6 - Rediscovering the Soul through Mindful Touch

6 – Rediscovering the Soul through Mindful Touch

Traumatized people tend to self-isolate. This means that those who suffer with PTSD are particularly vulnerable during a pandemic. Even normal winter weather that keeps people inside can make victims of trauma even more depressed than usual … and a pandemic in which everyone is asked to isolate themselves is exponentially worse. In my earlier post I suggested that an organized life of prayer, labor, and learning can create a more serene environment in which a person (and especially one who has experienced severe trauma) can rediscover the soul.

However, solitude is not the same as isolation. The one is chosen and the other is forced upon you. The one is a means for the broken soul to heal, and the other exacerbates the sense of brokenness. When is that boundary crossed? When does solitude become destructive rather than healing? I think it is the moment that you sense cultural coercion. Most people who self-isolate through social distancing do so with a sense of community responsibility. In a pandemic, however, anyone who breaks quarantine is subject to community shunning and denigration. Cultural coercion reinforces the personal denigration suffered in trauma, and this awareness erodes our self-discipline for an organized routine.

Something more is needed to help us rediscover the soul. Therapists have long been aware how “mindful touch” brings healing and restores humanity. The natural way humans calm down in times of distress is through the sense of touch … hugging, embracing, rocking, stroking, etc. This does not necessarily mean touching other people, and for PTSD people it may be better to touch elements of nature. Stroking a dog or pet; digging your hands into soil; feeling the rough bark of a tree or the silky smoothness of running water. Touch creates talismans. Just holding certain objects that have special significance to us opens a portal to the soul.

It is interesting that for victims of trauma analysis and feeling have been separated. One route to the rediscover of soul is through the mind; but the other, and perhaps even more powerful route, is through feeling. Feelings can be terrifying for victims of trauma, but gentle exploration of touch can make feelings safe, and liberate a person to laugh or cry little by little, regaining their humanity by rediscovering the soul. This, I think, is what lies behind monastic practices of prayer beads, veneration of icons, and so on. These are all very tactile. Touching seems to transport us into another dimension of awareness.

There is no prescribed method to hold a talisman. Indeed, if there were it would no longer be a talisman. It would not be a portal to the soul, but merely a symbol of the soul. One develops one’s own “methodology” that is uniquely therapeutic to their personal situation. I was given a Greek “Trisagion” (prayer beads for Orthodox Christians), developed my own set of prayers, memorizations, and habits which can be repeated and improvised in any way the spirit moves me. It is like a musical refrain in my subconscious. As the Psalmist says,

Deep calls to deep at the thunder of thy cataracts; all thy waves and billows have passed over me. Yet by day you command your steadfast love; and by night your song is in my heart, a constant prayer to the God of my life.

Mindful touch soon leaves any “method” behind. The touch, by itself, conveys more meaning that any method could contain. Mindful touch is beyond words, and, in a sense, pure, positive, feeling. This is why just holding a devotional object brings calm into chaos. Touch arouses feeling, and the way of feeling is a way to rediscover the soul.