Taking Spiritual Authority Over Trauma

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There’s a phrase that floats around many Christian spaces: “Just take authority over it.” Whether it’s fear, sickness, or trauma, the idea is that a believer can simply declare spiritual authority and expect immediate results.

But here’s the tension—if it were really that simple with trauma, then we’d have to address not just one spirit, but many. Trauma is not a single influence that can be cast aside with one declaration. It’s the hardwired result of lived experiences. It shapes how the brain, body, and soul respond to life. Trauma isn’t only about the influence of what happened—it’s about the way those events carved patterns into a person’s very being.

What Authority Actually Is

Let’s pause and talk about authority.

• In an organization, authority often sounds like: “What I say goes because this is our policy and I am enforcing it.”

• In spiritual activity, authority often sounds like: “What the Lord said is established here because it is His law.”

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Both are real forms of authority. But there’s one thing Heaven honors that human systems often forget: the power of agreement.

Why Agreement Is Non-Negotiable

It is arrogance to think you can take spiritual authority over trauma without the agreement, trust, and cooperation of the person who has been impacted by it. Here’s why:

Trauma doesn’t just hurt people—it counsels them.

• It educates them.

• It protects them.

• It governs them.

• It exerts a kind of lordship, offering the false promise of survival.

In many ways, trauma pretends to be sovereign. And the person who carries it has to walk through the painstaking process of coming out of agreement with its lies. That journey can’t be rushed, forced, or bypassed.

If you want to stand with someone in that process, your role isn’t to announce authority from a distance—it’s to be believable. If you emphatically say that trauma is a lie, you must also embody the kind of safety and credibility that makes that truth possible to receive.

A Call to Be Prepared

Here’s the truth: You don’t have to be a trauma expert to be trauma-informed. But if you’re going to address trauma, you must be prepared.

Prepared to listen.

Prepared to honor someone’s process.

Prepared to recognize that agreement with healing is not just spiritual—it is deeply relational.

Taking spiritual authority isn’t about overriding someone’s experience. It’s about aligning with Heaven’s order, honoring agreement, and walking with people as they disentangle themselves from trauma’s counterfeit sovereignty.

That is where true authority becomes healing.

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Conscious Coore is the founder of Flamingo Trauma Recovery, the creator of the Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention® framework, and author of Fundamentals of Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention. With a background in psychology, education, and inner healing ministry, she equips faith-aligned professionals to integrate clinical care and biblical wisdom for lasting transformation. Through her work with Jesus in the Marketplace, she highlights where Safe and Sound work is happening, even in spaces that often overlook the need for it.

consciouscoore.com