Kick-off of the Post-Trauma Era - No Generation, Including Prince Harry's, Can Get Away with Defining Itself That Way

The very long cover story on Prince Harry (along with Meghan Markle) in Vanity Fair looks like it’ll bring about the post-trauma era. 

The hatchet job analysis by Anna Peele makes it uncool to take refuge in what went on in the past for an explanation of current behavior. This undoes a habit, extending back to the heyday of Freudian thought in America, of assuming our individual traumas are of great interest to others. And that those emotional upheavals, right up into our semiretired and retirement years, will get us off the hook for mistakes, missed opportunities and actual crimes. 

The man-child featured in the Vanity Fair expose has created a comfort zone from reaching back to the memory of losing his mother in his childhood. He labels her death "murder."

That path of living-in-the-trauma is well-worn. Oprah traveled it on the way to fame. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton made it part of their promotional narrative. Monica Lewinsky finally hit upon a branding that sells. Too many of the over-50 I coach would like to cling to those emotional shocks as the explanation for not making it big. 

In the mystical tarot that state of being is symbolized by the Five of Cups - known as the Spilled Milk card. Note in the card with the head bent low in despair there's the inability to see ahead the contours of a future. 

Well-intentioned self-help groups tend to reinforce being stuck in the past. For example, in the in-person meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Zoom ones of Co-dependent Anonymous the traumatic past becomes downright sticky. The situation is so common that members can be nicknamed by the trauma they keep revisiting during meetings. For instance: That's the guy whose mother said she intended to abort him but backed off. 

In contrast, there are models of being able to transcend the past whatever.

Through the brilliant legal defense by law firm Paul Weiss Wall Street player Michael Milken got a relatively light sentence. Still, he sobbed when receiving it. However, post-prison he grabbed onto a future. He shaped it with a branding reset as a philanthropist.

Richard Nixon's key lawyer Charles Colson was also able to shake off prison to reinvent himself as spiritual leader.

 Betty White bypassed the usual soul-wrenching bias in Hollywood against aging women by enveloping that in her new performance art. Her meme was that aging wasn’t for sissies. She worked until she was nearly 100. 

Will Leon Black, a genius in financial matters, choose to not circle back to the supposed injustice of accusations about his association with Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged treatment of a mistress? Instead he can focus one-dimensionally on conquering new wealth-producing territory.

The concepts in  "The Four Agreements" by Miguel Ruiz can break through for all of us the hold of what happened in the past. The message is: You’re buying in - agreeing to allow the past to dominate the present - but you don't have to. I recommend that meme in both my intuitive coaching and tarot readings. 

The question now out there: Will Prince Harry find that the market for trauma is shrinking. Major publishing houses in America no longer accept proposals for books recounting childhood trauma. The popularity of that genre is over.

Affordable Career Coach Jane Genova provides end-to-end career services, ranging from diagnosis of the challenges and fix-it strategies to preparation of resume/cover letters/LinkedIn profiles and how to gain control of an interview. I specialize in over-50 work issues. My edge is a background in marketing communications. For a confidential complimentary consultation please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com. Remote and in-person.