What people need to feel safe enough to heal and grow

Not a single person on the planet hasn’t been infracted in some small or large way — and it is very much the latter when we consider the role trauma has played in billions of lives.  

For just one instance, it’s often said that for each veteran of war who came (or comes) home traumatised, there are eventually 30 casualties of trauma at home as those impacts of trauma work their way through the generations.

Trauma, it can be said, affects just about every single one of us.  Yet, there is the very real plague of PTSD that many suffer and find little recourse to recovery from.  It is such a complex dilemma.  Healing and growth can seem a fanciful pipedream when you’re wrestling with the emotions that come from being trauma-triggered.

The rest of this article deals with what we CAN do.

Trauma is a great big problem, yet as faith-believers we also have a conundrum to wrestle with.  We can’t let go of hope.  It is one thing that saved us, and we cannot accept that people, situations or cases don’t have hope.

And yet, we must balance idealism with realism, otherwise misplaced hope can create further trauma.

As faith-believers, we want to gently insist that something CAN be done, without creating anguish in people, and in many cases, this is about holding open enough space that miracles might be done as we simply stand in the gap by faith.

What is faith but trust?  And what is trust but to acknowledge we don’t have all the answers, but we do have the moral obligation to do what we can to support positive outcomes.

Trust accepts the things that cannot be changed, because it accepts it doesn’t need to change things. Changing things isn’t the point.  It is easier and more sensible to just let things be.  When we can do this, we no longer hold ourselves accountable for the madness of procuring miracles.

And into this space those who seek healing can enter.  Knowing there is no agenda, just a simple trust for each moment’s direction, those who are especially vulnerable can feel safe.  Our anxiety doesn’t become part of their problem when we’ve taken the pressure off ourselves.

Vulnerable people need more 
than anything else safe places to BE.

Vulnerable people — and we’re all 
vulnerable or have been there — need the 
kind of empathy that implicitly 
understands where they’re at.

In BE-ing there is space to heal at their own rate and timeframe.  And healing in this regard isn’t even something we should call healing.

It may surprise many to contemplate that there may actually be much more therapy and healing in simply the provision of safe spaces where there’s no program or agenda of therapy and healing about them.

It’s sad to realise that this world has few inherently safe places of sanctuary.  This is certainly what God is calling the church to be, but alas, the church too has failed at times to be the safe place it needs to be for the vulnerable.

But the church cannot afford to give up in this, its greatest mission in this age.

Helping people heal often has less to do with programs and agendas and more to do with a heart that seeks to listen and to attend to what an individual needs.

In a world that has decided to do things in bulk, helping people heal from trauma must be done in a person-centred way.

When people see in us a real interest in them as genuine capable human souls worth encouraging, they really do begin to believe the narrative that our interest shows them.

It is amazing what a little encouragement over a sustained period will do to raise the confidence in a person.  We’re not that much different, you and I.  We need each other.

Photo by Jachan DeVol on Unsplash 

43 ways your life is significant

1.             Unless it was a dead heat, you beat all the other sperm to the egg.

2.             You survived in utero.

3.             You graduated that dark comfy existence to experience light and breath.

4.             Your body was able to stomach food, grow and thrive.

5.             However little or much you got, you were worthy of and received nurture.

6.             You learned, day by day, year by year, and now look at you.

7.             You stepped faithfully throughout all your school years, facing many exams.

8.             You endured many hundreds of painful events and injuries.

9.             You lost more than you won and yet you kept going.

10.          You overcame fear and anxiety, thousands of moments, more than you had peace.

11.          You believed in yourself, underpinned by God’s belief in you, despite others.

12.          You had others believe in you especially when you didn’t believe in yourself.

13.          You endured dozens of betrayals and hundreds of disappointments and vouched for yourself in that you knew you deserved better.

14.          You loved others well and you knew that your significance blossomed in the love you sowed.

15.          You applied yourself to a pastime, a career, a field of study, a sport — and you became good at it!

16.          You stood upon many lands and locations and you became what those experiences gave you.

17.          You spoke words into being and thereby created your earthly footprint.

18.          You, by just your being here, came to be a reason for others’ being.

19.          You, by just your being here, gave much delight to your Creator.

20.          You were able to sustain 18,000 bodily decisions each second, every second of your life.

21.          For what you can do without thought, with all the wiring and piping in your body, you are a moving miracle.

22.          You made a million life-maintenance decisions last year and you don’t even bat an eyelid.

23.          You have gathered countless possessions.

24.          You made at least one person, and possibly up to a dozen, immensely proud of you.

25.          You think and perceive and walk and talk like no other human being ever.

26.          You have executive decision-making capacity and power.

27.          You have an elaborate array of emotions and you can express your emotions like no other kind of creature.

28.          No matter what you’ve done, you can change the course of your own history.

29.          You have power to create good habits.

30.          The whole known universe is your home, and majesty of creation is reflected in the cosmos that is you.

31.          You have the capacity to bear children or to care for those younger than yourself.

32.          You can be trained to do skills, and taught knowledge.

33.          You have a memory and you have the gift of reminiscence.

34.          You will get to share what you have learned with those much younger than you.

35.          You will get to do many different tasks and roles in this life.

36.          Sorrow and pain, you will learn from just as much, and if not more, as joy and pleasure.

37.          You will many times reflect over life and how you’ve engaged in it.

38.          Many friendship opportunities will be had.

39.          You will have the chief role of loving others.

40.          You will leave a legacy in this world.

41.          You will be the only one not alive at your own funeral.

42.          You will pass from this physical life into mind-boggling eternity.

43.          You will face God.

Photo by Vitor Pinto on Unsplash

Mental health check-in and tune-up for an uncertain season

Predicting the sweep of the pandemic, region to region, is about as fraught as speculating on a horse race or the stock market immediately prior to the favourite being scratched or a market plunge.

Whatever country we live in, however the journey of 2020’s been like, we’ve all been seriously challenged, internationally, nationally, locally, relationally, socially, emotionally, financially, personally.  Even as I type these words, I imagine people rolling on the floor laughing it’s that much of a cataclysmic understatement.  What a toll it’s taken!

This year has tested our mettle in so many ways, from lockdowns to job losses to extreme shortages of vital supplies to changes in everything from the way we celebrate weddings to the way we grieve at funerals.  Holiday making has been transformed in unprecedented ways, essential workers have been pushed beyond the limit for month after month, and so very many people have died earlier than they should have.

No matter how many sentences I write on this, I still don’t feel I’ve scratched the surface.

What has possibly changed most of all is our bearing for where life’s at.  In just about every realm of being we’ve been challenged.  We feel insecure about the longevity of everything; our work, our leisure, our homes, the futures of vulnerable loved ones, and especially our personal mental health, and that of those we care about.

There are those who have been blindsided by loss so great that dealing with the grief is overwhelming, and there’s no simple answer for recovery in those situations.  These number the millions worldwide.

Anxiety-related conditions we know anecdotally are more prevalent than ever.  Stress is at an all-time high, more to the point we’re facing situations where we’re chronically stressed — the stress just doesn’t seem to dissipate.  Depression too becomes the lowest common denominator, usually because we’ve ‘stayed strong’ for too long.  Learned helplessness is becoming the enduring reality for too many.

Will we ever get back to a sense of normalcy?  Or, do we need to get used to this sort of constant state of flux for the foreseeable future?  These and so many more (including those we don’t even know to ask) are the 64-billion-dollar questions.

What can we do to retain or reclaim some sense of empowerment?

Well, we need to stick with or get back to those things that have always worked; the things that will always work.  For many it’s the case that new rhythms and routines need to be established.

STRATEGIES FOR PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

There is what we might call a golden triad for health — sleep, diet, exercise — for one thing; some of the most sensible basics we can invest in for overall wellbeing.

Attending to our physical health needs, I think, caters for up to half of our wellbeing needs overall. That, and being supervised by a medical practitioner so a holistic approach can be taken, including pharmaceuticals.

Just getting enough good quality sleep is a masterstroke to ward off depression in most people.  A lot of anger and frustration and stress can be alleviated through at least three sessions of vigorous exercise each week.  And eating good food in moderate portions is an incredibly powerful strategy all its own.

Coming back to the spiritual triad — faith, hope, love — is the essence of keeping our soul nourished.

We’re comforted that there are no shortage of opportunities to show faith in these uncertain times. Faith is measured by how well we trust.  That will be a problem for those of us who have had, or who have, significant relational issues with others.  Faith stretches our trust in the direction of God.  Having things to look forward to buoys our hope.  Hope amends much anxiety, and I always find that when I have hope, peace and joy tend to be present as well.  Love is the greatest test of all.  Being able to love and to receive love is often, again, a test of trust.

Mentally, there are several psychological schemas to consider; for instance, focusing on the internal locus of control rather than having an external locus of control.

Having an internal locus of control, I can decide how I react and respond to what happens to me.  I retain my own empowerment.  But I am disempowered if I feel everything happens to me and I have no control, and therefore I must blame others — because I believe I have little or no control.  That is an external locus of control — everything that happens, happens outside of me.  Study and adopt the internal locus of control; it’s powerful!

It’s similar to becoming focused on the things beyond my control — my circle of concern — instead of being concerned about what I can impact — my circle of influence.  Nobody can live a productive life when they can’t exert control over their world to at least some extent.  Study and adopt thinking that focuses on your circle of influence — what you CAN affect.

I have only mentioned two thinking schemas here.  Another one worthy of looking into further is biases — what biases ought I be aware of that are impacting in some way my mental health.

Finally, a very important input to good or poor mental health is the issue of our relationships and conflict in them.  Not many people have no problematic relationships, and toxic relationships are a significant stressor.

ACCEPTING WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED + GRATITUDE

Probably the most important thing we can do is accept what we cannot change.  This gives us huge perspective.  This is about viewing life through the lens of objective truth.

So many things that are within our circle of concern just don’t bear any significant additional thought, because we cannot change them.

What comes with acceptance is the peace of serenity.

Part of this exercise is about looking at, facing indeed, those things we can only be grateful for.  Today it was, “Wow, my body works, and I don’t have any diagnosed conditions that I know of.”  It was also, “I’m thankful that we’re relatively financially secure at this moment in time.”

Gratitude will help a lot, and so will being disciplined about how much (or little) thought is wasted being frustrated about things that cannot be influenced or changed by ourselves.

Most of all, become conscious about how much you let guilt and shame inhabit you.  Guilt only has a momentary purpose in helping us repent, then it’s useless and harmful.  Shame is always harmful.

Be gentle with yourself, but also hold yourself to account.

Photo by Meghna R on Unsplash

It’s not so easy to leave or part well

If you had of asked me 20 years ago if I thought it was hard to leave or part well — I mean anything — I would’ve thought, no, it’s actually pretty easy.  That had been my experience.

But the last 20 years has taught me something very important. In certain circumstances it is incredibly hard, and in some cases impossible, to leave or part on good or on satisfactory terms.

The most basic issue could be about the managing of expectations. Whilst we might be ready to leave, we can easily leave another person in the dark, and they get the rudest of shocks when we give our notice, however we do that. We may even think we’ve communicated well. And perhaps we have. But they haven’t heard it.

Sometimes we can give notice, and it doesn’t matter how much or for how long, the person or entity we are leaving cannot or will not let go.  Many marriages very sadly end this way, but it’s not only marriages. In many cases the leaving is justified on safety grounds.

If it’s us in the position of having someone leave us, or we are required to go, if it’s an employment issue, not only is it devastating, but it forces us into a grief process. Nobody wants to go there. It’s pure hell.

Anyone who has endured the complexities of grief will know what I’m talking about when I say that it is basically impossible to respond the right way all the time in these circumstances.

In grief, and in the pulverisation of loss, we are without defence at the very time when we need defence. It’s like being at our most vulnerable when we least wish, and are least equipped, to be vulnerable. It is exactly like losing our lives, when all our hopes plummet and come to nothing.

So there is a lot to be said for empathy, and when we are leaving to have sufficient compassion that we cater for responses that are less than pleasant. This is not to say that we should accept abuse as a response in their grief. And this is not to be read as pressure to stay. Guilt only makes matters worse for everyone.

One thing we must be aware of when someone or an entity won’t let us go is that we are free to go. We cannot be held against our will. If we were led to a decision to leave, and if we go back on that decision because of guilt let’s say, we may find it even harder to leave the next time we need to. It’s better once we’re decided, to cauterise the wound and keep moving in the direction of our destiny of change.

In the relational context, leaving well can feel for both parties a bridge too far. Which is why when we are able to do such a thing, where both parties can accept where they’re at, and wish each other well, we ought to truly celebrate such a thing. It requires mature minds on both sides to see and accept the bigger picture — which is best not used to undermine those who also bear the agony of grief. If only more conflicts were resolved to both parties’ satisfaction in the leaving.

Of course, this entire subject cannot be adequately dealt with here, but at least we might agree that it’s not so easy to leave or part well.

Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash

Cherished permission to lament and heal the grief of loss

Memes for 2020 are hilarious in attempting to make some absurd sense for what has been a year for the ages in all the wrong ways.  This year has thrown so many people into the deep end of loss.

Myriads of people are suffering a huge cacophony of mental, emotional and spiritual ills.  All because of loss, and so often, very many layers of loss.  Much of the time, more than can ever be defined.  Which is a further level of despair.

There’s no easy way to traverse the journey of loss.

What is an escapable reality of unrivalled emptiness, bargaining for returning to what was, anger for how unfair it feels, amid depression for sorrow unrelenting, grief quite plainly is purposed to undo us.

GRIEF – THE UNDOING OF US

Wait, what do I mean?  Am I saying that there is no answer to grief?  When loss can barge through our door at any given moment, even if we’re prone to take life so much for granted that we never for one moment catered for the possibility?  Until it’s too late, and there it is, facing us defiantly!

Yes.  There is more than one person I know who despises the term, ‘It is what it is.’  Unfortunately, that’s the grief outbound of loss all wrapped up in inextricable pain.  And the changes of this year have taken many a soul there.

Just at the time when we most need an answer other than ‘nothing can be done’, we find there is no other answer.  There is no other answer when we find ourselves in a situation that cannot be reversed.

But the question remains.  What we cannot resolve does not go away.

So what can be done?  You’re not telling me that there’s nothing that can be done, are you?  Nothing FAITH can do?  Here’s the point.  Faith doesn’t ‘do’ anything.

HEALING GRIEF – WHEN ‘ACTIVE’ NO LONGER WORKS

Faith allows.  Faith waits.  Faith sits.  Faith accepts.  Wait for it... faith laments.  Faith weeps.  These are all passives.  By the inaction of an active passivity, faith heals.

In a world that insists upon actives, faith says, ‘That’s not the way in a game where actives don’t work.’ Faith says, ‘You’re entering the futility of catastrophic frustration if you think you can resolve your grief any other way than via the truth of lament for a lamentable situation.’

What we face is an existential crisis of proportions that are designed to break us.  Doesn’t sound like very good news, does it?

Grief invites us into the possibilities of letting go; we cannot grasp anything new without letting go of the old.  Lament is the way of honouring the truth of our uncompromising sorrow and confusion of purpose.  Lament is also a way of carrying important parts of the old with us into the new.

Lament seems passive — like, ‘is that all I can do; cry, moan and wail?’ — but it is in fact about as active a thing as we can do.  With all of our being we need to lament the lamentable.

CHERISHED PERMISSION – SOMETHING WE ACTIVELY GIVE TO OURSELVES

In facing the sorrows that cannot be reversed, we find our eyes communicating with tears what our mouths cannot speak and what the mind cannot comprehend.  In lament we find the body has its very own intelligently designed processes for handling grief.  We trust those capacities that God gave us.

It’s human nature to want to be in control and to resist the ‘weakness’ of lament.  But our insistence on being in control works against us in grief; it halts our progress, it refuses to validate the truth, it stunts our growth, and it delays the inevitable.

Giving ourselves permission to lament — to honour our truth — to face what we hate has happened — is the cherished relief that signals approval to process the grief.

One place we can go, one incredibly rich tradition in terms of lament, is the Bible.  Lament psalms like Psalms 6, 10, 13, 38, 42-43, 130, 137 all feature verses that are refreshingly honest.  There’s no cliché in these!  No pat answers.  No ‘pack you off with a simplistic answer to the unanswerable hard question you have.’

When we’re restless, agitated, emotional, withdrawn, unmotivated, and feeling helpless, hopeless and worthless we most need to gently face our reality — and it will drive us into the heartland of lament.

Go to lament knowing that in trusting yourself to the rawness of your reality, you will survive, and you will actually learn a new way to thrive.  By all means draw on the wise support of helpers, professionals and friends.  You’ll need all the help you can get, and these resources are all pivotal for healing.

In terms of processing grief, lamenting loss really is the only way.

Time isn’t the issue, even if we think it is.  Being honest is the way forward.

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Your struggle is evidence that your faith is real

Any person well-versed in the Bible will know the passage that begins with, “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds...”  It is of course from James.  WHEN not IF you face trials, because you will and you do, and many will they be, as is normal of the authentic human experience.

The fact that you and I struggle — with whatever kinds of struggles you and I have — is EVIDENCE of our faith.  If you had no struggles you would not need faith.  You certainly would not need to rely on God.

But there are those in the faith and beyond who will want to pretend that either God fixes all our problems or that our problems are to be denied.  Neither ‘solution’ merits any thought, only rejection, and neither strategy is wise.

Our problems must be incorporated into the living of our lives.

The worst Christian teaching espouses of course that a person, themselves, has a job to overcome their sin and challenges and that these would be miraculously removed from us if only we did the right things or ‘had enough faith’ — not only is this wrong, it’s dangerous and abusive when espoused.  (It’s actually the other way around!  When we’re honest, God works spiritually within us and God helps us overcome sin and accept our challenges.)

Works-based teaching is heresy when we consider the words of Paul: “Three times I pleaded with God to remove from me this thorn in my side, the messenger of Satan.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh.  It was there for a purpose.  It was there to keep Paul from becoming proud; it was there to encourage Paul to be and remain honest.

Our struggles function as our own personal thorns in the flesh.  We know that they’re thorns that God won’t remove because they’re the circumstances in our lives that we cannot change.  The way we’re supposed to adjust to those things we cannot change is we move in the direction of acceptance — a process dependent on honesty.  And we must accept that acceptance is a journey.

Our key challenge in life is to be able to be honest with ourselves and others.

As a counsellor I know it’s my job to open space for honesty; to never be shocked, disapproving or condemning of anything.  I like to think that the only time I appear visually shaken is when I’m genuinely lost in my own process — and this is always just a moment.  Therapy is the place for such intimacy that a person’s truth can be both spoken and heard.  It’s the true healing potential of counselling for healing.

Christian faith depends entirely on knowing we cannot add anything to the grace that saves us.  We accept that efforts in our own strength are futile.  No work is required of us or is even beneficial (only harmful) to live as ‘good people’.  Any goodness in us is fruit of the inner work of God in our lives through being honest about our struggles.

When we live honestly amid our struggles, preferring the weakness that depends on God’s strength alone, humility becomes us and gratitude is possible, because truth has become primary and we’re no longer bargaining for a different life.  Not any subjective or distant truth, but the truth about how we feel about our struggles; all truth with space for acceptance and no judgement.

Our struggles are important.  They are the reason we need our faith.  Struggles are evidence that our faith is real.  If we suddenly overcame all our struggles faith would be unnecessary.

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Rallying from a momentary bout of overwhelming despair

Some time ago I awoke at 4:52AM like I normally do and the fog I went to bed with remained with me; I couldn’t shake it.  Feeling forlorn and desperate for connection, I cried out in my spirit for God — and there seemed to be no answer.  The disconnection in my soul was so immense that I doubted any vestige of hope could pull me through.

Then a thought occurred to me.  “Come on, let’s go!”  That’s all it was.

For me, it’s generally a thought, yet sometimes it’s an action; simply to get going.

There’s power in stepping forward despite every thought within to want to give it all up.  There’s power in righting our thinking when our feelings will take us nowhere but back further into the doldrums.

But like always when we’re there, down and out, with no vision for hope, when despair is pressing in, and conflicts abound, there’s absolutely no seeing a way out, just as there’s little memory of all our previous conquests.  All our defences are completely down.

Whether it’s betrayal or disappointment or a crushed dream or something else, or worse, a meld of two or three or more seriously competing dilemmas, there’s just such paucity of hope that despair is all we see.  And the only encouragement we have is when we read through these words of someone else that other people feel broken like this too.

Indeed, if our despair teaches us anything, we see it all around us.  Not that it’s in everyone’s life all the time, but it is in many people’s lives occasionally, and in some lives people cannot explain it.  Indeed, most of the time we fail for explaining suffering.

Winston Churchill is famed for saying, “If you’re going through hell, keep going!”  It’s only when we reach the other side that we can look back and say how far hell was to cross.

Rallying from a momentary or even a seasonal bout of overwhelming despair is possible in a moment, and we’re encouraged that the light can break through at any given moment.  And that’s the way it happens as we look back.  Hope is on the horizon.  It revisits us all.  Especially the diligent, who have no role staying in the doldrums or receding.

Hold out for hope and hope will soon arrive.  And even if that ‘soon’ doesn’t feel soon enough, it will soon enough come as you look back.  Hold out for hope.

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