Where I Found Myself Again: The Healing of Presence

Written by Ashley Schumacher, M.S., LAPC.

I recently discovered a song by August Green, and from the very first listen, my heart and mind were instinctively drawn to the exposed monstrance and His Presence in Eucharistic Adoration.

"Right here, I found myself again."

The words arrested me. My heart surged with recognition and a deep body-soul knowing, the kind of knowing that accompanies a return to our deepest belonging, meaning, and relationship. 

The lyrics capture something I have both witnessed and myself experienced repeatedly integrating the holding and presence of the therapeutic encounter and the spiritual life: the mysterious way a person can begin to remember who they are simply by remaining in the presence of another’s love, held in the knowing  of their simultaneously imperfect, and perfectly human condition.

There is something profoundly human about losing ourselves. It seems to be a repetitive part of the process of this life and living. This song is a beautiful reminder that instead of being dismayed or stuck in a relentless chase for perfection or belonging in places not meant for us, the Place and places where we truly belong and are held FIND US, drawing us back and to our truest belonging equally as repeatedly. What a grace!! 

We lose ourselves in grief, in trauma, in disappointment, in fear. We lose ourselves in roles, expectations, wounds, and survival adaptation strategies. Sometimes we lose ourselves through years of striving, even if the striving is good and dare I say, even holy- like the work of healing and developing human formation and spiritual maturity. Other times through years of hiding.

We become disconnected from our own hearts and, in many ways, from His Heart. We begin running from our feelings or retreating into our thoughts. We bury ourselves beneath emotions, memories, hurts, distractions, and even our own nervous system responses. We find ourselves exhausted by the effort required to manage, explain, control, or escape what hurts and what is painful.This can even occur in our processes of seeking healing. Everything has the capacity to become a place of hiding—even the pursuit of healing itself. Yet there is one place where hiding becomes impossible precisely because we encounter Love that already knows. In Eucharistic Adoration, we come before the exposed Christ, and in His exposition we find permission for our own. Not the exposure of shame, humiliation, or nakedness without dignity, but the exposure of being fully known and fully loved. 

The song continues:

"No more running in my feeling, no more hiding in my head."

The burden of a restless mind.

The burden of an overwhelmed heart.

The burden of searching for relief while feeling unable to find rest.

I found myself wondering how many people enter Adoration carrying precisely this burden. Or perhaps,  remain unsure about sitting in such an ‘exposing’ Presence. But this is not the exposing of shame and nakedness without dignity. No, this is the exposing of the most dignifying, dignity- restoring love.

As a therapist, I have come to appreciate and sit in awe with the awareness that healing often begins not with answers but with presence. Long before explorations, insights, or solutions emerge, there is the experience of being accompanied, seen, and yes, held in acceptance. Long before a wound is fully understood, there is the experience of being received and fully known and loved in the woundedness without rush, expectations, or hidden agendas. Just presence.

Human beings are profoundly relational creatures. We are made by, in and for relationships. We come to know ourselves through relationships. We heal through relationships. We discover our dignity through authentic and healthy relationships.

Perhaps this is why Adoration can become such a beautiful place to extend the work of therapy and return to the source of healing itself.

In the silence of the sacred, we are invited to do something trauma often makes difficult: remain. To remain with ourselves…to remain with our story… to remain with our longings…

To remain with ourselves, just as we find ourselves in THIS moment. Most importantly, to remain with Him. Not because we have everything figured out, feel peaceful, know what to say, or have a clear trajectory-simply because He is there. Let me say this again, HE IS HERE. 

The lyrics continue:

"Every piece that I let go, brought me back to Who I know."

There is a wisdom here that beautifully translates throughout both the spiritual life and the healing journey.

So much of growth involves relinquishment. It involves letting go of unhelpful schemas, core beliefs, adaptive survival strategies,  old defense mechanisms, masks,  trauma reenactments- wounded ways of relating to God, ourselves, and others…Letting go of the belief that our worth depends upon performance, perfection, productivity, validation or approval. Ironically, even being seen or having others be present to us in the ways we so desperately desire. Letting go of the stories that suffering has written about us.

And yet, what continually surprises me is that authentic surrender does not diminish the person. It reveals the person.

As the pain and burdens fall away, the Genesis of each precious human heart and soul emerges- the  image of God unique as only it can be in each soul, that was never lost, only obscured.

Again and again, I have watched individuals discover that healing is often less about becoming someone new and more about becoming reacquainted with who they have always been. Known. Loved. Awaited.

This is what strikes me most about Eucharistic Adoration.

The invitation is not first to speak, but to listen, not first to seek, but to be found, not first to prove our love, but to receive His.

In a world saturated with noise, movement, and endless demands for our attention, Adoration becomes a sacred place of encounter where nothing needs to be performed and nothing needs to be earned. We have the opportunity to simply be with Him, be ourselves, be with ourselves with Him. The soul gradually discovers that it can stop running. It can stop hiding.

"All things I thought I needed, they are here instead."

There is a precious and sacred mystery in that realization.Not that every problem disappears, that suffering suddenly makes sense, or that healing is completed in a single moment. Rather, that beneath every human longing is a deeper longing for communion and authentic relationship and genuine PRESENCE. To be known completely and loved still, resting in the gaze of Another.

Perhaps this is why so many people leave Adoration unable to articulate exactly what occurs. They may have received no dramatic insight, no extraordinary consolation, no immediate resolution to the difficulties they carry. In many ways, it can be likened to the nervous system shift back to a place of balance and homeostasis. It’s not dramatic, no,  it is softly subtle and unassuming but oh so transforming. The soul, like the nervous system and larger body REMEMBER who they are as part of the whole as whole and balanced. The soul, much like the body, begins to remember what it was created for and where it belongs. 

In His Presence, they have encountered not only the Face of Christ, but their own face reflected more clearly in His gaze. And there, in the quiet mystery of being known, loved, and awaited, they find themselves again. 

He is constantly inviting us, calling us to find ourselves again in Him.