Panthic Trauma: From Healing to Thriving

Disrupted Process

Throughout history, we have been the target of persecutions and genocides by those threatened by our existence. We have survived prolonged periods of targeted killings and suffered extreme losses, and still recovered back. This resilience has always been a source of our strength. Even though we lost so much, we always recovered our strength and found optimism for our future.

However, in our recent history, there has been a shift, and we have deviated from this historical pattern. Even after decades, we haven’t been able to enter the healing phase of our recovery cycle.

This interruption has prolonged our suffering and has induced a concerning state of mental health and emotional distress. This continuous dynamic has reduced our productive capacity and minimized our Panthic potential. That is why need to explore our Panthic Trauma and recognize that healing is our responsibility.

Media Amplification and Isolation of Trauma

For most of our history, we did not get exposure to traumatic events through visual mediums as we do today. While this provides us better documentation that we can closely connect with, its realism also strikes much deeper wounds into our hearts.

In addition, now we are also more likely to relive our community traumas again and again. The sounds, photos, and video documentations of traumatic events are readily available online. This exposure usually hits our emotions in a random pattern due to unpredictable news and social media feeds we follow.

Sikhs in the past got exposure to traumatic events through oral traditions, mostly in Sangat. Today, however, we mostly experience it online isolated on our devices. This further amplifies our emotional distress and presents unique challenges for our healing.

Why it never became a priority?

Being a target of a well-organized physical elimination process comes as a shock and it overpowers the survival mode to its extreme. When this goes on for years, it becomes the norm. That’s why every day that goes by does not make much of a difference. We continue to live the same trauma repeatedly in our emotions. Even when the threat of imminent death is not there anymore, the response does not change.

This experience creates a mental and emotional paralysis that inhibits our decision making.

Since our community carries so many scars, we need to feel safe by connecting with those who understand our deepest pain and suffering. This means that the leaders that arise among us are also likely to share the same pain and trauma as well, if not more so.

It is totally normal and human to seek a sense of safety with shared trauma. However, this emotional need can lead us to perceive those who carry more trauma to be much more authentic among others who have less of it. This, unfortunately, leads us to overlook the equally important ability for healing that we really need.

When we do not ask for healing and make it explicitly a requirement, we unintentionally flip the incentives. That’s why moving from traumatic suffering to healing never becomes a priority for leaders in our community.

Unhealed trauma is costing us too much

We understand that immediate medical help is required for physical injury. However, for our shared community trauma, we haven’t offered proper care and compassion to each other.

While talking about justice is important, we also need to recognize that we have to do justice to our own community as well. One way that we can work towards it is by doing what is within our own decision-making: prioritizing healing.

When we consciously don’t do it and let the trauma continue, we become responsible for the pain that our community goes through. We can’t contradict ourself by seeking justice while inflicting pain on our own people at the same time. The last thing a victim needs is to be in a place of prolonged suffering. For hoe long do we want to ignore the internal well-being of our community?

The injustice that we are complicit in is leading to enormous opportunity cost. Shouldn’t our response to persecutions be that of becoming stronger and building up our community?

We absolutely do need to prioritize healing. If we don’t, our trauma will continue to imprison our potential and make us miss out on major opportunities not only as a community but also as individual Sikhs.

Healing neglected is suffering prolonged

Those who are decision makers at various levels in our community already have the option of making our healing a priority. This is a simple choice, and it is extremely easy to make.

When to comes to prioritizing something, the first step is to recognise it as being so. This does not require any resources. Each one of us should do this bare minimum to create an ambient where healing can finally emerge as an important community goal.

Prolonging traumatic pain will only continue to constrain our potential and build up negative Panthic Karma. When we let our community suffer, we have to carry the weight of this choice. We already have a lot of this spiritual debt because of our other mistakes, especially that of allowing Beadbi to happen. We do not need more of it.

With so much talent, skills, and resources that we have to build a better tomorrow for our community, we can’t let our internal trauma suppress it. Healing is our gateway towards a thriving future, and with our Guru Sahib’s Kirpa, we’ll get it.

To Heal, we must stop Hurting our Guru Sahib

We carry so much pain in us, that does not mean we can overlook the pain that we cause to our own Guru Sahib Ji. In order to heal our wounds that have cut our soul so deep, we absolutely need the help of Guru Sahib Ji.

However, is it even possible to get it completely if we continue to have such disregard for beadbi of Gurbani and Guru Granth Sahib Ji?

Sikhs in our history did not turn the pain of genocides like that of Shota and Wadda Ghallughara on their own. They got help from Guru Sahib Ji. Today, we can’t expect the same outcome of healing and strength if we inflict so much pain on our Guru. Sikhs did not do this in the past, we so comfortably do.

We have allowed so many Saroops of Guru Granth Sahib Ji to get burned down to ashes. Not only that, but we have also caused so much suffering to our Shaheeds, including Babba Deep Singh Ji and others who gave up their lives to stop beadbi.

If we want to maximize our healing capacity, we need to work on beadbi prevention at the same time along with our trauma healing.

Three Stages to Healing

This opportunity for healing is a time to dive deep into our mental health within the dynamics of our Panthic experience. To help, we can use the following three-step process:

1. Identify
2. Understand
3. Heal

The first step involves identifying various patterns and elements of mental health issues, especially like depression, PTSD, anxiety, Complex PTSD, Generational Trauma, and more in our community.

Second step should involve understanding with empathy. That would enable us to explore delicate dynamics of trauma that are unique to our community context.

For example, our reliving of trauma through visual content is not PTSD but it mirrors the feeling of being in that experience. Whereas the prolonged exposure to trauma may find its reflection in Complex PTSD even though it deals with childhood traumatic experiences.

The third step should focus on discovering healing methodologies and actionable steps that individuals can take to minimise trauma and maximize healing.

This process is just to get started and is a work in progress that'll continue long into the future.

Let’s Heal and Thrive

Currently, we do not consider healing an essential part of our future. All Panthic conversations exclude it completely. How is that we can build a future of Chardikala if we cannot discover our historical strength again?

As debilitating as trauma can be, overcoming it flips everything upside down. When we overcome an extreme obstacle like this, we not only gain confidence and strength but also help others heal as well. This strength that we gain in the healing process will carry over into our future and allow us to accompolish a lot as a community.

While it may look like that we need to do the impossible to make our community really thrive, most of what we really need is work on obstacles that hold us back. Do it, and you’ll witness a never seen before potential getting unleashed into the entire world.

Healing is our Panthic responsibility. We must prioritize it if we want to see getting into the thriving future that we deserve.