We are all broken in some way. How we respond to our brokenness depends upon good fortune and the beliefs we develop. In our everyday life, we seek meaning, connection, fulfillment, and love. This seeking is built into our DNA and is necessary for our survival in infancy. Throughout our lives, seeking and its fulfillment give meaning to our lives. In this article, I discuss these ideas and illustrate them with examples from my personal life and from my research on resilience and the meanings of violence to perpetrators. I conclude with reflections on beliefs and spiritual longing.

1. Brokenness, Beliefs, and Spirituality
By Jane Gilgun
Summary
We are all broken in some way. How we respond to our brokenness depends upon
good fortune and the beliefs we develop. In our everyday life, we seek meaning,
connection, fulfillment, and love. This seeking is built into our DNA and is necessary
for our survival in infancy. Throughout our lives, seeking and its fulfillment give
meaning to our lives. In this article, I discuss these ideas and illustrate them with
examples from my personal life and from my research on resilience and the
meanings of violence to perpetrators. I conclude with reflections on beliefs and
spiritual longing.
About the Author
Jane F. Gilgun, PhD, LICSW, is a professor, School of Social Work, University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. Jane does research on how persons cope with
adversities, the meanings of violence to perpetrators, and the development of
violent behaviors. See Jane’s other articles, books, and children’s stories on scribd,
Kindle, Nook, and other internet booksellers.

2. Brokenness, Beliefs, and Spirituality
I’m kind of an expert on feeling crappy and what to do about it. I’ve felt crappy for
much of my life. Being a social worker does that. Social workers put themselves in
situations where people are suffering. The hurts of others hurt us. For several years,
I worked directly with children and families where the children had experienced
abuse and neglect. After that, I interviewed perpetrators and survivors of various
types of violence for more than 20 years. I also have a long-term research project
with children and families who have experienced complex trauma. I had to learn
how to cope with feeling crappy if I wanted to continue as a social worker and have
a happy life.
Brokenness results from hurts that do not heal. I’ve concluded that many people are broken in
some ways. Who isn’t? There are different kinds of brokenness. In this article, I show how
beliefs and spirituality are part of how people respond to their brokenness and go on to live
fulfilling lives--or not.
Brokenness
I can’t imagine that anyone has a hurt-free life. Being hurt is an equal opportunity
experience. Some people have more hurt than others, but no one escapes
completely. Unhealed hurt leads to brokenness. Brokenness is like an open wound
that does not heal. Most of the time, we are unaware of our brokenness. Then
something happens that touches old wounds. We experience the hurt all over again.
Some people are so wounded that they are in a state of distress most of their waking
hours. Others are in distress sporadically and live most of their lives with varying
degrees of satisfaction and contentment.
Most of us enter the world crying. Being pushed out of the womb and squeezing
through the birth canal are not easy. Someone wipes us down and places us in our
mother’s arms. We are fed and comforted. That is the ideal when we are hurt: an
upsetting experience and then comfort. Being hurt and comforted happens
repeatedly. We are hungry. Our diapers need changing. We want to interact with
others. Our parents and others respond. Mutual pleasure happens. We are
comforted. Eventually, we recognize caring relationships as love. Throughout our
lives, we seek to give and receive love. Sometimes people are so hurt and broken,
they act as if they have given up on love. Dig deep into their despair, and there is
usually some hope of love.
We become broken when we are hurt and not comforted. Lack of response to hurt
leads to unhealed psychological wounds. Each of us is hurt in our own unique ways.

3. Examples of hurts that many people experience are parental deaths and
abandonments, witnessing parent verbal and physical abuse of each other or of
siblings, child sexual abuse, and sibling abuse. Sometimes the hurt results from
parental inattentiveness and actions of siblings who don’t realize that they are
inflicting hurt on other children in the family. Here are a few examples.
 A 13 year-old boy mocks his 8 year-old sister’s attempts at doing the same
cheers as her older sister who is a cheerleader. He then laughs when she runs
upstairs and hides in a closet. The parents are not home. When the little girl
tells her mother what her brother had done, the mother says, “Ignore him.”
The little girl says, “I can’t ignore him. It hurts.” The mother does not respond
and does not reprimand the older brother. He mocks and teases her for
years.
 A 7 year-old girl pinches her 4 year-old brother and laughs when he cries.
The parents tell both kids, “Knock it off.” When the little boy seeks comfort,
the parents say, “Buck up. Don’t be a sissy.”
Sometimes, because of previous unhealed hurts, people begin to expect to be hurt.
They interpret actions as hurtful when, from other points of view, they are not.
Here’s an example. Daddy comes home drunk. Children believe Daddy must not love
them. They feel hurt. They need immediate help to understand that when Daddy
gets drunk, alcohol was on the top of his mind. He liked how he felt when he drank.
He drank to the point where he got drunk. His mind simply was not on his children.
If he had thought that getting drunk means to his children that he doesn’t love them,
he might not have gotten drunk.
On the other hand, what getting drunk means to him may often block out thoughts
of what his children might believe. Whatever the case might be, children need help
in understanding that Daddy gets drunk and Daddy loves them. Both are true. Of
course, if there is convincing evidence that Daddy doesn’t love them, children need
help with that. If Daddy doesn’t love them, that means Daddy has a problem with
love. The children remain loveable even if Daddy doesn’t have what it takes to love
them.
Many events cause wounds, but if other people are there for us, we learn to cope.
The wounds are manageable, if not healed.
So far, the discussion has centered on children and young people. Adults, too, are not
immune to hurt. Those who get fired from a job or laid off, who go through a divorce
or a break up of a relationship, or who experience the death of a child or other
tragedy have obvious hurts. How adults cope depends a great deal on how others
helped them to cope when they were children and teens. Difficult events in
adulthood can trigger memories of old, unhealed wounds. We experience a cascade
of events, emotions, and thoughts.

4. As we work with managing our emotional wounds, we gradually can experience
hurt and love at the same time. That is, we can experience hurt, sadness, loss, and
love simultaneously.
Beliefs
Each person is hurt in her or his own unique ways, but the beliefs about the hurt are
surprisingly similar. Many children who are hurt believe they are bad and did
something to deserve being hurt. Other common beliefs are “No one likes me,” “No
one loves me.” “I’m stupid,” “I’m different,” and “I’m ugly.” Some say, “I hate you,” to
their parents or others. Still others say, “I’m going to kill myself.” Often, it seems as
if we will feel this way forever.
What children believe about their hurts depends upon how parents and others have
treated them in the past. If parents and others have been sensitive and responsive to
them previously, they will seek comfort from others. They trust that others will help
them sort through the meanings of the hurts, such as whether or not they are bad
kids who deserve to be treated badly. Such children have experienced consistent,
responsive care, although rarely are other people there for us all of the time. We
learn the word love as the name of experiences of caring, affirmation, and
tenderness. I believe the desire to love and to be loved is built into our genes.
If parents have been of the “buck up” type, then children may not seek others out.
They are stuck with their unshared beliefs about why they were hurt. Some of these
children might seek to be with people who like or love them, but they don’t talk
about their beliefs about being bad, ugly, and unloved. They get comfort but these
kinds of actions don’t get to the wounds themselves. They wounds remain unhealed.
For wounds to heal, it’s as if someone has to place a healing finger of love on them.
This is an exquisite experience.
If parents have responded indifferently or punitively to hurts in the past, children
may not seek others for fear of feeling even worse. Sometimes children of over-
reacting parents do not share their own hurts because they are protective of their
parents. They see their parents as having their own problems and don’t want to add
to them. They may feel lost and alone with things that trouble them. Children who
were sexually abused and adults who were sexually abused in childhood sometimes
don’t tell their parents out of a desire to protect. They know their parents love
them, but they don’t tell them about the abuse because they don’t want to upset
them further. They also are afraid that their parents might stop loving them.
Beliefs Underground
Most of us bury negative beliefs about ourselves so deeply that we don’t realize that
we have them. They stay with us throughout our lives. Only during times of high
stress we realize that we beliefs about ourselves and what we deserve or don’t
deserve. They are beliefs that begin to develop when we are babies and young

5. children. When we bring them to light, we can deal with them and see that they are
untrue and hurtful. When we see them as leftovers from earlier ages, we are on our
way to liberation from them. If we don’t bring them to light, these baby beliefs
influence how we think and feel today.
The Experience of Brokenness
When wounds are touched, raw emotion and beliefs are triggered. Memories of old
hurts spring back to life. Many people go into a tailspin. Their thoughts and
emotions are often chaotic and confusing. Their heart rates and blood pressure go
up. Stress hormones are released into the blood stream. Brain circuits are so active,
they practically are on fire they are so active. Even seemingly mature and well put-
together people may have this cascade of memories, emotions, beliefs, and bodily
responses. Researchers call this state dysregulation. Dysregulation hurts so much we
do whatever it takes to get some relief.
Coping with Brokenness
Fortunate adults have learned since childhood that there are no easy answers to
these powerful states. They have to run their course. Before we get to this
constructive mind set, we usually first do things we later regret, such as taking
things out on others, over eating, or driving recklessly. Some people make seek relief
through drugs, alcohol, or sex. In fact, these unkind and self-destructive acts may
prod us into realizing that we are dysregulated. Fortunate persons do something
constructive, such as finding someone to talk to, meditating, journaling, and doing
vigorous exercise while allowing themselves to experience whatever is going on for
them. Through such means, the dysregulation comes to a natural end, and we can let
go of the painful emotions and beliefs.
Many people learn too late or not at all that dysregulation is a process that has to
run its course. Because dysregulation hurts, we short-circuit the process and push
our emotions and beliefs underground. We are at risk to develop health problems,
like chronic depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addictions, headaches,
poor eating habits, heart trouble, and diabetes. We may become preoccupied with
our own problems or numb to them. As a result, we become emotionally and
psychologically distant from others. The underlying issues may develop a life of
their own, popping out in inappropriate situations with inappropriate people.
When we push our issues underground, we are at risk to develop additional beliefs.
For example, rather than facing down beliefs about ourselves as bad, ugly, stupid,
and unworthy, some people view others this way. When we see other people like
this, we may believe that we can treat others as badly. We can think that they are
jerks, or ugly, stupid, and unworthy and therefore deserve to be mocked, ignored,
and disrespected. We then are at risk to be abusive and cruel.
When we don’t grapple with and let do of negative beliefs about ourselves, we may

6. put ourselves on a pity pot and feel sorry for ourselves. We now have a good excuse
not to do much with our lives. We may then develop other beliefs about how
incompetent we are and how pathetic. We spiral further downward, creating self-
fulfilling prophesies.
In states of self-pity, we are at risk to develop a sense of entitlement. We give
ourselves permission to take whatever we want without regard for what others
might want. We believe we deserve whatever it is we want. In grocery stores, we
pop grapes into our mouths without paying . We snip a rose out of a neighbor’s
garden. We buy silver tableware we know is stolen. When we have beliefs of
entitlement, we not only are out of touch with our own inner beliefs and emotions,
but we also out of touch with the inner beliefs and states of others. We don’t think
about the effects of our behaviors on others.
Sadly, we put ourselves at risk, too. What, for example, might happen if someone
sees you nicking the neighbor’s rose or the cops trace the stolen silver to you?
Common sense becomes uncommon when we have beliefs of entitlement and act of
them.
Affirming Beliefs
Fortunate adults don’t develop self-pity and beliefs of entitlement. We know
through our own experience that bad things happen to good people and that we are
good people. We see ourselves and others as flawed and broken, and we love
ourselves and others for our brokenness and our goodness. We are in touch with
our beliefs and emotions and have regard for the beliefs and emotions of others. We
spend time promoting the interests of others without seeking recognition or reward
other than inner satisfaction. In short, we are capable of love.
We also know that we are deeply flawed human beings who are capable of hurting
others and ourselves. When we do, we take corrective measures. We may talk things
out with other, first perhaps others not involved in a difficult situation. We may
meditate on what we did and journal. Then we talk to the people we may have
harmed. We listen to and accept whatever others have to say about our behaviors.
We take full responsibility for our actions and take appropriate measures to repair
the damage. If others don't want to deal with us, we respect that.
We know what love is because we have experienced love; that is, we have
experienced sensitive and responsive care and have experienced the satisfaction,
peace, and contentment that come along with such care. We believe that feel loved
and loving give meanings to our lives.
Dysregulation and negative beliefs about the self are part of being human and have
nothing to do with worthiness or unworthiness, being good or being bad. To live as
if this is true requires effort. No matter how well put-together anyone is, we have
much to learn about our deeper selves and other persons. Our search for meaning

7. and for understanding does not end.
Entitlement Unrelated to Brokenness
Some children appear to develop beliefs of entitlement that are unrelated to self-
pity and to brokenness. Maybe their parents and other adults did not help them to
develop beliefs and values that sensitize them to the dignity and worth of others.
Maybe no one taught them to think about the well-being of others. Maybe they never
learned to share, but parents and others allowed them to take what they wanted
without reminding them that they really do have to think about what other people
might want.
Children like this grow into young people and adults whose beliefs go like this. “Big
me. Little you.” “If I can take advantage of you or of a situation, I will.” “I have so
many interesting things to say. People love to hear my stories.” “If I can make
someone else do something, then I’m on top.” “What’s mine is mine. What’s your is
yours.” People like this are difficult to deal with and can become clever at getting
others to do their bidding. They may have intuitions about the emotional wounds
and hurts of others. Rather than being compassionate and empathic, they use the
vulnerabilities of others to get what they want.
Children, young people, and adults who are like this take advantage of the power
they have over others. They continually hurt others and appear unaware,
indifferent, and self-congratulatory. Children, spouses, and employees of persons
who have these beliefs and who act this way require a great deal of help to learn to
cope with the hurts that develop. People who have these beliefs and who act this
way may or may not be seeking peace and contentment but they do seek excitement
and a sense of accomplishment at being more powerful than others. Even they,
maybe, are seeking what most everyone else seeks: a spiritual connection. For the
rest of us, a self-protective distancing and hope that they will change appear to be
the compassionate responses. Compassionate, too, is the hope that they can find
their way to some appreciation of spiritual connection through respect for the
dignity and worth of others.
Spirituality
Spirituality is a sense of goodness, love, stability, connection, and meaning. Human
beings begin their lives with a kind of inner gyroscope that seeks this lovely state. In
infancy, this state of being is survival. When infants cry, they are uncomfortable and
seek the pleasure and even bliss of touch, food, interaction, and clean diapers. They
seek a loving, lovely state of being. When they run toward daddy and mommy with
arms outstretched, they are seeking this state of being. They seek love.
I believe this state is being is a kind of “set point,” meaning we are made to long for
and to seek for this state of being. This state of being includes not only love, but
affirmation and a sense that I’m ok, everyone else is ok, and all is right in the world,

8. even when we also know how sad and difficult things can be and how flawed we and
others are.
There are many other definitions of spirituality that are connected to various
religions, religious faith, and ethnic identities. In this article, spirituality is
unconnected to religion and ethnicity but is a state of being associated with love,
lovingness, and affirmation.
Cruel Acts and Spiritual Longing
When we experience brokenness, we are in an uncomfortable state of being. We
seek to re-establish connection to with a sense of rightness, of peace, affirmation,
contentment, happiness and sometimes excitement. I first saw this with child
molesters, of all people. Many described a sense of feeling crappy as a step toward
seeking a child to abuse. When something went wrong, the first thing many of them
thought of was to have sex with a child. It worked. I heard men describe the
experience of child sexual abuse as “bliss,” “the greatest feeling in the world,” and a
“love affair.” One man called it a fix, because it “fixed how I was feeling.” Talk about
selfish entitlement. They wanted to feel better. They did whatever it took. They had
callous disregard for the children and for those who loved the children. They didn’t
even think about long-term consequences for themselves.
Men survivors of childhood abuse and neglect and who were sexual addicts and not
abusers told me that since childhood they had masturbated several times a day in
order to feel better. I then began to see harmful and self-destructive behaviors as
attempts to cheer themselves. Other men and women I interviewed cheered
themselves up with food, alcohol, gambling, dominating others, going on spending
sprees, embezzlement, and getting into fights in bars. These are efforts to find that
“set point,” that state of being where all is right in the world.
Applications to Myself
As I did this research, I began to see myself in some of the stories the participants
told. I realized that I sometimes used food to cheer myself up, to feel better. Anger at
other drivers on the road, dancing, swimming, playing the flute, and going for walks
were other ways of cheering myself up. Other ways I developed over time were
going to church, joining Al-Anon, learning ways of developing conscious contact
with something spiritual outside of myself, within me, and in all of life. Some became
part of me naturally and some with conscious effort. Like the men I had
interviewed, I chose actions that worked, that cheered me up, that helped me feel
stability and peace.
Similarities
As I talked to men who committed violence and men survivors who did not commit
violence, I saw the similarities and differences. Men of both types often had

9. negative beliefs such as “I’m no good.” “No one loves me.” “I can’t do anything right.”
“I’m worthless.” Many from both groups also had great capacities for dysregulation.
They could go into seemingly endless tailspins and weave fantasies about what
other people are doing to them and what they’d like to do to others. In these
negative belief systems, these men are no different the rest of us.
Differences
The first difference I noticed between men who acted out in violent ways and men
survivors who did not were that the men survivors had the capacity to share their
emotions and beliefs with others, and they sought people out in order to do so. They
sometimes waited for years until they found someone they trusted. They also were
in touch with their own emotions; that is, they knew and named their emotions. On
the whole, they did not distance themselves from their inner states.
The men who acted out in violent ways did not share their beliefs and emotions.
Man after man told me that they simply did not share. Some had no idea what
emotions are. A few had shared instances of abuse and neglect with people outside
of the family but the people they confided in reported back to the parents who
abused them for telling. They stopped talking to others about things that bothered
them.
The next difference I noticed were beliefs about entitlement. In seeking to feel
better; that is, in seeking a state of bliss, stability, connection, happiness, and love,
the men who committed violent acts had beliefs of entitlement that they could do
whatever they wanted to in order to get to this state of being. They disregarded the
effects of their behaviors on others and the long-term effects on themselves.
Some believed themselves to be monsters to behave this way, but whenever they
were about to sexually abuse again, thoughts of being a monster evaporated.
Others, especially those who committed acts of physical aggression took pride in the
amount of damage they inflicted and the physical damage to their own bodies.
Broken jaws and black eyes were marks of courage and manhood.
A few men survivors told me that they had had sexual fantasies about children. This
alarmed them so much, they not only avoided being with children, but they also
sought therapy. Their beliefs about the dignity and worth of children stopped them
from acting out their fantasies. They didn’t want to have to view themselves as child
molesters. They didn’t want the disgrace when the molestation came to light. They
didn’t want to hurt children and others who loved the children. A few others said
that they had hit their wives and girlfriends and sought treatment because they did
not want to be that way. Rather than finding bliss and fulfillment in physical
aggression, they were horrified at what they had done and found reason to change
their ways. Several of the men survivors were active in Alcoholics Anonymous and
Narcotics Anonymous. They realized that their attempts at coping through drugs

10. and alcohol hurt themselves and others. They sought other ways of attaining the
bliss, contentment, love, and connection they often wanted desperately.
Us and Them
Most of us are not child molesters, wife beaters, and murderers. We many never
have hit another person or became alcoholics and addicts of other types. Our beliefs
stop us. Considerations of effects of our behaviors stop us. For example, when we
say, “I could strangle her” or “I hope he dies a slow and painful death,” other beliefs
and images spring to life, such as how ridiculous those thoughts are and how awful
it would be if these things came true.
It took me a few years of listening to how pleasurable violence is to see that I took
pleasure in thinking violent thoughts and imagining violent actions, however briefly.
I used to laugh for a second when I imagined ramming into a car whose driver had
just cut me off. Then images of blood and gore, crashed cars, pain and suffering
sprang to life in my imagination. I stopped laughing at the thought of committing
such acts and laughed at myself for reacting that way. I believed I was better than
that. I believed I had no right to hurt others, no matter what they do.
Spiritual longings appear to be at the root of harmful acts, helpful acts, and most if
not all acts. People who harm others and themselves want states of connection,
peace, love, meaning, fulfillment, excitement, fun, satisfaction, accomplishment, and
bliss. There is nothing wrong with what they want. How they go about getting what
they want is wrong.
I believe that spiritual longings are part of our DNA and are necessary for survival.
Beyond the desire to survive, our longings bring depth, breadth, and meaning to our
lives when we act in loving ways toward self and others and seek to do no harm.
Discussion
I am beginning to think that in many ways, we are not that different from people
who commit great harm to others and to themselves. We share many negative
beliefs with them. The differences appear to be in our positive, life-enhancing
beliefs. We do not act on the evil in our hearts because we anticipate negative
consequences and we do not want to harm other people and ourselves. Our beliefs
in the dignity and worth of others stop us from acting badly. Others who do harmful
things may believe this, too, but at the pivotal moments their life-enhancing beliefs
do not activate themselves. Their negative beliefs have no pushback. Harm ensues
even as they experience fulfillment, bliss, and even love, at least temporarily. Most
people who do terrible things to others are only part-time mean and destructive.
Others often view them as loving members of families and pillars of the community.
Of course, it only takes a one-time act to commit great harm to others and to the self.

11. Some people who are hurt and who develop negative beliefs early on are left pretty
much on their own. They develop few if any beliefs to help them handle their hurt.
They may only infrequently experience the goodness that is all around us and within
each living being. They may have buried a sense of hope under layers of negative
experiences and beliefs. It may take a lot to deal with these layers. There is always
hope.
I can love others who are flawed and broken and who do things I don’t like and who
hurt me. I can love myself even as I see myself as deeply flawed, broken, and needy.
I work at loving myself even as I do all of this imperfectly. It can take a lifetime of
good fortune and conscious effort to experience life in this way, good fortune in
terms of who was with is and is with us along the way and how we responded and
continue to respond to the goodness that is all around and within us.
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