Reframing Trauma

I was talking with a client the other day and we were marveling at how far she has come in her healing work.

This client, whom I’ll call Debbie, has overcome severe childhood abuse, both physical and emotional, dealt to her practically since birth. What is so amazing is how well she can hear from God now, given that she actually had brain injury. And that hearing from God, plus her commitment to faithfully do The Healing Codes, is leading to much healing.

It occurred to me that it’s quite possible that her extraordinary spiritual attunement might have come, not despite the abuse, but because of the abuse. That God used the very changes in her brain caused by the abuse for his own good purposes. Sort of like how an ugly caterpillar gets transformed into a beautiful butterfly–after falling completely apart in the chrysalis first.

I can’t prove that’s true, but it’s in line with what I’ve experienced in my life and seen in the lives of others: God can take something harmful, and turn it around to accomplish something good. As I wrote about recently, God’s way is to find any small positive thing, and increase it until it overcomes the negative.

It’s also in line with many stories in Scripture. My favorite one is the story of Joseph from Genesis 37-48. At age 17, Joseph (whose name, by the way, means “increase”) was the youngest of 11 brothers–and also his father’s favorite. Out of jealousy, his brothers sold him into slavery and told their father that he was killed by wild animals.

Joseph went through all kinds of trials in Egypt, through no fault of his own. In fact, several times, things got worse for him because he did the right thing. But ultimately his fortune turned around and he ended up being second in command to Pharaoh in Egypt. When a famine drove the brothers to go to Egypt to buy grain, they met Joseph but did not recognize him. You can sense that Joseph wrestled with making his brothers pay for what they did to him, but in the end, he forgave him and reconciled with them.

Joseph’s turnaround came when he saw God’s big picture: that it was because they had sold him into slavery that the family survived the famine. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives,” he told them.

In my own life, I have pondered how God has used some of my traumas to bring me to the point I am now.

At one week old, I underwent major abdominal surgery from which the doctors said it was a miracle I survived (especially since I also burst my stitches and had pneumonia during my six-week hospital stay). Could that very experience be exactly what I needed to survive later traumas? Did it turn me into someone who was determined to survive, no matter what? Could the Childhood Emotional Neglect I experienced in my family have been exactly what spurred me to turn to books and learning for validation of my experiences, so that I learned how to make it in the world and ended up accomplishing the things God wanted me to?

And could those later traumas also be exactly what allows me to have compassion and empathy for other people’s suffering, other people’s struggles, so that I can better do the work I do now?

I don’t know, but I suspect it is so.

What about you? Do you yet have a sense of how some of the most difficult experiences of your life may be used to help you align with your own divine design? If not, I encourage you to reflect on this possibility. Do Healing Codes around the traumas of your life to transform the negative energy and pave the way to that realization.

That is the stuff of which breakthroughs are made. Dr. Karl Lehman says that an event becomes a trauma when you perceive you’re alone in your pain. Realizing, as Joseph did, that God was in the painful events of your life, for ultimately good purposes, can release the trauma and help you move on to experience those good purposes.

If you would like personalized help dealing with the traumas you want to heal, contact me for coaching. Through my testing and skillful questioning, and what your own heart reveals, I will get you a custom Healing Code for the deepest issue your heart is ready to heal now. This will speed and deepen your healing so you can align with your divine design and feel more connected to God, yourself, and others.