The Pebble and the Pearl

According to Bessel vander Kolk, M.D., there are two main categories of trauma that he refers to as Big “T” and Little “t”. Big “T” traumas are the events most commonly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including serious injury, sexual violence, or life-threatening experiences. Threats of serious physical injury, death or sexual violence can cause intense trauma, even if the person is never physically harmed. Witnesses to big “T” events or people living and working in close proximity to trauma survivors are also vulnerable to PTSD, especially those who encounter emotional shock on a regular basis like paramedics, therapists, and police officers.

Little “t” traumas are highly stressful events that affect individuals on a personal level but don’t fall into the Big ”T” category. Examples of little “t” trauma include non-life threatening injuries, emotional abuse, a death of a pet, bullying or harassment, and loss of significant relationships. People have unique capacity to handle stress referred to as resilience, which impacts their ability to cope with trauma. What is highly distressing to one person may not cause the same emotional response in someone else, so the key to understanding little “t” trauma is to examine how it affects the individual rather than focusing on the event itself.

A pebble can symbolize a Big “T” experience and a little “t” situation in our lives that generates annoyance and frustration over a long period of time. These feelings can include rejection, betrayal, or deep woundedness. These unresolved traumas can be considered the pebble in our shoes that we carry around with us in this journey called life. 

Because of past trauma our reactions to everyday living may not match our real time situations.

For example: We may react to a little “t” situation like feeling sick, tired, or hungry and respond as if it’s a Big “T” emergency. Or, responding to a big “T” crisis, with little or no emotional response and not recognizing that something more serious is going on. We may tend to minimize our response even if it is a serious situation. 

Over the course of our personal healing, we are working to align our emotional responses to the current situations we face in real time. And we do that by returning to the age of origination and working through what the intelligence of the body indicates is our next emotional priority. By using IPT therapy we are able to reduce the emotional charge around the past trauma and in present time regulate our emotional responses to our every day circumstances. 

Whether we are working on removing large or small pebbles, healing is a part of a longer sustained process, where those things that have hurt us the most are then transformed into the pearl. It is where the woundedness or the scars are not removed but are transformed into post traumatic growth, which then become our gifts and strengths. Our suffering is not a waste nor does it have to diminish our sense of worth and value. It may interfere with our ability to see the truth about ourselves for a time but, it cannot destroy who we are becoming because of these traumatic experiences.

You have the power to turn the suffering from these pebbles into pearls. The work you continue to do is making a difference for you and those around you. Do not give up hope, stay committed to personal growth and you will find joy and a greater sense of meaning in your life. As you continue to embrace deeper levels of connection to yourself you will see that the pebble has become the pearl of great value, iridescent, pure and whole.

Loves,

Pam