Eight Areas Of Trauma

From what we have seen in praying for many hundreds of people, and also from Holy Spirit revelation, there is a pattern which we have seen happening in the spirit realm, particularly when it comes to accidents, such as falls or car wrecks.

The following eight areas are the core components of trauma that we have seen over the last fourteen years of praying with people. They are in the order we recognized them and the first three are common to all trauma cases. The remaining five areas may or may not be present in every traumatic event a person suffers. In praying through the following areas with people, we have seen many set free and restored.

This is how we have seen it working but are also still learning! As you read through this list, most often all these areas work together to affect a person. I cannot think of one person we have prayed for where they have battled just one area

SHOCK

opens the door into our lives. Normally we walk through life protecting ourselves from attacks, but shock, as it were, violently kicks a door in. It is like we are “numb” or “stunned” for a time; like having the wind knocked out of us.
Our mind races, trying to make sense of what just happened. The more severe the shock the longer lasting this period can be; it can be like coming around from an anesthetic, trying to get our bearings and understand what happened. In that state, the other issues can take root in our mind, spirit or body. Some have talked about being confused and everything being a blur. Confusion can be a longer-term effect of suffering shock and trauma.

TRAUMA

In our illustration, holds the door open; it can be the long-lasting effect of an accident or incident. It is possible to remain traumatized for years. Seven years after the husband died at work in an asthma attack, we prayed for one family – a mother and all of her children. One of the sons, now fourteen years old, was at school when his Dad died. In the aftermath, he had been left waiting at the school gates to be collected. No longer part of the church we attended, he came for prayer at the end of a Sunday morning meeting. I felt prompted to say that for my prayer to work, he needed to remember being back at the school entrance. He instantly burst into tears, held onto me, and cried for about fifteen minutes, before thanking me and leaving the church. I found out later that he had never cried or grieved for seven years, but him engaging with that memory broke the trauma, instantly released the pain and grief. And all without me praying for him! Throughout the bible there are references to ‘evil spirits’ or ‘principalities and powers in the heavenly realm. Based on experience, I believe that Shock and Trauma work in partnership whose purpose are to open up a person to attack in other areas. There is a real risk that the enemy will use a person’s vulnerability to attack them in different areas over the coming months and years.

FEAR

enters through this doorway first. In fact, it is often waiting, for someone to open a doorway in a person’s life so it can enter. When we have talked with and prayed for people, most of the ones who have had accidents, but also a growing number of those who were traumatized by other events, can identify that fear was there at the time either at a conscious or sub-conscious level. Questions like “what about the future?”; “what will happen to me?”; “how will I cope?” race through their heads. Fear is one of the most common issues we struggle with even when healthy. When traumatized this goes to another level. We’ll look at Fear and its components (Fear, Insecurity, Inferiority, Intimidation) in a LOT more detail in other posts. This is a massive stronghold in the majority of lives. Just look at the response to the current Coronavirus – for those who regularly battle with fear in different areas, the pandemic was a major crisis of confidence even if the disease never came close to them, their family or business. With Shock & Trauma, from then on it depends on the incident which occurred, but here are some of the common spirits people have battled with

DEATH AND/OR FEAR OF DEATH

this is one of the major areas that we are seeing in people’s lives. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
I am not just talking about physical death, injury or sickness. We are seeing death happening in personal relationships, finance and provision, business growth, careers, ministry, etc. Where there is, or has been, a cycle of “boom and bust” in a person’s life, there can be a spirit of death at work. In physical trauma cases there is a point where death can attack. Remember in the previous post I mentioned the lady form my parents church who died in the car crash? Her death certificate said died of shock and fear.

WEAKNESS

This can easily be missed when praying for someone but is common with a lot of people. Ever heard someone say that a limb or their back “has never been the same since the injury”? That might be an indicator that trauma has not been dealt with, and if it has, that weakness might have been missed. The weakness can also be in the persons emotions too, especially if the trauma created significant pain, so now their ability to cope with pressure or stress or similar events is affected.

STRESS

I was praying for a young man who had been attacked on a church trip by men with baseball bats hitting him on his head. Although physically he had recovered, he still had brain injuries that would flare up at different times. As I prayed I felt to break off him stress from the trauma. I had never done that before but later found out from his mother that when he got stressed the symptoms would return and badly affect this life. Almost always trauma is a stressful. When we find ourselves in a stressful situation, even in an unrelated area, then symptoms or sickness can break out. We frequently find that stress is a key part of a person not being able to live free from the trauma of the past. We are seeing adrenal burnout everywhere in the church over the last few years and stress and trauma are the most common reasons. When this happens, adrenaline and cortisone fail to be produced properly, with the results that energy levels drop. We will look at this area in greater detail in a separate post, but stress has been proven to be linked to strongholds in a person’s mind and belief systems. When we establish new belief systems and mental strongholds, alongside working through some of the areas in the next section, there is every chance of stress not recurring in our lives at levels it does today. Another thing I’ve just worked out is the link between stress and fear. I’ve yet to find a person who battles stress not to have an underlying fear issue. Stress then becomes the internalizing of external ‘pressure’ because of an underlying fear battle/belief/stronghold.

Whilst I finalize the post on this, see if an area that stresses you out

(a) is caused by an external pressure (there’s a difference between stress and pressure) and

(b) what the fear is at the bottom of it. Deal with the fear & its root, and there is nothing for the pressure & stress to trigger.

The other things I have recently learnt is that people who see stress (pressure) as a positive, live longer than those who see it as a negative to be avoided. More of that in a later post on stress and mindsets. Even when a person is free from historical events, unless the “shadows” are dealt with (including beliefs/mindsets) when a similar situation arrives, even decades later, the shadows of the first event impact the response of the new situation.

INFIRMITY

The body can physically collapse because of the trauma carried in it. Disease may also break out physically because of unresolved spirit or soul trauma. Science shows that trauma is recorded in the molecules that make up each cell in our body. We have been finding that if we break the power of the trauma at the molecular level, organs of the body are more easily healed and start to function as God designed. Spirit and soul trauma are like an invisible bruise, the effects remain trapped until released. These also can cause infirmity in the glands and create chemical imbalances in some cases. Trauma in the womb is another area where we have seen healing take place, especially after a miscarriage or abortion. In one case a young girl had two abortions in her teenage years, was now married, but could not get pregnant. We prayed over her womb, breaking all trauma caused by the abortions, including the memory of them. We prayed for her womb to be a safe place and that all babies would be carried full term and delivered healthy. Ten months later she gave birth to her first child and went on to have more children!

GRIEF

The latest one we have come across and is endemic within the church. Just looking at some of the areas in the earlier section on death and it will show you areas of loss that people can grieve over for years. Where there is a history of loss, grief appears to be present in all the cases we have come across. My eye has grown dim because of grief, and all my members are as a shadow (Job 17:7). The word translated grief in the bible also means sorrow, and both can affect how we see things spiritually and through our natural eyes. My soul weeps because of grief; strengthen me according to Your word. (Psalm 31:9). This verse accurately shows the impact of human spirit and soul grief on the level of strength we physically and spiritually have. From personal experience it is clear that energy, motivation, strength are all diminished, and tiredness takes over when we try to live and carry grief and sorrow in our lives. It is like walking around wearing lead boots and too many people live like that every day.
So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting (Ecclesiastes 11:10). The Lord’s encouragement is for us to deal with historical grief, as over time it can too easily become our identity and rob us of who we were created to be. But there is a promise in the Bible too: …you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy (John 16:20). The word used for grief also means personal mourning, another aspect of healing the Lord promises will change as He restores us to wholeness.

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Before I close out this post, let we look at a few paradigms that add complexity and impact to trauma in a person’s life:

LONG-TERM TRAUMA

If there was an exposure to a long-term traumatic situation – the most common of which are the five different types of abuse – then the affects can be far reaching affecting many different areas of the person and allowing them to be affected and afflicted by the trauma and evil spirits. At the start of his ministry, when Jesus is handed the scroll in the temple, He releases to the world his mission statement. In the middle of that reading are these words: “…to send forth delivered those who are oppressed – who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed and broken down by calamity.” (Luke 4:18 AMP). The phrase “broken down by calamity” describes the state a person can reach through long term trauma exposure. That exposure can come from trauma that lasted a long time or the effects of it have been buried inside the person for years. Some of the worst trauma cases are those done by people who should have been in a position of covering and protection, be that church leaders, parents, teachers, care providers, etc. When those who you would naturally want to trust are the cause of the damage, the opportunity for demonic attack is greater. At a healing conference in America a mother came to me in tears, carrying the trauma of her daughter’s abuse at the hands of a man who should have protected her. She had carried the pain and trauma for decades and the abuse had damaged the whole family and fractured personal and spiritual relationships for many. From my own experience, verbal abuse (even as an adult) and physical abuse (as a child) had a long-lasting traumatic effect on my life. I have found it to be the case with many others. It sets up belief systems and mindsets that have taken decades to correct.

TRAUMA THROUGH EXPOSURE

Finally, trauma can also come from exposure as well as personal attacks. Soldiers uncovering atrocities, like mass graves and war crimes; Emergency personnel attending multiple car wrecks or terrorist attacks; Aid workers entering refugee camps or Romanian orphanages; Investigators child pornography rings. etc. All have the ability to be traumatized by their work or the wider events they were involved in. Three days before the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers I cancelled a business trip that would have meant me being there as the first tower came down. Like many, I saw the attacks and the results live of television. I thought I had dealt with the emotional impact on my life and my teams’ life until a few years later when a close friend from the United States was visiting. In conversation she mentioned the Twin Towers and anger rose in me and I had to leave the room. All I had done was suppress the impact of that and now it came crashing to the surface and I got healed by the Lord. What struck me was how much trauma that must have caused those much closer to such events than I was. We will look at Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a future post though not in huge detail as that has become a specialist field in its own right but there are principles we can all understand.

WARNINGS SIGNS

These conditions may be caused by other roots and you might see other signs in people who live with unresolved shock and trauma: Irritable and agitated – this is very common with stressed out people; Easily stressed by routine events – after we suffered the collapse of a business and personal bankruptcy twenty years ago, I could not even cope with drying cutlery or making any basic decisions; Snappy and angry with people or self; Physical symptoms not healing; Believes they should be coping better or they should “be over it by now” – this is very common where trauma is concerned; Tears, crying and sobbing (sometime uncontrollably)

EARLY HELP

Helping people in these 8 areas might seem to be complicated but in reality the majority of Shock and Trauma victims can be done very easily. Over the last few years we have trained people in this area who are now seeing results all over the world, including cancers healed, pain instantly gone, physical nausea from memories removed, and many more. For the most part the stories I tell of real people are those with a long-term record of freedom rather than temporary respite. Thankfully one of those who know how to pray is my wife! At the start of a church meeting in 2005, I was knocked unconscious in a bizarre incident. Though I could still hear, I could not see or speak or move. In lots of ways I was trapped inside my body. As I collapsed, I heard her shriek and felt a hand on my head and heard my wife praying “in Jesus’ name I break the power of shock and trauma off David’s life” and I was instantly able to open my eyes, speak and had use of my limbs again! Well, to be honest I wobbled more than walked to a chair and had the worse headache for hours! If you can simply remember the main areas to pray for you can help others be free:

• Shock
• Trauma
• Fear
• Death and Fear of Death
• Weakness
• Stress
• Infirmity
• Grief

When I taught this topic at a bible school in Scotland, I opened the lesson to anyone who wanted to come and not just students. One lady who came provides workplace head and shoulder massage therapy in lunch breaks, as part of her church ministry. After the class, she attended an appointment at a law office where the senior partner asked if she would first help her assistant who had fallen recently and was in a lot of pain from a broken arm. As she worked on the girl she told her about the “trauma course” she had been on and how she was now trained to deal with trauma. She asked the lady if she could remove it from her body? In the law office, she simply pulled out all eight areas above without a prayer or an “in Jesus name” being said. To the persons amazement, the pain and nausea instantly left.

Ten years after being in the training session, a pastors’ wife now prays through the eight steps and consistently sees people released. She was recently in Central America as part of a team spending time with churches and communities in rural areas. One day she mentioned trauma as she spoke to a group of people. Even as she spoke, a traumatized child came to her and she was able to very simply help him deal with the trauma he was carrying until the tears stopped and he was smiling. At that point everyone wanted her help!

Imagine what would happen if every ambulance crew member prayed for Shock and Trauma off the life of someone they were called to in the first few hours of the incident. It is a powerful opportunity for parents and medical personnel; church prayer team people and pastors; friends who call, in fact any one of us! Street pastors and those who work with the homeless can use it as an evangelistic tool.

© David Powell, 2020