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I met a man the other day, a U.S. military veteran of the wars in the Middle East who has come home & returned to the workforce. He said that no one returns from that conflict unmarked; actually, he said everyone returns “not quite right,” including himself. He’s been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the bane of warriors since the beginning of time, and he sees a therapist in his home city of Chicago.

In April, the Rand Corp. released the results of a study of returning veterans. The study showed that about 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (about 18.5%) suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, roughly the same results of a government study released in February. The Rand study goes on to conclude that only about half of these returning veterans receive care, and that in half of those cases the care is only “minimally adequate.”

With few exceptions, humans have to be “psyched up” for war - physically, mentally, emotionally, & yes, even spiritually. Does this preparation just evaporate when the need is over? Absolutely not. The conscious mind rationalizes that “I’m home now; it’s over. I can get back to my life…,” but the unconscious mind, which was the target of the preparation, has to release not only the conditioning (training), but also the post traumatic stress itself. You don’t just talk yourself out of it.

The ancient Hawaiians knew that warriors returning home couldn’t just lay down their arms and return to society as if they’d never left. There were places of refuge in the Islands where the warriors went for a period of adjustment; where healers helped them clear their minds and emotions, balance their energies, and remember what it was to be the husband, father, son, or brother, and member of a community. They didn’t go home until this process was complete, for it was understood that it could be disastrous to release a warrior still in battle condition back into society - disastrous for both the citizen and the society. In their culture, there was no mental illness, no “depression”, no post traumatic stress, and outside of war, rare violence against members of their own society.

We tend to think of post traumatic stress as strictly a result of war. This is not so - victims of violence, especially children, often experience this malady. In my study and my work, I’ve found that the post traumatic stress that surfaces during or after a war experience often has its roots early in life. I worked with a veteran who had been in traditional therapies for this disorder since returning from Vietnam in the 1970’s. It was his war experience that resulted in the diagnosis, but his first experience with post traumatic stress occurred when he was five years old.

We continue to work together occasionally; and he’s made what he considers amazing progress over the course of 15 months when compared to the previous 36 years of treatment. The commonly used Western therapies have proven to be largely ineffective in terms of significant relief or resolution. On the other hand, holistic techniques such as NeuroLinguistic Programming, hypnosis, and energy work are highly effective in releasing the wounds and bringing a person back into balance in a relatively short period of time.

If you or someone you know is struggling to find relief and release from post traumatic stress, find a practitioner of these holistic methods, the sooner the better, so the programs of war and violence can be dismantled.

And to those who serve on our behalf, I send the Light of love, compassion, and gratitude, and wish you many blessings as you remember your way back home.