This is an excerpt from The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma by Colleen Ramser

Trauma isn’t just about what happened; it’s about what we had to hold alone. As Gabor Maté, a trauma expert puts it, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”1 In order to heal, we need witnesses—relationships in which we feel safe and seen. While withdrawal and isolation are natural responses to trauma, we need to understand that remaining alone with our hurt has real consequences. For example, one of the biggest predictors of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is powerlessness and real or perceived aloneness. And loneliness isn’t just psychologically painful; it can also be life-threatening. Researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues found that isolation increases the risk of early death more than many major health risks.2

Author Henri Nouwen captured the ache of suffering alone when he wrote, “Today the small rejections of my life are too much for me—a sarcastic smile, a flippant remark, a brisk denial, a bitter silence. . . . And right now I don’t particularly want God, faith, church or even a big and gracious heart. I want simply to be held.”3 When pain is deep, sometimes what we need most is the loving presence and embrace of another human being.

While learning therapeutic techniques, using mindfulness apps, and reading books can help, nothing can replace the healing power of being seen and heard by someone who truly understands. Breaking silence requires safety—with ourselves and with another. But it also requires risk—loosening our grip on the silence we’ve clung to for so long and the shame that engulfs.

Shame is a barrier to reaching out because it thrives in silence. When we carry the belief that we are flawed or unworthy of love and connection, our natural response is to hide. Shame tells us that if anyone really knew us—what we’ve done, what we’ve been through, or how we feel—they would turn away. So instead, we turn away first. We go quiet. We disconnect. We stay silent not because we don’t want to connect, but because shame tells us we can’t. And yet, shame cannot survive being seen. In her book Dare to Lead, researcher and shame expert Brenè Brown writes:

If you put shame in a petri dish and cover it with judgment, silence, and secrecy, you’ve created the perfect environment for shame to grow until it makes its way into every corner and crevice of your life. If, on the other hand, you put shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, shame loses its power and begins to wither. Empathy creates a hostile environment for shame—an environment it can’t survive in, because shame needs you to believe you’re alone and it’s just you.4

Vulnerability (daring to be seen) and empathy (being met with compassion) are the antidotes to shame. When we befriend this silent part of us with compassion and curiosity, when we speak what we fear, we begin to break shame’s grip. “Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story,” Brown writes. “It hates having words wrapped around it—it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy.”5 That’s why finding the courage to speak, even just a little, and being met with care when we do, is so powerful. In connection, healing begins.

So how do you find someone you can talk to and know that you will be met with care? First, give your body permission to have preferences about who gets this privilege. You didn’t get to pick who heard your first words as a child, but you do, for the most part, get to pick who hears your first words after spiritual trauma.

Finding a therapist who understands trauma and spiritual abuse may be the best option for many. Most therapists are highly trained in creating safe spaces. At their best, therapists offer a gracious space full of opportunities to practice using your voice. Although finding a therapist might seem daunting, it helps to think of it as a process rather than a “one-and-done” task. In fact, you might think of your first meeting with a potential therapist as an interview. As you begin your search, ask yourself questions like these:

• Do I prefer a male or female therapist?
• Does the content on the therapist’s website match my values?
• Does the therapist have good reviews?
• Is the therapist known for being consistent and trustworthy?
• Is the therapist trauma-informed?
• Does the therapist understand spiritual trauma and respect my faith journey?

Note that even after you’ve decided on a therapist and met with them for a while, you might start to feel like the fit isn’t right, that you need something different, or that your preferences have changed. If so, know that this isn’t unusual or out of the norm. It’s okay to keep looking until you find what you need.

Something to note when looking for a therapist, or for safe people in general, is that reading and interpreting facial expressions—especially neutral expressions—can be challenging after we’ve experienced trauma. Because we are on high alert, our brains read worst-case scenarios before giving others the benefit of the doubt. In The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk notes that those who have been through trauma will most likely interpret facial expressions to be negative rather than positive.6

When we aren’t sure how to interpret neutral facial expressions, or when we experience silence or what feels like no response from someone, we are likely to fill in the gap with all kinds of horrible thoughts. Keep this in mind as you begin to reach out to others, and give yourself time to reflect on social interactions. You may realize that what you initially thought was happening isn’t really happening. Chances are that most people, though not all, are trying the best they can to understand and support you. You may need to just give the person a try, reminding yourself that having a few conversations or sessions doesn’t mean you’ve committed to that relationship. Trust can take time—a long time. So give yourself permission to go slowly as you begin to reach out. And know that you aren’t committing to trusting someone forever. You can always revise your trust with others based on whether the person continues to demonstrate trustworthiness.

The vulnerability required to reach out and connect with others requires taking risks, but it can lead to beautiful places.

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1. Gabor Maté, foreword to Peter A. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness (North Atlantic Books, 2010), xii.
2. Julianne Holt-Lunstad et al., “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010): e1000316, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.
3. Henri J. M. Nouwen, quoted in Paul Mankowski (aka “Diogenes,”), “Deranged,” Catholic Culture, November 12, 2006, https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/deranged/.
4. Brenè Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. (Random House, 2018), 160.
5. Brenè Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, Tenth Anniversary Edition (Hazelden Publishing, 2020), 14–15.
6. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Viking, 2014), 43, 116.