Moving through a difficult life experience can be a very lonely journey.
We feel separate and apart, alone in a busy world, disconnected.
Many of us feel like we are only a shadow of our former selves.
Some of us feel like we are drowning in our own experiences.
We struggle with the deep questions of life and death, the issues of spirit and soul.
What do we do when we have a broken spirit or wounded soul?
Life flows around us, but we cannot connect to ourselves or others.
Nothing makes sense.
We feel despair and question life itself.
The world as we have known it is gone.
We struggle with the meaning and purpose of our lives.
We experience the dark night of the soul.
In 1985, I received the traumatic news that my son had been killed.
And I searched for help in the healthcare system.
I searched for help in the religious system that I belonged to and I really had a very
difficult time finding help.
And the reason I couldn't receive help in the healthcare system and in the other systems
that I tried was because nobody was willing to go to that level of pain that I was experiencing,
which I now call soul pain.
And I felt so broken and I felt that I was on whole and that part of me had actually
fled.
And along with it, some characteristics had gone because I was not able to experience
joy, laughter, happiness, those kinds of things.
And now that I work with people who are traumatized, I realize that almost every person that I
work with, when I'm willing to listen to their story, they tell about that searching, that
longing, that brokenness that they feel and that soul pain that they experience.
In 1957, in a small, unassuming monastery in Bangkok, Thailand, the monks were asked
to relocate in order that a new freeway could be constructed.
The monastery housed a gigantic clay Buddha.
As a large crane lifted the clay figure, the clay began to crack.
Searing for the destruction of the sacred monument, the crane was removed until further
plans could be made.
Before retiring for the night, the head monk decided to check the condition of the Buddha.
Shining a light under the tarp, he was amazed to detect a gleam being reflected back.
After chiseling away eight inches of clay, the monks discovered a solid gold Buddha.
We are like the clay Buddha.
Our covering, like that on the Buddha, was put in place to protect us from the harshness
of the world, a hard shell created out of fear.
Yet underneath the outer hardness lies our golden essence, our real self.
Unless we break the shell surrounding us, we are unable to let our light shine or to
see the light and goodness or godness in others.
Like the monk with the hammer and chisel, our task is to rediscover our true selves,
our wholeness, our connections.
When we open and awaken to the spiritual side of ourselves, we greet the dawn that summons
the soul.
The pain of this journey has transformed us in some way.
And I often describe this as we're a caterpillar.
In our loss and in our pain and in our trauma, we come in on our belly.
And it's like we move into this place of silence.
I like to think about it as the caterpillar going into the cocoon.
In our time of cocooning, we actually face what's known as a major beliefs crisis.
Unless the beliefs that we once held or thought we held are now being tested in the fire of
our own experience.
Spirituality is often described as a journey, a journey of remembering.
Remembering that we are a spark of the divine.
Spiritual beings having a human experience.
Spirituality is a process of relating, of extending the light within us to others and
seeing the divine in them being reflected back.
Twenty-four years ago, I had an abortion, which I never talked about.
And I never really thought about, but I knew I had the guilt inside.
The first part was to give a name to the child, which she did, and she called him Michael.
We were going to do like a visualization.
All of a sudden she said, he's here, and I said, what do you mean he's here?
She said, she pointed to another empty chair in the room and she said, Michael's here.
He's sitting in that chair.
And she said, what do you want to say?
And it was like something happened to us, and she became Michael.
She said, I really missed you, and I said, you know, I've missed you too, and I said,
what was it you missed the most?
And at that moment I said, I would want to hold him, but there was this fear of mine.
There's a lot about, you know, should you hold a client?
You know, what is kind of, you know, there's this whole issue about boundaries and should
you do that or not?
And so I kind of quickly looked around the room to see, I thought, well, maybe, maybe
there's a teddy bear, maybe there is something she could hold, and I sort of quickly looked
around the room and I knew, no, there's nothing there.
But this was so instantaneous, and so I just, I needed to go home.
So I moved over, I knelt down beside her, I held him, and as I reached out, this weight
that I'd been carrying inside of me, which I didn't know was there, it was like I was
in a science fiction movie.
It just was sucked out of me and taken away, this heavy weight around my heart.
It was so profound, it was, it was like, there was this deep, deep sense of connectedness
between the two of us that I had never really ever experienced with a client before, and
it was, it was like we were talking soul to soul.
And at that moment, it was definitely that she was him, and so I got to hold my child.
When we started that session, I said a silent prayer to, to God, to ask me, to help me,
because I wasn't really sure where we would go, and I wasn't sure how it would all, how
the process would, would, would evolve.
I left the session, and I stood outside, and it was, I could open my arms and say, Lord,
you can take me at this moment.
I am so filled with peace that I, I just could have gone.
I don't know, it was, it was just so, it was so profound, it, it, I don't know what, what
the word is to describe it.
It was a very unique experience, one that I, that I'm not sure could ever happen again.
Through her, I could look at myself honestly, and accept myself, forgive myself for that
and other things I've done, and to love myself.
That that soul-to-soul is where the healing really needs to take place, and I would like
to be able to do that with everybody, and somehow, it, somehow that just doesn't happen,
and I guess I have sadness about that, um, but when it does happen, it, it's a wonderful,
a wonderful, wonderful feeling to know that, that you've been able to, to join with somebody
at that, at that level, and I think that's what's really significant is that, when I
can do that, or if I'm able to, that, that's worth more than anything in the world.
Stories, songs, poetry, art, symbols, sacred rituals have been given to us as guides and
markers throughout history to connect us to spirit, to lift the soul out of darkness.
Spirituality is a process of seeing divine energy in everything.
Spirituality can be quite different from religion.
Religion is generally defined in terms of practice.
It is often described as rites, rituals, doctrine, and creed used by a particular group.
Such practices may or may not help a person advance their spirituality.
It is important to recognize and understand what our own belief systems are.
Do my beliefs prevent me from connecting with compassion to this person?
Do I make judgments based on my own beliefs, or do I walk beside and share the journey?
Coming to know that we're walking beside, not walking above, that we listen very intently
and often we listen in silence, because this is this person's journey, it's their process
of unfolding.
When we don't want to go there with that person, we may be unhelpful for them, because
it's our beliefs that are getting in the way.
They've bumped up against something that we think we really believe, and the questions
that I was raising about life and death, about heaven and hell, and reincarnation, and is
there such a thing as afterlife, and where did my son go, and where was he now, what
was the meaning in all of this for me, and what was the purpose for the rest of my life.
People were very uncomfortable with hearing that kind of thing, and would quickly send
me off to someone else who was just as uncomfortable with hearing that kind of thing.
Many helpers are not that spiritually developed themselves, and so when the person they're
working with begins to say, I've heard the voice of God rippling over the rocks, they're
wondering where is this person coming from?
But if we can recognize that maybe we as helpers, when we're trying to listen for soul pain,
need to actually be on our own spiritual journey.
If spirit is the divine spark and light that connects us, what is soul?
For many, the human soul is described in terms of individual purpose and uniqueness.
Basic to this is a belief that each person has been given soul gifts, talents and abilities
to give purpose to life.
Creativity or using our talents and abilities is often referred to as soul work.
Using the soul gifts we are given expands the growth of our soul and the collective
soul of humankind.
Craftspeople during the Middle Ages believed the special spiral patterns on our fingertips
were marks left by the soul entering the body.
They believed that we infused those we touch and the things we create with our soul energy.
Therefore, it is important to be mindful of the touch we give and where we leave our fingerprints.
When we are deeply wounded in soul and spirit, creative expression is blocked.
Creativity is the voice of the soul.
Creative expression releases soul pain and moves us forward.
As healers, we can prime the pump to start the creative process flowing again.
Ask a person to draw that pain, that experience, what would it look like?
Mold it in clay, sing it.
That creative expression allows contact with the soul and a small spark of light to shine
in the darkness.
When we are trying to discover our new purpose in life, many people begin to use creative
activities.
They begin to mold with clay their pain and it is almost as if we are infusing the pain
into the clay and it is as if in doing that we are able to let go of some of the pain
and dance into our joy.
And so most people in their healing strategies, if they are willing to go deep enough, find
creative endeavors.
For one woman, it was drawing an incredibly black painting.
I believe she used a whole kindergarten crayon to draw the blackness and out of that blackness
came a tiny little golden dandelion because she had seen a dandelion coming through the
cement on her way to see me and she said if that dandelion has the tenacity to come through
that cement wall, I know that I can have the courage to heal.
The pain is lodged in every cell of the body and needs to be released.
Many of the creative strategies like art, dance or humor therapy increase endorphins,
the body's own pain reducing mechanism.
When creativity is flowering, there is soul healing taking place.
Our ability to use our talents and creativity is a measure of soul energy.
When we are creative and use our gifts and talents, we are fully alive.
One way to raise our awareness of what is blocking our ability to move forward is to
look at our circle of significance.
Some people feel their entire sense of wholeness has been consumed by the change, loss, crisis
or trauma in their lives.
When we suffer, all aspects of our humanness suffers.
We have become pretty good at recognizing physical symptoms of loss and grief.
Inability to eat, sleep, chest pain, headache.
We are also aware of the emotional responses of anger and denial, however few of us have
any idea of what soul pain or loss to the wholeness of our soul looks like.
Aboriginal peoples from many parts of the world hold a common belief regarding the human
response to life crisis and trauma.
According to this belief, the psychic shock following trauma causes the soul to flee.
In aboriginal cultures, shaman and other healers perform various rituals with the purpose of
returning the missing soul fragments to their human home.
These practices are not openly honored within our western culture, but at some level we
are aware of this truth.
Awareness pulls us towards the recognition of our spiritual nature.
Mental theory tells us we develop trust very early in life.
If most of our needs are met, we learn we are worthy human beings and trust the world
around us.
We trust the tides will ebb and flow.
We trust the sun will rise each morning.
We trust our children will come home safely from school.
When traumatic events break our trust in the world, we become filled with fear and anxiety.
We no longer trust our decisions and abilities.
We become filled with self-doubt, guilt and regret.
Unable to love ourselves, we are unable to love others.
When we lose our ability to trust, we also struggle with hope.
We doubt that things will ever get better.
Without trust and hope, we will not risk, and a certain amount of risk is needed to
move forward.
We struggle for meaning and we try to identify what purpose our lives will have now.
Moving forward is hard work.
Some of us try to rationalize it and work it out in our heads.
Some respond with gut-wrenching emotion.
It is a process that needs to pay attention to mind, body, emotion and spirit.
Emotional pain is often manifested for people in physical symptoms and emotional symptoms
because those are safer for them to tell us about.
And a really good example of that is a young man called me one time and asked me if I would
help him with his depression.
So depression is classically thought of as an emotional thing.
I see it very much as a spiritual struggle.
I see it as the dark night, and I invited him to come.
And so I said to him as he started talking about his depression, when did that begin?
And he said, when I broke my leg, physical symptom.
He was safe talking about those things, and I said, when did you break your leg?
And he began to explode about doing this job that he absolutely hated.
I knew immediately doing a job we hate is off-purpose.
We're not fulfilling our purpose in life.
To me that was a spiritual struggle.
So I said to him, what would you like to be doing?
Inviting him to tell me how could you get on purpose?
And he said, I'm an artist, and I'm a very good artist.
But my parents told me there was no money to be made in being an artist.
And they told me there was lots of jobs as a social worker.
So I have a degree in social work, but I'm not comfortable working in this setting because
I keep getting this nagging about doing something to make a difference for these people.
And I said, have you ever heard of art therapy?
I only saw that man twice.
He is now a very well-established art therapist and doing exceptional work for others.
And he is on purpose and living a very joyous life.
When people are in spiritual distress, they need someone to listen.
The talking stick is an ancient and powerful healing tool.
The stick is passed from person to person.
And if someone wishes to speak, they hold the stick until they are finished speaking.
Those in the group listen attentively but make no comment.
It allows the story to be told, to be released without judgment.
The need for connection, to feel we belong and are important, that we matter, is an important
soul need.
To make connections and find purpose in life, we need to identify our own gifts and abilities
and find ways to use this soul energy.
Soul healing begins with small steps.
Bake a pie, hang a picture, paint a wall a new color, sing a song in the shower, plant
a seed.
To me, there's no separation between soul healing and healing.
It's the same in one.
That's what it's all about.
And we maybe offer strategies, but we can't fix.
And we need to be able to get to the point where we're able to let go of that need to
fix and help that person slowly, gradually reclaim their own power.
As healers, we need to reconnect to the sacred, sacred in places and in practices.
Explore what is meaningful and is truth for each of us.
Listen to the spiritual and soul needs of others with open hearts.
Connect to the earth.
Aboriginal cultures believe that energy and spirit are in all things, in the solid ones,
in the standing ones that ground us and connect us to the earth.
Connect to each other.
Take off your masks, your protective clay, and see the goodness and godness in each person.
Live a life of gratitude, giving thanks for great and small.
Remember, the healing work we are doing is soul work.
It does make a difference.