By Mary L. Holden
It was an honor to be connected to James Encinas through Jane Stevens and her ACEs Connection network. For nearly five years, we’ve worked on our separate-but-equal personal missions to spread the importance of the ACE Study completed by Vincent J. Felitti, M.D. and Robert Anda, M.D.
James chose to use a bicycle and the power of words to show why the ACE Study is a significant advance in human understanding of self and others. For me, as an editor and writer, I like to look for and find the foundations of meaning, the reason for reasons.
What I’m giving in this post is in the form of steppingstones for what I see is a path of healing. Steppingstones…bullet points…easy reading…because all of our lives need more grace and ease:
Healing is a constant process; no one is ever “healed” in a complete, past-tense, sense and there is great beauty and even comfort in this perfect imperfection.
The idea of “being healed” limits the concept of mental and physical health so the goal is to feel into healing as being past-present-future, all in one.
A wound in the flesh creates art through scar tissue when it’s healing; the mark it leaves is a souvenir of pain.
A wound in the brain creates art through scar issue; a person cannot see the scars left from emotional issues that are healing unless one views them through use of the imagination.
Healing trauma is always possible and it is as unique a process as the individual in whom it is happening; find a modality that resonates most with your own body, mind, heart, soul.
Individuals can explore traditional paths of healing through the science of psychology, or nontraditional modalities like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY), Acupuncture, Craniosacral Therapy (CST), and The Emotion Code, and many others.
Sharing your trauma story, and receiving similar stories of others as a compassionate witness, adds to the amount of good healing energy in the world.
Creating safe environments and communities for sharing stories and experiencing hands-on art/craft or minds-on meditations can be done by nonexperts in a variety of practical, non-expensive ways without threat of liability.
There is a baby step to take before navigating the path of these stones. Imagine yourself as a baby. Hold your baby-self image and love it pure, love it whole, love it without judgment, love it with compassion, love it the way your spirit allows the power of love.
Dear Mary the honor is mine and I feel so grateful to have met you and have you in my life as a friend, mentor, and colleague. The stepping stones you've identified are so important towards the process of healing and transforming and as you've pointed out require the taking of baby steps.
From my perspective the first baby step begins with the recognition that one must learn to love oneself and the second that one must also learn to come to terms with suffering. Joseph Campbell wrote "suddenly you're ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you're alive and its spectacular."
Over time I have come to see that people hold on to the suffering that life naturally bring them and rather than allow that suffering to transform them, often in trying to hold on to the thing that is no longer part of their lives, they stop themselves from living their lives. I am no different.
For much of my life I felt that I was a victim and that the suffering I had endured was unfair. It made me angry, for many, many years I walked around with a lot of hurt and rage. At the time I was not able to see that all of that anger and rage that I carried was my will to live expressed in a very negative way. I didn’t know then and was not able to understand that the suffering I experienced was a part of my life, a stage in a process. That it wasn't the bottom line. It was not the end of the story. I was not able to see then that the wounds of mind and body I experienced would one day become the scars of my creativity, my solace, and my transformation.
A man I consider a mentor and friend Father Richard Rohr recently wrote, “the supreme work of spirituality, which makes presence possible, is keeping the heart space open (which is the result of conscious love), keeping a “right mind” (which is the work of contemplation or meditation), and keeping the body alive with contentment and without attachment to its past woundings (which is often the work of healing). In that state, you are neither resisting nor clinging, and you can experience something genuinely new.” So true.
Mary -
Thank you for this post, reminding us that: we all have a unique yet complementary way to grow the circle of healers and social justice warriors; taking small steps really does make the journey less over-whelming and much more doable, even inspiring; and that all of us together, encouraging others to take their steps in their way - in sharing and growing together - is a powerful, collective healing force for transformative change.
Mary,
Thank you for these bulleted points. And yes, no one is every done healing. This is why we are here I believe. Its really just peeling the onion of our wounds. And because there is no end to healing it takes the pressure off of "getting there". It is a journey and every step we take is a another moment of becoming who we fully are: divine beings of love. How wonderful to know that every day upon awakening it is a new opportunity to journey in health and healing. And I might add breath and qi gong to your list of tools one can explore. Again, thank you for this.
Mary:
What a beautiful image and the gentle, welcoming, calming, soothing wisdom and reminders about healing that's hopeful and honors how individual a process can be. Great to get to know you better, through words and conversations.
Warmly, Cissy
Thank you so much for this. Of all of the ways to heal trauma, I really like sharing one's story-- Brene Brown says the cure for shame comes in the form of 2 words- "me too". I love that. I have seen trauma survivors really thrive when they are able to share their experiences in a safe place with others. We are creatures of belonging- we were created to be in relationship. Anything that makes us feel like "other" is wounding. Bringing us back into connection is healing.
Yes! Our narrative helps us to place our experiences in perspective, who we are, why we do what we do based on who and what has informed us. It is in as you stated Reverend Thaeda that when we explore these experiences in safe spaces with community that we come to learn how connected we all are and how much we need each other.