Forgiveness doesn’t have to be a choice you make to benefit someone who hurt you. Instead, it can be a gift to yourself. Trauma often seeps into every facet of someone’s life, impacting safety, spirituality, and even identity. For religious individuals, forgiveness can be a difficult hurdle.
Paula Butero understands this struggle all too well and shares her wisdom in Sacred Recovery: Integrating Spirituality Into the Healing Process. According to Butero, there’s a very personal link between faith, forgiveness, and freedom.
The First Stage of Forgiveness
Letting go of past trauma can feel like an impossible feat, particularly at the beginning. Yet, people often get tripped up by the illusion that forgiveness is about absolving others or giving up control over their memories.
Butero has a different philosophy. She insists that clinging to anger and resentment only creates a new form of suffering. Rather than letting more of that hurt consume you, forgiveness can lift that weight while initiating a feeling of peace.
Spirituality Sparks Inner Peace
Instead of viewing faith as a secondary component of this journey, Butero sees it as the first building block for healing. Her book illustrates spiritual techniques that can help survivors rediscover their faith while processing past trauma.
Between prayer, meditation, journaling, and reflecting on scripture, Butero provides techniques that strengthen inner peace and resiliency. Ultimately, Sacred Recovery helps readers release the pain of the past, preventing it from defining their future.
Butero’s book chronicles first-hand accounts of trauma survivors who found peace through forgiveness. Childhood abuse and domestic violence are two of the most difficult traumas to unpack and heal from. Not only do they deeply affect self-worth and trust, but it’s easy to fall into self-destructive patterns even when you escape.
By unpacking stigmas, finding coping mechanisms, and attending therapy or support groups, the individuals in Butero’s book learned to embrace their vulnerability and channel forgiveness into inner peace.
Forgiveness Is an Ongoing Process
Sure, most people would take a one-and-done fix during trauma recovery. But, like most things, it doesn’t work like that. Taking that first step toward forgiveness and self-love is vital, but it’s a decision you must continue to make every day.
Sacred Recovery offers readers reflective exercises and tools to support them on their spiritual journey. Not all tools work for everyone, so it’s essential to keep an open mind when you try tactics like spiritual-based guided meditation, prayer, forgiveness journaling, writing letters to your past self, and mirror affirmations.
Butero also notes the benefits of spending time in nature, using art to channel your emotions, and finding support groups to connect with others. There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to healing. Each survivor needs to go at their own pace, even when forgiveness feels impossible. It’s not a linear process. But as long as you keep showing up, even when it feels like you’re taking ten steps back, you’re doing the work.
It’s Not About Forgetting But Choosing a Healthier Path
Each person’s past helps inform who they are. Yet you can acknowledge a traumatic past without letting it define you. Rather than dwelling on that suffering, readers can release this negative energy through spiritual grounding. That release can then become inner peace.
Through this process, faith becomes a haven. You can scream, cry, and rebel, but embracing divine love can lead to a feeling of freedom instead of a command.
For any survivors struggling with forgiveness and healing, Butero’s Sacred Recovery: Integrating Spirituality Into the Healing Process can be a good first step.