How the Hub can help with Trauma and Loss

How are you feeling? That’s been a question on many lips this last year. We’ve all been affected in various ways by the physical, mental or financial struggles on top of whatever life issues we were facing before. We may have missed contact with family and friends, faced bereavement(s) or 'just' the changes to our way of living each day. When circumstances overwhelm our coping capacity we experience trauma.  When the same circumstances affect many of us together it is collective.

We could have opened this blog with a positive, 'things will get better, chin up and let’s show the spirit of Dunkirk' paragraph. However, that makes it easy to deny the very real effect the pandemic is having on us individually and collectively. Denial may be one of the stages of grief and loss, but most of us passed that several months back.

Trauma and Collective Loss

' Trauma and Collective Loss' is a new Collection on the Hub. Like the other Hub Collections on the Hub, it brings together the most relevant content on a single topic. You’ll find a selection of Articles, significant Forum discussions and other helpful Resources.

This Collection includes a specially commissioned video series in which Carla Grosch-Miller* offers insight on how the body and mind respond to trauma and how people in ministry can begin to respond. The videos distil years of academic research and pastoral practice presented in an accessible way. There are practical activities to follow and advice for individuals and communities. The four videos explore pastoral responses, leadership strategies, using the Bible and self-care.

If you want to improve your toolkit for handling trauma in your own life and in your ministry, then Trauma and Collective Loss is a great place to start. As this material is so timely and important we are making the videos available on the public pages of the Hub, but for access to the forum discussions please log in and become part of the Hub community. As one member said only today 'Thank you for the site which is one of the few consistently sane wise and generous places on the net'.

*Carla is a practical theologian and educator, pastor of a URC church and member of the Tragedy and Congregations project

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Oak leaf mage by 👀 Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay