I've spent almost eight years entirely dedicated to reading books about it, taking courses, walking on the spiritual path, doing the work, and spending more than $100,000 on therapy and coaching.
But there's something about healing that you only learn at 2 a.m., when you feel like you're dissolving in pain, and there's nothing you could possibly do to make it go away.
You madly repeat your mantra. You do your breathing. You try to cry — but what you feel doesn't even require crying.
It's just something that seems to attack you from inside. There is no specific emotion to pinpoint.
And what those times taught me is that there's something that matters deeply in trauma healing, something that takes us to the other side when we can no longer do anything about our pain: grace.
The Missing Dimension in Trauma Healing
Grace is not something we talk about much in trauma healing. At least as a passionate browser of healing videos, courses and books, I haven't seen much of it.
Spirituality tends to live in its own sphere — where the existence of grace is a given. But spiritual teachings don't usually talk in depth about trauma healing.
Most mainstream trauma healing conversations tend to focus on somatic practices, talk therapy and psychology — increasingly with mindfulness included in the conversation, usually without the deeper dimension of spirituality.
This division makes sense. Many people who look for help wouldn't trust a practitioner or teacher who brings up faith or grace. These are considered matters too personal and individual.
The truth remains, though, that grace is an essential part of healing. Whether we invoke it or not, whether we think about it or not, grace is a reality.
Something that cannot be easily defined, studied or labelled happens in the healing process that isn't easy to box into a practice or a psychological process. One day you're in physical pain and barely making food for yourself — the next you're feeling alive again, as if you've been exorcised.
When it comes to healing powerful trauma, our spirituality can truly save us in a way that, in my experience, nothing else can.
It's difficult to try to heal a being that is made of energy, a being that is spiritual, only with tools and concepts that focus on psychology and the body.
Not only because it won't always be effective — but also because trusting the process and staying committed to yourself gets to be very difficult when trauma patterns are powerful.
When your practices don't work; when you've been on the path of healing for years, yet suddenly you're dealing with the same old thing; when you're alone and your brain and nervous system are burning — you need to trust.
Trust Is Not a Small Thing
Trust is not a small thing when you're doing this work.
It's a VERY big thing.
Each person is different, and I am not saying every single person who tries to heal trauma needs a spiritual life in order to heal. You might need music or something else in your life that sustains you and your faith.
But I know that many people still believe they have to accept their traumas as companions for life. That they need to take their shadows with them everywhere they go.
That after two, four, five or ten years in therapy, they can't expect that much.
I know people lose hope. I know how easy it is to go down that path.
Trust, devotion and prayer carried me through years of trauma healing. Looking back on some of the things I experienced, I can't believe how far I have come.
There have been many miracles along the way.
Research has already started to explore the relationship between faith, prayer, spiritual practices and mental wellbeing. For example, a preliminary study using MRI brain scans found changes in brain activity and improvements in depressive symptoms following a six-week healing prayer intervention.
But don't take my word for it, or rely on studies other people have done - just try practices you feel interested in, and see what happens for you.
Healing is not about isolating one aspect of ourselves, one single symptom, and fixing that. It’s about helping ourselves return to balance. When you find something that nurtures your soul, you help your whole being.
Psychology and Spirituality Don't Have to Compete
We have very complicated mental lives now, especially in the Western world.
And in my view, we need modern practices, including talk therapy, alongside spiritual practices — our mental dimension is very strong. Our intellects are very active and complex.
For many people, it's very difficult to get into the body, even if they haven't experienced trauma. We live through thought a lot, which has an impact on how we heal as well. Our relationship with our mind matters in the healing process.
For some people, just pausing for a few seconds to breathe deeply without activity can be a challenge.
We need to start where we are. Psychology helps us untangle the stories of our minds, understand our patterns, and bring to light what is hidden in our subconscious. It can be a slow process, and oftentimes it can miss the essential component of somatic work. But I do believe we can benefit greatly from talk therapy.
A lot of our emotional pain can come from not feeling seen or heard. From not getting a chance to speak up. The mere act of doing this is incredibly helpful — especially when we do it with someone who is truly listening and is there for us.
Giving attention to our inner worlds in these ways, and learning how to articulate them, can help us unlock insights and emotions. Therapists can help us find words for our experiences and understanding for ourselves and our circumstances, in addition to helping us learn how to meet new situations with improved perspectives and behaviours.
These and more can be the benefits of traditional talk therapy. Therapy is incredibly helpful, and I don't agree with those who condemn therapy for missing certain aspects — it's not meant to be a miracle cure. It's meant to offer us help.
There Is Tremendous Grace in Healing
My own experience with healing showed me how much it's possible to heal. But there are many times on this journey when it's easy not to see the end of it, to feel like you will always be stuck — or, like me, to feel some despair that your brain doesn't seem to work in a healthy way.
For me, spiritual teachings and practices were the light that always carried me through. There were practices and readings that my soul simply answered to, that I found restorative and healing. They reminded me of who I am beyond the emotions, the fears, the pain, the thoughts.
Spirituality is not meant to be a bypass. It's meant to be a way to remember something about ourselves that is easy to forget in our noisy, busy world.
More than this, though, spiritual practices carry real healing power — because spirituality, at its core, is the science of healing, of restoring ourselves back to power and health.