S06E08 How Missionaries Experience Stress, Trauma, & Triggers with Dr. Jamie Aten (Encore Episode)

Have you ever wondered why people respond to trauma in such different ways? In this episode, we dive deep into the complexities of trauma with Dr. Jamie Aten, a leading expert in the field. We explore the multifaceted nature of trauma, breaking down why people's experiences and reactions to it can be so widely different.

Dr. Aten gives practical, effective strategies that those of us who work in high-stress and emotionally charged settings can use to work through trauma in our own lives while also giving compassionate care to those around us who have experienced it.

This isn't just an academic discussion; the episode is laden with real-world applications. Dr. Aten shares tools from his spiritual aid toolkit and gives a sense of hope for anyone grappling with the challenges of trauma. Whether you're a missionary, a caregiver, or someone looking to better understand the human experience, this episode is a must-listen.

✍️ In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why people experience and respond to trauma in such different ways
• Practical tips for missionaries to recognize and manage their own trauma
• How to provide compassionate care for those facing trauma in high-stress environments
• Real-life strategies for building emotional resilience in your daily life
• The importance of self-care when working in challenging, trauma-filled settings

💡Questions to Ponder as You Listen:

• How do I typically respond to stress or trauma in my life?
• What strategies have I used to help others cope with difficult experiences?
• In what ways can I improve my emotional resilience as a missionary?
• How might understanding different trauma responses help me care for those around me?
• What role does self-care play in managing my own emotional well-being in tough environments?

Thanks for listening! Email us your questions at care@modernday.org

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Chapters

• 0:38 Meet Dr. Jamie Aten: Trauma Psychologist
• 2:17 Jazz & Responding to Crises
• 6:57 Defining Trauma: The 3 E's
• 8:33 Why Do People Respond So Differently to Trauma?
• 11:39 Understanding Vicarious Trauma
• 13:30 Preventing and Managing Vicarious Trauma
• 15:15 The Importance of Life Rhythms for Missionaries
• 17:07 Understanding Rhythm Over Balance
• 17:36 Healthy Trauma Response
• 18:37 Resilience and Spiritual Fortitude
• 20:17 Identifying Trauma vs. Stress
• 23:24 Practical Steps for Missionaries
• 27:36 Spiritual First Aid
• 28:08 BLESS CPR Framework
• 33:03 Conclusion and Resources

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephanie Gutierrez: Welcome to Modern Day Missionaries, a podcast by Modern Day Missions created for missionaries, by missionaries. I'm your host, Stephanie Gutierrez. In this encore episode, we're back with trauma psychologist Dr. Jamie Aten. What I love about Jamie is that he explores the complexity of trauma using really easy-to-understand analogies.

And he talks about why and how trauma impacts people in such varied ways. He also shares practical strategies tailored for missionaries to help you manage your own trauma and support others in their journey of healing.

[00:00:38] Stephanie: Welcome to this episode of the Modern Day Missionaries podcast. Today we are pleased to welcome Dr. Jamie Aten with us. And Jamie is the co-founder of Spiritual First Aid.

Get prepared 'cause he's got a lot of things he's a part of. He's also the founder and co-director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute, Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership, the co-coordinator of the trauma certificate program at Wheaton College, and he is a Hurricane Katrina and a late stage early onset cancer survivor.

And as a trauma psychologist, Jamie's responded to and researched disasters and mass traumas around the globe. He's authored or edited nine books and over 150 scholarly publications. That is a lot, Jamie. Wow. And your recent book that you wrote that you authored is called A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me About Faith and Resilience. His work has been featured by The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Christianity Today. You name it, he’s been on it. And in 2016 he was awarded the FEMA Community Preparedness Champion Award. And he also is the co-author and co-host of the award-winning The Better Samaritan Podcast.

Jamie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us today.

[00:01:59] Jamie Aten: Oh, thanks so much for having me. Really looking forward to it.

[00:02:02] Stephanie: I am too, and I think viewers, listeners can probably guess by now what we're gonna be talking about with your rich history of trauma and helping people who've been through it. That's what we're gonna dig into really, missionaries and global workers and their experience with trauma. But since today's topic is such a big one, we're gonna just start it a little bit lighter.

People have gotten to hear your professional side. Now we're gonna give them a little peek into your personal side. So I've got a few questions. They're not hard to get us started. You ready for 'em, Jamie?

[00:02:33] Jamie Aten: I'm ready. I've had my coffee.

[00:02:34] Stephanie: Okay, let's do it. What is your favorite guilty, sweet, or snack? 

[00:02:39] Jamie Aten: Anything that has chocolate and peanut butter. Could be ice cream, a cake, it doesn't matter. But that combination, that's what works for me.

[00:02:46] Stephanie: It's pure magic. How about your favorite seat on an airplane, aisle, middle or window?

[00:02:51] Jamie Aten: Oh, totally, totally aisle. So a hundred percent aisle.

[00:02:56] Stephanie: What do you like about aisle?

[00:02:58] Jamie Aten: That I'm not in the middle or against the window.

[00:03:00] Stephanie: Okay.

[00:03:02] Jamie Aten: So, you know, I, I, I like to be, I don't know, I, I always like to kind of try to, if I can, I like to try to squeeze in, you know, some writing on the plane and so I can at least have my left arm kind of free here and, you know, be typing over to the side a little bit and, you know, probably got a number of bruises on and off from every trip from the, you know, they bring the cart down the aisle.

But other than that, that's why I prefer that.

[00:03:24] Stephanie: I like knowing people why people like the aisle. 'cause I've discovered people like it for different reasons. I like it 'cause I have easy access to the bathroom. I can just get up as many times as I want. But yes, that's space. That elbow room is, is quite nice. Now this third one I wrote before, knowing the answer to the first one.

So crunchy peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, or no peanut butter. Clearly we know now it's not no peanut butter since it's one of your favorite 

[00:03:46] Jamie Aten: All the above. I mean, you can't go wrong with peanut butter, so, 

[00:03:50] Stephanie: There you go. One of the main food groups right there. I feel like all missionaries like peanut butter, and now I'm sure there's someone listening, going, I don't like peanut butter, but I swear when we would have people bring stuff down, peanut butter was a top, a top choice. It's a thing.

[00:04:06] Jamie Aten: It is.

[00:04:07] Stephanie: So what was one of your favorite childhood toys?

[00:04:10] Jamie Aten: One of my favorite childhood toys. Oh wow. I loved the, like hot wheels and like the little monster trucks and, and those sorts of things. So always loved playing with like little cars and trucks.

[00:04:24] Stephanie: Yeah. Okay. If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be?

[00:04:30] Jamie Aten: Jazz, jazz history or performance. 

[00:04:35] Stephanie: You answered that like right off, right off the bat. No hesitation.

[00:04:39] Jamie Aten: I've always loved music. It's been something really important part of me and going off to college and initially I thought about being a music major and I realized, oh, I'm not good enough to play professionally, but I'm also not cut out to be a band director.

That's not, I'm not gonna last very long in that job. Talk about trauma. Right. Especially when they would hear me sing. It was just, it wasn't gonna work out for anyone. But, and then I remember thinking like, oh, well what if I became a professor of like, jazz history and then found out like there's only like a handful of those jobs, like in the country, and that's not like really a, a typical gig.

So decided to go to the psychology route instead.

[00:05:17] Stephanie: You know, jazz history or psychology and trauma.

[00:05:21] Jamie Aten: Well, and it's actually, you know, for me, like jazz and what I do now actually goes hand in hand. It's all about improv, taking things as you come, you know, figuring out what you've got, using what you've. You know, in jazz, you trade forth back and forth with the other musicians. So there's the collaboration.

So my students actually tease me about how many ways I work in jazz metaphors in my lectures. So I'll try not to do too much of that during, during our conversation here.

[00:05:49] Stephanie: Feel free. Feel free. Clearly, it's a passion of yours. I love the link that you made between those two. That is fantastic. Okay, last question. What is one book you're reading right now?

[00:06:01] Jamie Aten: So right now I'm going back through and rereading Wendell Berry's an edited version of his essays called The World On Fire.

[00:06:09] Stephanie: I have that on my reading list. So what you're saying is it needs to stay there and maybe move up.

[00:06:14] Jamie Aten: It does. I, I just, I love, love his writings and often find, you know, those kind of like nuggets of wisdom. While back I was reading one of his other books and, you know, he was talking about Amish farming and about how I. One of the parables he's tried to live by was one that he learned on the farm from this other Amish farmer who talked about how, you know, my horses in the morning, they can work from sunrise to sunset, but if I work them beyond that, they're gonna wear out and not be able to do the next day's work well.

And so for me, that's a good reminder as I start to sometimes feel tempted to, you know, kind of burn the oil a little bit too late on work to always kind of remember that like there's wisdom in slowing down.

[00:06:55] Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. 

 Jamie, can you start us off by defining trauma? Because it's become a bit of a buzzword. You know, I'll hear people say it all the time, like, I'm so traumatized, or that's so trauma and what would you say trauma is? How can we use it appropriately?

[00:07:10] Jamie Aten: Yeah. You know, really trauma is one of those kind of terms that's being used in a lot of different ways and sometimes not always in a way that's really accurate. You know, so for instance, right before we started taping, I shared with you that one of the ways that I got into trauma, I sometimes joke, is that I'm a diehard Cubs fan. You know, that trauma, you know, has kind of come hand in hand. 

But that's, you know, I say that and I actually had a friend the other day who called me up after the Cubs had this horrible loss and he asked, you know, how traumatized are you? And I just realized the same thing that you're talking about, that we start to kind of throw that word around now, maybe times that even in ways that are light.

But one of the reasons that. Can be challenging to really figure out what trauma is, is because it is highly subjective. You know that trauma really is anything that causes a significant psychological distress. And one of the ways to be able to recognize it that we teach is often to look for the three E's.

So you wanna be able to kind of listen for an event that maybe somebody's gone through. You also wanna listen for the effect that that event has had on them. So maybe trouble sleeping, maybe it's having nightmares. Feeling withdrawn, anger, these sorts of changes. And then the last one being the emotional experience.

Just really like what it is that that person has gone through. Because at the end of the day, you and I might go through the same event, but one of us, it may not be traumatic and the other it might be. So it really does depend a lot on that person and their firsthand experience.

[00:08:42] Stephanie: Which is really significant that you mentioned, that it's subjective because everyone's personality is so different in their past, and sometimes we'll see people who go through a, a traumatic experience or at least appears to be, and it doesn't seem to affect them, and that same person can look at others who have been genuinely traumatized and scoff or blow it off or act like, you know, I'm fine. So why aren't you, so how good that you're pointing it out that our experiences are different. 

What are some of the reasons that people might react differently to a traumatic experience?

[00:09:17] Jamie Aten: Yeah, it, it's actually there, there's a lot of different kind of factors at play. You know, one of them is our own physiology and psychological makeup. You know, that some people are just, have that kind of more of a, a grit trait to them, you know, even from birth, like I. When I think of my own kids, you know, and one of my children, you know, probably by the age of two I remember thinking like, wow, there's not gonna be much that's gonna get in this kiddo's way.

Right? There was just kind of that personality there. But it's also something that can be learned. We know that over time we can kind of like a muscle. The more that we use and practice adapting, the more flexible we can get. 

Another thing is our exposure to previous traumas. So the research shows that those who have experienced multiple traumas are more likely to develop future trauma, you know, so having gone through that many people will be at a more kind of vulnerable state in the future. Another kind of key issue here is also the type of social support that we have around us, that the types of resources that we have can make all the difference.

[00:10:19] Stephanie: Hmm. And now Jamie, you helped people through Hurricane Katrina, so you saw a variety of people go through a really intense situation. What were some of the ways that you saw people react differently to that traumatic experience?

[00:10:33] Jamie Aten: You know, I think one of the most important things that I learned from that was truly that importance of coming together. That the Sunday after Katrina, many people referred to it as Slab Sunday. And the reason for that is that was, in many cases, all that was left. The buildings were completely wiped out. The debris was everywhere. And so I'm talking about in South Mississippi. So the way things looked in New Orleans and Mississippi, we looked very different visually, but Mississippi, it was almost like a bomb had gone off and just kind of wiped everything out. And yet at the same time, people still came together where their physical churches had been on that Sunday morning afterwards and worshiped together.

You know, that they came and they laughed. They, they cried with one another. They, they shared time with one another. There. And that's just such a valuable part of resilience and we've seen that in studies that we've done all over the world.

[00:11:23] Stephanie: Now missionaries are helping people through traumatic experiences all the time. Obviously every missionary is different because we're all serving in different areas in different capacities, but I would say the majority of missionaries are encountering people in really difficult situations. 

Can you talk for a second about vicarious trauma?

[00:11:43] Jamie Aten: Hmm. Yeah. And I think you're right. That is really important for missionaries. 'cause in many ways, missionaries are on the front lines of trauma. You know, and I, I heard Diane Langberg once, and I was talking with her and she shared about how in many ways, trauma is one of the new mission fields.

And so, you know, we've seen that in our own work. You know, for instance, like working in Japan, that one of the very first groups of Christians to respond on the ground were missionaries and, and we've seen that type of response play out over and over. 'cause oftentimes you're working in very vulnerable areas and with vulnerable people. But as a result of that, that also puts us sometimes in harm's way as well that we're not immune to it. 

And so vicarious trauma is what happens sometimes when we actually develop symptoms of trauma, but not necessarily because of our own experience firsthand, but rather, Because of the trauma from someone else.

You know, I had a chaplain once who shared with me that, you know, as helpers we're a lot more like duct tape than we are Kevlar, right? The Kevlar is made to bounce off and repel. But what makes us good as helpers, what makes you good as missionaries is that sticky quality, that adhesive quality that you can kind of come along and help.

Put people back together again and care for them. But what happens over time is that some of those challenges, some of that trauma can start to stick with us and we lose some of that adhesive quality and we start taking on those trauma symptoms for ourselves.

[00:13:11] Stephanie: Wow. And some, what are some of the ways then that people can keep that? Or can you even keep that from sticking to you? Or if it does, what do you do in that type of scenario?

[00:13:21] Jamie Aten: Yeah. You know, and again, it's gonna vary a lot on different factors of who you are, the people you're helping, the experience. You know, there's just so many moving pieces there. But one of the things that we can do is to try to take steps to prevent it from happening in the first place. And one of the things that we've seen in research, Is that team cohesion is really important in helping to prevent vicarious trauma among groups, especially among missionaries where sometimes you may feel kind of disconnected from others or from home or you know, a lot of these types of situations.

And then another major issue is to also be practicing on continuing our faith, that sometimes we get so busy sharing our faith that we forget to also nurture our own faith. And so we wanna make sure that we're cultivating our, our faith with a sense of resilience. 

And then another is to set healthy boundaries. And I know that can be so hard, but you have to kind of start to learn, you know, how much do I have left in the tank? Because if you're constantly always giving, you're gonna burn out. And, and when that happens, one of the things that I oftentimes try to remind myself of is that those that I serve and care for, they need help now, but they're also gonna need it later.

So we need to follow Christ's example of taking times of solitude, taking times of rust, spending time in community and spending time with God.

[00:14:41] Stephanie: Absolutely. Question for you. There is––I thought of this as you were talking––there’s this perspective among missionaries. Sometimes we referenced it a little bit earlier, but there's just this like, I'm a missionary so I should toughen up and I should muscle through. I think that still exists among a lot of people.

What happens if that's the response that we take, whether it's experiencing vicarious trauma, someone else experiencing our own trauma. What happens if we just tough it up and muscle through?

[00:15:15] Jamie Aten: If you try to tough it up and muscle through, you're going to accomplish the exact opposite of what you're trying to do. And, and so now, now there is that piece that, there is value sometimes of trying to push through, and there are times that you just have to push through, right? Like, like you're gonna find yourself in situations.

But again, it's one of the ways that I, I try to approach it and our team at the institute tries to approach this topic is to really think about it more in life rhythms rather than having perfect life balance, right? So like when I hear somebody say, oh, you have to live a balanced life. I don't know about you, but like my eye starts to twitch and, you know, I start to tune them out a little bit.

And part of that is, Because there was, I was listening to this radio program one day and they were interviewing all these different like wellbeing and health experts and everything, and each of them were telling you, this is what you need to do to live a healthy, balanced life. So I went back and I wrote up, what all those activities were.

And then I did the math, so I'm sorry, I'm a researcher, so did the math to figure out how long, if I were to do all of those things I had just listened to, and it would take more than 24 hours. Right? And, and so our life often doesn't work in a perfect system. And so, instead, I like to think of it as a little bit like on a surfboard, that it's okay sometimes to ride kind of a crest of busyness, but then you also have to know your limits, which takes humility, to know when you maybe need to go into some shallow water for a while, or even to get completely out of the water and spend some time on that beach.

[00:16:43] Stephanie: Which is actually so much more doable, like you said, who has ever really achieved a balanced life?—especially you look at somebody who lives overseas or is working in a mission capacity. We live a life where rhythms are especially difficult because there are mission teams visiting. There are crisis situations.

The nature of our work is that it's. Constantly varying. And so a rhythm makes a lot more sense than balance because you can have an underlying rhythm of your core things that you know you need to do to take care of yourself. But like you said, there's moments where you just gotta ride that wave and go, Lord, help me hang onto the surfboard.

[00:17:26] Jamie Aten: Right, and, and also it's a good idea to sometimes surf in pairs or in groups, right? Like, don't go out into those deep waters on your own. Make sure you have the right support.

[00:17:36] Stephanie: Okay, so let's say more more about what is a healthy trauma response. Again, whether it's ours, whether it's someone else's, you've mentioned community several times, so that's certainly part of a healthy trauma response. What would be some other factors?

[00:17:49] Jamie Aten: You, you can kind of think of, you know, when we talk about resilience, we, we often talk about it in a very narrow way, so I kind of want to challenge those who are listening to think about it in a broader perspective. You know, we, we often talk about resilience as being kind of like this beach ball that when it's pushed to underwater and there's pressure and then we bounce back to normal. 

But one of the things that I've noticed from the disasters and mass traumas that I've worked on, and even from my own life, especially my cancer experience, is that sometimes we don't just bounce back. You know, when I think about that in my own life, like with cancer, you know, it took me over a year just to get back to some basic, you know, kind of baseline of, you know, my physiology, my psychology, you know, my spiritual life. It took me a while to, to get back on my feet again. And one of the perspectives, one is that, you know, we've already talked about community resilience, you know, that, that having that support around us.

So you can almost think of it as like a car. So what happens, right? If one of the wheels is got a, a hole in it or a flat. It's gonna bring the whole thing to a scratching halt. And that's the same with us when it comes to resilience. So we wanna make sure we got all four of these tires all filled up that I'm about to share about.

One, community resilience. The other is resilience itself. That individual resilience, our ability to adapt and bounce back. But then we also need to make sure that we have grit. And grit is that kind of stick-to-it-ness, that kind of pushing through things. But if we don't have this last wheel, we're gonna have problems. 

And that last wheel is spiritual fortitude. And spiritual fortitude is what allows us to endure hardships, to be able to still do good in the midst of adversity and to be able to find meaning in our suffering. That spiritual fortitude, one of the ways that we talk about it in our research is that it helps us to really metabolize. Suffering. And so the reason why we need to have that spiritual fortitude is that without it, we're likely going to overinflate, right?

We have just the exact opposite problem as getting, you know, flat because you ran over a nail and you have a hole. If you overinflate, you're gonna get the same result and have a flat, but that's what happens without spiritual fortitude. It gives us the wisdom to know when to stop airing up the tire, so to speak, and the others.

[00:20:08] Stephanie: Yes. Oh, I love that because you painted a picture. Four wheels. Everybody can picture the wheels on the car. 

Okay, so. How can a missionary know if what they're going through personally is trauma or if it's just the normal stress and crises we always seem to deal with, and, and why is it so important to identify if it's trauma or if it's something else?

[00:20:33] Jamie Aten: Yeah, that's a great question. So in terms of how to kind of know if it's trauma or not, one of the kind of first rules of thumb is to figure out does it start to interfere with your everyday life? 

So what, what I'm kind of doing here is we're gonna kinda start kind of like a game of Plinko, right? We start at the top and we kind of bounce our way down until we get to the end. So one of the first indicators that you know something is off is when you hit that first kind of pull there on the Plinko board and it starts to bounce you around and you realize that my everyday life, I'm just not functioning how I used to do.

So maybe it's my relationships, how I do at work. It could be, you know, really anything. Now as we kind of go a little bit further along, bouncing around on the Plinko board and start to narrow down, is this trauma or not, then we start to look at how's it impacting my overall functioning? So starting to look for things like where you're starting to have maybe kind of a feeling jumpy on a regular basis because often a key symptom is that our physiology kind of goes into hyperdrive, right? And so if you're constantly feeling jumpy all the time, that might be an indicator. Likely to start withdrawing more from others, easily getting angered or upset, and also likely to have flashbacks is a very common symptom.

Now, when we talk about flashbacks, you know, for some people that will be like they're back in that moment of the trauma, right? Like the type of experiences that maybe we've seen portrayed in like a war movie, for example. But for most people that'll have trauma, that kind of traumatic flashback is actually a little bit more of like an intrusive thought or you could kind of think about it as almost like an augmented reality experience.

I don't know if you ever saw there used to be this app, I don't know if it's still around for cell phones, where people would play Pokemon and they'd be out in public somewhere. And so I have three kids, so this is how I know this.

[00:22:23] Stephanie: I've heard of it, but I've never tried it out.

[00:22:25] Jamie Aten: Yeah, so you know, we've got the cell phone now and you know, you could be, you know, here in this room and it would kind of overlay a Pokemon character, you know, through the, the screen. So you know, the Pokemon's not really there. You can see through it, it's transparent, but you still kind of see some hints that it's there, even though it's not real. And for a lot of people, that's actually what a flashback will be like. 

[00:22:50] Stephanie: Wow, what a great, way of describing it. I've never heard it that way, and that makes more sense. It sounds more realistic than some of the other explanations that I've heard.

[00:22:58] Jamie Aten: Yeah, and for some people, you know, they really will have that full immersion experience where it does like, and maybe even to the point where they disassociate some of not even being aware of where they are in that moment.

[00:23:10] Stephanie: But you've given some other options of how people might experience that. 

So you kind of explained a little bit how a missionary can know the difference. Why is that so important for them to identify? And then what would their next step be? Just again, if people are listening, going, I am, I am feeling, let's say they're feeling it in their body. They're listening to you going, oh my gosh, I'm realizing this is more than than stress. Why is it important to name that and then what should my next step be?

[00:23:39] Jamie Aten: Well, if we try to fix a problem without the correct tools, we're probably not gonna actually get to the heart of what's actually going on. You know, you could kind of think about it a little bit, like going back to the car illustration, right? Like if you went to a mechanic, you would want them to actually pop open the hood.

You wouldn't want them just to be able to like kind of come over and like walk up to the tires and be like, okay, here's the problem, this is what we're gonna do. No, you want them to open up that hood, get under the car, check everything out so they actually feel, fix the problem so you don't have to go back in a day or two when the engine light comes back on.

And if we don't really know what the causes of what's happening, we're unlikely to be able to make long-term change. So being able to differentiate too between trauma and other types of events is also going to dictate what types of strategies we can use, they're gonna be most effective. So granted, there's gonna be, you know, a lot of interventions or ways that we can cope that will help across the board of whatever struggles we have.

But trauma is a very unique particular type of issue. So let, let me give you just one example here that versus, say, trauma versus, say depression, for example. Individuals who are depressed. One of the things that we know in talk therapy, for example, is that as you share about it and you start to open up, And, and process it, that that's one of the ways that we get better.

But with trauma, what I've seen sometimes is that people try to approach it in the same way and it can cause harm. So, so let me give you an example. Like if you ended up having a wound and you went to the doctor and asked them to help, you know, patch up this or heal this wound, you're not gonna ask them to open it up and to be able to start digging in if you know that they don't have a way to patch it up afterwards.

But if we ask people to talk about their trauma before they're actually ready and try to push them before they're ready, it's like opening up a wound without having any way to bandage it.

[00:25:35] Stephanie: Wow. That's really significant. 

So what can someone do if, again, they're sensing this and they're feeling this, what would you recommend as the next step for a missionary global worker?

[00:25:47] Jamie Aten: I think for a missionary who's going through this to talk to someone that you trust. So whether that's another missionary, somebody in your community, somebody back home, reach out. You don't have to go through this alone and know that you truly aren't. Seventy percent of adults will experience a traumatic event at least once in their life.

[00:26:07] Stephanie: Wow. 

[00:26:08] Jamie Aten: This is something that's a lot more common than what people realize. And so reach out, let somebody know that you're struggling and try to find additional resources or professional services.

[00:26:19] Stephanie: And is that 70% percent a U.S. stat?

[00:26:23] Jamie Aten: No, that's a global stat.

[00:26:24] Stephanie: That's a global stat. Wow. And I would wonder if in certain countries that would be higher just because, you know, simply political unrest or economic disruptions or things people have been through. 

[00:26:38] Jamie Aten: Oh absolutely.

[00:26:38] Stephanie: Yeah, and that's where a lot of, a lot of these people are probably gonna be finding themselves, these missionaries.

So we've talked a little bit about how they can take care of themselves when they've been through either trauma or vicarious trauma. What are a few ways they could, help somebody who has gone through that? The people they're serving.

[00:26:56] Jamie Aten: That's a great question. In fact, that's something that I've spent my career trying to understand. How do we actually help without causing additional harm, and how do we help in a way that's biblical, yet informed by research and trauma informed.

[00:27:10] Stephanie: Exactly, and most missionaries are not coming in as psychologists. They're coming in just as pastors or regular people who don't have the type of training you do. And so a lot of people will––I shouldn't say a lot of people––some people might try and go in and use psychological techniques or, you know, borrow things from psychology and use it inappropriately.

So how can we help people in an inappropriate way with the level of training that we have?

[00:27:36] Jamie Aten: Well, one of the things that my colleague Kent Annan and I did was that we founded Spiritual First Aid to really be able to help take that guesswork out of helping and to equip frontline helpers. You know, so you don't have to be a psychologist to make a difference. And so don't underestimate how kind of small actions can really make a big difference for people.

And so in the Spiritual First Aid certificate course that people can take on demand on their own or in groups. So we have it set up where you can do it with a facilitator in your own community or online. 

And we teach what we call in spiritual first aid, the BLESS CPR framework. And so it's really kind of a basic five step process.

The first is that, we wanna prepare to help and care by walking with humility. You know, we don't wanna assume we know what the other person needs and we wanna make sure that we view them as the expert of their own needs and that we come across and walk with them kind of through this. You could kind of think of it as a path that we call the trauma-informed path.

So we're gonna walk humbly with people through their experience. 

And then the next thing that we're gonna do after we've prepared, and part of that is also knowing our motivation. Which humility helps us to better understand, make sure we're helping for the right reasons. Then the next step is to use BLESS triage.

So you've probably heard the term triage like in a medical setting where you're sorting out the problems. Well, that's what you're gonna do here, but with spiritual emotional care that you're gonna listen for. The five BLESS needs is what we call them, and these are the five core needs. Our research shows that when they go unmet are more likely to cause psychological and emotional distress, and those BLESS needs stand for biological, livelihood, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. 

So you don't have to be a psychologist or have a diagnostic statistical manual like what I have in my work office, which is, by the way, I think about that thick and it's got hundreds of diagnoses. You don't have to know all of those things to help someone.

So instead, think about kinda like that Plinko board that I talked about earlier, that you're listening for those. Five BLESS needs that are going unmet. And we're gonna triage them and work with that person to find out, out of all of these problems, what's the main one or what's the most pressing that can help you with right now?

And then the next step is the C in BLESS CPR, and that's care with practical presence. You know, I just really want you to know that your presence says more than any words you might offer. So when you feel like you don't know what to say or you're afraid, maybe you're like me and highly likely prone to put your foot in the mouth, then don't say anything. Just be with that person. Set with them in that pain. And then the reason why we call it. Practical presence. You know, you've probably heard ministry of presence, but the reason why we chose that language was we interviewed about 30 different experienced chaplains that have all been doing disaster response and trauma response for about 30 years a piece.

And as we listened to their stories, we realized it was ministry of presence, but there was a slight different angle. They often referred to the, what they did as. Water bottle ministry, that there was this sense of practical assistance that ma, you want to help that person with their spiritual, emotional struggles.

But if they're not ready yet, maybe it starts with meeting that basic need of, they need a glass of water. You know? So start with those needs and you can think about those needs as kind of like a Rubik's cube, that they're all interconnected. You know, we have seen people's problems where, you know, they come to us and you could probably fill up each little box of the Rubik's cube with a different problem.

Well, how do you know where to start when you figure out that most pressing one and you push on that one little tile? What happens with that Rubik's cube? It all starts to shift everything, right? Because it's all interconnected. So we start then by identifying that blessed need and then carrying with it with practical presence.

And then the next step, the the P is to provide coping practices. So in the course we teach about 50 different interventions. That are very basic, but all research based, but also scripturally informed. 

And then the next step, the last of BLESS CPR, that final R, stands for refer and resource. So sometimes we feel like if we refer someone that we're not doing our job, or maybe we didn't do enough, but what we found in our research is that referring or resourcing others is actually one of the most important actions we can take in helping others. 

So it's knowing that kind of those limitations, like what you were saying. And you can think of those limitations a little bit like a hot pack or a cold pack. So spiritual first aid is like a cold pack. If you sprain your ankle, you know, and the you get ice on it right away. It stabilizes, it prevents that injury from getting worse. But then later, if it continues to hurt, it continues to be chronic, that's when you need a hot pack or counseling. Something that really kind of works in and gets into that issue even more deeply.

[00:32:23] Stephanie: Jamie, you are the analogy king. You have painted so many pictures today, which for me is fantastic. I mean, we got tires, we got water bottles, we got hot packs. There were at least like three other ones in there. That was so deeply practical too. 

I appreciate that because I think it recognizes that God is able to use us right where we're at. We don't need to limit ourselves and say, I can't help because I don't have this professional designation or this educational degree. And yet it also acknowledges that there are ways in which we can learn more and we can make ourselves better able to help people. And then ultimately that last point, like you said, recognize when we've hit our limits and it's time to refer on to a different place.

So that was great. I hope that everybody looks into that and finds out more about that. Spiritual First Aid is what you called it, right?

[00:33:10] Jamie Aten: Right, and you can find out more at https://www.spiritualfirstaid.org/.

[00:33:13] Stephanie: Perfect. Okay. There's a place for people to jump in. 

[00:33:16] Jamie Aten: Jamie, thank you. This was such. A fantastic conversation engaging. It was practical, pictorial, I have to say, really helpful for everyone who listened. to. So thanks again for joining us and to all of you who joined us today. And we look forward to seeing you on our next episode. 

Thanks for joining us today. You can find all of our episodes on https://mdmpodcast.org/. Since 2008, Modern Day Missions has been providing financial administrative and marketing services to Christian missionaries around the globe. We're currently partnered with a thousand missionaries in more than 90 different nations. If you were someone you know, is looking for a nonprofit covering for your missionary calling, Modern Day could be the answer you're looking for. 

Find out more at https://www.modernday.org/ .We look forward to seeing you on our next episode.