When Violence Reawakens Old Wounds: Community Trauma, Values & Collective Care

When violence occurs in a shared public space, it doesn’t only impact those directly involved — it ripples through communities, values, and our collective sense of safety.

In this short, reflective episode of Growing Tall Poppies: Thrive After Trauma, Dr Nat Green explores community trauma, collective memory, and why events like the recent violent attack at Bondi during a Jewish Hanukkah gathering can feel deeply triggering for so many Australians (and audiences worldwide).

Violence in familiar, public places can shake us in ways that are difficult to explain. Even if we weren’t there. Even if we don’t know anyone directly affected.

Dr Nat speaks gently to the community trauma  — and why these events can reawaken old wounds, both personally and collectively. Drawing on decades of trauma-informed work, including her involvement in community recovery following the Port Arthur massacre, Dr Nat reflects on how trauma memory lives in the nervous system and why reactions such as fear, hypervigilance, sadness, anger, or numbness are deeply human responses.

This episode also acknowledges the specific impact of violence on communities gathering in faith and celebration, and speaks directly to the Jewish community with compassion and validation.

Importantly, listeners are offered clear, practical, trauma-informed strategies to support themselves in the days and weeks following community violence — not to fix or bypass what’s happened, but to help the nervous system settle and feel supported.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn About:

• What community trauma is and why it affects all of us
• How collective and historical trauma can be reactivated by current events
• Why heightened vigilance, sleep disruption, emotional swings, or numbness are normal trauma responses
• The impact of violence on communities gathering around faith and culture
• Trauma-informed grounding strategies to support the nervous system
• How compassion, connection, and shared values support collective healing

7 Trauma-Informed Strategies Shared in This Episode

• Creating psychological distance from distressing news and social media
• Orienting the body to present-moment safety
• Grounding through movement, breath, and sensory awareness
• Normalising emotional fluctuations after community trauma
• Staying connected to others as a buffer against isolation
• Lowering expectations and prioritising self-care
• Seeking additional professional or community support when needed

Resources & Support (Australia) If you are struggling, support is available:

• Lifeline — 13 11 14 (24/7 crisis support)
• Beyond Blue — 1300 22 4636
• Headspace (for young people) — headspace.org.au
• Your GP — for referrals and mental health care plans

If you are part of the Jewish community, consider reaching out to trusted community leaders or culturally safe support services.

If this episode resonates with you then I'd love for you to hit SUBSCRIBE so you can keep updated with each new episode as soon as it's released and we'd be most grateful if you would give us a RATING as well. You can also find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drnatgreen/ or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DrNatalieGreen

Intro and Outro music: Inspired Ambient by Playsound.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be deemed or treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Transcript

Dr Nat Green: 0:01

Welcome to the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nat Green, and I'm so excited to have you join me as we discuss what it means to navigate your way through post-traumatic growth and not just survive, but to thrive after trauma. Through our podcast, we will explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater purpose, self-awareness, and a deep inner peace. Through integrating the many years of knowledge and professional experience, as well as the wisdom of those who have experienced trauma firsthand. We'll combine psychology accelerated approaches. Coaching and personal experience to assist you, to learn, to grow and to thrive. I hope to empower you to create deeper awareness and understanding and stronger connections with yourself and with others, whilst also paving the way for those who have experienced trauma and adversity to reduce their suffering and become the very best versions of themselves. In order to thrive. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. Hello and welcome back to Growing Tall Poppies, thrive After Trauma. I'm your host, Dr. Nat Green, and today's episode is a short and tender reflective one. Like many Australians I've been carrying. A real heaviness since the violent attack at Bondi late yesterday during a Jewish Hanukkah gathering. I want to acknowledge this clearly at the outset. This was not just an attack on individuals or a specific community gathering. It was an attack on something deeply held in Australia. Our shared sense of safety, belonging, values, and community. And if you are feeling unsettled, shaken, angry, sad, or numb, that response is human, deeply. Human events like this create what we call community trauma, even if you weren't there. Even if you don't know anyone directly affected, even if your reaction has surprised you. When violence occurs in a public familiar place, a beach, a shopping center, a celebration, a community gathering, it disrupts something fundamental in each and every one of us, and in our nervous systems. The belief that we are safe together and when it targets people gathering around faith or culture. It strikes even more so at the heart of belonging, which affects all of us, and that ripple effect travels far beyond the event itself. So I wanna name something really important here, something we don't often speak about. Australia carries significant collective trauma memory for many of us. Events like this don't exist in isolation. They sit alongside earlier national tragedies. Some remembered consciously, and others held quietly in the body. For me personally, this event has stirred memories from another time in the year following the Port Arthur massacre. I was involved in community recovery work arriving just days after the event, and walking alongside individuals, families, staff, and communities as they tried to make sense of the unimaginable. What stays with me isn't so much the violence itself, but the shock, the grief, and the way safety was shattered nationally. Those experiences don't simply disappear. They live on as nervous system memory quietly in our bodies. So when something like this happens, again, it can reawaken responses even decades later. And this may be happening for many people who are listening right now, if this is stirring more than this moment and old feelings in you. If you've noticed heightened vigilance, trouble sleeping, sudden emotion or numbness memories or sensations surfacing unexpectedly, then please know you are not overreacting and you're not going backwards. You nervous system may be responding not just to now, but to what it also remembers, and this is how trauma memory works. That deserves our compassion, not our judgment. I also wanna speak directly to the impact on the Jewish community. When violence targets people gathered in faith and celebration, it can activate layers of historical and collective trauma far beyond a single event. Fear, grief, anger, and hyper vigilance in response to this are deeply contextual and totally understandable. So if you are part of that community and listening, please know your responses make absolute sense, and you should not have to carry them alone. Please do not carry them alone. I wanna offer some specific, practical grounding strategies to everyone listening now, not to bypass or to fix what's happening, but to support your nervous system and your emotional world in the days ahead. You don't need to do all of these. Just choose one or two that might feel doable right now. Number one, create psychological distance from the event where possible repeated exposure keeps the nervous system in threat mode. So just choose specific times to check the news. Avoid scrolling before bed. Gently mute social media content if needed.'cause as we know, it's everywhere right now. Stay informed, but don't stay immersed. This isn't avoidance, it's nervous system care. Number two, orient your body to safety. Let's try this a few times a day if possible. We know that trauma pulls us into past or even imagined futures. So gently orient and bring your body back to now. Name three things you can see. Three things you can hear and three things you can feel in or against your body right now. And then do two things. You can see, hear, and feel. And then one thing you can see, hear, and feel. Just say quietly to yourself. This moment is different and I'm safe right now. That is a really. Simple grounding technique to just help you orient to the here and now and stay grounded. And number three, ground through the body, not the mind. You don't need to think your way through this helpful grounding includes walking, gentle, stretching, being in nature. Warm showers, slow, steady breathing.'cause we know that the body settles long before the mind does. And number four, it's really important that we normalize fluctuating emotions. You might feel, okay, one moment and completely overwhelmed the next. That doesn't mean you're fragile. It means that your system is processing things and everyone will process at their own pace. Let emotions move without analyzing or judging them. Allow feelings to move through breath through, walking through quiet reflection or prayer without feeding them through constant rumination. Number five is to stay connected. Even quietly, we know that trauma isolates connection doesn't have to mean having deep conversations. It can be just sitting with someone, sending a message, sharing a meal, just being near others. So reach out to someone safe.'cause community regulates nervous systems and community connection. Is one of the strongest buffers against trauma and it's really important. Number six, be gentle with expectations. Your productivity, your focus, your motivation may dip or may feel non-existent right now. That's okay. It's not failure. Lower the bar temporarily as long as you need to care. For yourself is a priority right now. And number seven, seek extra support if needed. If you feel as though your symptoms escalate to panic, intrusive thoughts, significant sleep disruption, then reach out. Reach out to your gp, counselor, psychologist, or helplines, and I'll put some numbers. In the show notes, they are really appropriate supports. Seeking help is not weakness, it's regulation, and it's needed, especially right now. Moments like this absolutely test us, not just individually, but collectively. They challenge our shared values of safety, inclusion, mateship. The right to gather without fear. Violence seeks to fracture community, but our response is to be one of compassion, care, and solidarity. This is how we resist that community fracture. I've seen this before. In Port Arthur in Bondi before, and in the quiet moments where people show up for one another that matters, and that is how we move forward. We stay united and connected. So if today feels heavy, please be gentle with yourself. If this has stirred old memories or reactions, you're not weak, you're human. And your nervous system remembers and it matters. And if you're able, then extend that gentleness outward because in moments like this, how we hold each other matters. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Until next time, I'm Dr. Nat Green and this is Growing Tall Poppies thrive after trauma. Bye for now.

Speaker 3: 12:58

Thank you for joining me in this episode of Growing Tall Poppies. It is my deepest hope that today's episode may have inspired and empowered you to step fully into your post-traumatic growth, so that you can have absolute clarity around who you are, what matters the most to you, and to assist you to release your negative emotions. And regulate your nervous system so you can fully thrive. New episodes are published every Tuesday, and I hope you'll continue to join us as we explore both the strategies and the personal qualities required to fully live a life of post-traumatic growth and to thrive. So if it feels aligned to you and really resonates, then I invite you to hit subscribe and it would mean the world to us. If you could share this episode with others who you feel may benefit too, you may also find me on Instagram at Growing Tall Poppies and Facebook, Dr. Natalie Green. Remember, every moment is an opportunity to look for the lessons and to learn and increase your ability to live the life you desire and deserve. So for now, stay connected. Stay inspired. Stand tall like the tall poppy you are, and keep shining your light brightly in the world. Bye for.