Document Type
Article
Abstract
This autoethnographic paper investigates how an embodying approach (Focusing) unexpectedly impacts the author’s spiritual formation in the undoing of childhood relational trauma, which had resulted in a dissociative embodiment reaction. This enlivening and deepening spiritual formation process is described by means of a five-step metaphor, moving from “no-body” (dissociative disembodiment) to “I am my body” (the experience of the bodily indwelling) as her spiritual formation evolves from just intellectual belief to an embodying, experiential Christian spirituality. This life-long process is viewed through various lenses, including children’s spirituality research, trauma theology, faith development models, the writings of Thomas Merton and the Ignatian, Margaret Silf, Process Theology, and Charismatic pneumatology. Central to this endeavor was a visceral sense of “something fundamental is missing”. Through the process of writing, a clear sense of what was missing emerged, as she recognized that in her childhood home, there was an absence of spiritual nurturing. In short, she suffered from the experience of childhood spiritual neglect.
Recommended Citation
Rowan, C. (2025). I am my body: Post-traumatic embodying and the expected disinterring of childhood spiritual neglect. Salubritas, 4, 7-33.
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