By: Renee Brush, Ph.D.

I started therapy 13 years ago, when my daughter was in the 9th grade. She’s 27 now. Over that time, I grew enough that I was able to end an unhappy marriage in 2016 and then start my own practice in 2018. Training in somatic experiencing brought a lot of healing as I learned how deep my hurt and dissociation went and I started learning how to feel inside my body. My therapist uses several trauma-based techniques with me that have also helped my progress. All this allowed me to start this blog in 2022, when I had started my spiritual journey and I felt I was on “the other side” of the trauma journey, coming into the light. But that focus on my healing allowed me to see that my level of dissociation continued to be an area that needed to be addressed. And, if you have read any of my past posts, you know I have been grappling with this since 2018.

Actually, the phrase “coming into the light” is a good description of the past couple years. Walking with God is often described as walking in the light and that has been my journey the past couple of years. Since last year, I have been trying to walk in that light and live my life surrendered to the messages I receive from God. I shared how, at the end of 2023, my word to focus on for 2024 was “rooted.” This word had multiple meanings as I started in a small group at my church called “Rooted” where I met a new group of friends and learned how to be a part of a church and to have a closer relationship with God. But this word also meant that I would learn how to be more grounded so that I would have less dissociation by the end of the year. For once, I was hopeful as 2024 began.

So how did it go?

I wrote in March and then over the summer about my experiences within the church. I loved the Rooted class and I learned a lot about being part of a church and a small group. To this day, I remember walking into the room and Pam, the co-leader, walking toward me with open arms to hug and greet me. By the end of the 10 weeks, one of the other members commented that they thought Pam and I had always known each other on that first day. This person had no idea that we had just met that night. My relationship with Pam is one of the strongest connections I have felt since joining the church. This group is also still my closest set of friends within the church. In fact, as I’m writing this on New Year’s Day, I just brought in the new year with them last night. Their camaraderie, love, and acceptance are gifts. They have seen me at my weakest and most vulnerable over the past 11 months and loved me through it.

After Rooted, we went on and completed two other courses – one on emotionally healthy spirituality and one on our emotions. I wrote a post on loneliness based on this last course. Actually, all of these courses had me looking back over my life and reconsidering my experiences in a validating way. With the first two courses, I had developed rhythms in my life where I was spending time in the morning and evening in devotional time with God. During the afternoon, I would rely on meditation and other spiritual practices like 1-minute prayers to help when I felt anxious. I also started using worship music to help in so many areas: I have a playlist for my identity in Christ, God’s love, His grace, His peace, and an upbeat music list to help me get work done. I would listen to the playlist based on what I needed at that specific moment. All of these practices helped me get to a place where I was able to drop my therapy down to once a month. I felt good, I was productive, and, more importantly, I felt grounded most of the time.

Then fall came and we started the emotions course. That course was the most difficult, because we examined shame, fear, sadness, anger – you know, all the fun emotions – all the emotions that I had shoved down and ignored my whole life. No one had taught me how to deal with them when I was younger even though these are very strong and overwhelming emotions. I could feel all the emotions I likely felt as a child and could understand why I had dissociated as a child. I’m not going to lie – there was probably some of that during that course. Actually, there was more than I would care to admit. Even though I had gotten to a place earlier in the year where I was embodied a good portion of the time, I lost it during this course and fell into old ways, which honestly is pretty typical when a person hits stress and overwhelm. My schedule at work also ramped up with the holidays and, because of some scheduling issues, I actually went a couple months without seeing Deborah at a time when I needed the therapy the most. The problem is that I did not realize how much I needed the therapy and so I did not even reach out to her to ask for a rescheduled session. So, the fall of this past year was rough because I was finally dealing with emotions that I had not dealt with ever.

And then there was the Soul Care retreat. The emotions course ended about mid-December. The first week of December I signed up for a retreat called Soul Care with a pastor I have talked about before in a previous post. I took a workshop with him on toxic shame and loved what he had to say about healing from shame. His workshop is where I learned that I had to build my identity in Christ to reduce my toxic shame. That idea has been revealed to me over and over again this year and so it has been a very large part of my focus. I purchased the Soul Care book, which talked about toxic shame but also other aspects of healing which include looking back at your family history, which I had been doing with these 3 courses in church. But Dr. Reimer also talks about deliverance and how some of our issues, including generational trauma, can be due to demonic forces, or spiritual warfare. This information was also taught in Rooted, so this was new to me this year, but something I have come to accept as I have experienced it. I talked to my friend, Susan, about taking the Soul Care retreat over the summer because it was going to be in Columbus, Ohio near her, but I did not feel a push to take it then. But then I saw it was going to be held in Raleigh North Carolina in December and that is when I felt pushed to take it. And so I did. And, of course, the timing was a divine intervention.

Dr. Reimer talks about how you can’t be healed until you “clean house” which means going through your family history, examining those patterns that are passed down, and confessing all of your sins. In fact, he described it as “shining a light” in all the dark areas of the “house” that is our life. I would not have been ready for this retreat over the summer. But I was ready at the beginning of December.

And so off to Raleigh I went. I went down the night before and stayed in an inexpensive hotel. I did not sleep well. The hotel was loud and the bed and pillow were uncomfortable. And going to new places with a group of new people is always anxiety-producing for me. The retreat was held in a church and, even with my typical fears, I prayed for the experience before I started the day. When I arrived at the church, I felt at peace walking in. The people that were from the church were so friendly. I had been able to read the whole Soul Care book before getting to the retreat, but it was nice hearing the messages coming from the author himself. He would talk about each of the steps to what he calls soul care and then we would get together in a group of three (i.e., triads) and talk about how that information applies to us. We decided who was in our triad and we were with the same two people the whole weekend. Choosing people to be in a group did give me a bit of a pause, but, as I was looking out over the whole group of people, someone came up behind me and asked me to be part of her group. So, that honestly was a relief. We then picked a third person and we were off. This was another small group where I was bearing my soul… and again I was met with acceptance, support, and love. That alone is healing.

One of my biggest takeaways from this book and retreat is the idea of redemptive suffering. I have been angry at God that I am still healing, especially since I have learned that He can say one word and fix anything. I have seen this for a fellow small group member who had a rough childhood that was worse than mine, but he has not suffered in the way I have continued to suffer. The idea of redemptive suffering is that sometimes healing takes time and is necessary. Dr. Reimer writes, “There are some things that the power of God cannot do, that only the tenderness of God can do” (Reimer, 2016, p. 172). My trauma was interpersonal related to being dismissed and neglected and feeling unloved. And, because of it and my overwhelming emotions, my default mechanism is dissociation. Well, unfortunately, God can’t heal us if we are dissociated. If we disconnect from ourselves, we also disconnect from other people and God. As I have become more embodied, I could experience that tenderness and then healing can happen.

And it has! After the retreat and the deliverance, I mostly have been back to feeling at peace and embodied with the daily rhythms I have established over the course of this past year. And, when I don’t feel that peace, I know better how to handle it now.

What’s next for 2025

One of my biggest lessons this year was that I am not alone, and I do not have to rely on only myself to deal with the struggles in my life. I have always relied on myself, and so this has been a hard lesson to learn. If you have spent most of your life taking care of yourself alone, then asking for help is a strange thing to do and usually the last thing you think to do. I have learned that, when I start to feel anxious, I can have an inner dialogue or journal and ask God for help to identify what is going on. That dialogue often helps me gain insight into how best to resolve the situation. And, if it doesn’t, I still find that I have internal peace because I have handed my problem over and I’m not handling it alone anymore.

As I have been reviewing this year and the progress made, I also looked at areas where I still need some work. The Soul Care book and retreat helped me see that some of my default coping mechanisms appear somewhat selfish. Turning inward into oneself and not reaching out to others does not give others the idea that you are thinking about them, even if you are. This idea of selfishness has stayed in my mind over the past month. It is an outward appearance that does not reflect my internal feelings or experiences about people. I would like this to change. I would like people to know that I care about them because it is obvious in my behaviors.

When I started journaling about my goals for 2025, my word for the year came to me very quickly: Love. What I just described – allowing people to know how you feel about them by your actions – is an outward demonstration of love. Opening my heart in this way creates a situation where I am more vulnerable and more authentic with people. Spreading love as I have experienced love is part of the healing process for others as well as myself. Healing happens in relationships, especially where there is love, acceptance, and support. This was shared with me by my group members and it is now my turn to share it with others.

But, also, a focus on love also means showing myself some of that love. Recently, our pastor did a sermon on how God’s love has echoed through the stories of the Bible. He asked, “Are you living in the echo of God’s love?” What would my life look like if I was living like this? I would continue eating healthy and exercising like I have been (though perhaps being more consistent). I would set better boundaries between work and my personal life. I would keep up with the financial management I started this year. I would take training I have felt called to take. And I would open my heart to the possibility of romantic love.  

This all feels scary. But one of my new friends shared a devotional she had yesterday and it said that we can’t change if we don’t risk much. “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans” (Proverbs 16:3). The nice thing, though, is that this might feel scary, but I am not afraid of what is to come.

And this is what happens when you take the time to become rooted.

Happy new year! May you and your family have a blessed year, marked with lots of love and peace!

Reference

Reimer, R. (2016). Soul care: 7 transformational principles for a healthy soul. Franklin, TN: Carpenter’s Son Publishing.