This podcast explores healing from complex trauma, emphasizing the importance of witnessing our own wounds and the role of parts work. It delves into the power of connection, unlearning bad theology, and embracing ambiguity in the healing journey. The speaker also shares their personal experience of losing faith and highlights the significance of witnessing and being witnessed in moments of pain. The chapter ends by discussing the stages of healing from spiritual trauma and the transformative power of pain for growth and reconnection.
Dr. Judith Herman's model of healing trauma involves three stages: safety, remembering and mourning, and reconnection, each focusing on different aspects of the healing process.
Witnessing someone's pain and trauma is crucial for their healing, promoting connection, reducing isolation, and validating their experiences.
Healing trauma also involves inner witnessing, where individuals learn to witness and validate their own experiences and emotions, fostering self-awareness and self-compassion.
Deep dives
Three Stages of Healing Trauma
Dr. Judith Herman proposes three stages for healing trauma: safety, remembering and mourning, and reconnection. The first stage, safety, involves building a healing relationship and creating an environment where the trauma survivor feels safe and supported. This may require removing oneself from triggering or harmful environments. The second stage, remembering and mourning, focuses on processing the trauma and recognizing its impact on one's life. It involves exploring and expressing the emotions and memories associated with the trauma. The final stage, reconnection, involves integrating the trauma into one's life and finding ways to move forward and regain a sense of connection and purpose.
The Power of Witnessing
Bearing witness to someone's pain and trauma is an essential part of healing. It involves truly seeing and acknowledging the person's experiences, validating their feelings, and providing a safe space for them to share their story. The act of witnessing can promote healing by fostering connection, reducing feelings of isolation, and allowing the person to feel heard and understood. It is important to approach witnessing with empathy and compassion, honoring the person's boundaries and offering support in a way that feels safe and empowering for them.
Inner Witnessing and Self-Reflection
In addition to external witnesses, the process of healing trauma also involves inner witnessing, wherein individuals learn to witness and validate their own experiences and emotions. This entails developing self-awareness, recognizing and nurturing the core self or inner witness within, and creating a supportive internal environment. Inner witnessing allows individuals to observe their pain, trauma, and parts of themselves with love, compassion, and understanding. It involves building a relationship with the self and developing the capacity to listen, validate, and hold space for one's own experiences and emotions. Inner witnessing is a vital tool for self-reflection, healing, and personal growth.
Importance of witnessing and social support in healing from trauma
One key insight from the podcast is the significance of witnessing and social support in the healing process for individuals who have experienced trauma. The episode emphasizes that when individuals share their traumatic experiences, it is crucial for them to be believed, acknowledged, and emotionally cared for by others. The presence of a supportive social network can both manage the body's response to trauma and boost mental and physical health. However, the podcast also highlights that in the context of spiritual trauma, many individuals may lack the social support they need and may even face blame or misunderstanding. Building relationships, slowing down, and creating spaces where people can be truly seen and validated are essential for creating a culture of healing and restoration.
The three phases of trauma healing: Reconstruction, Reprocessing, and Reconnection
Another key point discussed in the podcast is the three-phase journey of healing trauma: Reconstruction, Reprocessing, and Reconnection. Reconstruction involves making meaning of the trauma and allowing for grief about what happened. It emphasizes the importance of creating safety in the present and looking back on the trauma with clear eyes. Reprocessing involves reprocessing memories of the trauma, often through trauma therapies, and allowing for the expression of grief. Lastly, Reconnection focuses on reconnecting with oneself, others, and the broader world after trauma. It involves envisioning a future aside from the trauma and finding purpose in helping others. The podcast emphasizes that healing from trauma is a unique and individual journey, and that individuals deserve the space and support they need to heal in their own way.
When a function of spiritually traumatic environments is to tell us that we are broken and in need of healing, and healing we are told looks one specific way, beginning to piece together a future on the other side of that can feel confusing. What is healing, and what is just a recreation of the stories that hurt us in the first place? In this episode, we discuss healing from complex trauma and what it means to begin to witness ourselves, turning towards the places inside of us that carry wounds. We discuss parts work, Judith Herman’s model of recovery, and hear from Dr. Alison Cook and J.S. Park.
For transcript and show notes, visit holyhurtpodcast.com
Credits
Written and recorded by: Hillary McBride
Guests: Dr. Alison Cook, J.S. Park
Executive producer: Leslie Roberts
Sound editing: Bradley Danyluk and Micaela Peragallo
Music and scoring: Jon Guerra, adapted from the album Ordinary Ways, strings performed by Valerie Guerra
Logo and art: Courtney Searcy
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