To start the process of healing is a HUGE step. It takes guts. To change is to say that you will turn from the way you've been doing things.
And if you've been doing things a certain way for a long time...well the change is even more significant!
I recently read some posts about being a survivor of sexual assault. Many do not know I too am a survivor of sexual assault. It's weird to say. It happened so long ago. I don't think about it every day like I used to. Through many months of therapy, tons of tears, medication, and other things I have been able to switch from a victim to a survivor. That switch is monumental.
People think, "How can a lady ever forgive the person who assaulted her?". Well, it's either forgiving or letting the hate and anger consume your life. It also helps they are not a part of your life (well, for me that is true).
But as I read this chapter on "We heal ourselves" I found much of this process to be true in different areas of my life.
As we begin to forgive, we begin the process of seeing true that hate blinds us to (words by Smedes himself).
He says this:
For the truth about those who hurt us is that they are weak, needy, and fallible human beings. They were people before they hurt us and they are people after they hurt us. They were needy and weak before they hurt us and they are weak and needy after they hurt us. They needed our help, our support, and our comfort before they did us wrong; and they still need it.
Yep. True.
He goes on:
Of course, we cannot pry the wrongdoer loose from the wrong; we can only release the person within our memory of the wrong.
He says that when God talks about separating our sin from us like he separates the East from the West or that it is literally cleaned away from us, so too does He FORGIVE our sins. God's attitude towards us change. So should we not also change our attitude towards those who have wronged us?
So, how can you tell when forgiveness happens?
When you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. (Exact words of Smedes).
WHOA! Yet so true!!!!
And this is just the beginning...
Next chapter: We Come Together.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Inflating the Importance of Errors
Al-Anon books are really great, especially for those who have an alcoholic in their lives.
Today- from Courage to Change- it started off with this paragraph:
I grew up with guilt and blame, admist harsh criticism and constant fear. Even now, after years of Al-Anon recovery, when past mistakes come to mind I tend to react with guilt, exaggerating the significance of my errors and thinking very badly of myself.
And then I wonder why I have a hard time forgiving.
And then I get to the book, One Day at a Time in Al-Anon. First line:
A little medication on the word forgive can throw some rather surprising light on our understanding of the word.
I bet that is God today :) Only He could have orchestrated time enough to read the Al-Anon books along with my Forgive and Forget book tonight.
The Chapter called: We Hate.
He speaks about passive and aggressive hate. Passive hates is secretly not feeling bad if 'ill-will' were to happen or to feel 'dead' to that person. Aggressive hate is wishing 'ill-will' to happen to that person.
Hate is like cancer. Yep. "...it (hate) surely hurts the hater more than it hurts the hated. It is hate and not anger that needs healing. Anger is a sign that we are alive and well. Hate is a sign that we are sick and need to be healed."
He goes on to say that Hate is hard to cure for several reasons:
1) It is people, not merely evil, that we hate
"None of us want to admit we hate people." "We do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate." "When we only hate the wrongness of a thing, our hate dies when the wrong we hate is righted. But when we hate people who do us wrong, our hate stays alive long after the wrong they did is dead and gone..."
2) We most often aim our hatred at people who live within the circle of our committed love
3) We hate people we blame:
"When we hate a person who deserves our hate we feel very righteous in our hating. "
If I were to bring this around in a circle with the title. Not only do I inflate my own mistakes and wrong doings, but I can do the same of others. I have gotten better about each of these, becoming more rational about both of these, and I also have been more able to mature both sides.
In our hate, we think we are 'giving what they deserve', but in all reality we are only harming ourselves. The hate will eat us up, start infiltrating other areas of our lives, and cause a huge death by the end.
Going back to admitting we don't hate. SO TRUE IN THE MIDWEST! If you admit you hate, you are evil. You get the "How dare you!" look along with the subtle phrases of how you should feel like a horrible person for admitting the hate you feel and think.
So, let's be done shaming.
I bet if people could admit a little more freely that hate exists inside of them, then healing would come much faster. Shaming is never useful. In fact, it is detrimental to any progress that could be made.
So, can you make a commitment to allowing people to be vulnerable about where they are at? Encourage them to see how they want their life to unfold? To give individuals time to process through things?
Don't get me wrong- there are going to be those that are stubborn and will not allow healing to come. They find identity in their hate. It becomes so part of them, that separating those things is really left to God and a counselor to sort through. However, if a person is able to admit things early on, chances are s/he will be able to get to healing much faster.
Will you be the navigator of pain or freedom?
Next chapter: Healing.
Today- from Courage to Change- it started off with this paragraph:
I grew up with guilt and blame, admist harsh criticism and constant fear. Even now, after years of Al-Anon recovery, when past mistakes come to mind I tend to react with guilt, exaggerating the significance of my errors and thinking very badly of myself.
And then I wonder why I have a hard time forgiving.
And then I get to the book, One Day at a Time in Al-Anon. First line:
A little medication on the word forgive can throw some rather surprising light on our understanding of the word.
I bet that is God today :) Only He could have orchestrated time enough to read the Al-Anon books along with my Forgive and Forget book tonight.
The Chapter called: We Hate.
He speaks about passive and aggressive hate. Passive hates is secretly not feeling bad if 'ill-will' were to happen or to feel 'dead' to that person. Aggressive hate is wishing 'ill-will' to happen to that person.
Hate is like cancer. Yep. "...it (hate) surely hurts the hater more than it hurts the hated. It is hate and not anger that needs healing. Anger is a sign that we are alive and well. Hate is a sign that we are sick and need to be healed."
He goes on to say that Hate is hard to cure for several reasons:
1) It is people, not merely evil, that we hate
"None of us want to admit we hate people." "We do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate." "When we only hate the wrongness of a thing, our hate dies when the wrong we hate is righted. But when we hate people who do us wrong, our hate stays alive long after the wrong they did is dead and gone..."
2) We most often aim our hatred at people who live within the circle of our committed love
3) We hate people we blame:
"When we hate a person who deserves our hate we feel very righteous in our hating. "
If I were to bring this around in a circle with the title. Not only do I inflate my own mistakes and wrong doings, but I can do the same of others. I have gotten better about each of these, becoming more rational about both of these, and I also have been more able to mature both sides.
In our hate, we think we are 'giving what they deserve', but in all reality we are only harming ourselves. The hate will eat us up, start infiltrating other areas of our lives, and cause a huge death by the end.
Going back to admitting we don't hate. SO TRUE IN THE MIDWEST! If you admit you hate, you are evil. You get the "How dare you!" look along with the subtle phrases of how you should feel like a horrible person for admitting the hate you feel and think.
So, let's be done shaming.
I bet if people could admit a little more freely that hate exists inside of them, then healing would come much faster. Shaming is never useful. In fact, it is detrimental to any progress that could be made.
So, can you make a commitment to allowing people to be vulnerable about where they are at? Encourage them to see how they want their life to unfold? To give individuals time to process through things?
Don't get me wrong- there are going to be those that are stubborn and will not allow healing to come. They find identity in their hate. It becomes so part of them, that separating those things is really left to God and a counselor to sort through. However, if a person is able to admit things early on, chances are s/he will be able to get to healing much faster.
Will you be the navigator of pain or freedom?
Next chapter: Healing.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Defining hurt and types of hurts....
In the beginning of this chapter he says "If you're like me, you may let that hurt fester and grow until it stifles your joy. When that happens, you have entered the first stage of forgiving."
Looks like I've entered this first stage of forgiving many times. Sadly.
Hurt can get into the fabric our lives...like a huge stain! Boy how many stains I have! The memories suck! People used to shame me with, "Oh my gosh. Can't you just let it go already?"
He goes on to say, "We need to sort out hurts and learn the difference between those that call for the miracle of forgiveness and those that can be borne with a sense of humor. If we lump all our hurts together and prescribe forgiveness for all of them, we turn the art of forgiving into something cheap and commonplace. Like good wine, forgiving must be preserved for the right occasion."
Well then.
Looks like I'm not some horrible person after all! And that I didn't need the shame at all!
I like that he goes on to say that forgiveness is not extended to things that cannot be forgiven (i.e. tornado's or SIDS), but it can only be extended to the person who hurt us personally. If you try to forgive a person who did not hurt you directly, he says this cheapens the miracle of forgiving. He does not say you cannot be angry or frustrated that things happen to other people, but you have no RIGHT to forgive them.
Only the victims have the right.
Then:
"If forgiving heals the pain we feel, we have good reason to keep in touch with our own hurts."
He says the miracle only happens when the person can FEEL the pain and forgives the PERSON who caused the wound.
Interesting.
So I don't have to have all my emotions worked to the point of not feeling them to forgive? That I don't have to reach some sort of 'peace' before forgiving? What concept!
Later he talks about 'undeserving hurts'. He says we do not have to forgive for every indiscretion, especially when the person did not intentionally hurt us.
He does, however, make a few statements about unfair hurts:
a) People hurt us because they think we deserve it- "But what he meant and what I experienced were two different things".
b) People hurt us compulsively- Sometimes people hurt us, not because they want to do us harm, but only because they cannot control themselves.
c) People hurt us with the spill-overs of their problems- Sometimes our personal struggles spill over to affect innocent bystanders.
d) People hurt us with their good intentions- When people are focused on good things in this world that can indirectly harm us.
e) People hurt us by their mistakes.
Lastly- DEEP HURTS- the ones that need forgiving.
1. Disloyalty. Violations of loyalty are broken promises and broken trust.
2. Betrayal. The acts of selling people at a price. Not literally, but metaphorically.
3. Brutality. Whenever we reduce another person to less than human excellence. This can be physical or emotional abuse.
So the moral of the story is- find out what type of hurt it is. That deep hurts are truly the ones in need of forgiveness. That unfair hurts or other minor things can be considered deep hurts if they continue!
Next up: Hate stage.
Looks like I've entered this first stage of forgiving many times. Sadly.
Hurt can get into the fabric our lives...like a huge stain! Boy how many stains I have! The memories suck! People used to shame me with, "Oh my gosh. Can't you just let it go already?"
He goes on to say, "We need to sort out hurts and learn the difference between those that call for the miracle of forgiveness and those that can be borne with a sense of humor. If we lump all our hurts together and prescribe forgiveness for all of them, we turn the art of forgiving into something cheap and commonplace. Like good wine, forgiving must be preserved for the right occasion."
Well then.
Looks like I'm not some horrible person after all! And that I didn't need the shame at all!
I like that he goes on to say that forgiveness is not extended to things that cannot be forgiven (i.e. tornado's or SIDS), but it can only be extended to the person who hurt us personally. If you try to forgive a person who did not hurt you directly, he says this cheapens the miracle of forgiving. He does not say you cannot be angry or frustrated that things happen to other people, but you have no RIGHT to forgive them.
Only the victims have the right.
Then:
"If forgiving heals the pain we feel, we have good reason to keep in touch with our own hurts."
He says the miracle only happens when the person can FEEL the pain and forgives the PERSON who caused the wound.
Interesting.
So I don't have to have all my emotions worked to the point of not feeling them to forgive? That I don't have to reach some sort of 'peace' before forgiving? What concept!
Later he talks about 'undeserving hurts'. He says we do not have to forgive for every indiscretion, especially when the person did not intentionally hurt us.
He does, however, make a few statements about unfair hurts:
a) People hurt us because they think we deserve it- "But what he meant and what I experienced were two different things".
b) People hurt us compulsively- Sometimes people hurt us, not because they want to do us harm, but only because they cannot control themselves.
c) People hurt us with the spill-overs of their problems- Sometimes our personal struggles spill over to affect innocent bystanders.
d) People hurt us with their good intentions- When people are focused on good things in this world that can indirectly harm us.
e) People hurt us by their mistakes.
Lastly- DEEP HURTS- the ones that need forgiving.
1. Disloyalty. Violations of loyalty are broken promises and broken trust.
2. Betrayal. The acts of selling people at a price. Not literally, but metaphorically.
3. Brutality. Whenever we reduce another person to less than human excellence. This can be physical or emotional abuse.
So the moral of the story is- find out what type of hurt it is. That deep hurts are truly the ones in need of forgiveness. That unfair hurts or other minor things can be considered deep hurts if they continue!
Next up: Hate stage.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
And it begins....
The first line: "I learned about forgiving, not by reading good books, but by listening to good forgivers." Wow. That is profound.
"Some people are lucky; they seem to have gracious glands that secret the juices of forgetfulness. They never hold a grudge; they do not remember old hurts. Their painful yesterdays die with the coming of tomorrow." This is my sister Mallory. This is Michelle Duggar.
"Some people are lucky; they seem to have gracious glands that secret the juices of forgetfulness. They never hold a grudge; they do not remember old hurts. Their painful yesterdays die with the coming of tomorrow." This is my sister Mallory. This is Michelle Duggar.
"It is ten times harder for an ordinary person, whom nobody is watching, to forgive and forget". Yep. That's me!
And then there was this story. The Magic Eyes- a Little Fable
The Magic Eyes: A Fable
In the village of Falken in innermost Freisland there lived a long, thin baker named Fouke; a righteous man, with a long thin nose and a long thin chin. Fouke was so upright that he seemed to spray righteousness from his thin lips over everyone who came to him. So, everyone preferred to stay away. His wife, Hilda, was short and round. Her bosom was round and so was her rump. She did not keep people at bay with her righteousness; her soft roundness seemed to invite them in to be close with her and share her warmth. She respected her husband and loved him very much, as much as he would allow her; but her heart ached for something more from him. And there in the bed of her need lay her sadness.
One morning Fouke came home and found a stranger lying on Hilda's bosom. Hilda's adultery became the talk of the town. Fouke surprised everyone by keeping Hilda as his wife, saying he forgave her as the good book said he should. But, in his heart of hearts, he could not forgive her for bringing shame to his name. Whenever he thought about her, his feelings towards her were angry and hard; he despised her as if she were a whore. When it came right down to it, he hated her for betraying him after he had been such a faithful and good husband to her. He only pretended to forgive her so that he could punish her with his righteous mercy.
His fakery did not sit well in heaven. So each time he would feel his secret hate, an angel came to him and dropped a small pebble, hardly the size of a small button into his heart. Each time a pebble dropped into his heart, he would feel a stab of pain like the pain he felt the moment he came on Hilda feeding her hungry heart from a stranger's larder. Thus he hated her the more; his hate brought him pain and his pain made him hate. The pebbles multiplied and his heart grew heavy with the weight of them, so heavy that the top half of his body bent forward so that he had to strain his neck upward in order to see ahead. Weary and hurt, he began to wish he were dead.
The angel who dropped the pebbles into his heart came to him one night and told him how he could be healed of his hurt. There is only one remedy for the hurt of the wounded heart. He would need the miracle of the magic eyes. He would need eyes that could look back and see a wife not who betrayed him but as a weak woman who needed him. He protested and said that nothing could change the past. She is guilty and an angel cannot change that. The angel said, "You cannot change the past. You can only heal the hurt that comes to you from the past. And you can only heal it with the vision of the magic eyes." He asked how to get the magic eyes. "Ask, and they will be given. Each time you see Hilda through your new eyes, a pebble will be lifted from your heart."
He could not ask at once, for he had grown to love his hatred. Finally, his pain drove him to ask and the angel gave him the magic eyes. Hilda began to change and he saw her as a needy woman who loved him. The angel kept her promise and lifted the pebbles one by one, though it took a long time. He invited Hilda into his heart again and she came. And together they began their second season of humble joy.
I have always thought, "God, I need your eyes and heart in order to forgive my mother". And yet I asked without fully asking. I was like the man who said "Help me overcome my unbelief!". I wanted to ask, but I also didn't want to let go.
How scary it is to let go! What if I let go and get hurt again? What if I get hurt deeper? Wouldn't it just be easier to just cut out the person who hurt me so that I wouldn't be hurt again? Can't I just sweep this under the rug?
Who am I kidding? I can't sweep to save my life!
Up next... the first stage: HURT.
Up next... the first stage: HURT.
Before the Start.
I thought it may be important to track the progress I'm about to make with my journey in forgiveness. So as raw as some of this is, anything you find 'wrong', 'horrible', or 'gross' may very well change in time. That is my hope. So here goes...
I suck at forgiving.
Like, really suck at it.
I have always sucked at forgiving, especially those I don't love or have hurt me deeply.
Can't say I like this part of me. Frankly, it makes it very difficult in relationships. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm supposed to forgive. My emotions lie to me and say "But the unfairness of it all!"
I also hear lies like "If they really loved you, they wouldn't do things like that", "Why do they need forgiveness; they'll just do it again", or "If you forgive them, they'll have power over you and hurt you again." I could probably find valid reasons and experiences where each of these things were true.
But as I grow, I'm learning that forgiveness isn't for them- it's for you. I remember hearing this line and thinking, "Oh right. Sure. Easier said than done. Is that really even true?"
I, like probably every person I know, have received my fair share of undeserved hurts in this world. I also have probably been (and know I have been) the doer of undeserved hurts in this world. So why does my hurt mean more than others hurt?
It doesn't.
This world is broken. People are broken. Life isn't fair. If it was, I don't think I'd have so much of the goodness I have in this world. But I digress...
So back to this whole 'forgiveness' thing. I'm going to be a Midwesterner for a second and say my next line in a Midwest way: My upbringing was far from perfect and close to broken. I'll leave it at that for now.
I wanted to start my journey of forgiveness because hurt makes me pissed off. Literally, my blood boils. And then there are the tears. Then the deep hollowness in my heart, my soul, and the physical sense in my body. Emotions are a strange thing.
There are two books. One I have started and one I start tonight. "Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve" starts tonight. It starts off with 4 stages of forgiveness: hurt, hate, heal, and reconcile.
As I go along...I will write about my thoughts in the chapters, how it relates to my life, and the applications of it all. I am no expert in this area. I have a Masters in Mental Health Counseling. I can only think this whole process will benefit me in being a counselor and helping others start their journey of forgiveness.
With that... I'll be back later this week to update...maybe even tonight if the first chapter is that good :)
I suck at forgiving.
Like, really suck at it.
I have always sucked at forgiving, especially those I don't love or have hurt me deeply.
Can't say I like this part of me. Frankly, it makes it very difficult in relationships. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm supposed to forgive. My emotions lie to me and say "But the unfairness of it all!"
I also hear lies like "If they really loved you, they wouldn't do things like that", "Why do they need forgiveness; they'll just do it again", or "If you forgive them, they'll have power over you and hurt you again." I could probably find valid reasons and experiences where each of these things were true.
But as I grow, I'm learning that forgiveness isn't for them- it's for you. I remember hearing this line and thinking, "Oh right. Sure. Easier said than done. Is that really even true?"
I, like probably every person I know, have received my fair share of undeserved hurts in this world. I also have probably been (and know I have been) the doer of undeserved hurts in this world. So why does my hurt mean more than others hurt?
It doesn't.
This world is broken. People are broken. Life isn't fair. If it was, I don't think I'd have so much of the goodness I have in this world. But I digress...
So back to this whole 'forgiveness' thing. I'm going to be a Midwesterner for a second and say my next line in a Midwest way: My upbringing was far from perfect and close to broken. I'll leave it at that for now.
I wanted to start my journey of forgiveness because hurt makes me pissed off. Literally, my blood boils. And then there are the tears. Then the deep hollowness in my heart, my soul, and the physical sense in my body. Emotions are a strange thing.
There are two books. One I have started and one I start tonight. "Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve" starts tonight. It starts off with 4 stages of forgiveness: hurt, hate, heal, and reconcile.
As I go along...I will write about my thoughts in the chapters, how it relates to my life, and the applications of it all. I am no expert in this area. I have a Masters in Mental Health Counseling. I can only think this whole process will benefit me in being a counselor and helping others start their journey of forgiveness.
With that... I'll be back later this week to update...maybe even tonight if the first chapter is that good :)
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