Honor to Return

Blogpost #2

by Michelle Garrison, Caitlin McDanel, and Cristina Neuenschwander

At the intersection of trauma and lament, the question we are most drawn to is if one can engage in lament while in trauma responses — immobilization or fight/flight — where social engagement is inhibited? In reading Levine and Pemberton, we infer they would agree that when one is in a trauma response, one cannot lament — alone. Pemberton reminds us that speech is required for lament¹ and Levine unveils the side effect of speechlessness while in a trauma response.² and Levine unveils the side effect of speechlessness while in a trauma response. This complicates the ability for trauma and lament to intersect. Hope for the traumatized individual lies in Levine’s scientific revelation; healing the traumatized mind and spirit comes from balancing instinct and reason, these come from the insula and cingulate respectively.³ One must integrate instinct and reason to heal; this occurs in lament. Shame delineates this process by preventing one from naming truth. Ultimately, we must honor the trauma in order to return to God, ourselves, and to community; and we believe this happens, slowly, through disarming shame and within communal lament.

Diving into reason, we look at Pemberton’s words about honesty; “if lament is the practice of being honest with God, it stands to reason that I first must be honest about myself.”⁴ To be honest about trauma happens in the truth telling aspect of lament. Naming truth honors trauma. The Psalms show us God values honesty over hypocritical religious censoring of prayer.⁵ Shame unequivocally shields us from engaging honesty about our trauma. Shame feeds into the misperception of a traumatized individual that they are the cause or deserve their own misfortune.⁶ We must disarm shame in order to name truth and experience a moment of social engagement. This leads to self-forgiveness, self-acceptance, agency, and power for the traumatized individual.⁷

As it takes the combination of reason — truth — with instinct to heal trauma; embodiment is crucial. Levine defines embodiment as being guided by our instincts while self-aware of that guidance.⁸ Our identity is not just our thoughts as Descartes argued, but rather, it is comprised of both thoughts and instincts — in our bodies. It takes courage to deal with our instincts. They may be dark or scary. As Levine argues, “we think and feel with our guts.”⁹ We use our body to descend into the places of ourselves we have split off from, the parts we prefer to ignore, yet, those parts remain in our bodies until we name them.¹⁰ Could fear of lament come from a desire to avoid sensations and feelings as a traumatized individual? They could be “too much.”

Now, to engage hope from communal lament. If we look at the psalms as a way to pray, lament, mourn and cry out for the oppressed who need assistance against their enemies, communal lament benefits those who are entangled in trauma. Humans experience sensations of humans around them, this is body resonance.¹¹ The best thing we can do for a traumatized person is learn how to care and tend to our own bodies.¹² Is the shared experience of lament a safe space for a traumatized individual to come out of “shut down” into community? Would this be too much? We argue no, for who better to lament with than those who have suffered trauma themselves? Could the cycle of lament be a process of giving back where you have been given life? Is the engagement with lament different each time you go in? Yes, it depends where you are in the truth naming and your awareness of embodiment.

Trauma is different for everyone. It is a slow process to honor our trauma in order to return to embodiment and vice versa. Yet, this delineated process builds our faith in a deeper, richer way. We will one day be able to lament for others. As Pemberton states; “Most important, the course back to God is open because God makes it so. Mercy, grace, and unfailing love are God’s first disposition, eager to welcome faltering steps in the right direction — even providing the language we need to speak the truth of our lives.”¹³ God encourages lament, and communal lament brings us to life in a new, authentic way through honesty and embodiment, or as Levine would say, through reason and instinct.¹⁴

Endnotes:

1. Glenn Pemberton, Hurting with God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms (Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2012).
2. Peter A. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness (Berkley: North Atlantic Books, 2010).
3. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice, 72.
4. Pemberton, Hurting with God, 77.
5. Ibid., 143.
6. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice, 60.
7. Ibid., 90.
8. Ibid., 278.
9. Ibid., 254.
10. Ibid., 291.
11. Ibid., 138.
12. Ibid., 139.
13. Pemberton, Hurting with God, 88.
14. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice, 77.

Bibliography

Levine, Peter A. In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Berkley: North Atlantic Books, 2010.

Pemberton, Glenn. Hurting with God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms. Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2012.