Branch-level healing

In my upcoming book, Trauma Survivor to Soul Warrior, I map the healing process onto the three levels of a tree; roots, trunk, and branches. Here’s an excerpt from the ‘Branches’ chapter:

Warriors begin their journey in the belly of the beast, born into the depths of intolerable pain, and yet somehow manage to drag themselves out the other side. Like Jonah swallowed up by the whale, they survive the ordeal and are eventually spat out on the shore. Even with all the anxieties, addictions, and post-traumatic wounding, they are not defined by these after-effects. They have some residue to clean up, some scars that remain, but they have started to remember themselves as so much more than their trauma.

Warrior you is a unique, beloved child of the Divine. Don’t think too little of yourself, whatever you do.

The cleaning process requires the clear waters of love to wash away the muck of human suffering. We need the soap of kindness to dislodge shame, fear, and hate. The sponge of compassion to gently scrub off the dirt of grief and rage. I believe that our Creator always sees us, their treasured children, in our pristine innocence and beauty. For Source, all our errors and wounding do not exist–only our truest essence. Branch-level healing helps us to let go of all the passing aberrations in our experience and identity. Healing away the past allows us to know ourselves as the truly free and radiant Self we were created to be.

After we have resolved much of the raw material in our roots, and upleveled our trunk of understanding, we are ready to climb into the branches of our being. We can move beyond the dense jungle of trauma and emerge into a grassy clearing where the sky is more visible. In this chapter, we will explore ways to approach the spiritual, drawing upon the unlimited resources that are available to us beyond form. As we expand our vision, we can start to comprehend why it happened, what it was for, and what we have made out of it all.

Those gifts that you have already received from the ordeals of your past will serve you well now, as you venture into the upper level of recovery, the realm of spirituality where things can really start to make sense. I call this third, branch-level of the healing journey forgiveness.

Soul warriors heal out their trauma to the forgiveness level. It is only here in the upper branches of our being that we can look down upon our human trials with clear perception and see purpose in what happened. From here we can realise not only what took place, but also why it occurred. From here we can start to see the reasons for our traumas, the deeper meaning they contain, and why we might have chosen it. We can eventually forgive the aggressors and betrayers, and find the full release we seek. Peace and freedom become ours.