Spirituality. I truly don’t think I’d be here today without it—without my unwavering belief that there is something larger than all of this, something beyond me and my past traumas that gives my life meaning…that gives all of our lives meaning.
I can trace this belief all the way back to my childhood when I first began to believe that the rays pouring out from behind the clouds were the light of God (or Source or Universal Energy). Must have been an idea I got from a painting or photograph. Still, it’s an idea that has stuck in my mind for decades and stays with me even today as I watch the sunset outside my window and am, as always, filled with awe.
I can remember one day in particular from my childhood, a day when I was about six- years old, when my spirituality really began to take hold. After escaping from some episode of domestic trauma that was going on inside my house, I ran outside into the front yard, looked up at the sky, and saw a jet way up at the top of all of that blue. Instantly, I felt that if there could be something so incredible, something so very far away from me and all my family turmoil, I could hold on to that faraway place and keep a part of my soul safe there (early threads of dissociation, I suppose). Ever since that day, I’ve felt that if I could just see a piece of the sky or the summit of some mountain off in the distance, or even a turkey vulture in flight, I could make it…that I could somehow be okay.
Twenty-one years ago, however, right smack in the middle of an intense “psycho-spiritual crisis,” I was about as far from okay as I could possibly be.
It was during the summer of 2005 at the beginning of perimenopause (the eight or so years before the menstrual cycles cease) that, all of a sudden, all of my coping mechanisms began to collapse, both around me and within me. As my mind and my body suddenly began releasing much of the terror, grief, and shame I’d been holding onto related to my abuse, I found myself plummeting into the most terrifying and yet liberating experience of my life—an experience I never could have survived without my spirituality.
All day and all night my hands and my body shook. My pulse, usually around 65 beats per minute, began racing somewhere around 100, and my blood pressure, normally around 110/65, had begun churning out readings as high as 178/100. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. It took all the concentration I could muster to perform even the simplest of tasks, things like making my sons’ lunch and doing the laundry. I was afraid to take a shower, afraid to be alone, and terrified that I would take my own life.
Even with all of this chaos and fear swirling around inside me, I held fast to my spirituality and continued to pray—to God, yes, but also to the inner and outer healing guides (angels, if you will), who I could sense were trying to help me, adding a special prayer for the life I so feared I was losing.
It took some time and a brief stay in an acute care psychiatric hospital for me to come to accept the fact that I was not suffering from any sort fatal brain disease but that it was the aftereffects of my long repressed childhood abuse that was causing all of my midlife physical and emotional upheaval—abuse that I was only just beginning to remember. And so, desperate to heal my mind and body, once I left the hospital, with the help of talk and hypnotherapy, massage, movement and group therapy, I began my long-awaited journey toward integration, healing, and wholeness.
As many of you who are healing from similar abuse-related traumas know, this journey has not been an easy one. There are many moments, so many moments when returning memories and long hidden feelings of grief, shame, and fear still threaten to steal away my newly found feelings of safety and sanity.
While I have many tools to help me through these moments now, I remain amazed by how often simply being able to admit to myself and to my inner and outer healing guides that I am afraid has brought me comfort, reassurance, and the blessed ability to move forward with my day. Growing up in an abusive family, I was not allowed to give voice to feelings of shame, grief, or fear and so I internalized these emotions, turning them over the years into episodes of anorexia, bulimia, self-inflicted violence, anxiety, panic, and tendencies toward dissociation.
Today I can see that it is only by embracing and ultimately releasing these long-repressed emotions and energies that I have been able to heal my mind, body, and spirit, one memory at a time, one tear at a time.
I think many of our difficulties with spirituality arise from our long-held belief that it is something that exists outside of ourselves, something unreachable and angry that we need to fear, much like the perpetrators who wounded us as children. Through my studies of hypnosis, dream work, and the subconscious mind, however, I have come to believe that our spirituality or “higher power” is something that exists deep within each one of us and that it exists simply as the abundance of memory, wisdom, and faith that each of us needs to reclaim our lives and heal. It is there whether we are able to believe in it or not, and it is there whether we feel we are able to access its power or not.
So, if you’re feeling so inclined, why not take a moment or two to access this inner spiritual power. Close your eyes or, if you prefer, just lower your gaze toward the floor. Take a deep breath and turn your attention inward. Notice what you’re feeling. No need to judge or try to change these feelings, just notice them. Take another deep breath and then say these words whether you believe them or not…even if, or rather especially if it makes you cry—
- “I am taking back my power!”
- Say it again. Louder.
- “I am taking back my power!”
- Say it again, even louder.
- “I am taking back my power!”
Say these words again, and again. Say them every day if you need to and every night. Say them until you truly believe with all your heart and soul that you really do have the right and the ability to reclaim the power that was stolen from you—to reclaim your life—and heal.
Wishing all of us much hope and wholeness on our healing journeys.
Many blessings,
Lynda Wisdo, MA, CYT
Another version of this post was first published in Many Voices Press Newsletter; October 2008 edition
Photo Credit: Unsplash
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Lynda Wisdo, MA CYT
A survivor of complex trauma, Lynda holds an MA degree in Transpersonal Psychology with a focus on Feminine Spirituality and Spiritual Mentoring. She is also a Certified Trauma-Informed Yoga Instructor, Menopause Coach, and author of a memoir/research project about her experience with a menopause-related Psychosis/Spiritual Emergency titled, Menopause in Crisis~ When Spiritual Emergency Meets the Feminine Midlife Passage. In 2024 and 2025 Lynda was invited to share information about her experience with menopause and Spiritual Emergency at the annual UK conference on The Intersection of Trauma and Menopause. The focus of Lynda’s writing and healing practice is to offer insights and support to women who are dealing with the challenges of childhood trauma and its effect on their perimenopausal journeys. She can be reached through her website at https://wisewomanmenopause.weebly.com/
God bless you for voicing what so many of us experience.
Hey Ben,
I’m so glad my post resonated with you. Our spirituality can truly sustain us through the most difficult times.
Many blessings!
Lynda