Trauma is a Defense against Love

Trauma is healed in its encounter with holiness

Trauma is a defense against Love.

It is hard to talk about this. I apologize in advance if I misspeak.

Trauma emphasizes personal interests, which are always predicated on differences (T-6.II.3:3), which are established by ego through judgement (T-6.II.2:2). Because of the way it prioritizes personal interests, emphasizing them over and against the possibility of shared interests, trauma clouds our potential for holy relationship.

Trauma also blocks our awareness of the holy instant by making the past seem more real - more potent, more important - than the present. We are forever trying to assign blame, convict and condemn, and enforce penalities, all in hopes of improving a future which never arrives. There is no present, let alone a present overflowing with happiness and grace.

But most of all, trauma ignores the Holy Spirit, which means that our potential for healing - deep healing, soul healing, cosmic healing - is consistently ignored. It is set aside and forgotten. Preservation of the wound is prioritized. This is the separation on repeat.

I am not saying that trauma is trivial, or that folks need to just get over it or anything like that. Trauma deserves respect; it merits attention. Ignoring it is not the answer. Healing and attention are intimately related (e.g., T-14.VII.1:1).

The question is: to what are we giving attention? Trauma hogs our attention, in service of the ego's imperative that we are allowed to seek peace and happiness but never actually find them (T-12.IV.1:4).

Thus, trauma is an especially painful example of the special relationship. We are intimately connected to those who shared the trauma - victim and victimizer both. But the trauma - its injustice, its violence, its self-perpetuating legacy - is always centered.

The special relationship . . . is a kind of union from which union is excluded, and the basis for the attempt at union rests on exclusion. What better example could there be of the ego’s maxim, “Seek but do not find”? (T-16.V.6:3-5)

The suggestion is to intentionally give attention not to the trauma but rather to our potential to be wholly loving, wholly unified, and wholly awakened. Really, the suggestion is that we become willing to hear Jesus say . . .

. . . you are the light of the world. This is why God appointed you as the world’s savior. This is why the Son of God looks to you for his salvation. He is saved by what you are (W-pI.67.1:2-5).

And then live accordingly.

This is not easy when we view healing as something we have to do alone. But A Course in Miracles is clear that we can't hear Jesus speak the truth about us individually. Rather, we have to be in relationship with one another in a way that facilitates a shared perception of Christ. Specifically, we have to actively look for Christ in the other. "Active looking" is the foundation of the relationship; it establishes a way of being that is not contingent on separation or individuation.

In my experience, when I look for Christ in you, something happens to me. It's almost like looking for Christ means looking as Christ but without knowing that's what you're doing. And others pick up on it. They reflect it back to you - they look as Christ for Christ in you and I'm not going to lie. It feels really good to be seen that way. Really good.

The truth is - I know many of you know this - trauma cannot survive an encounter with holiness. Holiness is the soothing balm in which every cause for grief - from the most trivial to those of which we can barely speak - are gently undone, as if they had never existed.

The image of holiness that shines in your mind is not obscure, and will not change. Its meaning to those who look upon it is not obscure, for everyone perceives it as the same. All bring their different problems to its healing light, and all their problems find but healing there (T-14.IX.7:1-4).

Again, the way we recognize the "image of holiness" in our mind is by seeing it in others. This is our practice as ACIM students, and as members of a collective devoted to the healing of the world. We become holy by caring for - by giving attention to - the holiness in others. That is the way to remember that Love, not fear, is our Creator.

Every relationship becomes a site of undoing the cause for trauma and suffering. Relationships reconnect us to our potential to heal others and to be healed accordingly. We give attention to the other’s beauty - the light of Christ alive in them - and discover our own beauty reflected there (T-11.VIII.10:5-6).

This healing is often subtle and non-dramatic. In my experience, Christ is experienced as a kind of shared stillness. Do you know how quiet and gentle you become when a child near you is asleep? How your life changes in those moments to facilitate their rest? Or how care-filled you are making dinner for a friend who is sick or grieving? Have you held the hand of the dying?

That is what holiness feels like. And that is what it feels like to see the Light of Christ in another, and realize that what you are seeing - that what you are sharing - is the your own light. This is the happy dream, which is the state of readiness for God to take the last step. We are each the other’s gift of salvation.

Thank you, always, for being here.

~ Sean