Reflecting on Spiritual Injury and Healing
November is a month for giving thanks and mourning past atrocities. This month, I want to share my reflections on pain and my gratitude for healing. As I shared back in May, my journey toward deeper understanding of spiritual injury and healing remains unfinished. I am only 35 years old and have yet to live in the world beyond prison walls as an adult. My perspective and level of knowing is thus restricted, but ever expanding.
I have spent the past six months working to clarify the concepts of spiritual injury and healing as an academic and as a personal inquiry prompted by my dear professor and colleague Antti Pentikäinen, director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation. The working title of my manuscript is, “Exploring Spiritual Injury from a Carceral Setting: On Wounding and Healing.” I’m sharing my early findings with you first.
I have engaged in a great deal of healing work internally, and yet there are wounds so deep in my heart, psyche and spirit that I have only sat briefly with them. They are in need of air and sunlight, but I may need to keep them covered until they can breathe free air. Prison is not conducive to spiritual healing.
The human spirit is broadly defined as the metaphysical element of the self that simultaneously resides in the innermost parts of the psyche and expands into the realm wherein all living beings are interconnected. Much like the human intellect or emotional heart, the human spirit is intangible yet subject to wounding and repair. So spiritual injury is broadly defined as damage to the human spirit done intentionally or unintentionally by oneself, another person or a system.
Spiritual injury can lead to a deep loss of trust in oneself, other people, social and institutional systems, and G-d. If someone previously held a belief that human nature is fundamentally good, that may be shattered.
First, when a person like me has caused grievous harm to another person, they have wounded themselves by violating someone with whom they are connected. The spirit is injured, leading us to see ourselves through a toxic lens as being bad, broken, evil, irredeemable, and unworthy of love, care, peace, comfort and community. We do not deserve to heal.
Second, when a person is spiritually wounded by being the recipient of egregious physical, emotional, sexual or other violation, they may internalize the same toxic lens as those who, like me, traumatized others. If they were not inherently bad — this thinking goes — why would they have been so horribly victimized? This can lead one to doubt G-d’s love or very existence. Any sense of safety or trust in other people disappears. All interactions with others — even formerly trusted friends or family members — become suspect.
The third way a person can become spiritually injured is by prolonged exposure to oppressive systems like foster care and prison. Experiencing a distinct absence of humanity or emotional callousness from multiple or most members of an institution, family or other group erodes one’s belief in others’ humanity.
Regardless of the source, traumatic experiences that result in spiritual wounding can feel very similar. In each instance, there is an experience of depravity or soul-absence during an act of victimization, oppression or violation that causes disconnection from society and darkens one’s views of oneself and others. A person is suddenly and violently isolated in the physical (and metaphysical) world.
Healing requires time, attention and support. Physical wounds require specific treatments, while spiritual ones require a more integrated approach. Spiritual wounds can feel irreparable, yet healing is possible.
I send my deepest apologies and remorse to those I have wounded in this world, and I send my deepest gratitude to those who have helped me heal from some of my wounds.
Leo Hylton is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison. His education and work are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future. You can reach him at: Leo Hylton #70199, 807 Cushing Rd., Warren, ME 04864, or leoshininglightonhumanity@gmail.com.
