Healing from Church Hurt: Where Do We Begin?
This is post # 4 in a series of posts on church hurt... make sure to check out the posts around this for more practical ideas of What Church Hurt Is, Why Church Hurt is Hard to Talk About, and Practical Ideas for how to heal from Church Hurt. Today, we continue on with Ideas 4-6 on a list of 11 Ideas for Healing from Church Hurt.
Create Empty Space
Empty space is hard. There are so many distractions available to us - custom tailored to grab our attention and fill any empty space we have. But our brains need space to defragment and process through the experiences and emotions we're feeling in life. When we experience empty space, our minds go there and start processing through our most significant emotions and thoughts.
I know... when you have free time, the last place you probably want your mind to go is the trauma and loss you've experienced. But if you don't allow yourself to process it and feel it, you'll never heal. And if you never heal, you'll continue to carry it with you, indefinitely.
I can remember when I first started in sales after leaving full-time ministry. I spent hours driving, pretty much every day. I'd make work calls, listen to podcasts, listen to music... But evenutally I hit a wall where I just could not take anymore input. No more information. No more to do lists. No more emotional roller coasters.
I had to give my brain empty space to unwind what it was going through. At times, I would almost physically feel a churning in my head when I'd turn everything off and sit in silence. My mind would race and I'd have to breathe, settle my spirit, calm my mind, pray for God to lead my thoughts. It was hard at first, but like anything else, the more you practice, the easier it gets. And the more you practice, the more you reap the benefits.
Part of the reason it's hard to allow that empty space is that a lot of times the thoughts and feelings that are begging to come to the surface are not fun ones. It would be preferable to distract myself or listen to something semi-spiritual that I could use as an excuse to not process those negative emotions.
But your brain needs the space. And God wants to speak to you.
Give Him space to help you on your journey. Which brings us to the next idea...
Identify the Junk You're Carrying - Be Specific
A friend once told me, "Your junk is steering you, whether you realize it or not. The question is not WHETHER your trauma is affecting your thinking and decision making. It is. The question is are you aware of HOW your junk is steering you. Are you holding it in front of you so that you can see how it's affecting you? Or is it steering you from the shadows?
Like our physical wounds, we naturally compensate for our emotional wounds. In other words, we limp. Emotional limps often mirror physical limps - looking like either avoidance or overcorrection.
As an example, let's look at a common wound people in ministry carry: Father Wounds. What do avoidance and overcorrection look like for someone with Father Wounds?
Avoidance might look like avoiding not only your own father, but any father-like figure in your life. It might look avoiding conflict, wanting to appear easy going, never offended, and never expressing your true thoughts, needs, or feelings in relationships, for fear of other people's perception of you.
Overcorrection might look like a subtle, self-imposed pressure to not only NOT be like the father you had, but to be the PERFECT parent. To respond to your own wounding by becoming super dad (or mom). To never let your kids down, never miss a moment, never lose your cool, say the wrong thing, or have needs of your own that take you away from your kids.
Whether we're talking about father wounds, church hurt, or any other form or grief, loss, or trauma - both avoidance and overcorrection are ditches. Unhealthy responses, in an often subconscious effort to avoid pain. There are healthy ways to respond to the pain and loss we've experienced, but we usually don't find them without help. Our natural responses are usually not the best, and we need help to sort through what happened, why, how it's affecting us, how we can process and heal from our pain, and how we can find a way forward.
Are you aware of the junk you're carrying and how it's shaping your direction? Is your junk steering you in the light or in the shadows?
Get Help
I would strongly encourage you to make the space to feel and process through what you've experienced, to start the process of self awareness and healing. But don't try to fight this battle alone.
Finding people who can relate to what we've gone through is hard. Finding a counselor who can help us make sense of what we've experienced and heal from it is hard.
Do it anyway.
Put in the work to find people who can help. Your health and healing depend on it. Your family and loved ones are depending on you. You owe it to them to seek out help, grow in your self awareness, and heal from from your wounds, so that you don't pass them on to the ones you love most.
That's where we'll break for today. Stay tuned for the rest of the list in the next post, and make sure you check out What Church Hurt Is, Why Church Hurt is Hard to Talk About, and Practical Ideas for how to heal from Church Hurt!
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