I just recently released a book entitled, “My Blackness” over the weekend. This podcast episode gives you a little bit of background on the book, along with a reading of four different poems coming directly from the book. Just in case you missed the last episode, here is the link: What will they say about you and me?
My Blackness Podcast Outline:
The Why and How of Writing “My Blackness”
Reading of Four Poems
If you are interested in purchasing “My Blackness”, here is a link to the book on Amazon. The kindle version is available for free until midnight, August 6, 2020. Purchasing this book means that I will receive a commission.
The word “triggered” has become so overly used in this day and age. For those of us who live with trauma/PTSD, triggers are real. And when they occur, gaining solid grounding is what’s needed in order to get past the episode. This poem, entitled, “Triggered” paints a vivid picture of what it’s like.
We are surrounded everyday on social media, via magazine, and television by people who say , ” Living My Best Life”. But, what does that mean? Listen to this week’s podcast to analyze that and more.
Photo by Nicole De Khors
Podcast Outline:
What does “living my best life” mean?
Are you living your best life?
Who gets to decide whether we meet the criteria?
What kind of life did Jesus live?
Reflection Questions
Does your best life include Jesus?
Is your best life only focused on you?
Are you living your best life, and if not, how can you begin to do so?
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Sometimes life is just hard. We often find it difficult to understand why God allows certain things to happen. Sometimes he gives us the answer. Other times, he decides that it isn’t going to be revealed on this side of Heaven. We can always rest assured that God is always Good. He always Loves Us. He never changes. He will never forsake us. We can take all of these truths to the bank when everything else fails, and we don’t understand “His Will”.
photo by Nicole De Khors
His Will
It is his will.
We know it is.
Though anger swells.
And darkness stills.
It is his will.
When we can’t make sense.
Of the brokenness and loss that engulfs us like a fence.
It is his will.
That is pushing us to grow.
In devotion to him,
And the blessings he’ll bestow.
It is his will.
That we dream, and dream again.
He’s the Alpha and Omega.
The Beginning and The End.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
My theme for the last few weeks has seemed to focus on our stories. It is so important to gain freedom from telling and owning our stories. I came up with a poem that I would like to share with you all for reflection.
There are a lot of things involved in integration. The main thing required is taking the bits and pieces of our lives and allowing the pieces of our quilts from our story to be sown together. The poem, “Integration” is my own reflection of the pieces of the quilt that I loss when I either changed churches or loss contact with friends along the way.
Each one of us have a different path to healing. No two paths are alike. However, our commonality lies in the fact that we are all human, we all struggle, and we all have childhood wounds of some sort that need to be worked out in order for us to heal and grow. Healing is a lifelong journey. Just when you think that you have completed this journey, it can be one random thought or song, or one major trauma or death that causes you to revisit certain areas, and then go in at a deeper level. The poem “The Path to Healing” reflects thoughts on my healing journey. God bless!
There are times in life when we don’t know which way to go. During these times, if we seek the Lord, then our mission, our purpose, and his will becomes clearer. Of course, it also means that we have to still do our part. Our part involves intentionality, setting goals, and aligning our will with his. We also need wisdom discerning in whom we should confide God’s great revelation.
What Happens With the Combo of Trauma and Constant Busyness
Photo by Fabio Manuel Neto da luz
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!
Background on Recovery: When you are recovering from PTSD/trauma, it requires a lot of in-depth work. This poem depicts just that. You have to regain your sense of self, learn to listen to your body for its story, and be still with patience as God does his work.
