Healing from past trauma of any sort is a long and layered process! There's no one "answer" or therapeutic modality that's going to resolve all the challenges. In fact, it’s actually the complexity of healing and growth that leads me to believe that cultivating a spiritual practice is an essential part of successful healing.
Let me tell you WHY I'm so passionate about spiritual practice as a means of transmuting trauma.
As a bit of house-keeping and context, let me start by noting that spirituality and religion are two different things. They can operate independently or simultaneously. There's an entire gradient running from both spiritual and religious to spiritual but not religious to religious but not spiritual to neither spiritual nor religious. There's also an option that just says: I don't even know. ;)
For many years, I practiced my spirituality within the context of a religious belief system and was able to thrive. I was both spiritual and religious. These days, I've completely emerged from Christianity and would consider myself spiritual but not religious.
As I disentangled my life from Christianity/systemic religion, I received the opportunity to examine spirituality from a different perspective. I've come to view spirituality as an integral part of the human experience that can be expressed in a wide variety of ways. Just like we have a physical self, an emotional self, and a mental self, we have a spiritual self.
So now that we’ve made a distinction between spirituality and religion, let’s layer down a bit further.
What is spirituality? And what is the spiritual self that I just mentioned?
Spirituality is the practice of seeking out the sense of being in connection with what is greater than ourselves, what is "more-than-me." And most humans seek this sense in some way or another.
That being said, the spiritual self is the part of us as humans that is sensitive to and drawn toward what is beyond ourselves. It’s the part that’s in touch with the big picture. The spiritual self is the one who registers awe when you see a sunset or the mountains or feels touched when you witness an act of courage or kindness. It's the thing in us that feels the need to be connected to something greater than ourselves.
When the spiritual self needs and seeks out connection to unseen/intangible realities, it typically does so in concert with other parts of the self that are healthy and available for connection. Because the spiritual self usually teams up with some other part of the whole self, it sometimes slips under the radar and goes unnoticed.
This can look like:
A person who really loves math and numbers who says that they're "not a spiritual person," but expresses a sense of transcendence or awe when they are working with mathematics. They can get nearly giddy about how cool it is that numbers run the whole universe. Their spiritual self has teamed up with their mental/intellectual self in order to feel connection with something even larger. OR: Someone who might not feel like a spiritual person, but they love running marathons because it gives them a good feeling or a high that they can't quiiiiite put their finger on. Their spiritual self has teamed up with their physical self to deliver a greater sense of wholeness or transcendence.
Ultimately, in the most basic sense, spirituality is about connection.
Brené Brown puts it this way: “Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.” OK. Got it? Great.
Now. What does spirituality have to do with trauma, healing, and growth?
Here's the keyword: Integration.
Every form of therapy (to varying degrees of effectiveness) works off of the principle of integration. Therapy is about bringing parts of ourselves that have been disconnected and dissociated back into healthy connection with the whole of who we are.
Integration. Connection.
See the link here?
The spiritual self is a master of connection and flow, so when we intentionally discover and cultivate our spirituality (in whatever form it takes!), we're actually increasing our capacity for integrating and leveraging the therapeutic work, healing, and growth that we are doing in every other area of our lives. It's magic! (I mean, kinda...it's still also careful, mindful work.)
So this is my invitation to go deeper and get more in touch with your spiritual self. Your spirituality is going to be unique to you. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s lead here. But being intentional about cultivating your spirituality is going to offer big dividends to you.
How's your spiritual self doing? What does it need in order to thrive? How can you tend and nurture it so that it becomes even more powerfully connected and supportive in the big picture of your life?
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