Have you ever been told that your suffering is happening for a good reason? Now, how often people telling you that were those who’d never gone through the same suffering? How many times did they rationalize, trivialize, and diminish your lived experience of trauma, instead of practicing empathy and going out of their way to change things for you? Finally, how often was that rhetoric ushered in on the platter of “spirituality” or “life wisdom”?

Rationalization is a well known defense mechanism. We often use it to protect ourselves against the uncomfortable truth, including the truth about systemic inequality and injustice – particularly, when we live on the upside of it because of our privileged social identities (male, white, straight, middle-class, native citizen, Christian etc.) and when those privileged identities allow us to get away with bullshitting others and denying reality.

Rationalization is also one of the most common behaviors driven by shame, and one of the greatest barriers to empathy. At the same, trauma is one of the hardest things to practice real empathy around – since trauma is neurobiologically experienced as a threat to survival or a basic human need, connecting to that experience within ourselves – even if we know it full well – is extremely painful. Unless our respect for truth and our spirituality are bigger than our need for comfort, it’s easy to convince ourselves that someone else’s trauma happens for some good reason (higher purpose/spiritual enlightenment/God’s plan etc.) No matter how glaringly this argument contradicts reality, we will double down on it, in order to not get in touch with that person’s traumatic experience and protect our ignorance about our privilege – especially in cultures that, like America, revolve around the tale of meritocracy. As these processes happen mostly subconsciously, we don’t notice how rationalization of trauma moves us away from practicing the values that we passionately profess.

Join me in this conversation to explore in detail how rationalization of trauma shows up in our culture – and how we can speak truth in its face. Examples discussed include the aftermath of natural disasters in Puerto Rico, Flint water crisis, experiences of rape survivors, concentration camps for gay men in Russia, homelessness of LGBT kids in the U.S., poverty statistics in the U.S., and systemic oppression like #racism, #sexism, #homophobia, and #classism worldwide. We’ll dissect the ways in which unexplored privilege and need for comfort sabotage our integrity, and talk about the right way to respond to other people’s traumatic experiences. As long as rationalization remains our default response, there will be no room for critical awareness and no meaningful progress towards social justice. Rationalization of trauma is just as common in large-scale contexts (politics, church, celebrity culture) as it is in our individual relationships. Therefore, it’s our common responsibility to identify it, no matter what kind of rhetoric is wrapped around it, and then eliminate it from our thinking and our relationships.

Referenced videos: Brené Brown on barriers to empathy at RSA