Forgiveness is a dominant theme within the Christian tradition. There are many Christian teachings about how we are to practice forgiveness to others. But the primary Christian teaching focuses on our relationship with God, how this God-human relationship is in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. This means that due to mistakes we have made or due to deep hurts that have happened to our life, we find our relationship with God in need of repair. As a psychospiritual therapist, I find that the forgiveness taught in our faith institutions does not adequate address the fact that many of our hurts and sins are traumatic in nature. These painful wounds in our soul cannot be simply healed with prayers or words of forgiveness for the experience of trauma often injures severely our relationship with God. In this blog, I want to explore a trauma-informed understanding and practice of forgiveness. Many Bible scriptures teach that forgiveness is a regular spiritual practice of a faithful Christian or faith-based person. Since forgiveness is seen as an ongoing practice, it is easy to assume that forgiveness is easy do and practice, that forgiveness happens simply by saying “sorry” to the person we have wronged, or admitting our failure and guilt to God. These simple forms of forgiveness work when you have made a simple mistake or someone has injured you with unkind words, but what about traumatic events like the following:
This suggests that there is something missing in our understanding of how forgiveness works. This is where a trauma understanding of harm may be useful. There is a Jesus story found in the gospel of Mark that illustrates, I think, how forgiveness can heal trauma. I Here we read of four people bringing their paralyzed friend on a stretcher to Jesus for healing. Since they could not access Jesus because of the crowds, they went up on the roof of the house and created a hole. They then lowered their paralyzed friend to Jesus through the hole. Jesus is amazed at their friends’ faith in God. Seeing their faith, we read that Jesus proclaims, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” This proclamation creates quite a commotion among the religious leaders in the crowd for these leaders believe only God can forgive sin. Seeing their doubt, Jesus says to them, "Why do you fill your minds with these questions? Which is easier—to say to a paralyzed person, ’Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk’? But so you will know that the Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins", he says to the man who was paralyzed, "Get up, take your mat, and go home” (Mark 2: 1-12). Upon saying these words, I imagine Jesus reaching down and pulling the paralyzed man to his feet, and amazingly the man is healed and picks up his mat and walks through the crowd home. As a pastor, I have preached on this Jesus story many times, but never with a trauma lens…which I think helps us understand how forgiveness actually happened in this story. Have you ever considered how forgiveness actually healed a man who was paralyzed physically? It makes no sense unless his paralytical condition was psychologically based, that is based on his beliefs and emotions that arose from a past experience of trauma. Based on how our soul and body processes trauma, we now know how guilt, shame, anger, hatred, and other negative emotions can lead to a paralysis of our soul and in some extreme cases, a paralysis of our physical body. How I wish the Bible contained the full details of this healing trauma story, especially the intimate details of how Jesus ministered to this young man, and how this man experienced these deeply personal interactions. Such information would reveal a lot around how forgiveness truly happened for him. This is where I have found counselling insights around healing trauma so helpful. Let me share what insights a trauma-informed psychology might bring to this Jesus healing story. Trauma arises when we experience life as too overwhelming, too scary, too much for our sense of Self to handle. It feels like we are going to explode internally...like a balloon is going to pop. When this happens, our soul naturally goes into crisis mode. Our soul divides into parts. One part of our soul, called the Exile part within Internal Family System (IFS), contains the pain of the traumatic experiences so that our sense of Self no longer feels this pain. This Exile often becomes frozen in that time in history when the trauma happened; it never grows up or moves on. If this trauma occurred when we were a child, then that Exile remains a child and finds itself experiencing life now from that traumatic period of history. If this trauma happened as an adult, like in a tragic death, then our Exile remains trapped in the shock along with the emotional pain connected to that death like fear, anger, hatred, guilt, shame, and other aspects of grief. Now, this Exile contains the extreme pain of the trauma, a pain that our sense of Self at the time of trauma found too overwhelming, and thus our soul needed to package it away. However, based on IFS, our soul also created another part, a Protector part whose goal is to keep us from feeling the traumatic pain found in our Exile. The reason this Protector formed within our soul is because Life, our Caregivers (parents, teachers, etc.) and our sense of Self failed to protect us from the trauma. A huge trust was broken. As a Christian, one could say that God (the God-part within life, our caregivers, and ourselves) failed to protect us from the trauma that hurt us, that God betrayed us in not shielding us from this tragedy and pain. In other words, our internal Protector formed because God failed to protect us. As a result, our Protector often distrusts God/Life, others, and ourselves along with intense feelings of anger, even hatred. Now you can begin to see why the forgiveness teachings in the Bible are so intimately connected to our relationship with God. Until this trust relationship with God is healed through forgiveness, it is very hard, maybe impossible, to forgive those who have broken our trust and betrayed us. Our Protector uses many strategies to keep our sense of Self from feeling the pain of our Exile. It frequently uses numbing which occurs when our soul and physical body contracts—a contracted body experiences far less pain than a relaxed, open body. Our Protector often contains a lot of hatred or anger toward Life/God, others, even ourselves, and it uses these intense feelings to protect us from getting hurt again. Another coping strategy is moving our sense of Self to the thinking centre located in our heads. We normally feel emotions in our body so when we move to thinking about our trauma rather than feeling it, we experience a lot less pain. Another coping strategy is when we use food, alcohol, drugs, and medication to soothe our pain. Distraction is another popular coping technique whether it be television, shopping, sex, smart phone activities, or surfing the internet. The number of pain coping strategies are endless. However, our Protector has its favourites, ones that it uses regularly to keep us from feeling of our Exile that contains the pain of our trauma. In summary, when we experience an overwhelming trauma, our soul creates two parts, an Exile that contains the traumatic painful memory and a Protector that shields our sense of Self from feeling the pain of our Exile. But there is one more aspect of the human Soul, namely our sense of Self. This sense of Self is how we experience ourselves when we are aware of our experience. When we are centred in our awareness, we may notice ourselves thinking or having thoughts/images enter our minds, feelings arising or present in our hearts, or sensations emerging within our gut or other parts of our body. Our sense of Self is our sense of “I” or “me”. When our Self is centred, we can notice within our body and soul our Exile part, which holds our painful traumatic memory. Our Self can also notice our Protector part, which seeks to protect us from experiencing the pain of our Exile part. However, often when our Exile and Protector are very active, our Self merges with these parts causing us to lose awareness and either become lost in the pain of our Exile or the critical angry thoughts of our Protector. This merging is why we don't often see ourselves as having structured parts within our souls for we see these parts as us, as a our personality. When that happens, our Self is no longer available to compassionately hold the pain of our Exile parts or notice the angry thoughts and coping patterns of our Protector. Seeing how trauma fragments our soul into two parts, this means forgiveness must bring healing to both the Protector and Exile parts within our soul. In other words, forgiveness involves two steps, one involving our Protector and another connected to our Exile. Simple words of apology and actions of repentance will not restore a fragmented soul. In our Jesus healing story, we see a man totally physically, emotionally, and spiritually frozen by the trauma in his life. Because of his paralysis, it is evident that the pain at the root of his paralysis is and was extremely severe. However, I am curious whether this paralysis grew over a period of time, possibly years, beginning first as a mild paralysis, and then deepening over time. Often, our experience of trauma can expand its hold on us. For example, in a tragic or unexpected death, we experience profound shock, grief, and loss. To cope, our Protector protects our Self by numbing our grief through contracting our body and soul. However over time, we will naturally feel anger and hatred toward the person or issue we believe caused our loved one to die, a very uncomfortable feeling for our Self to live with. To cope with this feeling, our Protector will contract our soul further so we don’t feel these negative feelings. However, these feelings of hatred will breakthrough occasionally causing us to feel guilt and intense shame toward ourselves. Again, our Protector will come to the rescue numbing our body even further so our Self doesn't feel the intensity of this shame. Over time, trauma can deepen its hold on us…due to an overactive Protector part…like it probably did to the man in the Jesus story causing him to become fully paralyzed. It is apparent that this man’s sense of Self has fully merged with his Protector that is paralyzing his body/soul. He saw himself as paralytic, probably being crippled for life, until Jesus entered the picture. No longer able to walk, four of this man's friends take him to Jesus, a travelling teacher and healer, with the hope that maybe Jesus could heal him. It is here that I wish we had all the details of how Jesus interacted with this paralyzed man so that we could understand how forgiveness happened. From our understanding of trauma, Jesus had to accomplish two key things with the man, one related to his Protector and one related to his Exile. a. The first step of Forgiveness: Ministering to the Protector For this man's Exile part to experience the freedom of forgiveness, Jesus had to first minister to his Protector. Within the counselling room, this is no easy task for the client's Protector is often quite resistant to letting anyone have access to this Exile's painful experience. Protectors often carry much anger and hatred and so it is often not easy for our client's Self to be curious, let alone be compassionate toward their Protector. Counsellors spend much time helping the client’s Self understand with compassion and curiosity the workings of their Protector with the hope that the Protector will eventually trust the healing process. This takes time for the Protector has to learn to trust God again through trusting that the psychotherapist and the client’s Self can truly hold the pain of their Exile part. In many ways, we are helping the client's Protector get to the place of forgiving and trusting God enough so that it will allow access to the Exile hidden underneath it. Something similar in nature had to happen between Jesus and the paralyzed man’s Protector that was causing the paralysis of the man’s soul and body. It is apparent from our Jesus healing story that the crippled man’s friends believed in Jesus’ ability to heal their friend of his paralysis. This suggest to me that this paralytic’s sense of Self was already hopeful and open to the possibility that Jesus could heal him. With this faith present, Jesus would have been more able to help the cripple’s man’s Self interact with his Protector with curiosity and compassion. As the Protector began to trust God within Jesus, it would have allowed Jesus to have access to the traumatized Exile below. But remember, forgiveness, within the Christian context, flows both ways...we, humans, forgive God, and God forgives us. These two experiences together make up the process of forgiveness. It is here in the Jesus’ healing story that we see evidence of this second aspect of forgiveness, God forgiving the paralytic man. Jesus says to the man, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” When you understand how trauma affects us, you soon realize that both our Protector and Exile feel the need of forgiveness. For example, our Protector is often distrusting and quite angry, even hateful, toward God/life, others and self. As a result, our Protector's thoughts and behaviors are often quite troubling to itself and yet this is the only way it knows how to protect us from feeling the pain of our Exiles. Our Protector desires forgiveness. However, as counsellors, we see this Protector's coping pattern as the best coping pattern available when the trauma happened. Despite how unhealthy this negative coping pattern is now, it was the best one available at the time. This insight is important for Protectors to hear. Furthermore, our Protector is many times critical of our Exile and often calls it stupid, weak, and worthless. As a result, our Exile is filled with guilt and shame and longs to be free of this pain through forgiveness. Now, you can imagine how Jesus’ healing words were heard by the crippled man’s Protector and Exile when Jesus said to him, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” b. The Second Step of Forgiveness: Ministering to the Exile However, forgiveness is not complete yet for this paralytic man---he is still paralyzed. A second step is needed for his Exile is still frozen in its traumatic past. While we experience the present moment of history, our Exile is still stuck in the past, experiencing life with all the beliefs, emotions, and stories of the little boy who experienced the trauma many years ago. The Exile within the crippled man needs a safe person to share all of this traumatic pain to, as Jesus did for the Exile within the paralyzed man. Again, trust issues will arise for this Exile felt totally abandoned by God/Life, caregivers, and the man’s Self who was overwhelmed by the trauma as a child. This Exile will only share of its pain when it believes that Jesus along with the crippled man's Self can hold this pain. Here, we again see the need for forgiveness, this time between the man's Exile and the aspects of God found in Jesus and the man's Self. As his Exile begins to trust God again, it will slowly share its painful story. As Jesus and the paralyzed man's Self witness and hold this trauma, the man's Exile feels supported, understood, and validated. However, that sharing alone often does not bring full healing. The Exile’s painful emotions, while losing some of its intensity due to being heard and held, will remain for the Exile still believes that this trauma can happen at any moment for it is still living in its past. And if it senses that this trauma could happen again, this cripple man’s Exile part will believe that God could abandon him causing him to relive this overwhelming pain all over again. This reliving would probably trigger his Protector who would numb and paralyzed his body and soul again. This means that even if this man's Exile's tramatic experience was held perfectly, along with the words of forgiveness, the healing evident in this story would not have happened. Another step of healing was needed. Here the Jesus’ healing story actually provides evidence of what caused the man to be healed of his traumatic past and paralysis. Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat, and go home”, and with those words, I imagine Jesus reaching down and pulling the man to his feet. Something very significant happened when Jesus said the words, “Get up, take your mat, and go home.” Remember, this Exile is frozen in time and thus experiences everything in life from that point of view. Often, when psychotherapists do this IFS work with a client’s Exile part, we reach a time in the healing process when we invite the Exile part to look into their client’s face. In doing so, the Exile is often surprised that the person looking back is a compassionate adult, and not a child who they think the person is. Once the Exile realizes this, they are more open to allowing the client’s Self, along with the counsellor’s support, to hold their pain and look to their Self for comfort. Having reached this point, the counsellor invites the client’s young Exile to join their client in the present moment which is free of the traumatized pain of the past. In doing so, the Exile steps out of its painful past and discovers a very different present world that is lacking the triggers of trauma that were everywhere in the frozened Exile’s previous world.
When Jesus uttered the words, “Get up, take your mat, and go home” and pulled the crippled man to his feet, Jesus invited the Exile to come join him into the present moment with Jesus and his man's Self. When the Exile did this, it literally step out of painful past and into the Present Moment leaving all trauma pain behind. Once this happens, there is little need for his Protector to numb his body and soul for the emotional suffering is gone. I am sure that this healed man didn’t walk with much strength through the crowd that day when he was healed but rather was quite weak and probably needed some support from others to keep his balance for his muscles would have atrophied due to years of non-use. But still, seeing a local man paralyzed for years being healed and able to walk at all would have amazed his town community. When you see this Jesus healing story through a modern traumatized lens, you see how forgiveness and physical healing are often closely connected. It brings new meaning to Jesus’ words to the crowd when he proclaims, “Why do you fill your minds with these questions? Which is easier—to say to a paralyzed person, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk’?” In saying those words, Jesus shows how forgiveness and physical healing are deeply connected and even can happen simultaneously. Questions to Ponders: 1. How does your life connect with the paralyzed man's story? What aspects of your body or soul carry pain of your traumatized past? What are the various ways your soul copes with or numbs pain? 2. Since most of us have been traumatized, how would you described your Protector part? How did it feel betrayed by God/life, others, and even yourself? What feelings does your Protector carry toward God/Life, others, and yourself? What is the narrative it often tells you to keep you in a place of protection? 3. How would you describe your Exile part? What emotions does it carry and wish it could let go of? How is your Exile treated by your Protector? 4. When are you aware of your sense of Self (awareness, compassion, curiosity, strength, insight, spaciousness, grace, resilience, patience, trust, etc.)? What happens when your sense of Self merges with your Protector or Exile? 5. Seen through this trauma lens, how does your soul long for forgiveness? How can you begin to work at it? Gord Alton MDiv RP CASC Supervisor-Educator
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