To heal, we must untangle the coping mechanisms learned from generations of trauma
Values influence our behaviours. For me, it has been a lifetime journey of learning, understanding and implementing values that influence my behaviours. I mess up, but I do my best every day.
Sixteen years ago when I decided to walk the path of sobriety, at first it was just about getting off the drink. Alcohol for me was problematic and it impacted everyone and everything around me. When I drank, I walked the path of drugs, and that combination was a dangerous concoction that led to dangerous behaviours. Inevitably it is our behaviours that get us into trouble, but on the other side of the coin, it is behaviours that get us out of trouble too.
A life of sobriety allowed me to look at my behaviours and over many years become more aware and implement positive change.
Every single one of us is in behavioural patterns and cycles of trauma.
But there is a varying degree and depth of trauma that affect us as individuals; therefore we either repeat the behaviours, or we become aware and address them.
The question is: which one are you doing?
Every one of us is on a varying path of discomfort. The cycle of trauma runs deep, not just in communities but also within the family home.
I think people sometimes don’t understand the full concept of what trauma is – thinking that trauma is an event or a behaviour that we experience during our life, without understanding the full depth and the long term impacts.
Trauma isn’t just what happens to us physically, mentally or emotionally; trauma is the structural process that happens inside of us, as a result of what we have experienced.
From that, we all build different behaviours, ways to cope and survive, the best way we know how.
When you understand the depth of this concept, you understand that we are all just doing our best to firstly understand, process and untangle the many coping mechanisms we have built over many, many generations; a lot of the time through learned behaviour.
None of us are exempt from this, we are all just at different points along the track. Some people are aware, others completely unaware of the impact of their own behaviours, both on themselves and on others. It is in the behaviours we all grow up with – that are normalised since birth.
When Aunty Prof Judy Atkinson first said to me that every negative behaviour in a community is a product of trauma, I didn’t quite understand. But over time I began to understand that all behaviour is speaking a language: we just have to understand the reason behind the behaviours, or what the behaviour is trying to tell us. Usually, these behaviours are formed to regulate our own individual pain and discomfort that has been developed over many generations as a means to cope with challenging environments.
When we become aware of our behaviours we can dive in a little deeper to identify where the behaviour comes from, even right back to the thought process that drives it.
It is our behaviour that shapes how we are perceived by others.
When we begin to be aware of every behaviour, every thought and every reaction, it is shaped by the early conditions of the environment we are raised in from birth.
Where to from here?
These patterns have started way back when, during the colonisation process. How can we implement the changes to heal?
Healing is a gradual process. You don’t wake up and say: “OK, sweet, I’m aware, I’m making changes, I’m fixed.” If only it were that simple.
Healing such behaviours is a journey that takes a great deal of time. It’s not just about changing our physical behaviours, but also being aware of our first response in the mind – learning to live in a state of presence and being more in the moment is key.
I have always been an advocate of saying it is living the old ways that is key to healing communities. What I mean by that is learning to live in a state of presence. By looking at practices of culture – it could be art, dancing, hunting, or walking country. All of those actions required a sense of being present. Culture is about presence.
When we are living present, we become more aware of our thought patterns and the inner chat that speaks to us. It is in this place of mindfulness that we can slowly begin to implement change.
• Joe Williams is a Wiradjuri/ Wolgalu First Nations man, former professional sportsman, founder of The Enemy Within, published author, having contributed to many books and his own autobiography titled Defying The Enemy Within,and adjunct associate professor at the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology.