Trauma - Bad for Business?

I mean, really, how could wounding from my childhood or trauma from my young adult years have anything to do with my business life?

Seems far-fetched, don’tcha think?

How could my unhealed wounds work against me in my business and set me up for failure?

Hmmmm. Pondering.

Almost 30 years ago as I was working in full time ministry with Point Man International, a ministry to Vietnam veterans and their wives, I had the epiphany that veterans didn’t have a corner on the market for PTSD.

Many of us wives of Vietnam vets had been through our own trauma – physically abusive marriages, abortions, childhood sexual abuse, and more. The pain those experiences represented was often never processed or healed, as we all learned how to numb our pain … be it motherhood, a career, or even ministry in the church, we stuffed it away and figured, out of sight, out of mind.

Ummmm. Not really!?

I spent the next few decades feeding my need for success to mute the pain that simmered beneath the surface. I was wildly successful, 6 figure annual income, beautiful house, fast car, all the trimmings of a high achiever. But little did I know that my choice to ignore God’s warnings would result in sabotaging my successful 20-year-old publishing company.

At one point in the early 90’s God helped 3 of us understand the spiritual aspect of PTSD in a way that brought all the symptoms of PTSD that we experienced in our loved ones and ourselves into view … physical symptoms, emotional and mental symptoms, and spiritual symptoms. I was convinced that our unhealed wounds as women married to these vets were controlling us rather than the Lord. As I researched and taught on adrenaline and triggers and how a perceived threat causes an automatic reaction in our bodies and minds, I was able to connect the dots that the same thing was happening spiritually.

Judy, Vickie, and I were all together at a personal retreat in a remote cabin where we fasted and prayed for God to give us His wisdom on the truths that were found in His Word.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

As those words literally jumped off the page at me, I dug deeper into the Hebrew word for wounds.

Atstebeth – it is an idol.

Ding, ding, ding, ding! Here it is. Pay attention, Athena!

If we are allowing our wounding to be left untended to, it becomes idolatry … why? Because that pain is continuing to be triggered by similar situations, circumstances, sights, sounds, smells of the trauma … creating in us a fight or flight response, and an ungodly response to whatever is happening in our life today is controlling us rather than God. We are bowing our hearts to the uncovered pain and letting it poison our every decision and reaction.

I moved away from that ministry time in my life to chase after another shiny object, a business opportunity that kept me occupied in achieving and setting new records all to leave my unhealed heart in a perpetual season of pain … stuffed way down so that no one would notice. (yeah, right)

Check back next week for The Trouble with Trauma - Part Two!