There is a reason I keep talking about the developmental
periods of children. There is a reason this is so important. Who is judging
between traumas? Between sufferings? Just a pondering. As a comparison. Someone
in a car accident who gets pretty banged up but who has had a childhood of love
and peace. They’re able to navigate safely through the world, their own
emotions and thoughts and fresh traumas (though they may be large) are
reasonably well processed and filed away in the mind. And another who
experienced hell growing up, raped daily and beaten, never having developed
that base of grounding in life. Think of a soul as a cup or a well. Imagine you
have this well. Now, that well, in the beginning is filled to the brim with
very clear and clean water. But, as time passes, things happen to that well.
People drink from it, things happen around it and things drop into it. As time
passes, the water that was at first so clean, so clear becomes muddied and
dirty. Now, what happens when you try to push that mud to the bottom to allot
for clean water to rise to the surface? Remaining, you still have muddy water
because the mud has only been pushed to the bottom of the well. It’s like
having oil on the surface of a well and trying to push the oil to the bottom.
No matter what you do, the oil will rise again to the top. In a similar way,
the human heart is so precious, so fragile. Sometimes falling into sin is not a
consciously willful choice that is thought over in a logical manner, but rather
the re-emergence of the defense mechanisms we have used in childhood just to
survive. “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside
of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You
foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But
now as for what is inside you – be generous to the poor, and everything will be
clean for you” (Luke 11:39). What we put into our hearts is not always a choice
that we make.The human heart, everything about our bodies has an innate sense
of remembering in the ways that serve it best, the trauma and pain as well as
the love and joy that we have experienced. Because just like when we are cut,
blood follows, emotions are natural responses to being hurt inwardly. Do not be
ashamed of your feelings. Do not be ashamed to cry and to comfort each other
when it is warranted. It is so important to express righteous anger in healthy
ways so that your cup does not overflow. We need to learn to love ourselves.
For in the expression of love for ourselves, we are able to understand the
concept of unconditional love and thereby offer our love where it deserves to
be. In feeling love for who we are as individuals, we are able to love God and
to love others. There is a reason for everything we do.
Have you ever had the experience as a child, when you get
hurt emotionally; someone insults you or betrays you, feeling that all you need
to do is to cry, to release the hurt? And when you do, when you’re offered the
chance to, everything seemed to return to normal and you could be happy again.
As we get older, we can allow these hurts to get stuck as they accumulate. We
need to release the pain and shame. And we need to replace this pain with the
love that is found in the Gospel. We need to do that to make the
transformation.
Healing from abuse is not something that happens overnight.
In many cases, it is a lifelong process. My brain was pretty hurt, too. I have
noticed myself come very far from before I started healing. Relational and
emotional wounds can be as serious as losing a limb. I’ve proved pretty clearly
I think, by the life that I have lived, that I am pretty hurt. It is unfair
that I am still being tempted with the accumulation of trauma from my childhood
and adolescence. I’m trying harder than a lot of people realize. I’m not crazy.
If I am, what should it matter what I say? I’m only speaking what I have seen
and been told. We need to look at things with compassion and love.
There’s all sorts of trauma in the world. There is a lot of
literature written towards traumatic reaction obtained through a single event.
It is different from complex trauma that extends for years and where there is
little chance of escape. Early trauma hardwires our nervous systems for stress.
Trauma accumulates. “When our foundations are wrought with unprocessed
injustice and feelings, this makes it more difficult to deal with injustices
later. When our foundations are wrought with unprocessed trauma and feelings,
this makes it more difficult to deal with everything that happens to confront
us. It is when we have been able to process this trauma and injustice that
great things are in sight.”
Trauma accumulates.
Shame and other bad feelings accumulate. Injustice and anger also accumulate. That bully
from high school for whom you have been holding resentment, possibly reasonably
– well, at home, his parents beat him nightly. This is said to illustrate there
is a lot more going on than what we can see. Is it an excuse that he perpetuate
this anger? Probably not. Said to illustrate the fact that in a lot of cases,
he is a kid too. And he’s probably going through this as he is acting out. But,
it’s much more common than we think. This is not a
dualistic message. The body and the spirit work in harmony… when one is
damaged, the other will be affected. What I am saying is that when one is
damaged, we need to heal it in love of the Spirit. It is catechetical that some
sins are more or less culpable based on a number of factors.
I don’t think it is
a secret that I am a Christian man. I’m not trying to convert anyone. Only
seeking to share what my gentle and beautiful God has done for me. The words of
the prophets all pointed to the Messiah of Love. “For God so loved the world,
that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have everlasting life.” The God of all religions is the God of Love.
Jesus is the Messiah of Love. There is a god of this world. That is the one who
causes pain and hurt and death and darkness. “A new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one
another.” Therefore all who trust in love, follow God and His Christ. In my
opinion. The purpose of this life is to find God. We are not living this life
for this life. But for Life. Therefore, our times are investment. To live our
best, to love. God wants us to enjoy our lives. Of course, there is more to the
story than simply an image of a manicheanistic universe. There are many
different facets to consider in this issue, particularly when it relates to the
consideration of human and divine activity and their relation. But, this
concept is very scriptural. The principalities involved in this concept are not
equal. As God, the Father will always be greater. He is the only Creator and
everything is in His control, even if it is against His great Will. Satan is
called the father of lies. God the Father has distanced Himself from
intervention in worldly affairs due to our choice of original sin. This does not
mean He does not care for us. It breaks His heart when we are hurt. But, in His
glory, He is able to utilize our wounds for His glory. Though, God the Father
will have the judgement of this world, through His Son, Jesus Christ, the world
is not reigned by Him, on a temporal level. This is in order to allow us in our
free will, to return to Him, to love Him and to choose Him.
I am traumatized. This that hinders my true expression of my
soul. Is this not what I have been saying from the start? We need to nurture
our foundations. This is the reason I have been talking since I wrote this book
about what needs to happen for the blessing that will come. Friends, I am not
trying to prove my politics. Only that children need love in their
developments, trauma accumulates and how to heal from these repressed memories.
I’m not trying to
excuse bad behavior. Of course we know right from wrong. Our consciences,
though, can be played upon and manipulated by our hurts. They are greatly
influenced by the choices we make in past. I’m saying that our consciences can
be shaped, as young children by what we are put through. Or rather, our choices
can be heavily influenced by the weight of hurt and pain, unprocessed on our soul.
And by those who influence us most
Evidence is where you search for it. Nobody remembers. But
there are other evidences. The symptoms are all there. The body doesn’t lie. I
have been conditioned.
An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth, whether the ideology be individual or collective, is
not the Christian way.
Think for
yourself. This, too can be considered a great virtue these days. When you are
thinking, use reason, not feeling.
