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When trauma arrives, a person needs to be scooped up and held tight, because humans heal in relationship.

For two million years, "the village" held people in stillness and compassion until trauma moved through them.

In modern society, people move too fast to stop and care for each other’s wounds, which makes trauma linger.

We’ve all been there. It’s the first high school party we attend, or the first day at a new job, and we’re in a room full of people we hardly know. It’s new and unexplored, and we’re scared but excited, ready to be seen. But everyone seems to pass right over us, as if we’re not really there. That’s how my first day in second grade began.

I’m standing in the middle of the schoolyard, trying to find my place in a universe of spinning children, reaching out wherever I can. Can I jump rope with you? Is there any room for me? only to be turned away, again and again. I give up and drift to the shelter of a quiet corner.

But it isn’t shelter. Jimmy and Ted find me, and the words come, each one a small dagger: Square. Dork. Bozo. When my tears come, they find new words. Crybaby. Sissy. Weakling.

I come home that afternoon carrying a dread for school and a shame that keeps me silent. By morning, the dread is so heavy that when it’s time to walk to the bus stop, I hide under my bed instead.

Mom finds me hiding, coaxes me into the living room, and my parents sit with me as the story of my first day comes out between tear-filled breaths. They listen, but the bus is approaching, and they’re already late for work, so all they offer is a quick, It’ll get better and a short, Don’t let it bother you.

That’s what lingers—not the insults hurled in the corner, but the hurried, It’ll get better, the dismissive, Don’t let it bother you. It’s the feeling of........

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