The Trauma of What Could Have Been Part 2

The Trauma of What Could Have Been, Part 2       By Jim Banks  www.jimandpatbanks.com  &  www.traumaprayer.com

If you ever been in a situation where the business, ministry, club or cause-related group that you were totally invested in suddenly folded cruelly crushing your dreams … and when it gave up the ghost it took with it all your hopes and aspirations of something really good coming from your collective efforts, you have experienced the trauma of what could have been. I have written about this previously, but in that blog I approached it from another perspective. In this look at one of the most difficult of issues we face I want to approach it from the perspective of grief because something did actually die … and that unexpected death seemed to have a taken a part of it with you.

Most of us are familiar with the five stages of grief, but for those of you who have not seen them in print recently here they are again;

1. Denial: The first stage of grief is denial, which immediately follows the realization of the loss – “This can’t be happening.” It generally results in a kind of numbness or daze, or the feeling that there must have been a mistake: finding it hard to believe that anything like this could ever have happened. Denial is often described as “nature’s way of letting in only what we can handle.” Although denial is initially helpful, if can be a trap if we never choose to deal with the emotion and the root of the loss.
2. Anger: Anger is also a natural part of grief. You might feel angry with the person(s) who caused it all to rob you, or angry with yourself for not foreseeing or somehow preventing the loss. You might feel angry with folks who could have prevented the entire situation, or with God for not stepping in. You may simply be angry that you/the group failed God and the community. The real problem with anger is that it is something others find hard to handle, so they would rather you not express it. Despite this, you can’t process your way through it unless talk about it.
3. Bargaining: In the aftermath of the loss, thoughts starting with ‘What if’, ‘Please’ and ‘If only’ abound. Please let me wake up and find out that this is a dream. If only I’d … blah, blah, blah. Bargaining is the mind’s way of attempting to get relief from the pain of loss. You’re taking refuge by imagining a world in which the problem either doesn’t exist or I can do something substantive to change it. Surely we’ll soon do something that will make it like nothing ever happened. Slowly you will come to accept that there’s nothing you could have done to make things end differently.
4. Depression: Depression – feeling despair or hopelessness, numbness, losing your appetite, having trouble sleeping (or not sleeping), not wanting to socialize – is natural after a major loss of any kind. Like the other five stages of grief and loss, it may linger for some time, coming and going in waves.
5. Acceptance: The last of the five stages of grief is acceptance. Reaching this stage doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly be okay with what happened, or that you’ll spring back into the happy person you were before. It simply means that you’ve made a kind of peace with your loss. You’re no longer bargaining or perpetually angry or in denial.

The interesting thing about this sort of loss is that in spite of the fact that it happens all too frequently, it’s not a natural loss as it would be if someone you loved died. We all know that we are not promised tomorrow. People are not going to live forever and at some point, they are going to leave the planet. We never like it, but it is the natural order of things and we know it. The loss of a ministry has no such expectation.

To complicate things, organizations and their associated causes, that we are heavily vested in also always have high hopes attached to them, for they are bigger than we are – the very thing that brings us life.  Consequently, when those opportunities are gone we feel that our ability to make a mark on the world has been stripped from us, and we may never get another one – taking our hope with it. That’s part of the reason why the loss is so devastating.

When you throw all the above into the same pot, and add a little self-pity,  you have all the makings of a life altering trauma experience. The question is, How do we keep these events from wrecking us?

First of all, we have to review our expectations and generally confess and repent of being a bit idealistic. As the old saying goes, “All good things must come to an end. Nothing lasts forever.” This will also have to include any expectation that the desire of our heart to be seen, appreciated and amply rewarded for our contribution will finally be realized by the success of this enterprise. These sort of losses are not a value statement of the group itself, even though it may seem like it.  For some, the loss also takes with it any ability to validate our personal skill and value, which may have happened one or more times in the past, leaving an individual to question themselves again.  Secondly, there is going to have to be forgiveness issued for those believed to be responsible for the catastrophe.

Third in this process is the necessity to verbally re-home our future, even if the next one is yet unknown. We have to move on from the scene of the crime as rapidly as we can. The pain of the loss is real for it all feels so personal – give it to Holy Spirit. Failure to do so continues to bind us to the mess we need to leave behind. Then allow Holy Spirit to bring up whatever He wants to resolve. There will be memories. Focus on the good ones.