Prioritizing my health by taking responsibility for my healing was the best decision I’ve ever made!
The woman I am today is unrecognizable from the one I was only 12 months ago, thanks to the faith-based holistic approach I took to heal my layers of past unresolved trauma …
But it took me many years to of trying many different things before I found the keys to complete healing, wholeness, & freedom. Let’s rewind a bit … I spent two decades of my life never talking about my childhood SA because shame had convinced me that doing so made me weak. I believed the lie that said my strength was in burying my trauma and rejecting the “survivor” label.
Finally, in my early thirties, after a string of failed relationships and years of perpetuating the same self-sabotaging unhealthy patterns, I began to unearth and face the trauma I’d been harboring since childhood.
My initial attempt at healing was spent addressing each part of my being individually, but rarely simultaneously.
I spoke with therapists and addressed the trauma cognitively, went to church in hopes of encountering God, and strived to find the right diet and exercise plan to keep my body healthy. Those attempts convinced me I was doing something “right”, but never produced tangible or lasting results I could see and feel in daily life. Talking about the trauma didn’t help me resolve it. Listening to a pastor’s sermons didn’t bring me closer to God. Focusing on diet and exercise didn’t eliminate unpleasant symptoms in my body.
Doing things in my own strength without any real understanding of the trauma my body was storing, or how it had affected my brain, only got me so far. Eventually, I fell right back into old patterns. By my late 30s, I was unknowingly coping with symptoms of CPTSD that developed from my unhealed childhood SA and traumatic relationship patterns including emotional/verbal abuse and betrayal trauma.
At my rock bottom, I found myself dependent upon cannabis & alcohol and stuck in sexual sin to cope with the stress of being a stay-at-home mom of two young children … or so I thought.
I later discovered I was coping with the symptoms of my unhealed trauma.
I lived in survival mode for so long without even knowing it, until almost a decade into what I now refer to as my “pre-healing” journey, and one week shy of my fortieth birthday, tragedy struck in my life, taking away someone dear to me far too soon.
The grief that followed that event became the catalyst that propelled me to my greatest breakthroughs and deepest healing, but not before bringing me face to face with layers of unhealed trauma and taking me through some of the darkest skies I’ve ever had to navigate. My crooked, sometimes dark path to healing took me on a profound journey of understanding the impacts of trauma, where I finally found my voice and the truth that says my real strength lies in sharing my story. It’s been nearly five years since that darkness fell and threatened to swallow me up, but because of the faith-based holistic healing approach that God hand-crafted when I surrendered my life back to Him …
I emerged healed, whole, and free ... transformed, like a butterfly.
But like the caterpillar, I had to believe I was made for more and be willing to go through the process necessary to get me there.
I had to take responsibility for things I was doing wrong before I could begin to make better choices. When I hit rock bottom, I tried relying on the unhealthy patterns I’d grown familiar with to numb the pain and cope with symptoms of unhealed trauma, but as the months passed, something in my spirit began to stir.
I believed in Jesus, but had been living far from Him. Looking back, I understand why He allowed me to experience a low, an emptiness, that only His presence could satisfy. When my physical symptoms like anxiety, depression, muscle tension, headaches, gut issues, poor sleep, and compromised immunity were no longer relieved by my coping mechanisms, and even worse, when they exasperated them …
I finally stopped running from the only One who could truly heal me. I cried out to Jesus and He met me in my mess.
It certainly didn’t happen overnight because negative patterns are challenging to break, but over time and in layers, He began to strip away my unhealthy habits. Yes, I was the one who chose to lay them down, but I give Him the glory because I fully believe it was His intervention that made it possible.
Because of my surrender to Him and my heart to know Him, He one-by-one removed the desire for the things that were causing me harm.
The first to go was my reliance on, and desire for, cannabis and alcohol for stress and anxiety regulation, and with the help of Jesus, I’d navigated the darkest skies of my grief. It still came in waves but no longer threatened to drown me. Next, I was addressing my physical health and nutrition and finding relief from gut issues by eliminating certain problematic foods, and with the help of Jesus, I broke free from sexual sin and toxic relationships that were harmful to my mental and emotional health.
During those two years, I read many self-improvement books and learned so much about faith, nutrition, stress, health and wellness, and trauma, but one book in particular that God led me to changed the trajectory of my path and began me on my Dark Sky Flutterby Healing and Transformation Journey.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. connected so many dots and ultimately highlighted a critical element of trauma healing that I’d been neglecting, the connection between the body and soul (mind/emotions). I had been doing so many things right and yet I was still walking around with so much stored trauma that revealed itself in times of stress and even connection.
It was a lightbulb moment when I realized that my body wasn’t only reacting to the present moment when triggered, but to events in the past that were never properly processed.
Reading The Body Keeps the Score started a chain reaction of further research into somatic therapy, holistic healing, nervous system regulation, and trauma recovery. I took several courses and began implementing various somatic and cognitive healing practices, and while I was a much healthier version of myself by the end of 2023 than I had been three years earlier, there was still something missing.
It was like I had all the pieces to the puzzle, but I was missing the picture that showed me how they all fit together. I knew my destination and had secured the vehicle necessary to get me there, but I was missing the map. Once again, I turned to the only One who could truly heal me for answers.
That’s when God connected the final dot, revealing the missing key to my complete healing … Him.
While I had been turning to Jesus in times of need and seeking Him in times of doubt, I hadn’t been including Him in my healing practices. He revealed the true meaning of holistic through His divine design of human beings … body, soul (mind/emotions), and spirit.
Faith in Jesus is often the missing piece to approaches that consider themselves holistic; even those that address spirituality are missing a critical element when they fail to acknowledge the God of the Bible as the Creator, Savior, & Healer of the world.
I’m not here to push religion. I disagree with many things Christianity has done throughout history in the name of Jesus and believe religion to be a man-made concept, one that Jesus himself was against. I’m simply a believer and follower of God and His word. I believe in a loving and just supernatural power that created the earth and all living things, and since the Bible has many times been proven to be a historically factual book with more evidence arising every decade supporting its accuracy, I don’t consider faith in it to be blind.
But ultimately, my faith is based on experience.
I believe God is real because I have experienced His love, mercy, and forgiveness. I’ve been comforted by His presence and experienced His healing touch. I view the Bible as truth because no other words have ever been as life-changing or transformative. A true relationship with Jesus was the missing piece for most of my healing journey.
Before incorporating embodied faith into my trauma healing approach, it felt like I was trying so hard and learning so much but never getting tangible or lasting results. I often felt the same way when I relied on organized religion as my source for God—the result, I believe, of eliminating spirituality from religion. It wasn’t until I read the Bible for myself that it came alive.
It wasn’t until I started viewing myself, my trauma, and the healing I desired through the eyes of the One who made me, that all the dots began connecting.
Approaching healing through the lens of science alone can certainly produce results, but I know from personal experience they’re much more efficient, effective, and permanent when you include Jesus in the process. But, if you’re reading the Bible and neglecting to understand how the body and mind work, you’re also missing a huge piece of the healing puzzle.
