Prayer for Those Who Have Suffered Trauma
Most merciful God, bless all who have suffered trauma in their lives.
Support them with love during their time of shock. Grace them with peace as they wrestle with the challenges of each day. Sustain them in hope as they prepare for the days ahead. Amen.
(From: www.beliefnet.com)
(From: www.beliefnet.com)
• Unrest and Tensions in Russia/Crimea/Ukraine, Syria, Israel,
Palestine, Chad, Afghanistan, Cairo, Egypt
Palestine, Chad, Afghanistan, Cairo, Egypt
• Natural disasters in: Chile, California, Washington, South Sudan,
England, West Africa
England, West Africa
• Missing flight ~ MH370
• Shooting at Fort Hood, TX
These are a few of the global awarenesses that I hold in my prayers and thoughts throughout my day. I looked for prayers online that I could post that would speak to some if not all of these earth-shaking and spirit shaking events. I couldn't find one specific one, but I found a few along with a meditation entitled: Transforming Sorrow into Compassion. Like the insert below, each time we are exposed to the traumas and tragedies around our families, neighborhoods, communities, cities, States, and countries across the world, we can be filled with sorrow, sadness, and grief. Our inner movements of compassion can become somewhat overwhelmed trying to hold the meaning of all these events. However we, too, can suffer from a secondary traumatic stress if these tragedies are not held within a healthy context, or that we are mentored through them by friends or even professional counselors.
“Compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatic stress (STS), is a condition characterized by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among individuals that work directly with trauma victims such as nurses, psychologists, and first responders. It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s. Sufferers can exhibit several symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, sleeplessness or nightmares, and a pervasive negative attitude. This can have detrimental effects on individuals, both professionally and personally, including a decrease in productivity, the inability to focus, and the development of new feelings of incompetency and self-doubt.[1]
Journalism analysts argue that the media has caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with often decontextualized images and stories of tragedy and suffering. This has caused the public to become cynical, or become resistant to helping people who are suffering.”
Prayer For Soldiers with PTSD: Lord, so many of our servicemen and women returning from the Middle East are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. We grieve for those who died and those who have sustained terrible physical injuries but soldiers with PTSD carry scars of war as well—emotional and mental scars that are just as devastating. I ask you to heal the painful memories and the trauma of war that our loved ones and all those returning from combat face. Please restore their minds and emotions. Give them hope and flood them with your peace. Please provide for their every need and grant them purpose and a bright future no matter what has happened. You are the Great Physician who mends and restores broken bodies, minds, emotions and relationships, and we trust you to do this for all our servicemen and women. Thank you for their sacrificial service and for your faithfulness to all generations! (Prayer by a Military Family)
Meditation: Transforming sorrow into compassion (From: A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield)
• Let yourself sit still in a centered and quiet way. Breathe softly and feel your body, your heartbeat, the life-force within you. Feel how you treasure your own life. How you guard yourself in the face of your sorrows. After some time, bring to mind someone close to you whom you dearly love. Picture them and your caring for them. Notice how you can hold them in your heart. Then let yourself be aware of their sorrows, their measure of suffering in this life. Feel how your heart opens naturally, moving toward them to wish them well, to extend comfort, to share in their pain, and meet it with compassion.
• Along with this response, begin to actively wish them well, reciting the traditional phrases: May you be free from pain and sorrow, may you be at peace, while holding them in your heart of compassion. Continue reciting these phrases in this way for some time.
• As you learn to feel your deep caring for this person close to you, you can then extend this compassion to others you know, one at a time. Gradually you can open your compassion further, to your neighbors, to all those who live far away, and finally to the sisterhood and brotherhood of all being. Let yourself feel how the beauty of every being brings you joy and how the suffering of any being makes you weep. Feel your tenderhearted connection with all life and its creatures, how it moves with their sorrows and holds them in compassion.
• Now let your heart become a transformer for the sorrows of the world. Feel your breath in the area of your heart, as if you could breathe gently in and out of your heart. Feel the kindness of your heart and envision that with each breath you can breathe in pain and breathe out compassion. Start to breathe in the sorrows of all living beings. With each in-breath, let their sorrows touch your heart and turn into compassion. With each out-breath wish all living beings well, extend your caring and merciful heart to them.
• As you breathe, begin to envision your heart as a purifying fire that can receive the pains of the world and transform them into the light and warmth of compassion. This is a powerful meditation that will require some practice – Be gentle with yourself.
• Let the fire of your heart burn gently in your chest. Breathe in the sorrows of those who are hungry. Breathe in the sorrows of those who are caught in war. Breathe in the sorrows of ignorance. With each out-breath, picture living beings everywhere and breathe out the healing balm of compassion. With every gentle in-breath, over and over, let the breath of every form of life touch your heart. With every out-breath, over and over, extend the mercy and healing of compassion. Like the mother of the world, bring the world into your heart, inviting all beings to touch you with each breath in, embracing all beings with compassion with each breath out.
• After sometime, sit quietly and let your breath and heart rest naturally, as a center of compassion in the midst of the world.
• Let yourself sit still in a centered and quiet way. Breathe softly and feel your body, your heartbeat, the life-force within you. Feel how you treasure your own life. How you guard yourself in the face of your sorrows. After some time, bring to mind someone close to you whom you dearly love. Picture them and your caring for them. Notice how you can hold them in your heart. Then let yourself be aware of their sorrows, their measure of suffering in this life. Feel how your heart opens naturally, moving toward them to wish them well, to extend comfort, to share in their pain, and meet it with compassion.
• Along with this response, begin to actively wish them well, reciting the traditional phrases: May you be free from pain and sorrow, may you be at peace, while holding them in your heart of compassion. Continue reciting these phrases in this way for some time.
• As you learn to feel your deep caring for this person close to you, you can then extend this compassion to others you know, one at a time. Gradually you can open your compassion further, to your neighbors, to all those who live far away, and finally to the sisterhood and brotherhood of all being. Let yourself feel how the beauty of every being brings you joy and how the suffering of any being makes you weep. Feel your tenderhearted connection with all life and its creatures, how it moves with their sorrows and holds them in compassion.
• Now let your heart become a transformer for the sorrows of the world. Feel your breath in the area of your heart, as if you could breathe gently in and out of your heart. Feel the kindness of your heart and envision that with each breath you can breathe in pain and breathe out compassion. Start to breathe in the sorrows of all living beings. With each in-breath, let their sorrows touch your heart and turn into compassion. With each out-breath wish all living beings well, extend your caring and merciful heart to them.
• As you breathe, begin to envision your heart as a purifying fire that can receive the pains of the world and transform them into the light and warmth of compassion. This is a powerful meditation that will require some practice – Be gentle with yourself.
• Let the fire of your heart burn gently in your chest. Breathe in the sorrows of those who are hungry. Breathe in the sorrows of those who are caught in war. Breathe in the sorrows of ignorance. With each out-breath, picture living beings everywhere and breathe out the healing balm of compassion. With every gentle in-breath, over and over, let the breath of every form of life touch your heart. With every out-breath, over and over, extend the mercy and healing of compassion. Like the mother of the world, bring the world into your heart, inviting all beings to touch you with each breath in, embracing all beings with compassion with each breath out.
• After sometime, sit quietly and let your breath and heart rest naturally, as a center of compassion in the midst of the world.
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