As a therapist, but more importantly as a human being, I believe this is how we heal individual and collective trauma. We sit and listen. We create a sacred space where we bear witness and honor another human being’s degradation, despair, abuse, shame, torture, oppression and any other demeaning insult to the soul where someone felt, unseen, unheard and experienced that their presence did not matter.
Even if you think you bear no personal responsibility for another person’s suffering, you can apologize on behalf of all the people who never apologized and never will apologize, because to have your suffering denied and silenced is as painful as the original indignity, if not more so, and is a violation of Divine law.
Then, in your own silent reflection, you can ask the light of your soul to illuminate any place of darkness and shadow within you, that might allow you to keep hidden the truth of where and how you have ever harmed another, been blind to another, made another human being feel less than or unworthy. You can take responsibility for how and where you added to the cruelty and unkindness in the world. Then vow to do better and do this. Examine your beliefs, known and unknown, and change them if they are out of alignment with love, compassion and preserving the dignity of another.
I know from my own efforts to practice this, that healing trauma is difficult, messy and uncomfortable. But this is the work of the soul.
