This is a talk I gave to my church on my own personal story of healing in January of 2017.
Luke 9:47-48
Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest."
I’ve been waging a war on myself for most of my life. I have disliked and been ashamed of parts of who I am. I’ve been cruel to myself, lacked compassion for myself, and greatly misjudged who and what I am. As most of us do. And I do that pretty much every day. And for the longest time I had no awareness of this war.
It’s no wonder we wage war on ourselves. We live in a culture that says – if you don’t like yourself then just change it. We pretend that it's that simple. Get rid of the old you and get a new you. Get rid of your anger, let go of your sadness. Be happy instead. Be joyful. Our culture says that we need to get rid of anything that doesn’t feel good or isn’t pleasurable.
Most of us try to live by this. We judge every aspect of our ourselves and our experience. We think in black and white, we think in opposites – we label good and bad. We label that part of ourselves we don’t like as bad and then set a goal to get rid of whatever that “bad” thing is. We decide we don’t like the bad thing, don’t want the bad thing, and work to get rid of it.
We label emotions as negative and positive. Which is a falsehood. Emotions are neither negative or positive, good or bad. That’s a lie we’ve learned from our culture. Emotions are given to us from God. They are all part of the experience God has provided for us. They teach us lessons and grow us to our highest good. But whenever a challenging emotion shows up inside us we try to push it away and exchange it for a neutral one or a positive one. Something pleasurable.
We do this with other people too. Whenever a loved one or even a stranger experiences a challenging emotion we try to take it away from them. We try to fix them. We tell them don’t be sad. Be happy. Be joyful. When in actuality it isn’t our place to take away someone else’s experience.
Then we wonder why more often than not nothing substantial really changes. We're still angry, still sad, and still unhappy. When we push away emotions either by attempting to distract ourselves, use alcohol or busy ourselves it never works. The emotion will always come back and more often then not it will return more intensely and painfully. Then we try more healthy ways to get rid of the pain. Then ultimately we wonder “Why do I still feel this way?” I’ve tried everything. I’ve forgiven. I went to church. I went to therapy. I did the 12 step program. Why do I still feel this way? Why do I still act this way?
These statements are incredibly cruel to our own being- incredibly violent towards our self. That’s the war. There is no compassion there. There can be found no grace there. There is no healing in that space. As humans we are in constant war with ourselves and our present experience. And that separation from present moment cannot bring healing. Separation is at the root of suffering.
So how then do we heal? How do we change? How do we transform?
That’s the million dollar question right there. If we could answer that we’d put cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs out of business.
There’s certainly a lot of theories out there on it. Some people want to smack you upside the head with Jesus. Some people will tell you to meditate. Some people will tell you to let go of judgement. Some people will tell you to go backpacking through India or Europe. And then some people are scientologists... People travel all over the world and pay a lot of money asking these questions of different therapists, spiritual leaders, pastors, gurus, shamans, free thinkers, and Oprah.
But despite all the theories most of us still ask the questions “Why aren’t I healed yet? Why do I still feel this way? Why aren't I over this? What's wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?
I was asking myself those questions a great deal this past fall when I was going through a very rough time. I actually called it my quarter life crisis for a couple days until I realized it was potentially the greatest gift God had ever given me. So I decided to refer to it as my quarter life awakening instead. Still thoroughly dramatic but more positive and much more accurate.
So I’m going to take you back a little bit in my life, so you have some context to where I’m personally coming from. When I was 19 I was diagnosed with Post traumatic Stress disorder. I was depressed, I was anxious, I was not sleeping, I was self harming, and I was having suicidal thoughts. I’d also somehow managed to get myself into a very very unhealthy relationship. All things nobody would have ever expected from me. Perfect little Alison.
When we think of PTSD we tend to think of war vets or a rape victim. We tend to think of someone who was in a near death experience. But none of that had ever happened to me. Trauma can be more insidious than that. It can hide better than that. Trauma can be as simple as just witnessing your parents fight. It’s really anything that kicks in the fight or flight mode and it’s often something that happens repeatedly so that it changes your brains neural pathways and structure. And the more these tiny incidents of trauma occur the more easily your body goes into fight or flight in the future.
I didn’t see myself as someone who had been through trauma. Yet trauma and chaos were all I really knew as a kid. But as a child, I didn’t understand that. Most days growing up in my home were incredibly tense. My brother, being Autistic, was extremely volatile. He did not have the capacity to regulate his emotions. So any tiny bump in his day and he responded with screaming and violence. Which was every single day while I was growing up. My mother would respond with anxiety, panic, and depression and my father would scream and isolate himself.
And here I was this tiny little girl. Quiet and shy. Wanting to please everyone and do good. I walked on egg shells beginning at 4 years old. I was the little adult in the house at 30 lbs. I thought I had to keep mom from crying and drag her out of bed in the mornings. I thought I had to keep dad from getting angry. And I thought I had to keep my brother from getting upset and getting physically violent.
And when the screaming got to be too much and I got scared and overwhelmed I would hide in my closet for hours until it was over or until I’d cried myself to sleep. While I was in the closet I would pretend that when I woke up everything would be better. I would have found a way to fix my brother and everyone would be happy. Or I would imagine a future for myself where I was married to man that loved me and we had our own family and we were happy this time. But most of all I hoped that someone, anyone would walk upstairs and find me in the closet hiding. I wanted so desperately for someone to show me what I didn’t know – that I was important, that I mattered, and that I was loved. But never in my childhood did anyone ever come looking for me. And that has been a scar I have tried to heal for over 20 years.
That little girl is still with me today. You see when we experience trauma a part of ourselves breaks off and stops developing. A part of us remains on pause developmentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That part of us comes back up when we experience triggers that resonate with our trauma.
So when I get the tiniest of inklings that someone is going to leave me or abandon me, little Alison absolutely freaks out. I freak out. She gets scared, panics, and over reacts. I write these stories in my head and just become miserably, painfully afraid and lonely. All the closet feelings bubble back up again at full force. And she makes being in a relationship so difficult and exhausting at times. She’s always on the look out and expecting to be abandoned. At my core I struggle to believe I am truly lovable or good enough for anyone to see me as important and stick around.
All little Alison ever wanted was to be loved and cared for but did I treat her with compassion? No. I saw her as a problem for the large portion of my life. Something to be suppressed or rid of. Because she brings with her difficult and unwanted feelings.
But this is really ultimately her story. A story of healing. My story of loving and accepting the most hurt part of me. The greatest part of me. Her. The part I need to be complete. She carries both my darkness and my light. She is the bravest part of me. The little 5 year old that dared to have hope and never gives up.
Jesus tells us to love our enemies. So what if our enemy is the most hurt part of ourselves? What if he is asking us to extend grace and love not only to others but to ourselves?
So, I never thought I’d be sharing my dating life as part of a sermon at church but here it goes. If pastor Todd talked about Chinese jacks I can talk about boys. I mean God works in mysterious ways, right? In October I started seeing this guy. We hit it off pretty quickly. He seemed to really like me. He seemed to be serious about me. Fairly quickly we had the relationship talk and decided to see one another exclusively. While I was excited about it, I couldn’t seem to shake my anxiety. The anxiety was pretty intense honestly. I had this awful feeling that he was going change his mind about me and leave and that we hasn’t going to stick around. Which is pretty much how I experience all people in my life. So that feeling was nothing new. And neither was my response to the situation. Per my usual self, I sensed him pulling away. I followed my same old pattern. I panicked. Played out worst case scenario stories in my head. I called and texted him. Then I word vomited my fears all over him in a fairly excessive and unattractive manner. It definitely wasn’t my best look.
I certainly displayed my “weaker” side. Anyway his response was to hang up the phone irritated I had bothered him. I felt ashamed and humiliated. I berated myself for letting little Alison out. I’d lost control of her. The next day when I hadn’t heard from him, I texted him. I apologized for being crazy and he responded by saying he didn’t like that I’d emotionally unloaded on him and he needed some space. He said he wasn’t sure if I was ready for a serious relationship. He never made an effort to talk about it and I cried for a week. Once again little Alison had sabotaged me. I really really hated myself that week. I mean I loathed myself. I couldn’t believe that what I had working on for so long had reared it’s ugly head. I yet again was wondering “why do I still feel this way? Why aren’t I over this yet? What’s wrong with me?” I was in a full on war with myself again.
So as God would have it, I had a counseling session that week. I’ve been in counseling for 8 years and I’ve never let it out the way I did that day. I cried. I broke down like I hadn’t before. I told God in the session that what I wanted and needed more than anything was someone who loved me. Someone who cared about me. Someone who believed that I mattered. Someone who loved me just the way that I am. It took a lot to admit it out loud how desperately alone I really felt. How badly I wanted to be loved. And then I heard God say “I do.”
Everything in my life started to change that day. It’s like everything started to fall beautifully into place. I’m not going to say the pain went away because it hasn’t completely. But here’s the thing, this time I decided have compassion for little Alison – compassion for myself.
I’ve begun to understand that when challenging emotions come to us we can frame them as little lost children knocking at our door asking to come inside. They are asking to be seen and allowed in. They are asking to be held. I decided to let her be sad and scared. I decided to try to love this little girl who had been through so much pain and hurt. I began to love the girl who just wanted to be loved and cared for and to play and dance and laugh. I learned that I heal with my heart and not with my mind. Looking back on it I realized that she sees things that I don’t. She knew that man could never love her the way she deserved to be loved.
A few days later, I shared with a friend of mine all the feelings of hurt, self loathing, anxiety, and loneliness that had resurfaced. She’s a very wise person with a great deal of love and tenderness. She also never tries to rescue people from their pain. She allows others the freedom to experience what is theirs.
She suggested that I meditate on the experience of myself as a 5 year old angel resting on God’s knee. So I visualized myself in this way on God’s lap as he rocked back and forth while reading me Good Night Moon. I felt God’s warmth and love. I felt his presence and the heart beat in his chest. I felt my innocence, purity, and child like curiosity. I felt my need to be loved and cared for. I felt the safety and unconditional love of God. I felt healing and my wholeness. I felt and understood that my core being is love and light. I understood that I had been beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s image and that the holy spirit dwells wonderfully inside of me.
You see in our humanness we struggle to see what we really are. We get stuck in this “broken” and “not okay” mentality. The irony being that we are broken because we can’t seem to remember what we truly are. We hear every Sunday how much God loves us, but it never seems to sink in. It sits on our shoulders is so easily brushed off. It remains a tiny little thought bubble in our brains that never seems to move into our heart, body or our being.
The way I see it, God is the most powerful force that we will ever know. God is everything. God is limitless. God is the ultimate creator of all. What could be better than to be unconditionally loved by the most powerful being that is? The most powerful being that is the universe? What could be more powerful and more beautiful than to be unconditionally loved by God? That is what you are. And that is where the answer is. You can hold anything and everything that the world gives to you. Whether it be painful or pleasurable. Because you are created and loved by the most powerful force that is. And that makes you a beautiful light in this world.
God holds us and loves us in our hurt exactly as we are. He does not destroy parts of us. Only us humans attempt to do that and live in those concepts. God extends love and grace to our hurt and to our enemies. And often we believe the enemy is inside of us. He sees every part of us as worthy of love and holds it all. I am finally learning to give myself the love, compassion, and grace I had been afraid to provide myself for years. And it’s okay that I was afraid. The fear and the hurt was teaching me – challenging me to find what I am.
I think that maybe Heavens language of love looks different than our earthly conception of love. Maybe as human’s we’ve limited what love looks and feels like. Maybe love doesn’t always look and feel warm and fuzzy. Perhaps God’s language of love includes even the most challenging emotions. And because of that I found the love and compassion for myself. And I found them exactly when I was meant to. Every part of my story – the excruciating hurt and the abundant love has been beautiful and perfect.