Most of us find out about physical healing early on in life, from hitting the corner of the table as you are just learning how to walk, to falling off a bike or being bitten by a dog. Depending on how deep the physical wounds, there might be a scar or there might not. We all learn at some point that we heal faster when we tend to the wounds quickly. I remember bumping my head as a child and my grandmother getting a big ol’ stick of butter and some salt to rub on the wound (an old Dominican home remedy) followed by some ice. My grandmother tended to that wound immediately until the bump went down. From a medical perspective I am not sure what the butter did other than moisturize my forehead but from an emotional and spiritual perspective I was grateful for the attention and care.
In addition to our physical wounds in childhood there are many emotional and psychological wounds that we acquire as we develop as human beings. Although most of us learn how to tend to physical wounds the majority of us are not taught how to tend to those wounds that stay with us the longest; the emotional and psychological ones. What happens to the emotional scars left by bullies or sometimes our own family members? Often my thinking is to suppress or forget about what hurts us or doesn’t feel good. We think we forget and often we self medicate under the guise of having a good time . More often than not our deep emotional and psychological wounds surface later, sometimes decades after.
What I have learned through my own personal experiences is that healing is a necessary part of our growth and it is particularly important for those of us that do work in service to others. We cannot help others move through trauma if we haven’t faced or dealt with our own. Some of us have wounds that need tending too our entire lives and that is okay, because the alternative can be a very lonely and painful road. Trauma is all about how you experience it. We are all different. The same two people can witness a traumatic event but one person might be traumatized by the event while the other does not. What scince tells us is that the quicker you deal with the traumatic experience the more able you will be to deal with its affects.
On April 11th 2006 I suffered from one of the most traumatic events of my life, the death of my 18 year old brother Victor Enrique Santana (“Bebe”). His death was tragic and unexpected and my family has never been the same since. We all coped in different ways. After the death I submerged myself in work. I worked constantly and thought that I would heal or at least be distracted through my hard work. A year later I found myself in more pain and suffering than ever. I began to understand that his death had a much deeper emotional and psychological effect than I was willing to admit. In fact what it did was trigger all of the things I had suppressed for years.
Traumas can physiological, emotional, mental and spiritual. They can affect our brain chemistry and behaviors. They can challenge our beliefs as we try to make sense of what has happened. I recently read the book, “Waking the Tiger” by Peter Levine. In this book the author states that many typical trauma responses will go away if the trauma is dealt with in ways that allow the interrupted (and blocked) energy to be discharged. So what happens when the energy is trapped, suppressed or not dealt with? According to Father Richard Rohr who has also done much work around trauma says that, “Pain that is not transformed is transferred.” This can lead to the re-enactment of unhealed trauma causing one to either turn the unhealed pain energy in on oneself (Acting In) or turn the unhealed pain and energy on to others (Acting Out). We can turn the pain in by abusing drugs/alcohol, over working, eating too much or too little etc. When we turn the energy on to others we have repetitive conflicts, wars, inability to be flexible, intolerant, lack empathy, engage in risky behaviors, don’t care about the earth, blame others and lack the ability to be intimate.
Some of the ways that I helped me “connect the brain”, and release the trauma energy and calm my body was through meditation/prayer, singing, dancing, drumming, exercise, lots of laughter, being in nature, playing, and deep breathing. These things are not the overall answer for all traumatic experiences but they certainly can help with moving traumatic energies that are stuck in your brain and bodies. I learned many of these things through a seminar I took at Eastern Mennonite University called Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resiliency. It was at this seminar that realized that some of the things I had experienced in life had a deep impact in my overall health. Now that I feel like I have been on my ‘healing journey’ I feel more equipped and able to deal and accept life’s challenges. It is my hope that by sharing what I have learned I am able to help others who are facing some of life’s greatest challenges.
