Two weeks ago there was another shooting at an elementary school. This one was not sensational enough to warrant national media coverage, but it mattered to me. In part because every time this happens, it should matter – may God forbid that we ever become desensitized to this kind of violence. But it also mattered because it happened at an elementary school two blocks from my house, where my children used to be in attendance. It has affected people I know by name and a community of which I am a part. It is not something that happened to “someone, somewhere out there.” It came to my home. This incident, which left a school daycare worker permanently disabled, and was witnessed by 40 students in after-school care at the time, is a stark reminder that trauma does not discriminate. Violence does not only exist in “other places” and the attitude of, “Well, that won’t happen here, not to us,” is one ripe for disorientation and difficulty healing when it inevitably does. Even where I live in suburbia, at one of the top schools in our state, people continue to be just that – people.

From my position and experience with ICTG, I was surprised and worried not only by the fact that this happened at all, but additionally by the way the situation was handled and the gaps in preparation that this shooting exposed.  Many parents found out about the incident through local media before they heard any direct communication from the school. My own social media feeds were flooded with friends and neighbors discussing their own fears, shock, anger, and questions publicly. 

• “How could the school let this happen?”
• “I never thought this would happen here, I’ve always felt so safe!”
• “What do I tell my kids?”
• “How do I know my children will be safe in the future?”
• “Who would do such a thing?” 

 

The school district has caught up well. Information is available, there have been meetings with school and city officials to answer questions, and mental health counselors were available to students the school day after the incident. However, I am still left with questions of my own....

• Are parents being helped to process this with their children at home?
• How will the day-care employee’s return to work be handled by the school community?  What if she is unable to return?
• Are other school employees being offered counseling?
• Are the employees who worked with the accused perpetrator (a teacher in another district) being helped?  The students and families in that district who’s trust is equally damaged?
• Are the churches in the area prepared to handle the spiritual questions about God’s providence that are likely to arise from their congregants?

 
I was so thankful for many of our ICTG resources that I could easily direct people to for help with many of these topics.  Tragedy makes us very aware of the circles of community that we are a part of and how the parts affect each other. New depth of relationship is being forged and challenged at every step towards healing between groups that didn’t know they needed each other.  ICTG continues to speak into these gaps by providing resources and consultation for those who wish to be prepared for the entire journey of healing should trauma come home. 

We are also providing practical help and resources for those who have been caught unawares and are asking, “What do we do now?”  There will always be a new “now” question for those who experience trauma.  What do we do now...

• Now that arrests have been made?
• Now that students are returning to school?
• Now that the legal process is concluded?
• Now that a year has gone by and we still remember, hurt, have questions?

 
ICTG desires to come alongside at each stage of the journey, whether it is explaining the trajectory of trauma, how to mourn a tragedy together, how to speak to hurting children, or how congregations can be better prepared next time.  These are all topics my local community is currently facing, answers and resources that are needed for good healing to take place.
 
While I clearly believe in the necessity of ICTG enough to have devoted time and talents to the organization, these last two weeks I have been thankful for its existence as a member of a traumatized community. I have been able to be a better neighbor, friend, and parent as a result of my own training and the resources available to hand to my community. Healing from trauma can bring us together; it does not have to result in the total breakdown of relationships and community.  My prayers, heart, and hands are with my community, and my colleagues, as we continue to walk forward, together.

The work of a spiritual director has been beautifully compared to that of a midwife.  A companion in, and witness to, the miracle of new spiritual life.  As someone who has given physical birth to four children, I appreciate the depth of this metaphor. That not only is each pregnancy, labor, and delivery different, but each outcome, each child, is unique. Who I was before and after each of their births is a testament to growth and experience. This metaphor gives me great comfort and patience as a spiritual director to be able to wait with, witness, and encourage in timely ways each of my directees as God continues to bring newness of being into their lives.

I am able to be moved by this metaphor because I know that my basic life needs are being met.  I feel safe in my physical surroundings and cared for in my relationships. I am also able to easily distinguish where I am in time and I feel connected enough with my body to engage in sensate memories.  All of this allows me to be reflective, to use my “observing I” to consider not only my present circumstances but also my responses to them. I am able to wonder, use my imagination, and generally be in awe of the world around me and my place in it.  Simply put, I am not currently traumatized.
​
Trauma causes disruption in our experience of time and space, our use of language, and our sense of embodiment.  The disconnect from these foundational parts of our being can result in a spiritual “stuckness". A difficulty in experiencing, not to mention expanding our experience, of the Divine. An understanding of trauma and its effects, as well as  the trajectory of healing can help us create spaces in which traumatized congregants can find spiritual rest and relief from the exhausting work of daily living.

Being willing to be honest and listen well are important skills for anyone who spiritually companions others in any role. These skills are also invaluable because as leaders we often find ourselves not only leading a congregation, but also sitting across from just one person who is hurting. How might our understanding of formational dynamics be applied here? Both a person’s faith experience and general life experiences need to be considered when we are attempting to understand her spirituality. The deep questions do not only revolve around what she knows, but rather what she believes. And for better or for worse, these are not always the same. Most people already believe many things to be true about life and love long before they can recite a creed or participate in a ritual. Life experiences give us deep, core beliefs from which we build our spiritual practices. Sometimes it is these deep beliefs that draw an individual to a particular doctrine or tradition. The publicly adhered to behaviors associated with the faith tradition actually enable the core beliefs a person holds, rather than being the foundation that has helped shape their soul. Exploring these deep beliefs, finding God to be in them or not, is much of where the “rubber-meets-the-road” in spiritual direction. It is in the acknowledging of these places that people begin to experience freedom that comes from being deeply loved.

Trauma can feel, spiritually, like spinning wheels stuck in the mud. Spiritual exertion in an attempt to avoid or move past the trauma often seems to make it worse. Companioning someone through the spiritual affects of trauma requires patience and grace on our part as companion, but also requires that we help our soul friends have patience and grace for themselves. Walking with others as they forge paths through the Valley of the Shadow of Death often includes being the bearer of hope when others see all as lost. It takes a significant amount of time to reach green pasture after surviving a trauma. Even once the circumstantial dust has settled, the spirit can still feel disturbed. It is in this disconcerting place of experiencing physical safety but spiritual unrest where a spiritual director becomes a valuable companion. The spiritual director’s gift in this season may be to help the directee begin to attend to how the story of their trauma integrates into the story of their life. As a directee moves from feeling that the trauma story is the story of their life to a sense that it is a story in their life, we can help them to draw up from their deep wells of experience the corresponding deep beliefs.  We can create a safe space to examine those beliefs as our directees decide which ones to reclaim and which ones to let go.

Some questions to consider as we sit with others might be: 

• How old was this person when they experienced thier trauma?
• How well have their physical needs been met in the aftermath?
• Is their body healed?
• Was their trauma directly connected to their faith community?
• Where do they report themselves as being in their spiritual development before the trauma?
• Where do they experience themselves as being now in their spiritual development?
• Does there seem to be a disconnect between their psychological maturity and their spiritual maturity?

In a posture of wondering, we hold the person in front of us as having inherent dignity and ability to heal. We hold and offer this hope to the whole of them by acknowledging and honoring their trauma, but also the whole of their life. We wait as identity comes back into focus and we bless every step of the journey. And by the grace of God we see spiritual formation that was interrupted, but not stopped.

​Being a spiritual companion is rewarding in part because it is difficult. It requires that we give of ourselves and our own resources to be present to others. This is especially challenging when the person sitting across from us is suffering. Part of being a good spiritual director is making sure that we are replenishing those personal resources on a regular basis. Self-care should be a routine that is built into our lives for the sake of our own mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. These habits might include seeing our own spiritual director or therapist, eating nourishing meals, meditation and prayer, taking walks, developing a journaling or gratitude practice, or practicing yoga. Establishing these rhythms ideally allows us to enter a direction session grounded and ready to be open and present to whatever our directee brings that day.

​There is a second level of care for ourselves that we should also practice developing. We need to have techniques in place to successfully care for ourselves not only when we are alone, but also when we are in the presence of a directee whose particular suffering or story is difficult to sit with. This second level of care is especially important if we are sitting with someone who’s story is similar to ours, whether through past experiences or due to present disaster. Having methods and routines in place to allow us to care for ourselves, both in our personal lives and in the midst of our work, will help to avoid burnout or doing harm to a directee in a moment of feeling overwhelmed. This deeper level of care for self and others comes as a result of our own personal growth and continued professional development. Working through our own traumas or stressors is difficult, good work. Having a relationship with a trusted supervisor or supervisory group can also help us identify places in our own souls that need more tenderness or development. Attending conferences, trainings, and continuing to educate ourselves from the abundance of literature available will give us techniques to try and language to use. Having a multifaceted approach in our own work also helps us to be open to hearing from and partnering with other professionals in caring for ourselves and our directees.

​“Compassion Fatigue” is a well known term that describes that potential feeling of being overwhelmed. Much of what helpers do is show compassion, however, empathy is the component of companionship that tends to be exhausting. For this reason, some researchers are beginning instead to describe the feeling of being overwhelmed in the presence of suffering, or burning out after a long season of helping, as “Empathy Fatigue.” It is empathy that connects us deeply to what another person is feeling, so much so that we feel their pain in our own bodies. Learning to allow that connection to another, even while maintaining a healthy sense that it is not actually our own distress, actually requires compassion for both directees and ourselves. This empathy connection, resonating with someone else’s pain, is what sometimes makes it difficult to remain attuned to another in the presence of their suffering. Compassion for self is what becomes needed in those moments. Deeply acknowledging the effect of the suffering of another on our own self, acknowledging how hard it can be to sit with suffering, taking deep breaths, making sure our bodies are as comfortable as possible … All of these are good ways to care for yourself while being actively present to your directee. 

​Humans have great capacities for offering care and kindness. Learning to care for both ourselves and others in robust ways, often at the same time is both possible and necessary for spiritual directors. Caring for ourselves is something that we can and need to do, both when alone and when in the presence of others. Developing an understanding of the nuance between having empathy for someone and compassion for them (or self) is an important step on the way to building a sustainable ministry of care to those who are hurting.

Part of my work as the ICTG Program Director for Spiritual Direction involves researching the past and emerging landscape of trauma-informed spiritual direction in order to develop new tools and programming to assist faith leaders leading congregations after trauma. For example, I am finding fascinating research being done on how spirituality is experienced developmentally, for instance, in a person’s attachment to God. More over, in my travels these days, I am hearing from many field experts who are beginning to turn their scholarly and practical attention to incorporating spirituality into traditional psychotherapy. The goal of this emerging focus is to help survivors in more holistic and multi-dimensional ways. 

Most recently, I attended a convention addressing complex trauma, which involves affects from ongoing abuse. One of the recognized affects of complex trauma, in particular, is a disrupted belief system. In cases of ongoing abuse, the ways in which persons find meaning become altered, and their senses of spirituality become troubled. Listening to my clinical colleagues wrestle with how to incorporate spirituality into their practices, I was touched by the incredible honor and opportunity that being a spiritual director or clergy member allows when addressing the spiritual needs of a survivor of trauma.  

After experiencing trauma, in this case, complex trauma, one of the choices a person of faith eventually makes is, “Do I still believe?” One of the challenges clinicians face in addressing this area is incorporating a client’s spiritual practices or in making spiritual recommendations into what clinicians traditionally keep a “values free environment.”  Sacred experiences and expressions are so personal and “loaded” for many people that it can feel incredibly tricky to integrate into therapy. As spiritual directors, however, we possess the distinct honor and opportunity of addressing spiritual needs, getting to intimately talk with people about belief and meaning. Broadly, we focus on

•      How they discover meaning?
•      How they experience holiness?
•      What has changed?
•      What they hope for?

Then, from within our own faith traditions, we can

•      Give structure to prayer
•      Instruction in mindfulness
•      Participate in celebrations of awe and wonder
•      Encourage compassion and acceptance for self
•      Support connectedness to others through music, spoken word, and other rituals

We can do all these things without hesitating to enter in to this sacred space with another.

In the same way that I believe a spiritual director or clergy member needs to have a go-to referral list of trusted therapists and others who can help congregants address psychological development needs or critical mental health concerns, I see too how therapists benefit from a reliable referral list of spiritual directors and clergy to partner with in helping clients discern safe places and people with whom they can process their spiritual life.  In expanding these types of referral lists, therapists might consider: 

• How aware are you of the faith traditions represented among your clients?  
• Do you practice helping someone discern healthy spirituality from unhealthy?  
• Do you partner with local clergy or spiritual directors to attend to your client’s sacred dissonance in the face of trauma?  

And if you are a spiritual director: 

• Are you aware of your own mental health development? 
• Are you aware of your own places of questioning?  
• How do you feel about companioning someone who may choose to leave the well-worn path of tradition in an attempt to integrate their new perceptions of the world with their faith?  
• Do you have a well-developed theology of suffering?  
• What helps you to be secure in your faith without needing to offer specific theodicies to survivors?

As we at ICTG continues to expand programs and tools to support those caring for souls, I find it incredibly encouraging to hear about the research emerging among my colleagues as together we work to create vibrant professional communities committed to whole person health and spiritual care in the light of trauma.

Humans are beautifully complex creatures. One of the privileges of being a spiritual director is walking alongside as our directees journey towards understanding and integrating all of their wonderful systems and weaving them into their experience of the Divine. Trauma often causes disruptions to these systems and to one’s ability to integrate them. In some situations, a directee may have clearly discernible or even previously diagnosed challenges to their physical and mental health as a result of their trauma story. These issues can certainly be brought to direction, but in some instances may impede the direction process, or be more pressing concerns than the spiritual questions related to them. This is why we at ICTG encourage treatment and healing plans that include a variety of caregivers, like those represented in our Village of Care series. We advocate for referral based care, meaning that one particular professional can not heal all wounds. Collaboration with colleagues in other care fields helps us all to provide better support and make sure those we are working with get the best help for their situation.  ​

This post, written by Erin Jantz, originally was published on March 20, 2015, on the ICTG blog. ​
Read Spiritual Direction in the Face of Trauma: Part One here.

A common theme in helping professions is hospitality. We desire to create and hold space for those we are helping. This is particularly true for a spiritual director who is companioning a survivor of trauma. As we hold space for survivors we must be able to put aside, more than normal, our own egos and allow each person’s experience to be unique to them. We must not take their power, but rather empower them towards health. We become a container, an external boundary, within which people can fall apart knowing they will not be shamed, but rather offered strength and courage. We desire to restore functioning, to encourage non-negative thinking, and to help our “directees” form a coherent narrative that integrates their experience – mind, body, and spirit. A spiritual director’s role in the ongoing process of healing focuses on how a survivor’s synthesis of thoughts and feelings are affecting their experience of holiness.

In discerning what practices may be the most helpful for an individual, a director should consider intricacies of the person’s faith.  Directors should ask the following questions:

• How does this person’s beliefs interact with other types of care they may need? (e.g. Seeking medical care?  Therapy?)
• How do they use spiritual terms in their narrative?  What role are shame and guilt playing? (e.g. Are they finding strength and comfort?  Seeking meaning? Feeling connected to community? Or, is their experience seen as something they “struggle” with?  Do they believe they are being punished? Do they view God as angry or resentful?)
• Do they attribute stressful events to “the devil” or some demonic force?
• How are they using prayer?  As a means of invoking God’s intercession?  As an avoidance technique? To plead for change or relief of symptoms?
• Which of their faith-based coping strategies are providing relief?  How can those strategies be nurtured?

For further help in assessing a directee’s individual spirituality and its role in their healing process, Donald Meichenbaum has created an excellent comprehensive resource for assessing a psychotherapy client’s spiritual functioning that is applicable to spiritual direction.

As directors dealing with a human being, we would be remiss to ignore the role of the body in experiencing holiness.  Incorporating the body into prayer may include practices of mindfulness, traditional postures such as kneeling, or nontraditional postures that help a survivor feel safe such as standing with eyes open.  Philip Helsel, friend of ICTG, has written out a beautiful ritual that incorporates blessing the body and intentionally including it in prayer in postures of safety.  For some, walking or pacing helps to relax tension in the body enough to allow prayer to happen. For others, praying using the traditional imaginative exercises of St. Ignatius can be helpful in engaging the senses.  The Jewish traditions of “sitting Shiva” and Tisha b’Av are rich with tangible rituals and practices that are specifically designed to allow space for grief and healing, both for those who have been hurt and those who are grieving the loss with them.

There is so much room for growth in our understanding of how trauma affects the human spirit.  Scattered across the traditions are powerful models of both lament and courage as well as celebrations of both vulnerability and strength.  We must gather these resources and stay in dialogue with our colleagues in the fields of mental health, medicine, and theology. As we do, we will continue to see new experiences of the holy integrated, and resultantly, strong, intact people who emerge to tell their stories of survival.

In the current pandemic crisis, we are seeing an overwhelm of the health care system that is unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. The restrictions around hospitals limiting visitors (for everyone’s safety) mean that often people will be suffering, even dying, in some degree of isolation. For some there may be a nurse or chaplain that stays with them.  But many will not be attended to by their family. And in kind, the family will be home without their loved one. Feelings of helplessness, anger, and overwhelming sadness will accompany this difficult experience.

IMAGE: NOVANT HEALTH

It is likely that most of us will know someone either directly or through someone close, who dies of this disease. That means we will also be coming into contact with directees who have lost loved ones in this cold and detached way. In older congregations we may see dramatic drops in members and be grieving these lonely deaths as a group. This experience of losing so many people in a way that is so outside the norm may heighten the experience of bereavement. The strong emotions that accompany grief, combined with a sense of helplessness can quickly reach the levels that we define as being traumatic. How can we help people to process through their experience in a way that helps them avoid becoming stuck?  How can we help people to find comfort in the Presence of God in such trying times? How do we honor traditions that normally would comfort people with “last rites” when we cannot be physically present with the dying? Responding well to the very real and tangible losses of life around us will be part of the long term recovery process. Being intentional in our response will also help build resiliency and protect the mental health of our directees in the aftermath of this global crisis.

Different helping professions will all need to navigate their own response and how they provide care.  For spiritual directors, this journey will necessitate facing theodicy, or the “why do bad things happen” question, with our directees. We will need to create space for, and perhaps provide instruction about, lament. We must allow space for tears, anger, and the heavy silence that falls when words fail. Embodied work will need higher priority.  

For those of us who fill a dual role as minister/shepherd/pastor, or who consider ourselves part of an institution or congregation, attending to the communal experience will also require tender attentiveness. There is so much loss in this season for everyone. Each of us has and will experience different affects on our emotional, physical, spiritual, fiscal, and relational health. Senses of “normal” and security have been and are being threatened. There is so much grief work to be done. Finding the grief connected to losing a loved one and holding it in context of all the other losses swirling around will call for patient and precise care.

If you have not already begun to meet with directees who have lost loved ones, consider that it is likely that you will in the future. Begin to prepare yourself now, both in heart and in training, to walk alongside a level of unique grief, unknown to most of us. This is a new chapter. We are preparing the way for what spiritual direction will look like for decades to come. Discuss this with colleagues. Bring it to supervision. Perhaps the resurgence of interest in being trained as a spiritual director that we have seen over the last decade or so, was for just such a time as this.

One of the joys of being a spiritual director is observing with people how their human spirits and their senses of holiness interact.  These unique movements, or faith journeys, greatly affect the way people work and live, and often give us intimate senses of God’s direction and movements in each person’s life.  In recent years, as I have walked along with people through their faith journeys, I have discovered a new question for me that I believe is critical to addressing needs of our day.  How does God work, and what are individuals’ experiences of holiness, when things go horribly wrong? More than a question of theodicy (i.e., in a world of God’s sovereignty, why do bad things happen?), this question considers spiritual developments amid tragic circumstances.  As I research this question I find that excellent scholars can answer what happens in the brain, thoughts, emotions, and body when tragedy strikes, but there are not good answers for what trauma’s impact is on a person’s spirit. This is partly because each person’s experience is so personal, but we know from other disciplines that there are general truths that can provide a foundation for how to approach healing when our perceptions of the world are shattered.  This must also be true of healing the soul.  

As I look to companion people of faith through traumatic experiences, I am flooded with questions: 

• How does one pray when one cannot even find the words to describe what happened? 
• How does one begin to bless and care for the divine image in their body when it has been abused?
• How does God engage in reigniting hope and imagining life can continue on beyond severe loss? 
• How do we, as spiritual directors, help people wrestle through shifting perceptions of God and reality brought on by traumatic experiences? 
• How do we apply scriptures and disciplines to reconstructing rather than deconstructing people?
• How do we sit in silence and solitude when the noise of hurt is so loud? Ought we to sit in silence and solitude in that place?  
• How do we relate to an unchanging God when everything has changed?

These questions, and so many more, are being asked by suffering people and those who love them everyday.  As spiritual directors we need to be asking these questions, too, and even more questions, to adequately meet the demands of our times.  

Spiritual directors can be an invaluable help to people seeking God in crisis.  Yet to approach those who have suffered traumatic losses of any kind as if they are on similar journeys as people in times of peace would be not only unhelpful, it would be unkind.  Spiritual direction in the face of trauma must change. Distinct from other disciplines’ outpourings, including therapy from psychology and knowledge from theology, spiritual direction must have a plan for the short, and mid-term, experiences of survivors, prepared to take on embodied practices and to provide structure and hope. 

​It is the answers to these questions that we are seeking in the spiritual direction program at ICTG. Next month I will share some of the answers that I have found helpful in my search for both lay spiritual directors and clergy to come alongside those who are hurting and be, paraphrasing St. John of the Cross, a voice calling from the unknown saying, “Come this way, I have made it, the path is safe despite the darkness.”