“Life is mostly froth and bubble;/ Two things stand like stone:/
Kindness in another’s trouble,/ Courage in your own.” ~ Adam Lindsay Gordon
Smoke from the Lee Fire rolled back into the valley on Tuesday, Aug. 12 after a day of relatively clear skies. The instant jolt of anxiety it triggered surprised me. I’ve lived in Colorado my entire life. Wildfire smoke has been a part of summer for as long as I can remember, although it does seem to
be more frequent. Or maybe we just hear about them more often.
Last week’s events — a fire raging out of control headed toward town, evacuation orders, flinging things in suitcases, and driving out of town with tears in my eyes not from smoke, but from shared sorrow at so much
destruction and the uncertainty of what was to come — left more of a mark than I realized. I’m reminded that we live in an “assumptive world.” Understanding that concept has helped me manage my reactions a little bit better. The assumptive world is made up of our beliefs and life experiences about ourselves, others, and the world in general. We base our actions on that assumptive world. For example, when you get in a car and drive 75mph down the interstate, your assumptive world believes and trusts that the other drivers will stay in their lane, maintain speed, etc. If you didn’t have those assumptions, driving would be terrifying. When we face a traumatic event — a death, a disaster, a loss, or even an unanticipated change in plans — our assumptive world is challenged, and that makes us feel shaky, like the very foundations on which we’ve relied
can’t be trusted. We’ve all experienced this to some degree.
Most of the time we barrel through the feelings and fears in a state of denial, or we self-medicate to numb the discomfort, or we lash out at others like small wounded animals, when we really need to take time to reset and reframe our assumptive world.
That’s even more true when the trauma is experienced collectively. Just in my lifetime there have been a number of events that challenge that assumptive world on a grand scale… the attacks on 9/11, Columbine, and
the pandemic, just to name a few. My parents’ generation had Vietnam and a string of assassinations. My grandparents had the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor. There’s always something.
No matter how hard you pray, or how well you behave, or what kind of magical thinking you apply, the life events that shake your assumptive world will happen. How we deal with them determines whether we become
angry, bitter, fearful, broken people ranting at the sky gods or succumbing to false security in the form of conspiracy theories, or we do the work and take the time to recover and rebuild our internal sense of safety.
Slow down, acknowledge that your apple cart has been upset, examine what really matters, and determine what you can and can’t control. Then hold your people close, take time to connect with others and with yourself.
It is possible to come through these events better and stronger, it’s called “post-traumatic growth,” and that is definitely the better option.
