Beginning to Heal after Spiritual Trauma
Ella quit praying and reading her Bible. She’d lost her sense of having a deep and personal relationship with God, and terms such as submission, godly wife, and duties left her feeling bitter toward the church. For years, her husband had used Scripture to manipulate her into sex, saying her body was his and the Bible said so. He called her names, controlled what she wore, and berated her if she ever questioned his spiritual leadership in the home. Eventually, she collapsed into a dark spiritual depression where death seemed like the only way out. Lost in a sea of confusion, intrusive thoughts, and pain, Ella was experiencing spiritual trauma.
Jonathan felt called to be a pastor. After completing his seminary degree, he and his wife and four young kids moved across the country so he could be an associate pastor at a dynamic and rapidly growing church. Eager to serve God and live out his calling, Jonathan devoted himself fully to his work. The problem was that no matter how many hours he worked, the senior pastor demanded more, to the point that Jonathan often neglected his family and his well-being. The senior pastor’s leadership style was laced with fear and guilt, and he routinely ostracized anyone who questioned him. When Jonathan tried to push back, the senior pastor equated his resistance with disobedience to God. Jonathan found himself feeling confused and anxious when he went to work during the week and to worship on Sundays. His hands shook every time he entered the church. He felt powerless, alone, and lost. Although he didn’t know it, Jonathan was experiencing spiritual trauma.
As Allison described it, disobeying the teachings of Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, was like disobeying God himself. She’d grown up in a home that used Gothard’s homeschooling curriculum and shunned anything deemed “worldly.” Her father, the spiritual leader in their home, forbade her to attend college and insisted he would choose a suitable man for her to marry. As Allison grew into young adulthood, she was exposed to teachings on grace and freedom in Christ through a coworker, which led her to research other ways of thinking about God and the Bible. As her childhood understanding of faith crumbled, she felt paralyzed in her understanding of God, herself, and the church. Like so many who have lived in fear-based, high-control religious settings, Allison was experiencing spiritual trauma.
Heal Spiritual Trauma by Understanding the Body’s Response
When we experience spiritual trauma, our body responds through trauma responses. A trauma response is a physical, emotional, and psychological reaction to a distressing or threating event that overwhelms our ability to cope. A trauma response happens when the sympathetic nervous system accelerates in response to danger or the parasympathetic nervous system screeches to a complete stop to avoid impact. While abuse is a harmful behavior, a trauma response is the initial and natural physiological reaction to protect us from harm. This is how the body is designed to function. However, with spiritual trauma, those protective physiological reactions get stuck in a way that prevents the body from returning to a state of safety and balance.
When spiritual trauma gets stuck in your body, you’ll find yourself in a perpetual trauma response. You might default to a fight response by raging against God, confronting others, or even wrestling with yourself. You may take flight by withdrawing from others, avoiding spiritual practices or God, or by avoiding your emotions. You might freeze by feeling paralyzed in what you believe, constantly replaying past scenarios, or struggling to make decisions about God. You may fawn by trying to appease God or please others to secure acceptance or safety. Or you might collapse by continually feeling spiritually hopeless or dead inside, unable to see a way forward.
Heal Spiritual Trauma Through a Gentle Path Forward
When your body gets stuck in a trauma response, it takes your soul along with it, leaving you feeling confused and lost. You might lose the ability to connect with God or your spiritual life. Your soul might go into hiding and emerge only when conditions seem safe enough for your body to acknowledge the pain and grief of what you experienced.
How do we restore wholeness and rebuild our faith when our spiritual life feels painful? The best path forward isn’t one of extremes—void of Christ and Christian practices on one hand, or full of forced prayer and Bible prescriptions on the other. Instead, there is a space between the extremes that is gracious to mind, body, and soul. In that space, we can rediscover and gather the beloved pieces of our soul that have been shattered. When it comes to healing spiritual trauma, less is often more. Slow—and I mean slow—is more fruitful than pushing forward at full speed.
Heal Spiritual Trauma by Reconnecting with Christ
There in that space between extremes, your soul, though hidden for its own protection, longs to reunite with you. And though it may be hard to believe right now, it is in that space that Christ longs for you to see him as he truly is—loving, compassionate, and gentle.
I’ve walked this path and have also traveled with many others who’ve done the same and come out on the other side. I don’t know how long your healing journey will be or what turns it might take, but it won’t always feel this way. As my therapist once told me in some of my darkest moments, “There is a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
Heal Spiritual Trauma Through Compassionate Reflection
Invitation
Imagine you are writing a brief letter (it can be just short phrases) to the part of you who has been wounded by spiritual harm. This is the part of you who once trusted and believed, and who may now feel confused, angry, ashamed, numb, or deeply alone. You don’t have to have all the answers; you are simply offering this wounded part of you belief, kindness, and compassion. If you find it difficult to show yourself compassion right now, imagine that someone who knows and cares about you is writing the letter.
Begin by acknowledging belief in your story and the trauma you experienced; it’s your story, and you know what left you with scars on your soul. You might do this by offering this part of you some kind words:
I believe you.
You have endured so much.
It makes sense that you feel this way.
Your pain is real, and it matters.
It’s okay to be sad.
Conclude by acknowledging the courage it took to get to this point and the ways you’ve survived.
You may not feel brave, but it takes a lot of courage to face what you’ve experienced.
You’ve been doing what you can to survive.
Showing up even when you’re afraid isn’t a lack of courage, but rather the beginning of courage.
Believing the story your body tells and offering yourself kindness and compassion are beautiful and essential gifts you’ll need for the healing journey ahead. Use this practice when you feel discouraged and need comfort and care.
Adapted from The Shattered Soul by Colleen Ramser, LPC. Used by permission.
