Heroic Reaction vs Trauma Reaction
Last week I mentioned the six traits of heroes and realized that I needed another post to better explain everything.
Ok. Nechema Tec’s Heroic Responses vs. Trauma Response
So… how do we get from trauma to hero?
Challenge - the situation, belief, circumstance
Crisis - have the fear and the emotions. Do the disaster thinking.
Confronting Powerlessness - realize what you are capable of doing with the resources you have
Feel the Feels - sit with the emotions
Missing Treasure Found - find out… wow, you were right, and hold tight to what you learned.
Empowerment - hold tight to what you learned and live it in the small things until you see it pay off in a big thing - and then keep going.
I’ll demonstrate this with a real life story.
My first job was doing media tech with a small camp. The way it was run was on the tightest budget possible and hiring people who were not good at leadership decisions. They weren’t bad people, they just had so many rules that their culture had become toxic. And it wasn’t like the rules were written as moral law codes, you were just supposed to automatically and magically know them. (Challenge)
For instance: We had to all be in bed lights out by 8pm.
I had some media tech work to do, so I asked to stay up later. As in… 10pm. I was nineteen. I lived at the camp. I know how to walk in the dark. I also know how to function on less sleep and still behave like a reasonably pleasant human. (Crisis)
My boss said, “You came to me too late in the day. It was disrespectful. No you can’t stay up late to finish your work. You need to finish it tomorrow.”
I had come to her at 4:30pm. She lived at the camp too.
I was furious… (Feeling the feels)
But I stayed calm and thwarted the rules by waking up at 3AM.
(Confronting the powerlessness and finding a way around it)
I got all my work done. I also learned that I couldn’t deal with that level of stupid. And I decided that despite giving the appearance of a kind person - she had no leadership skills and I didn’t care anymore. (Treasure found. For those of us who have grown up in toxic rule based cultures, apathy is often dangerous, but also liberating because we learn not give a hoot.)
The leadership’s behavior didn’t get any better through the three months that I worked there. In fact… it got worse. Which didn’t surprise me - but it did give me markers for business failure behaviors. It also gave me behavior patterns to study. So when I left that job, I realized about a decade later that I was in another business that was a sinking ship, I had a method of escape and I knew it would be ok to leave, because I wasn’t going to let it get to the level of working at the camp. (Empowerment and a life lesson, coming back to remind me when I needed most)
Now, please realize that leaving a job is not necessarily the best course of action - but sometimes you have to be a hero to yourself, before others. Because of my first job, I ended up doing a deep dive into cult behaviors and manipulation tactics. I also learned to trust my senses and pattern recognition system sooner.
Recap (and if you want: Homework)
Challenge - the situation, belief, circumstance
Crisis - have the fear and the emotions. Do the disaster thinking.
Confronting Powerlessness - realize what you are capable of doing with the resources you have
Feel the Feels - sit with the emotions
Missing Treasure Found - find out… wow, you were right, and hold tight to what you learned.
Empowerment - hold tight to what you learned and live it in the small things until you see it pay off in a big thing - and then keep going.