101 Twister(s) and the healing of trauma

This episode is a spiritual and psychological exploration of trauma. Guided by the insights of Dr. Gabor Mate, we use the redemption storylines of Twister (and it's sequel) to explore how trauma can be a hidden path to holiness.

Excerpt from episode:
"So now I’m going to dive deeper into how the Twister movies are trauma redemption stories. There’s a line in Twisters that I want to begin with. Recall that Kate is initially hesitant to get back into tornado chasing because when she was a doctorate student, she had underestimated a tornado’s power and as a result, had gotten her three friends killed. This affected her life immensely, and she gave up her passion for taming tornados and instead, stayed safely boxed up as a meteorologist behind the scenes. She hated living this way, but at least it was safe – how many of us can relate with Kate? Halfway through the movies however, when Tyler is speaking with Kate, he reminds her that the Fujita system of rating tornados is actually not based on its size or windspeed, but rather, how much damage it inflicts. This is a wonderful metaphor for understanding trauma. Trauma is not measured so much by what happens to us, but how much damage it does within us. In other words, the same incident happening to two different people can have incredibly different effects. For example, the same car accident can affect a parent passenger very differently to a child, with the parent being merely bothered by insurance, while for a 5 year old, it could result in a lifelong paranoia of getting into a car. Similarly, a divorce can detrimentally affect one child far more than the other. One of the world’s leading writers on trauma currently is Dr Gabor Mate... who says that “trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.” However, he also says that the fact that trauma is measured by the wound it inflicts, and not by the incident itself, is actually good news. This is because there is now a separation of a past event from our present experience of it... we are not helpless victims of something in the past. Wounds after all, can be healed... even if the healing needs to happen slowly. If our trauma was merely measure by an incident in the past, we would forever be a slave to it - a victim, or at best a survivor. But through healing, we can be so much more than that.

This is what Tyler was trying to help Kate see. Tragic though her past mistake was, it could not and should not change her present moment. In the barn house scene, he actually believes that her sodium polyacrylate theory could actually save countless lives, but Kate was too wounded to see it... and was hence blinded to the opportunity of her present moment. This is what trauma does to us... it keeps us locked in the past, and unable to function freely in the present or see its opportunities."