Senior Pastor Discusses Trauma




Why can't people just be happy?

Little children are naturally happy.  A child can spend the day exploring the backyard, gathering pretty rocks or drawing with paper and crayons. They don't need a lot of toys - just the presence of a calm and loving parent.

So what goes wrong? Why can't we adults be naturally happy, content, and anxiety free like we were when we were little children?

The problem is separation from God - which, in fact, is the basis of all our issues. Many of us have known about God or have heard words about God, but we have never really known God. Bear in mind that there are also people who claim to know God, but really don't. And their hypocrisy or dishonesty is confusing and painful to others who might have gently come to understanding if they had not been turned off by those who masquerade as Christians.

The other thing is that for most of us, our problems begin when we were kids. Our parents sometimes did not have patience or understanding. They were struggling with their own issues and often were themselves traumatized as kids. They did the best they could, and so we must forgive them for mistakes they made, but something was missing. Dads are often not there emotionally for the child. The parents may have had issues; perhaps there was a divorce. All too often there was cruelty - emotional or physical abuse. Mostly there is just a lack of understanding.

There is also sometimes neglect - father is not there for them, kids are abandoned to strangers, perhaps strangers are allowed into the home, or there is a lack of supervision and awful things happen. At school, there are bullies; there is peer pressure. Teachers are, after all, strangers, and without the presence of a calm and loving parent, there is all too often chaos, confusion, cruelty, and a loveless world without proper boundaries.

There is, in other words, trauma. The trauma of overt or subtle abuse, and the trauma of no one that stands in contrast to the shallow confusion all around. A father's job is to stand in for God in the eyes of the child. Father is supposed to be stronger than the world. He is there for the child. He has overcome or is in the process of overcoming his own issues. He is mature, brave, kind, wise, with endless patience and understanding.

Most fathers fail their family. Little children are not ready to relate directly to God. Kids relate to and naturally look to parents, especially father, for the kind of understanding and validation that would keep them whole and safe and secure, so they could flower to become why they were meant to be. Instead they are forced to turn to peers, teachers, the popular culture, and imaginary friends for support and security. It is a lonely and frightening world where they must cling to their peers and look for something to comfort themselves.

But now, remember that I said that all our problems are caused by a separation from God. So what is it that keeps a person separated from the healing Source? Why could not a person simply find God and, having found their Parent Spirit, feel secure, loved, then quickly or slowly recover from their afflictions?

The problem is resentment. What keeps us from God is resentment. Resentment sustains anger; resentment sustains the traumatic memories; and resentment feeds, reinforces and sustains the aberrant traumatic self. The self that we became - the angry, fearful, vicious, passive/aggressive, doubting and confusing thing that we became is sustained by resentment. Resentment reinforces everything that is wrong with you. Resentment is itself a post traumatic trauma. Resentment is damaging to the soul. That is why you must forgive others - drop your resentments, in other words - forgiving everyone beginning with your poor unloved mother and your failing father.

Of course, resentment does not always manifest itself as resentment. It hides under judgment. An angry wife--whose husband is gambling, drugging, or abusive--can feel very self righteous indeed in comparison to her rotten husband. She may not see her resentment - she is so fixated on her husband's wrong that she does not see her own wrong. All she knows about herself is that she is "unhappy" and she has mental, health, or physical issues.

A drug addict may not be a terrible person. He or she is a victim of the dysfunctional home and a loveless society. Mostly people who take drugs or excessive alcohol are angry underneath. In fact, they are full of rage. In one way or another, drugs, self harm, food issues, and a host of other behaviors are a person's way of trying to cope with the pain and manage their emotions.

The answer by now must be obvious. Regardless of what your symptoms and issues are right now, the underlying contributing factor that needs to be looked at is resentment.

If you could let the resentment go, you could become unblocked. Perhaps you can see that you are resentful. You can see that others, beginning with your absent dad and your unloved mother, have failed you. Everyone failed you and betrayed you. So you have hated them all.

Perhaps you can see that letting go of resentment is what you need to do. But something is preventing you. For one thing, you are lost in a mental fog. You somehow get through the day, partially lost in everything you do. Your mobile device, your computer, your music, your friends, your meds, your issues keep you occupied and preoccupied. But they also betrayed you. There are no answers there.

You would like to come to the inner Light, to see everything I have been saying, but to see it in the Light of someone who loves you. Someone who knows all about you, but does not judge you or hate you. Someone who understands. And when you realize and sense the loving presence, someone who validates and does not deny what you know in your heart, then you could realize that you are forgiven. And when you realize that you are forgiven, then it would be easy to forgive others.

What you need is presence of mind - you need to come back to the kind of consciousness you once had before you were traumatized long ago.

With a bright presence of mind, not lost in your imagination, you could begin to realize solutions in the light. What you need is to meditate. But it has to be a meditation that is inspired by the right source and one that leads you to your Creator, not to just more visualizations or false comfort.

If you would like to learn more about meditation, visit our 24/7 self help resource center at www.commonsensecounseling.org

A free meditation for busy people can be accessed at www.easymeditation.tk


I am please to have discovered some new resources to share with you.

Ever so often I run across an author, researcher, or a mental health professional or cleric who gets it.

I will never forget something that R. D. Laing said.  He said that a person who was hospitalized for for mental health issues told him:

"The ones who understand, can't help. And the ones who can help, don't understand."

So I am pleased to discover mental health professionals who both understand (or at least have some understanding) and who are also in a position to help.

I myself have been getting better from early traumas, but as the years go by, I still notice things coming off the assembly line to be observed, understood, and healed.

When about a year ago, I suddenly experienced tachycardia, I used it as an opportunity to learn more about mind body interaction.

Hopefully I can put what I have discovered in an upcoming book, or at least some lectures and blog posts, but for now I want to just get a couple of new sources of information out there. I know that some of you are looking for insights into your stress reactions and into your ptsd.

Of course, I recommend that you go to my 24/7 resource center and check out the meditation training that I have, and check out the free 5 minute meditation and the free meditation mobile app for your mobile device or android. I also have a new free easy meditation, which is great for busy people. It is short, simple, and easy to learn.

If after trying the easy meditation or the 5 minute meditation, and you find it helpful, you could possibly try my special meditation for ptsd (or the one for anger management), the classic 4 part meditation, or read some of my books, which are easy to read, such as Conquering Stress.

But I also always like to share resources from others I have found that are helpful.

For example, I recently read  A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain by Marilee Strong.

While reading this book (which I think is a very good read), I encountered reference to   Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited and with chapters by Bessel A. van der Kolk, Alexander C. McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth.

This is just an excellent book for both mental health professionals and for people who want to read something thoughtful and well reserached about traumatic stress.

In fact, here is a short video by Dr. van der Kolk

 


Dr. van der Kolk seems to have a nice grasp of  the issue of how a victim  of trauma gets trapped in the past. He also has an insight, one I have long known, and which I am so glad to see him validating:




The person who is experiencing post traumatic symptoms or flashbacks loses a sense of time. But if that person can mentally stand back and observe the symptoms in a detached way, he or she immediately regains their sense of time and then can watch or observe their emotions and also know that the emotions will soon diminish and be gone.

In other words, calm observation in the present is how to handle various emotional symptoms and flashbacks that intrude into the present.

It's called the eternal now, and I think my meditation helps a person to find and stay in this blessed present. 

Here is another short video from Dr. Van der Kolk. He talks about inability to focus as well as affect dysregulation. Again I think he is on to something. I strongly suspect that my tachycardia, though I see that there are purely physiological triggers, also has to do with affect dysregulation transferred down to heart rate--something like the pounding heart I used to experience having to face a bully from my past.  






Here is an excellent, perhaps the best, presentation I have seen on childhood trauma.





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