Month: August 2021

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Becoming Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

Content note: this piece contains mentions of military violence, military occupation and indoctrination.

By the time I leave this earth in my current form, I hope our societies have changes somewhat – to become more just and equal. With time and learning, my understanding and knowledge of global and local injustices only increases. This can come with an increasing sense of doom, as the load of a just world feels heavier by the day.

Change does not spontaneously happen – it happens only when we bring it about. This is why I consider speaking out, learning and trying to do better – as moral obligations. Trying to figure out the most effective ways to create change is the hardest part. There are many questions that come to mind. Recently I’ve mulled over this one – Do we have to publicly explore the trauma we’re working to prevent in order to create justice?

Recently I finished reading The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar, and it has convinced me of the answer to this question. In The Mother Wound, the author explores the various personal implications of her own and her family’s trauma. She shares specific violent incidents, occasionally in graphic details, but always in an empathetic way that leaves the reader no choice but to feel the experiences, to step into the shoes of her mother and herself. The details around the lives of her family in Lebanon, and the way her grandmother was killed, were vivid. The pastoral village life, her grandmother’s love and resilience become crucial in my understanding, as the reader, of their motives, wishes, values and aspirations. I related to their extremely common human needs for safety, love, community, and purpose.

Then when the violent and inexplicable attack on civilians is described in the most details available, I could not help but feel outraged, shocked, angered, and extremely sad. Soon many other feelings surfaced, including hopelessness, desperation, and a deep desire to translate the work to Hebrew so that every Israeli can read it. 

Because Haydar shared her family’s trauma, a significant shift has occurred in my mind. Despite being aware of the occupation by the Israeli government of Palestine, until reading this book I thought the majority of methods used by the military were genuinely necessary, and executed with high care for human life and international law. This idea, that has taken roots in me via years of informal and formal education, media and cultural beliefs, was at once shattered.*

Suddenly, the military ‘protecting’ my country of birth and citizenship, was painted with a completely different brush. The military I was taught was essential to protect the Israeli people and that was the most powerful whilst humane in the world, the military every Israeli citizen must join at 18, the one I served in for nearly three years – was not what I was always led to believe it was.

This military was suddenly exposed as the one who sends secret agents that brutaly kill Lebanese civilians simply because they identify with the liberation of Palestinians. The same army we were told always considers human life at their highest priority, was suddenly exposed as the army that bombed a clearly marked civilian line of vehicles. Those vehicles carried women, men, children. The youngest victim of this attack was only a year old. An innocent baby. There were no military targets in the area. The traumatic implications of this violent attack naturally reverberates through generations and continents, yet no government or military personnel have taken responsibility. This cannot be described in lesser terms then the unjust act of cruelty by a hating, racist oppressor. My entire worldview has shifted.

This book immediately challenged not only everything I thought I knew about my country, our soldiers, our ‘safety and security’ policies, our governments, but it also completely challenged my perception of who we are as people, and by extension, of who I am, who I was, and many of the decisions I have made in the past. I’ve always struggled with integral aspects of the culture I was raised in. But this book brushed my already non-favourable perceptions with a metallic, bloodied red.

If the author would have left this part of her story out, this perception change would not have happened. Shaking our beliefs, looking at people, ideas, values and actions from a different angle is difficult. It is challenging and can make any of us feel uneasy. We have a psychological bias to search for information that confirms what we know and believe, and experiencing anything outside of that is always a conscious, effortful choice. Without this discomfort though, we as communities and humans will never progress. Stepping out of our comfort zone to read an opinion we disagree with, or watch something we wouldn’t normally choose, is how we learn, develop, and grow.

As long as we remain living in unjust, unequal and unsafe communities, trauma must be explored, expressed and revealed to the public. This is certainly not to say that we should trauma dump**. Nor do we need to constantly or carelessly share our and our people’s traumas. Care and consideration is key, but the sharing is crucial. By sharing how a traumatic oppressive system, relationship, event or person has affected us, we help others understand. We can help someone else step into our shoes – feel, relate and perhaps even shift their perspective. This is essential if we want to see any social change. Change will not happen on its own, but by the power of people choosing change. Only with opening our eyes, our hearts and our minds, will we ever progress towards a just, equal world. 

If you believe in the pursuit of justice, if you believe that every human deserves to live their best life, to have access to safe communities, welcoming spaces, equal opportunities, and to be free of harm, then you must become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Tuning into others’ experience to understand is our duty to our fellow world citizens.

Until next time, 

Liel K. Bridgford

*Note that although even the recent war in Israel/Gaza involved killing of children, the Israeli government and army officials have insisted on the care and importance of the military targets behind the attacks. Furthermore, Israeli propaganda tells citizens that families are always warned and given opportunities to keep safe. My levels of belief in these messages were shaky but still somehow intact until I read The Mother Wound.

**trauma dump refers to the exercise by which one shares unedited traumatic experiences without warning, structure or purpose beyond personal unloading.

P.S. note that I don’t advocate to trauma dump or disregard your own right to safety when engaging with others’ lived experience. Rather, healing is a communal responsibility. As the sharer, it is one’s responsibility to make apparent what it is you will be covering (for instance through trigger warnings or content notes) and provide sources of support. As the audience, it is our responsibility to always look after ourselves before, during and after we engage with others’ stories. This will mean different things to different people, but can include engaging with material in safe spaces and times, or reaching out to others for support, encouragement or debrief. 

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The Meaning of No and Big News

I’ve written ever since I can remember – early notebooks of my childhood are scattered with poems, short stories, magazines and even multi-chapter stories. Writing has always been an outlet through which I expressed feelings, thoughts, experiences, and shared them with others. I prided myself on my rhymed Bat-Mitzvah speech and on poetic cards for every occasion.

Thinking of writing as a career though is only something I’ve seriously considered in the last few years. Although I must admit to a childhood dream to write a book about my experiences growing up. It was a kind of comfort at hard times – imagining that at least I could write about what happened, to make the future world a better place. 

But taking writing more ‘seriously’ and submitting pieces to places inevitably led to receiving rejections – the No’s. You often hear stories of writers who became famous immediately. But for a lot of people, the road is more complicated. Trying to publish my writings in the Australian literary world has been a challenge, and that’s partly because I’m inexperienced, and don’t know the industry well, nor the people in it. But it’s also because there are still a lot of preferences in the industry for writings by Australian-born, Christian and non-disabled people.

My writing style is different to my peers, I know that because I can read their stuff, and I’ve been told I use English in unusual ways. I also write of ‘unusual’ subjects like the realities of being a disabled, immigrant parent or what it means to be a female in our patriarchal world. Writing for me is about many things, one of them is a tool to inspire change – for the better. And it’s also who I am – I write truthfully, because it’s how I like to live life. 

Receiving multiple No’s when sending out my writings has been hard, although I got used to it! At first, the meaning of No was a potential indication of the value of my craft or ideas. Slowly though, I’ve learned to re-assign meanings to the No’s. Recognising privileges helps, although it also enrages me at times. I know I need to work harder than some in order for my pieces to be considered for publication. (although I still have privileges that help me, like being white and at a socially acceptable body weight). 

I’ve reassigned the meanings for No’s by listening and reading other writer’s journeys, and deciding it’s ok that some places don’t want to publish my pieces. It also helps to think of the industry as a business – which it is – and realise that at that point in time, a particular person or people, didn’t think my piece was going to sell enough.

Expectation is another huge factor in how we react to life events, and so I changed my expectations rapidly since the early days of sending out my material. Although holding onto hope is useful, tampering my expectations and looking at the statistics help me feel grounded and deal with the No’s better. I have received many more No’s than Yes’s, thus far, so I now expect a No, and just feel pleasantly surprised when this expectation is proven wrong. 

Recently there have been a few Yes’s which I’m very excited about. A few aren’t yet announced in public, so you’ll have to wait a little longer. In case you’re not following me on social media (which is a loss for you), here are a few Yes’s that you can check out:

  • I’ve written several blog posts for SANE Australia, which has been enjoyable and fruitful. I’ve learned a little more about the industry in the process, and loved combining my writing skills together with my mental health knowledge and lived experience. Here is a summary of the blogs: 
  • As for the biggest Yes I’ve ever received, I have been honoured to be selected to the TOP 5 ARTS Residency by the ABC. I will be working with and learning from some of the best in the media and publishing industry, and I cannot wait to commence in September. You can find out more here. This is by far the biggest Yes I’ve ever received, and I feel privileged and humbled to be selected among a group of talented people to this unique program.  

As for the No’s, they keep coming. Slowly though, their weight decreases, while I focus on the writing itself, and the beautiful Yes’s that come in other forms to formal publications: when someone clicks their fingers during my poetry reading, or comes up to say they enjoyed it, or laugh while I perform. A Yes can look like a comment on a social media post or a new subscriber to my blog. Although those Yes’s don’t pay the bills, they fill my heart with hope that my words are valuable – at least sometimes, at least to some. 

Until next time, 

Liel K. Bridgford