The Relationship Between Trauma & High Achievement

The Relationship Between Trauma & High Achievement

I have been hearing references to trauma a lot recently, in the context of individuals sorting through their own relationships to work and developmental history, as well as at the organizational level with regard to the culture related to work. In our time together today, I wanted to get specific about trauma:?what is it, and how does trauma impact our lives and relationship with work?

First we need to understand that the body strives to live flexibly within three states: connection, protection and disconnection. We occupy one state of a time, like gears on a bike (take a look at?last month's newsletter?for a refresher).

Now, think of trauma as involving 3Es: an event, experience, and an effect**?

• The?event?is what happens in our lives, it can be everyday living (making a mistake on a document, a rowdy driver on the road, all the way to life threatening situations).?
• Where things get interesting is the?experience: an event becomes traumatic when the system (nervous, somatic, sensory) of the person experiencing it gets overwhelmed and temporarily (or for a long time) the person lives in protection and disconnection states, unable (completely or with a lack of flexibility) to snap back to connection mode.

These temporary overwhelms can result from more/less intense events (think fender bender vs. a multi car pile-up), and more and less frequent (a parent calling you stupid once vs. multiple times a day).?A “little t” trauma is often considered less frequent and less intense, whereas a “big T” trauma is more intense and/or more frequent (usually involving a life threat, though not always).?

We all experience the same events differently, based upon disposition, genetics, epigenetics (the biological inheritances from our ancestral experiences) preferences, resources, social supports, caregivers, and culture.?There is no right or wrong way to experience your life. There is only the way you know how, which leads to the effect.The?effect?is the impact of the overwhelm, and can be anything from feeling disoriented and hurt all the way to living with post-traumatic stress (no one is surprised to hear I buck at the word “disorder” as a diagnostic mechanism, we can all see the effects people experience as profoundly adaptive, not wrong or out or order given the context). These effects impact our ability to function and live fully, and are addressed with work that helps the body return to its natural flexibility and to states of connection.

Now let’s apply?how trauma (the event, experience and effect) shows up at work: in an individual way,?our experiences growing up (often called developmental experiences) can imprint how flexibly we show up at work. Powerthrough (gear #2) for example, can be profoundly dissociative - we don’t taste food as we eat, we don’t need sleep, we are constantly ignoring the accumulating aches and pains in our bodies.?We think something horrific needs to happen to imprint that pattern, but remember little t trauma over time can eventually overwhelm our system and reduce our ability to flexibly move between states.?Consider a household that was loving, and also where your emotions weren’t identified or validated, or where you were recognized only when you excelled or failed.?We are sensitive, social beings and how we learn to strive impacts us.

There is also the way in which work is structured at the systemic and organizational levels, around productivity and hustle culture, which root deeply in our oppressive histories.?The structure of work is particularly challenging and can itself be traumatic.?I am still sorting out the layers here, right now it sounds something like: we are vulnerable because of how we are conditioned and programmed to think about work as children and young professionals (do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, you can do anything, work hard and smart and you’ll get everything done), we experience love and a sense of value when we perform academically and professionally, and most of us cannot opt out of work. We need to work to pay bills and keep food on the table, or get a bigger home, or pay for private school, or or or.

So we are told all of these things about work?that are not true, and that go unexamined, we are primed to experience our worth and value as contingent upon external validation, and then we show up to a system of work that is insatiable and preys that very programming.?The layers of that experience are the events, and how we experience them and the lasting effects can be saturated with all, some or very little traumatic experience. While the intensity of the experience differs shop to shop, it’s there everywhere. In my own practice and business I have to work hard to mitigate the impact of work volume and overwhelm, to push back against the programming related to my worth and what the experience of work “should be”. All of this together impacts the ways we strive and our relationship to work.

Remember: there are as many ways to strive as there are ways to be alive. No one way is more right or wrong than another.?My hypothesis remains: when we understand how and why we strive the ways that we do, at work and beyond, we can develop alternative/additional ways to feel safe, secure, connected and like we belong that protect and nourish our health.?

Understanding the events of our lives, how we experience them, and the effects that live on in our hearts, minds and bodies is integral to the real work we are doing together - understanding and shifting our relationship with ourselves and our work.

Learn More:

1.?**Dr. Bruce Perry introduced me to this easy remembrance in his work with Oprah, Dr. Bruce Perry, “What Happened to You: Conversations on trauma, resilience and healing.” I mentioned it last month in our learn more, and if you’ve already tackled it and want another, I suggest taking a dive into the work of Bessel van der Kolk ?The Body Keeps the Score?(it’s more textbookish, but very informative)

2.??I talk more about trauma and how it shows up at work with Sarah Cottrell, JD on her incredible podcast?The Former Lawyer: Trauma as a Lawyer

3.?My training around trauma-aware care is deeply influencing my thinking around how people make sense and striving as adaptive. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris connects the dots between adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes brilliantly in her book?The Deepest Well:?Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity

4.?Gabor and Daniel Maté’s the “Myth of Normal: Trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture”

5.?? Myrna McCallum ?does wonderful work on Trauma-informed lawyering in particular (her podcast is warm and real), and her work on trauma-informed care impacts my therapeutic process, practice and thinking more generally beyond legal work and the legal industry

6.?I am still looking for articles, books, research that ties trauma to high and low performance and polyvagal theory, if you come across anything I’d be interested in taking a look!

• This was a lot of data to download - a soft entry could be to read this again and again
• Sit with the ideas and let them percolate in the background of your mind
• Lots of movement, in any amount or measure that feels good, as always
• Nurture any questions or curiosity around how this might show up in your life by gently allowing those questions to surface

Here’s what we are engaging with, considering and learning from these days. What are you into - we love a good recco!

This episode of the Ezra Klein Show -?This Book Changed My Relationship to Pain (conversation with Rachel Zoffness PhD )?This conversation blew my mind and also accords with so much of my understanding of trauma. I cannot recommend this enough.

Woman between the Worlds, by Dr. Apela Colorado I’m a couple chapters in and can’t put this down, Dr. Colorado’s storytelling itself feels healing and regenerative.

All things Hamilton and Lin Manuel Miranda, his creative process in particular.?This article?is a quick read and inspiring

This?Forbes article?by Tracy Brower, PhD , on the impact of Managers on our Mental Health, including some great ideas on how to lead with team and individual wellbeing in mind.

???The Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism's Annual Conference?- April 20, 2023 - Virtual

???NALP 2023 Annual Education Conference?- April 25-28, 2023 - Vancouver, BC

???Association of Talent Development?2023 International Conference & Expo?-?May 21-24, 2023 - San Diego, CA