Cindy Bigbie calls her newest book “a story of my mother’s trauma” and also “a story of humanity’s trauma and how to break the cycle of [it].” She felt called to write the book a few days after her mother passed away in 2022, and she means it to be “my mother’s gift to humanity.” Those are some heavy expectations, but they are ones that MY LINK TO MILDRED (Interrupting the Epidemic of Trauma via Nonviolent Communication) meets. For the most part. The book opens with an account of Bigbie’s mother’s death on May 5, 2022–three days before Mother’s Day. From there, she tells the story of her involvement in the mid-2000s campaign for a proposed United States Department of Peace. This led her to work with trauma sufferers and to develop her ideas on nonviolent communication, or NVC, which, in her view, “has the potential for healing and halting the cycle of trauma that is passed on from one generation to the next.” Describing her method of teaching NVC forms the heart of the book. She calls her approach “the Bigbie Method,” and she teaches it to schools, businesses, and other groups.
After the main text, there is a 68-page appendix that is a collection of Bigbie’s poems. The poems are average (one begins: “Every day / I’m blessed to work out north side OTF / Drop $150 each month / And shit in the bathroom / Supplied w Q-tips, deodorant, hairspray”), but this does not detract from the overall impact of MY LINK TO MILDRED. Bigbie’s narrative of the science of trauma, for instance, is clear and compelling. Her mother’s story, which she interweaves throughout, is likewise interesting. “Nonviolent communication” sounds like a fuzzy concept, but Bigbie does an admirable job of breaking it down. Her passion and empathy are evident on every page, even as her style avoids the therapy-speak of some self-help books.
One thing that might trip up some readers is Bigbie’s alternation of the words “violent” and “trauma.” Not all trauma is the result of violence. A tornado, for instance, is a terrifying event, and it often leaves survivors traumatized. Same with, say, a dog bite, a serious illness, or having one’s car stolen. But are these events “violent”? And if they are, are they violent communication? Though more clarity is needed here, MY LINK TO MILDRED is a vital book for readers interested in healing both themselves and others using the power of words.
Part memoir, part communications primer, Cindy Bigbie’s MY LINK TO MILDRED is a must-read for anyone in search of a reliable path to post-traumatic healing.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader