Emotional Trauma
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Injury teaches us to recognize the fragility of physical well-being. We must not take physical health for granted! By experiencing our own mortality firsthand, we learn that others are also mortal. This knowledge makes us less inclined to blame the victim, and teaches us how to be kind to the unfortunate. The kindness shown to us by others when we are hurt can renew our faith in other human beings, and thereby give us a reason to continue living in spite of how difficult it may be to endure the pain caused by injury. When we see that someone cares, and feel how much of difference that caring makes, we realize that we can also make a difference in the lives of others who have been severely harmed. At this point we can take the first step towards recovering the emotional well-being that is often shattered by traumatic injury. Knowing that we are loved gives us the courage to let go of the negative emotions that can result from prolonged physical pain. No hard line can be drawn between the different types of trauma or between the Dark Nights of the Soul that follow in the wake of traumatic experience. Physical illness and injury naturally result in emotional troubles that must be dealt with on the emotional plane, so to speak and friends and family can assist in this part of the healing.
The will to live cannot exist in the absence of faith. We must believe that we can make ourselves better in order to find the strength to continue when outer circumstances let us down. We must also make sense of our misfortune, and realize that the world has gifted us with our measure of hardship in order that we might continue to develop as spiritual beings. Rites of passage must be endured by those who wish to follow the initiatory path that leads to knowledge of and conversation with the Divine. As Jamie Sams tells us in Dancing The Dream (1999), “I personally have never seen a human being who has grown into his or her potential without confronting some Dark Night of the Soul. Those who seem to have lived ideal lives probably stayed in denial. It has been my experience that we find balance and authentic growth by counting both joy and sorrow as blessings.” We cannot expect to be “happy” all the time. We must feel the depths of our own sorrow in order to know ourselves fully, and only this complete self-knowledge will bring us to higher levels of spiritual awareness.