Episode 45: Be Still: The Healing Aspect of Living with Trauma
Be Still Podcast Outline
- Definition of Still
- Definition of Know
- Dissection of Psalm 46: 10
- What Happens With the Combo of Trauma and Constant Busyness
Podcast Transcript:
Good afternoon! Welcome to Healing Our Brokenness, episode 45, Entitled, “Be Still:” The Healing Aspect of Living with Trauma on a Daily Basis”
What does it mean to be still?
Being still means without movement, without speech, calm, peaceful, serene.
I like to think of stillness as the act of eliminating busyness and distractions.
In Psalm 46: 10, God tells us, “Be still and know that I am God.”
To know means to be aware of through information and observation. For us to know something or someone, we must spend time with that person or learning about that topic. If we want to know God, we must quiet our spirits, stop the striving, distractions, busyness, and do what is required to be in a relationship with him. If we want to heal from trauma, we also need a stillness to exist.
This stillness required from healing that helps us to know about our mind and body connection, can only happen when we purposefully have 2 things: time and space.
When we are busy every minute of the day, we don’t have time to know our bodies. Our bodies reveal the secrets behind our emotions. Just recently, and recently being about 3 months ago, I started working a full-time job. After a month, I realized that I needed to tweak my schedule for the weekend. I had to block out 3 hours on my weekend mornings in order to make sure that I could continue having my time of stillness. Without stillness, it is hard to gain clarity.
Before working full time, I had more time and space for this stillness to occur. Now, since my schedule has changed, i must be more intentional about giving myself margin.
Right before starting work with this job, I had a traumatic event to occur. Along with learning new things at work, and relearning how to drive after 30 years, I was exhibiting “ADHD-like” trauma symptoms, and having a hard time focusing. I knew that it was only a matter of time till the emotional effects of this event would come out. My system had to be relaxed enough with stillness, and time and space to go through the steps of processing everything that had gone down.
The first symptom that was exhibited was that of nausea. I knew immediately that this was grief. And how was I able to tell that? Four years ago, when I was living at my previous residence , I became very nauseated one evening after eating. It was the worst case ever. I thought that I was coming down with the flu or some type of virus. It was also during this time that I had not begun to process any of the traumatic events that had occurred in the previous 3 years. My system was on emotional and mental overload.
All of a sudden, before I knew it, I ended up regurgitating 3 to 4 times. In between each time, I felt like I needed to cry very deeply. This is how I was able to make the connection that nausea for me equals the need for grief to be released from my body. At the time, my son asked me about the contents of what I ate that could have made me so sick. I told him that I realized that it had nothing to do with the food that I ate.
When I told my therapist about what happened, she said, “Yes, this was definitely physiological.”
Another symptom that occurred recently is where my lips started to become numb. I knew immediately that this represented anger that I needed to work through. Once again, if I did not have the time within the last few years to process some of the trauma, I would not have had a clue of what was going on. I probably would have gotten myself all worked up and anxious, perpetuating the problem.
I was then able to go to God and ask him, “What is this anger about? Is it just this traumatic event, or something else along with it?”. Having my time of stillness, and space for reflection allowed me to get to the root of the problem so that I could start healing from, it. That anger had been coming out sideways for about 2 1/2 weeks.
Music is one of my main go-to’s for enabling me to process trauma , and so when I added more of this into my time and space, I gained even more wisdom and discernment , along with being able to release the grief from my system through crying heavily.
Changes are good. However, changes are only fully embraced once the old has been grieved. All of the “would haves”, “should haves”, and “not any more’s”. If you are having problems healing from trauma, ask yourself if you are allowing yourself the time and space of sitting in God’s stillness. The pain, loneliness, and loss have to be grieved. I don’t want to mislead you. There will be pain in this process. There’s no way to go around it. And I promise you, if there was, everyone would be signing up for it. There is God’s grace, mercy, and presence there. And it is very much needed. It is also in this stillness that our mind, body, soul, and spirit will begin to reveal the answers to our questions. It will help us to lead the way and or continue our journey to a life of thriving.
First, try starting off with one hour of lying down without any distractions and see if you can notice the difference of what this new stillness brings. Initially, it will feel very uncomfortable because you will want to quickly fill up your time with busyness. However, this quiet time will begin to declutter your mind and allow you to get to the root of your issues, along with the help a therapist.
I hope that “Episode 45: ‘Be Still: The Healing Aspect Of Living With Trauma’” has been beneficial to you in some way. If Healing Our Brokenness is making a difference in your life, please leave a review, tag a friend, and give a shout out on social media. God bless! Have a wonderful week!