Conversations on trauma and spirituality
- Spiritual Trauma - what does it mean, and embodiment healing -
This morning I was listening to a podcast with Hillary McBride who writes about journeys through embodiment and healing - coming back into ourselves and on our own bodies - feeling safe there.
For many of us, our bodies are not or have not always been safe places to be, to dwell.
Trauma inherently makes us feel less safe in our bodies. And even if we don’t call it trauma or recognize it as such - many times it is - trauma(s) in a variety of forms.
Trauma breaks us off -from our bodies and from ourselves.
McBride also said - “Trauma is experiences that overwhelm us to the point of fragmentation.”
(She further clarifies fragmentation- in that it manifests to most of us, obviously, through examples or thoughts or identities as - “I can’t feel my body,” “I can’t feel anything,” “my body can’t be trusted.” or “I don’t know what’s happening inside me,” or “I’m numb.”)
We’re not at peace or at home within ourselves.
McBride - “Our psyche has been severed in some way.”
This also inherently disrupts our relationships to others, in our relationships, it really fucks with or shatters our sense of safety and belonging community.
I knew all of this before - but what McBride said that gave me pause is this -
That that exists and also -
We are spiritual beings and she defined spirituality for us -
“The innate inborn human desire and longing for connection, for meaning, for flourishing, asking questions about who am I, what am I doing here and why does it matter…”
We all have this innate desire as human beings - spirituality is not religion. And even if/when we claim we’re not religious or that we’re atheist or agnostic or what not - even if we’re religiously traumatized or scarred -
We all still have a desire for longing with community and a connection to a greater purpose.
She puts these two together, saying that-
So, if you take spiritual and you take trauma, something that rips us from ourselves and from each other, so I would argue that any trauma is spiritual trauma.”
Many, many of us struggle to get that, to find ourselves and each other - in genuine ways.
But - it poses additional challenges for trauma survivors or those stuck in a body/mind/spirit that is disrupted, with dysregulated nervous systems -
We have an additional challenge in opening up and trusting others in community and establishing this connection to/with others -
Because for many of us, we are not yet safe yet within ourselves.
And that is our work.
But our connection with community and people will not come together in healthy and meaningful and purposeful ways, until we work to heal our own wounds, within ourselves.
It’s a real mindfuck - when you think about it -
We need people but we don’t trust them -
I also consider this in conjunction with symptoms of cPTSD, which is often indicates problems with relationships - trust, dating, friends, socializing, as part of what we struggle with -
She also said that —
People who are disconnected from their bodies are the easiest to control.
[To further explain that those are also] - the people are disconnected from inner knowing and where does that live, and where does that live, and ability to tolerate distress -
She also said that while we’re always looking to gurus or spiritual teachers or people to provide us with those answers. Instead we need to drop in and go and heal within ourselves.
Essentially, we need to reclaim our own bodies and our own knowing, connecting inside of ourselves, to own our own embodiment - our ability to be with ourselves - that is the key. The secret. To improving ourselves and spirituality, to healing what she defines us as spiritual trauma.
I think too often we see the terms, spirituality and spiritual, as ‘woo-woo’ - hippy-esque, those ‘everything happens for a reason’ people - we can too easily dismiss it as kooky. (I know I have.)
But - in using her definition above, perhaps we need to reconsider those associations, our misinformed rhetoric(s)
Because, who doesn’t want to feel at home within ourselves and who doesn’t want/need some belonging or purpose - even if what that is, or how it comes to be, varies in great ways from person to person?
Human beings have both the need for independence and for interdependence, to be alone and in solitude—
At home with themselves.
But we also were created as social beings, in relationship to one another.
That is why those placed in solitary confinement struggle so mentally - even if we say we’re loners or we are introverted and prefer solitude - too much of us, and we struggle mentally.
We are hard-wired for both sovereignty and connection.
We crave peace in ourselves, our own mind/body/spirit and in community and relationship to/with others.
This conversation above really made me dwell in the space of - why sometimes relationships and my purpose and connection feels something I deeply crave and long for, and yet something that feels ever more, increasingly elusive.
I have finally started to feel at home within myself and my own body.
Though I still have my wounds, I’m sure, my fragmentation.
But even in regaining a sense of certainty and comfort and sure-footing in my own body, I have grown more perceptive -
And I recognize and feel that many people and places—even virtual ones—are not safe spaces.
The world is spiritually sick and disconnected. We Americans live in a society and culture that is spiritually sick, spiritually traumatized -
Our disconnection from each other, from the land and the Earth, and nature,
And, when you couple that with how trauma survivors also have to fight to connect and be at peace/at home within ourselves and our own bodies, it further adds to these feelings of disconnection.
I am certain that the reason that this podcast resonated with me so was because it was yet another validation that -
We are all longing for spiritual healing.
We are all fragmented and traumatized.
Feeling unsafe in your own body and spirit, uneasy in your own energy and source -
Makes it all the more discombobulating.
The first step of healing is awareness of why I feel so disconnected and dysregulated, to then being able to move forward, toward more peace and regulation, a calmness, homeostasis.
For many, that often seems out of touch - with ADHD and anxiety and the state of the world and news headlines and financial urgency and fears and costs of living rising -
It’s all daunting. It feels overwhelming and like we can’t possibly manage.
So, what can we do?
We can instead we drop in. Center ourselves. Feel the earth. Appreciate your senses. Go for a walk. Feel the hot shower or bath. Dip your feet into water, get off social media and stop flipping and doom-scrolling.
And, just work at being.
