2019.

Early on in 2019 as I began this journey into healing from PTSD and trauma God directed me to “pay attention;” specifically to pay attention to my body and the feelings and sensations it was experiencing, what helped, what didn’t, what situations elicited physical reactions and what put them at ease. To speak Kindly to my body, to show it grace for reacting in ways it thought I needed to keep me safe. What many don’t know about PTSD and burnout is that they are both diagnosis that refer to our physical bodies. They are physiological changes that come from keeping our bodies in crisis, fight or flight mode, for prolonged periods of time without break. After days, months, years of telling my body it had to be ready at any. given. moment, of not allowing myself to completely relax in anticipation of the next crisis, my body eventually came to a place where it no longer knew what safety looked like. I had rewired my brain to believe there was danger everywhere, and do you know what that creates? Danger. Everywhere.

2018 was a warzone. I had to tread lightly with each step for fear of stepping on another hidden landmine in any given direction. There were plenty moments when I truly was physically unsafe, or was throwing myself into frequent situations when other lives were in present danger; even if I willed myself to take a break, the crisis others found themselves in would find me too, because I had told it where I lived and all but drawn it a map to my front door. Between advocating for others in crisis, fighting with every ounce of my spirit to save the lives of infants in crisis, to medical emergencies in my own family, broken and lost relationships, and eventually my own life threatening illness, it was a year of my body getting the reprieve it needed seldom to never. The stress of fight or flight mode is cumulative. Each situation must be processed before the next and I had years of cumulated stress, danger, and crisis weighing heavily on my spirit, on my body. 

Just 3 months into 2019, walking shakily from the wreckage of 2018, God told me it was time for a break. It was time for deep work and deep healing, and I was to pay attention to the journey of it, to leave footprints for those walking after me. In this way, it feels only right to reflect on 2019 through the lens of my physical being. I look back now and laugh at my naive self, and how I thought that I knew how stress and crisis held onto the body, how trauma buried itself into the soul. As I began to coax my mind and spirit into a place of rest and relief, my body stubbornly refused to let go. It held tightly to its weapons and armor and brought them out in the strangest moments. My body reacted to each loud noise, all but pulling me to the ground when construction was happening on a path I frequently walked. It tensed noticeably and brought tears to my eyes when a man coughed too loudly behind me. It forgot how to fall asleep for fear that I needed to stay awake and alert, and when I did fall asleep it brought horrid, fearful visions to mind. It brought images of deaths I wish to forget to the front of my mind when driving down the road, just to remind me that danger surrounds us, in case I dared to forget for a moment. 

It took months of speaking graciously to my own body in moments of unnecessary panic, thanking it for keeping my safe but lovingly repeating that it did not need to in that moment. It took a lot of patience. Intentional breathing. It took rhythms and repetition; something creative, something with movement, and something for my spirit to start each day. It required yoga and painting and writing and singing to remind me that safety can be found and leaned into. Slowly, these moments got longer. Long, slow walks in nature taught myself that I could be outside and adjust to noises that came with it. Friends walked alongside me through grocery stores as I relearned and practiced making even the smallest decisions. My body slowly allowed itself small moments, occasional deep breaths, and eventually these moments stretched out longer.

As I journeyed through two forms of trauma therapy, my brain began to feel safe enough to bring to mind images and situations it had long kept hidden to protect me from them. Relearning what physical safety feels like signaled to my brain that it was allowed to take the blinders off, slowly. With each new trauma memory my body tried to back up into panic and fear, and each time the rhythms of healing, the breathing and counting, the intentionality had to return too. I learned how my mind, body and spirit really are three separate entities each with their own needs and demands, and that things like physical movement, creativity and nutrition are not just luxuries but gifts given to us to lead us to wholeness. As I allowed my brain to process the deepest hurts, I lovingly showed my body that we could still find safety in the midst of it, and with each new wave of trauma, emotion, and fear, allowing it to fully wash over me, at times violently knocking me off my feet, with its’ retreat came a Holy cleansing. And as the waves of trauma and panic became fewer and farther between, my body felt more and more free to rest in the security and peace that I had willed it into. 

2019 has taught me to appreciate and listen to my body, my mind and my spirit in new and important ways; to have grace for myself when I cry without understanding why, when I need to rest but I want to be working, when I react in fear despite standing in safety. It taught me that ignoring my body’s warning signs isn’t an option in the years to come, and that the systems that allow us to do what we love each day are not to be taken for granted. It also taught me, maybe more than anything, that my body was made intricately and intimately in the image of God. In all seasons and situations, my body was shaped perfectly to protect, to persevere, to rest, to grow, to praise. He desires wholeness for me and created a mind and body that will hide the deepest hurts from me until I am safe enough to feel and release them. My body was made in the image of a Father who knows wholeness and desires complete healing, and that even in moments when I feel out of control of my emotions or my physiological responses, my Father knows intimately how He created me and exactly what I need to find healing.

2019 was my deep valley and my mountaintop, all in one. I allowed myself and even pushed myself to walk into the dark with all the strength I could manage. I found the most hidden, dustiest corners of my mind and settled in; opening windows, scrubbing the dirt clean with sweat and tears, planting flowers and letting the fresh air rush in. I walked in the unknown and uncomfortable places and let them overtake me as they needed to. The hardest path led me to the mountaintop, the highest view looking back on how far I have come. I never expected 2019 to be so hard, or to produce so much growth, but God. The Father that stayed close urging me into the wilderness to bring me out the other side, God with us. God always with us, in all the places, in all the seasons, in the brokenness and the healing. 

Having done all the work to be here, I am so proud to say I am starting 2020 on the mountaintop, as a woman intimately in tune with her own being and walking in step with her Holy Father, hands open and welcoming whatever comes next.