Almost 20 years ago — on Christmas Eve — my mother told our family that she was filing for divorce. Mom wanted to break the news face-to-face, so she waited until I was home from college on break.

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What she didn’t understand was that our bodies keep the score of the traumatic experiences we encounter.

(You won’t regret reading this book.)

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143127748/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_xieMFb3R0TJR8

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See, I didn’t have enough experience outside of my family of origin to understand the healthy from the unhealthy dynamics. In my mind, mom walked on water. I’d always admired her as a steady, Christian woman.

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It wasn’t just the loss of my family that was shattered that Christmas Eve. I no longer possessed the certainty about God that I’d always been taught was essential for a true Christian.

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For two years, I wrestled with God before he broke through and met me in the darkness.

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But it took 15 years before I could listen to Christmas music again.

I was a pastor who hated Christmas!

My body would tense up, I became irritable, my sense of loneliness caused me to isolate from seasonal festivities.

6/11

Even when I finally made the connection about I was always crabby around Christmas time, I couldn’t rationalize my way into emotional delight.

7/11

For far longer than I chose, I experienced an anniversary reaction — a trigger — to how my body attached and stored the sensations of Christmas as inseparable from the loss of my family’s wholeness.

8/11

It was only through a lot of honest self-assessment, personal growth, grieving, and reframing my own story — including rewriting the Christmas experience with my spouse and children — that I was able to grow beyond the trauma that was stored in my body.

9/11

Today, as I watch many of you pull out your decorations and tweet your Christmas playlists, I’m curious.

But a decade ago, I would have been angry, as if something subconscious within me was screaming, “How dare you lengthen the days of my misery?!”

10/11

I’m thankful for Jesus and how he heals.

I’m thankful for my therapist.

I’m thankful that this body of mine is resilient and can grow stronger by going through the mess.

I’m thankful for Christmas.

11/11

P.S. — Easter is still better.



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