Grief. Exhaustion. Fatigue. 
 
Many of us may be having these feelings right now—and it’s no wonder! Over these past few months, we’ve seen an unusually high number of traumatic events, from hurricanes, to wildfires, to shootings, to violent protests.

Sadly, there will be more traumatic events to come. Too often communities struggle to resume normalcy in the months and years following a catastrophe. Instead, heartbreakingly, they can experience increases in domestic violence, addiction, and broken relationships. 

How can you help add some good during these hard times?
 
One way you can help is by developing your skills as a caretaker, particularly your ability to provide long-term and spiritual care after disasters.
 
Starting tomorrow, October 17th, ICTG will be hosting a 6-week webinar series. Webinars will take place every Tuesday at 10am Pacific. 
 
Some of the topics we will cover include:

• Discovering and building your Village of Care
• Phases of Collective Trauma Response
• Long-Term Challenges after disasters (ACEs, fatigue, vicarious traumatization
• Long-Term Solutions & Preparedness

The $95 fee includes 6 sessions (live + recorded), an ICTG Resource Guide of your choice (which includes assessment tools) and a certificate of completion. If you already purchased a guide in the past, you can receive a $35 discount when you register. 

And, additional materials will be provided free of charge throughout the series. 

This is an excellent deal for an invaluable education in self-care and community care.
 
Don't miss out! 

Recent years have provided us with a sharpening of awareness of many patterns of trauma in their various unique forms.  Situational trauma, disability trauma, inherited trauma, traumas of violence, among others, all have their particular forms and healing paths, yet even when healed the sufferers carry their permanent scar tissue in their souls.

Approximately 10 years ago in my work as a pastoral counselor, I had a successive series of trauma events surrounding the sudden loss of adolescent children through death (mostly these involved accidents, although some were instances of drug and alcohol deaths). The intensity of these trauma journeys revealed the insufficiency of my standard care-giving and healing paths, and prompted a necessary deeper reflection on my insufficient trauma awareness.

Most of trauma recovery narratives have as their ultimate objective the state of healing that grants the sufferer at a minimum, restored equilibrium, and a sufficient sense of harmony that allows life to find the goodness that makes life worth living. This goal is not inappropriate but comes with the additional profound recognition that certain wounds will not heal. The death of a child is such a wound. What makes such trauma enduring is multilayered, but two factors do reveal why such trauma remains.

The very structure of the universe seems to evoke of this state of permanence. None of us believes we should outlive our children. Losing them before their time is an affront to creation. It comes to us as a violation of an implicit “pact” we make with life. Deep in our bones we know life is meant to be full and complete, and when a child dies before we do, it defies that deep inner logic. That fact alone brands us forever as sorrow carriers.

But there is an even deeper core to the permanent wound of such a sufferer, which is the flow of love itself. Love, by its very nature is abiding and internal. Love for a child is a “forever love” and is indivisible. Even ruptured parent-child relationships carry that love that even in their alienated form. If anything, an alienated parent-child bond burdens in the love-permanence even more deeply in a stuck way, because the love cannot find the flow, the soothing and reconnecting that the love journey might otherwise find.

Many suffering outcomes flow from this abiding wound. A loss of a child, young or old, researchers have found, leads to all the obvious outcomes such as chronic depression, which often in addition lead to poorer physical health, higher rates of failed marriages, as well as factors such as addictions. Often, these outcomes become more visible even decades later.

A recent New York Times report highlights the preponderance of these trauma events in people’s lives. A Federal Health and retirement study from 1992 to 2014 reported that 11.5% of persons over 50 have lost a child. This number is higher among blacks (16.7%) than whites (10.2%).[i] Demographic changes in society are accelerating the prevalence of these suffering stories. With greater longevity the chances increase that you will outlive your child. Rising rates of drug mortality and suicide in early to midlife will certainly increase these numbers, and will likely accelerate the deepening of this trauma trajectory because of stigmatization factors. So-called “messy” or ambiguous loss narratives carry a particular vulnerability around trauma that has yet to be worked through, and spiritually-minded caregivers need additional layers of sensitivity to address these deeply entrenched patterns.

Pastoral care providers and their communities will certainly need a deepening sensitivity to this reality.  There are numerous helpful models of care and strategies of support that pastoral persons have historically found helpful when addressing trauma. But I wish to underscore a particular feature that is found within permanent trauma states.  The reason why I need to single out this particular concern will seem obvious, but it remains a difficult notion to grasp.

The great paradox of trauma linked to love is that it cannot be, nor should it be, removed.  The very nature of love suggests it forever seeks its love object. Theology has already revealed this truth to us in our experience of God’s love. God’s love is forever seeking to draw us into such love. We are shaped and formed forever in that mode, however faintly we may reflect that reality in our messy lives. We love because we have first been loved, and love ultimately wants to find its way home.

Thus, the abiding necessary journey of love is to have the flow of love restored. All ruptured or lost love must undergo the arduous journey of being “emptied out” from its here and now form. Such losses must be grieved in their hard reality, their permanence, namely in the tangible and real absence of the loved one. Often, our tolerance for the duration of these journeys is limited, both for the sufferer and for those of us accompanying them. This is long haul work. Yet this is why we call it “grief work.”

Any sufferer, of course, experiences the inevitable wish to repress the pain, to find a timeout, to escape from the ache. These efforts should be understood and accepted with sensitivity, compassion, and deep empathy. There is a point, however, when repressed and suppressed suffering narratives break back into awareness. At that critical juncture active support needs to be made available to allow the love narrative to resurface again, and to be reworked as love in the here and now. This means taking the love back into ourselves as an eternal, abiding link. We do this by reworking memory, by listening for dreams, by sensitively holding all the traces of love for and with another. By reworking the traces of love they are taken back into the soul to soothe, comfort, strengthened, and ultimately guide. We are forever informed and changed by the love we have once lived.

Intentional work with one’s own trauma loss narratives, done with the right preparation and right intention, takes us toward the heart of God. The heart of God is that power of the universe that takes all fragments of its life and holds them secure in their realness, and especially in their absent or alienated form. The careful holding of these trauma narratives as they are worked through, incubates them and makes this love available again for future use and eventual return to the larger wholeness of life, understood both individually and collectively. It is of course, also the journey of God and when we are accompanied in this way, in the great mystery of God, we become partners in this endeavor.
 

[i] NY Times. Paula Span. “A Child’s Death.” September 29, 2017.

ICTG provides restorative strategies to leaders for personal and group growth after loss. You can find training materials here. You can learn more about the coaching and custom care plans we provide here. 

To make a contribution to help subsidize training and coaching for lower-income leaders, give a donation today here. ​

A lot of people have asked me about how to talk to children after heartbreaking incidents like the tragic events that occurred in Las Vegas on Sunday night or in Newtown, CT, on December 14, 2012. There are many good articles out there . . . and also poor ones. Here’s one that I agree with. You can also find helpful resources at the National Child Traumatic Stress Network website, www.nctsn.org. For me, talking to children about murder, mass violence, and other challenging topics, comes down to a few basic elements.
 
Should you talk about it at all? That is an important question in which the answer is more of an art than a science. Every child is different, the circumstances are different, and you as a parent, teacher, or guardian have careful discernment to do in determining the most helpful answer for the child(ren) with you. Things to consider in whether to talk about recent events or not:

• Will they encounter the information somewhere else? If it is likely your child(ren) may hear about what has happened in other settings, it will be meaningful for him or her to hear the news from you. Ideally, your home is a sanctuary for your child. A place where she or he can go out from and return to, having encountered any manner of things in the world and know that, at least at home, they are safe, loved, enjoyed, and can find respite.
• Are other adults around you trying to shield their child(ren) from what has happened? If you do share information with your child(ren), be mindful that other adults may feel differently. Consider whether your child is old enough to share information in respectful ways when they leave your home.
• Are they already curious about what has happened, or will you be introducing very new information? If you are introducing new information, you will want to be thoughtful about how you present it. Further, be thoughtful about whether you are introducing information accidentally or carelessly by having news on the radio, television, or computer. Be thoughtful about the images the children around you are witnesses, striving to find a balance between not hiding information from them while also not bombarding them with images.

 
Be a reliable, trustworthy adult for a child. Children need reliable, trustworthy adults in their life in order to grow well. These adults are not just parents, but other adults (family, friends, neighbors, community members) who are consistently a part of their lives, care about what they think and feel, and provide them with good.
 
Tell the truth. If you discern it is important to discuss a tragedy, stick to basic facts of the case. Do not embellish, and do not use euphemisms or metaphors. Be specific and simple. Here are words I used with my children (ages 4, 7, 9):  “Something very sad happened today. A man who seems to have been very sick inside, came into a school. He had a gun and he shot people.” [Note: if a child among you is younger than three years old, this conversation is not necessary. They are not developmentally old enough to fully grasp what has happened, especially if they do not have a close contact with a victim or survivor. Though they may understand that adults around them are sad. If that’s the case, focus mainly on that part. If the child is two or three years old and knows a person intimately who died suddenly, you may discuss the fact that the person is no longer alive and discuss the concept of death. In this case, I often use pastoral counselor Wayne Oates’ practice of describing death with children as the experience where everything on the outside and on the inside stops moving.]
 
Let the child(ren) guide the conversation. A child’s age and development will influence how they respond to your sharing with them. Preschoolers tend to be very concrete, with bluntness that can be jolting for adults. For example, my four-year-old son asked, incredulously, “Did he shoot kids?!”  Remember that this conversation is not about you, and that it is helpful if adults are mindful of finding safe forums with other adults for their own struggles with grief and sorrow so they can be mostly present to what a child in their care is thinking and feeling. Elementary school kids tend to express more empathy and make more connections. My daughter commented, “How sad . . .” And my oldest son asked, “Was it like when [another person who struggled with mental health] shot [some other people]?”  Here are my responses to each, respectively: “Yes. He shot kids. Yes. It is very sad. You will see today and these next few days that many adults right now are very sad about this. And, we don’t know yet if it was similar to that other situation. We don’t have enough information yet.”  If they ask a question that you do not know the answer to, remember to be truthful. Say something along the lines of, “That’s a good question. I don’t know.”  You may suggest how the answer might be found, “Perhaps we could ask [a respected person we know] about that.” Or, as a faithful adult, you may suggest that you pray together to ask God for answers. Invite the children you are talking with to share with you how they are feeling. Some will want to, while others will not. If the child(ren) you are with do not want to talk, allow the conversation to end by letting them know that they can talk with you any time. Eventually, move on to other activities together – playing, making meals, home chores, etc – as a way of demonstrating the fullness of life continues, even as you are feeling very sad.
 
Encourage safety. Be mindful of how often news media is around your child(ren), through radio, television, phones, or computers. Try to take media breaks in the immediate aftermath of disasters, and when you are viewing or listening to news be careful to check whether the children around you are occupied in other healthful ways. Be thoughtful about how often your attention is divided. If you do discern a conversation with your child(ren) would be helpful, following their comments and questions, be sure to end by speaking to their safety. For example, you may describe how rare this act of violence was. Whether it is rare for your community or not, you may speak to helpers who are around, including other trustworthy adults such as police officers, firefighters, nurses and doctors, counselors, teachers, church members, pastors, or government leaders. You may speak to how people are working to make sure this does not happen again or begins to stop happening so much. You may remind them how you are together right now, and how safe you are together right now, how safe your home is.  You might encourage them to locate the things that make them feel better. For example, for young children, it may be their security toys or blanket, and for older children, their favorite music or activities. Sometimes children will just want to be together, quietly. Consider finding a cozy spot together, perhaps playing some gentle music and lighting a candle to create a sense of present peace together for some time. Other times, children will have a lot of energy they do not know how to manage or talk about. One activity that can be helpful is to invite them to “push how they feel”. For younger children, you can brace yourself, with your feet at a wall and arms outstretched in front of you, and have the child interlock fingers with you and push how hard they feel. You might comment by saying something like, “Wow! I can feel you are feeling a lot right now.” Sometimes, at this point of recognition, they may cry and you can remind them again they are safe with you. For older children, you can have them try and push on something immobile like a large tree or a wall. As they do, again, you can comment on how you can see they are feeling a lot. Again, this moment of recognition might help them release some tension through tears, and, again, you can remind them they are safe with you.
 
When it comes to healing after trauma, spending time together and sharing your stories of both hurt and healing together can be very helpful for children who have survived tragedy. Stories can be shared by talking, and also by doing things together. You may pray together, listen to music, draw or paint together, play, or exercise together. You may sing or play instruments together, or incorporate special foods into your mealtimes to help recall happy memories and to express sorrow. Remember that not everyone heals in the same way. Healing, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Listen to your child for what seems most helpful to her or him. Also, be aware that your children may reenact violence in their play or art. This is a common way that children make sense of what has occurred. Invite them to share their creations with you. In addition, some ways that children discover hope is by pretending or artistically creating a solution. This is a way children begin to learn about repairing and restoring what has been lost or broken. Rather than dismissing their inventions, try to embrace them. You might consider saying something like, “How wonderful it would be to have a trampoline/cape/helicopter/raft like that, and be able to get out/away/free.” At times, their feelings may seem out of sync with your own. Be mindful of finding meaningful places for your own healing, beyond healing with children. Finally, consider having children participate in creating responses to tragedy both by incorporating their spontaneous gestures and interest into ordinary experiences, as they come up, and also through intentional community memorializing.
 
Whatever you do, do not try to pretend away or ignore the truth of what has happened with children. Pretending the truth has not happened, especially when children are in close proximity to a tragic event, causes children to doubt significantly their ability to trust their feelings. This produces deleterious effects on family and social systems and on children’s long-term sense of well-being. Kids experience adverse and extreme results when they grow up sensing truth among adults who refuse to speak of or acknowledge what has occurred. Emotional residue permeates, no matter how hard someone tries to reduce or ignore it. We do our children no favors by avoiding difficult or challenging topics. In effect, we do something worse. We avoid the vital relationship that occurs during pain, a relationship that children and the adults around them need greatly. The art of caring for children after tragedy, though, is that we also do our children no favors by overwhelming them with traumatic stimulation and keeping them from natural rhythms of repair they feel inclined toward, including taking breaks from media and conversation, play, and rest. The building or relational construction that comes about during the sharing of emotive content – including sorrowful experiences, joyful experiences, and boring experiences – creates the substance of what holds caring relationships together. That is, trust, reliability, emotional safety, and forgiveness. What occurs when two or three are gathered amid ordinary and extraordinary times becomes foundations for the next times that we encounter adversity or joy. Being in caring relationships with children during momentous life events is not about having answers. It is about practicing whole-self living within the frameworks of faith, hope, and love.
 
Practicing presence is hard. This discipline is hard when things are not stressful, let alone amid the chaos of tragedy. Yet, incredible strength and well-being can grow from the remnants after sorrow and destruction. As adults show up and companion with one another, as they stand ready to include children in the important experiences of grief, mourning, and lament that come up in various seasons of life, we go about the work together of rebuilding and sewing seeds for new life.

ICTG provides restorative strategies to leaders for personal and group growth after loss. You can find training materials here. You can learn more about the coaching and custom care plans we provide here. 

To make a contribution to help subsidize training and coaching for lower-income leaders, give a donation today here. ​

Everybody loves to have fun. I live about two hours from the Hollywood Bowl. On an annual basis, I will take a look at the summer schedule and see some great opportunities to sit in this iconic place for some of the best performances in the world. Just a month ago my wife and I went with friends to see John Williams conduct the Los Angeles Symphony. It was a great escape for two hours to hear the classics and be sitting with thousands of other people enjoying the moment as well.

Twenty-two thousand people decided to have fun yesterday at a country music festival in Las Vegas. For weeks or months before they looked forward to a three-day event, being with their “tribe” and listening to their music. Fun was the primary agenda item at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. On Sunday night the happy place was shattered while Jason Aldean was still on the stage at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.  

A lone gunman rained bullets on an unsuspecting crowd from a high perch 30+ stories up. At the writing of this blog, over 50 people have died and 400+ more are injured, and in some cases, critically injured. This has now been described as the worst mass shooting in modern day U.S. history.

With the onslaught of natural disasters, a divided government, fragile economy and rising anxiety among the younger generation, people now, more than ever are in search of the place where they can take a deep breath and break away from the madness. A sporting event, a good movie in the theater, a concert, a long hike in the park, a day at the beach are all on the list of escapes. Twenty-two thousand people thought they had found their “safe place, ” but it was not to be. Sadly we have entered a new normal. It appears we can “run” but we cannot “hide” from the dangers and trauma found in the surrounding world.

Where do we go? What do we do?

Living in a world of increased trauma is our context. This scenario begs at least two possible reactions: live in fear of what may happen next or accept our role in being responsive.


We at Institute of Congregational Trauma and Growth (ICTG) champion being responsive in two ways:

1)  The Congregational Trauma Preparedness and Response Resource Guide prepared by ICTG calls us to calming, community and communication as a response to trauma. “Personal calming" means, first, admitting to yourself what is happening and, then, releasing tension. Learning to become calm during and after life’s turbulence, both individually and as a part of a group directly influences capacities for resiliency. Becoming calm amid the flooding of trauma-related emotions helps our internal systems communicate better with each other. Heart rates go down. Breathing steadies. Oxygen gets to the brain more easily. When we are calm, we can better sense when we are hungry, satiated, thirsty, quenched, exhausted, or restless. We do not feel numb or hyper-vigilant. Also, when we calm ourselves during or after trauma, we begin to sense other people and their needs.” (p.9 of the Resource Guide)

2) We can also respond by offering a pro-active calming place, a safe place. As one who has given my life to shepherding youth, children and their families in the context of the church I value our physical places of worship and community as a “safe place.” I want the physical building and presence with the community, whether at the church, in a park or at someone’s house to be “home” and a place where kids and parents can take a deep breath and find safety. This takes strategic planning and programming. It requires training of leaders and students to embrace a place where they can live “calmness” in the midst of the potential threats, realized and unrealized.

A few questions to consider:

1)    Where are your “safe places?”
2)    How do you bring calming into your life and the lives of others?
3)    How can you build a pro-active calming place in your church, community organization or home?

Few words suffice in the aftermath of a mass shooting. The ripples of terror survivors experienced in a matter of seconds, or, worse, over a couple of hours, last for days, and months, years, and even decades for some. 

Some will need to talk about it, and keep talking about it. They won't be able to help themselves. It was so hard to take in what they endured. They'll say things like, "It was surreal" "It was like a movie" "I couldn't believe it was happening." They'll catch themselves forgetting momentarily, "like it was a nightmare, but I can't wake up from it."

They need caring companions who listen. 

Others will need to not talk about it. No words can describe the horror they encountered and the broken sacredness they feel.

They need caring companions who stand alongside to silently mourn together. ​

Mass shootings remind survivors, near and far, of what's happened before, and the need to mourn again together. Perhaps they experienced another mass shooting, or an act of community or domestic violence. Perhaps they are a veteran of a war or active duty.

Both because of what's remembered and also what has newly transpired, the community needs to mourn together in vigils or services that allow both for words through prayers, singing, and words of lament, as well as non-verbal ways of expressing sorrow including dance, lighting candles, sharing a moment of silence, and quiet rituals. 

Mass shootings remind survivors, near and far, of what remains to be done. At ICTG, we talk a lot about relying on "the basics" of self care and group care during times of trial.

Building or rebuilding these practices in times of peace help you process what's happened and prepare well for the next crisis. Here are some helpful ways of practicing self-care and community care:
​

• Self Care – eat well, exercise regularly, get regular sleep, and practice nourishing faithfulness. 
• Relational Care – create rhythms of interacting with people who care about you and who you care about every 2-3 hours. This may include family or household meals, playing sports, learning from teachers, going on dates, sharing in fellowship, attending worship, or other leisure activities with friends or family.
• Professional Care – be acquainted with reliable pastoral counselors, therapists, and mental health professionals for your own care and to make referrals for people around you who are in need of acute care
• Community Care – build relationships with your neighbors and community leaders by expressing kindness and genuine concern for others' well-being. Here's an example of how to care for your community first responders: 

How is your community responding to recent tragedies from gun violence? What has been most helpful? Share in the comments below.