Trauma is Spiritual Rocket Fuel
The image above is a collision trace used in particle physics. Scientists accelerate subatomic particles to great speeds and smash them together. When the particles collide, they dissociate into components and physicists use that information to get a better understanding of the original particle.
Like the particles in a collision, trauma causes the psyche of a human being to dissociate into components. The dissociation is an automatic survival response and doesn’t require any conscious effort. By looking carefully at these components and reintegrating them, we gain in self-awareness. However, unlike the dissociation process, there is nothing automatic about the reintegration process. Spirituality is like a muscle and requires exercise to become strong. It takes conscious effort to face our fractured self and put the pieces together. The pieces may or may not be put back together in a better way, but they must be put together in a more conscious way.
In this way our traumas, both big and small, can provide us with rocket fuel for self-awareness. Burn this fuel in the engine of our directed conscious awareness and it can help propel us to great heights. Unused, the fuel won’t disappear on its own; storing unburned fuel takes great effort and leaks can create explosions and dangerous fires. We don’t need to seek out extra trauma nor should we seek to traumatize others; most lives have plenty from the natural unfoldment of events. When the time is right, use whatever unburned fuel you possess to become more whole, happy and wise.