Counseling helped me deal with the intellectual aspects of my trauma, but I didn’t begin healing until I found a spiritual practice that not only made sense to me but also felt right.
I’ve always believed in God and reincarnation, but I didn’t know who or what God was – exactly – or why I believed that we live multiple lives. I just did. It was instinctive. I never blamed God for the things that happened to me, and I can’t even tell you why I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t – I just didn’t.
Of course, some questions, like why was I born crippled, did cross my mind as a kid. I wondered if it was some kind of punishment for a past life, but luckily for me, that question kept going through my mind. It didn’t anchor itself into a Mind File.
Years ago, I remember having a debate with one of my ex-husband’s friends about God. This guy had been raised to believe that Catholics were the only ones who knew God and could get into heaven. If you weren’t Catholic, then you would go to hell when you died. I asked him if he knew that Buddha and Jesus basically taught the same things. Of course, he had no idea about any of that so I gave him a few examples and asked him if he thought it could be possible that the same God that enlightened Buddha might be the father that Jesus talked about. It gave him something to think about, but it also got me thinking. Why did I believe that? What evidence did I have to back up my beliefs? That set me on a course of discovery.
In 1999 I kicked my drunk-ass, cheating and gambling husband out of the house. I had given him plenty of opportunities to choose to deal with his addictions, but he couldn’t face himself or his childhood. He chose to hold on to his addiction and I chose to let him go. I wasted a lot of years hoping that he would quit drinking and hurting me because I felt guilty for wanting to leave him. After all, wasn’t the institution of marriage about staying together in sickness and in health?
Eventually, I learned that contrary to what some people believe, God does not want you to be someone’s doormat. He doesn’t expect you to put up with being abused by people. You are not required to sacrifice your sanity or to carry someone else’s burdens. Charity doesn’t mean giving away money to the poor or providing them with free housing and free drugs. Charity, from a spiritual perspective, has nothing to do with material anything. It’s a spiritual concept and was always intended to remain spiritual.
Understanding that God doesn’t want is the key that unlocks the door to real freedom. God isn’t a person. He doesn’t have feelings, desires, or a need to punish. There isn’t some man up in the clouds weighing every word, thought, and deed, ready to condemn you the second your soul arrives in heaven. These are some of the guilt-laden concepts taught in organized religion and if they are doing to you what they did to me – a person who didn’t even grow up in a religious home – then you have to find a way to let them all go. Identify and resolve the Mind Files that tell you to feel guilty because God ___________________.
The personification of God will keep you from reconnecting with the very thing that will provide you with everything you need to navigate through life without fear.
Now, here’s the big caveat to everything I said in the previous paragraph. I’m not against organized religion if it empowers you. There are plenty of pastors out there who teach empowerment using the Bible, and there are plenty of Rabbis, Imams, Lamas, and Gurus out there who teach from a pure heart. However, there are far more religious leaders out there who haven’t acknowledged, let alone cleaned out their FEAR cabinets.
Religious leaders are not gods. They’re people who teach religion and if they haven’t resolved Mind Files that keep them trapped in guilt, then they are passing that guilt and other fears and resentments onto you.
God gave us a direct line to Him. We need only learn how to use it.
THE SIXTH SENSE IS REAL
Sight, smell, touch, sounds, and tasting are the senses that allow us to experience the earthly world, but we have a sixth sense. It’s often discouraged, especially by those who practice scientism. These folks don’t want you to know that there are scientists who have proven that we do have a sixth sense.
Learning to trust your intuition, gut feeling, spidey sense, or spiritual guidance system is an important part of healing. This part of you that is connected with God will never lead you down the wrong path.
Many scientists who discovered or proved the link between us and the universal mind were rejected and kicked out of academia. Most found a home in the alternative health community where health and spirituality aren’t separate. Dr. Bruce Lipton and Joe Dispenza and the late Candace Pert are some examples of scientists who teach a different message. There are also the scientists in quantum physics who also arrived at a spiritual truth. Check out John Hagelin’s presentation or Nassim Haramein’s YouTube channel if that’s your path to God.
I’m a certified HeartMath practitioner and using their software and technology, I’ve shown people that their heart and brain talk to one another resulting in a frequency pattern called coherence, and when they are in coherence, they are also aligned with the same frequency of the earth. It always blows them away to see the proof that we are, indeed, connected to all of life. That is how we are all one.
There are many paths to connecting with the power I refer to as God. Sacred texts such as the Bible, the Torah, the Upanishads, Buddha’s teachings, and the Quran might be how you find God, or maybe you’ll find him through A Course in Miracles. Maybe you’ll find him in a physics lab, on a mountaintop, or along a forest trail. Maybe you’ll find Him in the desert. The important thing is to be looking.
Healing from trauma requires the willingness to connect with and develop a relationship with God – however you choose to understand Him/Her/It. When you’re truly ready to heal, the way will be lit. All you have to do is choose to take those steps down that path.
Hi Penny, I absolutely love this. What a profound read that really makes me see myself myself in your words. Hope you won't mind me writing a pretty long comment!
I don't usually say I've found God, I prefer to say I've found the sacred - but it's really just a minor detail, a variation in how we approach a personal expression of the same feeling in our souls. I doubt I'll ever convert or revert to any organised religion as I have deep reservations about all of them and the way they express God doesn't speak to me. Yet, I'm deeply spiritual, more than ever before in my life. I had a beautiful conversation with a Muslim friend of mine a while ago. She rebuilt her relationship with God after neglecting it for years and she's blossoming because of it. We concluded we're talking about the very same thing; her in a way that is expressed through 99 names of God and me in a way that doesn't require a name at all, for me God just *is*. In the river, tree, mountain, shells on the beach, flowers on my porch.
I do feel some minor grief over not coming to these conclusions sooner in my life, but ultimately, I'm accepting there was a time and place for every step of my spirituality (or lack thereof). All those steps were necessary for coming out of trauma. I simply *couldn't* have the same understanding I have known when I was in my early 20s, it was simply psychologically and physiologically impossible at that time. I *had* to go through a militant atheist phase where I ended up in search of answers, only to end up with inner emptiness. I *had* to let that emptiness be my sobering teacher. I *had* to wriggle through years of not understanding how to reconcile the sacred with the scientist in me. I *had* to add motherhood, birth trauma and the pain of bearing witness to the cruelty of the world into this mixture. It was all a part of my path, and that path has led me to a place where I feel a deep surrender to the sacred. I feel a deep joy for my Muslim friend and anyone else who found their sacred, whatever their personal expression is. I feel free and at peace.
Penny, this is beautiful. Thank you for sharing!