BR O KEN

“Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me; I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.” Psalm 31:9-12 NRSV

Reflection

Words from my own journey through trauma recovery: I want to lose myself in movie after movie. Curl up in bed, eyes staring at the blank wall. Drink the leftover wine in the fridge until I no longer feel anything. Buy another dress online. Only to send it back again. Move to an island far away from all who know my story. Numb myself in anything taking a layer of pain away. Not even asking for it all to cease. Just shed the top portion of what I endure. Maybe just for an hour. Giving me a break from my broken body. From trauma’s relentless monotony.

Today I decide instead to bake. Satiate my craving for spice cookies. Or maybe just the sugar as temporary antidepressant. But also need some sort of small movement. Like smashing butter, cracking eggs, measuring vanilla, mixing it all together. Watching the separate parts form a whole. Liquid acting like glue. Bringing it all together.

Movement grows a young child’s brain. Neurons reaching out into strings of pathways. Maybe movement can grow my brain back? My stuck, middle-aged, traumatized brain. Showing it a path out of this muck. By molding ingredients together. Making sticky cookie dough. Mending what is broken.

Healing Practice: Collecting Ideas

Buy a pack of recipe cards. Or note cards. Any size.

Write down one idea for healthy movement or action per card, thoughts nudging you in some way.

One card may say, “jump rope. Another may say, “go dig in the dirt,” or “remember to sketch the big oak tree in the park,” or “paint the office wall marine blue.” Collect these ideas for times when you want to run away from the broken pain playing havoc in your soul.

When next you want to escape, take a deep breath instead. Let it out slowly while you pick out a card. And then try it. Just try it. For five minutes. Maybe longer. Give yourself permission to only make the dough but not bake the bread. Or dig a hole without planting something in it. The point is to move just a little bit toward healing. Toward reconstructing our broken vessels.

Prayer

Send me ideas, God. For healing me. For healing those I love. For my brokenness to slowly fill in with life again. Amen.

© Jennifer Ohman-RodriguezJennifer Ohman-Rodriguez and Jenniferohmanrodriguez.com, 2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez and Jenniferohmanrodriguez.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.