Craving the Mundane

Anytime something that shakes us up happens, we crave the return to the mundane.  It is so comforting to engage with what we don't think about, perhaps because trauma can consume what feels like every inch of our cognitive and emotional capacity.  The smells associated with simplicity can bring feelings of warmth and comfort; coffee in the morning, our bed linens, the smell of our children (okay these are the things that comfort me).  All things home and familiar are what we want most when confronted with disaster.  Perhaps this is part of the draw of isolation for survivors; avoiding the outside world keeps us connected to comfort.  Predictability is a form of fortune telling; if I know what happens in the next few hours or days, things will be fine.  At least it feels that way.

The mundane, the boring, the thoughtless and otherwise seemingly empty parts of our lives are actually so profound.  This is what we are drawn to in response to the unbearable.  I find myself thinking of this anytime my mind wanders to Newtown.  Newtown followed a violent public shooting here in Oregon, thus the locals here were managing two atrocities in two days.  As I go to each event in my mind, particularly to the children, almost immediately I want the comfort of my routine, of what and who is familiar.  This is a major source of regulation of emotion.  Recent events are highlighting the significance of what we rely on for comfort.

Many of the advice givers (myself included) advise re-engaging with routine following tragedy, although there isn't much examination or discussion as to why.  Perhaps examination is unnecessary because our pursuit of the familiar is so intuitive; we needn't be told to do that because it's what we want to do.

Thus, the predictable return to the strengths and resilience of people and trauma survivors... Survivors know what to do to feel better much of the time, and if it isn't clear what to do, there is often a persistence of  trying to figure it out.  Sometimes the answer to this particular question (what to do to feel better) leads to addiction, to avoidance, or other forms of escape.  Sometimes, if we stick with our pursuit of the mundane, we are lead back to it through a meandering, undefined path that demands our trust in our own capacity.