The Reality of Suffering & Survival – Within the Wilderness
Discussion of the things humans encounter in this life and then how they cope from there can lead to discomfort. Whether it’s because it’s hard to digest the challenges that can be faced, the evil humans can do to one another, if the topic hits so close to suffering within us that we prefer not to tap into, or we truly just cannot reconcile holding space for what is so hard to understand and know where our own values fit in. To understand the full picture, I encourage you to hold space for some curiosity. Maybe you can envision yourself sitting in your comfiest space with someone you cherish, truly just open to hearing their heart and story.
How can I begin to even capture the vast experiences that lead to our personal wildernesses? Surely, I will not capture it all, but for the sake of trying, I want to discuss the different human experiences we may endure.
Suffering
In this world, we can encounter so much. While some things may be common, that doesn’t mean they are easy. The wilderness takes so many forms.
Health
This one is often not recognized. We experience illness and medical trauma. The impact of repeated procedures, hospitalizations, chronic illness, near death experiences, medical malpractice, young ones unable to process their caregivers’ help, ongoing pain, and feeling different/isolated takes a toll on our systems.
Accidents, even when we come out physically okay, can rock our sense of safety. Our bodies may remain hypervigilant, or we experience chronic pain that seems to have no physiological cause or solution. Our bodies carry the experiences of our health journeys.
Grief
We lose people we love and need, sometimes in unexpected and traumatic ways. Children lose parents, parents lose children. We lose our partners, our friends. We lose people we deeply connect with and may have to process it in invalidating family systems or in cultures that don’t hold space well for the prolonged grief experiences.
We may lose jobs or dreams. We experience the loss of our stability, or our identity feels scrambled. Marriages end and all those connected are left devasted and needing to rebuild what was expected to last. Perhaps our parents weren’t available in some way to raise us, and we feel the loss of that connection and relationship. Sometimes when fostering or adoption is a part of our story, we are left with questions, struggles, or impacts that others may not see or understand.
Abuse / Neglect
From birth to old age, we can encounter mistreatment and our needs going unmet. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault are uneasy topics people endure singularly or on recurrent bases that impact our connection to ourselves. There are complexities, such as psychological abuse, emotional abuse and manipulation that impact our sense of orientation to reality and the sense of validity of our experiences. Parents may not appropriately meet the needs of their children through enough food, support, and safety.
We may witness domestic violence in our households. Our homes can have addiction and illicit activities occurring in them that change what home is supposed to be. Human sex and labor trafficking is an ongoing world-wide horror. Studies of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) show a life-long impact of these things on our very health. It is truly devastating the pain that we are capable of inflicting on one another and the darkness here can be so deep.
Spiritual Trauma
This one is a fragile topic within faith communities, but it must be here. The places and people we learn from and engage in our faith with become our close association of how we see God. It is no wonder how catastrophic, then, it can be when our faith leaders fail, abuse is perpetuated or covered up, shame permeates, or our faith community turns their back. The church building is full of humans and unfortunately is not an exception to the flaws and failings that follow. While God remains above it, wrongdoing in these areas can fracture our sense of safety with God and we are hurt is such vulnerable ways.
Systemic Struggles
The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth terms like “collective grief” and “collective trauma” and showed a suffering so many struggled for which to find words. It impacted and changed our world in countless ways. Additionally, we can experience discrimination and injustice based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic status and so much more that impact our sense of safety and may limit our opportunities. We can be impacted by unstable governments, climates, natural disasters, and infrastructures.
Occupational Experiences
Some occupations expose people to recurrent suffering. Military and first responders frequently witness realities in our world that most of us are regularly unaware of and protected from. They then must figure out how to process information most won’t or don’t want to understand, while bracing to likely experience it again. Jobs may require toxic stress or ask more than we can give while maintaining our health. We may not be able to set the boundaries we need because it is our livelihood.
Survival
There’s so much and yet this list misses the more individualized experiences that impact us. How could we ever be prepared to cope with all we may encounter? The truth is, we really cannot. At best, we develop resilience that allows us to navigate hardship with some internal stability. In truth, we stumble into a lot of hard, unhealthy, or even sinful roads as we try to navigate how to survive and cope. We can make choices that take us through a variety of paths. Perhaps we can hold space here without judgement to examine the different ways humans may try to navigate the wilderness.
We may try to comfort ourselves in a variety of ways. It may give us a sense of safety, control, or a break from the reality of our stories. Things like substance use and addiction, gambling, and pornography easily come to mind. We also can’t miss the more subtle or sneaky ones: excessive shopping/spending, lying, gossiping, promiscuity, infidelity, avoidance of responsibilities or relationships, codependency, excessive focus on our appearance, binge eating, excessive dieting/exercise, being a workaholic, and so much more. We may become controlling, judgmental, apathetic, relationally dysfunctional, or inwardly focused. Likely, this is where our mental health symptoms or ‘pathology’ will be noticed. Our systems are just trying to survive. Often unconsciously, we are coping with what was modeled for us, what stress activates in our genes, or through what we have stumbled into. So many times, a person sits on my couch and senses they have been in the wilderness a very long time, but they aren’t sure how to get out or what seems to be really keeping them there.
From there, we explore where to begin a new, healthier way to survive and eventually thrive. Learning to cope, being in our bodies, identifying our struggles and the lies planted within us; identifying our supports, our community, getting around other nervous systems to co-regulate, finding the ways we feel truly like us; exploring memory reprocessing, parts work, system mapping, formational prayer, developing our boundaries and communication. The path unfolds uniquely inside and outside of my office, often spanning months and years with a multitude of layers.
Conclusion
I shared with you in the beginning of this journey that I am not trying to develop a healing how-to with step-by-step instructions in getting out of the wilderness. This isn’t an article from a counselor unsurprisingly telling you to just go to counseling. My hope was to shine light on the complexity of suffering in this life. My desire was to narrate that healing is not just a singular avenue. Jesus is not just ‘a part’ of our healing. He is the creator of our bodies, minds and this world in which we live. He knows our complete story, fully knowing and loving us. As we find a helpful medication, check in to rehab, go for a run, pray, cry on our counselor’s couch, read a book, stretch, find our breath… He is there. We will not get through using shame, over-spiritualized bypasses, or all the other things that some may push. It’s going to be a journey.
If you find yourself deep in the wilderness- living your life, but with a broken heart, symptoms you can’t seem to figure out, hurting, confused, struggling with unhelpful paths, overwhelmed as a parent or partner about walking with someone through their own journey- I encourage you to find just somewhere within your own capacity to begin. It might be prayer- you also may feel afraid to go there just yet. Maybe therapy seems scary, but a safe friend or mentor feels like a start. Perhaps rolling out your whole timeline of suffering is daunting, but a workout and focus on evening your breath feels more within reach; maybe it’s a book or seeking counseling for yourself first. The truth is, you will have to work your way through the wilderness, there’s no way around it. I hope you ask for help to not do it alone, whatever that looks like, and I hope that through all of that hard you can connect to the sacred in it, too. I pray you see obstacles for what they are- brokenness of the world, lack of insight from those that do love you- and that you anchor in confidence that Jesus is right there. Your story continues.
