Coded for Crisis, Training for Peace

In the old days (1999), when you bought software on a shelf in a store. It came in a box the size of a dictionary stuffed with packaging filler and a CD-case. Before they canceled America and we self-quarantined.

On the edge of the CD-case was a silver label that included an activation code: 16 digits in 4-digit segments required for the software to work once installed. Once your copy of Sim City of Windows 98 was activated, a steady stream of information and data patches flooded through the world wide web (a mystery then) and kept the software on its toes, ready to awaken whenever you so desired.
Today, of course, apps are always running in the background—trading information from what happens in your world to the mothership somewhere in Silicon Valley. Instead of requiring a five-minute boot-up sequence, our software is in a permanent state of alert, waiting for the slightest interaction to trigger its intervention in our daily work and lives. In many cases, we don’t even know its there. Background apps are ever-on, forming our digital world, and our real one too.

Running in the Background

If you’ve made it through childhood, you carry with you a coding that we all share: trauma. We all have faced days, years, decades where we suffered from missed expectations, emotional instability, physical hardship. Research now tells us that even a simple surgery early in life can trap trauma in the body, building in threat responsiveness that we access for decades to come. As the famous book on this subject says, “The Body Keeps the Score.”

Trauma downloads apps onto your system, running them in the background, eating up memory and processor speed. While the mix of support we each need varies widely, the responsibility to understand our underlying coding is universal. Nobody comes to adulthood without scars.

These old codes are triggered to move from the background into a hyper-awake state by real-time events. The body—sometimes without warning—flips into a state of hyper-waking. With mutant superpowers, we suddenly can see threats around every corner, our tensions run high. If we listen carefully, we can feel the muscular tension and the low levels of adrenaline running through our veins. For some, their software runs the other way, slowing everything down, dulling intuition, pulling around the warm blanket of apathy to protect from cold winds.

Alexa, Why Should I Be Afraid?

Why am I writing this brief primer on trauma? Because the kinds of things that trigger the old software are everywhere today. Activation is highly contagious and moves without human contact. Today, its being transmitted through our TVs, our news feeds, our social media accounts, nearly every conversation we are in. The country is high threat alert and risks--both real and imagined--are escalating. Nearly everybody’s apps are triggered.

Our internal Alexa is always listening for her cue to throw us into anxiety, and the world we are in today is screaming her name on repeat. If you have never been trained how to recognize your own personal signs of threat alert, here are a few that you may be experiencing:

• Increased sensitivity to pain. Your usual aches and pains are greater than normal and/or your flexibility is decreased.
• Increased irritability and impatience. It doesn’t matter if your frustration feels justified by current events.
• Heightened anxiety or fear of worse case scenarios.
• Short-temper or quickness to assuming the worst about others.
• Lethargy or increased difficulty getting up in the morning (beyond the curse of daylight savings time).
• Overactive concern for other people’s opinions and actions.
• Lack of ability to sit still or in silence.
• High sugar or salt cravings.

De-Activating the Software

Religion has often answered this challenge by simply commanding us to "have faith," assuming this was a mental game and we just needed to flip the switch. In reality, instructions to “not be afraid” only serve to further activate our threat response, as we draw from the well of adrenaline to work harder at not being so worked up. And the downward spiral continues.

Even with years of practice, I am struggling to keep up with all the triggers hitting me these days. So many of my friends are tipping on the edge of severe anxiety. So many conversations are validating our worst instincts to self-protection and flights of fear. So much rhetoric spent finding villains to justify our elevated aggression.

The good news is our trauma software comes with de-activation codes, strategies that little-by-little unplug the software:

• Walk outside. Not exercise, not speed walking. Leave your phone and your music at home and get as close to nature as you can. Don’t wear your step counter. Anything that triggers measurement or performance will feed trauma activation.
• Do ten minutes of slow breathing. 10-second inhale and 15-second exhale for the average person. If you can’t do ten minutes do five. Twice a day if possible in a posture-aware position (feet planted on the ground, body core open and upright).
• Practice a breath prayer. Whenever you feel your activation kicking in, pray a one-sentence prayer with each breath until you feel yourself start to settle. I like to use a modification of the Jesus prayer, “Jesus, have mercy on me.”

Because trauma software is inherently physical and not mental, your best strategy for engaging it is physical, not mental. Telling yourself to calm down will only further accentuate the problem. Breathing, slow walking, sitting in silence are essential. If you are saying that you don’t have the time for this or you couldn’t possibly sit still that long, those messages are red-letter signs of how highly activated you probably are. (And how much you need these exact slow-acting remedies.)

The Sea is Love, The River is Peace

Dear friends, these are hard days. God’s love is an ocean of safety, but for the flailing, the waters feel like drowning. We have to retrain our bodies and our hearts to trust. They will not be coerced into it. I know this from experience. If you are struggling with all the rushing thoughts, perceptions, feelings and noise, consider one last prayer technique:

Imagine yourself on a dock at the edge of a beautiful clear river, flowing into the sea. The sea, you know is God’s infinite love and care. Through the river flows all your thoughts, your anxieties, and cares. As thoughts and feelings pop into your mind, prayerfully visualize yourself putting them back into the river. You don’t have to hold them. Your vigilant grasp does not make the thoughts or feelings better or more clear. Each of these perceptions and reactions is trying to make their way to Love. Let them go.

Let your enemies go. Let them reach the sea.

Let your cares go. Let them reach the sea.

Let your anxieties go. Let them reach the sea.

Let your opinions go. Let them reach the sea.

I use this little mediation on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Many of my thoughts and feelings come back to me. I am there again, picking them up. Holding them. Gripping my anxieties like my trauma code has taught me to do. Over time I have learned the grace to gently return all things to the river, and let even things that matter most to me go out of my control and safely out to sea. Some days I am filled with an inexplicable peace, one that flows over all the good reasons I have for fear.

I hope you’ll join me at the river. Let’s go.

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We live in a time where the faith structures that supported many of us in our youth are in decline. I write here to be a regular and reliable support for those following Jesus after evangelicalism. If this is valuable to you, please subscribe:

Mental Health Note: For many, the battle with anxiety goes far beyond managing the kinds of threat responses I’ve described here. These soul care strategies are not meant to replace the valuable resource of a therapist or doctor. For the people in your life with clinical anxiety, please love them well by understanding their unique strategies for wellness.