Christ, the healer of CPTSD Part II

Complex PTSD isn't just trending on instagram, it's trending in every single human's nervous system. And we'll hear ten second clickbait make efforts to spiritualize it--"the person in the family who finally feels generational trauma is the family priest"--but there's a need for something more robust. [bxA]  The fact is, John Cassian listed "trauma" as a legitimate impetus for conversion, but (owing to how unclean our baggage appears) the Church itself is sluggish in embracing this and still more incapable of forming and advising those whose faith arose in suffering. Incarnation, (meeting survival needs) is a trauma. Watching an innocent man be crucified is a trauma. Scripture says God will "punish children for the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation." The degree to which God punishes may be up for debate, but the weight of unprocessed generational trauma is not.  Whether or not we agree with this intellectually, our nerve endings know the truth of it.

The world religions that claim "life is suffering" are absolutely right. The role of the Cross in communal grief has been under-examined. Christ was right to accept suffering over avoidance. Christianity is grief work, first of the death of Christ, then of our own deaths. Whether "one who finally feels communal trauma" is called a priest, a prophet, a suffering servant--the name isn't the important part. Most significant is the fact that Christ embodied all three, that we will do the same whether we like it or not. Trauma, finally felt, is either consecrated as a sacred offering, or it increases suffering immeasurably.

On a nervous system level, avoidance of suffering costs us dearly. We long for a security we don't have. Manipulating to suffice our survival needs is an option: that possibility manifests in the mind itself, as thoughts of gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, wrath, vanity and pride. But the wage of manipulation is paranoia. We long for a degree of control that escapes us. Spiritualizing to avoid facing powerlessness is an option. Even if we gain a sense of the beauty of the "self," avoidance of lack of control manifests as self pity, blame, self righteousness, shame, rationalization, resentment, worry and entitlement. But the result of acting on these thoughts is anxiety. There's no harm in saying the self is beautiful. The harm comes when benefit or advantage is sought because of it. It's confirmed by disappointed expectations. When the Apostles asked Jesus what they'd receive for all they'd given up, all Jesus added was persecutions--then he left them with disappointed expectations. With suffering and struggle left in place post-redemption, the real miracle is "choosing to value small, impermanent joys" over and against something flashier, and despite hardship. This (and connection with those who do likewise) is the core of Christian transformation. 

Examination of Complex PTSD's specific symptoms--and how they are transformed into gifts--pays massive dividends.  People with CPTSD intellectualize as a survival mechanism: limitedly, the artifice of theology or wisdom can assist with this, so long as "the moment to let go of intellect and ground in the body" is intuited correctly. But tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away, and the only thing left will be love. And listen: love and presence are the same. It's a sweet spot that avoids denial on the one end, and running the show on the other.  But love cannot always be tidily conceptualized or verbalized.  And if we over-identify love with positive thought and sensations, suffering will function, with difficult kindness, as a corrective. 

People with CPTSD struggle to identify normalcy.  They have often been told their responses are odd, that they can't deal with "life as it is."  The truth is different: people with CPTSD have normal reactions to dysfunctional situations--which they're then gaslit into believing are normal.  One of the most important functions of scripture is this: emotional recognition.  Jesus flipped tables and wept.  He was troubled, but understood being troubled as "a task at hand" through which God could be glorified.  The psalms express a whole spectrum of desolation, feelings of dehumanization, wrath, vengeance, paranoia.  And when we who are traumatized read about them, we become safe enough to say "so that's what that sensation is called!"  Face time with the scriptures is important for emotional literacy.

People with CPTSD often have racing thoughts--in ways that mimic obsessive compulsive or bipolar thought patterns.  The difficulty is this--those thoughts aren't always negative.  Racing thoughts can be about, for instance, faith.  They can feel quite blissful, and can offer a real alternative to addictive behavior.  In that way, blissful racing thoughts are a mercy; and yet they may still be a trauma response.  This is why God was silent while Elijah told him, three times, that he'd been zealous for the Lord and they were seeking his life.  God knew the racing thoughts were a trauma response: the is why God was not in earthquake, wind or fire, but why he was absolutely present in the still small voice of silence. 

People with CPTSD have difficult relationships with mind, emotions and nervous system. The Trinity is, in the first place, a personification of how the mind works: in other words, fragmented minds choose deities with moving parts. The Father becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we straighten out the mind. The Son becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we work out our emotions. The Holy Spirit becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we learn to regulate our nervous system.  The arising of the trinity within--what the Greek Orthodox Church calls "theosis" or "deification--comes specifically out of trauma induced fragmentation of the psyche.  

People with CPTSD store trauma in the body. The prophets very often felt generational trauma viscerally. Elijah was so depressed he asked the Lord to take his life. Ezekiel saw a field of dry bones, most likely his own, and had to reframe pent up trauma by prophesying to the flesh.  He had to calm the nervous system by prophesying to the breath.  My body and yours may have been slapped around too much, and will then permanently brace.  We'll have pain we can't explain in the very spots that were struck, until we go to that spot, speak soothingly to the body consistently enough that it can finally relax.  It is a hard, necessary obligation.

People with CPTSD dissociate: when we come out of denial, dissociation feels negative. After a while it begins simply to feel numb, and after that, we realize dissociation is preferable to attachment. When we deal with the suffering of life increasingly head on, we are freed from attachment in real time. The task then becomes to fill that space with virtue and the various transformations of theosis--learning to bear up under stress and become the Christ you've received.

People with CPTSD are hypervigilant: when the ego becomes quiet, the energy behind this can become deep acceptance of reality as it is. Life can be full of alternating bliss and pain, full of alternating attraction and aversion, and the individual practitioner remains still. To craving and clinging, there is always a cost. Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  Attempting to control or find security based on ego, craving or desire will always take a toll in anxiety.

People with CPTSD struggle with identity. The demoniac said "my name is Legion, for we are many."  Martha was worried and concerned about many things.  Mary was possessed by eight demons. Let us remember: ego is an umbrella concept that is driven by many different compulsive thoughts. But ego is a preoccupation that quickly shows its ineffectiveness--eventually, the demoniac was gashing himself with rocks. The "many preoccupations" yield as one becomes grounded in the body. The vehicle of this is the name of Jesus, repeated as mantra. Giving attention to the feeling of sound, we increasingly see the worth of giving ourselves something to feel that's neither a drug nor anxiety. The question "who am I" ceases to be as important as "how do I give meaningful attention to the sound of the name?" 

People with cptsd struggle to feel understood. No one understands the trauma, and no one understands the spiritual awakening. It is hard to figure out which spiritual thoughts are socially significant, and which are merely individually significant. The prophet Jeremiah said "When I said 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' then within me there is something like a burning fire, shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot." Verbal impulsivity is a trauma response, often referred to as "trauma dumping." Legion, after being healed, went off and proclaimed Christ in the decapolis--but this is a charitable framing indeed.  Confrontation with the limits of people's energy for understanding is swift.  St. Francis knew the pitfalls of going through life longing to be understood: he prayed "grant that I may never seek so much to be understood as to understand."  Suffering doesn't end, nor ultimately does it cease to be solitary or burdensome: instead it gains us empathy for the struggles of others.

For what it's worth, a spiritual program that better suited people with CPTSD would consist of five things: shadow work, via negativa spirituality, theosis, somatic body work, and mantra.  Shadow work is a practice of "being safe enough to look at what you've repressed."  The cross of Christ may seem like retraumatization, but devotion to the suffering and death of Christ can become a safe method of gradually facing and processing your own.  The Scriptures can be helpful in this regard--it can allow us to face our unhealthiest selves and embrace something better.  For example, take the wide acceptance of the "tongues of fire" metaphor for the holy spirit--it comes from Isaiah 5.  The fact is, the same spot says "woe to you who are heroes at drinking wine."  We all know that drinking is a tempting way to avoid grief, and that the apostles were certainly grieving.  It isn't a stretch to think acceptance of the tongues of fire image points to a realization that assisted in concretizing sobriety for those who overused it.   

Via negativa spirituality--a spirituality that distrusts thoughts as divine messages-- is important because the transactionality of negotiating survival needs can often feel blissful and be clothed in spiritual language--but it is still transactionality; it still falls short of trust in providence.  Manipulating in God's name is a possibility, and since God's name is "I AM" it is easily confused with ego--we can fall into it simply by forgetting that God's ways and our ways differ.  The famous "cloud of unknowing"--the mystical method for quickly letting go of understandings we cling to--can be useful whether those understandings are negative or positive.  

Theosis is simply the process of realizing that, as one greek orthodox catechumen said "I can do hard things."  Growth in virtue, in this case, is a manifestation of the indwelling of the Trinity.  Bearing uneven and unfair weight, being happy when reasons to be sad persist, and choosing fascination with beauty when horrific chaos persists--all of these are "God skills."  They show that the Father is arising within, of whom psalm 2 says "he who sits in the heavens laughs."  As we laugh along, our ears open to later lines in the same psalm, where the Father says to us "you are my son, it is I who have begotten you this day."  We need not wonder where the Father, Son, or, indeed, the Spirit are--they are the one within us whom we do not know. 

Somatic body work is a fancy modern term for "the body keeping the score."  The body will store what the mind fails to face and let go of.  When the patriarch Jacob "struggled with a divine being till daybreak" he was dealing with trauma stored in his hip.  He faced the tension and it blessed him but it left him with a permanent limp.  Such is the lot of those who "struggle with God and prevail.  The Desert Fathers are depicted as "struggling with demons"--and many of those struggles resolved as did the demoniac in Capernaum.  The man yelled "I know who you are, the holy one of God"--interestingly, excessive certainly clothed in faith is shown, here, to be demonic--and when the man became more able to sit with uncertainty the text says the spirit "came out of him, without having done him any harm."  

Mantra is important because "the feeling of sound" is, on a sensation level, a more pleasant feeling than anxiety.  Mantra's inner dimensions--slowly calling the mind to the name of Jesus (or whatever your mantra is)--this is easier to think about than the afflictive thoughts with which the mind attempts to secure survival needs.  Such prayers work their way slowly, making an echo chamber of the body by repeated practice.  First the sound becomes something that can be felt, then the vibrations assist in breaking up stored tension, then bodily sensations themselves come to represent prayer.  Finally, the sounds and people we're surrounded by begin, themselves, to pray the mantra.  This is what St. Paul talked about "in God we live and move and have our being."  It is also what St. Peter talked about when he said to the paralytic "in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk."

The desert fathers have a term, the word "penthos." (Theologians would also use the term "compunction." Both mean "healthy sorrow for sins.")  In a broader sense, the grief we are called to includes mourning our impermanence, suffering and death, as well as all of the generational trauma we've inherited.  And it brings us back to what is perhaps a fuller definition of Christ's priestly ministry.  The prophet Joel says "let the priests, between the vestibule and the altar, weep."  In Christ, we don't bemoan attachments and sins on behalf of others--as if we're an unblemished sacrifice, they're in denial, and we're doing them a favor.  We are becoming more aware of a malady common to us all, as Saint Paul said "there is not a good man left, no not even one."  About the process of becoming emotionally sober, a recovering alcoholic once humorously noted "I don't know why I expected the process to be cleaner than this.  I mean, I'm made of dirt!"  It turns out that our serenity itself consists of this: to remember we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  Earth and heaven, the stuff we're made of, will echo with anxiety till we do.

In the Name of Jesus: Mantra, an Apostolic Practice.

In past posts, we've talked a bit about how, according to the epistles, "Christ replaces self."  Paul said "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."  Intellectually, readers either grasped that, or didn't.  But investigating what lived-practice might have produced the intellectual belief may pay higher dividends than we anticipate.  As to what that "mystery practice" was, this text will hazard a single-worded suggestion: [bxA] mantra.  Such a guess assumes that, when acts 3:6 says "in the name of Jesus, rise and walk" it is pointing to a gradually deepening experience of "the feeling of sound."  When the body itself becomes the locus of Elijah's "cave experience," when our limbs themselves reverberate with "kol demamah dakkah" or "the sound of sheer silence," bets get placed on the accuracy of this intuition.  Indeed, "the feeling of sound" has the capacity to make us present to "things as they are" simply because the vibrations of sound are more appealing to feel than anxiety.  And here is a final guess, on which spiritual masters, any day of the week, might indeed wager honest money: in the epistles, one who remains with the feeling of sound is said to be "in the name of Jesus."

This is not a new experience.  The famous "Pilgrim" wandered about Russia praying "Jesus, mercy" constantly, feeling the intense desire for the prayer arise at various times.  Krishna Das said "my job is to pay attention to the sound of the Name, and to come back when I get distracted."  Fr. Chrysogonus of Gethsemani said "You do not take the word of God into your mouth.  Instead you enter into the Word, because the Word is bigger than you are." (He may have been paraphrasing Abraham Joshua Heschel, here, though memory is an unreliable servant.)  Ram Dass talks about that moment when "jappa" or mantra becomes "ajappa jappa"--the moment when "the mantra prays itself and I listen."  The dynamics of mantra practice are uniform across religious traditions.  This text concludes that the apostles had similar experience with the name of Jesus, and that the experience became a cornerstone of Christian humility. 

Here's how to do it.  Becoming as still as possible is advisable: by lying down, if you can manage to stay awake, by sitting in a chair: do whatever strikes a balance between minimizing discomfort and maximizing alertness.  Your ego will want to try to twist your body into a pretzel--it'll want to attempt full lotus or vajrassana because one "looks more spiritual" that way.  Do this if you must, but if you don't build up to those with years of practice, pulled muscles will convince you that stillness, not "the appearance of holiness" is the goal.

Take the word into your mouth.  Longer mantras will feed the intellect, such as "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."  Shorter mantras will focus you on sound itself such as "Jesus, mercy."  You'll notice the mantra is "one of many things you think about."  For a while, that's just fine.  There will come a time when the impulsion arises, to let go of things that aren't the mantra, and if you aren't operating heavy machinery when it does (if you can spare the attention safely,) follow that impulse.

Apply a bit of force with the lower abdomen, pushing the muscles inward and down.  This will decrease thoughts about things that aren't the mantra.  You may also begin to realize that you "feel sound more."  Where you feel the sound will shift, depending on where your body is carrying tension--the vibrations of sound will gradually break up stored tension.  Gently focus attention ("mind energy") and intention ("guts energy") on physical sensation, regardless of whether the sensation is pleasant or painful. Bliss will arise, let it go.  Pain will arise, stay with it till your desire to judge the sensation subsides.  As signs of intent and objects of attention, physical sensations themselves will come to stand in for words as the substance of prayer.  That shift is safe, natural, completely ok.

At some point, All physical sensations become the mantra.  All sounds become the mantra.  Your ego will say "this is so groovy" and "prayer is really happening." And if you can, minimize clinging and analysis by remaining with physical sensation.  Then, let go.  Demands of life will take over, marking a natural end of "practice time."   

And listen: this is a practice that leads to transformation.  Not a magical solution for ongoing problems.  Suffering will remain--the one enduring it will change.  The struggle for daily sustenance will remain--the one punching the time clock will change.  You will notice you need less control, fewer assurances of security to sustain practice.  This is a "God skill" to work and rejoice in life's nifty bits while stressors remain.  Glimmers of real growth will arise and subside--and those, while temporary, are significant indeed.

St. Paul was a cranky bloke, but his experience of prayer was certain.  Like the silliest goose in the gaggle, he boasted of his sufferings: he was shipwrecked, flogged, and occasionally homeless.  But he eventually looked at the "god unknown" and knew who it was.  He eventually said "in God we live, and move, and have our being."  He eventually could say "I have become all things to all people" even if it meant appearing a criminal, unjustly, to some.  Life is "everything, all at once" and some of it is hard.  Amidst impermanent joys and disappointed expectations, genuine contentment is a rare feeling, and an even rarer deliberate choice.  If our track record were half as good as mantra made the apostles, we would be fortunate indeed.

 

Christ, the healer of CPTSD

Christ, the healer of fragmented consciousness

Those living with CPTSD (or, who grow up in dysfunctional households,) can confirm this by lived experience: both pain and bliss fragment consciousness. [bxA]  To incarnate at all is to bear great risk--and to bear additional trauma worsens our suffering still more.  But listen: Martha was worried and concerned about many things, and there was need of only one thing.  The Adulterous woman committed many sins, but her judges dropped their rocks and she was left with Christ alone.  On the mount of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus: the building of multiple tents was suggested.  But after the fear and the cloud, the apostles, too, were left with Christ alone.  Legion's names were many, but, stilled by Christ's presence, he dropped the rocks he gashed himself with and sat, clothed and in his right mind.  Mind, emotions and nervous system long for stillness...failure to find it multiplies anxieties, makes life's inevitable sufferings infinitely worse.  We who know this commit to seeking diminishment of suffering for all sentient beings.  Messiahs and Buddhas have seen it together: for those living in a hell realm, kindness is the only sane response.  To live out of this realization is the beginning of awakening.

Indeed, the epistles teach that Christ replaces self.  The modern age is slightly incorrect when it says "if you were the last person on earth, Christ would have come just for you."  Note the slight and important nuance here: instead, the Christ of John's gospel says "because I live, you will live." We hear Holy Writ lay the groundwork: Christ is before all else that is, the firstborn of the dead.  Neither pain nor bliss are ours to build an ego story from.  Eventually, we become devoted to sensations we were once averse to--because we've come to know "the one within" who bears what we cannot.  Paul identifies him specifically, says "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."

The Eight Evil thoughts of the Lower and Higher Selves.

The Desert Fathers taught that a certain predictable set of compulsive thoughts would, in the emptiness of their solitude, pose itself as a solution to basic vulnerability.  Thousands of years later, they not only remain correct, they are widely recognized as the world's first psychologists.

Here is the kicker, though: there isn't just a single list of eight thoughts, there are two.  One pertains to the lower self, and the list of manipulative thoughts and behaviors with which we end run around our the struggle to get basic needs met.  The other pertains to the higher self, and to the challenges of those whose experiences of humility, contemplation, and the empty mind of Christ, though unquestionable, are also not yet permanent.

The "eight evil thoughts of the lower self" is a list of afflictions that come about as a response to initial solitude. Theologians will find it familiar.   The eight evil thoughts of the lower self are: gluttony (the compulsive thought about food),  greed (the compulsive thought about new possessions or status) sloth (the compulsive thought about life's pressures), sorrow (the compulsive thought about sadness), lust (the compulsive thought about others' bodies or attention), wrath (the compulsive thought about anger), vanity (the compulsive thought about our own excellence),  and pride (the compulsive thought about our own self sufficiency.)

There's a set of people, usually somewhere in the midst of various dark nights, who have begun to see the problems that redemption leaves in place in disappointing preference for changing their own heart.  The dark night of the senses is hard, but eventually they see that spiritual work is necessary for sanity.  There's group of practitioners who have begun the frustrating process of trying to find a church with the mechanisms to accommodate their unique vocation.  The dark night of the spirit is hard, but eventually practitioners realize that God's voice isn't as limited as the response rate of various churches.   

The divine image has perhaps begun to clarify itself in such people.  In "the eight evil thoughts of the higher self," there is an "I" anticipating a spiritual or temporal benefit, which is usually frustrated.  Self pity is simply an "I" that can't deal with insecurity.  Shame is simply an "I" that can't deal with past mistakes.  Blame is merely an "I" that can't take responsibility.  Remorse is just an "I" that can't let go of past mistakes. Rationalization is an "I" that can't face poor choices.  Resentment is simply an "I" that can't let go of emotion.  Worry is just an "I" that can't trust in providence.  Entitlement is merely an I that believes the universe owes it something.  If we walk around saying "that's who I am" instead of grounding in the body and letting the thoughts pass, anxiety proliferation goes into overdrive.

Here is what all 16 evil thoughts do.  They interpose themselves between us and our senses.  When you are angry at your coworker, you are more likely to crash your car.  When you are daydreaming about tasty leftovers in your fridge, you are mentally checked out from conversation with colleagues.  When you are unable to let go of sadness, you cease to be able to taste your food because you are too in your head.  A return to seeing, feeling, and hearing becomes necessary, but it escapes us, ongoingly and for years.

The Paradox of Theosis and Shadow work

The Trinity within is the highest form of consciousness, but even that must be surrendered into mystery in the end--as Christ said "into your hands I commend my spirit."  Christ emptied himself, and his saints say "en la montaña nada"--so dissociation must be faced as dissociation in the end.  But there is much to be learned in the interim.

The Father within is the observer: he alone can see our silly little ego drama from a perspective of "otherness."  The Father is happy and fascinated.  He creates, and, without needing control or security, he can still manage to be utterly jazzed about stuff.  The Father can allow chaos to be chaos, while still appreciating its genuinely neat and shiny bits.

The Son within is the compassionate one: he's the one who could judge, but doesn't, who could blame but instead says "father forgive them," who could avoid pain but instead says "thy will be done" and "It was for this hour that I have come into the world."  Every flaw whose energy is turned into a spiritual gift--when this happens, Christ is present.

The Spirit within teaches sensitivity to the subtler layers of embodied experience, and it is the energy which, like angels ascending and descending Jacob's ladder, ascends our spine to turn our evil thoughts into gifts of the spirit.  This clears blockages--and can be painful, unless our consciousness is modified by some sort of altered state of consciousness.  The Spirit rose in the apostles when a knock came at the door after the crucifixion.  They were afraid of arrest and execution, and held their breath--Hindus say subtle energy rises within when the breath is held--and the Spirit is no different.

Christ became all that is seen and unseen, and his disciples became all things to all people.  We see God in ourselves, and we will also bear a suffering that expresses not just individual evil, but systemic evil.  We fulfill the law, the prophets and the psalms and half of that is not fun in the least: because we become all that is sinful, wrongfully accused, condemned, debased.  We are nothing if not everything.

The Layers

Give up self and do not judge, and you will realize: action is motivated by thought.  Thought is motivated by emotion. Emotion is motivated by sensation.  Sensation is motivated by energy.  Energy is not to be judged--deciding to think about energy and sensation instead of feeling them and letting them go can cause immeasurable self-induced suffering.  Not everything we go through makes sense logically--and yet it's still incumbent on us to deal with it.  What we cannot deal with as intense thought or emotion, this we may yet be able to feel on the level of sensation.

We cling to what we're attracted to, we push away what we're averse to, and we've transferred that onto God.  So what's pleasant we call a blessing, what's unpleasant we call a curse.  This isn't just "not necessarily true."  Realize all attractions are temporary.  Enjoy them and let them go.  Our nervous systems are wired to do this, and skimping on "recognizing impermanence" can lead to lifetimes of game playing. Realize all pain contains a lesson.  Set your face like flint and learn it.  When the learning becomes preferable to avoidance, Christ will be present in your own body.  

Body Work in the Patriarchs and prophets.

Moses had abandonment issues and a murder rap. He spent his midlife experimenting with the primary drive systems of breath, sex and nervous system regulation. God's name is YHWH, which is merely a transliterated breath cycle. When compulsive thought goes quiet even for a moment, hearing your own breath is a theophany. Again, Moses' staff was a snake when he let go of it, and it stiffened when he reached out and grabbed it. Without judging at all: this is a metaphor for masturbation--relax, it's ok, neither trauma nor grief are clean--most likely, in the desert, the means for self-comfort were in short supply. Lastly, Moses saw the burning bush: This was most likely a creosote bush, which contains resins that make it flammable and an irrigation system that allows it to survive--but is very well could also have been "Moses experiencing his nervous system." Jacob struggled with a being till dawn, and it broke his hip--this was just a process of facing stored trauma. Ezekiel "prophesied to a field of dry bones." Those dry bones were his own. He was reframing trauma.  Jeremiah said "when I say 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones.  I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot."  In other words, he struggled with "verbal impulsivity"--and a confusion about whether his words were socially, or merely individually valuable.  Anyone with CPTSD is familiar with the phrase "trauma dumping"-- and this totally describes that.  One wonders whether the prophets were simply people who were highly sensitive to communal grief.



The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation: Breathe, Listen, Feel Mantra

Modern psychology would tell anyone suffering an anxiety attack "five, four three, two, one. Tell me five things you can feel, four things you can see, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste."  This is a method of "grounding in the body."  But it is not new.  Mystics like Francisco de Osuna and Teresa of Avila have been talking about "recollection" for centuries.  Recollection means "the in-gathering of the senses around the presence of God."  But let us be honest: modern psychology and the Spanish mystics were really repackaging something much older--as old, in fact, as the Jewish God concept itself.

The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation, summed up in 4 parts: breathe, listen, feel, mantra.  Breathe: YHWH is a transliterated breath cycle. No matter what is TAUGHT, Moses experienced a head quiet enough that his ears heard his own breathing. Listen: “Shema Israel” is a statement of faith for a reason. Elijah had to give up his self concept “I have been zealous for the lord, and they are seeking my life” before he heard the still small voice.  Feel: Ezekiel “saw the dry bones”—which were probably his own—and had to “prophesy” to reframe the trauma. Mantra: Elijah heard "kol dammamah daqqah" (translated as "the sound of sheer silence," kol also means "everything.")  The feeling of sound in the body allows us something to concentrate on that isn't anxiety.  Chanting Christ's name constantly gives a new name to the identity that CPTSD fragmented. We who chant the name realize that the name is bigger than we are. This is nothing new: Paul says "In God we live and move and have our being."

The Teachings of Jesus

Instituted by Christ, the sacraments give grace. But grace resembles neither a costume nor a drug. In other words, sacramental grace enables us to live with increasingly profound levels of emptiness--not "maintain a piety performance amidst stresses." Accordingly there's this to say: basic needs make us feel vulnerable, and sacraments render us not just "unafraid of insecurity" but able to accept that very lack of control as sacred ground.

Think of it this way. Initially, A baptized infant is completely vulnerable. That infant will develop an ego as a survival mechanism. Pride is, indeed, at the door, and will need to be mastered. But what serves in the short term will take a long term toll. Baptism is what's needed to transform the terror of vulnerability into fear of the Lord--baptism, and the prayer that looks at the fearfulness of existence and says "O God, come to my assistance!" Next, we all have a basic need for belonging. Sloth will pose itself as a solution to life's pressures generally--and we will vacillate between anxious overwork and underwork for years. Confirmation teaches us we belong to Christ, we come from and return to him, and it's Christ who both works and rests in us--that Spirit of knowledge will have a gradually calming effect. Finally, we all have a basic need for nourishment. And we can cling, use food to cope. But just as daily work is Christ himself, so is daily bread. It's a hard thing, asking food to provide neither emotional comfort nor security, but, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, gathering more than what rest and work requires inevitably leads to spoilage. Fortitude forms as trust that the Father knows our needs: whether for food, or the Word, and a spirit of might begets remembrance that "hungering without fear" is itself nourishment.

On the one hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to love: not even legitimate basic needs for affection and acceptance guarantee need fulfillment. However imperfect a marriage, not everyone goes home to spouse that's happy to see them. Not everyone pairs with someone able to be vulnerable and communicate clearly. Marriage comes with a "grace of state" which is nothing more than acknowledgment of how lucky we are. Whether in marriage or not, hardships in love should be, like any involuntary pain, revered. But the spirit of justice fills us with empathy, and it helps us to see others' suffering. On the other hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to serve. Those with trauma to grieve often lack limits, and trade people pleasing for approval. This is not charity. Holy Orders is given to us so that we can balance self-care with helping those we can. At our inability to do enough, wrath is a real option. What can we say, except "Lord I believe, help my unbelief?" As faith forms, we entrust those we can't help to God, and, whether busy or at rest, abandon ourselves to his care.

Under the sun, none are righteous, and none exempt from struggle. Make no mistake, forgiveness is a basic human need, and an immense vulnerability: but the sacrament of reconciliation shows the need was holy the whole time. Our fear of judgement--justified or not--is massive. It can be paralyzing, and if it's not, our egos may be purchasing their functionality by sorrow. Sorrow isn't just "feeling sad and letting go," it's using sadness to manipulate. If we can sit with the sorrow till the energy shifts, we grow in Wisdom--and we have the necessary experience to fuel true hope. Grieving till the energy shifts by itself, enduring hard lessons, allowing the legitimate enjoyment of impermanent things--all of these things are part of the lawful unfolding of life on which our serenity hinges--we buck the lessons at the expense of our own calm. Make no mistake: denial of impermanence, (full, as it is of clingy little temptations to greed) costs us more dearly than we admit: and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick sets us on the right path. Acceptance of aging, sickness and death, even biologically, is a basic human need--the lack of which leads to all sorts of insecurities. And if we can sit with all of that till the energy shifts, the Spirit of the Lord arises in us to say "It is finished. Into your hands I commend my spirit." But before that, after knowledge passes away and tongues cease, we learn by experience that love enables us to endure all things.

No teacher in Israel undercuts self-righteousness more purposefully than Jesus. To that end, despite how egos long to be excused from struggle, Jesus left what was taboo in place on purpose, for its usefulness in growing humility. Disappointed expectations are Christ's classroom space. That's otherworldly difficult, but his kingdom is not of this world. And neither is the one within us of whom it's written "morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught." For egos, otherness is an entrance exam, and following is a placeholder for recess.

Jesus modeled and mandated a vital relationship with silence. (Remember Elijah, in his cave, asked three times "why have you come here?" When he replied "I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts," the Lord was entirely silent. We can see that Jesus absorbed the lesson--there was a point, standing before Pilate, where Jesus went entirely quiet. And we know the cosmos respected it, too--at the cross, for the space of half an hour, even the heavens were silent. For Jesus, isolation was a teaching tool. Jesus tells the Roman official "go, your son will live." He tells the demoniac Legion "Go home to your family and friends, and tell them all that the Lord, in his mercy, has done for you." Jesus taught using non-fulfillment. Remember Jesus talks about "Naaman the syrian"--who longed for the miraculous to be flashy, but for whom normal, unheroic things were the path to healing. Moses asked to see God's glory, but was only shown his back. Jesus taught using overwhelm. The disciples worked all night, and caught nothing. They had no leisure, even to eat. And when they said to Jesus "Rabbi, eat something, he said "My food is to do the will of God." For Christ, scandal had a lesson value: the law said "cursed is he who hangs upon a tree" and yet he also said "take up your cross and follow." Cannibalism, in the Torah, was a feature of desperate times. Christ was making it clear, when he said "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot have life" that redemption would not excuse his disciples from times of desperation. Jesus--who gave the commandments "give up self" and "do not judge"--freely used "condemnability" as a teaching tool. Egos judge--they should no more be blamed for it than a tree should, for growing toward the sun. And so Jesus said "if you call a brother a fool, you are liable to the council. Even the innocent are liable to judgement, when the scales of power tip that way. Jesus said to Pilate, "you would have no power over me if it weren't given to you by the Father." He said that his disciples will be hauled before governors and kings, that they're to use it as an opportunity to testify. Indeed, if you're willing to accept it, it's of the ego itself that Jesus said "If it is my will that he remain until I return, what is that to you? Come follow me." Lastly, Jesus taught using dissociation. At first dissociation feels negative. Given some time, it feels more numb than anything else. Finally, dissociation cleanses us of attachments, and "going through the motions" feels somewhat preferable to the anxieties of craving, attachment, manipulation. Indeed, dissociation is that thing Paul eventually renames in himself: "I live," he said," but not I. Christ lives in me."

The End Result. 

The very coping mechanisms that kept us safe--these now become our spiritual gifts.  We are digging around a fruitless tree, trying to get at the roots of our actions and actually experience a change of heart and mind.  As it is written "make friends for yourselves with the world's wealth, so that when it is gone, they might welcome you into the eternal homes."  And again "If you do not do well with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" Hypervigilance becomes deep presence.  The survival technique of "reading a room accurately" becomes a sure foundation for empathy.  Emotional impulsivity becomes spontaneous obedience to the needs of the moment.  We are learning, in trauma, the gifts we will eventually use in service to others.   

Following is a paradox, not a dichotomy.  Life and death, pain and pleasure, eternality within impermanence--they're not punishments or rewards, they're just items on an incarnational to do list.  If you can hear that, perhaps it'll feel safe to be aware, as well, that when our logical minds finally relax, everything is paradox.  When Abraham's servant asked Rebekkah's parents if they'd allow a marriage to Isaac, they replied "we cannot say one thing to you, bad or good, the thing comes from the Lord." In the book of Ezra, a mixed group of exiles attended the dedication of the second temple.  Those old enough to remember the first one wept loudly.  Those too young to remember rejoiced.  The text says "the weeping was indistinguishable from the rejoicing."  Jesus said "I am troubled now, but what should I say 'Father, save me from this hour?' It was for this hour that I came into the world."

Intuiting when to let go and when to steel our resolve is difficult work--but its yield is equanimity. Our egos are incapable of grasping this, but the Christ within--a whole persona built of unknowing and humility and intuition--this is the one within us for whom it is is possible.  Our aversions and attractions aren't ours.  They belong to the 'Christ within" and our serenity is contingent on surrendering everything, even our identities themselves, to the one who heals us.  It is written "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."  

For the traumatized specifically, Christ's appearance in the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned--this expresses an awareness objective, not a social service objective.  Christ became literally present in marginalized groups so that we'd end up devoted to the poor and needy, having seen our own vulnerabilities in the mirror of theirs.  And so there'd be a safe place to work out people pleasing, codependent lack of limits, and an externally referenced sense of self.  This is why Thomas, when presented with Christ's wounds, given the opportunty to probe them, simply said "my Lord and my God!"

For followers of Jesus, equanimity is an underrated objective.  But if we can enjoy things and let go of them, learn hard lessons when they're on the day's curriculum,  we will begin to see our liabilities become our strengths in real time.  Hypervigilance will become deep presence.  Emotional impulsivity will become prudence.  As the big book says "we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us"--if only we can get our egos out of the way. 

In real time, our sorrow will turn to joy: we will understand "blessed are those who weep" because we've broken into deep laughter.  Indeed, all who suffer to live for a standard will know what it means to be told "Blessed are you when people hate you and revile you on account of the Son of Man." Because it will be in their own flesh that the prophetic vocation is fulfilled "rejoice on that day and leap for joy."  To hunger without fear is itself a nourishment.  To the pure in heart, all things are pure--even suffering and pain--and those who see it are God's children.

Focusing attention and intention on sensation defends us from overstimulation, and such focus diminishes compulsive thought.  Ask a person to rate the noise in their head on a scale of one to ten, and most people, being possessed of chatty minds, will hover from the six to eight range.  But ask them to listen to the noises outside the room they're sitting in, and most people's "head noise rating" falls dramatically.  This is why psychologists tell nervous people to "ground in the senses" when they're anxious.  Focused senses diminish thought.  And the same can cancel out thoughts of self altogether.

Indeed, we take in data with our senses all day long, but only with focused attention and intention are we able to let compulsive thoughts go.  One of the many blind men in the gospel required two touches from Jesus: after the first, he could see people, but they looked like trees.  After the second, the text says the blind man "looked intently" and saw things as they are.  Bartimaeus was blind until the messiah was standing right in front of him.  It was the Christ asking "what do you want me to do for you," and the Christ is the first thing he saw when he replied "Rabbi, I want to see."  What stands right in front of us asks "do you believe in the son of man?" We ask, "who is he, sir" and he says "the one speaking with you is he."  St. Paul talked to the Ephesians about "seeing with the eyes of the heart."  Benedict tells monks to "Listen with the ear of the heart."  

And if St. Paul is right, if "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me," then if I'm able to see what's in front of my face, to truly hear what's being said, to be rooted in the body and able to feel emotion and sensation--if that has happened, then it's Christ doing the seeing, the hearing and the feeling.  Theresa of Avila said "Christ has no body now but yours" and thank God: it is the only reason we can perceive accurately in the first place.  Our part is just to watch.