The Healing Power of Kindness: Transforming Trauma into Tragedy in Your Marriage
It's essential to understand the distinction between tragedy and trauma. Tragedy represents challenging and difficult situations that we encounter in life. These are events we often have little control over because we live in a world marked by brokenness and imperfection. Tragedies are an unavoidable part of our human experience.
However, it's when tragedy lacks the presence of kindness that it can morph into trauma. Trauma, unlike tragedy, is not about external events; it's about what happens within us. It's the internalization of pain and suffering, often stemming from a lack of kindness during a tragic moment.
Think back to your childhood, when you might have fallen off your bike. If your parent was there to comfort you, clean your wounds, and offer kind words, that act of kindness prevented the fall from becoming a traumatic experience. But if there was no one to extend that kindness, the fall could turn into a traumatic event, shaping your beliefs about yourself, the world, and even God.
The Power of Kindness
Kindness is the key to transforming trauma back into tragedy. It's about offering support, empathy, and compassion in moments of vulnerability. When both partners in a marriage can open up about their past experiences where emotions were unwelcome, kindness plays a crucial role in rewriting those narratives.
Kindness is not mere politeness or niceness; it's a combination of strength and tenderness. It involves offering protection, care, and containment when needed. Just like a parent scooping up a child after a fall, there's strength in their actions, but there's also a tenderness that communicates care and comfort.
Emotional unavailability in a marriage often arises as a trauma response rooted in past experiences where kindness was lacking. If you or your spouse struggle with emotional unavailability, introducing kindness into your relationship can be a game-changer.
Here's how kindness can help:
Facilitating Vulnerability: Kindness creates a safe space for both partners to share their past experiences honestly. This vulnerability is essential for understanding the roots of emotional unavailability.
Rewriting Narratives: As you extend kindness to one another, it begins to unravel the old narratives that were formed during moments of unkindness. It opens up new possibilities for healing and growth.
Creating Change: Kindness has a profound impact on our brains and can lead to the formation of new neuropathways. This means that kindness can help you both shift from a trauma response to one of choice and change.
Embracing kindness in your marriage requires risk, authenticity, and vulnerability. It's an intentional, present, and generous approach to your partner's struggles and your own. By offering kindness in the spaces where emotional unavailability originated, you provide opportunities for transformation and healing.
Tragedy becomes trauma when kindness is absent, but it can revert to tragedy with the presence of kindness. Kindness is a potent force in rewriting the stories that shape our lives and our marriages. It's the pathway to healing emotional unavailability and nurturing deeper connections.