Rocks in Your Backpacks

Imagine that we’re all born with a backpack on. Not your typical Jansport or cute fashionable mini backpack, but an invisible backpack.

This is the backpack of all our life experiences. Starting from conception, our mind and body are taking in information about the world around us. We’re having experiences that either help or hinder our growth; leave us with either heavy rocks or balloons. Today we will discuss the rocks and next time discuss the balloons.

Even before birth, we are wide open to a full variety of experiences that life has to offer. There are ups and downs, sideways and backwards, good and bad. The heavy rocks that are collected throughout life are the traumas that impact ourselves and our body’s cells.

Trauma with a big “T” is often what people think of when they hear the word “trauma”. Incidences of abuse, big accidents, loss of a loved one, going to war, etc. These are the big, heavy rocks that get placed in your backpack.

Small “t” trauma are the thousands of little experiences of not having your voice be heard,

exposure to microaggressions and discrimination, and being bullied by family members or classmates.

It’s a lack of connection with your caregiver or social group. It’s feeling emotions that accompany thoughts like “not good enough”, “not lovable”, “not deserving”, or “alone”. These are the heavy pebbles that can fill up entire backpacks.

Just the simple fact of being born with a certain skin color or ethnicity automatically place heavy rocks in your backpack. For example, if you were born as a descendent of slavery, or if your family were refugees and fled war or genocide, these are all cultural and historical traumas that have been passed down and are living within your body. This phenomenon is called epigenetics; the way a gene changes when there is large experience.

Imagine your own invisible backpack.

How heavy is it?

What size are your rocks?

How hunched over do you walk?