Creating Safe Space and Healing Community

By Susan Carson

I pray differently now.

As my faith has evolved, so has my practice of contemplative healing, the prayerful healing of the soul (also known as inner healing). Over the twelve plus years I’ve led the non-profit Roots&Branches, I’ve met with hundreds of clients seeking healing of trauma, learning and unlearning how best to pray with them.

Through the years, I’ve had the honor of witnessing stunningly beautiful meetings with Jesus resulting in deep and lasting healing. And, slowly, I began to notice something else. Jesus didn’t interact with people in the same way we did. We led with processes and formulas assuming a depravity of soul. He led with love assuming only goodness. Always kind, full of grace and patience, his presence in the midst of human suffering was the healing.

Initially grounded in a theology of the depravity of the human soul, we operated in much more transactional, formulaic, leader-driven ways. We led people through prayers and processes with an eye on immediate results. With time, a focus on contemplative prayer and listening, and a growing trust in the goodness of the human soul, we’ve moved toward a more client-driven approach. We seek to create noise-free, shame-free, formula-free space—safe, Spirit-saturated space for listening to God and self, without judgments, assumptions or formulaic approaches. Our aim is to honor each individual journey, allowing healing and the true self to emerge over time.

The more we get out of the way as leaders, the more we see. Our acts of self-emptying—holding silence and releasing our need for control—seem to open space for face-to-face encounter with the self-emptying, self-giving, all-forgiving love of God. This journey of becoming—of removing the false to reveal the true through loving, kenotic connection--is the journey of healing the soul. We heal only in relationship with God and others because our suffering must be seen and held with co-suffering love.

This is the work of inner healing, spiritual direction, pastoral care and healing community—creating safe, brave space for our healing and becoming. This is the compassion that heals us, the passion of Christ, fully God, fully human, holding us, not judging, not shaming, but gently opening the wound to reveal our true selves, our full humanity.

Trauma, both personal and collective, has made our souls and planet sick. We live fragmented lives in a fragmented world. Yet God is always inviting by Spirit and grace, moving to re-unite our divided parts with his goodness and ours, because they are the same. Progressively healed in the mirror of co-suffering love, our healing journey becomes one of seeing, of encounter, of experiencing this love in increasing degrees. Through the death of all that is false, toward the life that is true, incarnation and resurrection meet in our humanity as we together become the body of Christ. Experiencing safe, compassionate, contemplative community, our world heals and thrives. And together, we become who we already are.

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Bio: Susan (she/her) is working toward her MA in Theology and Culture at SSU. She founded Roots&Branches in 2012 with a passion to create safe spaces for transformational encounters with Jesus through listening, prayer and spiritual practices. She’s a certified spiritual director, speaker, podcaster, blogger, and pray-er. Susan is author of rooted (IN): Thriving in Connection with God, Yourself, and Others, and host of the rooted (IN).ten.tionally podcast. Find out more at susancarson.net.