges and things he’d change in his personal and professional life, despite a myriad of unbelievable and extraordinary successes. Think about this: he is the only professional athlete to win an Oscar.

Listen to Vanessa

In her speech, which is worth listening too (although it evokes tears), Vanessa Bryant did something remarkable. Instead of focusing on what she and her family and the world lost (and they lost plenty), she focused on what she and we gained. She thanked Kobe for the amazing things he did on and off the court. She was remembering the good and the great. She was creating a way to carry his memories forward. And, to realize that he may have gone, but his “goodness” will continue.

To return to the illustration above, Vanessa Bryant was saying: The Red Person doesn’t have to break off from the Green Person. The Red Person isn’t going away. The Red Person will be with us and in us. But, we can stop seeing that person as Red and we can see them in all of their goodness and move forward — as Green, with Red from the past meshed within us. What she is saying works well with how our brains work. We can’t eradicate the past. We can’t erase that which hurt us. We can’t eliminate all memories. We can’t just suddenly “Go Green.”

Returning soldiers from war know this better than many.

Here’s the key: we can find a good place to put the past. It is already encoded and etched in our minds. It will be with us; it doesn’t disappear. But, how we carry it forward can inform how we live our lives moving forward. Think about it this way. If one has had a close friend or family member or spouse die or a love relationship end, that person and their love need not disappear. We can carry them forward and even enter into new relationships if we find a place for them to live within us as we “go green” and move forward. And in the new relationship, while comparisons are inevitable, we need to eliminate jealously of the person now gone or from whom one is no longer engaged. Instead, we house them within us. And there is space in our brains.

Strategies for Moving Forward with Life’s Transitions

Here are a set of strategies that may help us move forward.

1. Think Rome (as in, “it wasn’t built in a day”). In our desire to move forward, we often appear to be short cutting the process. We don’t realize that our bodies and brains aren’t light switches, easily able to move from one approach (one person) to another. As we reopen schools for example, we can’t just restart as if the past 15 months did not exist. We can’t just pick up and say: Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted by a Pandemic? To date, our school reopening approaches have largely focused on our physical well-being; we need to spend vastly more time and effort on our psychological well-being. It will be well worth the effort because absent a planned and prepared approach, we won’t heal well. Think about not doing physical therapy after one’s leg has been in a cast for months. We need to be trauma responsive in our culture, our strategic choices and our pedagogy. And, perhaps most importantly, we need to realize the need to “go slow” and build trust and psychological wellness.
2. Go Easy (as in think differently about student misbehavior and other seemingly aberrational approaches). Trauma manifests itself differently in different people. And, trauma isn’t a choice. We didn’t choose our parents; we didn’t choose the Pandemic and its accompanying illness and death. So, when students act in ways that are dysregulated or disassociated or over-regulated, we have curb an instinct to call out this behavior and issue punishments. Instead, we need to see the actions — even disruptive ones — as part of how trauma speaks within us. And, we need to take different approaches to helping students (and others) re-regulated. Trauma literally changes our brains. Punishment will not reopen neural pathways. For more on trauma symptomology, see: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol16/num04/the-trauma-transmission-from-students-to-teachers.aspx
3. Honor the Past and its Many Experiences. Rather than having a perennial tug of war within us (as seen in the illustration), we would be better served to recognize the past (whether it was good, bad or indifferent). We need to find a place for it as we move forward. Think about this in the case of losing a loved one or a love relationship. Despite the loss (which is deeply painful in many instances), there is something we learned and keep with us from these relationships. We need to focus on what we had and what we learned and how that learning can inform our future — both what we do and do not do. Th Pandemic has taught us lots; it has not been a lost year, despite that being how it is oft-times described. For example, perhaps one learned about empathy. Or, perhaps one learned about behaviors that are unpleasant and unproductive. Perhaps we learned about how we learn and how we problem solve. Perhaps we learned something new that is remarkable — painting or drawing. Or perhaps one learned about deep love. Those things don’t go away but they need a new home so the Green Person can thrive.
4. Be Honest; Be Transparent; Be Reflective. Perhaps each of these could be their own strategy but they launch themselves from the same place. We need to be honest with ourselves and others. We need to be able to know what is hitting our “tuning fork” and setting that fork off in our minds and bodies. We need to share with others what we are struggling to assimilate and navigate. We need to take the time to look inside ourselves, even if what is there isn’t always easy to see. We can’t expect others to guess what is happening to us, although to be sure some educators and therapists can help us here by asking good questions and being there to engage with us and allow us to find our voice. We need people who notice that the need to process is real and valuable and makes us go to places we maybe haven’t explored before the Pandemic.
5. Eliminate Silos and Siloed Thinking. Whether we are educators or leaders or decision-makers or heads of family, we often usurp decision-making in our roles. We see decisions that need to be made; we see things that need to be done; we feel urgency. But, if we want to help individuals and organizations with transitions from trauma, we need to expand our decision-making circle. We have to listen to the voices of many and hear the experiences and suggestions of many. Silos may work for grain but they don’t work if we want to build a shared future in our families, our schools, our communities. Non-siloed thinking is hard; it takes effort. And, some asked to participate may initially be reluctant to speak up and out. But, we will do better if we incorporate the voices of the many. One example: can you imagine reopening schools without the voices of school nurses and school counselors? That happened way too frequently.
6. Be Brave and Use One’s Bully Pulpit. For those in positions of power or those with the capacity to speak up and out whether in groups or alone, now is the time. We benefit from speaking truth to power as Anita Hill once said. We need to find truth and establish trust. We need to get over our fear to share publicly what is right. Sure, we can act in small ways but when we can, there is power in loud peaceful voices. And, even if speaking out is difficult, I am oft-times reminded of Michael Douglas’ line in the movie American President, which goes something like this: “I spent so much time trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job.” A worthy warning. As a college president, I had a piece of art outside my door that said: Speak. More doorways to leaders’ offices need that. Visual imagery speaks too. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/our-leaders-wimpy-scared-karen-gross/

I hope these suggestions are helpful — in whole or in part. Our Red Self and our Green Self don’t need to split apart or wage war against each other. They can find a stable place within us if we allow ourselves to pull the Green and the Red together. Not a bad message generally either.