“They shall have wars and and pay for their presumption”
Shakespeare, Henry VI part 3
Fighting our corner is a necessary and healthy part of being human, but in the wider world, we see so much conflict where fighting becomes the only way of operating. Once positions are dug in, opposition and defiance become the norm and escalation all the more of a threat.
It seems to me that part of the underlying current in situations such as this has much to do with trauma. “The part of us that gets easily riled, bad tempered and cross can become dominant in trauma. When we are overwhelmed, our capacity to deal with stress may be diminished and our fuse is shorter than usual.” These words come from the first paragraph of my book 20 Ways to Break Free from Trauma – Chapter 4 “When Anger Dominates”.
Those who suffer trauma know what it means to be living in a scary and unpredictable world and to have no power. As a response to fear and overwhelming experience, ‘fight’ tells us to defend ourselves for survival. In the first instance it is there to protect us, but it becomes difficult to stop once it starts to dominate, to rule the roost. And fight can be infectious; we see evidence of that right now in our international dialogue and social media.
I have worked with individuals who have powerful fight responses, who lash out violently when threatened, who pick fights, who flip their lids. The red mist descends in a nano-second. But as I know from some quite hairy moments in the consulting room, these powerful emotional needs can often be a way of saying “Look at me”. It is a tragedy that so many individuals suffer like this; whose deep hurts and grievances and sense of alienation have made them so full of rage that they feel only existential threat and an irresistible impulse to retaliate. They cannot see any other pain, only their own and their powerful imperative is to right a wrong. Perhaps underneath everything they are saying simply ‘Look at me!’
Once we feel seen, once we feel that our wounded grievances are understood, we could take the risk of releasing our fighting fist and slowly open our hands to the possibility of other things being able to happen. We could come to recognize that our nervous systems – utterly exhausted from so much fighting – have become de-sensitised, unable to judge when it is good to fight and when we do not need to fight. We would come to see that our fighting is so much wasted energy; fighting hurts both victim and perpetrator. We might learn to have a sense of restraint and be strategic about how our fight is best used and who can help us achieve this. Ultimately, we might use fight as a force and engine for fighting injustice, without exposing ourselves and being horribly out of control.
Those who maintain their rigid position are only able to fight on the basis of their own justifications and convictions, and cannot see that more than one thing can be true at the same time. But over time what might come is that sense of perspective and capacity to understand other points of view other than our own. If as humans we feel seen, properly seen, we might be able to step back from our exhausting fight, a position that is addictive – because adrenalin *is* addictive. We could begin to listen and not immediately react.
Yet this can only happen if the tendency to ‘fight’ is taken seriously and if wounds and legitimate grievances are understood. If a position is trauma-fuelled, it is no good trying to rationalise or negotiate.
Start with the trauma. Start with the painful wound.
Trauma is like a turbo-charged car that only knows how to be itself. Once trauma is properly seen and acknowledged, and the car is parked in the car park, amazing things can begin to happen. It would be so wonderful if those locked into the cycle of fighting and vengeance could have that experience, and put an end to the constant terror of escalation, unclench their fist and risk finding another gentler way. Can we find a re-set? Here are the words from the end of the first chapter of my book that speaks to how so many may feel in these times:
Frightened jumping
This way that way
Only knowing my fragmented terrified
Beyond twitchy self I
Bump off eyes
Jarring jangled
Richocheting
At the mercy of life
At the mercy of me
My pinball self
Let me restI long for a kinder way.