Tim Arrigo recounts a men's group exercise where someone disclosed childhood sexual abuse and found healing through vulnerability. He argues that acknowledging pain, not suppressing it, is the path to liberation and uses an archaeology metaphor for gradual trauma work.
I think we're often confused about what true power is and what it looks like. I've seen true power firsthand. See, one time I was facilitating a group. There was a gentleman in the room and I was doing an exercise where you write 3 columns. You write what you portray to the world, what you hide from the world, and what others see. So what other people see in you. You fill out the first two columns, what you portray and what you hide, and then other people in that group, they're going to fill out the third column, which is what they see in you. And this gentleman, he goes up and he's writing everything he portrays, and then he writes everything he hides, and he stops at the end. And I asked him, I said, is that everything? And he looked at me, he had this look on his face, and I knew, right? You know that look when people give you that look, right? And so I said to him, I said, okay, if you're not comfortable talking about it, just put an asterisk there. And when we get there, if you're comfortable, we'll go there and we'll talk about it. So he shares everything and he gets to the bottom and he starts to have a full-blown stress reaction in the group. So he starts trembling. He starts having a breakdown in the group. And he said that his uncle molested him when he was 7, 8, and 9 years old. And as he started to share this, there was probably 12 other men in the group. It was only men in the group. And 7 out of 12 men began to weep and cry in the room with this man. I started to cry. I couldn't help it. I'm tearing up. And some of the— 7 of these other men said, same thing happened to me. Same thing happened to me. And I watched 8 men— getting goosebumps right now— I watched 8 men come into the center of that room and embrace one another. They literally fell into one another's arms. You want to talk about power? I want to talk about true power. The room was literally— I could feel the Spirit of God in the room. Oh, it was amazing. And you talk about power and healing. You know what healing really comes from is when we create space for people to share their experience. This guy had skeletons in his closet from 40 years earlier. This guy had done like 20 years in prison for all the crime because why? He was a victim and he promised himself that he would never be a victim again. So he became the perpetrator. And so he became the perpetrator in other people's lives. And a lot of these behaviors led him to prison. He got locked up. It led him to getting locked up. And so, man, you know, when you share something you liberate others from their darkness. When you share something, you liberate others from darkness. All that stuff that you want to hide and bury, you know God wants to use that, right? God wants to use your story. He wants to use the skeletons in your closet to give somebody else permission. And right now I'm giving you permission. I'm giving you permission, right, to step into something better for yourself because you deserve it. Don't continue to send yourself the same broken and distorted message you've been sending yourself for years by not talking. And what's that message? I don't matter. I don't matter. Literally, when I'm not talking about the stuff that I know that I need to be talking about, I'm sending myself a message. And the message is that I don't matter. And I used to send myself this message all the time, right? Not investing in myself, continuing to push back the— push back my goals, continuing to put off the things that I know I need to do to address the wounds that are deep within me. The most responsible thing you could ever do as an adult is ask for help. And I want you— I want to let you know today that I believe in you, that Jeff and I will stand in your corner, and you don't have to be ashamed of the things that happen to you anymore. You don't have to walk in shame and guilt anymore. And I want to give you permission right now in this video to know that you're not alone, and that when you uncover these things— and that's why I like to say that this process is really like archaeology. How do archaeologists dig? They dig slow. See, they don't show up with a bulldozer and just start, you know, digging up things. No, they survey the land, they determine where they're going to dig, they flag off an area, and then they say, okay, I'm going to dig here. This thing that happened 30 years ago, how did that affect me? And then when the archaeologists start to dig, they, they dig slowly, so much to the extent they use little tools, little, little brushes that sift away dust and debris. And what did they uncover? Artifacts, antiquities, relics from the past. And then what did they do? They study these things. You got to uncover these things from the past and study them. And then what do they do with those things? They understand how those things relate to today. Understand how those things from your past relate to today. How do they still affect you? How do those things show up in your life without your permission, in the form of your self-talk, your self-sabotage, your relationships, your fear of abandonment, the fear of the future? And then what do they do? This is the best part. They put those things on display for other people to learn from. They put those things on display so other people can learn from them. Your story has so much power, and I'm telling you today from somebody that's experienced this— everything that I buried that I never wanted to talk about, I never knew the power that it held. The most powerful thing you have is your testimony. And your testimony about what you survived and what you endured and what you had to go through one day will be somebody else's survival guide because you will give them permission and you will liberate them. Your light will liberate them from the bondage of their darkness. You're not alone.
