Trauma and Holidays: On Giving and Receiving

When I was a psychology intern, one of the psychiatrists on the unit used to describe the problems of most of the inpatients as a “closesness-distance” problem. They couldn’t find the right distance from people—people were either too close or they were too far away. This dilemma always reminded me of animals who had been treated badly—the cat wanted to get close to you, but when you tried to pat it,  it would run away.

Trauma almost always creates a closeness-distance problem, especially repeated trauma. Surviving trauma requires creating protections—and many of these protections are about keeping others out. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t the longing for closeness—or the longing for connection. But the protections that were in place for so long meant that you lost the practice of connecting. Lost the practice of letting people close—letting in the love from others.

I am thinking about this because the holidays are upon us. We are in the midst of Hanukah and Christmas is approaching. It is the season of giving. And it is also the season of receiving. And where trauma creates a closeness-distance problem, it also usually creates a giving-receiving problem.

Giving and receiving are really the actions of closeness-distance. In mundane terms, giving and receiving can be merely acts of communication or acts of everyday care. And for people who have experienced trauma I have noticed something important: they often can give, but they can’t receive. They can reach beyond their walls, but their walls don’t let anything in. It’s not plain stubbornness, or even deliberate protection: it is a sheer lack of practice. It is a lack of neural pathways. It is a lack of brain receptors for the good, for the positive, for the kind.

It is why if you love someone who has experienced trauma, they never seem to hold on to the good things that you say or do. You tell them you love them, you tell them the good you see in them, you do kind things for them. And when they are upset they say that no one loves them. It is as if they don’t remember anything you said or did. And this can be horribly frustrating for everyone.

It’s not that they didn’t hear you when you said it. It is that it didn’t stick. They couldn’t feel it, and it couldn’t register as a real memory. This is why the work of healing from trauma is so important—so you can get to a place of taking things in. And it is why it takes a long time. Because you are, literally, rebuilding a brain.

So I think it is really important at the holidays to acknowledge how hard it can be to receive. Because receiving a gift is risking closeness. It is the hurt cat risking being patted. But if receiving is to be healing then you have to slow down and breathe and take in the kindness as much as you can. And you don’t have to start with gifts. Start with anything people give you: a smile—breathe, take in the smile and smile back. Or hello, or Happy Holidays, or Merry Christmas! Each time someone gives you the gift of any kindness—acknowledge the gift, breathe and take it in like a long drink of water. Drink it way, way into your roots like a tree that has lived through a drought. Because it has. The thing about healing is there isn’t a state of hurt and then a state of healed. Healing is about creating a constant state of mending.

And if you are someone for whom the whole receiving thing is too scary or too overwhelming—then practice with giving. Giving can begin to help you build your closeness-distance muscles. But you need to work on feeling the feelings that go with giving for you. Say something kind—breathe and feel the kindness you are giving. Do something kind and take in the feelings of the action. The practice of giving can prepare you to eventually work on the  practice of receiving.

Understanding the impact of trauma on giving and receiving can give you a way to understand some of the stress that can come up at the holidays. It can help you be more compassionate with yourself or your loved one who has experienced trauma. it can help you slow down and actually begin to heal through the holidays, rather than protect yourself from them. You can use the moments that the stress flare up as a way to help yourself check in and say, “What’s happening right now for me? Too Close? Too Far Away? Difficulty Giving? Difficulty Receiving?” These questions can give you a way to talk with yourself differently and ways to coach yourself differently. The questions, and the answers to them may also give you language to talk with your loved ones about the holidays and the more mundane days of giving and receiving.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022/2015

Be the light you wish to see...

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it ”

— Edith Wharton

The season of lights. The festival of light. How light gives us hope in darkness! All it takes is one lit candle to change the feel of loss into hope, of dark into light. Just one candle can make all the difference.

As someone who was not raised Jewish, I have often wished that the Hanukkah story had become more secularized—so that we all could have borrowed the faith and devotion and hope from the story of the oil and light lasting the eight days. There is such power in them: faith and devotion and hope.

And somehow no matter how big the occasion or small the occasion, candlelight transforms it into something more powerful, more hopeful, more connected to the history of all people who have had faith and hope. This fall I watched a young friend turn 8 and blow out candles on her cake and you would all recognize the look of anticipation and joy before she blew them out—that look is universal. Her face lit with candlelight.

And here at the holidays—shrouded in lights, after an autumn filled with so much darkness, the question is: can we bring our own light? Can we spark the light in others? Can we connect to the light that inspires us? If we are feeling dark, we can light one, simple, single candle within us?

I think that we always think too big when it comes to faith and devotion and hope. I think we think grand, and we need to think in terms of one single candle. One light that can, and often does, like the oil, last much longer than you can imagine.

You can use any light within you to light the candles around you. You can use the love of anything that brings you joy: your relationships, your work, your pets—whatever warms your heart. And then you can bring that light to another and warm their heart. I have so many memories of people who I didn’t know, who smiled at me as I came out of a building, or into work, and they changed my day. They made me feel seen, and loved, and “okay” on days that I didn’t feel that way. They took their light, and lit my candle. In such small increments you can bring light: to the people near you, to the person waiting in line with you, to the cashier, to the toll taker on the Jersey turnpike. Wherever. Light a candle. Bring your warmth.

Edith Wharton said that there are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it—so if this is a year that you can’t seem to light your own candles or anyone else’s—then do what you can to reflect any light you see. Just take in what you can, reflect what you can and reconnect with your light. We all have those years—when the best we can do is reflect.

This time of year can be so busy, and come with so much expectation. There can be moments of such longing, for people, for times past, for expectation unfulfilled—as well as real feelings of sacrifice and hardship and loss. You can’t fix it or fill it or change it—not all at once, if at all. But you can bring some light to it. You can bring your light to it. And the world will be warmer. And more hopeful. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022/2016

The Healing Power of the Container: The Frame as Art

In one of my very first blog posts I wrote about an art class I took in college—called Methods and Materials. For my final project I ended up doing giant watercolors of old family pictures—and our class got to have a show of our work in the art building. I had two whole walls.

Over the course of the class I became enamored with Chinese hanging scrolls—not so much what was on the inside of the scrolls, but with the outside—the patterns and color block that made the framework for the picture. I thought the frames were beautiful, sometimes more beautiful, than the picture. I made collages of the frames with nothing in the center. And when it came time to hang my show, I created giant hanging scroll frames made of newsprint and maps and sheet music and put my watercolors in the center. I wanted my family pictures to have a framework, a container— something to hold them tight.

I had no idea then that I would end up traveling to China and Southeast Asia and I now have all kinds of scrolls hanging in my house. Some of them are Cambodian, made of fabrics, patterns of silk—hanging from old cross pieces of looms. And some are traditional Chinese scrolls with paintings of bamboo or tigers. They have replaced the paper ones I created in art class.

As a consultant and therapist I often talk about containers or frameworks. These things are the invisible structure that allows change to happen. Not unlike art—we don’t always notice the frame—we take it for granted—the framing of the canvas, and then the frame of the painting—two frames providing structure and support and protection.

And in many ways the container should be invisible and taken for granted. It should be so interconnected that you think it is part of the art.

What do I mean by container or framework? When I teach people about containers and helping I go back to being a lifeguard. When I worked as a lifeguard I had a rule that there should be one lifeguard for every ten people. At this ratio, there was safety. A lifeguard can watch ten people and interact with ten people. Interestingly there is a magic number for human memory which is 7 plus or minus 2. It is what the human mind can easily hold in memory, and I have found that human beings somehow know if there are enough lifeguards or group therapists or consultants of group members to keep them in memory. When we unconsciously know that we are held in memory, we have the experience of knowing there is an emotional lifeguard. And so I have found the lifeguarding ratio to be the best container for work to get done by groups. When you have enough staff, or therapists or consultants—the group does its work and takes risks. When the ratio goes down, the work shifts back to being more superficial.

And the container can also be too tight. If a painting were all frame and crowded out the painting—that wouldn’t be right either. If there are too many helpers, therapists, consultants—people don’t feel safer, they feel scrutinized. In this scenario, they are held too much in memory and they get self-conscious and they don’t do as much work either. So in creating containers you have to strike a balance.

And it is a balance that we participate in whether we are the helper or the one being helped. The helper provides the container in the beginning so healing can happen—it is the cast or splint that you can’t see, but which has to be thoughtfully put into place and adjusted as needed. Tighter when we are in crisis, looser as we heal. And if you are the person who is helping you have to deeply understand that the container is as much of the work as anything else. This allows you to honor this work. And, like the frame of the canvas--it is the prerequisite for any work to happen. As the person who is getting help you have to learn to lean on it, lean in to it, and let it become something you trust. You come to depend on it, and then you learn to create it for yourself. Healing is so much like the hanging scrolls that I love so much: it requires that you become the beautiful frame and the artwork inside. You are both: the container and the art.

© 2022/2015 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD

To Truly Leap

“Of all the formulations of play, the briefest and the best is to be found in Plato’s Laws. He sees the model of true playfulness in the need of all young creatures, animal and human, to leap. To truly leap, you must learn how to use the ground as a springboard, and how to land resiliently and safely. It means to test the leeway allowed by given limits; to outdo and yet not escape gravity. Thus, wherever playfulness prevails, there is always a surprising element, suggesting some virgin chance conquered, some divine leeway shared. Where this “happens,” it is easily shared and acknowledged. ”

— Erik Erikson

All growth requires leaps. And because healing is really growth on a careful, remedial plan, healing requires lots of leaps too. The first leaps are leaps of faith— in trusting yourself, in trusting your healing providers, in trusting a process of healing that you can’t really understand, but know that you need. These leaps of faith are huge, and the thing about leaping is that you have to do it a lot to believe in it. If you have ever watched baby goats, or sheep or foals, they try their legs out constantly —they buck, they leap and they land. They wiggle in the air. They leap and they find their ground. Over and over.

 The thing about leaps is that they are both frightening and exhilarating. Like the first time you learn to jump off the high dive, or ride a bike. Leaping means testing out the laws of nature— testing out how you interact with the world. And in healing from trauma, the leaps are often to test out a world that does’t run on the old laws of trauma. Trauma creates a world with its own natural laws—and you know these laws in your bones. You know what will happen when you make the wrong move, you know what will happen if you speak. But in a world without trauma, you actually don’t know the rules. When you first start to leap — to speak up for the first time—to say what is true for you—to risk asking for help— to say “no” —risk being vulnerable— all the things that the laws of nature of trauma forbid: it will be both frightening and exhilarating. These things which look so average from the outside are truly leaps for healing.

And just like the baby animals learning to use their legs and understand the world: you need to enjoy those leaps. Savor the exhilaration. Take a moment to feel proud of the leap. Smile. Wiggle in your chair. Pat your self on the back.

Trauma is such serious business and healing requires leaping—it requires playfulness. It's so counterintuitive. The only way to heal is to stretch into the unknown, to try something again and again and when you leap—you are really playing— you don’t know the outcome—for a moment everything is suspended—and then you land—and know something about the world, and yourself, and probably relationships that you didn’t know before. What leaps can you take today? How can you savor the leaps? How can you support others to play and leap?

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022/2014