Scorpions in the Mind: Process Theology and Trauma

Scorpions in the Mind

Process Theology and Trauma

“O, full of scorpions is my mind.”

So says Macbeth in Shakespeare's play—and I get it. My mind is full of scorpions too: traumatic memories, not just of what happened to me, but to my family, my loved ones, and my whole community. Their pain lives in me, stinging again and again.

They say God didn’t cause the trauma. I believe that. But honestly, I never thought of God that way in the first place—as a cause of pain. My question is different: Can God help in the healing? And if so, what does healing even look like?

— 27-year-old community college student, reading Shakespeare's Macbeth

Today, all over the world—and close to home—people are living with traumas that will remain with them for the rest of their lives: the aftermath of war, the death of a child, the scars of abuse, the ache of abandonment, the shock of a natural disaster, the erosion of self-worth. Some traumas are sudden and acute; others unfold slowly, like a long forgetting of whatever peace or happiness or joy has been known. These wounds are not easily erased, and healing does not mean erasure. These traumas can be suffered by communities as well as individuals; they can become "fields of feeling" which affect people collectively and are inherited from generation to generation.

Once they happen, traumas become part of the ongoing becoming of an individual self—they are felt, and carried forward in the stream of experience. And, so process theologians suggest, they are part of the ongoing life of God, too. God does not cause the traumas, but God feels them and shares in them. God is the living whole of the universe: a cosmic life in which the universe unfolds. God is not the author of pain, but its companion. God is, as Whitehead put it, “a fellow sufferer who understands.”

In any case, for adults as well as children, trauma is not the whole story. Nor is it the whole story for God. We are always more than the traumas we suffer. There are also blessings and gifts: kindness, pleasure, friendship, beauty. Life includes beauty as well as sadness, joy as well as pain, tenderness as well as terror. We are shaped not only by what wounds us, but by what lifts us, steadies us, and gives us hope. There is goodness in the world. Even the Holy One declared the whole of creation "very good" after creating it, and this goodness is not erased by traumas.

Still, there are the traumas—and, as Shakespeare’s metaphor makes clear, they sting like scorpions. At the heart of process theology is the conviction that these traumas do not have to define the future. With time, support, and imagination, new possibilities can emerge. God is at work, always—as the Spirit of creative transformation, an indwelling lure calling us to turn tragedy into beauty and suffering into meaning.

This divine work is not done in isolation, or all at once. It unfolds moment by moment, breath by breath, in the quiet decisions to choose compassion over despair, honesty over avoidance, courage over numbness. This transformation often occurs in hidden ways, not willed by the one who suffers. It takes root beneath the surface, in silence, in endurance, in the slow shift of perception. In the process vision, this divine lure is never coercive but always present—an invitation woven into the fabric of experience itself. And even amid scorpions, it whispers of butterflies.

Even when full relief is not possible, something meaningful can still unfold: resilience, insight, empathy, or the capacity to companion others through their own shadows. The work is not to undo the past, but to hold it honestly, respond with courage, and—when possible—to transform the sting into something that might, one day, help someone else breathe more freely.

Trauma and Feeling

In Macbeth, Shakespeare gives voice to a tormented interior when the protagonist cries out, “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”

These scorpions are not literal but psychological. They are images of thoughts and feelings that sting—psychic intrusions, fears, jealousies, and ambitions that coil and strike within Macbeth’s consciousness.

In the language of process philosophy, we might say Macbeth is overcome by painful prehensions—felt integrations of past actualities that are not his alone but inherited from the world around him and from his own personal history. He does not merely think the past; he feels it, and conforms to it in ways that trap and torment him.

In Whitehead’s philosophy, we are all like Macbeth—not necessarily in character (he was, after all, a deeply troubled man, driven by ambition and moral collapse), but in ontology. We human beings are concrescing subjects whose lives emerge from the inheritance of the past, moment by moment.

This moment by moment inheritance takes place through prehensions: acts of feeling what has happened before, both consciously and unconsciously. Most of our inheritance is unconscious: that is, not lit up for our conscious experience in the manner of a clear and distinct perception, but rather dim, vague, and deep, in the manner of unconscious experiences of our own bodily states in daily life. Prehension a felt relation to the past which becomes the seed of a new moment in our becoming.

Thus, in the course of our lives, we do not begin from scratch. We begin with what is already actual and has already happened: the world around us, our own histories, and the social, cultural, and environmental matrices in which we are embedded. The emotions, habits, and energies of others, and of our own pasts, live within us as prehended feelings—their hopes or hatreds, joys or griefs—felt inwardly by us. We then respond—creatively, or not.

Many of these prehensions are conformal - they reproduce the emotional tone or character of what is felt. They are instances of what Whitehead calls experience in the mode of causal efficacy: experience in the mode of being affected—and, in some sense, effected—by what has come before. To prehend conformally is to inherit the emotion as it was, without significant transformation.

For many—and perhaps most—of us, the past contains blessings and sources of nourishment. The past is experienced as a gift. We inherit memories of tenderness, gestures of care, moments of joy, and the quiet strength of those who came before us. These prehensions, too, are conformal—they carry the emotional tones of trust, courage, gratitude, and love. They live within us not as burdens but as quiet companions, shaping our responses to life with stability and grace. They are stabilizing, orienting, quietly redemptive. They make it possible to meet life’s scorpions without despair. They are the gentle echoes of a world that has, at least in part, meant well for us—and they remind us that the past, however complex, includes the seeds of resilience and the breath of beauty.

And yet, this is not the whole story. We carry within ourselves the accumulated energies of past relationships, inherited cultural traumas, unspoken societal expectations, voices of judgment, scripts of competition, and echoes of ancestral grief. These are not abstractions but felt realities—emotional vectors from the actual world that shape who we become. Some we inherit conformally and enact again without reflection, thus perpetuating cycles of harm.

When the scorpions multiply, when inherited pain dominates, and when our freedom is stifled by conformity to destructive patterns, the result is a soul in suffering. The very process by which we are woven into the world--prehension—becomes a medium of torment rather than transformation. Whitehead offers no denial of this tragedy. His metaphysics is grounded in realism about suffering and the enduring weight of the past.

Yet embedded in Whitehead’s vision is a sliver of hope. Even amid painful prehensions, there is always the initial aim—the lure of God or the Eros of the universe—which seeks to nudge the soul toward novelty, toward a healing response. The scorpions may fill the mind, but they do not have the final word. The task is to feel them fully, recognize their sources, and—if possible—respond not with repetition but with transformation. To prehend with contrast. To sting no more.

To deal with trauma is not to will it away but to attend to it with compassion and imagination—to feel its sting without being defined by it. It may take time, support, and practices of care to enlarge the field of possible feelings. But Whitehead’s vision insists: the future is never fully determined by the past. Even in the ruins of memory, the lure of transformation remains. To inherit with imagination is, in part, to make space for these moments of grace, where what has been does not entirely dictate what shall be. It is to live from the belief that, even in the shadow of scorpions, something new can still be born.

Practical Steps

Acknowledge the Scorpions: Begin by recognizing the presence of painful memories or patterns. Give them names if you can—fear, shame, betrayal, grief. Naming is not fixing, but it is a form of witnessing. In process terms, it is prehending with awareness rather than repression.

Cultivate Safe Spaces for Feeling: Trauma often lives in the body and nervous system. Find or create environments—physical, emotional, spiritual—where you can feel without being overwhelmed. This may involve trusted relationships, quiet spaces, or calming rituals. The body needs to feel safe before the soul can begin to heal.

Listen for the Initial Aim: In each moment, no matter how heavy the past, there is a subtle invitation—a divine lure—toward a better way of responding. Pay attention to glimmers of curiosity, small desires for connection, or longings for peace. These are signs that the future is not closed.

Practice Creative Contrast: Trauma often repeats itself in loops of sameness. Introduce difference—through art, writing, music, movement, or new conversations. This is how we “prehend with contrast.” Even a small variation in how we speak or breathe can disrupt cycles of inherited pain.

Build a Circle of Support: Healing is relational. Surround yourself with people who honor your experience without rushing you toward resolution. Therapists, spiritual guides, recovery groups, and soul friends can serve as mirrors and co-creators of new possibilities.

Honor the Body’s Wisdom: The body remembers what the mind cannot say. Practices like yoga, walking, dance, breathing exercises, or simply rest can support the slow release of traumatic energy. Be patient with your body’s rhythms—they are part of your becoming.

Grieve What Was Lost: Trauma often involves loss—of trust, of safety, of voice, of time. Allow yourself to mourn. Grief is not a detour from healing but part of its sacred terrain. Let yourself be companioned in it, and know that even sorrow is a form of honesty.

Seek Meaning, Not Mastery: You do not need to fully understand your trauma in order to heal. But you may find meaning along the way—a narrative, a lesson, a deeper compassion. Let healing be a process of unfolding, not solving.

Trust in the Ongoing Process: Healing is not linear. There will be regressions and renewals. In process philosophy, becoming is always in flux. Trust that each moment, however fragile, carries the potential for creative transformation.

Pass On Butterflies: As healing happens, even in fragments, you may find yourself able to offer grace to others—patience, understanding, kindness. These are the butterflies that emerge from the work of transformation. They do not erase the scorpions, but they live alongside them, and sometimes, outlast them.