In this article we will be exploring the relevance of vicarious (secondary) trauma to each of our lives. We also summarize 7 steps toward greater liberation from all aspects of our past (click here to jump to the 7 steps).
Vicarious (Secondary) Trauma Re-defined
Vicarious, or secondary trauma customarily refers to the emotional, psychological, and physical distress that can arise from working with individuals who have experienced trauma (attributed to individuals who work in helping professions such as mental health professionals, social workers, first responders, and healthcare workers).
It is true, those working in helping professions often confront individuals working through suicidal ideation, death, rape, neglect, and physical abuse (extreme trauma) on a daily basis. Yet this is a matter of degree, not kind. How much of the dark side of life is on the news every day? How about the collective trauma of the Me-Too movement? Of the seven million global COVID deaths? Of war, genocide, shootings?
Everything we experience impacts our psychology, and consequently, our feelings and actions. The suffering of others composes a major component of each of our worldviews (the thoughts running through our minds), and consequently, of the emotional states that arise in us—of our experience of Reality. Our mind is a mirror of our experience; the world we perceive is a mirror of our mind.
I’d like to suggest a more generic and realistic definition of vicarious trauma, acknowledging the truth that this is something we all struggle with:
Def. Vicarious (Secondary) Trauma = the impact of knowing and internalizing the suffering of others.
Life = Trauma
Another term for the inseparability of life and trauma is existential, or inherent in the nature of existence. To inhabit a physical body is to suffer trauma—finitude and vulnerability imply loss and pain (though pain does not necessarily entail suffering).
A “trauma-informed lens” is a restatement of what Eastern religious and philosophical traditions have long known—our self-concept, identity, and worldview (“Ego” formation) is a construction based on conditioned patterns from past experience. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions today are always based on the past. Our emotions are not random.
The pathway to healing is not just about confronting and unpacking what we have experienced first-hand but understanding how everything we have witnessed and learned—about human motivations, values, and meaning-making, composes our worldview and determines what we filter, interpret, assume, and project. Everything matters; everything is significant, for we are dynamic, constantly evolving, neurologically malleable, and unbelievable resilient.
Pathology Should Not Apply to the Existential
Our culture has pathologized all pain, all discomfort, all distress (pathologize meaning to characterize as medically or psychologically abnormal).
Most experiences of psychological suffering are valid. All experiences of psychological suffering have a reason for existing i.e., are coming from somewhere real, justifiably painful, from legitimate past experiences of primary and vicarious trauma. It is not pathological to feel discomfort when we lose a loved one, when harms are done, injustices enacted. There is nothing abnormal about suffering traumatic experiences.
What can be done? 7 Steps toward Liberation
These steps are about a continual movement toward deeper and deeper healing of all types of traumas. Like anything worth doing, they are not easy. These steps are presented linearly for ease of representation, though know that they are non-linear, dynamic, and interconnected. In a future article we will go into detail on the 7 steps, but I think it will be useful to provide a summary.
1. Implement self-reflection practices. Before we can change the story of our future, we must understand the patterns from our past. These practices include meditation, journaling, seeking feedback from trusted friends, family, and colleagues, or even taking personality tests. If you find it difficult to implement these, simply notice the inner struggle as an indication of greater necessity.
2. Gather information on the nature of the constructed “Ego”, or sense of self, and the nature of Reality. Language-based cognitive knowledge (through books, podcasts, video, etc.) frequently lays the groundwork for experiencing transformative ideas. Most of us do not wander to the Bodhi tree, take a seat for a few days, and transcend the Ego. See Appendix I: Ego-Transcendence Recommended Reading List for resources.
3. Critically analyze your beliefs, assumptions, and worldview in the spirit of humility. Build a simple table of “Evidence for…” and “Evidence against…”, to more deeply comprehend the subjectivity, and therefore malleability, of our experience. This step is essentially cognitive behavioral therapy, requiring Step 1: Self-Reflection as a pre-requisite.
4. Set intentions for what beliefs, ideas, philosophies, worldviews, perspectives, assumptions, feelings, and actions you want to ingrain, embody, and live out. Saints and sages throughout time have continually returned to perennial ideas underlying the “good” life. If you want some Anarchist Therapy recommendations, see Appendix II: How to Live a Good Life Recommended Reading List.
5. Implement Experiential Wisdom practices. This is the malleability space, where the mind is more susceptible to being re-written (more neuroplastic, flexible, dissolved of boundaries). The most powerful and rapid ingraining occurs after initially transcending previously ingrained constructions. When the fleeting, contingent nature of mind is experienced, anything goes. The space is open for a new story to be written. These practices range from meditation techniques, to sensory, food, or sleep deprivation, to using plant entheogen assistance.
6. Ingrain your new intentions for the future unwritten, open, defined by infinite possibility. Read your intentions, re-read them, reconnect with your intuition, with your feelings. Feel the validity of the ideas and your actions will begin to align with them.
7. Repeat the cycle of this virtuous loop (steps 1-6). Old, unhealthy, unrealistic, damaging beliefs are persistent, deeply rooted over years of repetition. To write a new story takes time, determination, a greater persistence than that of the loops of our minds.
What You Resist, Persists
To feel the suffering of vicarious trauma is part and parcel of a life fully experienced, fully lived. To love others is to open yourself to the risk of suffering—for suffering is no different than feeling.
To suffer is to feel; to feel is to be human.
In this life, we have two options: to feel, or to die while “living”. There are many pathways of escape, of resistance. Resist the truth and run forever, for what you resist, persists. There is only one pathway in harmony with the chaotic mystery of creation, of sin, of finitude, loss, suffering, death, and life: Confrontation. The only way out is through; this universe seems to punish the self-deceptive. Remove the clouds and the path will be clear.
It is how we process life when we are not triggered, when the darkness is not fiercely thrust upon us, that determines whether our present actions will change. Modern life is an endless series of emotional triggers. Unless you cultivate time for quiet, low-stimulus solitude, you will be a product of the past forever. This universe reveres the confronters, those who surrender to the truth, who enter the dark forest, those who voluntarily face the dragons of a past always present in the fabric of our being. Willingly enter the discomfort and watch your future story change.
Transformation follows intention.
On the worldly plane of Reality, we confront, we put in effort to change and grow. However, on the spiritual plane of our Reality, we have no option but to surrender to powers greater than ourselves. We work to change the physical—always filled with the dark and the light, while resting in the spiritual—the unified source transcending dichotomies of light and dark, right and left, worldly and spiritual.
Confrontational surrender is to accept with clear eyes the unfolding mystery, to have faith in the timing of the universe, in the curriculum of your life. It is to rest in a higher perspective, beyond time, in the vast sea of an infinite cosmos. Surrender is not synonymous with nihilism. We surrender while still trying to make our lives, and the world better, to decrease unnecessary harm and suffering. Contradictions abound. Can you carry contradiction? Can you simultaneously garner the courage to confront truth, your past, the infinite possibility of the future, while surrendering?
Appendix I: Ego-Transcendence Recommended Reading List
Advaita Vedanta: Non-dualistic Hindu philosophy that posits the ultimate reality is the same as the individual self
"The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi" by Ramana Maharshi
"I Am That" by Nisargadatta Maharaj
Taoism: Chinese philosophy that emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao, the ultimate reality
"Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu
"The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff
Zen Buddhism: Buddhist tradition that emphasizes meditation and the attainment of enlightenment through direct experience
"The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma" by Bodhidharma
"Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki
Yoga: Hindu philosophy and practice that emphasizes physical, mental, and spiritual discipline
"The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" by Patanjali
"Light on Yoga" by B.K.S. Iyengar
Sufism: Mystical tradition within Islam that emphasizes the attainment of spiritual truth and unity with God
"The Conference of the Birds" by Farid ud-Din Attar
"The Essential Rumi" by Rumi
Tibetan Buddhism: Buddhist tradition that emphasizes meditation, mindfulness, and the attainment of enlightenment through direct experience
"The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche
"Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" by Chogyam Trungpa
Sikhism: Monotheistic religion that emphasizes the unity of all beings and the importance of service to others
"The Guru Granth Sahib" by Guru Nanak
"The Teachings of the Sikh Gurus" by Christopher Shackle
Transpersonal Psychology: Psychological approach that emphasizes the spiritual and transcendent aspects of human experience
"The Way of the Psychonaut" by Stanislav Grof
"Transpersonal Psychology: An Introduction to the Psychosynthesis of C.G. Jung and Roberto Assagioli" by John Firman and Ann Gila
Appendix II: How to Live a Good Life Recommended Reading List
"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl - A memoir and a psychological exploration of finding meaning and purpose in life even in the most difficult circumstances.
"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle - A spiritual guide to living in the present moment and finding inner peace and fulfillment.
"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz - A practical guide to personal freedom and living with intention by adopting four guiding principles.
"The Art of Possibility" by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander - A book on how to cultivate a mindset of possibility and creativity to live a fulfilling life.
"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin - A memoir and self-help book that chronicles one woman's journey to find happiness and fulfillment through small, intentional changes in her daily life.
"Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert - A book on how to live a creative life with courage and authenticity, and how to overcome fear and self-doubt.
“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho - A novel about a shepherd boy's journey to fulfill his destiny, teaching the importance of following one's dreams, taking risks, and listening to the heart's wisdom.