To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity
L.M. Browning
Top 10 Best Quotes
“In lieu of letting go of our trauma and rather than healing completely, in my experience, we learn how to carry it and there are some days when it is heavier than others. Some days, I hardly know it is there, distracted as I am by present joys and excitement; while other days, the burden is cripplingly-heavy and I can hardly breathe under the weight of grief.”
“We can’t deny our journey. We can’t pretend we’re fine when we’re not. All we can do is own it—own our suffering.”
“I’m broken. We’re all broken and right now we’re all isolated within that brokenness. The cure for the loneliness is connection—connection with that broken part of ourselves and with each other—and we can’t achieve that connection while pretending we are okay. We’re not okay.”
“I no longer seek those things that help me to heal but for those things that fortify me with the strength required to carry the load fate has set upon my shoulders. Instead of finding a way to forget, find a way to bear the constant remembering. The silence of the wild being one of those elements that reinforce the weathered walls of the soul and mind.”
“There is no “letting go.” I would dare to take it further and say there is no healing from trauma. For nearly 25 years, I’ve waited to get over the traumas that have amassed across my life. The pursuit of this healing has felt a great deal like a search for God—for something elusive, divine, and that may or may not exist.”
“Now I know, you can’t change what’s happened to you or hide it, or spin it, or get over it. All you can do is hold it confidently knowing that the mistakes are yours but so too is the wisdom earned along the punishing passage. Suffering is the catalyst for transformation. The wounds don’t define us; how we went about surviving does. Oddity, in this sickened society of medicated despair, is a blessed state.”
“To say I woke up one day and reached a point where I no longer cared about the pains to befall me would be a lie. Nor can I say that I have ever fully forgiven those who willfully did me harm. On a deep, internal battlefield, I wrestle with the thought that I have been robbed of any chance of normalcy by the losses suffered. Therapists and gurus alike tell us to, “Let go or be dragged,” as Zen proverb urges—to forgive for our own sake. But, in my experience, there is no letting go and forgiveness is transient. My inability to be free of it all isn’t for lack of an evolved consciousness on my part. I’ve “done the work” to process it all; rather, it is my irreconcilable, inescapable humanity that causes to clutch the pain close to me.”
“During the worst of it, onlookers who have learned my story often comment to me that, “All the hardships you suffered were part of a divine plan for your life because something good came from each bad thing.” As though a divine presence decided to teach me these great lessons through pain. I am affronted by such a suggestion because it robs me of my accomplishment by removing the element of transcendence. I don’t believe we learn anything from suffering. If human beings inherently learned through suffering, we would be a population of enlightened beings and we’re not. We learn from suffering if and only if we manage to transcend our suffering to find meaning in what is otherwise senseless. This process of transcendence is a profoundly human one that imparts the deepest—most lasting—sense of achievement.”
“Throughout the journey West, I had a raging fever. In a mere two days, we drove 1,925 miles from Connecticut to Colorado Springs, where we chose to break our journey. The further West we went, the sicker I seemed to become. As though the turmoil, rage, and grief within me were tightening their coiled grip, sensing that something was coming that would force it to relinquish their hold.”
“There is a magic here that can help the mind breathe”
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Book Keywords:
new-mexico, ptsd, healing, miscarriage, trauma, mountains, transcendent, american-southwest, depression, magic, mind, transformation, suffering, oddity, mental-health, nature, suicide
