New Pathways

I am treading the last few yards of a familiar pathway. I know this pathway; I have been on it for decades. And ahead, I see all that is not familiar, all those things I have dreamed of but have never dared to imagine could be real. 

It is getting closer and closer the more I step forward. The fear of the unknown is mounting. And then I see signs of safety and security as I move ahead. There is a bridge over a boggy place. It is a sturdy bridge - if narrow - with handrails to guard me and support me in case I slip. 

I got this photo free on Pixabay! Check
them out at www.pixabay.com

The view in the distance is peaceful and inviting, even though I cannot see every step ahead of me. I hear the voices of those who will be my guides into this new territory. Their voices give me strength. I hear behind me the encouraging voices of those who have been with me for years, people whom I trust and who will be supporting me emotionally - even if they won't be there physically. 

My trembling heart steadies itself. Even though I will be alone physically in some ways, I will never be alone in spirit. This fact gives me courage, like the handrail on the bridge, an assurance that my steps will not falter.

I cannot see what the path looks like beyond the next bend. But ... I have solid shoes from my mentors, and a backpack full of training to sustain me, and I know that I will have what I need when I need it, and someone to watch over me in case I stumble. I am ever so grateful for that, because in the path ahead, there will be many opportunities to make mistakes. Just knowing that I will have a guide close by me is comforting. 

I know that I will have some important steps to take in my own personal journey. Part of that journey will be the alone part, learning how to stand on my own two feet and not let others do for me what I can do for myself. A big part of it will also be shedding the baggage of the past, throwing off the coping mechanisms that served me well as long as I was in danger from people who held power over me. Now that I am aiming to be someone to whom people will come for help, I need to get rid of all of those old left-over attitudes and behaviors like the rest of Lazarus' grave clothes. I need to "not be trapped in the patterns my life has set for me" anymore, as Russ Taff sang many years ago. (Okay I just listened to that song on YouTube and ended up in tears - it's been years since I heard it and wow, was it just what I needed!) 

The path ahead will not be easy at times. I know that. However, I believe that it will lead me to a better place, to more secure footing, and to a position where - instead of feeling helpless and dependent on others - I can come alongside and help them instead.

Turn It Around

My husband, my daughter and I were at a restaurant recently. It was one that has booths - since we need extra room to sit - and while we were eating, a family came in and sat down at the booth next to us. I recognized one of the people. After they'd been there for a while, they all got up and traded seats so that the person I had recognized was no longer facing me.

Par for the course, I thought. After all, I look like a mess - I didn't take much time getting ready because we were running late. I don't blame this person for not wanting to have to look at me. 

I mentioned this to my daughter after we left the restaurant. 

She's been going to therapy and her therapist has been challenging assumptions that she makes about herself and about other people who do things in her presence. 

She stared at me for a second or two, and gently rebuked me. "ORRrrrr," she said, "this person could have moved because the seat might have been uncomfortable. Or there might have been a draft under that seat and not under the other one." 

Her response kind of set me back on my heels. I did a double-take. She grinned, and said, "CBT." 

Cognitive behavioral therapy - a type of psychological retraining of the thoughts - is big on "re-framing": restating things in such a way as to challenge previously long-held beliefs about the self, and about others' reactions to the self. Such thoughts are referred to as "negative automatic thoughts." (NATs.) And she expertly re-framed my NAT about other people's perception of my appearance ... in order to help me to see other possibilities. 

Photo "Little Boy Covering His Face"
courtesy of David Castollo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

A lot of people do what I did. More people than those who are willing to admit it, filter others' opinions of them through their own beliefs about themselves. Many of us don't really have all that great an opinion of ourselves, and this carries through to the things that we think, believe, and say to (or about) ourselves. This kind of thinking can lead to serious mental health issues.  By far the most common mental health issues are depression and anxiety.

For people who are chronically depressed or anxious (or both), common self-talk messages are: 
"it's always been this way, so it will always BE this way." 
"I'm so stupid. When will I ever get anything right??" 
"Yeah things are fine NOW, but what if _____?"
"Oh GREAT. NOW what?" 
"But if I don't agree with him/her, he/she won't be my friend."
"Nobody wants to spend time with me. I'm not worth their time." 
"Why do things like this (fill in the blank) always happen to me?"

These types of messages start way back when we're children and someone slaps a sticker on us (it doesn't matter if it's a gold star or a black mark) and we start to define ourselves by what others think about us.

Statements like the ones listed above have kept me and sometimes continue to keep me wrapped in rotting grave-clothes that others have put onto me from my past, and which I keep wrapped around me (even if they restrict my potential!) because ... well, because it's all I have ever known. The rags keep me from being exposed and vulnerable, and may well be an attempt to get other people to reassure me. But is such thinking healthy? 

No.

The trick is to turn it around, to see other possibilities, to "counter" the self-destructive talk with the kind of message that builds up, that encourages, that heals. Sometimes things happen because they just happen! Sometimes people make mistakes; it doesn't mean it is the end of the world or that I'm stupid. It just means I'm human. People can and do like me for who I am; I don't have to change who I am to fit what they expect from me. I do have value and my emotions are valid. If I wouldn't let someone "talk that way" about one of my friends, why do I think it's okay to talk about myself "that way"? 

Why would anyone?

Point taken... and thanks, sweetie. :) 

Progressively unwrapped

In one of my previous posts, I talked about personal guidelines that I have established, over the course of the last five years, for my own reactions to life and to people's (including my) behavior.

Lately it seems as though I've been having to reinforce some of these, especially the last one, where I walk away from relationships with people who consistently make me feel "less than." 

Some of these folks are persistent, and apparently will stop at nothing - including recruiting other people into their campaigns - to draw me back into the place where they are controlling and manipulating me again. (Fortunately, now I see what they're doing well in advance, which gives me a chance to regroup.) So, I've had to re-draw some boundaries. Again. (It happens; some folks just don't take no for an answer until right around the hundredth time, LOL) 

When I speak of graveclothes, (and I frequently do speak of them on this blog) I mean those things that others - by their reactions to my existence or to my behavior - have wrapped around me so tightly that I internalized them, made them a part of who I was and the way I thought about life. These were / are things over which I have had no control and which then gained the power to control me - things like "what will people think" and "if only" and "what if" and "nobody likes me" and so forth.

The more often I refuse to be bound up again by the old smelly graveclothes of being victimized or of trying to make everyone like me, the easier it becomes and the more free I am, free from being that chameleon that turns into whatever someone else wants me to be ... or of blending into the surroundings so that nobody notices me and therefore won't hurt me...again.

I'm more free to be me. To have my own thoughts. To hold my own opinions. To occupy space in the world. To be visible. To exist. 

Photo "Happy Jumping
Child" by chrisroll at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

For you see, for the longest time I didn't believe that I had the right to exist - not like other people who could get away with saying or thinking whatever they wanted and not getting slapped down for it. I'd been treated that way for such a long time - as far back as I can remember - that I thought it was normal. 

It wasn't. 

And when I got into recovery from that wilting-flower "don't-hurt-me" mind-set, I started to learn that who I was, and what I thought and believed and said as a result, was okay. Part of the reason I started this blog was because I had started to believe that I had something worthwhile to say, that I could actually contribute to the world, and make a positive difference if given the chance.  I also learned that if I made a mistake, it wasn't the end of the world and I could actually learn from it. (I know, duhhh...) 

This kind of thinking was alien to me before. I lived according to the rules of the chameleon: hide, blend in, disappear, change to fit the circumstances, and when all else fails, freeze and hope they don't notice you. I lived not in the present but either regretting the past or being afraid of the future. 

These are powerful forces. 

Until they're not. 

That process took some time ... and I'm still running up against hangers-on in my life where the graveclothes cling to me.

But for the most part, today, I live in the freedom of being who I am and of not caring what this one or that one thinks or believes or says. And this new lifestyle is so important and precious to me that it is well worth defending, well worth looking back once in a while to see how far I've come and remembering that "old me" enough to re-affirm that I never want to go back to that. 

Not ever. 

For, as my post title indicates, I'm more and more free as time goes on, as those things drop off me, as I learn to live in the now and to be who I am. 

Freedom might be something that a few people take for granted because it's all they've ever known - they have no idea how fortunate they are - but there used to be a huge bull's-eye on my back and now that it's fading away, I don't ever want it to reappear.

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.

The Power of NO

I remember reading a case history once of a person who was in psychological counseling. One line stood out to me. "Exhausted. Has trouble saying 'NO' and therefore takes on too much, then burns out."

I know that merry-go-round; I live it, at some times more than others. I take on more than is healthy for me and then I struggle beneath the weight of the responsibility of more than I can handle. Eventually something has to give, and I feel like a failure, when what has really happened is that I took on too much to begin with. 

And you know, I took on that much probably because I was afraid of being rejected if I said, "No, I don't have enough time left to do that." 

I have no problem with saying, "No, that's our family time; I don't schedule things then. Maybe we could do that another time." But if it's "just me" - that is, if the only reason I want to opt out of some event is because I need to look after myself, well, sometimes I don't think that's enough ... probably because there's a part of me that doesn't believe that I AM enough. 

That's an area I need to work on. It's like weeding out my closet: what fits, what doesn't, what's worn out, what needs replacing and what doesn't, and do I really need that? So what I've been doing the last little while is reviewing all the irons I have in the fire (so to speak) to see which ones I can remove - or set aside for the time being - to give myself a little time for me.  I'm asking myself questions which (for me, because I'm so afraid that people won't like me) are difficult:

• Is this activity producing the desired effect I intended?
• Does it need more attention or less? is it a good use of my time?
• What am I hoping to accomplish with this? 
• Does this organization's values (or do the values of its clientele) jive with mine?
• Can I set this venture aside for a while without feeling like I'm losing something?
• What do I want to be spending more time doing? Am I going in that direction or away from it?

The answers to these questions will tell me what I can let lapse ... and what to keep pursuing. Already I've stopped one association with an organization with whose practices I have not made peace; that felt like a great weight off my mind. And today, I cancelled my membership with another e-company that was wasting a lot of my online time; the sense of relief was palpable. 

And I'm refocusing my attention on the things in my life that I can do. It's all part of setting boundaries, practicing self-care, and having the energy left over to invest into the message of being free from the grave-clothes of fear and shame. It's a never-ending quest.

And a big part of that is knowing when it's time to say NO.

The soft underbelly

I just finished reading a post by my friend and fellow-blogger Ellie at One Crafty Mother, a post which has spurred me to talk about something that I don't often discuss. Especially not in a public forum.

Here is her challenge:

I want to issue you a challenge.  I want you to think of a moment, or period in your life (maybe it's still happening - even better) where you were feeling shame and vulnerability.  There is a difference between shame and guilt - just to clarify - shame is feeling badly about who you are, guilt is feeling badly for something you've done.   Vulnerability is that feeling we have when we've placed too much power in the opinions of others (oh, if they only knew how _______ I am) and shame and vulnerability feed off each other in very toxic ways.

Once you've identified a time when you have (or are) experiencing shame and vulnerability (almost always accompanied by their evil cousin fear) - I want you to write about it.  If you don't have a blog, crack out pen and paper, or a word document, and just let it pour out.  Try, if you, can, to write about it in narrative form.  Close your eyes, picture yourself in that moment, or in that period of your life, and write it like a story.  Tell the truth, every part of it, especially the little nuggets of shame, fear or guilt you've mentally edited out because thinking about them makes you feel small.

Talk about your inner shame dialogue; what did it tell you? How did it make you feel?  Writing about it - seeing your words out there - will take a lot of the power out of what is, essentially, holding you hostage.  I promise.

I must admit I'm a little daunted.  Especially because the first thing that popped into my head was something that I'm still going through and which I don't see any way out of except through it.  (Wow. That sounds familiar.)  But ... there's something that resonates in me with this concept - that truth makes people free, even if it's not pretty. That ugly things like shame and evil lose their power when brought into the light, when their soft underbelly is exposed.  

So ... here goes.

Many of you know that last fall, I e-published a book about my journey from the bondage of control-freaking and door-mat-itis into a lifestyle of freedom, passion, and purpose. It was a huge deal for me to have made the journey, and I wanted to write about it! 

The response I've received has been rather sporadic, actually - definitely not what I had hoped.  To be sure, I didn't expect to make much money from it; it was something that I wanted to do so that if even one person is helped by it, then it would be worth it. But I had thought I would receive just a smidgen more recognition than the large round of indifference I've gotten.  

Except from one quarter: my birth family and extended family, and anyone who is friends with them.  

For, you see, I did mention a couple of members of my family-of-origin in the book a couple of times.  I did so to highlight the "before" picture and some of the things I went through to be free of the things certain people did and said to me: things which scarred me my whole life long.  I took great care not to make that the focus, though.  I wanted to talk about the "unwrapping" that happened as a result of a day-by-day relationship with God, with myself, and finally with others.  (For more information on the book, see my "About Me" page.)

But by talking about their part in it even once, I broke the cardinal rule that was hammered into my psyche as a child: "What happens here STAYS here - we don't talk about it outside these four walls." 

I found this photo at THIS SITE

The truth about my childhood has always been a source of great shame for me.  I always thought - until I was well into my forties - that if anyone knew that I was abused as a child, they'd not want to have anything to do with me.  I'd lose everything.  Fear had me by the throat.  I thought people would blame me.  I thought that my family would disown me.  I thought that I would never be able to look anyone in the eye again.

But for the most part, people outside of my birth family have been kind, if not just tolerant. And I've experienced a great deal of healing from those traumatic experiences.

Yet, I am still ashamed.  Not for the horrors of what happened to me - God has healed me from that shame - but for telling the truth.  Ashamed for (even though it is the last thing I intended) appearing to be disloyal, ungrateful, vindictive.  For exposing the deception and no longer keeping "our little secret." For being honest ... and being called a liar. For having my motives judged and for not being able to explain to their satisfaction why I would cast such a shadow on the reputation of someone who - to friends and family - is the closest thing to a saint that they've ever seen.  

I wish I could say that it's been resolved. That would be nice, nice and pretty, all tied up in a bow and a "wonderful testimony."  But it hasn't.  This is a process.  I struggle with these feelings of shame, of feeling exposed and vulnerable to what others think, nearly all the time.  There have been many nights - even in the last six months - that I have cried myself to sleep because of the fallout, the pointed fingers, the broken relationships, the constant criticism and the lack of any kind of attempt to understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Grief over lost contact, lost favour, lost relationship, is something I deal with daily. All too often, the weight of shame and the crushing, smothering feelings of loneliness, fear and anxiety overwhelm me. 

I fight to keep in the moment; it is the only way I can survive.
 
I don't know how to get past this wall of misery.  I don't know if I SHOULD get past it.  I don't know if I'm doing any good to anyone - or if secretly I WANT them to suffer.  (Am I really that horrible? How can I ever look at my reflection in the mirror? When will this end? HOW will it end if it does?) 

I don't know.  I really don't.  I have wrestled with saying goodbye for good, with writing them off, with closing the door on that part of my life and never looking back.  

More shame. More vulnerability.  More feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  

I am exposing my soft underbelly here - in the hope that shame has a soft underbelly too.  My friend Ellie says that shame and vulnerability hate the truth; they hate compassion.  

I hope so.  I really DO hope so.

Cornered

She knew she had only seconds to escape.

She'd seen that enraged look before.  She'd followed the quick glance that the woman, twice her height and over twice her weight, aimed toward the hook on the wall where they both knew there was a man's belt hanging for just such a time as this.  Her body suddenly felt flushed, tingling with inner electricity.  

She darted like a frightened deer through the opening between the woman's elbow and her waist.  She didn't think; she reacted.  She could hear heavy footsteps behind her, trying to keep up.  

She ran - no - clambered on all fours up the stairs like a spider monkey running from a jaguar, panic rising in her throat.  The steps followed. She dove into the nearest room - where to hide? - the deepest closet in the house!  She pushed her way past the dresses, trousers and coats inside, her breaths coming in small gasps, her pulse beating loudly in her own ears.  She didn't know it, but she was cornered. 

The footfalls stopped.  The woman's hand snaked inside, fished around relentlessly and grasped her by the arm, wrenching her from her safe refuge.  She could not stop herself from being surprised by the woman's face; it was at close range and contorted with rage, just like it was every time.  Yet she convinced herself she did not recognize it.  Her only recourse was to appease - in the split second before the first blow fell, she filled her lungs with air and screamed at the top of her lungs, "I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry...." over and over, even though she didn't know what she had done wrong to deserve this level of reaction. But she must have done something horrible.

Screams melded with sobbing as she, to no avail, continued to apologize.  Was it for existing? Was it for making the woman angry?  She didn't think of these things - she was only trying to get away - every twist of her body to escape the blows only opened a new angle of attack, fresh skin on which a welt would soon form. 

She didn't know how many times the arm raised and fell - how many stripes the cracked strip of leather would leave. It never crossed her mind to count them, to show them to someone.  She felt too guilty for the bruises the woman would show her on her own hand later - bruises left on the parent by gripping the belt to strike the child.  Eventually - seconds or minutes later - the hitting stopped. The strong hand released the girl's arm and the heavy footsteps receded, leaving the child to continue her sobbing in a heap on the floor, totally broken - irreparably damaged where no one could see: deep inside. Not by welts that would heal, but by the knowledge that she was of no worth.  

She was only eight years old - already a discarded old woman in her heart - her childhood, her personhood ripped from her again and again.

It is forty years later.  Now the woman, the former aggressor, seems so much smaller physically than her daughter - who herself has children of her own.  

Yet in the former daughter's soul, she is still very much afraid: afraid of being attacked, cornered like prey - and devoured.  The scars on her spirit have marked her throughout her life, left her perpetually sobbing inside, calling out soundlessly to everyone who will listen that she is sorry, she is responsible, it's her fault - whatever the problem is or who might be to blame. Her fear, her woundedness, her determination with never being out of control ever again, of controlling and manipulating those she loves in order to protect them, has driven her own husband and children away from being able to connect with her, and likewise alienated people who would have offered their friendship.  

She is unhappy and alone, even though on the outside, all seems to be perfectly fine.  Her external facade has held, perhaps with a few cracks.  But she bears within the burden of all the shame of all those terrible rages, the feeling of being cornered, of that all-too-common breathless, unspeakable terror.

She snaps out of her reverie, and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror.  She looks into her own face in the glass, and sees the little girl's heart behind those eyes, the one who is hurting, who is abandoned, who is lonely. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, slowly. This is going to take some time. 

She glances down at the trembling page in her hands and reads the words on it, for the first time of many, many times, reads to the frightened little girl inside:

"What happened to you was not your fault.  It was wrong.  And it was her problem, it was never yours."  
"You ARE worth something; you are worth a great deal."  
"You can be yourself - you don't have to change into anyone or anything else." 
"You are precious, you are treasured, you are loved."  "
"Your opinion matters."  
"What you feel is normal for what you have been through."  
"People can like you exactly as you are."  
"You can feel what you feel.  It's okay.  You can cry, you can laugh."  
"You can like yourself.  You can love yourself."
"You CAN heal."

Carried along

The landscape was peculiar; rocks and trees jumbled together in a nearly impossible to navigate path before her.  She'd been told that the creatures in the wood could take her to where she wanted to go - but it meant letting go of her need to be in control.  All around her, inside her head, she could hear the voices of those who had urged her to go and stand in this place.  

She pondered her decision.  She could go back.  She could choose the safety of what she'd always known.  Or she could decide to call upon those foreign creatures she'd only heard about, who, surefooted as they were clever, would take her safely there - if she held on tight.  She wondered how they would know how to find her. 

Finally she thought, "Yes.  This is where I would like to go.  I need to find one of those crea-"

Immediately, she felt a gigantic, broad beak darting between her legs from behind, and scooping her up.  She slid on her buttocks, terrified, down the long, narrow, stubbled neck and onto the broad, feathered shoulders.  From atop her perch, the dangerous rocks below looked so far away and she was gripped with a sense of panic.  This was too soon.  This was too high.  She didn't know the way.  And what (God forbid) if she fell off? She slid back a bit, and tucked her legs under its warm wings.

Instinctively she gripped the bird-creature's torso with her legs.  It squawked and began to move, deftly navigating with its sturdy, long legs the sharp rocks that would most certainly kill her if she fell on them from this height. The speed was so much faster than she imagined.  She gulped, and grabbed the base of the wings with her hands to help her balance.

No turning back now.  She leaned forward to compensate for the bird's rapid acceleration, blinking rapidly to release the tears that the wind brought to her eyes.

It was two weeks ago. 

"Yeah, you'll make a good one, that's a great idea!  Why don't you go for it?" this one person urged me. 

I was still unsure, wondering about this scenario or that one.  "You could always ask the 'what if' questions.  You'll never know unless you try." No matter how I tried to escape it, that logic kept coming back.  Finally I decided to at least ask my questions.  They were all answered - patiently. My co-worker didn't push me and respected my right to make a decision on my own. 

Thus began my reluctant induction into the halls of representing my colleagues before management - also known as being a union rep or in the organization's jargon, a steward.  I had no idea what I was getting into.  But I had asked my questions and objection after objection had disappeared.  I was faced with one question - whether I thought I could make a difference to my peers in improving their work atmosphere.  

When I finally decided to 'go for it' - I was surprised at how quickly the wheels started turning after that. I was invited to meeting after meeting - all in the space of a few weeks.  It was all a little - well, not quite overwhelming, but almost.  My short description, above, describes many of the sensations I felt.  

This is way outside my comfort zone.  I am not by nature a confrontational person; I know some who thrive on it ... but I am not one of them.  Having to "raise concerns" before people who have the right to have me dismissed, is all a bit much for me.  However, I am confident that what my guides tell me is true, and that we will eventually arrive at our destination.  

I know that this experience will stretch me.  Of course, "stretching" hurts.  I'd briefly (and conveniently) forgotten that.  Yet I have the assurance that this process will give me a unique perspective, help me see the big picture and be involved in some frank discussions with senior executives without fear of reprisal. 

I must admit, that assurance of equality does intrigue me.  I wonder if I'll be able to overcome my fears and act appropriately on behalf of those I represent.  I guess I do need to remember that I'm not in this alone.  I have the support of those stewards who have gone through this before, and I also have the support of my peers.

I know that this is but one more step in becoming all that God has been leading me into the last few years, and that He will continue to be faithful, to be with me, to continue to lead me one step at a time, one day at a time.

I just wonder when - or if - or even where - this particular ride will end.  But I'm willing to give it a go. 

Not That Strong

Someone said something to me this morning while we were discussing how other people's assumptions can really hurt.  

This person mentioned a scene from the  M*A*S*H series - M*A*S*H being a long-time favorite of mine. In particular, there was this one scene that involved Major Margaret Houlihan.  Her nurses were constantly breaking regulations, going behind her back, and not being honest with her.  Finally when she caught them in a huge deception, she was angry and they were defensive - and the truth came out.  She felt excluded.  And they made the assumption that she would not want to be included.  And ... it hurt.  And ... she cried.  Tough as she was, she was still human and it hurt that others were labeling her and shutting her out.  The person I was talking to said, "That's you."  



It hit home.  In one particular sphere of influence, it has been a long-standing source of sadness for me that I've not even been thought of in a certain capacity, that others who have less experience than I do have been parachuted into something I've wanted to do for a long time, over and over again.  They have become the new darlings, a seemingly endless string of them, while I do what I do - and quite well - behind the scenes. Not that they are not qualified; they are.  But so am I - and nobody seems to have noticed, thinking that I would not even be interested because, after all, all I've ever done is that one thing.  Maybe it's because I'm not in the accepted social groups; maybe it's because I'm not interested in the same things as others; maybe it's because I detest playing the political game and prostituting myself to the powers that be.  For whatever reason, the result is the same.  Passed over, rejected, ignored, excluded. 

And it hurts. 

It's supposed to hurt.

Vulnerability.  I've heard it condemned as a weakness.  I've heard people try to denounce the experience of emotion - especially what they call "negative" emotion - as something to be avoided, not trusted, and somehow evil.  

I have a different take on that.  I believe that - as uncomfortable and unpleasant as so-called negative emotions are - they are God-given (otherwise, why would we be hard-wired with them?)  To deny them, to suppress them or to try to get rid of them, is doing a disservice to the human spirit.  They were created as temporary spiritual states designed specifically to be an early-warning system to alert us to dangerous situations: boundaries being crossed, injustice, manipulation, and abuse.  Not trusting our emotions can lead us into succumbing to these undesirable conditions, or allow us to remain there way too long.  Listening to our feelings can help us to figure out what the real problem is, why it is, and what our part (if any) is in allowing the situation to develop.  

And listening to the negative ones - and allowing them to help us look after ourselves - allows us the capacity to experience the not-so-unpleasant emotions.  You see, if we shove down or cut off our "negative" emotions, our psyches don't distinguish between bad and good - so it shuts them ALL down. This leaves us emotionally stunted, unable to experience joy, compassion, or love.  

So ... I would rather be hurt - and know it - than to deny my feelings and shut myself off from working through the injury and being healed from it.

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.    

Inside Out

I have a theory.  

Our lives as individuals can be described as taking place inside a series of three concentric circles, which touch or converge with others' circles to a greater or lesser degree.  

I say three, because I believe the human being to be composed of three components: spirit (or heart, or centre), mind (or soul, if you like), and body.  In a healthy and whole human being, the life force flows from the inside toward the outside, and messages from the outside can pass from there to the inside, and be accepted or rejected depending on whether the message is good for the individual or not.  

Source:
http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/42600/42654/
concircles_42654.htm

That's in a healthy individual, for the inner barriers are distinct but semi-permeable in one who is healthy.

At the risk of belabouring the obvious, the body is the physical realm - the part that gets hungry, tired, craves physical touch, and so forth.  It includes the physical heart that beats, the physical brain with the neural impulses.

The mind (or soul) is that part that reasons, that justifies, that thinks things through.  It is where the intelligence of a person resides. 


The spirit (or heart) is the centre of the will and the emotions.  It is the part that is beyond the understanding, beyond intelligence. It is the core of who we are and the part we refer to as 'deep down.'  Deep down we are all the same.  This is the part where - when we have a relationship with God - He comes to live.  If He's not there, we try to fill it with other things - relationships, mood-altering substances, habits that make us "feel" or "stop feeling."  It is where addiction is born.  It is the most vulnerable part of us.

The whole of the three parts is somewhat like an egg - there is a distinction between shell, white and yolk, but they interact between themselves and with other outside elements. (Yes, certain things - like air and water - can pass through the shell: it's how chicks can breathe inside the shell before they hatch, for one thing - [source:  http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100128064137AAFCi93.] - and it's also why I always put a bit of salt in the water when I boil an egg.  Not only does it make the water more dense and the egg less likely to crack and extrude the white into the pot while cooking, it also lightly seasons the egg.  But I digress.  Again.  ;)

Back to the human entity.  When the barriers between spirit, soul and body are not semi-permeable or interactive, when there is a barrier built up between them, spirit, soul and body are unable to interact with each other.  People then become hardened, unable to either feel or (if they can feel) to express their emotions appropriately.  They may become insensitive and roll right over top of other people with no regard for others' feelings, they may try to hide from their feelings and do something (anything) to numb them, or they may isolate themselves from people because there is no common emotional frame of reference, no way to relate to the other person.  Sometimes the opposite is true - the barriers are so fragile that the least touch will shatter or burst through the layers. Then they lose the integrity of their selves altogether and just become quivering piles of mush, a tangled mix of emotion and reasoning, way too vulnerable and either too afraid to interact with others or embracing them to the point of becoming engulfed by them and losing their identities in the process.  

The process of inner healing, of recovery from that kind of unbalanced inner life, involves identifying those places, those experiences in our lives where the barriers have become too softened or too hardened (as the case may be) - and rebuilding the psyche.  

So much for the theoretical.  Now for the practical! 

Some say that the answer is to forget about the self altogether and focus on other people.  While this has its place, I believe it's premature to just plunge into a life of serving others before dealing with the whys and wherefores of the current inner state of affairs.  All that premature service might end up doing is messing up other people's inner balance with our own dysfunction.  Helping others from a place of wholeness is always preferable.  It helps them not to be distracted from their own process by our "stuff," and it keeps us from being sucked into their process and fall back into our own imbalance. 

Yet so few are even willing to admit to themselves that there is an imbalance.  The biggest step in healing of the inner life is getting to the place of that simple confession we must make to our own selves and to God, "I can't do this; I need help."  

That is the threshold to a life of honesty with the self, to a life lived from the "inside out."

How you make me feel

"...people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  - Maya Angelou  

I ran across this quote today as I was searching for something else.  The words stopped me in my tracks and made me think.  How many times I have said to someone (whether in a positive or negative tone), "You make me feel ... " and proceeded to say an emotion or use some sort of comparison to describe it.   How many times I have said or done things that I hoped would last, when all it took was a simple act of kindness to communicate how dear someone was to me.  Those times when someone has told me how I made them feel have either been overwhelmingly joyful or overwhelmingly sad, depending on how I made them feel (obviously).  That's a tremendous amount of power that one person can have over another, sometimes without even being aware of it!

And how many times someone's behavior or opinion of me has made me feel this or that way, and I've denied it, shoved it down inside of me and pretended it didn't exist.  I figured that if I ignored it, it would go away.  It never did; it just sat there and festered.  

Or I would get trapped in the emotion, not be able to confront the person, and get lulled into a false sense of my own importance (or unimportance).  

When you think about it, emotions are pretty powerful things and sometimes they can be overwhelming. But they are what they are. They are neither good nor bad. They just are.

A couple of days ago, while talking to a friend, I mentioned that emotions are temporary states designed to alert us to what's going on in our inner life.  They are meant to last for a short time and act as warnings, guide-posts.  Like traffic lights.  When we get into trouble with our emotions, it usually happens in one of two ways: either we deny they're there (and they will surface another way - usually by making us sick so we finally WILL pay attention!) or we hang onto them longer than is necessary to locate the source of the emotion and process it.  Imagine, I said, climbing up on a traffic light and hanging onto it for the rest of the day.  Emotions tell us when to stop, when to be careful and when it is safe to go ahead or change direction.  It's okay to have them; in fact, NOT having them is just as dangerous as hanging onto them for dear life.  

Part of recovery for me, though, is learning where I stop and where other people begin, where others stop and I begin.  Those boundaries are never more important than in the realm of emotions that are based on what someone else does or says.  And the time it takes to process such emotions is in direct proportion to how deeply what they said or did impacts me.  

Nobody lives in a vacuum.  It is important, though, to be aware that the possibility exists for great joy or great harm to be done by words and deeds.  "Death and life," said King Solomon, "are in the power of the tongue."  Being aware that someone's words can take on a life of their own and can actually generate a self-fulfilling prophecy ... can help me to be able to evaluate whether something that someone says is true and decide whether it applies to me.  Then I can make the choice to accept and receive it - or reject it and not give it any power over me.  Learning that other people's opinions of me were their business and not mine, that I didn't have to let them "make me feel" this way or that way if what they said wasn't true - this was a revelation, an epiphany for me.  

This is part of what living life "inside out" is all about.  It means that I am not bound any more by the things people put onto me from the outside (like grave-wrappings). It means I live from what is inside of me, outward - grounded in my relationship with God and with myself, open (and yes, vulnerable) to those around me, being honest with myself, with God and with them - and willing to admit when I make a mistake - feeling what I feel and living from that core, from the heart.  

When I do, the grave-clothes start coming loose and dropping to the ground.  And my spirit can breathe.

Live and Let Live

I was with a bunch of friends just recently and we were sharing about the things in our lives that have made a difference in how we view the world and ourselves.

One of the people there shared how the saying, "Live and let live" impacted him when he first heard it.  Someone asked him what he thought it meant - he said it meant to respect other people and let them be who they were.

"True," his mentor said.  "But you skipped something."

"I did? What did I miss?"

"It says, 'Live.' THEN it says 'Let Live'.  That's important.  It means that you cannot allow other people to be who they are until you experience life on its own terms and really live, really be who you were meant to be."

That small story blew me away... because I had never considered - like him - the repercussions of that one word: Live.

Live.  Be.  Experience.  Accept.  Enjoy.  Participate.  Act.  Feel.  Laugh.  Cry.  Taste.  Sing.

Live.

This is the kind of life to which I refer in the title of my blog (and my soon-to-be released book) - "Get Unwrapped!"  Most (if not all) of you know that I got the title from the story of Lazarus who, after he was raised from the dead, was still wrapped in grave-clothes, the trappings of death, unable to move more than just hobbling or hopping toward the light of day.  Jesus told the people around him, his friends and loved ones, to "unwrap (loose) him, and let him go."  This is the process that has unfolded in my life in the last two years and is ongoing.  It is a process that I describe fully in my book.

But it also has another, more modern meaning.  "Getting unwrapped" can be thought of in terms of a gift one person gives to another.  In this sense it is the gift of our true lives, our true identities, that God gives to us when we spring into being. 

If a gift is left unopened, it can never be enjoyed by the recipient - nor can it be shared with other people if the recipient so desires.  The good of it is trapped inside the wrappings and we are left wondering what is in there, perhaps (through the warnings or threats of others) fearing to open the exterior.  In a very real sense, this kind of "living" - until experienced, cannot lead us to the place where we are comfortable enough inside our own skin to allow other people to be who they are inside of theirs.

It's a wild ride sometimes - and I won't lie - a lot of times it is incredibly difficult to stay honest with myself, to keep it real.  I have had to surround myself with people who can and do gently point out to me when I am slipping back into my old lifestyle of trying to change others into what I would like them to be.  Or judge them for their attitudes or their choices.  I'm learning to be grateful, to ask myself the hard questions and to insist on never going back to the old way of thinking, because in that way of thinking is just existing, not living.  

At times it has meant that I've lost contact with people who couldn't handle this new lifestyle - some of those have been painful, I will admit. However, I would not trade it and go back to the dichotomy of manipulating others and getting treated like a doormat, or being angry all the time and never feeling like I had the right to (as one person put it to me once) occupy space in the world.  Or have feelings.

Best of all, I've found a new depth and a vibrant life of adventure in daily and intimate fellowship with a living, loving God.  That's living!

Breaking Out

I spent most of the daylight hours of yesterday dodging the efforts of someone else to control my opinions, my social life, and my child-rearing philosophy.  The whole time, I felt a great amount of resentment building up in me.  This person looked at my writing, criticized my choice of illustration, and then complained that I hadn't shared something I'd written with her when I wrote it over 8 years ago ... all in the same day.  The longer she was around, the more angry I got.  She and I had not even spoken, prior to this summer, for over thirteen years.  The person she knew then is not the person I am now, but she still thinks of me as being that way. Even though she knows it's not true.

I needed some perspective.  So I went somewhere last night where I knew I would be accepted for who I was, where people embrace change for the better, and where I don't have to be on my guard.  Funny thing  -  but it wasn't church.  Oops, I digress.  In that place, I found the serenity I was looking for, and I found it in that very self-same acceptance and love.  I felt the chains of the day snap and break off me.

One of the things criticized was my choice of alias for this blog (Lazarus). I had thought it was pretty self-evident until this person questioned it yesterday.  It took me some time to realize that the reason for this is the same reason that folks who are alcoholic and don't know they are, have a real hard time with folks who claim to be alcoholics and in recovery.

For the record, I think you know that the Lazarus I mean is not the poor beggar begging at the rich man's gate.  The one I mean is the one Jesus raised from the dead, His friend who lived in Bethany, close to Jerusalem, the brother of Mary and Martha.  By way of illustration (since all the photos of mummies were of people with arms outstretched, a totally unrealistic image since the arms are bound close to the body), the best I could come up with was the idea of bursting forth, being let out of prison, ... ahh yes, chains.  Breaking chains.

What's coming to me as I write is that I felt stress, and distress, yesterday because I felt like I had to prove something, that I had to show this person that I had changed, that I'm not the same person as I once was.  Yet I found myself behaving in exactly the same way as I always had with her - putting on masks so that I would not be in confrontation with her.  Wow.  As angry as I was with her, I was twice as angry with myself for not staying true to who I had become.  And it also explains to me why I was so obsessed with explaining my choice of alias to her.  I am coming to understand that trying to do that is like expecting someone to get the point of a movie when all they have seen is the last five minutes of it. 

My wanting to justify myself to her made me realize that my relationship with her was not healthy - at least for me - because it was based on an imbalance of power; whether it was intentional or not on her part is immaterial.  

I know that such relationships either need to be radically changed ... or discontinued.  The temptation for abuse in such an association between two people is astronomical.  In other words, if I want to continue on in my recovery ... I don't need to be in a relationship with someone else that will undermine that recovery. I need to be with people who will encourage and not condemn, accept and not judge.

That way I can become who I am becoming, and break free of the chains of addiction to conforming myself to what other people think, and/or to the temptation to try to make them think what I want them to think.  That's a trap I thought I had been freed from.  Yesterday I walked right back into it.

So now I am walking right back out.  I have to; it's a matter of survival.  I can't allow myself to get back into that hamster's wheel of self-defeating behaviors.  

Two of the promises of CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) come to me as I think about this. They follow one after another, and go like this, "I learn to see myself as equal to others.  My new and renewed relationships are all with equal partners.  I am capable of developing and maintaining healthy and loving relationships.  The need to control and manipulate others will disappear as I learn to trust those that are trustworthy."  Hm.  Trust those that are trustworthy - there's a mouthful!!  Wouldn't a lot of problems in this world be solved if we could be in relationships with people as equal partners, and we only trusted those people who were trustworthy?  

My natural tendency is to be in unhealthy relationships, and so I cherish those relationships that I have where I KNOW neither party is - OR FEELS - superior to the other.  But I know that this is not by anything I have done, but simply by the kindness of God toward me even though I don't deserve it.  To paraphrase something I think of often, "What I really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition."  That spiritual condition is maintained by daily connection with God, and that alone.  I can't fake it or manufacture it on my own.  It's a gift - and I'm so grateful for that.

Pathway to Happiness - Getting out the Broom

The list I made of people that hurt me, the one that also listed what part I played in my own demise, called to me.

There was unfinished business. I'd asked God to remove the defects of character that led me to treat people the way I had, to react the way I did. But those people were still out there. With some people, I was already prepared to ask forgiveness for my behavior and attitudes. And in some cases, it was much harder. For these people, it was more difficult because I had to get past the "but they hurt me first" hurdle. I had to become willing - and this was not in my own strength but as a direct result of my prayer for God to remove my character defects - to not only ask forgiveness of these people but begin to treat them differently: with respect rather than with contempt. That was a tall order in some cases. I had to let go and trust that God would bring me to that place. I've never been a big fan of "fake it til you make it" theology. This had to be real or it wasn't going to happen.

My journal helped me keep track of all of this as it unfolded. Slowly, the list of people to whom I knew I had to make amends, started to have little check marks beside them. As I went on I knew - for the most part - who I could approach and who I couldn't. Not primarily because I was scared, (okay, well, the whole thing scared me - I've always hated confrontation even if it's not about me!) but also because of their own fragility and poor self-image. With these people, it was enough just to begin to see them differently, to treat them with more respect and kindness. However, the times I refrained from apology were few and far between; usually God would (I was going to say hound) keep gently reminding me of this person or that person on the list.

My kids were on the list too. I remember what happened as I sincerely apologized to my oldest (who was near the top of the list). She took the brunt of a lot of my "stuff" in her growing-up years. Now she was 20 years old. She listened carefully to me. And she forgave me - no holds barred. We talked for a long time after that, heart to heart ... Finally she said with tears in her eyes, "Wow, Mom. That really means a LOT. I'm so glad you came to me and we could talk like this - it all makes sense now!"

As I took that step of going to people individually and apologizing for specific things and general attitudes, there was a feeling of vulnerability in me; it became so strong that I could almost touch it. But as people I loved forgave me freely, one after another, there was a growing sense of freedom as well, and - yes, I'll say it - happiness. There was an inner lightness, a delight to which I was not accustomed.

I was curious about the feeling of vulnerability, until I realized something - again from the story of Lazarus. Once the wrappings started to come off, guess what was underneath? He was naked under there! So here he is, still stinking of the slime from the mummy-wrappings (I'll leave that to your imagination; if you've ever watched a crime scene investigation show on TV then you'll know what I'm thinking). He's standing there totally naked, in front of friends and family. Someone else has to give him their cloak probably - (and believe me, they won't want it back!!) to cover his nakedness. He'll have to spend 7 days purifying himself of the filth because that is what a practicing Jew did if he even touched a dead body. He WAS a dead body.

So I learned to live with that feeling; it was a sensation of being exposed for what in many cases was the first time. It meant the wrappings were loosening and coming off.

That feeling of happiness was worth my new-found transparency - and discomfort.

Whenever I'm tempted to hold onto or grab back some of those resentments and dance with them - and I am tempted because I lived like that for so long that it's familiar, even comfortable, I inevitably feel the maggots start to gnaw at me again. So to avoid that return to the limiting, one-sided, narrow-minded and dogmatic prison I was in, I TRY to remember the smell of death. I TRY to remember the wrappings. The bondage. The pain I put people through. And I TRY to remember the new depths of relationship to which God has brought me and the promise of even deeper intimacy with Him.

Do I really want to sacrifice that freedom ... to go back to the tomb ?

God wasn't finished, however. There was even more.

Pathway to Happiness - Forgiveness

[image removed because of possible copyright infringement] 

I had originally picked a beautiful photo for this post. (edited December 2012)
 
The photograph I originally chose was of an artesian spring continually bubbling up from the ground, so much that it had formed a freshwater pond. The water from the spring was pure enough to drink.

I've said before that the pathway to happiness, the pathway to a lifestyle of living in today, is not by burying the past, nor by wallowing in it, but by exposing it.

I'm not talking about exposing to the general public the horrid details of who did what to whom, deciding whose fault it was, or seeking justice for all the wrongs experienced at the hands or lips of others. I'm talking about dealing with the feelings and beliefs about ourselves that past experiences have produced in our lives, and being free of them.

Hiding those feelings is what got me into trouble in the first place. I know that the self-protecting behaviors, the beliefs I developed about myself all those years ago kept me in slavery to awful, soul-shrinking words like "should", "must", and "bad".

One of the steps in my healing process was that on a list that only I would ever see, I listed all of the people in my life who had ever hurt me, what they did, how it made me feel and what behaviors it produced in me as a result. It was a long list; some people took up more room than others. And the list took a few weeks to complete. The reason I had to make this list was that it wasn't enough to bring to God the issues I had with these people and come to a "blanket" forgiveness for all of them. No, this had to be specific, because in each of these experiences, I had allowed my hurt to develop into resentment, and bitterness had taken root. I held onto these hurts; they shaped me and turned me into who I thought I was.

I had been accused of having a "victim mentality." I fully admitted that I had such a mentality. I thought it was fine to have one, if you were really a victim. I believed that the abuse I suffered at the hands of family members and others made me a card-carrying "Victim Club" member!

But slowly I began to see that the roots of the behaviors I hated in me were from the attitudes and beliefs I developed as a response to those things I suffered - and that the only way to be rid of them was to deal with the abuse itself. In specifics.

I won't lie to you. It was a painful process to bring up to the surface buried memories of things I would have just as soon forgotten. In my case, I had to remember in detail - and allow myself to experience all the emotion that I should have expressed at the time but couldn't because of my situation. My counselor explained to me the reason why I couldn't express those things at the time; I already knew that it was because I was a child and didn't have the emotional maturity to handle these things - things that shouldn't happen to anyone.

But God used my counselor to put His finger on the reason why I developed the behaviors I did, in terms I could understand for the first time in my life. My counselor used the analogy of a soldier in a modern war zone - you're in constant danger of attack, never knowing who is a friend and who is a foe, always having to be on guard, witnessing horrible things happen to others and being glad it's not you, yet feeling guilty for making it out of there when others didn't, not allowed to react to the atrocities that would make most people weep, expected to work for the same people who made you go there and see that, resenting the very people (in the soldier's case, the army) who are such a part of your identity ... it made perfect sense to me. Then when you come home from the war zone, that mind-set is still there: "Gotta protect myself. The world is not a safe place. They're being nice now, but they will betray me eventually. How can they even spend time with me? if they knew who I was, what I've done to survive - they'd never give me the time of day."

So part of my recovery was going back into every one of those experiences and allowing myself to feel all the anger, all the hurt, all the rage and sadness that were appropriate to feel for what I went through. The path to forgiveness is sometimes talked about as sweetness and light, daisies and butterflies. Not when the hurt goes deep, driven down inside by years and years of abuse. The first admission to make in the process of forgiveness is the admission of having been wronged, and that it was that person's fault, not the fault of the (I'll use the word) victim. No excuses made for the person who did it; making excuses is a counterfeit for forgiveness - not the real thing at all. What he/she did was wrong and it hurt me. It hurt me in ways that until now, I have not been able to express, and it made me believe this thing about myself and do that thing to other people because of it.

Until I realize the wrongness of what was done to me, it really can't be called forgiveness when I eventually get there. It is normal and healthy to BE angry, to BE sad, to BE hurt by those things. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person; it means I'm human. I learn to reject the message I got from that person's treatment of me. I speak words of comfort to that hurting, frightened and suspicious inner child (see my recent post "Beautiful" for more information about that). I realize (for real, not just pay lip service to it) that even if the person wanted to give back to me what he or she took from me by treating me that way, they couldn't. The moment they took it from me, it flew from their hands and disappeared. And finally, after all that, I make a decision to NOT make (or expect) that person pay me back for the offense. That means they never have to make the first move and say they're sorry. I literally let that person off the hook. I write off their debt to me.

This process can take months. It did for me. I can only tell you that it is worth it. As I dealt with those experiences, releasing every experience, every person into the hands of God who saw it all anyway, I was finally able to fully forgive the people on my list (which I kept, by the way - as a tool for later on and as a reminder of how far God has brought me). It doesn't mean that I was able to re-establish relationships with all of these people; some of them continued to spill poison out of themselves onto me, and I realized it wasn't healthy for me to re-enter that atmosphere. But the resentment and the bitterness ... was gone.

As new things happen or old things creep back in, I go through that same process. It's not easy, and it doesn't get easier with time and repetition. But having experienced the benefits, I am more willing to go there and do what needs to be done in order to be free.

Freedom. I like the feeling.

. . . . to be continued...