Monday, April 17, 2017

Therapy

Therapy is just as hard as it sounds. It takes guts to get in the car and go searching for answers to what is going on inside your head and what you can do about it. Therapy doesn't fix you. It just allows you to understand that you can fix yourself.....if you want to. It's hard work. It's simpler in the office than it is leaving the office. Once you learn the word "boundary" you're pretty much sticking to it forever. Unless you're me and that word literally pisses me off. How the Heck can we have boundaries on everything? Goodness if everyone in the world goes to therapy and learns boundaries we will all have boundaries on one another and get no where. Great plan therapy. The only reason we haven't gone wild with boundaries is because "the whole world" hasn't had therapy yet. I love therapy. I hate the idea of boundaries taught in therapy. Don't confuse the two. They are two very different things. I, on the other hand, like the word "accountability" I prefer to think based on my experience that if we taught individuals to be accountable we would get further on the journey to healing and understanding. Since accountability doesn't negate speaking or communication it is my modus operandi to seeing the world grow and develop. It wasn't my first time in the office. You see I had been getting therapy for many years now since I was 16. You might think that was horrible but for someone like me that wanted to talk everything through it was essential to my well being. I had to pay someone with a brain to listen but I'd take it any day over the silent hell I had lived in at home. I shared everything. I spoke my thoughts and it helped me in so many ways. Today's session went a little differently since I was going to tell her how I had fought my way to victory over Luis. I knew once I told her I had revealed his plan all along she'd be so proud. WRONG. She was more worried that things could have gone very badly for me. I see her side of it. I also see that up to that point it was going badly the whole time and this was my life we were talking about. I had lived in fear for 2 whole years. I was willing to die for what I believed in, rather than hear how I had to keep some "boundary" up on him that WASN'T WORKING TO BEGIN WITH. I get uber frustrated with people when they say things like they understand the wager. The only way we can truly understand one another is to take the time to think about what it must be like to live everyday in fear that someone is going to get you. You have to want to make it stop at nothing, or nothing will stop it. Yes, I believe in miracles. I am not doubting the power of God to make it go away. I also believe he gives us life to live it to the fullest and that doesn't mean just in good times. On the contrary I believe he also wants us to live life to the fullest in bad times as well. I was trusting that my will to live over being devoured by a demon was stronger. I was right. My spirit devoured the demon that was inside of him and he wasn't ready to wager his own life for his evil cause. I on the other hand WAS willing to stand up and say....ENOUGH. I can still see the look on the counselor's face when I shared with her that when I told him it was time to fight to the death on this one, he spoke in an evil voice I had never heard before and called me names.....remember this guy came to tell me of his undying love but when I said no he began to name call.....um yeah where's that love you spoke of? So I explained to her that I had to stop giving in to his lies. I had to believe that this game would have gone on forever as it would have pushed my body and brain into decay. I said NO! Only then did he back away and leave. She was in panic mode because in therapy they never tell you to fight back, take your life back, don't give in, stand up and live for the first time in your life, don't allow anyone to steal your joy......No they tell you to settle and put up boundaries. Don't start any ruckus. Golly, I just don't know any situation where someone is being manipulated by another crazy person that not starting a ruckus and pushing back against the manipulation has them politely letting you alone and moving on to the next poor soul who will let them destroy their life!!! Here's my point. Therapy is just the place to begin to change your thinking. Your actions will need to change over time when you're given the chance to make new ones in life. It's very unfortunate that a bad situation has to arise to see if you are learning the new techniques, but we all go through that. You ultimately are walking with God each day in Prayer that He will over see you and protect you through His son Jesus Christ. That does not mean you won't have trials. That does not mean you will get everyone in your corner agreeing how you went about it. That does not mean the more counseling or therapy you get the less problems you will have. It means you have a place to see the truth. The truth does set us free, sometimes there is a fight, sometimes there's not. It will all depend on the life situation. I had beaten the demon in Luis but not even my counselor gave me a medal. Heck who was going to then. I mean seriously that was anti climatic for ya. She didn't need to live my life so I let her off the hook, that if it had been on her plate she might have made a different decision. We just went about things very differently. I learned that when you get to new levels in your head and your experience not everyone can relate. It takes time and true effort to really get in deep to how we feel when we go through certain trials and how that can relate to other people. I wanted to relate to people so I worked and still work hard to understand my feelings and thinking so I can explain my actions. I still feel a disconnect from others when it comes to talking through our problems or obstacles in life. I sense a feverish joy to get in deep while others feel put on the spot or trapped. I always wonder how that stressed out approach will change anything about the situation they are facing. Therapy could help that!!! All in all nothing was lost to go through the therapy to understand many different situations. I believe seeing the good and the bad helped me form a complex understanding and superior strength to your everyday life. I am grateful for such obstacles because it's what made me work harder to come to a life full of joy. No one can take that. I often look back over my life and feel peace. Yet writing out all the drama I have dredged through is clearly overwhelming for the average Joe. As I closed one of the darkest chapters in my book.......So I opened another one.

Monday, April 3, 2017

I am not enough

Do you ever feel like you're not enough? Well......you're not. Not in a bad way just a real way. Without Jesus Christ filling in the gaps with his breath, spirit and divine intervention, we're simply not enough on our own. Now switch your thinking around, accept what is true without guilt and shame, and it's a whole different story. I can truly say, without a doubt, that growing up unhealthy and unattractive to the eye was extremely difficult and made me "feel" like I wasn't enough. I decided that that feeling inside my gut was to cue a change in me; a desire to start a revolution against the impurities and dysfunction we had with food in my house. My family had set habits in motion at such a young age that I very much began to feel like I wasn't enough. I learned we didn't choose laughter or sharing thoughts over eating and watching TV. It began to tear at us on the inside creating less and less self worth and value we could share between one another. I knew it wasn't God's intention for us to hurt silently. It was screaming to the outside world that we needed help and we needed it now. I looked around at everyone who could clearly see that we needed help and yet they all looked exactly the same. In those quiet moments I knew that everyone felt the same about themselves and that we needed Jesus badly. We were believing the myth that we were not enough but not being changed by the truth. There is a huge difference in knowing about God and feeling His presence in your life because you have a relationship with Him. I wanted the real relationship with Him. I am still on a continuous journey to grow in Him and to develop an incredible relationship that all people can see no matter who they are or where I am. I have felt not enough and I know I am not enough but those feelings do not come from the same place in my spirit or gut. Feelings can completely cloud your judgement and can inhibit the right choices in the future, where as the knowledge that I am not enough can come from an understanding of all things truth. I know I need Jesus to close in the gaps and "I" am not enough...without HIM. It isn't a put down or an attack on my self worth. It's an acknowledgement that HE is the key to joy and peace. I was able to change my thinking over the years so I could then begin to refine my actions, no matter what my feelings were. I often say in the house that Happy, Sad, or Mad you're going....so make a good choice because your emotions will change by the minute but your actions will produce consequences that could last a life time. When you stop and think about what can happen over time because of the choices you make you can begin to look inside and get real with yourself. Do your current choices say to the world around you that you believe "you are enough"?! Too often we blame the things outside of our control and don't take enough responsibility to conduct our own lives in a way that says loud and clear "I am enough". We must remember to continue becoming the best we can be, while also accepting our value from our Lord and Creator God and that He has a purpose and we can be a part of that purpose. I am walking through that life with you on accepting that HE has created me and "I am enough with HIM". As I pushed bedyond the relationship with Luis where I found that he was not interested in leaving me intact for any kind of work on this planet, I began to accept the pain that it had done in my life. Outside of Christ there is nothing to live for and what Luis had done to my life left scars or reminders that we have to bear the consequences until we are healed and understand the lesson in it's entirety. I still had a great career, a car, a house, wonderful cats, friends and places to shop and eat, it wasn't like I curled up and died. I was living with the pain in my head. Everything is mental first before it becomes physical. I was facing every painful excruciating moment in my head with HIM. Jesus never leaves me to do it on my own, but he also doesn't take it all away. I'm okay with that because in the end it is the obstacle that refines you. I am now sharing with my husband and step son that there are so many obstacles to face in this life so we can be at our best and it isn't in ignoring them that we are strengthened. It's in facing them that we become strong. We are enough with HIM. We're learning that deeper and deeper and deeper everyday.