Finally...Getting It Right

When I'm doing my own homework assignment of getting it right with myself, I'm not looking to others to do my homework for me.  I'm the only student who has sat in the front row through all the classes of my own life.  When I'm open to seeing clearly what those lessons have taught me, I'm best able to do my homework and get it right for myself.  In an effort to get it right with myself, just like any good student, I recognize when I'm stuck and needing some assistance from others who have experience doing similar homework assignments in their own recovery and path of discipleship.

Getting it right with myself means giving me what I need; truth and grace.

When I'm not doing my own homework of getting it right with myself, I too easily default into interacting with others all day long by sub-consciously relying on others to do my homework for me rather than getting myself tutors who will assist me in how to do it well for myself.  I often need help from others who are further along on this road and have done more of these homework assignments themselves, but I've got to be the one doing the work myself.  When either the cards I've been dealt, or the cards I've played on the table don't create favorable conditions for my heart or mind to thrive in, I tend to get hurt, be resentful of others, or submit to self-abasing thoughts much easier when I haven't been faithful in this.

I'm recently learning, by doing relationships, at a whole different level.  It's at a high level of authenticity, and I'm finally learning the key to doing these kinds of relationships without backing out at the first sign of hurt or offense is to be doing my own homework on a regular basis which includes getting the assistance I need as needed.  Procrastination in this area has cost me dearly.  When I get it right with myself, I'm feeding my mind and my heart the vital nutrients it needs in order to thrive.  When I'm thriving chances are that others will greatly benefit from me being better equipped, so I'll be of better service to others, so it's anything but selfish.

The two vital nutrients my mind and heart need on a regular basis: grace and truth.

My mind primarily needs truth, for when it's operating out of fallacies, it doesn't take too long for my heart to discern that somethings off in my mind and sends it off racing to make sense out of what it has to work with.  When my mind is truth deficient, conflict to varying degrees ensues.  Inwardly at first, then outwardly if I'm unresponsive for any length of time to this discrepancy.

My heart primarily needs grace, for when it receives truth in the absence of grace, it's only a matter of time before it starts to self-destruct.

Truth without grace can self-destruct, and often leaves a scar or two in the process. 

Truth and grace are both needed, for I am a complex being with my heart and mind needing to be aligned with one another, and both getting their vital nutrients for me to thrive in response to whatever life serves up, either as a result of my choices or others.  Who is my perfect example of operating out of this perfect alignment?  -Jesus.  I have to have my eyes fixed on that which I'm trying to emulate, because when my focus is ambiguous or vague, it leads to me being ambiguous and vague within and the fruit of that is not inner peace.

Operating from this foundation equips me to engage authentically with others at a whole different level of appearing insanely vulnerable, while I'm actually quite secured from doing my homework on a regular basis behind the scenes.  On stage, to those who primarily watch but don't engage, I may appear like I'm being insanely vulnerable (that is where I've come from, being one of those critical spectators of the bold and crazy people). But in reality I'm much more vulnerable when I'm hiding my authentic-self out of fear and shame (consciously or sub-consciously) of how I'm perceiving myself being perceived by others who aren't invited insiders of my life.  It's a premeditated and calculated vulnerability.

I'm able to be authentic because I'm not as vulnerable to others and what they may say or not say, do or not do -when I'm doing my homework and am getting it right with myself, behind the scenes, with the assistance of others as needed, on an ongoing basis.

I'm arming my mind and my heart with grace and truth.  Others are needed to support me in this effort, by backing up the truth.  And when my own wounds play into me misinterpreting what others say and do, I can work it out with my community of carefully selected people on my team who are on their own similar but unique paths themselves.

These members are an indispensable part of me learning to get it right with myself (recovery) and path to freedom, and they each represent different essential parts of the body of Christ.

Spiritual Bypass - Shame Fuels The Flame

"Spiritual bypass" -- the use of spirituality to avoid or create a diversion from dealing with and confronting painful issues at the cognitive, emotional, physical and interpersonal levels.

"Involvement in spiritual teachings and practices can become a way to rationalize and reinforce old defenses. . . . Many of the "perils of the path" . . . result from trying to use spirituality to shore up developmental deficiencies.
—John Welwood (2000, p. 12) Awakening the heart: East-west approaches to psychotherapy and the healing relationship.

Well put.  Sometimes I wonder if the people who are most prone to spiritual bypassing are in the evangelical church.  I probably wonder that because that's been my own personal experience, and its aftereffects tend to linger.

Much of my individual work in recovery - including my recovery maintenance, heavily relies on applying a spiritual program of action -the 12 steps.  Though it's a spiritual program of action, the applications have covered far more than just thinking along spiritual lines, and the manifestation isn't exclusively at spiritual levels, it encompasses the cognitive, emotional, physical and interpersonal arenas.  For what good is a spiritual program of action if it doesn't have the capacity to make a profound impact at all levels?

I have not always interacted with life applying the tools from this program though.  I'm still a babe in recovery and in working the steps.  I was rather resistant in the beginning when I was initially introduced to the 12 steps and attended my first 12-step meeting.  Why?  Because I was an expert in spiritual bypassing, with my Pharisaical Evangelical Christian background, only recently having it challenged, by other Christians.

Whenever I sinned or behaved in a way in which I knew was nothing like Jesus, I would berate myself with Bible verses and shame (often while praying) for behaving or thinking the way I did.  If I even felt slightly hurt or offended by a circumstance or another person's actions or words, I would engage in this "spiritual" practice of shaming "truth" into my psyche.  I was addicted to using shame to medicate my aching heart, by anesthetizing its cries to be heard and to receive healing, from living most of my life with many basic emotional needs gone unmet or under-acknowledged.

The payoff?  -Feeling spiritually elite and self-righteous as a result of this practice, and most of all not facing or feeling the uncomfortable pain, which robbed me of the opportunity of discharging it through the painful process of honest grieving through acknowledging it, instead of shaming it.

In recovery, I am learning to accept those aches and pains by acknowledging them and meeting them with compassion instead of judgment and self-criticism (usually using Bible verses), and with growing confidence from believing that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, because I've turned my life and my will over to the care of God, as I understood Him.

I have spent the majority of my Christian life shaming myself for the way I've thought or felt, and tried to diligently pray and shame them away using Scripture -an extremely misguided use of both, but that is what I had in my own personal tool box of coping skills -spiritually and emotionally abusing myself, taking "truths" out of the context of grace, and in the stinging context of shame.  I didn't realize just how dangerous this was, because it felt so damn normal, and even spiritual.

I believe this is what hardened hearts are primarily made of, at least from my own experience.  Layers and layers of shame, gone unchallenged and un-resisted, because it's too painful to go there.  Instead, the needs for healing in the cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal levels were resisted, while my unmet needs in those areas went challenged by operating out of a belief system that resisted accepting those as legit needs, as God-given needs.

Shame is what fuels the hardening of hearts, with the lie that it's protecting the heart.  It is the gasoline that kept my engine running a hundred miles an hour while on the spiritual bypass.  In contrast, it is in the context of empathy and compassion, led by grace and truth - which is the healing ointment for my soul's aches and pains.

I am now learning that the missing link in me receiving this was in the application of giving and receiving this from myself, which was always available from an unlimited source:  God.  I'm the primary one that's blocked its reception from Jesus, out of shame in holding false beliefs for years and years even especially as a Christian.

In recovery, with Jesus Christ as my Higher Power, I'm learning to get it right with myself, for then I'm much better equipped for dealing with humanity and its vast limitations, in real-time.  It helps in preventing me from being as devastated and resentful as I historically have been when others didn't get it right with me, and vice versa.

By cutting out shame from my spiritual diet, I have a far better chance at tolerating loving humanity, including my own, one day at a time.