Navigating Through Trauma

Chapter 6 Creating from Within The conviction that Creator God desires all people to enjoy the pleasure of being creatively engaged in the world we live in, is embedded within my soul. Perhaps even more during times of pain and suffering. We know that creativity originated with God. God the Father created the world (Gen 1:1) through God the Son (Col.1:16; Heb.1:2). All creation was made through Him. Thus, He is the Creator God and the ultimate source of creativity. The ancient Greek philosophers explored creativity as a concept and introduced us to the process of poiesis which happens when we are creative. Poiesis [ποίησις] means “an activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.” This chapter is an invitation to, through the process of poiesis create art and reflect on inner experiences that caused you suffering. Added to the invitation is a request that you engage with the process in a prayerful stance, infused with a heart’s desire to do it as a worshiper of the Living God. When pain and turmoil have invaded our lives, we must earnestly engage with a deeper sense of adoration and worship of the Trinity. This is not easy. That is why we often refer to praise as a sacrifice. Praise and worship become even more meaningful when they align with Scripture. The act of faithful obedience will enable you to move through, and away from the hurt and pain that have kept you in bondage. Creative praise and worship when manifested through artmaking is beautiful and glorious. Many trauma victims who surrender in adoration to the Lord, can testify how they discovered this way of processing to give them new insight and a pathway to life and hope again. Using art to help with your trauma healing management is an intensely personal process. During intentional self-discovery and in-depth meaning-making of externalized art images and self-reflections about your pain story, you engage with processing of the trauma which helps you to discover new-in-depth meaning about your emotional wounding. Reflecting about the art image that you create allows for the trauma to show itself as a ‘thingly thing.” Allowing the trauma and its impact to emerge as an image that you can explore, is very helpful. Art therapists call this image, or ‘thingly thing” that people create about the trauma experience, a phenomenon, which can be investigated in depth to help you understand what happened with you during the critical incident. Psychologist Stephen Levine, a trauma expert, says, “We need to let the phenomenon speak, help it to name itself, to tell its story.” So, when trauma emerges as a phenomenon or an image that you have created through artmaking, not only can it speak to you and tell you what you do not understand about your pain and suffering, but in turn it helps if you engage actively with the image that represents your trauma. This creative process and way of communication will help you to remember, and it also aids you to reframe and put the experience in a wider context. By doing that, you are enabled, and empowered, to re-member and re-story your painful encounters. This will provide you with an entirely different perspective. Preparations for the Journey This chapter is dedicated to preparing you for how to engage safely with trauma self-processing. Engaging with trauma processing requires deliberate action. Revisiting the dark trenches of trauma chaos also requires courage and can be likened to travelling into outer space. It demands preparation, determination and discipline. These steps and conditions must be explored and applied throughout the reading of this book if you desire trauma to be fully addressed and integrated as a cohesive life story. Intentional self-reflection means confronting the core of who you are. This is often very scary, but oh, so necessary. Avoiding addressing and challenging the issues that caused so much pain in the past will keep you trapped in darkness, where you will experience loneliness, fear, and anguish. Addressing and confronting your pain with self-compassion is essential. A crucial condition for effective self-care during self-reflection is to feel emotionally safe and stable before you engage with trauma processing. How does one stabilize your emotions? How do we create a safe space to launch into deeper emotional processing? Grounding and Anchoring Must Happen First Memory processing or trauma work can only begin when we feel safe and emotionally stable. It is important to ground and emotionally anchor yourself on something that you know to be true to you before you engage with a painful situation, or when you prepare to revisit painful memories. What can be safer than being in the presence of God? In Psalm 22:3 we read that God is enthroned in the praises of Israel. He is covenantal in this commitment, yes God’s throne and authority are established in the praise of his children. This is the place He rules from. From his throne healing can flow to you after trauma has shattered your life. Praise and worship can start with your breathing. By deliberately focusing your mind on God and His character when you breathe intentionally, you already unlock an attitude of praise. Focusing on Emmanuel, God with us, you can invite Holy Spirit’s guidance throughout the therapeutic process. You will need Holy Spirit to guide you. This is vital because when we process trauma at the cellular and spiritual level, we must engage with our spirit, and we need His Spirit to do that effectively. Another way to stabilize and regulate your emotions is to have enough oxygen in your brain. I suggest that you incorporate regular deep breathing exercises as a daily practice. You can do that by drawing your awareness to your breath. Breathe deep, strong, and slow breaths. You can even take a sip of water before you do that. Breathe in and out… Relax your shoulders. As a reminder, these breaths are not meant for survival only, but they also have another special purpose, you need to breathe God’s praises into the atmosphere. In your grounding, let your very breath continue to bring worship to God. Believers do not praise God only because they feel like it, but because He is worthy of it. Psalm 29:2 says, “Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”