Loving Kindness, Trauma, and Mental Health
Why it’s not always possible or safe to access loving kindness and mindfulness.
I have lived through roughly five breakdowns of varying severity, from complete wipe-out for six year to temporary halts for a few weeks. Sometimes it was medication that got me through, especially beta-blockers, sometimes illicit self medication like MDMA and cannabis, and sometimes just time and self care.
What each time showed me, even the most recent and biggest breakdown (14 yrs ago), was that mindfulness in its traditional formats, including loving kindness, can make it worse. I don’t mean a little bit worse, I mean a lot worse. Sometimes the emotional impact of abuse and trauma is just too big to hold if you let it out.
I know there is that old cliche that its better out than in, but when I was blown apart it nearly killed me and without a 20 yrs practice of mindfulness behind me, which anchored me in reality, in the truth about existence, and my incredibly loving husband, I would not be alive today and feeling excited to go into old age.
Sitting with trauma is almost certainly redoubling that trauma all over again. It is a deeply harmful instruction to go through. We have to make the person safe first, I don’t mean psychically safe but psychologically safe…
