At a meeting at work about vicarious trauma--how therapists can become traumatized by helping others with trauma--I was given this essay about the effects trauma can have on a person's spirituality. The whole thing was great, and particularly pertinent to the journey I've been on, where the trauma was the problems with spirituality. I want to share the concluding paragraph. I find it inspiring and hopeful.
In receiving appropriate care, compassion, and direction, victims can overcome the destructive impact of trauma, break through restrictive approaches to life, and become more soulful and compassionate beings in the process. Traumatic injuries, when accompanied by love and understanding, do not become places of deadness, denial, and disease. Rather, they become bridges of compassion that connect victims to all sentient beings. Survivors accept that they can be broken, overwhelmed, and rendered powerless. These realizations are not considered shameful (as they were at the beginning of the journey) but are now recognized as the common ground that connects victims to all forms of life. Becoming comfortable with one's inherent capacity to be rendered powerless enables survivors to encounter the brokenness and wounds of others without fear. Survivors want to do everything possible to decrease the gulf of disconnection separating victims from others while simultaneously helping them realize that the loss of their former ways of being in the world, despite the tremendous pain involved, is an opportunity to discover the Spirit living at the core of their being.
This is part of why I love doing therapy. I can play a part in helping someone transition out of deadness, denial, and disease and toward a more soulful and compassionate life. And I think in any context, building bridges of compassion is one of most beautiful things a person can experience.
The world breaks everyone and some become strong at the broken places. ~Faulkner
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