Being at peace with the past and having peace in the present

Of recent days, God has broken through and spoken powerfully, and it means change is coming.  The first of these is I’ll deactivate from Facebook.  The second is I’m embarking on a writing project.  Both of these combined are interconnected.

The theme is as follows:

“Life is in letting go of what’s not ours and embracing what is.”

Life, real life, is in the letting go and it’s also in the embracing.  Simple as that really.  The hard part is making those two aspects stick.  If you’ve ever struggled with either or both, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  They’re probably the hardest things to do in life.

Letting go is hard, yet so is embracing.

What I mean is letting go of those things that have happened to us—our hurts, habits, and hang-ups—can seem a journey we wrestle with for years.  Forgiveness and recovery can seem so elusive.  Embracing is also hard a lot of the time, especially when those things involve situations in our lives that we’re reluctant to be enthusiastic about.

Think of the situation where you’re wondering, “How on earth did I get here?” or perhaps it’s, “How did it get to this?” or maybe it could be, “How do I get over or through this?”

I’ve had a few situations in my life when I’ve genuinely asked those questions.  You can probably relate.

Letting go by itself is hard, and so is embracing that which you don’t want to take hold of, but it’s especially hard when we find ourselves in a situation where we can’t let go of the past and we also can’t embrace the present.  Life can seem so unfair.

But imagine being in that situation where you reach such a crisis that you just know you need to change; you need to embrace the present you hate and let go of that past that continues to consume you.

And suddenly, the miracle occurs—you’re at one with the will of God for your life.  You get a sniff: being at peace with the past and having peace in the present.  That sniff is enough to follow the scent, that aroma of the abundant life in acceptance.

You might remember a time in your life when you never thought you’d face such challenges.  But you find you’ve descended into a place where both past and present seem to thwart you.  These experiences grace our lives for a very important reason.  These challenges deepen us, they push us, they mature us.

~

For those who follow what I write, as I said above, I’m deactivating my personal social media accounts soon, though my Facebook ‘pages’ will remain with a separate administrator (my wife).  I want to focus on a writing project and on more immediate areas in my life.

The key area in my life is living out of the experience of what I’ve written here and writing about it in a form that might be a comprehensive blessing for those who would read it.

To do justice to such a project, I need time to research, to write it, to hear from God, to write the divine will, to do a good job.

14 years and 15 days I’ve been blogging, initially on the single platform, and since 2010 it’s been three of my own, apart from ezinearticles.com and other platforms I’ve written for like Godspace and Kingdom Winds.  Nearly 9,500 articles and approximately 20,000 hours (and only two books) later, it’s nearly time to focus on what always had to come.  Something deeper.

It could go without saying that I’d value your prayers.  I would.

What it was like on the wrong side of addiction

Whether it’s dependence or addiction, for me, is a moot point.  When taking a substance or engaging in a practice becomes something you can’t stop, that’s a problem.

For me, I cast my mind back to September 2003 and beyond, especially the previous two years when I was focused that much on my career, I used alcohol and at times cannabis and tobacco mainly at weekends but occasionally during the week to manage the stress of many work pressures.  It was a cosmic irony that at the time I coordinated an alcohol and other drug program for the oil company I worked for!

These are some of the costs I bore in those times:

§     I compromised as a father and always felt guilty that I drank more than I should have much more often than I should have

§     I let down a marriage partner who held out year after year that I’d reform my ways and not continually spend hard earned dollars on the drink

§     the cycle of guilt that would ravage me on Monday and Friday mornings as I drove into work in the company four-wheel drive knowing, that though I would have registered zero BAC, I was feeling the after effects of drinking the night before

§     though I never really got the jitters, I’d be seriously concerned that co-workers could smell the alcohol on me, through my pores, and this meant that subconsciously I felt like a hypocrite

§     ironically, it was most when I was inebriated that I dreamt of being in control of my life, and I knew as long as alcohol was a part of my life those dreams were just that—dreams, that may never have been realised

§     I constantly planned the next ‘escape’, never realising I wasn’t escaping work or finding my way to peace, but I was escaping the pain that simply needed to be faced (as soon as you face the pain, though it hurts, you realise you CAN do it)

The worst thing that happened to me proved to be the best thing.  The moment my first marriage dissolved in an instant (that’s a whole other story) was the very moment that GOD got my attention.  I’d been faking it for nearly 13 years.  Suddenly I was in a position where—having lost basically everything—I set a 180-degree course correction.  I’d toyed with the idea of doing AA for years, always rationalising that I could stop drinking on my own (I never did).

Upon submitting to the complete AA way of doing things, I learned the value of community (I desperately needed to be around others who knew what it was like to be broken!), my need of a boots ‘n’ all recovery, and the heart that resides behind service.  Once I’d engaged wholeheartedly in the Steps, I soon realised that I was on the most ardent of spiritual journeys.  I was embraced by the church, then put into leadership where I could be mentored and guided, where I was surrounded by much wiser people than I was.

I never looked back once I worked out that there was really no way back to that old life.  I simply had to move forward.  Not that I didn’t hate it.  It was the worst grief I’ve ever experienced.  BUT I was propelled forward on a journey (at the time I loathed the word ‘journey’!) that insisted on faith.

The weirdest thing about that journey was it was a homogenous blend of brokenness and victory.  Brokenness because of the grief I suffered in losing so much, but victory through a spiritual conquest that saw me go from strength to strength because of my weakness.

If you have a problem with alcohol, drugs, addictive practices, remember the role of guilt and shame in the cycles of impulsion and compulsion will make it impossible for you to overcome these problems in your own strength.

Overcoming addiction is the easiest hardest thing.  There’s a way that works every time.

The more we seek help in humility, 
the more we depend on a proven recovery process, 
the more truthful we are about our pain,
the more we hold ourselves accountable,
and the more do it one day at a time,
the more we reach out for help when we’re weak,
the more we forge for ourselves a brand-new path.

Why do I write this kind of article?  It’s for those who now are like I was 18 years ago.

I prospered because people invested time in me by listening to me.  They helped by supporting me as I did my work.  Like it is for us all, it’s only me-myself-I who can do the work, but we do need support.

When you receive support when you really need it, you want to sow that support forward.

Why pain in grief and trauma is so repetitious and listening is so important

My best counsellors were available exactly when I needed them.  I’d just lost just about everything that ever mattered to me and would ever matter to me.  They were there, and they continued to listen, time and again, to the same confused utterings, and they were just there, and they did what was required to love me back into shape.

It took months and months and months.

There were times we’d all sit there bewildered for what to think or how to respond.

It was the very shape of loss and of grief and of trauma, because loss propels us into grief, and I’m sure with all I have in me that grief is trauma.

There are so many situations in our lives that leave us devoid of rational response, like there are no words, or the words just don’t make a difference.  There is a place for just holding space, for containing, somehow, the mess that flows out of a person in a traumatised state.

I know first-hand having experienced such a lengthy bout of grief—patterns that would recur—involve the process of repetition, for repetition shows us what is not so easily wished away.  It lingers for a reason.  It remains because it refuses to be digested.  What’s unpalatable just sits there, like oil on water.

So, for me, it doesn’t necessarily take patience, but empathy carries a counsellor much further, for it shouldn’t be about patience.  And the empathy I mention here is a FELT experience of having been there.

When you’ve been there it’s not hard at all sitting in the pain with another who endures.  It’s the most natural thing in the world, I find.  Why would you not sit there with another person who is a brother or sister by the designation of their pain?  Especially when you’re the one who’s been there but has processed all your pain appropriately given time.

The emotions and the words circle around the mind, and the concepts seem brutally abstract yet altogether so concrete.  The words are tried in different order, the narrative shifts ever so slightly in wondering ‘what if?’ and the same old ‘why’ questions emerge.

The shapes of grief move and shift, yet the methods and patterns of pain remain the same.  These shapes of grief are anger one moment, resignation the next, then perhaps depression, and then maybe a little dread of anxiety, before some bargaining.

It’s exhausting, yet inescapable.  It’s the same cycle of pain rehashed and regurgitated over and again, and the afflicted are sicker of it than anyone.

When you’ve been there, you know it’s all beyond choice.  A journey of a million miles is worth every courageous step, for you will get there!

So, being there, sitting in the mire of the pain with them, that’s not hard.

Mental Fracture and Emotional Fragility in Depression

The pages of my journal in the latter half of 2007 are bare for the most part; quite uncharacteristic for me during that period of life.  There is a story to be told, which those pages allude to tellingly.

I was in a murky depression.  Embarking on my forties, in a crisis of vocation, having recently married, surprised how unanticipated my life had become.  Life deconstructed.

This depression came as a Fujita-5 tornado, rapid and sudden; its signs only clear from hindsight.  Those symptoms appeared, unwittingly and unfairly, on our honeymoon.

Here is one story of how depression involves fracture of the mind creating enormous emotional fragility and spiritual crisis:

On an innocent enough Saturday morning I changed the engine oil in my Hyundai.  I’d done it dozens of times.  The job done, I started the engine.  Checking everything was working as it should I was shattered to find oil running all over the driveway.  I shut the engine down and ran inside absolutely broken, sobbing tears like a baby.  I met Sarah in the kitchen and fell into her arms, before flopping to the floor.  She didn’t know what had occurred and it took her a little while to find out.  I was inconsolable.  Normally I might react angrily that the job went badly; but in my depression there was no agency for such fight.

The fracture in my mind had contributed to the spilt oil in the first place; with depression it’s so hard to keep the mind on task.  I had failed to remove the old O-ring.  With a clear mind I would never make such a fundamental error.  Yet, as I recall doing the task, my lack of self-confidence was poignant.  Neither the mind nor the emotions could hold me up.

As I reflect over that initial period of our marriage, I quickly feel for the plight my new wife must have found herself in; her new husband completely insecure of identity, warred upon from within, defences down, a victim of a broken mind, that ran unchecked according to its own will, and a heart vulnerable to the cognitive chaos it sat under.

For a period of just over three months I had a daily battle.  I was in a paid ministry role and felt completely inadequate to discharge that duty most of the time.  Many times I had to put my depression to one side and pray that the Lord would uphold my mind and my emotions whenever I was ministering with the youth.  God was incredibly faithful.  My senior pastor, too, graciously allowed me to continue in the work.  To have to continue to show up helped.  But there were days, also, when I couldn’t function, and nobody could make me if I couldn’t make myself.

Coming Out of It

What ultimately drew me out of that depression was Proverbs.  I began reading a chapter of Proverbs per day, and remained on that plan, meditating on chapters of about twenty verses daily, for eighteen months.  That book of the Bible saved my mental, emotional, and spiritual life.  I read little else of the Bible during that time.  Those maxims of King Solomon (predominantly) were the spiritual staple in that season for me.

Focusing on Proverbs got my mind engaged and steadied my emotions as the Holy Spirit spoke encouragement’s life into me.  It showed me how important the steadiness of studying one book or section of God’s Word is.  Proverbs gave me the character of God as a structure for the wisdom I sought.

Through these precious aphorisms, God was able to steady me enough to heal the fracture in my mind, and that helped fortify the fragility of my emotions.  Through the patterns I could see in those 31 chapters, I began to restructure my thoughts, emotions, and prayer life.

Thankfully I came out of this depression about as quickly as I entered it.

And, for the record, I took SSRI antidepressant medication.  They were important; about as important as recognising the signs and symptoms and admitting I was out of control.  As soon as I have recognised I’m out of control, quickly I’ve been able to address the confusion and start on getting well again.  Antidepressants help re-establish the biochemical balance in our bodies so they can be a vital therapy.

May God sincerely bless you as you go gently with yourself.

Living your purpose yet not destroying yourself getting there

So many of us grow up with the vision of changing our world, yet all too many of us end up threatening to destroy ourselves in the process.

Let me explain.

Many people I know and many people that I’ve counselled, have had such an urgent purpose in themselves to achieve in their short lifetime.  There are so many good drivers in people to want to do this, yet many of these good drivers are also driven by our brokenness, and a purpose built on brokenness alone leaves a person susceptible to temptation.

So many have entered careers, in fact, that have sought to do that very thing, to make the difference in this life while there is breath in their lungs.  “My life must stand for some good,” they’ll say.

Anyone reading this is motivated by doing something good with their life—we identify.

What attracts many counsellors and pastors and nurses and doctors and social workers, among so many, to their professions?  It’s not generally altogether altruistic.  It’s usually because there’s a difference to be made because of some hole inside us that seeks to be filled.  At least that’s part of the reason.

But with the purpose to make something truly worthwhile of one’s life, coupled with the difficulties inherent in achieving such a noble goal, the goal often becomes a burden, and pressure builds due to the cognitive dissonance of not being able to make the difference you thought you would.  This usually strikes home in the mid-thirties to mid-forties and explains many a midlife crisis.

What occurs on the way to our living our purpose, to the achievement of our dreams, amid the pressures of life, is temptation—generally because we need to medicate ourselves.

Now, you probably don’t need me to tell you that medicating yourself is always a slippery slope.

But it is.  Whether it’s an ever-increasing need to drink or falling for the drug of your ‘choice’, or it’s internet pornography, or gambling, is a moot point.  So very many people fall into these modes of self-medication because of the tremendous unrealistic pressures they place on themselves to achieve what they see is their purpose, and to fill that hole that no amount of achievement can fill.

Indeed, it’s the striving to achieve something under such enduring pressure that leaves a soul destitute, often having achieved exactly what was set out to be done.

And addiction is a slippery slope because steadily you need more of your ‘drug’ while there are just as steadily significant diminishing returns in terms of ‘medicative’ benefit.  You need more to get the same effect, and with that ‘more’, the threats to your health increase and the sustainability of your secret life becomes even more untenable.  Fragility becomes the identity.

If it’s drinking, you’re drinking far more now and far more often than you ever thought you would.  If it’s drugs, you simply cannot believe your own form.  It’s the same with internet porn and gambling—with each day it seems, you sink to new lows.  You’re driven to medicate, but as soon as you do, you die a new death of anxiety and shame.  And you repeat this a thousand times, always promising that tomorrow will be different, yet not for one moment trusting your ability to reform from the habit.

At a subconscious level you live in the conundrum that your initial intent was good.  You started out to help people, but now you feel like the biggest phony in the world, and your hypocrisy only drives the shame that keeps you in such a compulsive, impulsive cycle.

Nobody is beyond this cycle, but I know what it’s like to mistakenly think you’ve got the self-control to master the good and ward against the evil.  YOU DON’T.  Back in my AA days, there were many little sayings to help you recover—one of them was Y.E.T. i.e., You’re Eligible Too.

The moment a person says they’ll never fall for the temptations of life, is the moment that person is immediately susceptible to them—because they don’t realise that every soul demands peace.

Why do we medicate?  Because we need to reconcile certain things—the pain within each of us insists it will be heard.  Face the pain and deal with the feelings, or be pursued all your life by the pain (your truth and need of healing) that simply demands a hearing.

Living out our God-given purpose ever runs in tension with the burdens of life that build and threaten to derail us amid the common temptations we may all underestimate.

Very few people set out to become a hopeless alcoholic, a crime-fuelled drug addict, a porn addict (and think of the destinations THIS addiction can take you too!), or a gambling addict that sees you squander a hundred thousand dollars.

We’re all eligible for the temptations of life, and the wise person reconciles all demands of truth.

When you feel like you’re dying of grief

I distinctly recall times in my earliest significant grief the bodily sensation that I was dying, so bad was the felt pain I was experiencing.  I was sure that the stress of it would kill me.

Yet it obviously didn’t.

I remember the dread of a hope that was no more, and how that made my heart feel overwhelmed with tension—yes, my physical heart, not just the metaphorical heart.

I recall my mind hurting so much that I felt tortured between the ears.  Those agonising thoughts at the death knell of a life coming to an end.  Those thoughts that loop and circle around and seem to have no end.

Then there was the tension that coursed through my body, stiff muscles around the neck and shoulders, the sore back, and weary knees.  Grief’s depression made me feel aged.   And then there’s the foreboding sense that there’s no will nor energy to do anything.

The grief that’s experienced because of loss—loss that cannot and never will be resolved—takes a person to these ends that seem to promise or threaten the end.

Why do I write like this?  Perhaps for the reader to know a little of what someone’s going through in their grief, because if you’ve never been there, it can be so hard to empathise, because you may not understand.  If you say, “Well, of course I understand!” please consider that if you haven’t grieved, you may think you’ve got an idea, but perhaps you can’t fully understand because you’ve not had the life experience yet.

I pray you never do, but chances are you will.

Pain from full-blown grief seems to take years off your life and it certainly leaves you greyer.

But I think what it more fully shows is that our bodies and minds are much more resilient than we give them credit for.  What I suffered didn’t so much debilitate me forever, and it certainly didn’t kill me like I thought the stress of it would.

More the issue is how it shows us how we can survive these extended seasons that can last years.  Only as we look back from years after do we see that what threatened to shorten our lives actually left us with a legacy of respect for our Maker who gets us through the pain one day at a time.

In the final analysis, we’re much stronger than we realise.