by Judith MacNutt
2023 Vol. 02
In his marvelous classic book, Healing, our beloved Francis MacNutt (1925-2020) outlines four types of healing. This teaching is foundational to the ministry of CHM. We teach about physical healing (infirmities and sickness), spiritual healing (which includes forgiveness and the mercy of God), inner healing (healing of memories) and gaining freedom from the demonic (deliverance). Generational healing can also overarch all of these.
What we have found after many years of experience is that the four kinds of healing are interconnected. In many instances, physical maladies are psychogenic, meaning having origin in the mind or in a mental condition or process. The broken or confused state of the mind or the spirit can cause physical symptoms in the body. Some illnesses have a generational root, such as patterns of mental illness which may pass down through the family line.
Healing should always be put into the context of these four categories of healing. How they are interrelated? The Holy Spirit, through a word of knowledge, discernment or wisdom, can help you determine the root of trauma and brokenness. The most common need in all of us is inner healing. We have been wounded because of what has been done to us (sins committed against us), what we have done to ourselves (sins we have committed), and because of our fallen world (original sin).
In a discussion on the subject of “capacity,” first we explore the source of the wound, starting from the time we are conceived in our mother’s womb and throughout our childhood, including family trauma. These wounds are called “developmental trauma.”
If I had a large jug of water and a cup, and I attempted to pour the water into the cup, the cup would quickly fill and spill over; it is “over capacity.” In the physical sense, capacity is how much weight an object can bear. If a 40-ton semi attempts to cross a wooden bridge, the bridge will buckle under the weight. If you overload an electrical circuit, a fuse will blow or trip the breaker.
In the same way, emotional capacity is the level of biological, psychological, and spiritual intensity that the brain, mind and spirit of a person can handle before a disconnect or meltdown can occur.
When working through a difficult situation, you, or someone you know, has said, “I’m sorry, I can’t handle this!” If I am counseling or praying with someone and they say, “I can’t handle this,” I have learned to believe them! The person is sending me this message: I can’t go into that pain right now. They remember all too well what that wound felt like the first time, and they don’t want to go back into it.
When some people reach the limit of their emotional capacity, they turn to “pseudo attachments.” They may turn to a substance or behavior that will enable them to calm down and be at peace (so to speak) when they do not have the ability to calm themselves. When the whole world feels like it is crashing down around them, they can turn to addiction. The person now has two problems: first, have the problem that they think they walked away from (which is unresolved); and second, now an addictive behavior.
How do we learn to understand and help increase one’s capacity? One of the most deeply healing experiences we can have is a healthy, interpersonal, emotional connection with another person. This is called “attunement.”
Have you ever met someone with whom you immediately felt a strong connection? You start talking with your new friend and you feel like you have known him or her forever; it is a wonderful give and take. At that moment you are experiencing attunement. When you are attuned to someone it means: I am being heard, I am being seen, this person cares about me, this person understands me and has empathy for me.
If we can experience attunement with someone when we are going through a time of grief, loss, or tragedy we will get through it. In the same way, when a child is attuned to their parents, to a grandparent, or to a support person in their life, they have the ability to go through a distressing time without the experience turning into lasting trauma.
Do you ever wonder how siblings who live in the same home can react to a family crisis in completely different ways? One sibling may successfully navigate the stress, and the other might go through depression or turn to an addiction. A painful experience only becomes a psychological trauma if the person is not able to successfully process the painful experience. I believe it is the child who has someone to walk alongside and process the experience with that develops greater capacity.
CHM’s Listen, Love, and Pray model contains the building blocks of attunement. We train our prayer ministers how to listen, how to have empathy, and how to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us with love for the person to whom we are ministering. We have learned that you cannot simply take a person back into a memory if they do not feel loved and supported. If they can’t see Jesus in the memory, going back to the memory may re-traumatize them.
Capacity has a great bearing on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If a person is going through a painful experience, the chances of it becoming psychological trauma are very low if they can process it, if they have someone they are attuned to, or if they go into it with high capacity already.
I would consider myself a person having high capacity stemming from my childhood. I grew up in a town of twelve hundred people. All of them knew everything I did—every day! If you grew up in a small town you know what I am talking about!
One day a cute boy was at the Dairy Queen on his motorcycle. He said, “Come and go for a ride with me! Get on the back!” My brain was saying, No, no, no! Too dangerous. He doesn’t have an extra helmet; don’t do it. Don’t do it. But everything else in me was saying the opposite.
I agreed to the ride, and we hadn’t gone a quarter of a mile when we had a wreck. I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and when I flew off the bike I skidded across the asphalt. The skin on my legs was scraped off all the way down. The president of our small college drove by just as we fell down. She stopped and said, “Get in the car.” She took me home and she put Mercurochrome all over it. I screamed when she treated me, and my skin turned hot pink. She bandaged me and sent me home an hour later.
When I walked in the front door my mother said, “What happened to you?”
I said, “Well, I was playing touch football at the school and I took a fall.”
She said, “Well, that’s interesting. I had about forty phone calls that said you had a motorcycle accident!”
She looked at me warily and asked, “Were you or were you not on a motorcycle?”
I said, “Yes, I was.”
That is small town life for you. I couldn’t get away with anything!
On the other hand, I probably had two or three hundred mothers and fathers that loved me, fed me and cared for me. If my mom was too busy to make dinner, I would go to the neighbors. If my dad was too busy to take me sledding, I would find someone else to take me. These people poured into my life, and the constant attention increased my emotional capacity.
What about a person who is not attuned to anyone who can feed into their spirit? It is more likely that when this person enters into trauma, pain, separation and loss they will break down under the pressure.
The benefits of attunement are closely related to the need for loving community. You can go to a therapist and get some healing; you can seek pastoral counseling and see some improvement, but some people can only be healed when surrounded by long-term relationships of love and care.
One of the greatest discoveries that the Holy Spirit has given us is soaking prayer. My husband, Francis, first coined the term; it means you hold a person in the light of healing love. You don’t need to pray the same words over and over. Just place your hands on a person’s back or shoulder (with permission) and soak them in God’s love. We like to think of it as God’s radiation therapy. The light and power of Jesus comes into their soul and body. You may want to have soft worship music playing in the room. Soaking in God’s presence builds capacity.
Jesus healed with a touch and word, and He still heals today. If you know a person with emotional needs, love them. Pray that the love of God is poured into them. Attune with them and start building their capacity. Affirm their life and identity in the Holy Spirit. Ask God to release their true self and strengthen their spirit.
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Judith MacNutt is a licensed psychotherapist, author, teacher, conference speaker, co–founder and president of CHM. |  |