Session 2; Talk 1: Our Wounds
Sarah McCauley, MA, LAMFT

Talk Outline

I. Introduction
– We do not exist in a vacuum. We are informed by and shaped by relationships with family, friends and community. We are given minds, bodies and souls by God and subsequently are given tools to care for each part of our being. Just as we are given tools to care for our body, our body and mind are given tools to speak to and care for us.
– When we make the unconscious, conscious, we have the opportunity to change, heal and grow.

II. Relationships to one another
– We all exist in relationship to one another.
– It is all the more impactful when members of what we see as our family cause us harm.

III. Dignity
– A premise that I refer back to, as supported by our faith and trauma research, is the question of “Does this violate the person’s dignity as a Child of God?”

IV. Attachment formation
– Clergy sexual abuse was a massive wound that not only impacted those who were directly harmed, but also those close to them, as well as the communities in which trust was violated. Taking the mindset of the Church as a family, wherein roles and responsibilities are given to various members of the Church, we see family roles reflected.
– Those in positions of authority and emotional responsibility, such as priests, leaders, teachers, parents, friends and other authority figures, convey a message to the vulnerable and innocent that they can be trusted to honor the safety that is assumed.
– Attachment formation is a developmental task that begins in infancy and is shaped throughout the lifespan within various relationships. Attachment is the task in which we learn how to feel safe, secure and trusting of others.

– When a breach of trust occurs, a violation or a wound, it inherently changes not just the relationship we have with the individual but the relationships we have with ourselves.

V. Types of Wounds: Part 1
– [Wounds] can be small, paper cuts of emotional and psychological violations that we don’t necessarily realize are there until we “bump” into them later on in life. They can be big boulders we must navigate around that shift our identity and ability to relate to self and others. There is no distinct time frame in which a wound develops or lasts. Some wounds are easier to heal from than others, and that journey can look massively different from one person to the next. We are transformed by wounds and healing.
– No one walks throughout life without wounds, although the type and scale of wounds we may experience may differ depending on the environments we are exposed to and the choices we and our intimate relationships make.
– Examples of events that can cause wounds:
– A friend or confidant who failed to honor privacy
– A loved one who was dismissive of our emotions, such as fear and love
– A lost relationship, through death, a breakup, drifting apart, or choosing to cut ties with someone who causes us harm
– Examples of internal-caused wounds:
– When we make a decision that goes against our morals and values, we not only wound ourselves but others, such as in abortion or sexual violations
– Neglect of ourselves, or our loved ones
– Reject those who are most vulnerable
– Participate in self-harm activities
– Pornography and other addictions
– Selfishness
– Shaming of others
– Emotional manipulation
– Gossip
– Assumption
– Rage
– Reject or diminish the lived experience of others
– Manipulate the minds of others, such as in gaslighting
– Abuse is not merely physical or sexual. We can be wounded and wound others through the abuse of emotions, sex, finances, medical access and use, taking away the voices of others, or other exercises of power, fear, and control
– Failure of a primary caregiver (of a child) results in emotional or physical harm
– Failure to believe a child when he/she comes with needs

VI. Neurological impact
– Our central nervous system, brain structure and emotional responses change significantly after even brief moments of feeling unsafe. The same instincts that God gave us to keep us alive, that help us steer away from the edge of a cliff, are active in moments of relational, physical and emotional unsafety.
– Our limbic system and other emotional control centers of the brain focus on three reactions to fear and trauma: fight, flight or freeze.
– [Evidence of fight/flight/freeze are] tools and symptoms of when a wound is present, and where in our life it is impacting us.
– A distinct difference regarding impact of wounds is duration and exposure, and how intensely moments of feeling unsafe, violated or unheard, can change our worldview over time.

VII. Detecting wounds/Symptoms
– We are given a mind, a body and a soul. All three parts of the human self are to be listened to. When we find ourselves struggling with symptoms of dysfunction, this is a way that our body is trying to speak to us. Examples include:
– Intrusive and unwanted thoughts
– Nightmares
– Emotional volatility
– Shame
– Disrupted or missing memories
– Inexplicable pain
– Being hyper-aware of our environment
– Suicidal ideation or self-harm thoughts
– Insomnia
– Flashbacks
– You are not alone. God does not want you to unnecessarily suffer! You don’t have to live this way, and you can have hope that others will not remain.
– Our relationships and mind can have symptoms of woundedness. Examples:
– Being reactive to others
– Holding grudges
– Believing lies of disconnect and malicious intent
– Pushing others away
– Leaping to judgement
– Seeking out faults in others to justify our decisions

VIII. Lie of isolation and doubt
– This belief says “I do not belong, I am not welcome, not safe, I cannot trust myself or others, and my perception of what is real, was wrong”. It may also tell us “I am not worthy of forgiveness, or I am not worthy of God’s Grace”. This lie distorts the truth that we as children of God have inherent dignity, and that our lived experience can be trusted.
– “A person’s rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use” (John Paul II the Great, Love and Responsibility).
– When we are seen for less than our whole self, with free will, dignity and as a Child of God in the eyes of ourselves and our brothers and sisters in Christ, it causes us immense pain and wounds our heart, mind and soul. God wants us to be whole, to be in harmony with His creation.
– Cognitive dissonance is the phenomena which occurs within the brain when moral reasoning and logic are in conflict with a decision or environment.
– Doubt is an expression of dissonance. When we are wounded, feeling dehumanized, disconnected and vulnerable, we may feel hopeless and powerless. In feeling powerless, we may be feeling incapable of remaining present in our minds and bodies. That experience of unpredictability and lack of control is often referred to as dysregulation.

IX. Empathy and self-awareness
– The path to healing starts in the same place where wounds begin: being in relationship with one another. One in four adults in the US will experience some form of diagnosed mental health condition over the course of their lifetime – and there are many more wounds that exist that are not diagnosable. Finding moments in relationship with individuals we can trust, in our family and community, where we feel connected, attuned to emotional variances, and our needs are attended to and heard, is a path to healing. When we cultivate empathy and attend to our neighbors as Christ called us to do in the Beatitudes, we not only hold space for their wounds, but also our own. We create space to see and to heal through acknowledging the depth of the pain, the impact, the disconnection, and the desire to no longer remain in pain.
– One of the most powerful reflections that we have as Catholics, is the duality of the Cross as a source of hope and of suffering. Our sins are what Christ carries on the Cross, and his empathy and compassion for us comes from the Cross. Have hope that He loves you, including your wounds, not in spite of them.

X. Repair
– “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response there is growth and our freedom.” – (Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)
– We have the opportunity and ability to choose each other, and to choose Christ in our actions every day. To avoid intentionally wounding each other, and to have the free will to take accountability for our actions when wounds invariably occur.
– When we acknowledge each other’s humanity, and embrace our own humility, we foster a vulnerability and great connection in our language and relationships.

Personal Reflection/ Discussion Questions

1. Which wounds am I holding on to?

2. Whom have I wounded?

3. What is holding me back from healing?

4. When I grieve: What is lost? What is left? What is possible?

5. Who is in my support network? Which relationships can I rely on to help work towards healing?

6. How do I choose each other, and choose Christ in my actions every day? In what ways can I do that more?

7. Do I really have hope that Jesus loves me, including my woundedness, not in spite of my wounds? How could I grow in that hope?

Session 2; Talk 2:
Wounds as Openings of Resilience and Grace
Paul Ruff, MA, Licensed Psychologist

Talk Outline

In Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem, he sings: Ring the bell that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, (your own perfection), everything has cracks in it/ that’s how the Light gets in.

This calls to mind how God’s grace enters that first wound, the one which affects us all, the fault-line of original sin in our humanity, “O happy fault that merited such and so great a Savior” from the Exultet each Easter Vigil, the vigil of the resurrection, the transformation from the suffering of the passion.

My comments that follow are put in terms of my faith. However, I could restate them all in terms of the findings of secular psychology. Our “natural process” of healing, I believe, contains this same fingerprints of the hand of the Creator.

In exploring wounds as occasions of grace, I do not mean in any way to gloss over them. In fact just the opposite. I want us to reflect on how to bravely, deeply enter them and to allow them to be places of deep encounter with the one who heals, and with those he providentially puts in our path. “Getting over it” is not the goal. Neither is getting back to baseline function. Being transformed in the process of healing is the deeper invitation. To do this we need to let the light shine into and through those cracks in our humanity. Investigations in the field of positive psychology—the psychology that studies health and resilience rather than pathology—have revealed to us that post-traumatic growth is even more common than is post-traumatic stress disorder.

In my over thirty-five years as a psychologist, I have witnessed the effects of the whole multitude of human wounds and certainly had to deal with my own. However, more compelling to me is the miracle of healing. Healing always wants to happen. Grace always wants to find its way in, even though in our injury and understandable fear from being hurt, it can be difficult to let it in.  The seeds of our desire for healing and wholeness, our resilience, corresponds to the action of grace in our healing.

The process deserves to be slow and prudent.  We need to respect our cautiousness in even risking hope.  And we need to trust in a process that is not on a timetable.  A colleague once told me that her response, when asked how long the process of healing would take, was, “Longer than you wish it would, but not as long as you are afraid it’s going to be.”  That answer seems to me to be almost always true and acceptable.  It allows for both our caution and patience but keeps the door open to our hope.

When someone comes in for their first appointment and is relating to me about their concerns and brokenness, I have learned to inquire: “I want to know all about that.  But, could you please also tell me about the part of you that set up this appointment, that got you here today—the part that bravely desires to hope and to heal?” That part is quite worthy of our attention as well—it contains the seeds, the desire of wholeness.

So, to you attending this retreat, I ask, “Tell me about that part of you that hopes for and desires healing.  That is quite a brave part of you.  It contains your resilience and your desire.”  It deserves your respect and your attention.

Wounds can dominate our attention and even try to claim our identity.  They take on undue proportion when we believe the lies that they are:

A) Permanent – “this can never heal; it will always be thus”; It is true that what happened to me will never “not have happened.” However it is false that its effects will always be unhealed. The mark of the wound may be visible—like scar tissue or the increased calcification around a broken bone—but these are actually marks of healing and resilience.

B) Pervasive – “this affects every aspect of my life; nothing can be good again”; It is true that unhealed wounds tend to color and distort our vision in life. Wounds tend to lead us to shrink our vision and constrict our hearts to protect them. However, we can learn to open our hearts again to see even more deeply, with added dimension, the beauty and possibility around us. The larger part of who you are is not your wound. Most of what the world is, is not what wounded you.

C) Personal – “this wound defines me; it becomes my identity; I have lost my possibility”; It is never true that your wound defines you. Frequently it is true that your wound was “not about you.” It was about someone else’s brokenness. Or about your own confusion at a certain point in life. However, they do not define you—they are a comma, not the period at the end of the sentence. The story of you continues to unfold.

We need to move from this to seeing wounds with the vision of:

A) Perspective – “this is difficult and painful, but will eventually be healed. I have healed in the past, as have others. Like a healed broken bone, my healing from these wounds can lead me to be eventually stronger in places now broken. Even in my wounded state, grace is active in me and my corresponding hope and resilience can be made visible.”

B) Providence – “God never wishes for me to be wounded, but it is inevitable since I am a beautifully vulnerable creature in a broken world and with human freedom. However, God will take all of our wounds up into his providence. His grace cannot resist entering our wounds when we are ready to permit this. He can draw unexpected good through these dark and painful experiences. God’s grace and provision can include all that has happened to me.”

C) Purpose – “God’s plan for me is not ended or even really interrupted, by my wound. If I allow Him, He does not even have to wait for me to heal. Even in my wounded state––and at times especially in my wounded state––He can bring grace and draw good through me for myself and others. In fact in staying awake to a sense of purpose, I am better aligned to allow my own healing as He wills it.”

Christ was resurrected with his wounds still visible. This is important, because God could certainly have perfectly closed and healed them. However, rather than healing, He chose to transform them. These wounds had now become places of power and grace rather than weakness and pain. The light of his grace pours out of them. They offer us shelter and protection. In his healed wounds, wounds He had allowed Himself to suffer for us, He brings us grace and the hope of new possibilities. He shows us that the wound is never the last word. I would like to offer a prayer in closing:

Dear Lord, even in your resurrected state you carried in your body the wounds of human vulnerability. Yet in you those wounds were transformed as potent places of grace and power. Hide me in your wounds as I heal. Help me to allow you to enter my wounds, wounds you did not desire, wounds that sadden your Sacred Heart. Help me to allow them to be transformed into places of your healing power. Even in the midst of my suffering, help me to trust that at every moment you are seeking me, that you are loving me, and that, if I allow it, you wish to work good for me and through me. Amen

Personal Reflection/ Discussion Questions

1. How might God be drawing you to him through the wound you are dealing with? How is light wanting to flow into and through that vulnerable “crack”? What is your reaction to that possibility?

2. What have you discovered of the natural grace and gifts of resilience with which you have been endowed? What are the internal strengths and holy desires that keep you going? And what brought you to this retreat?

3. Resistance to change and trust is normal when we have been wounded. What do you understand of your own resistance to healing and growth? Can you treat that resistance with respect without letting it be fully in charge?

4. What signs, what “glimmers of hope” do you see, that your healing is already underway?

5. Healing is gradual. What would a next step look like? (examples: talking with the trusted friend, a spouse, a priest, a therapist; improved self-care with sleep, exercise, eating; return to the sacraments; getting out of myself with acts of charity or conversely; withdrawal into my core with increased prayer and stillness). Notice that these needs will vary over time in response to the ever-present invitation to healing.

6. Pain and wounds often demand all of our attention and can crowd out our true identity. What is your greater source of identity in the face of those wounds? What is your sense of purpose and meaning now? What purpose do you want to reclaim?

Outline: Our Original Identity as Sons and Daughters of God
Fr. Jon Vander Ploeg – Session 1; Talk 1

1.   God created you good
2. He created you to share in HIs life and love
3. Each person is a unique gift
4. The World does not support this gift, but opposes it
5. Because of the opposition it is easy to believe that I am not created in God’s image and good
6. Lies that are prevalent are that I am only worth what I produce
7. St. John Paul II in a letter told Henri De Lubac “I devote my very rare free moments to a work that is close to my heart and is devoted to the metaphysical sense and mystery of the person. The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person.” St. John Paul II, Crosby, John F. (2000, 2019), The Personalism of John Paul II, Steubenville, OH Hildebrand Project (p. 9)
8. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve choose to be their own source
9. They choose not to trust God
10. Instead of seeing God as love they think they have to take care of themselves
11. After they sin they hide from God
12. In my brokenness imagine I fall in a deep hole and am wounded
13. Instead of trying to climb out on my own I need to invite the Lord to be with me
14. Together with the Lord we can climb out
15. Revelation 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock…”
16. Every situation is an opportunity to invite the Lord to come in
17. St. Therese said that if she committed the worst sin in the history of the world, her response would be to run to God
18. This can be aided by prayer where I look at the Lord instead of looking at myself
19. Silence magnifies what is going on in me
20. This allows for the opportunity to invite the Lord into areas of my life
21. Jesus be with me

Discussion Questions:
Our Original Identity as Sons and Daughters of God

• What are some ways that I can treat myself or others in ways that do not show that they are a unique gift created in God’s image?

• If I am trapped in my weakness and brokenness, do I tend to invite the Lord into that, or do I try and climb out on my own?

• Do I run toward God in my weakness like St. Therese or do I run away from Him?

• When I am praying or am having a difficult time do, I tend to look at myself or do I look at the Lord?

• Have I tried to take some time of silence? Was it hard to remain in silence? How did it bring peace?

Talk Outline and Personal Reflection/Small Group Discussion Questions

Session 1, Part 2: Our Fundamental Identity as the Body of Christ

Talk Outline

• Made in the Image of God, the Trinity Is the example of self-gift and communion
• The Catechism section on the Church and the Mystical Body of Christ CCC 787 & 791
  • Importance of Small Groups (Johari’s window: Hidden, Secret, Blind, Open)
• God reveals us to ourselves in relationships
  • To be known Is to be loved
  • The more you know Jesus the more you know who you are, the more you know who you are the more you are able to be Jesus in the world.
  • Friendships are Important In virtuous friends they are another self
  • We need each other to get to heaven
  • Parish life and communal worship are Important
  • To love Is to risk
  • Imperfection and trauma
  • CCC 806 we need each other to heal
• The Body of Christ Is Gifted Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-12
  • You are a gift and manifest God’s Image In a way only you can
  • CCC 794
  • God uses you as you are, He desires your brokenness, and uses your suffering
• God entrusts us to each other specifically
  • Pray with John 17

Personal Reflection/Small Group Discussion Questions

1. Have there been people that I have been able to be vulnerable with? Who are/were they?  How does/did that feel?

2. What do you think about the “Mystical Body of Christ” and receiving that Body at Mass, does It change how you think about the people you are there with?

3. Have you ever been part of a small group? What has that experience taught you about the Church? About yourself?

4. Have you asked the Lord what gifts He has given you? Pray for the grace to see yourself the way God sees you.

5. Ask your small group or closest friends what they see as obvious when they see you.

6. How can you offer your need to Jesus?