DIG DEEPER

IF IT’S HYSTERICAL, IT’S HISTORICAL

A phrase sometimes used in conversations about trauma is: if it’s hysterical, it’s historical. In other words, when a person’s reaction to a moment seems disproportionate, it is often because the moment is touching something deeper than the moment itself. The response is often connected to lived experience, memory, fear, and history.

When the spies returned and described the giants in Canaan, the people did not simply hesitate. Their reaction escalated into panic, rebellion, and violence. They wept, refused to move forward, and even spoke of stoning Moses, Aaron, Caleb and Joshua. That level of distress suggests that this moment struck something deeper.

Psychologists often describe four common trauma responses: fight, flight, fawn, and freeze. Fight is the impulse to push back, rage, or protect oneself through force. Flight is the urge to escape or retreat. Fawn is the attempt to appease whatever feels threatening in order to stay safe. Freeze is a kind of shutdown, when the body and mind become immobilized in the face of danger.

At the edge of the Promised Land, the people moved quickly into “fight.” They turned on the very leaders who were urging them forward. They were not merely resisting the land. They were fighting what the land represented to them.

Our relationship with God is never formed in a vacuum. We are not blank slates. We come as whole people, shaped by memory, family, suffering, culture, fear, biology, and experience. The way we respond to God is often influenced by the environments that formed us and the wounds we have not yet healed from. And oftentimes we need external help to navigate our lived realities.