Eat Your Trauma
an invitation
During the pandemic I wrote a book of poetry called Eat Your Trauma. I was inspired by the Buddhist deity Vajrayogini who is depicted holding a conch shell full of… something… up to her open mouth.
It is said her spiritual power is to consume your trauma.
I have learned it is mine and yours as well.
I consume and then transmute the trauma of oppression on behalf of myself and the collective human consciousness. It is serious work. But the work has a sensual, pleasure-based quality to it as well. All suffering feels blissful when you ingest and digest it just right.
When you give your suffering room to breathe, the space combines with the natural heat (inflammation) of the pain, and just like your food scraps, your suffering can compost into fuel. When you decide to throw caution to the wind and consume your suffering with vigor, your pain can feed the parts of you that feel depleted.
You too, can eat your trauma and feel nourishment, fullness, and satisfaction. All it takes is a little bravery to throw off the shackles of
Sanism
who only believes in a narrow sliver of the cosmic aliveness we are part of. Sanism says, “Life is hard. Healing can’t be this easy. Multidimensionality is weird. Don’t be weird. Stability and predictability are safe, even if they are false. Newness and change are dangerous, even when they are true. Stay safe. Don’t heal.”
Transphobia
who believes in the rigidity and unchangeableness of life. Transphobia says, “external authorities decide who you can and can’t be. Who you were declared to be is who you will always be. I declare you broken.”
Adultism
who devalues and rejects the reality that we are part of an evolutionary process of developmental change. Adultism celebrates arrived, but derides arriving. Adultism says, “Be serious! Be rational! Don’t be childish and foolish. Be stable and consistent; even if that means staying unhealed.”
The truth is, you are multidimensional.
Multidimensionality is your human birthright. A colonized, oppressive worldview told you you were narrow, rigid, and unchangeably so. But you are not. You are the glory of unified consciousness and Aliveness, wrapped in a body that can move mountains and mind that is uncagable.
You are terrifyingly powerful. That is why it takes entire systems of oppression to hold you down, yet still you rise. Still you are here.
Stop running from your multidimensionality, it is your escape.
Stop hiding from your power it is your armor in this world.
Stop running from your pleasure it is why you are here.
How to Eat Your Trauma
Relax in whatever way you prefer to relax.
Identify what emotional pain you feel and where you feel it in your body.
Breathe and Allow Space for the pain that you notice. You may need to build more skill to regulate your nervous system. Practices of full emotional expression can help.
Ask what part(s) of you feels depleted. Trust yourself and your feelings.
Offer that depleted part of you the abundance of pain energy to consume. The pain becomes consumable through the addition of Allowing Space which transmutes the energy of pain to pure energy that can be nourishing. Use your imagination and visualize the depleted part of you eating the pain literally or with an analogy like pouring the water of the transmuted pain energy onto a flower. Or, just set the intuition for the depleted part of you to ingest the energy.
Relax. It takes the time it takes. Trust yourself and your feelings.
Play around with it! Let you inner child help. They’ll have great ideas if you feel confused or embarrassed!
Bon appetite!
Photo by Uliana Kopanytsia on Unsplash