Responding to the Needs of Others especially the Socially-disadvantaged

     Every thinking and feeling person can recognize if there’s something wrong with their surroundings; an instinct that acts beyond subconscious behavior. This instinct tells the body what it needs, but what about the needs of others? These are the ‘socially-disadvantaged’ people whose needs are not met simply because they lack the power to obtain them, or have their power stolen from them.

     When an average person is asked to define trauma, they think about horrible events like war, extreme abuse, or a horrible event that impacted their lives. According to a Hungarian-Canadian physician, Dr. Gabor Maté, trauma is not equal to these horrible events. The word ‘trauma’ comes from the Greek word ‘wound’ or ‘to wound’, which means that trauma is a wound that we humans sustain.

     What not everyone knows is that one could also wound people simply by not meeting their needs. This is what is known as “little trauma” where people aren’t technically doing bad things to others, but the good things that they could be doing to others are not happening and these hurt them. So by definition, you can hurt people not just by hitting them physically but also by not meeting their needs.

     In that sense, humans develop certain emotional traumas when society fails to meet their needs, deliberately and chronically. They are traumatized not just by what happens to them, but also by what doesn’t happen to them that should’ve happened. Let us learn not only to meet our needs personally, but also to meet the needs of others. Fill the cups of others whose needs aren’t met while leaving something for yourself.

– Berne De Guinto, IST