Trauma and Rhythm
How might those who have faced trauma find healing through hyperventilation, icy dips in a snowy river, or even something as simple as bouncing a beach ball?
My name is Kevin Klevjer and I am writing for the Landscape and Life group regarding our third group discussion centered on ecotheology and trauma. For our reading this week we discussed the opening chapters of Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s prolific book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. However, before we got very far into the reading, multiple group members shared brief portraits of their experiences of spiritual trauma at the hands of unhealthy evangelical churches. I will keep the stories of others’ confidential, but I am willing to share here that I was one voice that shared my own experience of spiritual abuse.
I retold how, a few years ago, I had shared deep concerns about the upper leadership at a former church to my then-pastor. Instead of offering pastoral care and instead of choosing to listen to my concerns, this man chose instead to close his ears, to label me and my wife as divisive, and to cast us out of community a few weeks before we planned on leaving so we were unable to offer proper goodbyes to our dear friends of seven years. The story grows worse with detail beyond this, yet to be brief, being labeled as divisive and being ostracized from our tightknit community we had been “family” with for seven years was deeply traumatizing for me. I became deeply depressed, anxious, and at times even paranoid about what friends of mine who were still a part of the church might be thinking of me. Although I still have a deep respect for many expressions of the Christian tradition, this whole event and the surrounding trauma eventually became a catalyst for me choosing to no longer identify as a Christian.
As I and others in our discussion group shared our stories of trauma, we also acknowledged the ways we had participated in the toxic culture of these churches, even potentially traumatizing others by participating in the toxicity. This realization, we acknowledged, can be just as traumatizing.
In fact, this was a lesson we recalled from the first chapter of Van Der Kolk’s book. In chapter 1 of the book he shares a story of a Vietnam vet who came to Dr. Van Der Kolk’s trauma center seeking treatment. The veteran shared how he had seen his whole crew of fellow soldiers, including his best friend, get gunned down around him and he became the sole survivor of an ambush. The next day, filled with rage and revenge, the man gunned down a local village, including women and children, and even participated in raping some of the women. How on earth would this man be able to come home and face his own family again? How could he face himself again or ever escape the atrocities of his ever-present past?
Our stories of spiritual trauma paled in comparison to that of this Vietnam War vet, yet trauma cares very little about competition. Different forms of trauma leave different sized scars on us all. Nevertheless, the fact remains: we are scarred. We are wounded. How do we possibly heal from the psychological wounds of our traumatic life experiences? Van Der Kolk’s book offers keen insights into how such healing might take place.
One crucial tool in the healing of trauma which Van Der Kolk offered was that of rhythm. As humans go through trauma our brains become disoriented and dis-integrated. This can deeply impact not just our brains, but our bodies, minds, and relationships as well. When someone is getting lost in a past traumatic event, participating in an activity with rhythm can help to ground the person once again in the present and to re-integrate their mind. We remembered as a group how Van Der Kolk shared about a colleague of his who would walk around with a beach ball at his trauma center and would “accidentally” drop it next to a child, whom he could tell was troubled. The child would throw the ball back to him, and he in turn would throw the ball back to the child once again. As they continued to throw and bounce the ball back and forth to each other, the rhythm helped calm the child, centering the child and giving him back his mind.
I also shared with our group how I have recently found similar healing through the rhythmic practices of the Wim Hof Method, which involves deep breathing in cold environments, intentional meditative hyperventilation, and various yoga-type poses and exercises. I would love to share more about the Wim Hof Method, but I have run out of time so I will simply add a few videos* below that you can watch at your leisure, if you are interested.
All in all, our group had a very lively discussion and I look forward to learning more together about how the concepts of ecology, theology, and trauma intersect.
*Wim Hof Method videos for those interested:
