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Last week we discussed buried trauma and how the pain points of trauma create Hollow spaces in our hearts. We talked about how these Hollow spaces are old wounds, situations, and circumstances that were so painful we created a voided place or depression in our heart to tuck the pain away. This week we want to talk about the result of creating hollow spaces and how they truly impact our progression in life, alter our identity, and cause us to misfire in the production of things God wants us to do. So this week we are going to deal with barriers. A barrier is defined as a fence or other obstacle that prevents movement or access. So essentially barriers are walls that we put up to protect our hollow spaces. They are certainly trauma responses, but as we have been discussing; everything is spiritual. So while this is certainly a trauma response, it is absolutely a form of spiritual bondage as well. Keep reading and I will show you how.
When we place these barriers or walls of defense up in our hearts we believe subconsciously we are creating safety for ourselves. However, what we think to be safe is actually a gateway to agreements made with the plots designed by the enemy. He is a master deceiver and deception is merely taking some truth, in some cases most truth, but mixing it with a lie. So what the enemy does is uses the truth of your experience, the facts of your emotions, and inserts contaminants in to make you think you are in control. The truth is, barriers are really spirits that have taken up residence in you. This barrier is what you would call an open door of oppression. For example you may have been vulnerable, weak, and unable to defend yourself from your attacker. So after you tuck away your trauma, you put up a wall of defense that mirrors one of being vigilant. You believe that by constantly being aware of where you are at all times it will protect you from ever being vulnerable again. While awareness is great and your belief is true. Your method is wrong. What happens is that counter productivity is really a form of suspicion. It makes you question, doubt, and overthink everything you must do, everywhere you must go, and anyone that comes into your life. It harasses your thoughts and sucks the best experiences out of life. It triggers isolation, social anxiety, and depression. We will get into triggers later, but understand that what you believe is a barrier of protection is actually a wall of fear and paranoia. What you think is protecting you from ever being harmed again is actually keeping you bound and locked up. What you think is keeping you free is actually your tormentor.
There are many other examples I can give, but for the sake of this post, I will leave you with just this one.
We allow these spirits to settle in masking themselves as protection simply because we don’t know better. We seemingly feel empowered, safe, and in control. I can tell you as a personal example, I have endured many types of trauma. The pain of not having a relationship with my father led me to form a hollow space to bury that trauma. The result? I created this barrier of having a strong cut off game. Y'all know what i’m talking about. Where you think you are bad because you can cut people off in a split second no matter how much pain it may cause for them and you. You tell yourself you don’t care and move on. Essentially preying on the emotions of people and dismissing them when you feel pain or they no longer serve the need of feeding your trauma pockets. Disturbing, but this was my life at one point. While I thought my barrier of having a strong cut off game was great it was actually a spirit of abandonment that gave me the ability to push anyone away whenever I wanted as a means to protect myself, but was a trigger of isolation and fear of being hurt again. So you have to understand that no matter what you are going through, each level of response is important because they teach you and let you know areas of your life that you are still in bondage.
Now we briefly talked about triggers last week but we're going to go a little bit deeper this week because due to the barriers we create and the spirits we allow to oppress us we tend to react to the world or people around us in various ways. I refer to these reactions as triggers. Triggers present themselves as anger, resentment, fear, control, victimization, and even pride. These are all manifestations of spirits we are struggling with as a direct result of trauma. So think of your triggers as your fruit. The Bible talks about us knowing a person by their fruit. So if you are exhibiting bad fruit because of trauma then you are going to make life very difficult for yourself and all those around you. And the way we know it is bad fruit because we attempt to cover it up. When you try to excuse the behavior by saying “that's just the way that I am” or “I'm just stuck in my ways”. We even aid and abet these hostilities in people by compromising or agreeing with the behaviors by belief they have always been this way or that this is their personality trait.
So as we're dealing with the heart we have to understand that trauma plays a major role in our processes, functions, mindset, abilities or even inabilities. Trauma is very serious and because we hear the word trauma so often we become desensitized to the implications of it. In going a step further when talking about sexual trauma we are talking about something that is so layered and interwoven it requires a very diverse and in depth level of understanding. In short terms and simply put because when trauma is introduced sexually your body literally becomes intertwined in a state of spiritual warfare. Because when sex is introduced prematurely there are spiritual areas opened up in you before you have the maturity to understand let along combat them. Therefore entering you into a complex battle between the mind will and emotions. Essentially you begin wrestling with things you don't know you are wrestling with or have the capacity to withstand. All the while the enemy is knocking on the door to your heart and unbeknownst to you building up barriers. Now you're triggered all over the place and before you know it you have taken on a personality, alter ego, or form of a person that was nowhere near God’s design for you.
Understanding how barriers play an important role in our lives is significant because whenever you are interacting with people and they are trying to get through to you it will feel like they hit a brick wall or vice versa. That brick wall is your barrier and what barriers do is keep people out of the very places in our lives that need to be reconciled. So when we have a barrier then we won't allow anyone that can help us get to the point of healing. Now, to tie all this in, let me break this down one more time. When trauma happens to you, you create a hollow space which is a hole in your heart used to bury the painful experience so you never have to feel it again. Once the trauma is buried you create a barrier which is a wall of defense that is actually a form of spiritual oppression guarding your heart. This can be bitterness, resentment, or abandonment. Now as a result of these things we see anger, pride, arrogance, promiscuity, and fear which are spiritual manifestations of the stronghold that is in your heart. Now these spiritual manifestations are known as triggers and in order for you to get to the root, God will allow you to see your triggers because your triggers influence the cycles in your life.
So when you find yourself repeating the same things, certain situations make you feel the same way, or you keep finding yourself in the same type of positions it is because you are caught in a cycle. You must identify the trigger that puts the cycle in operation in your life. The trigger will lead you to the barrier. The barrier will take you deeper and identify how it was able to come into your life which is the pain point otherwise known as trauma. It is important that you don't discredit or discount any portion of what you're experiencing in this lifetime because God will use everything. The number one way you get to the pain point is by identifying the cycle. Now the interesting thing about this is many people know they have trauma, they just don't know how trauma gets them stuck in a cycle. So what we discussed today is how to backtrack from your cycle to locate how the trauma landed you in this position and when you understand that you can break it.
Thank You!
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! These basic principles are things I explore deeper in my book Year of She Arise! If you are wanting to go deeper in shame, hollow spaces, the heart, and triggers be sure to check out the chapters Hollow Spaces and Where is the Lie in Year of She Arise!
Also, if you are looking to gain spiritual principles on how to combat the enemy be sure to check out my eBook. The Combatives of Spiritual Warfare: Contending for your faith when you are face to face with your adversary.
Lastly, if you enjoy this content check out the Year of She Podcast available on all podcast platforms!
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I am a life transition coach. In short, I assist women who have endured sexual trauma in any capacity through various stages of their journey to healing. In addition to being a coach, I am a speaker, author, minister of the gospel, and the founder of a Transpire Integrative Health Services a wellness consulting firm that specializes in transitions and trauma. I have walked the dark side of sexual trauma and know firsthand what it can do to you spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. My life, albeit many challenges serve as a beacon of hope for all women who have faced the horrific effects of sexual abuse. Many of you have shied away from the freedom owed to you because you don’t feel safe, you want to protect your family, or you simply don’t believe you can have another life. I fully understand the implications of trauma, what it can do to you, how it can impact those around you, and what happens when left unhealed. It is my mission to bring as many women to this realization as I can.