This month, we explore a powerful theme: how our toughest moments can be transformed into growth, wisdom, and even passion.

 

Life’s challenges can feel heavy, but when we shift our perspective, we begin to see that pain doesn’t just shape us—it can also guide us toward purpose.

 

 

I once described trauma like this:

 

A very young child, just three years old, is at an annual fair with their parents. All day, they’ve been watching other children walk past with bright, shiny helium balloons tightly gripped in their hands. Excited, they tug on a parent’s clothing as they near a balloon stand. The parent leans down and asks if they’d like one. The child nods eagerly, smiling and squirming with excitement. After admiring the balloons all day, they are finally getting their own.

 

The vendor invites the child to pick a color. They point to the cherry-red balloon bouncing joyfully on its ribbon as it's separated from the others.

Proudly holding their new balloon, the child gazes up at it in wonder, gripping the string with all their might. In that moment, it feels like the most magical thing in the world. But looking up, they don’t see the uneven path ahead. They stumble, falling to the ground. Startled, they release the ribbon, and in an instant, the balloon drifts away.

 

 

The child bursts into hysterical tears as the balloon floats higher and higher, beyond reach. Without the words to express the depth of their loss, they can only cry. The parents, ensuring the child is unhurt, reassure them and move on. But they don’t quite realise the emotional distress the child is experiencing as they watch their balloon slowly disappear.

 

Time passes, and the child grows. The pain of losing the red balloon fades into the background, buried among a lifetime of memories—until one day, while walking past a birthday party in the park, they see a young child lose a balloon. As it floats away, an overwhelming sense of sadness washes over them, seemingly out of nowhere.

 

 

Psychologists often distinguish between big T and little t trauma. Big T Trauma refers to major life-altering events—such as abuse, accidents, or significant loss. Little t trauma includes smaller, cumulative experiences that may not seem extreme but still shape our emotional world. Both can affect our lives in ways we don’t always expect.

 

Sometimes, like in the balloon story, trauma gets buried beneath the sheer volume of life experiences. Other times, it sticks with us. It becomes like hot wax spilled on fine cloth—deeply infused, rigid, and seemingly permanent.

 

And yet, what feels so significant to us can seem like nothing to others. It’s as if they weren’t affected at all, like it didn’t even matter in the first place.

This can be confusing. Why has this impacted me so deeply, while others seem untouched? Is something wrong with me? With them?

 

 

A possible answer lies in next week’s newsletter—because if we had walked a lifetime in your shoes, we would respond to life’s events exactly as you do.

 

More on that next week.

 

 

Wishing you a pleasant week ahead,

 

 

x Marisa