Category: faith

Season of Rebirth

by Victoria McGee, posted in A Course in Miracles, childhood abuse, compassionate action, domestic violence, faith, grief, healing, military rape, Mindfulness, Oneness, PTSD, rape, recovery, self-improvement, spirituality, trauma, Uncategorized

“A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures.”                                                                                                           ~James E. Faust

Blossom Rock

December in much of the world celebrates many forms of birth, rebirth and rededication. It is perceived as an uplifting time of year with people giving gifts, traveling to be together, and sharing common beliefs. If trauma has touched your life, you are likely having a different experience.

Often, the holidays are challenging for survivors of trauma. There may be triggers, family issues, or just that haunting feeling of being different from others. Sometimes we feel we just can’t be as happy as other people, or as happy as we once were. How can we reclaim our happiness and our holidays?

As with much of our trauma healing, the secret is in re-framing, and turning it over to God.

Re-framing our thoughts about the holidays has to do with focusing on the idea in the James E. Faust quote above. We have been through spiritual adversity, and we are becoming new creatures. I would venture to say that no one who experiences trauma is the same person after. Nor should you want to be. Trauma changes us.

“How could you rise anew, if you have not first become ashes?”                                                                                          ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We had no choice in the trauma that we experienced, but we have choice in what we do afterward: how we heal, how we grieve, how we move forward. We can let it change us into a hard and bitter creature, or a creature who is wiser, deeper, and who can offer grace and healing to those around them.

Claim the holidays as your own rebirth. Be reborn into your vision of the next step in your healing.

We can draw a parallel to our first birth into this incarnation. When we were born, we had no conscious choice as to whom we were born to. Our personality, resilience factors, and appearance were genetically and environmentally fixed. As we grew and became our own person, some of that changed, but much of it is a through-line in our lives.

Just as our first birth, our rebirth carries a set of circumstances we cannot change. We have survived war, sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, natural disasters, a sudden death – you name it. But we have the power to now visualize who we will be in the next chapter of our lives.

Look at your next step. Who do you see? Do you see someone who is nervous, not sleeping, depressed, or withdrawn? Do you see someone who is engaged, productive, rested, healthy, and (dare we say) happy? This is your chance to choose. This is your opportunity to give birth to that which is pregnant in you: hope, peace of mind, and the Divine spark.

Our rebirth is as much a miracle as our original birth.

How do we accomplish this rebirth? I believe we need these four steps:

Forgive: We must forgive those who have wronged us, or peace of mind will forever be elusive. As long as we carry this burden, we only weigh ourselves down.

Engage: Be with others. It is good to be alone, but not lonely. Depressions feeds on loneliness. You will have to force yourself sometimes, but feel the fear and do it anyway, as they say.

Give: You may feel you have nothing to give. Everything of yourself has been stripped away. But if you go to the soup kitchen, give out presents to homeless children, or in any way make someone else’s holiday brighter, watch what happens. Rebirth.

Visualize: Spend time – real time – visualizing your new self, the creation of your rebirth. If you’re having trouble, ask God to show you. See this every day, as many times a day as you can. The Universe will conspire to make this vision reality.

As we struggle to be reborn, include the Divine in all efforts. God is our midwife! Just as human birth is painful, spiritual rebirth brings psychic pain. The Holy Spirit is the balm for this pain. Call on the Divine to guide you, heal you, keep you safe, and hold you in the light of love and peace. Feel the warmth of pure Love fill you and soothe the pain.

Rebirth doesn’t happen overnight. Like all healing, it is a process. But why not take this season as a starting point? A catalyst for your new self to begin to emerge? You have nothing to lose, and your self to gain!

This holiday season, be reborn in the sure knowledge that you are Still Beloved.

“This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you. Let yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us.”   ~ A Course in Miracles T, XI

Victoria McGee                                                                                                      12/21/15

Happy Holidays from PTSD

by Victoria McGee, posted in A Course in Miracles, Albert Camus, Anne Lamott, Buddha, childhood abuse, compassionate action, domestic violence, faith, grief, healing, military rape, Mindfulness, PTSD, Ram Dass, rape, recovery, self-improvement, spirituality, trauma, Uncategorized

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”                      ~ Albert Camus

rainy-83136_1280

Whatever your spiritual beliefs, we recognize that December is a time of holidays and religious and family gatherings. While those around us look forward to the delights of this season, survivors of trauma often find this a difficult time to navigate. Whether you suffer with PTSD yourself, or live with someone who does, it’s important to be prepared and know that whatever you bring to the season is enough.

For some survivors of trauma, the holidays may be good. For me, it was a rare opportunity to sleep deeply, without fear. For others, the holidays themselves may be when their trauma occurred, and the fight or flight instinct is awakened, despite their best efforts. As we are surrounded with images of love and light and innocence, we may re-experience the grief our trauma brought us; of never quite feeling that profound sweetness of innocence again.

Though that may be true, and we may indeed be changed in irreparable ways, we can still find hope in taking charge of our perspective, in taking care of ourselves, and in taking control of our holidays.

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it…I would discover that it hadn’t washed me away.” – Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott so perfectly expresses what we trauma survivors know too well. The surprise and fear that feeling something so deeply can bring. It’s like being in the ocean. The same water that lets you float suddenly grabs you and pulls you under!

But we rise again to the surface and discover, “…it hadn’t washed me away.” If we can keep acknowledging that, each time we have a flashback, or a bad day, or a bad night – we haven’t washed away. We are here, and we are doing the very best we can.

If the holidays tempt you to feel struck down by waves (of memory, of family, of expectations, of anxiety) take time to notice that you are not washed away. Keep your perspective focused on your progress. You are here and you have gifts yet to give.

Next, take care of yourself. This is non-negotiable. As a survivor of trauma, you need to be doing this anyway, but even more so at the holidays. The holidays may hold more triggers for you than at any other time of year. If you are not rested, mindful, healthy and balanced, triggers will sneak up on you. Be your own best friend. Don’t neglect the Divine, or the Divine in you, for the sake of pleasing others. Show up when it feels right, and you can bring your best self. If you’re in doubt, ask yourself if a holiday experience is going to drain you, or fill you up? Honor the answer you receive.

Finally, take control of your holiday. If crowds give you anxiety, avoid big parties or malls. If big family dinners are difficult, perhaps join with a smaller part of the family for breakfast, then find a place to be of service instead, perhaps a holiday meal for the homeless. You may need to create new rituals to honor where you are in your healing. For some, there is a need to be with family. For others, there will be a need to serve. Some will feel the old familiar need to isolate, but I urge you not to. If you need isolation and alone time for balance, make time for it, but avoiding the holidays altogether will not serve your highest healing. And that is what the Divine wants for you.

Perhaps all we need to do during the holidays is focus on the best ideology of this time of year. Give to yourself and each other: Peace, Light, Hope, and God’s Love.

“This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you. LET yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us.”  ~A Course In Miracles

Take good care of yourself. Find in yourself, your “invincible summer.”

You are Still Beloved.

Victoria McGee

12/06/2015

 

 

TRAUMA & RESTORING FAITH

by Victoria McGee, posted in A Course in Miracles, childhood abuse, compassionate action, domestic violence, faith, grief, healing, Judith Herman, MD, military rape, Mindfulness, Oneness, PTSD, Ram Dass, rape, recovery, self-improvement, spirituality, trauma, Uncategorized

“Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell.”
~ Ram Dass

forest-764924_1920

All who have survived trauma know well the feeling of the broken spirit. The loss of faith that comes with having your belief system ripped out from under you.

How can trauma survivors come to a place of restoring our faith? Our faith has been built over time as we live and construct in our minds the things we believe in. Trauma can shatter those beliefs in an instant.

In her amazing book, Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman, M.D. addresses the issue of faith. She states “(Traumatic events…) violate the victim’s faith in a natural or divine order and cast the victim into a state of existential crisis. “

In other words, we begin to question everything we have come to know.

Herman goes on to state the depth of this loss of faith.

“In situations of terror, people spontaneously seek their first source of comfort and protection. Wounded soldiers and raped women cry for their mothers, or for God. When this cry is not answered, the sense of basic trust is shattered. Traumatized people feel utterly abandoned, utterly alone, cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life.”

Let’s re-read that last sentence: “…cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life.”

There is nothing more profoundly despairing than that feeling. To feel abandoned by the Divine is a trauma in itself and leads to the disconnection that is such a hallmark of PTSD. So how do we begin to rebuild our faith?

It is important to distinguish between faith and belief. Beliefs are products of our minds. They are decisions we have made, constructs we have formed to make sense of our world. We believe in God, in certain people, in certain relationships.

Faith is a product of the spirit. Faith is the abstract knowing that the Divine is constant. When there is a crack in that knowing, what can heal it? When there is a tear in the fabric of faith, what will mend it?

After 9/11 there was a wonderful quote by Mr. Rogers going around. His advice in times of extreme trauma was to “Look for the helpers.” This is a start in restoring our faith.

If you have survived a trauma, you were likely helped, if not immediately after, then soon after. Look at those helpers. For me it was kind police officers, a calm and soft-voiced trauma nurse, and my friends who came in the middle of the night without asking why I needed them, they just came. When I looked back on all that, it made a few stitches in my torn faith. I could trust the goodness of those people, and they had faith in me that I would survive this. It was a start.

Who were your helpers at the time of trauma? Who around you still holds you up?

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and rescues those who are crushed in spirit.”   ~ Psalm 34:18

Another way to restore your faith is to simply ask. Ask God to restore your faith. We can do nothing apart from God. We can’t restore our own faith by ourselves. Sit in quietness and solitude and ask. Gather with others and ask. God will begin to show you the constancy of Love. God will lead you beside still waters and restore your soul. You will begin to see examples of Divine Love that will make you smile, knowing it’s another stitch in your torn faith.

For me, the final step in restoring my faith was through service, and I wish I had come to it sooner. When you want to curl up in a ball and feel abandoned, take action instead. Get out of yourself and find a way to help others as soon as you feel able. It is like a salve to your wound. Compassionate action opens the way for the light to return. Imagine a sky that is all gray clouds, except for one hole where sunlight is breaking through. That is what service will do for your faith.

An added by-product of service is seeing your value in the world again. Sometimes trauma can leave us feeling powerless. Service restores our faith, not only in God, but in ourselves.

I leave you with this inspiration from Walt Whitman:

“The question, O me! so sad, recurring –

What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here – that life exists, and identity;

That the powerful play goes on,

and you will contribute a verse.”

 

Have faith. You are Still Beloved.

 

Victoria McGee

11/29/2015