We are starting POOT again on Monday Jan. 13th. We desire to see women who have had trauma become healed and freer. This month, we will introduce Phase Three.
PHASE THREE
I am safe enough to enter the hurt and pain of my experiences.
“I couldn’t face it before, now I am safe, and I can access the pain I’ve endured.”
At this phase, you are ready to explore the emotions in your story more deeply. Some examples are anger, hurt, shame, disappointment, fear, and sadness.
Sometimes, we’ve pushed emotions so far away that we can’t even label how we feel. We may need to step back and start by getting acquainted with the sensations we feel in our bodies. We were created as physical beings. Our bodies react to our experiences far faster than our minds can comprehend what’s happened. So simply noticing when our heart speeds up, we hold our breath, face feels flushed, we clench our teeth, our hands feel clammy, our stomachs are upset, or have butterflies can help us to reclaim our emotions.
As we embrace our emotions, remember they are not good or bad, they are just feelings. When you experience intense feelings, you’ll discover ways to express the emotions in a healthy way; yelling, crying, laughing, or whatever is needed.
Finally, you will be able to ask God for wisdom regarding their meaning and see if there is an invitation to process them more fully or take action to bring you greater safety and security.
I acknowledge God never intended for me to be abused. It was not His plan for me or some trial that I needed to undergo.
“God is love, what I experienced has nothing to do with love therefore no part of it came from God.”
One thing we have come to rely on is that in the midst of our traumatic events, God never leaves our sides, even though universally, our experiences have left us feeling like Jesus as He cried out in Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
God did not create you to experience these horrible events in your life. He created each of us out of love precisely because He loved us into being. God would not create us out of love to cause us to experience harm. In Luke 11:11-13, Jesus tells us we do not “hand [our]son a snake when he asks for a fish[.] Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg[.]” And then He says, “If [we] then, who [tend towards sin], know how to give good gifts to [our] children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
God desired us to live in paradise forever, and he allowed himself to endure trauma through His incarnation in His experiences as Christ Jesus. In Christ, we not only have a Savior; we also have a Wounded Healer, whose suffering is tied to our own and whose heart was pierced just as ours was.
We have a list of spiritual practices, activities, books, and videos to help women navigate entering the pain and understand that this was NOT God’s plan.
His plan is to take your broken pot, place it on His wheel, while he repairs and shapes you into the most beautiful pottery ever imaginable.
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