I am reading a superb new book on trauma called The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, by David J. Morris.  I heard about the book on the Diane Rehm show.  I have been intensively studying trauma and the treatment modality of Somatic Experiencing for the past two years.  That study is one of the ways that I am trying to hold my own heart.

One of the things that Morris writes about is how trauma disrupts our sense of time and place.  Our nervous system is in the past while our bodies are here.  The irresolution of that state is what perpetrates the trauma state.  He says that with trauma, we learn that there are things that break us.  Define us.  I do not want to be defined by my traumas, my losses.  And yet, to a fairly great extent, that is what happened to me two years ago.  I lost my daughter.  I had not seen her for two years, up until two weeks ago.

Seeing her – and one precious and priceless moment in particular, where I saw her drop out of everything and place her hand softly on a horse’s face – is lifting some of the dark heaviness that has been with me for so long.  More than that.  I know that I can hold my love for her like the Buddha holds this heart.  In doing that, I am holding my own heart.