I just keep walking away

I just keep walking away… ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

And this one feels hard to write.

This month I was scheduled to go to my Advanced Somatic Experiencing Training (SE Advanced 2) in Halifax.

The hotel was booked.
The flight. The train.
The registration.
All set to go.

The final culmination of three years of time and investment, relationship building with beautiful colleagues.

Somatic work has been a pillar in my life for at least 7 years of a 14 year plus healing journey.

I began my SE training already having read and studied the topic intensively for years. Having worked with SE practitioners.

I believed Somatic Experiencing to be the “missing piece” in my life and in the world of personal development.

Through my sanctification process I left behind everything else. The Lord opened my eyes a few months after my salvation in the middle of the night to the spiritual dangers of what I was practicing with the I Ching, Human Design and Gene Keys, Spiritual Kinesiology. I also left behind other forms of “healing” such as Internal Family Systems (Parts Work) and Inner Child work.

I didn’t let go of Somatic Experiencing.

Interestingly, there were certain things I had a hard time saying like “life energy”, “healing vortex”, “trauma vortex”. I can see that it was The Holy Spirit in me that convicted me. But I didn’t let it go fully.

And then…

It came to the week before I was meant to go to my Somatic Experiencing Training.

I became exhausted. So so tired. I didn’t think it was anything spiritual.

Until Sunday.

Our Pastor was preaching through a series on Worship and that Sunday was about how Worshiping the Lord brings deliverance.

Throughout the service I felt the exhaustion lifting.

At the end of service during prayer time, I felt a strong desire to surrender my business to the Lord again.

I lifted it up to Him and began to weep under the presence of God.

I saw in my mind's eye a huge hammer breaking a large plate of concrete.

After some time of worshiping, a woman from my church who doesn’t know me, came and began to speak under the direction of the Spirit.

She anointed my head with oil and as she spoke the exhaustion lifted completely.

She said: There is a darkness encircling you that after today will encircle you no longer. There is a temptation surrounding you that will surround you no longer after today. The Lord sees you and is holding your face. He has seen your past and he is making you light and white like snow.

After she was done praying I kept worshiping. I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that she was referring to but my spirit was bearing witness that it was true.

That night I saw an advertisement for Dr Peter Levine’s new book. Dr. Levine is the founder of Somatic Experiencing. I looked at the book and the titles of the chapters and my heart sank into my stomach. One of the chapter titles was “Healing with Science and Shamanism”.

Suddenly, I knew what the temptation was. And, I knew the exhaustion I had felt the week before was spiritual. And I knew - I could not go to my advanced training.

Then, I googled Dr. Levine, and a video that I hadn’t yet seen came up of Dr Levine at a spiritual Seminar with a spiritual teacher named Thomas Heubl. During the video, Dr. Levine describes how when he was creating Somatic Experiencing as a student at Berkeley, he was visited by the presence of “Einstein” and how Einstein began to teach him things about generational trauma.

My eyes were now opened.

The Lord brought a passage from 2 Corinthians 6 to my mind:

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

The conviction of the Lord gripped my heart. I suddenly felt so loved and protected by Him. I felt a sense of being under the covering of God’s protection. And I realized that Jesus says to count the cost to follow Him.

I love my SE colleagues and teachers. But I simply have to walk away from that modality to follow and obey Christ.

Since that happened a few weeks ago, I have felt such a closeness to Christ. I have been drawn deeper into repentance and Godly sorrow over the many years of my life I spent away from the Lord after knowing him. And I have felt Him building up my inner strength and renewing my mind in His Word.

I have realized that I had elevated somatic work to the place of an idol and false gospel in my life.

I choose to believe that the Lord and His Word are sufficient to heal through the process of sanctification working out the fruit of the Spirit in my life as I am sanctified in the Truth of God.

To be clear, I am not saying that the brain and body do not change as a result of trauma.
What I am saying is that the worldview of Somatic Experiencing and other “healing” modalities add worldviews onto objective data that are contradictory to God’s Word and His Truth.

I’ll be sharing more about this and the contradictions and comparisons between somatic healing and views of the body vs what God’s Word has to say about the body and healing.

For now just know - the missing piece is not your nervous system. The missing piece is Jesus. And true healing and repair can only happen by Him, in Him and through Him.

🌹Matthew 16:24-26
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

🌹Hebrews 12:1-2
let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

PS
Would you like to work with me inside the Faithful Trauma Recovery Institute. A God-Centred, Biblical Approach to Trauma Healing.

Staying Faithful to God's Word and the one who is faithful to us as we heal from dysfunction & trauma.

Practical support, models, frameworks and tools to support your clients and build your coaching business set apart for God in the marketplace - serving with joy and abiding in the True Vine!

Click here to apply - Your application includes a 30 minute consultation with me. www.shylacash.com/faithful