Like a lightning bolt piercing a tree, there are times in our lives when something happens that cuts right through us. It’s a shock. It’s unbelievable, even when we see it with our own eyes or hear it with our own ears. Our brains cannot catch up to what our senses are telling us and will not comprehend the unfathomable. Wednesday was one of those times.

The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion was one of those times. The Oklahoma City bombing was one of those times. 9-11 was one of those times. Those moments in history that shock our very systems. Disbelief. Horror. Sadness. Anger. Questions of how could this happen? What went wrong? How could a person do this? Who is accountable for such atrocities?

When lightning strikes, the tremendous electrical energy seeks the path of least resistance. Since trees are tall and contain sap and moisture, they are better conductors than the surrounding air. Water in the cells boil and produce steam. The steam causes the cells to explode, which can crack the bark, strip the bark off the tree, or even blow the tree apart. As the energy goes into the roots and dissipates into the ground, it may injure the roots, even if the trunk of the tree looks undamaged. Some trees survive; others die. It depends on how extensive the damage is to the whole tree.

Energy. Unfathomably hot, boiling energy. Damage. Injuries. Death. We had a lightning strike on our Capitol, on our Congress men and women, and on the very workings of our democracy. How could this happen? What went wrong? Who is accountable?

Unresolved trauma has the boiling energy of lightning. It wants to strike something; it wants to dissipate the horrible energy and feelings that build up in a person who has had to live with the aftermath of trauma or the ongoing realities of it. Unresolved trauma is destructive—it runs the show, particularly when a person is in a high-stress situation. It torches the reasoning part of our brains. I have compassion for those who have been traumatized. I mourn the fact that our system does not prioritize medical and psychological care for those who need it. Our citizens are hurting, and their very real grievances are being exploited by one who has a huge hole in his heart and whose personal trauma is being played out on a nation.

The lightning energy dissipates into the ground. Earth is the healing endpoint, the ‘container’ for the colossal amount of energy discharged from a strike of lightning. There are ways to discharge lightning energy and traumatic energy without the collateral damage done to the tree or to a person, their family, or to society as a whole. Valuable or vulnerable trees can be fitted with lightning protection systems that dilute and slowly release the electrical charge into the ground. The same premise is used for traumatic energy. The excessive and destructive energy of trauma can be dissipated slowly and safely with the help of a trained professional and/or with personal practices that include deep breathing, body practices like yoga or qigong, and meditation—a slowing of the racing, reactive mind. And of course, we can practice ‘grounding’—touching or lying on the Earth, allowing our excess energy and our overwhelming feelings to dissipate into the healing container of Mother Earth.

Looking at Wednesday through a trauma-informed lens, I see many, many hurting people. Hurt people react, blame, and hurt other people. Trauma causes us to ‘lose our minds.’ It is incumbent on each person to take responsibility for their own feelings, even those buried in trauma, and for their own actions.

For more information on trauma: ACEs or Adverse Childhood Experiences are traumatizing events that can be carried into adulthood if not processed at the time they occurred. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/aces-and-toxic-stress-frequently-asked-questions/

For more information on how the body releases trauma: Dr. Peter Levine is a pioneer in the study of how our bodies hold on to trauma and how it can be released. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8582180-in-an-unspoken-voice