CoffeePods
A series exploring Christian healing in a handy coffee-break sized podcast. Plug yourself in, pick up your mug of coffee, and let's go.
CoffeePods
Healing Beyond Trauma: Finding Growth in Brokenness
It's time for another episode of Coffee Pods with the Aitken Christian Healing Foundation and your host Lisa Way and the Reverend Chris Crane. Grab a brew and make yourself comfortable as we explore what's happening in the world from the perspective of Christian healing what's happening in the world in the perspective of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:So there are three of us today for Coffee Pod. So I'll just start by saying hi, this is Lisa. You might recognize my voice. Hello, lisa. Hello, I'm sure it sounds like first day of school, doesn't it my name?
Speaker 1:is fantastic. We have Lisa in England, chris in england, chris in america and sarah in canada.
Speaker 3:International acorn goes international this is so great.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic time zones oh my goodness, we span the whole day what's the time zone difference for you guys in north carolina and we're?
Speaker 1:plus five to you right now. The only reason I know that's because I was up in the middle of the night talking to my wife. She was having her morning coffee and sarah.
Speaker 2:What about you, uh eight?
Speaker 3:hours, eight hours different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, that's amazing oh, so we've asked Sarah to join us because you're able to speak into a topic that we briefly touched on in our last podcast. But before I ask you to share a little bit about that and what's coming up for our Acorn team, do you want to just give a little idea of who you are, so those who are listening can get to know you?
Speaker 3:thanks, lisa. Yeah, I, I've had the pleasure of being part of acorn, for goodness. I think I've been aware of you guys for like over a decade now, or just just about a decade, um. So first as a guest and um, then helping with uh, a digital healing hub, and as a trustee, and so it's just a joy to serve with ACORN in different capacities and to continue to keep learning. I love that as an organization we have so much really excellent training and I love that. I'm a lifelong learner, so that makes me happy, it feeds me.
Speaker 3:But I'm a theologian. I am interested in Christianity in Africa actually, and looking at different yeah, just different expressions of theological engagement in the world and kind of issues of how faith and culture intersect. And that's a long way from trauma, but it has intersected with my work in recent years and so I've been just really interested, excited, eager to keep learning about how our brains, our bodies, our nervous systems, our emotions, how we as whole people respond to trauma and what we even mean by that, and how healing happens and how transformation and revitalization and sometimes we would call it post-traumatic growth, how all these positive things can come out of really challenging situations. So it's an area I've been doing a lot of reading and research in and just eager to see how it overlaps with ACORN, because of course we believe that God wants us whole body, mind and soul and that healing takes place on lots of different levels and that there is not any, there's no pain or physical pain or illness or experience that god can't bring healing and freedom to so let me read a quote.
Speaker 1:I in my reading last week. I knew we were going to talk about trauma and I found this quote. Um, I don't even know this author, but but it was a quote within something I was reading by Cynthia Ocelli, maybe is the name. I've never seen her before, but let me read a quote and you respond to this, because I've been chewing on this for days. For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction wow I.
Speaker 1:I keep thinking about how, for a seed to actually grow into a plant, it has to break and then take a new root. Tell me your response. How did that hit you?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's a beautiful example, and sort of really easy to understand example, of what we would call post-traumatic growth and that the exciting thing to me about again just using that term post-traumatic growth, or the transformation or the healing on the other side, it is not a restoration to the way things were before, it is actually growth beyond that, and if we think of our Christian story and we think of the crucifixion of christ a very traumatic event and what looked like the end it was just the extreme, um, bitter disappointment of people's expectations for a messiah very traumatic and yet without death we don't have resurrection, and we know that the resurrected christ was constitutionally different than the living christ. Something happened there and so when I see that model of trauma and transformation, it just gives me such hope because it means exactly like you say, like a seed cracking and essentially dying in the ground. What looks to us, what looks hopeless, what looks like a catastrophic um ending is often or can be a catalyst to those that couldn't have come.
Speaker 1:That seed can't grow into a plant without that dying and cracking so I the thing I was reading was about deep loneliness, and so I was exploring this concept of how some people respond to trauma by isolation or different things, and so I was reading this chapter about what is deep loneliness and, um, the there was like a list.
Speaker 1:The author put a list of signs like you overshare, or you feel like you're the disposable person in a group when you're having a conversation, or you're always putting other people's needs before your own needs, um, or that you feel like you've got to be overly helpful all the time, or isolated, or or maybe you sit around and you don't feel like you belong at all, and and what I didn't realize, this author is suggesting that you know people that are obsessive with friendships. Um, many of them are actually suffering from, uh, this escalation to deep loneliness, and I thought, wow, you could find yourself in the chaos of the world and yet be more isolated than ever before, and and and that could be a trauma response. So, again, that was some of my reading this week. I was just so fascinated because I've always thought that, um, people that were in crowds were often not quiet people, and yet so many people need to be in the crowd to try and counter this deep feeling of loneliness in their heart, and I guess you're going to explore some of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm excited to just look at with our team, looking at even what is trauma from a very specific kind of a brain perspective and that's not my expertise, but looking at that in simple terms because it's a term we use.
Speaker 3:We hear quite a lot just in in our media and popular culture and it could mean anything from disappointment to stress to extreme devastation.
Speaker 3:But so, understanding a little bit from a brain perspective, um, kind of what psychologists would tell us what is trauma and what are responses to trauma, so that we as prayer teams, as volunteers, have a little bit more insight into what might be going on with some of our guests and even with ourselves and even, you know, in our circles, but then equally thinking about what are different ways then that we approach somebody who might be experiencing trauma, as opposed to just stress or disappointment or sadness, Because you're right, there can be different approaches and different responses.
Speaker 3:Like you say, loneliness people you know people could be lost in a crowd and really lonely, and in the same way with trauma, people's behavior might look um, unusual to us. We might think that doesn't, that reaction doesn't seem to fit the circumstance, and this is just I, you know it's not, it's not to give us training in psychology. We're not counselors, we're not psychologists, we're not counselors, we're not psychologists, we're not doctors. But it can be helpful to just have a little bit more insight sometimes into what might be going on, so that we can just kind of guide our prayer times a little bit more. I want to say strategically, but knowledgeably maybe is a good term.
Speaker 1:Lisa, what do you think about all this trauma talk?
Speaker 2:Well, as I'm just hearing it, I'm thinking, well, what the main thing is. We experience people coming to our hubs and just life holding and living in a response to trauma. So often it just seems so common, which breaks my heart. But then I also the question that was just going around my head as you were sharing was is trauma bad? Um, and it made me then think about sort of like, when we talk about, is being angry bad as a christian, there's righteous anger and then there's not. But it just made me then think is trauma bad? And I just wondered whether, sarah, you had we I know we're not here doing your training today, but had any sort of light on that, because it's obviously very complex.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean I think it's helpful to always say traumatic situations are never good. A Christian perspective we can do people a disservice with some of the mindsets or some of the teachings that we hear that would say you know God intended this harm for your good, or God just doesn't give you more than you can handle. So if really terrible things have happened, I guess you know God just knows you're up for it and so isn't that a blessing, and it can be really deeply wounding to people who are in trauma, and so we don't want to see it that way. But again, coming back to just thinking about the crucifixion and resurrection, there isn't a resurrection without a crucifixion and that that was a necessary part and it was extremely traumatic in every way.
Speaker 3:Jesus experienced physical trauma, and something we're going to talk about as well is secondary trauma, vicarious trauma that the disciples and those gathered at witnessing this were traumatized, even though they're not experiencing the physical pain, and that we as prayer volunteers sometimes experience vicarious trauma from the stories we hear, and so we want to talk about how to take good care of ourselves in that process. But coming back to your, your comment, lisa is trauma always bad? Well then, we would say what was the crucifixion bad? We would say it was necessary and it was. Um, it wasn't. It wasn't because, you know, god was punishing somebody. It wasn't because, uh, god just said, well, jesus is up to the task, so we'll let him suffer. Um, it was.
Speaker 3:There was a purpose and it was redeemable, there was redemption, and so to me, the encouragement is that that it's not so much maybe is trauma good or bad, but how can God use it, and that if we are looking for healing, we're looking for redemption, we're looking for wholeness. That is always possible and that is always God's heart. And God wants to leave us even better than we were. And so to say, can he use my suffering, can he use this guest's trauma to bring them to an even better state? And that answer is yes, and so to me, that privilege of coming alongside people to see how God wants to transform that trauma, that is what is exciting. But it's never that the trauma itself is good, or God intends it, and so on.
Speaker 1:My children, sarah, used to say why is Good Friday called good? It doesn't sound like a very good day. And I said the Lord Jesus transforms the badness of Friday into something glorious. And I said imagine you're wearing the symbol of the death sentence in Roman times as a symbol of hope that the cross itself has been transformed. And a friend of mine, an old mentor of mine from my Duke University days he's a retired pastor and Stephen's a wonderful person he actually sent me a quote from TS Elliott this week and he said Jesus is the still point of a turning world A TS Elliott quote and I thought Stephen shared that and I thought it's so important to know that, even in the chaos of change and trauma, that Jesus is still and God Almighty and the Holy Spirit, which we celebrated at Pentecost this past week, that that is our calm place, where we go to make sure that our broken shell casing allows the seed to bury itself and grow into new life.
Speaker 1:And so I think it's going to be great when we have the teaching with you, because you cause me to think sideways and about things in new ways and I think that's a sign of somebody who's a very good teacher and you make comments that take me to different places and it forces me out of my comfort zone and I have to think wait a minute, what do I think about that? And so I think our training program is going to be something that no one would want to miss, and I know it's only two hours, but I know you're going to keep the boundaries on that. But you know, I imagine people may say when can we do this again? Because it will be helpful. You know, I imagine people may say when can we do this again? Because it will be helpful.
Speaker 1:And for people who are praying with folks who come with trauma, to have some skills, some new tools in the basket to actually be constructive in their prayer, but also to protect their own hearts, I think it's going to be a, a great event. What a, what a blessing that acorn gets to offer this to our, to the home team, to our own people, um, for them to come and and take part in something like this. Um, it'll be the best. Two, two hours on a. Is it a thursday? What's the date of the uh of our training for the team?
Speaker 2:let's do the 19th uh of june, seven till nine, um, so that's, that is is in house, it's for our volunteer team and, honestly, that's quite a good reason to join the team, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think we're going to keep it tight on purpose. We want it to be intimate on purpose and everybody's going to be jealous and they'll just have to be jealous and then we'll do something for the rest of the world another day, but this is for us and it's great. Yeah, thank you for your, and then we'll do something for the rest of the world.
Speaker 3:Another day, but this is for us and it's great. Yeah, thank you for your kind words, chris. And something that I was saying to Lisa recently that just excites me, if we think about bringing some trauma training alongside of prayer ministry, is that I think you know sometimes we think, well, healing prayer, did anything happen? You know, I pray for this person and sometimes we hear really miraculous stuff, but sometimes you just think, did anything happen? But I said to Lisa, what has been really exciting to me to learn about is the way that our nervous systems as human beings are designed to what we call co-regulate, and that means that we are designed specifically to not be alone.
Speaker 3:Coming back to your thoughts on loneliness, that we are designed to heal in connection with one another and that maybe, if you think of the image of a little child with parents or caregivers nearby and the child child hurts themselves and what do they do? They go running. They go running for mom or dad or whomever, and so often what the adult will do? You put out your arms, you bring them in and if you think about even the words we tend to use for a child, we might say you're okay, you're okay and what is actually happening and we do this instinctively. But a child's system is dysregulated. Injury tells your brain you're in high alert, you're in danger, right, and you need to survive. You go to your safe person and the safe person, the caregiver's system, is calm, peaceful. They provide that containment, that that boundary, and they tell the child you're okay, you're not in danger, and it brings that system right down. And this happens as adults too. So you know, if you've ever been in a conversation with somebody who's really anxious and you think that made me feel a bit anxious it's because our systems kind of sync up, whereas when you come bringing peace and calm and somebody comes in distress, we're essentially providing that same kind of care to say you're okay, you're safe, and their system comes right down.
Speaker 3:And this is what is happening when we pray with guests. And so I said to Lisa what makes me so excited is that 100% of the time when we pray with guests. And so I said to lisa, what makes me so excited is that a hundred percent of the time when we pray for guests, healing is occurring. Whether we see something like wildly miraculous or not, our systems are co-regulating. We are providing safety, peace. We're telling their system you're okay, you're not in danger, and that it allows their brain, their nervous system, to actually just come down and for them to take a breath. It may not resolve their, their situation in that moment, but it brings. We need a sense of safety for our systems to even allow healing, because if our system is in danger, we stay on high alert. Because God has designed us so, amazingly, we stay on high alert. Isn't that wonderful?
Speaker 1:I mean what you've said, and I don't know if you saw, there was an absolutely beautiful butterfly that literally just flew right across in front of me while you were saying this. And I thought this is an hallelujah moment when you said that and was like it's true, healing does happen, even if you don't see it or not aware of it, it's happening, and so I mean that to me is so exciting. Yeah, um, to have faith, to know that, when you, you know it, it's um, no, I'm just without words because I'm sitting here and I was, I'm sitting in the middle of the woods and, uh, hearing birds and everything, and then you said that and I got tingly and a butterfly flew across and I went that's the lord saying yes, you know big, yes yeah, well, on friday I think it's friday we met and you were telling me this and I was just like that's amazing.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, that's crazy that our presence because we of god, yeah, is constantly giving and giving healing and I, I really I wanted to just text the whole team and be like you've got to hear this, because yes we have so many team who go, I don't know if anything was really happening or I wasn't a great place. Um, you know, there's all these reasons, which are valid, of why we're wondering if healing is taking place in that moment with someone, and then you think, of course it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Sarah. The thing that immediately popped in my head is how many times I've prayed in the hospital with people and I've watched the heart rate on the machine change while we pray. And, of course, nurses would be like, oh my goodness, what's going on? Their heart rate's changing. And what you're telling me is there is something quite real and scientific, as well as spiritual, and I have seen that happen a hundred times. I cannot tell you how many times I've held hands in the hospital and began praying for healing and I've watched vital signs change in that moment. Yeah, and I do believe that there is something quite supernatural going on, but there's also something quite natural going on at the same time, and I celebrate that Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Chris, absolutely. There's an American psychiatrist, christian psychiatrist, by the name of Kurt Thompson and he has written a number of books and he has started a center called the Center for being Known and he calls himself a neurotheologian Neurotheologian brilliant term because he talks about you know. He's qualified to explain to us the full physiological, biological, chemical systems that are at play. But he looks at that alongside a scriptural perspective and said but it makes sense, because we see this in scripture, we see this in our design, we see it in our biology, and so the two really link up. It's not science or faith, it's not science or Bible, it's that they both work together. So I love that, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1:So our CoffeePod listeners they get a little taste. But if you're a member of our training team, you're going to get to actually participate in a course. And the CoffeePod listeners who want us to offer you a course, well, you'll just have to send us a text or an email and we'll just have to schedule something in Sarah's busy schedule to accommodate you. But for the time being, I'm afraid the actual course you only get this little skimming rock across the pond today and you get a little taste of the goodness of the teaching that our academies do and their academies are going to come back into life, of the goodness of the teaching that our academies do and their academies are going to come back into life at the end of the summer and there'll be lots of stuff happening and now's the time to get involved. It's a good time in the life of ACORN, where we're kind of breathing new air onto these coals and seeing flames appear in new places.
Speaker 1:So I think John Wesley said, because I preached at a Methodist church this week and so I found myself reading Wesley's stuff and one of my favorite quotes of Wesley was God grant me that I may never live to be useless. And so I find myself thinking at this chapter in my life that, whatever I do, I just don't want to be useless, and I think there are a lot of people that are involved in acorn that some of their motivation is to be useful to god. And um, I think now, maybe more than ever in history, the world needs trained, compassionate people who are aware of healing and who are aware of prayer and who are willing to give up of their time to be an instrument of God for the greater good of the world. So if you feel useless and you're listening to this podcast, well, I could give you about 50 different options where you can plug yourself in and feel a whole lot better about making a difference in this crazy world.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And when you realize that it doesn't require all kinds of special skill sets, but when we realize that just our presence, whether in person or online, but but our, our self, our presence, makes a difference. So that's just so exciting to me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome, great. Well, sarah, thank you for just sharing a little bit of truth and excitement. It's really good. And yeah, as Chris said, for those of you who are listeners, we'll catch you at the next podcast. For those of you who are on our team, we will see you at the training on the 19th of June. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Thanks guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to Coffee Pods today. Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe.
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