I’ve recently been reading a book called The Heart of Trauma by Bonnie Badenoch. Bonnie is a therapist who has been dealing with trauma patients for several decades. She is a well-known expert in this field. She has a great capacity to identify with the technical aspects of therapy and its spiritual intersection. Something that is often missing from modern therapy. Many enter therapy expecting results in a short period of time, in the same way as we have come to expect results from getting our car fixed or medication that will cure us of our illnesses. The results of this strategy are not good. A recent study shows that empathy amongst many in society has declined by a massive 75%, as society becomes more focused on self-fulfilling needs versus helping others less fortunate.

When it comes to the brain, and in this case the heart, life is not so simple, as we all know. Miss Badenoch explains that some of the single-minded thinking that seems to dominate our world today, comes from my reliance on using the left hemisphere of our brain more than the right. Now without getting into the details of her book the interesting observation that I made, was the relationship between the implicit results-oriented left brain, and the explicit meaning of what is happening in our lives that the right brain controls.

There has been some debate in these circles for many years, that the left brain and the right brain thinking tends to dominate our personalities. The simplistic view we have been given is that the scientific aspect of our brain is the left-hand side, and the artistic side is the right-hand side. It turns out, just in the same way as our lives, that both sides are dependent on each other. In the same way that our heart often determines our decision-making process, in conjunction with our head, therefore making decisions that have some meanings built into them rather than just opinions or results.

This interdependence between our head and our heart is the core of the healing that Miss Badenoch and her clients search for together in her therapy groups. In the same way, as we are searching for meaning in our own lives, we cannot deal with problems in isolation, we have to search for meaning and understanding in order to be able to reach some semblance of peace as a result.

I guess my point in this reflection is that science is starting to recognize that our heart, our spirit, and our soul are a much more important compass for us to manage our way through our lives. And of course, with God at the center of all of those, we can be assured that the movement that we make toward peace and reconciliation will be better as a result of being guided by Him.

Copyright 2025 Reflection, audio and Image Michael J. Cunningham