By Jasmin Acosta, Healthy Planet Staff Writer
Each one of us has our own story that is composed of memories, experiences, and traumas that have contributed to shaping the person that we are today. Oftentimes, after going through traumatic events in our life that were out of our grasp to control, we tend to wonder what part we partook for the experience to happen to us. There are times where we come to think to ourselves and wonder what we did wrong for the trauma to be inflicted onto us, or asking ourselves what we could have done differently to prevent the situation from happening.
However, this causes us to be faced with the issue of trying to figure out what we are responsible for based on our experiences, and at times we take responsibility for our traumas. Despite the responsibility being solely on the perpetrator. On the other hand, we do have the power to not continue the cycle of trauma by not inflicting pain onto others.
When we experience a traumatic event there are times where we let out our agony through pushing it onto others through our actions or words without truly grasping the reality of what we are doing, as this contributes to creating the endless cycle of trauma to continue.
To combat and break the cycle of trauma we are the only person that can truly hold ourselves accountable for our actions since we have the ability to change our behaviors, as we choose to either continue the cycle of trauma or to change our behaviors to help prevent us from hurting the people around us. If we were to allow our trauma to influence how we treat others we are not only harming our community, but we are also allowing our past to control us in the aspect of how we treat others.
Our behaviors in the moment is what we are solely responsible for, which we need to recognize and take ownership of. In owning this power we come to realize that the present grants us the opportunity to change our behaviors, in order to end the cycle of trauma.
Everyday that we wake up, we are given the chance to make self improvements within ourselves, so we can become and fulfill our fullest potential. Through being able to own our responsibilities as a human being we are able to strengthen our community through spreading kindness.