Spiritual Integration
In the weeks following life-threatening events, many people react with symptoms of acute stress, reexperiencing what happened, being alert for further danger, avoiding traumatic reminders, and feeling numb (Doehring, The Practice of Pastoral Care, p. 135).
What are your thoughts? Can you relate to this profoundly simply statement about trauma? How do you enter into it or engage with it from your own lens of trauma and suffering? Are you still alert for further and continued danger, or are you in an active pattern (whether you know about this pattern or not) of avoiding the reminders? Often this can be considered a strong coping strategy to avoid re-living the trauma which caused such harm.
Let’s consider integrating our faith into the healing process. Active Biblical Spiritual integration for healing and hope is about living out our faith in the midst of trauma. Don’t just live your faith on Sunday, but walk through the week in your faith.
Don’t try to avoid the reminders but learn how to actively invite the past reminders into the present reality. You no longer walk in the past pain, but can now invite it into your expedition of hope and healing as you wrestle with it - this can be a good thing.
Also-
If medication is something you need, or something I need - I am not saying to stop taking it, and I am not over-spiritualizing the real mental, emotional, condition that many people, (myself included) experience on a daily basis. We must not, however leave our faith, our spiritual identity out of the journey into our present and future hope.
Let’s face it - there are people who don’t speak of the distresses they are going through - and there are several reasons for this -
They believe they are protecting others (and themselves perhaps).
They don’t know how to talk about it.
They are not feeling safe in the environment to open up. Trust is a huge barrier to overcome!
They may feel isolated and although they long for connection, they don’t know who to talk to about what they are going through, or what they have gone through.
The last time they tried to open up and share their story - they were shut down (intentionally or unintentionally) - and now they don’t want to try again (this goes back to the safe environment in number 3.)
I am learning that my faith is paramount in my own healing excursion. I definitely don’t want to look at my PTSD and compare it to what you may be going through - we all have to take our own trek, but we can come alongside others who need someone to walk with them for a portion of it.
A Balancing act?
Not my legs, or my shoes…
How are we doing balancing our past trauma, with our present journey? Our past helps inform our present, yet often we continue to live in it, and this produces a sense of numbness and actually contributes to more brokenness emotionally, spiritually, intimately, and can cause furthered and prolonged harm which impacts our physiology, and may bring a deep sense of depression over us.
That is a lot to think about. We have to balance a lot of things in our lives on a regular basis, and this can be difficult. Sometimes we are off-balance due to emotions, sickness, lack of sleep, lack of hydration, lack of nourishment - among other considerations. It is impossible to balance when we cannot focus, when we are living in a fog -
Take care of your spiritual self. Feed your soul! If your soul is malnourished - you will stay off balance, and fall hard.
Take care of your physical self. Eat, and hydrate (Yes - drink water Paul!). Don’t neglect these simple areas - what we put in us truly impacts us. If you are not sleeping - is it because you had the 7th cup of high-test coffee at 9PM?
Exercise - take a walk after supper, even if it is around in circles in the kitchen. This engages your brain, and can help trigger endorphins which produce positive feelings, and may help your body sleep better. This is not intense exercise like interval training, or cardio, just a walk for 15 minutes or so.
Take care of your emotional self. Take a vacation, spend time away from media sources which actually cause your brain to have deficits (memory issues). Shut down the tablet, the laptop, take time to purposefully set a reminder on your smart-phone to turn the media off an hour or more earlier before bed. This will be difficult at first, especially if you are a heavy social-media user - but it will help with your emotional care.
Take care of your mental self. Learn something new - like wood carving, or read a new book FOR FUN and not for work or school, you know something enjoyable - a good Hardy Boys mystery (My favorite is The Crisscross Shadow from 1953 - when I was a kid I had all of the books). If you don’t enjoy reading - check out a podcast or something.
I am advocating for taking care of your whole, complete self. Try something new to take care of you - integrate a spiritual approach to your healing, acknowledge your hurt, allow it to have meaning - pray over it, meditate through it, seek guidance, know you are loved.
In the sacred and quiet space you are in, whether you are struggling at this moment, or are in a place of peace and calm. Please know you have so much value and worth - and you may not be able to see it right now - but it is true.
How can we integrate a spiritual response to our pain, our hurts from the past places where we don’t want to go again? What will it take to find transformation into our souls so we can walk into a hope-filled future? We can invite others into this journey, into the freedom from our painful past.
Let me offer a few suggestions on how I integrate a Spirit-filled approach.
It begins with my personal relationship with God through Jesus. In Hebrews I am told I can come boldly before the Throne of grace to obtain grace and mercy in my time of need (Hebrews 4:16). I like that- I feel safe in that. I trust God to have me in His arms as I come to Him in distress.
God is with me, in my pain and in my peace. He gives a peace that will pass the worldly understanding of peace. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27, NKJV). I need peace a lot - so I need to turn to Jesus and not the world.
I am still learning how to cast my cares and anxious thoughts on Him. He invites and beckons me into His presence. 1 Peter 5:7 reminds me to cast my cares (anxieties) on Him because He cares for me.
Look at the examples about (Spiritual care of self, Physical care of self, Emotional care of self, and Mental care of self) and see if there are any that really speak to you. If so - see where it goes, integrate a spiritual and holistic approach to your care and healing.
Be blessed as we continue the journey. Here for you.