The Age of Self-Deprivation Comes to an End
Self-deprivation has sat at humanity’s core for many generations.
As we shift towards living in an endemic world, the plague of self-abandonment is ready to resolve.
We are learning that we have to look after ourselves, and develop a sustainable way of living and relating.
The great hand of Covid has given us a choice – wake up to our ways, or suffer.
At this pivotal time in humanity, we must take care to heal our trauma, step out of survival, and into healing as a way of life (not a reactive fashion statement).
Trauma causes us to adapt and survive. For the last 20 months, that’s what we have been doing. Trying to figure out a way to cope, manage and look after ourselves and each other as best we can.
The transition from pandemic to endemic world means that we are ready to embark on a new phase of adaptation – one that leads to evolution; rather than extinction.
It is time for our collective post-traumatic growth to unfold.
Survival cycles
Survival often occurs in cycles. When we do not have the awareness or tools to break a cycle, we loop into another one. We have been cycling back into our trauma for generations. Mainly because there has not been enough education and empowerment to do anything else.
This has changed.
In the last 10 years, our awareness about survival physiology, trauma adaptations, and healing properties has greatly evolved. Way-showers have been studying, teaching, and developing ways to communicate complex concepts that will help us break the cycle.
Some of the leaders in the field include:
Dr Stephen Porges – who developed the Polyvagal theory, explain our neurophysiological experience
Dr Peter Levine – founder of the Somatic Experiencing modality
Dr Gabor Mate – for his work on childhood trauma and addiction
Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk – for his work on complex post-traumatic stress
Dr Janina Fisher – for her work on fragmentation and dissociation
Dr Arielle Schwartz – for her work on parts, EMDR, and trauma-informed yoga
There are many more – but to me, these are the voices who have stood as major change makers
We are more awake, more resourced, and more empowered to heal than ever before.
A collective shift out of survival is an evolutionary imperative.
Understanding the existential nature of survival
We are not meant to survive forever. Prolonged states of survival lead to sickness, dissociation, fragmentation, and relational disconnection. As we run from our potential demise, we create it. Survival is a paradoxical bitch.
When survival becomes the new normal, an existential shift occurs. We start to view the world through threat-colored glasses, and our primitive instincts to separate, manipulate, conquer and win take over. In many cases, our organizing principles tell us that to do this, we must shift into self-deprivation. There must be famine so we can one day feast.
Underneath it all, we are desperately looking for safety. However, when threat is internalized, safety is illusive, impossible to reach. We keep doing the same thing over and over again, hoping to find something that no longer exists. This is madness and frenzy. We are all lunatics, looking outwards to remedy an internal state of chaos.
As the complex, cunning, and evolution-driven creatures that we are, we have become very good at hiding our survival responses, gas-lighting each other and ourselves to believe that we are happy, healthy, and living the good life. We have learned to swallow our dysfunction down, slap on a smile, and walk through the world the way we think we should. Just look at every other social feed! On Insta its false smiles and pretty faces (but no sign of bouts of depression and loneliness). On LinkedIn its founders sharing their leadership achievements (but not their extreme burnout, emotional outbursts, and disrespectful behaviors). On TikTok its every other Tom Dick and Harry pointing at invisible words in the air and doing ridiculous dances (but no disclosure of the fear of failure and imposter syndrome moments… what am I really pointing to? And why am I dancing in front of a camera?).
Fake it till you make it, right?
Wrong!
If we continue this way, we are not going to make it anywhere.
Trauma is a ticking time bomb, and at some point, it will start leaking out into our body, mind, and relationships. It is inevitable. For many that time is now. The global trauma of Covid has shone a light on what’s been there all along and we’re finally able to decode the messages that have been coursing through our nervous system for years.
The desire to belong trumps all
Inside, most of us have known for a long time that something wasn’t right. We just haven’t had the courage to say so or the words to articulate it. In addition, the desire to belong to the collective dysfunction has outweighed the cries of our own spirits begging us to turn inwards and look after ourselves.
When it comes to survival, we will always place belonging above our own needs.
This is our collective core wound.
It’s what keeps us in dysfunctional relationships, way past our due date.
It’s what keeps us working in jobs that drain us and for bosses that berate us.
It’s what keeps us running at full steam to keep up with the Jones’ and buy a house, a car, and put our pretty pictures up for everyone to see.
We are depriving ourselves in order to belong. Yet we are more separate than ever.
The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Remedy
Interestingly, as the development of trauma awareness and the self-healing meta language has increased, we have also seen the increase in human expression and re-identification of the self.
Our desire to self-express is nearly as strong as our desire to belong…. But not quite. As more of us seek to express through our identity, whether it's gender identity, neurodiversity, or owning our physical or mental health adaptations, the desire to belong still exists.
And so, the Diversity Equity & Inclusion movement has become the road map to making this happen.
‘We can be different and we can belong’.
Although I don’t believe DEI mission has been so clearly articulated, this movement is seeking to repair the core existential trauma adaptation.
Trauma asks us to resist our impulse to differentiate. We need to adapt to belong. If we differentiate we are at threat of harm or rejection. So many of us fragment, suppress, and tie ourselves in knots figuring out how to belong; because that’s what we need to do to stay safe. It is a biological instinct.
The mass uprising of personal expression; and the demand to belong despite our differences is trauma healing in process. It is a step towards self-acceptance and collective compassion. However, it is only a step and we must ensure that the next step occurs so it does not become a bypass.
The link between DEI and Spirituality
The pattern of the DEI movement follows the imprint of modern spirituality – which was born from the quest to break out of trauma, survival, conditioning, and suppression to find authentic expression and belonging. The greatest issue with modern spirituality is that the steps towards integrated healing and transformation were not completed. A new reality of acceptance, love, and peace was created via the teachings of gurus and many jumped in headfirst to follow the dream. No one can click their fingers and create a new self. There is first a requirement to honor, process, and dismantle the foundation of the existing self. Instant transformation and enlightenment are not possible. They are a desperate attempt to run from our pain and the hard work we have to do to build a sustainable, relatable and compassionate self. The rising of spiritual communities was a collective attempt to create a new reality… however it generally caused more separation and further self-disconnection. This is another form of self-deprivation – the abandonment of our traumatized selves.
I hope that clarifying the underlying inspiration of the DEI movement, will ensure that as a new reality of inclusion is created, the steps to process our individual and shared pain are part of the process.
We can no longer deprive or deny our trauma. Or we will simply loop back into another trauma cycle. We will create another world where we say we ok just as we are, where we say we belong… but we still feel the existential wrongness of it all.
Healing Existential Trauma
To heal our existential trauma and make a true collective transformation, we need to recalibrate from our self-deprivation instincts.
This means challenging the organizing principles that tell us we must a) hustle b) put others first c) self-deprive and deny to survive.
Our self-depriving nature is a maladaptation in the human psyche and nervous system.
Covid has spoken to our spirits and empowered us to draw on the growing collective wisdom to rewrite our history.
We are a transformative generation. It is up to us to redirect our evolution. And we will! (I am quite sure of this! It’s already happening).
The initial steps to healing
Acknowledging that something’s wrong. Hustle and burnout are not normal.
‘I am not ok and I am not going to pretend otherwise.’ (please do not say it is ok to be ok anymore. It is not ok at all!)
Self-care as a way of life. We must put our health and wellbeing above all.
‘I am allowed to look after myself first. I am my greatest masterpiece.’
Boundaries before belonging. People-pleasing must end.
‘I am allowed to say no and set limits without fear of harm or rejection.’ And secondly ‘If someone chooses to shame or penalize me for looking after myself, I release them from my life.’
These are the mantras of the future.
This is self-compassion. Pure and simple.
The rise of vulnerability
As we enter a state of healing, our blinders come off and destruction occurs. The coping mechanisms we have been using to convince ourselves and each other that we are ok are discarded. This reveals the truth… that we are starving for self-care. And we are craving to be seen, heard, held, and supported.
Underneath it all, that’s what we have wanted all along, but we have been too terrified to voice it.
Vulnerability is the pathway to healing. It requires self-compassion bravery and strength.
When we discard our armor, naked in our own sensitivity, we can start to really feel ourselves, and learn to express what we need, rather than run from it.
Human connection as means of healing
When we are in our most vulnerable states, we need others to help care for us and guide us. We cannot do it alone. The world needs all the healing it can get right now. We are ready to own our dysfunction, voice our needs and accept support from those who offer it. It is very sad that it took a state of pandemic, death, and distress to get us here. But here we are.
Human connection is the medicine of the future.
Therapists, coaches, healers, teachers, educators, and leaders are the ones who can doll it out in doses and harness the power of relationships for repair. It is time to ‘revitalize the way we relate to each other’ (This is my organization’s missions statement!)
The arc of grief & the shift into post-traumatic growth
Once we realize how self-depriving we have been, we will need to grieve. The arc of grief moves from loss to desire. We will grieve how much we have lost during years (and in fact generations) of self-deprivation and we will feel how much we desire a different way of existing – one where we feel nourished, balanced, safe, and expressed. It is the swing of the pendulum from loss to desire that will take us into the post-traumatic growth phase.
This is where many of us are now. Our existential crisis has to ask:
‘Why am I here?’
‘What kind of life do I want to create?’
‘What do I need to change in order to step towards it?’
To gently hold ourselves in this enquiry and move into intention and action will take us towards a sustainable future where self-care is healthcare and belonging is a baseline, rather than an unreachable destination.
It is time to embrace healing as a way of life.
About Natalia Rachel
Natalia Rachel shares her voice to begin remedy the world’s state of hustle, trauma, disconnect, and disrespect. Her insights into the human condition and our profound need for healing, self-compassion, empathy, and human connection, inspire audiences to awaken their hearts, illuminate their patterns and step forward towards self-care and relational repair.
Natalia Rachel brings an amalgamation of knowledge from years working as a therapist and clinic director with a focus on trauma and abuse recovery as well as her own personal journey recovering from mental health misdiagnosis and physical health conditions that stemmed from childhood trauma.
Her desire to answer the existential questions ‘Why am I?’, ‘Why are you?’, and ‘Why are we?’, led her on an incredible journey exploring mainstream & mental healthcare, complimentary health care, and the spectrum of the healing arts. Her messages distill over 20 years of her own lived self-mastery.
As we learn to live in an endemic world, Natalia Rachel is frequently called on to speak and facilitate workshops that inspire a proactive approach to mental health and highlight the undoubtable link between mind, body, spirit, and relationships.
Natalia is best known for speaking on: mental health, burnout, trauma & trauma-informed culture, relationship dynamics, boundaries & respect, empathy, compassion & vulnerability. All her talks blend concepts from science, psychology, interpersonal neurobiology, philosophy, and spirituality in an engaging, accessible format that includes conceptual learning, experiential process, story, self-inquiry, and self-care tool kit development. Audiences walk away feeling energized, hopeful, and empowered to walk their own path of mastery.
To book Natalia for speaking events contact her team: connect@illumahealth.org or +65 9006 3893.