The Empty Cup

It happened so slowly. By millimeters. Over time, the responsibilities piled on, and the stress mounted. Little by little, I would pour myself out into first one project, then the other, and then ... the toll started to get heavier and heavier. 

My body noticed it first; however, my mind had other things to attend to, and I missed those warning signs. Lost sleep, inability to stay asleep. I would wake up tired, sometimes two hours before my usual waking time, sometimes three. More and more often this would happen. My back and legs felt heavy, achy, tired. My feet hurt. I had headaches more frequently. My chemical sensitivities started acting up more. 

As the stress increased, my ability to maintain my weight - or to lose weight - vanished. Oh, not all at once, to be sure, but it became more and more difficult to lose. And incrementally, I started to gain. It was discouraging. But I didn't make the connection. I took on more and more. Life got way more stressful and I couldn't figure out how stuff just piled on.

As it progressed, I became less and less tolerant, more and more impatient. My filter - that little internal monitor that keeps me from saying or doing things to offend people - started to erode, to slip away from me. I couldn't concentrate. My motivation was shrinking. I procrastinated on crucial tasks. I isolated from other people and convinced myself I was too busy to spend time with them. Things got worse. 

And then the work doubled, tripled, overnight. Something I thought I could do, suddenly became a lot harder. I started feeling my age - and beyond. 

I started dreading going to work because it took time away from doing things I no longer had enough time to do. Like homework. The course I am taking in University is the hardest I have ever taken by far - and I feel unequal to the task.

And this morning, I finally broke. On the way to work, I started crying. I was overwhelmed. And I reached out to the only person around my age that I absolutely KNEW had my back: my husband. As I described my symptoms, he became alarmed. He knew - as I had begun to suspect - that I was well on my way to burnout. 

He was right.

I got this image free from Pixabay! Check them out at
https://www.pixabay.com

 The saying goes, "You can't pour from an empty cup." My cup had been evaporating so slowly that I didn't even see it was getting low. And now I was looking at the dregs. 

So again, I reached out. I see a doctor tomorrow, and will see a psychologist before the end of next week, hopefully. I approached my boss, who was awesome by the way, and asked for some time off to regroup. I was able to free up some time to look after myself, and to concentrate on my studies for a little while. How long, I'm not sure - but at least now I have options. When I started the day, I didn't think I had any.

Now I can turn my attention to my cup - to start to clean out the sticky crud at the bottom and to fill it with cool, clear water instead.

Now I can get some rest ... and focus on what matters most. To my surprise, I found out that it was ... me.

Beginning the beginning

It was a week before Christmas 2008. Fast-forward through the impatient waiting for my drive, the frantic phone calls, the worry, the fear of finding him slumped over the wheel ... the tight-lipped drive to the emergency room in mixed relief, anger, and panic - and the waiting for the blood tests to show what I already knew.

Never mind that I'd been trying to hold it together, lurching from crisis to crisis and keeping the wolf at bay through several half-truths and self-delusions that "it isn't that bad" - the growing uneasiness that maybe this was too big for me to handle, the denial that I needed help from outside myself. 

Amazing how our perceptions of the season change
from the time we are children and snow just means
fun making snowmen.

Those who know me well, know that winter is my least favorite season of the whole year. I hate the cold, the snow, the wind, the slippery roads, the cleaning off of the vehicle, the shoveling, the heavy clothing, the scraping, the extra time traveling more slowly, the scarcity of parking, and so forth and so on. Whenever possible, I would let him drive, preferring not to face winter slushy, dirty, yucky traffic. 

Which is why, when the doctor told me that he would have to report the incident (me finding him slumped over the wheel with the motor running, plus his blood alcohol level) and that the standard penalty for this offense was losing one's license for 6 months, I felt cold, icy fingers of fear rising up from my gut and closing around my throat. I instantly envisioned months of driving in winter, braving the horrible winter elements, stretching out in front of me.

I also saw the inevitable questions, the anticipated judgment of those from whom I'd been able to hide his secret, and the cold shoulders that I just knew would result, and I started to tremble.

I was SCARED. Irrationally, unreasonably afraid.

I felt the weight of being the only driver in the family at the worst possible time of year, the isolation that came with that, the inconvenience of assuming the responsibility of carting people where they wanted to go (he'd always done that) whenever they wanted to go. It would be at least two more months, probably three, before he could get into Rehab; he'd already been "bumped" from the waiting list once. I didn't know how much longer I could DO this.

I truly didn't know where to turn. The driving was only the tip of the iceberg. It unveiled a whole host of other things I had been afraid to face, shed a spotlight on how dangerous it was for him to even be on the road, how I had been hiding from just how unacceptable it all was. I felt like I couldn't talk to a whole lot of people, that nobody would understand how I felt, bearing the consequences of his drinking and feeling like I couldn't afford to fall apart - yet wanting so very much to bury my head under the covers and never come out! Nobody I knew would understand that "overwhelmed" feeling, the shame, the fear, the anger, the constant pressure. 

Nobody except - perhaps - someone who dealt with this kind of stuff all the time.

The idea began, just like that. Just a seed of thought at first. Someone had to understand me. I needed someone to comprehend. A stranger perhaps. Someone who didn't know me, who had nothing to do with the circles in which I was involved. 

It percolated through Christmas and into New Year's Day. By that time, the idea had rooted and was starting to take shape. I'd call the treatment center. They had family counselors. I'd talk to someone there. Nobody had to know.

I didn't know what would become of this. I didn't know that this would be the very first step I would take toward healing in my own life, the first chink toward crumbling the facade I'd built up and beginning a life of honesty and vulnerability, of openness and commitment to being real, of freedom from so many things that had shackled my soul for so many years. I had no way of knowing that it would open the door to so much good that has happened since that time, only the least of which was learning that I actually COULD drive and survive in the winter. :) I couldn't have possibly predicted the friendships that would strengthen, the new friendships that would form and the amazing journey I was about to start.

I just knew I needed help. 

It was early January. My head in my hands and my elbows propped up on the kitchen table, I glanced beside my elbow to the 7-digit number I'd written down on a slip of paper. The numbers slowly lost their blurriness as I blinked and wiped the tears from my cheeks. 

With trembling fingers I reached for the phone.

Learning to sit tight - and then some

"It won't be long now. Sit tight." This is a common statement I've been encouraging myself with lately. 

Are the days something to be endured
or something to be embraced

Diminishing "today"

I've been waiting for a few weeks for certain specific promised events to happen. The timing of these events is completely out of my control, and yet I am figuratively kicking at the fence, checking the mailbox - as if by doing so, I could hurry it up - and the "new me" recognizes that it's the "old me" that's so impatient. 

I don't complain as much, so I'm better at waiting than I used to be. 

Or am I?  My former obsession with controlling the end result by harping and hounding, by ranting and railing, has given way to a more subtle monitoring of the situation, trying to manipulate or at least watch what's going on. 

Even knowing when something is likely to happen doesn't help, because then I cross the days off the calendar in my mind, and fall into the "I can't wait" mind-set. When I catch myself saying, "I can't wait" for this or that to happen, that's when the alarm bells start going off. Viewing this or that day, or this or that group of days (such as Monday to Friday?) as something to be endured before I can begin to live or enjoy life, is completely opposed to the lifestyle that I have adopted the last few years: "Live fully today." If I am marking time until some future date happens, aren't I wasting the potential for joy and happiness that I could experience today? Can't I find something about this day for which I can be grateful?

Perhaps I need to encourage myself with a different message - like "One day at a time" or "Let go and let God" ... and ask myself an action-inducing question, like, "What can I do to accept and enjoy today just as it is?"

Hmm.

Active Voice

One of the first things that any writing coach will tell his or her students is the difference between two different writing styles: passive voice and active voice.

Passive voice means that the object is acted upon by the subject, and the object is mentioned first.  Example: "The man was licked on the face by the dog."  Active voice means that the one doing the action is mentioned first, and then the action, and then the object.  Example: "The dog licked the man's face."  

Active voice is far more direct.  It's active: it's easy to follow who did what to whom.  Passive voice implies that the action is "happening to" the main character.  

But it's not just in writing that I've seen examples of these two voices.  I actually LIVED in the passive voice most of my life.  My whole attitude was that things "happened TO" me.  I was not actively participating in my life; I felt that I was the victim of things and forces beyond my control, pushed around from pillar to post.  Therefore, I would constantly run to this person and that person asking for understanding, help, prayer, support, encouragement, validation.  My most common statement was, "I just don't know why these things keep happening to me."  And it wouldn't matter how much support or advice I got.  I'd be off to the next person, asking for the same kind of understanding, the same kind of affirmation.  

When I got into recovery from that kind of mind-set and started taking responsibility for my own actions and expecting others to take responsibility for theirs, I noticed a slow shift in my attitude toward life.  Things "happened" less and less to me.  

Oh, to be sure, life still throws me curve balls and there are situations that do still baffle me.  But they are fewer.  Or is it that my thinking has changed? 

Perhaps, even though stuff still happens, my attitude is now more like this:  I make decisions (even the wrong ones) and I live with the consequences of those decisions. People are still mean or vindictive to me, but that doesn't have to dictate how I react; I don't have to lie down and take it like I once felt I had to do in order to be "nice."  

I can ask for what I want. That's a pretty big deal for me.  

Yes, I don't have to like it when something unexpected occurs.  Yes, I am still allowed to have feelings about it and to talk about it.  But what my recovery has taught me is that God is trustworthy.  Always.  That instead of my last resort, He has become my first go-to Person.  That I don't have to ride the coat-tails of someone else's relationship with Him in order for God to listen to me.  And that I'm worth taking up space, having my own opinion, praying for my own needs, and looking after myself rather than expecting others to take care of me.  

It's a new feeling - unfamiliar even. And it's kinda scary.  But I like it.

Let it go

Let it go.

But what if it does something I don't want it to do?

You can't control what it does anyway.  Let it go.

But I've held onto it for so long!

Then it's time.  Let it go.

It's going to be so hard!

I know.  I'll be there.  Let it go.

But I'm afraid!

I'll be holding you and I'll never let go of you; you can lean on Me.  Let it go.

But if I let it go, it'll be like saying I don't care - and I DO care!

I know. The best care you can give right now is to yourself.  Let it go.

But if I let it go, it'll be like I am saying that what happened is okay, that I'm okay with it - and I'm not!

I know how you feel in your heart.  Really.  Let it go. 

But I CAN'T!!

I CAN.  Trust Me.  Let it go.

From THIS SITE

A Bigger Picture

The last few months, I've been focusing on working out my response to some burning and long-standing boundary issues with my birth family. Basically the Cole's Notes version is that (1) I have boundaries now, and that I need to look after myself, and (2) they - well - they don't get that.  

I've been trying very hard to figure out what is the right thing to do, praying about it, talking it over with people I trust.

It all boils down to this.  What I've really been trying to do is the same old thing: trying to get these people to think better of me.  It is difficult for me to accept that the people who are supposed to be my safe haven - just aren't.  How sad is that? not only for me, but for them?

About two weeks ago, I got a relatively long letter ready to send to one family member in particular, explaining my reasons for pulling away and setting a boundary based on her behaviour.  But I didn't send it.  As loving a tone as I tried to set for what I thought I had to say - deep inside I knew that what I had to say would hurt this person, because she doesn't understand in the least and would take anything I said as a personal attack.  I know this because that is what has been done so many times in the past by this permanent citizen of the continent of Victim-land. (I know the terrain well; I used to live there, right by the river of Denial next to the over-inhabited city of Martyrdom.  It's a sad, pitiful place.) 

I just shredded the letter this morning. 

Found this photo at THIS SITE

Last week, on a totally unrelated matter, I sent a second letter to someone else - in response to an inner prompting that didn't have anything to do with me.  It was only a couple of paragraphs, and it was to someone I care for very much - who is NOT a family member.  As it happened, (and as God usually does) the letter arrived just at the right time, and met an emotional need that went beyond anything I could have imagined.  The timing was ... well, it was perfect.  And God worked it out perfectly.  I was humbled - awed - by it all and I still am. 

As I pondered this morning about those two letters, the differences between my motivations for writing them came crashing through.  The second had nothing to do with myself but only with the person to whom I sent it, and only to build up and encourage. 

The first, on the other hand, had more to do with justifying my choices and my feelings to someone who could no more understand them - than a person completely blind from birth could understand the colour red.  Different universe. As Someone wise said once, "[Don't] cast your pearls before swine, lest they turn on you ... and tear you apart ..."  Basically that means that if someone couldn't possibly understand - don't give them ammunition to use against you. Because they will.

Point taken.  :s

Comparing the two letters, I realized that I felt about each of the intended recipients in opposite ways, too.  The first was written to someone with whom I have never felt and still do not feel emotionally safe, nor do I trust that person around my children or my husband.  She would find a way to end up making me look like the villain, a classic case of projection (attributing to another person one's own motives and character while hiding those very things from oneself).  

If I can't trust her with my own loved ones, what makes me think I can trust her with words on paper conveying my innermost thoughts? No, as difficult as it is for me to refrain from self-justification, I must.

The second letter recipient, though, has been a friend through a lot of ups and downs - and has been a safe place to land and be myself when I needed to be loved and not judged.

She is a kindred spirit.  A sheltered harbour.  A welcoming soul.  

When I prayed for clarification as to my motivations and whether to send that first letter (to the unsafe person), I was shown - given a bigger picture from higher up - how I don't need to chase after the approval of someone who will never approve of me.  

And conversely, I don't need to keep asking for approval from someone who already loves me anyway (wouldn't it be insulting after a while if your spouse or your child came to you every single day and asked if you approved of him or her?) I can accept that I am already accepted. I don't have to prove anything. 

As a people-pleaser in my natural state, I would normally be blind to that sort of thing.  It's not something I would have seen on my own. So I am grateful for this epiphany.  Even though it might not seem like a big deal to someone else, it's a lesson I never learned in active codependency, and I am thankful. It's simply this, in a nutshell: seeking approval from anyone but God only leads to heartache in one way or another - for me, or for the person from whom I am seeking approval.  Or both. 

And in the final analysis, God's opinion is the only one that matters anyway.

What a relief!!

Out of the mire

I had an experience today that was a little challenging.

I'll not go into details but it was a touch upsetting because someone misunderstood my motives and went behind my back to someone else instead of coming to me.  In trying to understand what went wrong and what I could have done differently, I did learn some lessons about human behavior and also about how insidious my desire to please people (or should I say "people-please" as a verb) really is.  

I'm learning - and relearning - and relearning - that I am a distinct person from others, and others are separate from me.  I don't HAVE to feel bad (or glad, or sad) because they feel that way.  I shouldn't expect them to feel a certain way just because I do.  I keep relearning it because ... well, it's new to me and I need practice.

This separate-ness is a hard lesson for someone whose whole life revolved around having everyone approve of me, and not making anybody mad, and wanting desperately for someone to give two hoots about me - to the point of changing myself into what I thought they wanted ... just to be accepted.  And not letting people know (out of fear they'd reject me) that they'd crossed a line. 

The truth is, I lived in an amorphous liquid mass, a pool of mire in which my identity was tied up in everyone else's - and I assumed that everyone else's identity was tied up in mine.  

In some cases it was more than in others, and I believed that that state of being - that miry homogenous existence - was called love.  

It isn't love.  It's dysfunction.  It's unhealthy: a collective consciousness in which I become swallowed up in the wishes and thoughts of others and no longer have an individuality of my own.  It's - well, for Star Trek TNG and Voyager fans, it's the Borg!  

I am a unique person, created with God-given gifts and talents.  So is this person, and that one, and all of them individually.  Learning that they exist apart from me (although our lives may touch each other in some way) has been so freeing for me.  And it is equally liberating every time I relearn it too... because it's when I start to slip back into that black, oily mire in which nothing is distinctive and it all melds together - that the lesson of detachment is the strongest and most life-giving.  It helps me to take responsibility for my own actions, and allow other people to take responsibility for theirs.  It takes the burden off me that was never intended to be there, and allows me to respond instead of react, to have compassion and confidence rather than cringing at what someone else might think. 

And that's a big deal.

Fostering Function - not Dysfunction

The reason I so often hear "crickets" (figuratively speaking) when I share something I've been learning is because not everyone is in the same place...and I get that.  But it dawned on me this morning that it could also be because our society has for generations misinterpreted the Judeo-Christian message and morphed it into some sort of masochistic self-punishment monster that it was never meant to be.  

There's a sign on a church bulletin board outside the building, probably in front of hundreds of churches across North America at one time or another, that says, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less."  But most people think that it IS right to think less of themselves - yes, even godly to do so!!  So they subscribe to "put the other person first" dogma but the underlying belief is "put the other person first at the expense of yourself" - which leads to burnout and resentment. I hardly think that this is what Jesus referred to when He said that one of the two greatest commandments ever given was, "Love your neighbor AS yourself."  (emphasis mine).

So people get all caught up in trying to outdo each other in social situations - oh you know, Johnnie and Sue invited us over to their house a week ago Sunday and they had lasagna and garlic bread - boy was it delicious!  We have to do at least as well.  So!  We're going to invite them over this week and have a BBQ with three kinds of salad, two different types of sausages, steak and chicken, and walking nachos, and cheesecake for dessert! Then Johnnie and Sue feel obligated to at least match the spread - and it turns into a thinly veiled game/war of one-up-man-ship. 

Or people stay in abusive relationships because they think that by being nice and taking care of the abuser, he/ she might change.  And by abuse I don't mean physical necessarily.  I've been in relationships when the person just "uses" me - picks my brain and only has anything to do with me when they want to pick my area of expertise clean.  Or they explode and use me to vent their feelings toward someone else, thus involving me in their "stuff" over and over and over again - or they ask me to do favors for them and after awhile, come to expect them. Or they think they have the right to tell me how to live my life, raise my kids, or treat my husband - and use that "right" at every opportunity in order to try to control MY outcome. Or they call themselves my friends ... and appear to take every opportunity to exclude me from their circle.  These things have happened over and over again for as far back as I can remember. 

I know from experience that people who use people will keep on using people.  Even if you DO tell them what they're doing and that it's hurtful. So I've learned - as painful as that process is EVERY TIME - to walk away (either literally or emotionally) from people who consistently use me.  Even if there ARE good times, good memories. Even if the person IS a member of my family.  Ouch - that one hurts especially, because it usually comes with the sting of disappointment, betrayal and shame.  And not entered into lightly, I can tell you.  

But the "Christian" thing to do, the "nice" thing to do is to let that person (whoever he or she is, whatever the relationship) walk all over me, apparently.  To suffer in silence, to never say anything.  Hm.  I somehow don't think that it is.  Yet ... it is fostered in the church - in western society - and sweeping statements like "family is everything" and "church is family" have swept a multitude of inappropriate behaviors under the carpet and allowed them to be tolerated and glossed over far too long.  I held the broom for decades - the rose colored glasses were firmly fixed, the bows welded to my temples.  I was in deep denial.  "They only lied to me because they care about my feelings." (Denial.)  "They're just busy.  A LOT." (Denial.) "Oh, he / she is just like that. They didn't mean anything by it." (Denial.)  "Maybe if I was even nicer to them they'd like me and spend time with me." (Denial.)  "It's wrong for me to be angry and hurt by what so-and-so said / did / didn't say / didn't do.  There must be something wrong with my relationship with God." (Denial.)  

It all fosters dysfunction in relationships - condoned by our society to the Nth degree in the name of "being nice".  

What I had to learn to do was to get comfortable in my own skin - to develop a relationship not only with God FOR ME (not primarily to be a passer-on of prayer requests of other people, but to actually get to KNOW Him), and to develop a relationship with ME - to get to know me (which was really difficult at first because I was such a chameleon to please other people that I didn't know who the real me WAS!), to like myself, and to look after myself.  I was running on empty and didn't know that it was okay to care for myself.  As a matter of fact, I discovered that it was actually biblical to care for myself first (reference the word "AS" in Jesus' command, above, plus Eph. 5:28, 29 - emphasis on nourish, cherish!!) so that I had enough resources to be able to help others and not get burnt out!  

I'm still learning that.  Every situation that tempts me into trying to control the outcome, or to be a caretaker when I don't need to be, or to let people use me as a doormat, is one more learning experience.  And I do it wrong sometimes.  Sometimes I still go back to old patterns of thinking and it always ends up with me messing up the situation and making it worse. But it happens less often than it used to (which was almost all the time...) and because it happens less often, I don't normally let resentment build up and then blow up at people for the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.  That was a regular occurrence as little as four years ago.  God truly has worked a miracle in my life.  

I don't know how to get society or to get church people or other social groups to stop fostering the dysfunction that was so much a part of my life - until it wasn't.  I don't even know if it's my place to try to change that.  Probably it isn't.  I can't do anything to change it.  It's just something I keep noticing on a regular basis.  The only actions I can take responsibility for are my own.  Not my kids', not my husband's, not anyone else's.  Just mine!! (I can't begin to tell you how amazingly freeing that is!)   But what I CAN do is:  I can choose to behave in a non-dysfunctional way in my own life, to like me, to look after me, to live in a close relationship with God, and to help people (not to control them or to create a dependency on me but out of a place of compassion).  It's the main reason I wrote my book, and it's one of the reasons I (in spite of my private nature) keep sharing and putting myself out there in this blog (and others).  And although feedback is nice, I remind myself frequently that it's not the main reason I do this.  I'm just working at being real - and blogging about it helps me shed more and more of my own mummy-wrappings.  

Hopefully ... along the way, I will foster FUNCTION - if only by example.

Stretching

My back went out this past Sunday night - sometime before Monday morning. It was a flare-up of a chronic problem - degenerative disc disease.  Sometimes the vertebrae go out of alignment.  The muscles react - or should I say, overreact - and clench tightly to try and keep the back from going "out" further.  The problem with that is ... it HURTS.

One thing about being in pain - you really cut out the non-essentials. And it's surprising how many things you thought were essentials ... aren't.  

But I digress. 

I knew early Monday morning, as soon as I awoke and put my feet on the floor, that I needed to go to physiotherapy; I was hobbling around and every step I took was agony.  Even sitting was way more than uncomfortable.  The pain was so bad that I called in sick and made an appointment to look after what was essential. After a visit to the doctor to get a referral to physio (as well as a prescription for some pain medication), and going through my first treatment, the pain lessened to manageable levels and I was able to get back to work the next day.  I was rather pleasantly surprised because usually my back is slow to respond to any kind of treatment, be it chiropractic treatments or physiotherapy. 

Here's the site where I got this photo.

My therapeutic regimen involves moist heat, electrical stimulation of the muscles surrounding my back, a bit of acupuncture, and some deep massage to "release" the clenched-tight muscles that have gripped my spine like a vise to keep it from slipping out of alignment.

But there is a home regimen too - some of which I can carry out at work.  It involves 20 minutes each of a couple of different exercises to stretch those lower back muscles.  

And stretch those they do.  Feeling that "pull" is pretty uncomfortable - but I put up with it for the benefits that I know will happen.  Not pain - my therapist is quick to tell me that - but a pulling feeling that is uncomfortable. Very, at times.  But the exercises are teaching my back muscles how to behave, how to let go, so the joints can slip back into place.  

It's going slower than I'd like - well, face it, I'd like it to be immediate!! But I can see a difference, day to day.  And in time, I'll not only be better, but I'll have the knowledge that I need in order to help prevent another flare-up.

In the meantime, I'm learning a lot - about how important letting go is, for one thing.  The back pain seemed sudden, but it had been building for a few weeks - a little tension here, and little clenching there, and finally my back jumped the rest of the way to pain, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  And "not letting go" can creep up on my inner life too.  Little things I hold onto, little things I think I can handle without God's help, tiny things that niggle at me and I ignore them rather than dealing with them as they arise. 

I  need to let those go and relax my grip on them. 

They'll only end up hurting me (pardon the pun) in the end.

Cone of Silence

It was the way things were.  Nobody thought anything of it.  Nobody talked about it, least of all the ones who were the most affected.  And everyone thought that their situation was the same as everyone else's.  We all used the same language when we talked about (or was it around) it - each knew his or her own reality but sadly, nobody else's.  If we'd known, maybe we'd have figured out that something was wrong.  But nobody said a word.  There was a cone of silence around the topic.  We got together, we played catch, we skated on the pond - and we each assumed that the others' lives were just the same as ours.

That's how it went on for so long before the truth came out.

The truth was, someone (and maybe a lot of someones) in our number was a victim of child abuse.  Someone's parent was unable to control his or her anger, and took it out on his or her child.  Often.  And not just physically, but verbally, emotionally. Maybe there was even sexual abuse happening.  The home - supposedly a haven of rest and safety in a scary, mixed-up world - was in fact a war zone.  Except that the enemy lived under the same roof.  And the victim never knew when he or she would be targeted again.  Every time, he or she vowed to him or herself (whether consciously or subconsciously) that once free of this place, nobody would ever be able to push him or her around again. That things would be different. 


Ruled by fear - or anger - or both - the child became an adult and moved out. But the pain, the fear, the anger - these reactions were constantly in the driver's seat.  They controlled the person's behavior so he or she pushed people away or smothered them with either need or caretaking, whichever the case, and the misery never ended.  Like soldiers with PTSD, this child (now an adult) was always on "red alert." The danger was past - but not on the inside.  Relationships were not a safe place.  There was no "off" switch.

Here's the link for this photo

Abuse.  It's an ugly subject, made all the more subjective because of the pain and the stigma associated with it.  Fingers point - more point back.  Children live in denial all their lives and honestly believe they deserved it.  

Nobody deserves it.

And the pain can stop.  But it takes honesty.  Brutal honesty with one's self.  Not just about the self but about the past.  The truth really does set free.  The trick is in untangling the lies and separating their roots, untangling those tendrils of shame from things as they really were.  The cone of silence MUST come off.  Healing can't happen until we start talking about it, exposing it to the light.  If it stays in the dark, it thrives like the monster it is, and gets bigger.  Buried perhaps, but stronger and stronger. The light of truth does dispel the darkness of that network of lies.

That takes time. A LOT of time.  And a lot of help from someone else, someone who's been through it before, someone flesh and blood who can walk alongside as the one who's recovering works through those things.  More importantly, it takes a lot of help from a Power far greater than any human can give.  

I know.  I was one of those kids who played ball and thought everyone's life sucked just like mine.  

And I got help.

Taking the red pill

I was reminded one evening recently, through something someone said, of the premise of the movie called, "The Matrix."  Okay that was a REALLY freaky movie, but it has almost a mythic truth to it.  There are so many applications ... but they all have one thing in common: stepping from a life you thought was genuine, into a whole new world that represents reality the way it is, even though that might be something totally opposite to what you thought was the way things were.

For those who haven't seen the movie, our hero, Neo, is a computer hacker, and one day he is kidnapped by some really strange people who take him to see an even stranger individual.  This person tells him that the world he knows is not the real world.  He has suspected something was amiss, but he's given a chance to find out for himself.  His contact from the real world gives him a choice: take the blue pill and wake up in your bed and never remember any of this bizarre experience, or take the red pill and find out the true nature of existence.

Neo takes the red pill - and is instantly and literally plunged into reality - a very disturbing reality which is far beyond anything he could have envisioned.  

He learns that human beings are actually "farmed" by a master alien race who provide a virtual reality dream-state for them to experience (the Matrix) while all the while, the life is slowly sucked out of them; when they die, their bodies are converted to fuel to feed the other humans who in turn feed the aliens.  The whole concept is very disgusting; it goes against everything we hold dear.  

The moment that Neo wakes up in the real world and sees how incredibly helpless he and his fellow human beings are in those little pods of slime, he is totally confused and doesn't know who to trust.  Fortunately his link to the "collective" is severed ... and he is again rescued by the one who opened his eyes.  He is nurtured and re-educated, allowed to rebuild his atrophied muscles, and given the chance to join a resistance movement to free his fellow human beings, one at a time, from this unwitting bondage.  He has to learn a whole new way of living, a whole new mindset, to be able to re-enter the Matrix (knowing that it is only an illusion), and to overcome the aliens and their allies through a computer interface.  

That period of transition, which starts with a willingness to be shown the true nature of living (taking the red pill), is always confusing and usually painful ... at first.  The new way of living feels unnatural, uncomfortable.  It takes a while to get used to and we are constantly in the process of un-learning and re-learning things we thought we knew.  Things we thought were true, aren't. Things we thought were our imagination turn out to be real.  We need to learn new boundaries, venture out toward new frontiers. 

It's not easy.  There are bumps in the road, and there are those who have been on the path we are on, who may have been there so long that they have become bored with or tired of the struggle - and they sell out to the evil entities  who would blind us to their existence and lull us back into that dream-state.  These changing allegiances is also part of the experience, though it is a painful one; only a friend can betray a friend - a stranger has nothing to gain (as one songwriter said).  Learning to deal with and then let go of those things is part of the new reality.  

Finally, when we "take the red pill" - we learn three important truths which remain, no matter how our world changes around us in the new reality.  (1) We are born into a world at war. (2) Things are not what they seem.  And (3) we have a vital part to play in waging that war.  

It's scary.  But we are loved, we are treasured, and our Rescuer believes in us and will never abandon us.

Demolishing the thickest wall

It's the hardest, thickest barrier to freedom from a lifetime of bondage to the addiction of trying to run everyone else's life, of feeling responsible for the bad choices of our loved ones, of trying to manage far more than we were created to manage.  And it's not what you might think.  

It's not resentment, as thick and strong a wall as that is.  Resentment can be a great hindrance to freedom, and has caused many a person to stay in bondage.  

I believe that an even stronger wall is the one built, brick by brick, from the time we are children.  It comes from the words that are said, the words that aren't said, the physical contact we are or are not given, the hateful looks and other injuries we receive from parents, teachers, peers.  It is debilitating, and it discourages us from even starting the journey.

It's shame.

Every person has that one spot in his or her life (and some have way more than one) - that tender area, where shame exists and feeds on the spirit, eroding hope.  

Just so we all know what I mean by shame, I don't mean guilt.  Guilt (whether earned or unearned -hmm, that might be a different post) is feeling badly for something that you have done.  Shame is feeling bad for who you are.  Guilt says I've done a bad thing.  Shame says I AM a bad person.  

Guilt has its purpose (if it is earned): to bring us to a place of 'repentance' which simply means changing direction (doing a 180º turn).  Shame, on the other hand, serves NO useful purpose.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  It paralyzes us, keeps us from believing we can get better, keeps us from trying to connect with our selves and with God.  It holds us back from helping others in a meaningful way: not as a rescuer, but as an equal, a friend, someone real.  

Realizing that shame was never intended for us to experience is one step toward being rid of it.  But I speak from experience when I say that it is impossible to completely rid ourselves of shame - and still have a conscience - without completely, and with utter abandon, turning our will and our lives over to the care of God.  Not only once and for all, but on a continual basis.  And after that, the greatest sledgehammer we have - one that is provided by God Himself - is truth.  

Specific truth.  

Not just 'logos', which is Greek for 'word' - but 'rema', which means 'word for me'.  

Repeated truths.  Spoken - out loud - over and over and over, sometimes several times a day ... for months. Truths spoken into the spirit, where the little child, the one who is so afraid, perhaps so angry, lives.   

Some of those truths - for me - were things like:

• God loves you unconditionally.  You don't have to earn anything.
• The abuse that happened to you as a child was the result of others' bad choices.  You did not deserve it. You do not need to feel responsible for what they chose to do. 
• You have the right to exist, to take up space, to be happy.
• You are the only person exactly like you.  People can like you just the way you are.
• You can be yourself; you don't have to pretend to be anyone else.
• What you have to say is worth listening to.
• Who you are matters.  What you do has value and purpose. 

There were/are many more truths, but these are just a few examples. They are all based on what God has already said is true.  

Not very often does the wall of shame disappear overnight.  But it does get smaller - worn away by God's love, softened by His kindness, chiseled to a pile of rubble, over time, by His truth.  It's a miracle  -  which is no less a miracle because it happens slowly.  That it happens at all is simply amazing.

And it DOES happen.  

This far - no further

Lately I've been struggling with boundaries.  

Not so much with where they are - I am slowly getting a comfort level there - but how to set them .... and how to enforce them .... is the thing that's been occupying my attention the last few weeks.  

I know I have to set these boundaries, and the hardest ones to set are those that must be put up for the first time with people (especially members of one's family-of-origin, be they natural or extended) who not only don't have ANY boundaries of their own, it seems to be part of their religion to cross over others' borders too - and stomp all over the tulips while they're there.  So (this is a given) I know for certain that they won't understand. I used to think exactly as they do now.  I know that they will wonder just what the big deal is.  And that they'll judge me - and tell everyone they know how cruel and ungrateful I'm being, to get them to judge me too, so their own treatment of me seems justified.  I KNOW this. Yet I am feeling compelled to tell them why I'm setting that boundary, how disappointed I am that they wouldn't have had the good sense to know not to "go there".  How wrong their crossing it is.  How much it hurts.  And yes, a large part of me wants to stick it right back to them.


I can't lie about it.  But it doesn't make their trespassing on my emotional property any less wrong.  And here I sit.  And I question.  And I pray.  And I wonder.  

Image "Businesswoman Asking To Stop"
courtesy of imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

How much should I tell them?  How do I tell them?  Do I tell them ANYTHING?  I write stuff so ... should I write to them?  Hmmm... any of the rare times I've ever written to someone before about something similar - it wasn't pretty.  The fangs and claws came out - on both sides.  It was pretty ugly.  I hesitate before doing that again.  

Maybe I should just be quiet and not "go there" myself.  Say nothing, but refuse to play that game - and then when they ask about it ... keep it not only simple, but short.   Yet there's this big, empty ... whatever... out there which begs, no, demands to be addressed.  The call of that thing is so strong, perhaps irresistible.  Or is it really "out there"??  Maybe it's actually "in here" - maybe it's just my own desire for self-justification.  Or maybe, as people in the recovery circles I hang around in say, it's "the codependent crazies."  That desire to gain the upper hand, to change the other person's behavior - even though I know for sure it won't - and will probably make it worse...!  

One of the things I learned in a course many years ago just popped into my head.  The course was on decision-making - and I remember the instructor saying, "The decision to do nothing is still a viable decision.  Sometimes a problem needs to just stew for a while - as uncomfortable as that is - and come to its own conclusion." 

That is the only option for me right now that has any semblance of peace attached to it.  Everything else is rife with turmoil.  So - once again I turn the whole situation - and myself - over to God, asking Him to relieve me of the bondage of self-will run riot, and to make me an example of what happens in a heart totally in love with Him.    

Cobwebs

I grew up hearing the following story.  I don't know if it's true, but it could have happened.  

It appears that there was this one fellow who used to stand up and pray these long, complaining-type prayers every Wednesday night at one church's prayer meeting. Every week, the faithful parishoners would have to endure this long tirade.  Some would roll their eyes when he started up, others would bow their heads and shake them slowly. Still others would keep checking their watches. But he would press on, unaware of - or not caring about - the reactions of those in the room. He would drone on interminably, and would always end his prayer with this sentence: "... and OH Lord, would You please clear the cobwebs out of my life?  Amen." And then he'd sit down.

This went on for years.  The same prayer, the same intonation, the same final request. Nothing changed.  One Wednesday night, one soft-spoken old woman who had listened to him every week for years without comment, finally stood to her feet after he finished his prayer one evening with (as usual), "... and OH Lord, would You please clear the cobwebs out of my life?  Amen...."  Immediately she blurted out with all the pent-up frustration of ten years, "OH Lord, please kill that awful spider!"

Source (via Google Images):
http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk/free_stock_image/spiderweb4051jpg

I remember praying blanket prayers when I was younger - things like that old man's "cobweb prayer."  It was never anything specific - just this nebulous sense that I'd done wrong and that God could make it right.  Which He could - and did - every time.  But the effects were short-lived.  They always came back... cobweb after cobweb. Time after time.

But when someone suggested to me that after asking God to take care of my life, I take pen in hand and make a fearless and searching moral inventory of myself - in specifics - that was when I started to understand the reasons why.  The spider was still alive and well and churning out web!  It needed to be exposed and disposed of... not just the by-products of its presence but the actual center of it.  Like the gentleman in the prayer meeting, I had only been focusing on the symptoms, the results of it.  

As I continued that inventory - which was exhaustive and took MONTHS and not minutes - I came to realize that the root of all of those things was not this one or that one who hurt me... or this or that event that happened... or this or that organization that didn't meet my needs.  

The problem was me.  I was the one making all the cobwebs.

I was the spider. 

It wasn't the devil using me.  He SO didn't need my help.  It was me - all by myself - making bad choices and suffering the consequences of those choices.  But as I - out of desperation to be free - brought these things out into the light and exposed them for what they were, something very strange started to happen.  The cobwebs started to dissolve and fall away. 

Some took longer than others.  Some were immediate; others? I'm still aware of their presence in my life.  But I know that it's me - MY choices, MY selfishness, MY pride, MY fear, MY obsessions fueling that critter.  The less fuel I give her, the less web she can make.  And the thing is, there is absolutely no way that I can do that by relying on my own will power.  But I know that God can and will give me the strength if I ask Him.  I am learning to pray, "God, I offer myself to You, to build with me and do with me what You want. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness (to those I want to help) of Your power, Your love, and Your way of life.  May I do what You want ... always!" 

The spider isn't dead yet, not by a long shot.  But it's spinning a little less web.

My Story - my thanks!

The interchange went something like this today:

"It's really weird.  The more I tell my story, the more I find I am helping others who are suffering like I was, to come into their own freedom, and the better and more solid I am in my recovery.  I can talk about my past without becoming angry and upset, and God has given me a compassion for those who injured me in the past, and a burning desire to help those who are still living in suffering and denial."

He smiled.  "Telling one's story is a truly powerful thing."

We went on to talk about how after a certain time, one who is being healed of so many things in his or her inner life comes to the point where going back to the pre-recovery lifestyle is repulsive.  

I believe one book says this about that: "For by this time sanity will have returned. ... if tempted (to go back to the old lifestyle) we recoil from it as from a hot flame.  We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this new attitude has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.  We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.  We have not even sworn off.  Instead, the problem has been removed.  It does not exist for us.  We are neither cocky, nor are we afraid.  That is how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. ... We are not cured... What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I shook my head.  "It really is repulsive to me now, the life I once thought was so righteous, so 'Christian.'  I wasn't real at all; I hid inside my rules and regulations, isolated myself from the very people who (like me) were in desperate need of God's touch on their lives.  And the whole time I deluded myself into believing that being "right" was better than being happy, being free.  Now that I'm free ... I don't need to be right, to win every argument any more. God is opening more doors than I ever thought possible.  My family, my marriage is restored.  I'm way more accepting of people, and I have more of a sense of where they start and I stop, and vice versa.  I'm ... happy, for what feels like the first time in my life."

He nodded - his eyes sparkling with ... were those tears?

"What a difference this last 2 years has made in my life," I continued.  "And you've been a part of that healing, and I am so grateful."

And I am.

Shoulds and Oughtas

Ever said "fine" when someone asked you how you were, even though you weren't?

I have. Lots of times.

It's taken me a long time to figure out why. It's fear. Fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of not appearing as spiritual as someone else, fear of ... being real.

I grew up in the church. My first words weren't words; I tried to sing. My mother was a Sunday School teacher. Every time the church doors were open, she was there; I used to say I had a drug problem (she drug me to church, she drug me to Sunday School, she drug me to church suppers, she drug me to Ladies' Aid and Women's Missionary meetings, she drug me to choir practice and prayer meeting and all kinds of church events.) And everywhere there were people who expected me to be the perfect little darling. I knew all the right words to say, all the catch phrases. I lived in the land of Denial. And it wasn't Egypt. (Okay, bad joke.)

After my teenage rebellion, Jesus rescued me from my reckless behavior. But surrounded again by the atmosphere of the church, and embracing its call to a better life, I was sadly ruled by the great Should and its close cousin Oughta. And their alter egos, Shouldn't and Mustn't. Ughh. So controlled, so afraid of stepping outside the boundaries placed on me by everyone around me. Spouting all the Christian catch words that made those who weren't saved look at me like I had two heads. Carrying a five-pound Bible in my purse. Being obnoxious about my faith. Nobody in my sphere of "influence" gave a rat's behind. They wrote me off as going through a phase from which I would easily recover and then I'd be back to the same old person they knew. And they wished I'd hurry up about it, because if this was what Jesus was like, they'd just as soon go shopping.

I was so bound up in those shoulds and oughtas, shouldn'ts and mustn'ts, that I didn't even know who I was and couldn't enjoy just being alive in Jesus. For decades!! Spinning my wheels, in overdrive with the parking brake on, wondering why I didn't get anywhere, stressed out about my family and all the world around me, thinking I had to save them, I had to tell them, I had to be the one to fix them. After all, time was short.

God was even more desperate - to deliver me from that horrible existence. It was never His intention to riddle me so deeply with guilt that I couldn't enjoy His presence. He never meant for me to take on His job (that of convicting people of sin and bringing them into the Kingdom). He just wanted me to be free. And He was willing to do anything to do what He does best and has been so faithful to do every time: rescue me.

Let me share with you part of my journey, the part of it that alerted me that there might actually be a place of bondage in my life. It was before I even knew who I was, perhaps around 2004. I stumbled across a children's book by Max Lucado. It touched me so very deeply. And it was part of the preparation that God put in place that would kick into high gear over 4 years later.

The book was called "You Are Special." Click here to read a blog entry that includes the text of it.

Maybe, just maybe, you need to read it today.

... to be continued....

Letting Go

I don't usually give a second thought to birds in flight - until I see one that can't fly but which is supposed to be able to fly.

I remember a song I wrote when I was a teenager. I'd been to a wildlife park and had seen an eagle there. It bothered me so much to see such a magnificent bird dragging its feathers in the dust, hopping from foot to foot, looking miserable.

Anyway, the song was about an eagle who had been captured, tethered to the ground amid the dust, and made to live a lower life to satisfy the curiosity of its captors. He looks up to the skies and sees a sparrow, flitting from bush to bush outside his enclosure.

Part of the lyrics went like this:

I know that I, an eagle, was more majestic than he
But now he owns more power, simply because he is free.

Was I sixteen when I wrote that?? Wow.... But I digress.

He was powerless to free himself. But someone who had enough money to buy him, could come in at any time and loose the bonds. (When that happens with a slave, they call it redemption). Then it would be the eagle's choice whether to stay, still considering himself to be tied to the ground, or move past those fears, let go of his previous mindset, and leap into the sky.

So with us. Jesus has freed us, but many of us are still hopping around on the ground, believing in the limitations to which we've become accustomed.

There is such liberty in letting go.

We let go of our old way of thinking, of thinking that we can fix people, control them, manipulate them, rescue them. We let God rescue them - that is His job, after all. He's the One who does it best. And we just concentrate on our own spiritual journey, our own relationship with Him.

We let go of the lies we were fed all our lives, and we embrace His truth: He loves us, He accepts us just as we are, He wants the best for us (that's HIM), and He will never give up on us. He considers us worth knowing. He gave everything to make sure we had that opportunity!!

With His empowerment,

• We let go of the self-doubt those lies led us to.
• We let go of the guilt for past deeds - He died to take that away if we would just give it to Him.
• We let go of the shame we feel for being ourselves, and we begin to see ourselves as He sees us.
• We let go of the resentments we have harbored against those who have kept us in bondage. Those resentments themselves have kept us bound even more than our oppressors did.

We look only to Him, and let Him look deeply into us with an unconditional love like we've never known or ever will know. In that love-relationship, as we let go of the things that tie us to our old selves, we find the very thing we have longed for all our lives.

Joy.