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CONTEXTS & CULTURES

detachment or letting go. It may happen after a hike in many traumatized spiritual directees resist because they
the wilderness when they have felt at one with nature. It think that to do so means to trivialize the trauma story
can happen in a myriad of ways, but one day our spiritual and to render it as somehow unimportant. It can mean
directees say to us, however they communicate, “I’m ready.” for them that we as spiritual directors don’t think what
happened was as bad as it really was. Our spiritual seek-
Clearing the Ground and Moving Identity ers may think we are suggesting they forget the story. Of
beyond Story course, none of this is true.
The invitation, then, to traumatized spiritual directees The first phase, then, that spiritual seekers undergo as
is to disengage identity from story, terrifying as it might they begin to move beyond story is to understand that
be, and to recognize their identities as dwelling in the moving their identity beyond their story does not mean
core of who they are as a child of the Divine. Poet and they have to forget their story. Writers from the Jewish
theologian John Philip Newell writes: “The image of God scholar and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to Anglican
is the essence of our being. Bishop Desmund Tutu of
It is the core of the human South Africa have warned
soul” (3). Before getting Moving Identity beyond Story of the danger of forgetting
to the core, though, some • Do not have to forget story atrocities: We will always
clearing work needs to • What happened was as horrific as remembered remember. Traumatized
happen with our trauma- • Does not negate importance of story spiritual seekers need not
tized spiritual seekers. • Clears space for core self to emerge forget what happened
Many years ago, I decid- • Recognizes and honors presence of Divine in to them; what they are
ed to build a labyrinth their lives and in themselves ■ releasing is a false identity
amongst the trees in our based on the events of the
property in Colorado. I had story. Their goal, in writer
to clear the ground. It was a spot that surprisingly had few Michael Singer’s words, is to discover the “untethered
trees, given that we live in a forest, but it had many weeds. soul.”
During the summer, I labored long to clear the weeds in Second, traumatized spiritual seekers begin to under-
order to plot the circles of the labyrinth. It became clear stand that freeing their identity from their story does
to me, as I pulled weeds and decided to leave some of the not mean that what happened was not as horrific as they
beautiful wild flowers, that I was at the same time doing remember it. We deeply dishonor our spiritual directees
some inner clearing and releasing. Such is the preparative if we convey to them in any way that we think their story
journey (although perhaps not literally!) which our spiri- is less than they remember. Psychotherapists work to help
tual seekers who are trauma survivors undergo in order to the traumatized client process memories and rework some
separate story from identity and being. of the distorted thinking that sometimes results from
The work of moving beyond story as the ground of traumatic experiences; our role as spiritual directors is to
being is rewarding and exciting work for both the spiri- be faithful witnesses to what our spiritual directees tell us.
tual director and for the traumatized spiritual seeker. At Correlated to the second, a third task invites trauma-
the same time, it can be frightening and unnerving for tized spiritual seekers to understand that to move beyond
the trauma survivor. Always, this work involves several the story does not in any way negate the importance of
tasks that may need to be revisited and re-experienced the story. What happens in our lives forms the context
from differing places and perspectives. Moving identity and crucible in which our psychological, physical, and
beyond story is not necessarily linear or sequential, and it spiritual being develops. It is the container in which we
always seems to take longer than either spiritual directors grow. We learn ways to adapt and grow (some of them
or spiritual directees would like. helpful; some not) in the crucibles of our stories.
Clearing work involves dismantling misunderstandings Nevertheless, our identity does not reside in the
about what giving up story as identity means. Initially, container itself. Our core is the part of ourselves which

52 Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction