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Spiritual healing
Children who have been abused and neglected often report having lost their sense of faith, not just a religious belief in a divine being, but also their faith in themselves, other people and the world around them. It is common for abused children to display what has been called a shattered soul or soul pain.
This break from spiritual faith can separate abused children from their inner resources, including self-love, personal power, and spiritual intuition. Spiritual healing can come from spiritually addressing the patterns and behaviours developed during childhood to survive the abuse experience. Some survivors have found spiritual healing through the use of meditation, prayer, affirmations, and a variety of belief systems, including mainstream religions.
Spiritual wisdom can make you think about issues on a deeper level, looking at the relationship between the inner self and the outer world. The inner self represents spirituality while the outer world is represented by religion. Spirituality is personal while religion is public. Spirituality is the inner journey while religion is the outer structure for worship and praise. Both spirituality and religion serve valuable purposes in providing an inner practice and an outer community of celebration and service. Spirituality is an intensely private area and each one of us, whether a survivor or not, takes a personal spiritual journey.
For many in our society, christianity in one of its many forms can provide solace to many. Christian spirituality recognises the ancient christian traditions of mysticism, which is direct communion with the Spirit of God. Christian spiritualists follow the teachings of christianity, but they take this wisdom a step deeper by discovering truth through contemplation, mediation, prayer, and other forms of knowing God deeply.
ASCA does not support one form of spirituality over another or perceive one religion as providing the answer for all. On the contrary, we endeavour to practice tolerance and acceptance of whatever path any of our members chooses.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others."
Marianne Williamson, (1992) Return to Love (hardcover p. 165, paperback pp. 190-191)
When the heart weeps for what it has lost,
the spirit laughs for what it has found.
Sufi Proverb
A
friend is a gift you give yourself.
Rober Louis Stevenson
The
only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If
one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner
or later, to be found out.
Oscar Wilde
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