PTSD Ending Has A Price

I guess we should identify what we need to get rid of when we want to unshackle ourselves from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) That is, the things we need to emotionally throw over-board in order to be able to steer our spiritual ship steady. I was reminded of this analogy when reading about how the Apostle Paul was on his prison ship going to Rome when the ship got in a storm. The crew needed to get rid of what they could so the ship would lighten up, and not sink (as it was being tossed to and fro.) That is really what it is like when our emotions run off course in a storm in our lives.

There are many kinds of storms that each of us goes through in our lives, too. They need not have been caused by an event of trauma (like PTSD,) but cause us to move backwards in our spiritual growth. Such could be caused from a changed mind in regard to who we want to spend the rest of our lives with in holy matrimony. After sharing intimate moments with that person, we become bonded, even before we take a vow. Then something breaks in that relationship to cause us to pause, take a breath, and end plans to make sure we are doing the right thing. After all, marriage is supposed to be a life-long plan. It is not to be taken as a car rental contract for x amount of time, but a final purchase.

That is the kind of purchase Jesus Christ made for us by taking our place on that terrible, yet necessary cross. That does not mean that He had some wavering thoughts about how much our salvation would cost in His giving His life for ours. As Jesus prayed in the garden, sweating tears of blood with that decision before rendering His own will over to God, our Father’s will to be done. It was a mind-setting decisio
He came to in order to go through with God’s plan. Thank goodness that that decision was in our favor (especially in these troubled times.)

We can identify the major negative emotions caused by PTSD as different forms of anger, and fear. One breeds the other, creating all kinds of dysfunction. It is not so much as ‘what’ the emotion is, but our choice of wanting to let it go, or not. The Native American Medicine Wheel with the four directions of how to live our lives points to the direction of South as a giving source, while the direction of the North is a receiving source. Then the East is where we contemplate letting go of a problem, while the West direction is a holding onto place. Their philosophy about mental health is completely different from the Western view of needing all kinds of help from outside sources when we become fragmented. It is an exte
al locus of control; whereas the Medicine Wheel shows that we need to make our own internalization of healing from within. Thus, using the four directions as a kind of emotional road-map in doing so. I prefer the latter because it reminds me of the free-will I was born with, and how I need to be a steward of my own life.