Trauma: Growth & Happiness

Anne Moss Rogers presents practical considerations for growing through trauma.

Source:

The Secret to Post Traumatic Growth. Steps to Finding Joy After Tragedy

She explains the start of the process as a desire and choice to heal:

You have to work at it.

You have to want it and be willing and open to taking steps to make it happen.

In other words, you need to be intentional about wanting to heal and taking that experience to help others in ways large or small.

While we may not choose to be impacted by trauma, we have the choice of growing, maturing, and becoming more Christ like in our journeys.

Patience, Acceptance, and Journey

Anne reflects back on the trauma she endured and gives us this wisdom:

“Most of all, I had to be patient and accept that grief would be part of my existence for the rest of my life.”

Cultivating patience with ourselves, others, as we accept sorrow/loss are daily practices. Trauma necessitates a healing process to grow–it’s a journey not a one time commitment.

She lists eight factors that will assist you in your post-trauma growth. Please take a moment to read her article and consider her insights.

The young plant grows nurtured by the light of the sun and nutrients of the rich forest floor. We too can flourish and grow in the Light of His Presence. (A.I. generated)

Faith & Trauma

The goal of this site and post are to encourage you in your walk with Christ. Encouragement promotes grace, truth, and hope! Grace to accept ourselves and others as we are in the present moment, trusting that God transforms, redeems, and heals those who seek/trust/follow Him. Truth confronts darkness, disappointment, discouragement, and other forces of evil that work against God’s Kingdom and people. Hope serves a critical purpose: it reminds us that there is more to our existence and meaning than the physical world and events of our lives.

Practical Tips for Growing Through Trauma

Journal Writing

Keeping a journal of feelings and emotional reactions assists with the processing of difficult or painful memories. Anna Runkle encourages a daily practice of identifying and writing down daily resentments and then destroying the paper/list. She has numerous resources and posts concerning childhood traumas and practical ways to grow. She discusses her healing journey on her website site.

https://crappychildhoodfairy.com/about/

Researching and writing these posts have helped me to better understand and process my trauma.

YouTube Courses and Discussions

Tim Fletcher produces numerous YouTube videos that covers a wide range of issues with CPTSD and addiction. He provides a clear description and practical steps to healing in his videos.

https://www.youtube.com/@TimFletcher

Community and Support

Healing occurs in the context of a supportive community. This can be a support group, church fellowship, or a friend group. Trauma tends to isolate people. Isolation increases as a person has less “energy” or desire to interact with others. For more information on social withdraw:

https://khironclinics.com/blog/trauma-and-social-withdrawal/

The path of healing and the steep, mountain hiking path. Healing is a journey that requires courage and perseverance. Canva Pro Image

Role of Faith in Growing

Faith helps us to develop stronger coping skills and practices. Seattle Christian Counseling explains how we can engage with God in our recovery journey.

Engaging with God in the Midst of Trauma Recovery

Happiness and Trauma

A previous post discussed the role of hope and joy in healing from trauma. God speaks about sorrow, grief, and difficulty in His Word, but the overall theme is Joy. Jon Bloom explains this life changing truth:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-most-repeated-command-in-the-bible

The Bible is as real-life as it gets. God says a lot about sin, sorrow, grief, pain, betrayal, failure, fear, horror, and wretchedness. But if you can believe it, God’s dominant theme is joy.

God wants us to know the kind of hope that has the power to produce joy in us even in painful places. He repeatedly commands us to be really, truly, deeply happy.

God gives us hope: a hope that leads us to a place of joy and true happiness that endures through our valley seasons of life. Jon reminds us that God repeats this theme through Old and New Testaments. Why does God repeat this theme? God desires that we don’t forget that He commands our joy to be rooted and overflowing from Him!

Finding Joy in the Light of Presence: Grace, Truth, and Hope flow from His Presence Canva Pro Image

The Role of Loving God, others and Giving Thanks, and Joy

We express our love for God as we faithfully rest in his sovereign reign over all things — the sweet and the bitter — and we love others as we help them also faithfully rest in God’s sovereign reign too.

God is commanding us to love him, love others, and be happy.

As we experience God’s love, comfort, and hope in trauma this overflows through our lives to others! This truth doesn’t minimize the horrors of what we experience and the long lasting impacts of trauma. Yet this truth gives us purpose and meaning in the times of our lives where we are struggling to find meaning again following the devastating waves of loss and grief.

Trusting God affects our emotions and interactions with others

When we see his grace and trust his wise purposes, loving thankfulness rises toward him and pushes out our negative, sinful emotions and grumbling, replacing them with peace.

And this gratitude-inspired peace lovingly overflows to everyone else we interact with, often helping them overcome their own temptations to grumble.

Faith leads to gratitude and deeper experience of God’s presence. Is your faith growing through your recovery/healing journey? Comments suggestions welcome! May God’s presence guide and bless on your journey!