The greatest weight. What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live it once more and innumerable times more: and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
(Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, s.341)
"Transforming Trauma Into Wisdom." This is a workshop about the meaning of events in our lives that leave us feeling broken and unable to move forward. When all hope seems lost, when every other possibility seems exhausted, how do we continue to move forward? How do we put ourselves back together after being broken?
Moments of intense sorrow, fear, and pain can actually have an important meaning in our lives. In his book "Man's Search for Meaning," Viktor Frankl discusses how finding the meaning in even the most awful of situations, such as his own experience in the Nazi concentration camps, allows us to make it through to ultimately live a full and rich life. He says "in some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning."
But getting to the point where we can reflect back on traumatic experiences with gratitude and peace is a different journey for everyone. That is the process we will be reflecting on in this blog post and in the workshop it is associated with.
First, let us examine the title I chose more carefully.
"Transform." In this word are the roots "trans-" and "form". "Trans-" is a Latin root meaning "across, over, beyond". It came from a Proto-Indo-European root word "*tra-" which meant "to cross over, pass through, overcome." "Form" derives from Latin "formare" meaning "to shape, fashion, build". Within the very first word of this workshop title are the meanings of passing through, and even beyond. Overcoming, moving on to the next level. And we also see a sense of creating, shaping, playing an active role in this process of moving through and beyond. I pause now to reflect that all of my workshops are at least in some way about a process of transformation. One could characterize the overarching thesis of the Meaning Is Alive project as "one who can transform the meaning of their experiences (including thoughts, memories, symbols, just as much as physical phenomena, events, and people), is capable of transforming life itself." But of course, I don't want to pin down this project under a single thesis.
My workshops have all been about our power to create something new from the ideas in our minds. These ideas all connect with one another, and the meaning of any one notion takes its significance in no small part from its relationships with the others, and our relationship with it. To play an active role in changing the meaning of even some small part of this network of meanings, to transform it, is to transform the entirety of the whole.
"Trauma." This is actually a Greek word that used to literally mean "a wound, a hurt, a defeat." It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root "*trau-", an extension of a root meaning "to rub, to turn" with several derivatives indicating a violent motion of one kind or another. Today we can still use it in the sense of a physical wound, while the figurative sense in which we are here using the word developed in the late 19th century. This sense of a "psychological or emotional wound" is still very much present in the way we use the word today, and lends itself to the language of feeling "scarred" or even "broken." These experiences can be literal catastrophic injuries, chronic illness, the loss of a loved one or friend, a terrible betrayal, abuse, an encounter with something monstrous... The list goes on and trauma is surely something all of us have experienced to at least some degree. These experiences can leave an impression of fear and pain that we continue to relive1 even years afterward.
"Wisdom." One of my favorite words comes from Old English "wis" meaning "learned, cunning, experienced, power to discern" and the ending "-dom" which denotes a state of being. If we trace the origins of the "wis" part all the way back to Proto-Indo-European", we find the root "*weid-" which meant "to see". Wisdom is typically characterized as distinct from the kind of knowledge we get from memorizing the contents of books. To become wise is quite literally to "see" how things are. It is through experiencing things in a state of awareness that we come to a state (a "dom") of being wise. In this workshop we are looking at how the experience of trauma can be transformed into Wisdom.
But there is a reason I don't call this "The Wisdom of Trauma". This workshop is about "Transforming Trauma Into Wisdom" because the way in which we understand, interpret, and relate to both traumatic experiences and memories, plays a key role in how wise we become through them. Wisdom is not something that can be quantified, but it can vary in its degree of depth. To bring back the philosophy in this: the degree of depth of wisdom to be gleaned from any experience is determined not just by going through the experience itself, but by how we see that experience. Yes: there are ways to relate to and to interpret experiences that are more and less conducive to arriving at wisdom.
As a side note, due to the uniqueness of each of our experiences, I cannot tell any one person how to come to wisdom from their particular trauma. The only authority in what you make of your life is you. I am here to share my vision of the potential we all have for this transformation. If something I say can put you in a place of glimpsing even the smallest fraction of that potential, perhaps you will then go on to explore its full depths.
We have a choice when faced with great suffering, suffering so deep that it may mark the end of an era, of how to respond to that suffering. It occurs to me that we have a choice to let ourselves be defined by that suffering, or to take an active role in choosing how we relate to it. In other words, wherever there is undeniable pain or loss, we always still maintain agency in how we respond to it. This is a view I hold in common with Frankl, who at another point in the aforementioned book says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." From this position we may examine those traumas that have altered us, and choose choose who we will become in the face of them, perhaps even to become something beautiful. —"But what if that which was altered by this trauma was already so beautiful?" Yes, it may have been, and the pain of loss is a whole matter unto itself. To hold onto an image of something that has fallen apart could look like shambling forward, attempting to hold together the pieces. But what if we allow a breath of fresh air, an openness to becoming something new? This can look different for everyone, and coming to such a stage is not necessarily straightforward. But to even admit to the possibility of becoming something new, is a deeply liberating act.
Sometimes the pain of being "broken" is not a breaking of the actual life itself, but rather the image of what that life was supposed to be. The loss of identity can be devastating, as any self-image is an intricate amalgam constructed through a series of associations and meanings. While it is only natural to grieve the loss of something so special, there is a more hopeful implication here: if such an image was constructed, then surely a new one may be built.
What if the image of who you thought yourself to be has confined and delimited the potential expanse of true
Being, of life itself? Then its breaking is like the shattering of a
barrier, like the new chick breaking free from its egg. Perhaps in this way, trauma can become the basis of a new transformation. I am reminded of the quote by Kahlil Gibran in his poem, On Pain: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."
This new version of "who I am" will often be something that we never could have imagined before the traumatic event. And if we find beauty in this new state of being, if it becomes something that we can truly exult in, we may even come to a point where we say to this trauma, "ah, you were exactly what I needed to become what I am today."
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| An image of a pot fashioned through the art of kintsugi. |
How do we respond to the fear not knowing what we will become? Going forward may in this instance mean a complete rebirth. Does a caterpillar know as it enters into chrysalis, that beyond that oblivion will be the ascension to a butterfly? Does a phoenix know, in the moment it becomes engulfed in flames that the ashes will be the source of its rebirth? So much of life is unknown, and we can face this unknown with a compassionate acknowledgement of fear. That is the place where courage is not just a show of bravado, but is essential to carrying. Fear is what gives courage such a potent meaning. The etymology of the word courage shows us that it came from the Latin corage, "of the heart," and that from the Proto-Indo-European "*kerd-" meaning, literally, "heart".
Notice how when we are unsure of the future, fear has an icy grip around the heart. It is thus from the heart that we must draw the courage to face such fear. Deep, deep, within all of our hearts, is the courage to face it, if we could only dig deep enough to reach it. And interestingly, love can also be found in our hearts, in infinite measure. When faced with that which threatens to constrict and bind the heart, how fitting that it is exactly in the heart where we draw that which can release us.While courage empowers us to face the fear, love empowers us to accept and embrace oneself through all the suffering. And perhaps as well the love can be oriented towards life itself. The greater the love, the greater the reason to live. Not only is courage borne out of the same heart as love—fear can be like a mirror of love, for where there is great fear, something we love is hiding. Can you not say that the more you love something, the more you may fear losing it? Far better, however, to frame it so: the greater the love, the greater the call to courage. We wish not to live dominated by fear, but rather to see fear as an opportunity to become something greater. What is it like to love courageously?
In the face of an unknown span of time to heal from the trauma that has taken place, patience allows us to make it through. Patience alone can make us capable of enduring any span of time. But combined with love and courage we become capable of far more than just enduring, but of transforming. Patience is not just a noble stance, but it is a genuine act of kindness towards oneself. Imagine for a moment the patience it would take to grow as a great oak, over many decades. If the little acorn saw the great oak and thought to itself, "my god! I could never grow to such heights!" or "I need to be a great oak NOW," oh how hellish would its existence be. But it is not so. With the steady progress it is so well-known for, an acorn becomes a sapling becomes a tree, patiently lasts through storm and sun, winter and summer, becoming not only a great being unto itself, but a home for many other creatures who seek shelter. Sometimes a branch may fall. Disease may come and go, and the tree endure countless other abuses, yet still it may grow strong. (It seems comical to imagine if the growing tree were to compare itself to its neighbor who got a little more sun and didn't suffer the loss of a limb, saying "how tragic and unfortunate my life is. I wish I could be lucky like that tree over there.) I wonder if you, too, could be as sturdy and patient as the acorn/oak. The acorn is the oak, one cannot exist without the other. What if you, like the acorn, contain something great within you?
So in what ways can suffering be meaningful?
Those of us who have truly suffered are able to understand each other all the more. When we have a painful experience, we feel not just the pain itself, but the experience of suffering the pain. No single one of us suffers alone. The origin of the word "compassion" reveals a sense of "passion" that comes from the Greek word "pathos" (suffering). Passion is that which we must undergo. When we go through it together, this is the true meaning of compassion. To see another and feel their pain and wish to alleviate it. To see the suffering of another and wish it to gain meaning for them, for it not to be too cruel or too hard. This is compassion. How much more powerful has your compassion become as a result of your suffering? Would you ever truly understand another person's suffering if you had not yourself suffered?
And it is not just our compassion that is empowered when we suffer, but also it is only natural for wisdom to shine through. Consider for a moment, when you see the sorrow of another, how is it that you understand their sorrow if not for the sorrow you yourself have felt? Truly consider this. Our fellow-feeling connects us to one another. How do you understand another's joy, if not for the joy you have felt yourself? Another's pain? Another's pleasure? Another's love? Another's feeling of isolation? How curious that loneliness can actually bring us closer together. By feeling the pain of isolation, we know the pain that someone else goes through, thus forming an instant connection. Without the need to evaluate or decide how to respond, we immediately know another's pain or joy through our innate sense of fellow-feeling. And the more variety and intensity of the emotions we feel, the more potent becomes this sense of fellow-feeling, which, truly, is a form of wisdom. We are biologically equipped to feel all of these emotions. And we are cognitively equipped to ask ourselves what they mean to us, and morally equipped to decide how we are going to act alongside and in response to them.
It is abundantly clear that we are in this together, and for those who read this right now and myself as I write this: we made it! We made it in the sense of coming so far, and we made it in the sense of creating a life that led us to this moment, right here and now.
In the quote I put at the beginning of this article, the reader is asked to consider how they would react if they knew this life would repeat itself endlessly. Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote that quote, lived an extraordinarily painful life. He suffered truly debilitating migraines which lasted for hours or even days, and digestive trauma from a very young age. He had bad eyesight, fainted, and had fits. He had to be very careful of what he ate. By the age of 34, he was almost completely blind.
This man is the author of a philosophy that encourages us to say Yes to life. To live creatively and artistically. To find and create meaning even when the meanings that the world told you all go up in smoke or turned out to be lies. To have a light heart, and an abundance of vigor and creativity that makes one dance and make music. This is the world Nietzsche believed was possible for at least some people. Is it possible for you? I wonder who gets to make that decision? Who really has the power?
The idea of a life that repeats itself endlessly, again and again through all eternity: this is also known as the Eternal Recurrence. If we suppose that existence continues on without end or beginning, then it is only inevitable that events will repeat themselves. If life is eternal in this way, the challenge is to say Yes to life. Not only to live life in a way that we could say Yes to it repeating, but to so dispose ourselves that was are capable of doing so. But there's more—with an eternal existence there also come infinite possibilities. We live always in this infinity of possibility. Our allies of patience, love, and courage help us to open the portal of transformation. Wisdom is of course inevitable to those who live this with awareness, with open eyes. And what else beyond that may we find with our—open hearts?
1 In this workshop I will not ask anyone to remember the details of their trauma, as that is a process someone should choose to undergo of their own volition, and ideally with the support of a trained professional. I am not a professional in trauma coaching: I am a philosopher.↩
