Orienting ourselves around truth takes courage and a willingness to admit that there are things in this life we have held on to that have served us for a time but aren’t grounded in truth. There is a gradual descent that happens when we allow ourselves to be curious about the patterns and narratives that we hold fast to, that shape us. The descent is an undoing, an unraveling. Often the letting go of false ideals placed on us without our permission, without our knowing, or merely out of survival.
I have heard it said many times that truth is relative, and often my response is truth is steadfast, but our experience of that truth is what is relative.
I write these words in light of healing from any amount of trauma. Personally, one of the most complex realities of healing from trauma is navigating the fractures in the mind and spirit that occur when trauma has happened (or even continuously when the body still thinks the trauma is present.) For many walking this healing journey, these mental fractures impact our orientation around truth, the world starts to feel upside down, and experiences don’t align with reality.
For some, the response is “where do I begin?” and for others, “how do I continue?” I believe a compassionate way to orient yourself around truth is coming into union with Christ (as John Eldredge so beautifully explains.) Within this union, we are free to bring questions out from the hidden spaces of our subconscious into the light of consciousness, slowly and tenderly.
Wendell Berry writes at the end of one of his poems, “Practice Resurrection.” In this union with Christ, and with good theraputic support, resurrection happens in the body, in the mind, in the spirit, in the subconscious, in the conscious, in our lineage, in our epigenetics, in our healing, in our resting, in our home, and our everyday life.
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