What is Spiritual Trauma. Do you have it?

I’m guessing there are some here who require no explanation of what spiritual trauma is. You have experienced it. You may still be trying to recover from it.

I’m sure there are official definitions of spiritual trauma I could google. 

Here is my definition:

The pressure to feel, connect with or believe in something that doesn’t produce a sense of connection for you.

Criticism, judgment, shame or being ‘othered’ that comes from not being able or wanting to feel, connect with or believe in something that doesn’t produce a sense of connection for you.

• Not feeling anything mystical or a sense of connection to what you are “supposed” to be feeling connected to. 

• Fear of not belonging.

• Fear of being found out. 

• Fear of not being good enough.

• Fear of not being good at all!

• Warnings about evil, demons, or ungodly people that scare you.

• Psychic or spiritual phenomena that overwhelm you, shock your energy field or scare you (for example, speaking in tongues, trance possession, dramatic and emotional proselytizing).

• Simply not being supported to explore your own way of connecting with and understanding the sacred.

• Not being allowed to marry or be in relationship with someone from another path.

• The stress and tension any of these conditions produce.

Here is how I have observed spiritual trauma it in the energy fields of clients I have worked with:

Anxiety or terror arises when your own Core Star, or divine light within upwells to follow its natural life pulse of expression.

If we have been told that trusting, and following our own life energy or impulse can lead to “sinful” behaviour, we learn to stop, constrict or restrict this natural emergence of inner light.

This can become a constant habit or pattern. This will shut down the development of our own creative expression, growth and individuation. 

The result in the body can be rigidity, tension and a lot of holding. This reflects the bracing in our auric field as we try to stop our own light from emerging.

The result emotionally can be depression or anxiety. We’ve had to dampen down our field. We are afraid of how we will be treated if our natural emotional impulses are expressed.

Emotions like anger, rage, fear, or even joy may not be welcomed. These expressions have to be repressed. They become blocks on the emotional levels of our field.

I’ve worked with some clients where the terror of their inner child of being killed or destroyed by “god” for not being pure enough, righteous enough, devout enough, ‘saved’ enough, or not experiencing god in the way they were being told they were supposed to, was so intense, they had anxiety attacks.

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Our sexuality is often targeted with spiritual trauma. 

We may get told that arousal is bad, evil, dangerous or taboo according to the “god” of the religion or spiritual path that is being taught to us.

This is tricky, since biologically, we are designed for our LUST/SEXUALITY/EMERGENCE neurobiological circuit to come alive around adolescence.

We need mentoring and healthy modelling for how to welcome and integrate this part of our human experience, not repression, recrimination, shaming and guilt.

Sexual energy can also go the other way. 

Some spiritual paths or cults encourage licentious sexual behaviour or even sexual acts with children. Yikes! This can leave a person with deep scars and deeply confused messages about what is right and wrong, and what feels right for them.

With spiritual trauma, when our natural erotic life force energy wells up within us, rather than meet it with delight and curiosity, we may brace, constrict, and cascade into mental and emotional self-judgement and SHAME.

This constriction shows up as blocks in our energy field, often in particular our 2nd chakra in the front and back of the pelvis, and our heart.

A chronically blocked 2nd chakra can lead to physical illness in our hips and reproductive organs. 

It can feel like a long way back, to unpack all of the negative beliefs, self-judgements and possibly even harmful physical sexual experience that may be layered into our body, nervous system, and energy field.

But of course healing is inevitable if we are gently ready to do the work, one layer at a time, one emotion at a time, one shaming memory at a time, one scary experience at a time.

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If you are longing to do this work now so you can let your spirit find its way home to your full expansion of expression, I can help. 

I will read your energy field as I guide you to sink into your body to feel where spiritual trauma and/or sexual repression or traumas are being held.

I know, from 26 years of experience, how to help you transform it layer by layer, memory by memory, directly at the body/energy level so your spirit can fully unfold again to commune with the divine in just the right way for you.

You don't have to talk out every incident that you remember (some you may not, but your body does). We will work directly with how stress, bracing, fear, and shame are held in your body as tension and your energy field as stopped flow.

This is faster and more direct than talking it out. It is still very gentle, and even empowering to reclaim your radiance and personal connection to the sacred.

➡️ Start your healing journey here.