If this hasn’t happened to you, you may have heard about it happening to a colleague or friend, or can imagine what it might be like. You are in a professional setting with a group of colleagues when suddenly someone in the group becomes irate. They begin yelling. They begin yelling at another person in the group. You know this is wrong and think of yourself as a person who would stand up to such behavior. But you do nothing. No one does. Your colleague is left to handle the ordeal on their own; the aggressor huffs their way out of the room; the group nervously tries to move on, not acknowledging the abusive behavior.
What the hell just happened?
Of course, there are myriad variables at play in this situation. Power differentials between the aggressor and the victim based on characteristics such as race and gender are real and would need to be unpacked. The lack of response to such a situation once the threat was over would also need to be addressed. But in the moment, it is possible that another unseen factor could be keeping the colleagues in this situation locked in inaction—the traumatized brain.
Trauma is defined as a threat to the system in a state of helplessness; something that threatens our life and/or well-being that we are unable to change or control. When we experience trauma, it stays locked in our amygdala forever. Our amygdala will forever be on the lookout for anything in our sensory experience that reminds us of that trauma. This does not happen at the level of conscious thought; it is unconscious; before we even perceive sensory stimuli, the amygdala has scanned it for threats. When it senses a threat, the amygdala takes over, making us act in the way that has kept us safe in the past. This is great for survival, but the amygdala is limited to only three options of what it can make us do in response to the perceived threat: fight, flee, or freeze. Whenever the amygdala is triggered by a past trauma, it will do whatever has kept us safe in the past, every time.
So back to that meeting. Let’s say the altercation described involved a man yelling at a woman. If (at a physiological level, not the level of conscious thought) seeing a man berate or yell at a woman triggered the colleagues’ brains to recall any past trauma – say for example if they were ever assaulted by a yelling man or perhaps saw a family member in that situation as a child – their ability for conscious decision-making at that point is offline until the amygdala once again believes it is safe. If freezing kept them safe in the past, they will freeze until the perceived threat is gone.
Most people want to believe that we would stand up to any form of violence or injustice if we witnessed it occurring. But that may not be possible for some of us. If we have unresolved trauma from our past, our amygdala may at times keep us from living up to our values in the moment.
Is a triggered trauma response an excuse for inaction? Absolutely not. If our emotional state is keeping us from being able to live our values, we have a responsibility to do better. But we can’t do better until we know better. Learning about how our brains work is the first step. Shame and guilt lead to more inaction. Acceptance and curiosity empower us to learn more, seek help when needed, and create change.
One way we can create change is through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being with the present moment, as it is, without judging or changing what’s happening. We do this by focusing on one thing in particular, such as the breath, for a set period of time. We don’t “clear our minds;” thoughts will come, because that’s what minds do. But each time we notice we are swept up in a thought, we gently come back to our object of focus. Over and over and over. And in this way, through consistent practice, we build the muscle of mindfulness.
What does this have to do with trauma? Over time, mindfulness can actually reduce the physical size of the amygdala, making our amygdala less hyper-vigilant and allowing us to more quickly move out of triggered trauma responses and into conscious decision making. Consider how the described altercation at the work meeting could play out differently with the benefit of mindfulness. Perhaps the colleague would see what was happening and become aware of their own physical sensations of fear. Feeling those sensations, they could connect with their breath for a moment or two and connect more deeply to what is happening in the moment, rather than being carried away into a trauma response. They could then act from the logical brain rather than the survival brain, stepping in to disrupt the injustice they are witnessing in real time (if they have the skill and ability to do so).
Mindfulness is not a panacea. It doesn’t cure trauma, but is one of many tools to manage it in a way that keeps us from being locked in past survival reactions. It won’t end injustice, but it is a critical muscle we can cultivate and combine with other skills to disrupt inappropriate behavior when we witness it. And it can help those who have been victims of such workplace abuse to once again feel calm and confident in their bodies when faced with similar situations (such as being in another meeting with the same colleagues) so they can continue to speak up and speak out as their authentic selves.
For all of the recent talk in the library profession about mindfulness and self-care, much of what mindfulness has to offer seems lost. Mindfulness is not about tuning out or becoming some passive blob. It’s an empowering strategy for healing. It is a missing muscle for cultivating change. It is a critical leadership skill for our times. Shall we take a few moments, then, to breathe?