Re-imagining Hope
The silent voice of trauma lies idle in the body. Years of dormancy may be followed by its unexpected impact, often on the precipice of healing. As I fought for justice in my brother’s unsolved homicide, I knew I was losing my life.
Over nineteen years, that awareness never became clearer to me than the moment I learned I had breast cancer. My fight for justice, which ushered in the decline of my health, also initiated a creative approach to rise above the unresolved and touch the edge of hope.
Engaging with Stress
Stress can be a positive motivator. Invariably rooted in human instinct and drive, it propels us to action and keeps attention on solutions. When a stress response is indefinitely repeated, without conclusion, as is prevalent in unsolved homicide cases, the body takes the brunt.
The very existence of an unsolved homicide is an ever-present reminder of the original trauma, an undercurrent of stress. This angst, however, can be engaged with, not as a culprit, but an opportunity to determine and define a response. Framed in this way, angst can become the rain of hope instead of its drought.
Honoring Helplessness
When I notice feelings of helplessness rising within, I talk myself through the experience. I become the proverbial “fly on the wall,” an outward observer of my visceral terrain.
Honoring the response, I coach my mind to accept and redirect the knee-jerk, physical reaction of fight or flight. Breathing deeply and slowing my mind to create space to turn what ails me from foe into friend. Allowing oneself to feel the emotions associated with defeat and helplessness common in unsolved homicide can open up reverence and honor of them.
Instead of avoidance or self-retribution for these feelings, I repeat these words, “It’s OK you are here. I understand why you came. I don’t need you to determine my feelings and my response.”
Trauma Stays in the Body
After a loved one’s homicide, defeat and helplessness live and hide within the protective walls of internal cells as trauma is consistently confronted through one’s advocacy. Trauma is sensed but rarely seen, because advocacy brings forth strength and resilience. It then sits waiting, keeping the body fixed to a fight or flight paradigm, so habitual, becoming commonplace.
This persistent way of responding to life interrupts the healthy functioning of cells. Balancing a trauma response by marrying the opposing feelings of defeat and strength can lead to self-determined resolutions and self-defined success. One’s situation does not change, but the internal way one looks at reality does.
Re-imagining Hope
Establishing self-determined resolution in the midst of the unresolved is the closest thing resembling closure when eyes are burdened by injustice. Actively noticing, honoring and befriending all of what occurred and one’s responses, fosters reassessment of circumstances – the seeds of hope. This can then transform the unsettled and unresolved from within in order to remain unmarred by what appears or does not appear externally.
To transcend internally what has not yet manifested in the case of a loved one, and to break free from the limiting constructs of time and form, is to live unbound by that which remains just beyond reach. That is hope. If it does not appear in the way we imagine, we can re-imagine.
Read more by Lori Grande: Nurturing Oneself After a Homicide – Open to Hope
or Finding a Path Through Unresolved Grief – Open to Hope
Visit Lori Grande’s website: stillibreathe
