Help – The middle …

An Inside Job …

A few months ago whilst a good friend was putting up some shelves in my cupboard, he discovered an issue with damp.

Upon further investigation it became apparent that the source of this damp was actually the shower next door.

Apparently, the grouting within the tiling in the shower was not done adequately. This meant that the whole time I have lived in the property and used the shower, the water had effectively gone straight through the tiles in to the inner walls and beyond.

Consequently, as water spreads, it had ruined the immediate internal wall, spread further around the bathroom, was beginning to split the skirting boards and was evident in the cupboards and carpet of my back hall, which is where the issue was identified.

Basically, this internally rooted and thus invisible issue, was beginning to make its presence seen and felt externally.

A simple failure to create an adequate boundary had resulted in water getting in to places that are not made for water. The result of which was that a lot of damage was caused.

But, as the damage started internally, it was initially invisible and thus able to continue its work of destruction undetected. But as with all internal issues, when left for long enough, they begin to manifest externally.

I think we know and accept that should we choose to ignore such a problem, it will not simply disappear in to oblivion. No matter how much we may will it to do so!

Instead, that which we ignore, we permit to continue a work of destruction.

And destruct it does.

As was discovered once the internal walls of my bathroom and hall were investigated.

Of course, what could have happened is that the external damage could have been painted or covered over. Yet without dealing with the internal source, it would manifest externally again.

As a Psychotherapist, I can not help but make comparisons between this and the complicated and messy business of being a human. Further hindered by the cultural thinking that deludes us in to pretending that if we ignore any kind of internal issue; traumatic experiences, childhood difficulties, unwanted/uncomfortable feelings, it will simply float off never to be seen (or felt) again.

There is this idea that if we ignore such matters, they will disappear. Such thinking even goes a step further by imagining that if we uncover and explore the source of such issues, we will be causing ourselves unnecessary problems and pain.

In other words, we will come face to face with that which will cause us time, effort, money and potentially pain, to deal with. What is so often not acknowledged is that it will cause us considerably more time, effort, money and pain, to permit it to fester. Maybe not in the immediate term, but most definitely in the longer term.

And so it is that one generation teaches the next the art of sweeping things under the carpet. Something us English folk are in a league of our own with. To our detriment. The collective Society sized carpet of our nation must be at an all time ‘high’.

There is of course a time for when maintaining a stiff upper lip to get through a particular situation can be a sign of strength. But if engaged with as an everyday way of being, you are guaranteeing yourself a lot of unnecessary future issues. Issues whose consequences would be far less reaching were we to face up and deal with them a lot earlier.

It’s a problem.

One reflected in recent statistics regarding the mental health of our Society; from the very young to the very old and all in between.

We’re struggling.

Something, or in truth many things, are simply not working. And if we continue to ignore this we will continue to see the external manifestations of these internal issues spreading.

There is of course no quick fix. Not to anything of such importance and complexity as the human condition.

However, we can begin to acknowledge the value and importance of that which is within us; the heart, mind, soul and spirit. These need to be proactively taken care of, preferably in a preventative way. And when it is not possible to prevent certain experiences, as it so often isn’t, we need to cultivate a new willingness and receptivity to the need to address and invest in these areas.

We need to understand that this is not weakness but wisdom.

The stiff upper lip served us well during the war (I imagine) but it is not serving us particularly well now. As a way of being it is simply adding to the already large backlog of unaddressed internal issues.

It is time to accept that the stiff upper lip has become a hindrance rather than a help.

We need to recognise the value of our insides and begin to treat them accordingly.

On a Societal level, it is too late to be preventative. We are fighting fires without sufficient water to do so. Which doesn’t mean we should not attempt to do what we can. Collective efforts make a difference.

And, I believe, the God who is so often overlooked, is very much wanting and able to help if only we will learn to ask and to collaborate with Him and each other.

But on an individual level, we do not need to passively wait until our internal issues have manifested so destructively that they have hindered our ability to function (crisis) before we begin to give them the attention and support they need and deserve.

We need to look after our insides.

Which means that we need to learn how to re-engage with our own humanity, especially that of our demonised emotions.

Far from making us weak, when used in conjunction with our capacity to think as well as our spirituality, these emotions hold the key to our health, our progress and our experience of being fully alive.

And, just as I needed to engage with the appropriate expertise of those qualified to address my bathroom issues, sometimes us humans need to engage with the expertise of those qualified to assist us with our internal issues.

I spend my days sitting with individuals for whom I have the utmost respect for being willing to ‘do the work’ of dealing with the internal stuff. It’s uncomfortable, painful and costly, all against a backdrop of a Society urging them to ‘sweep it under the carpet and stop causing themselves unnecessary pain’. I respect the courage and honesty of these people and it is a very great privilege to work with them and to witness their lives begin to change for the better.

And I don’t see why my clients should be the only ones to enjoy the life changing benefits of engaging with therapy. So when I struggle, as I have recently with grief, I too engage with a therapist. I cannot offer to others something that I am unwilling to acknowledge a need for or accept help with myself.

Insides matter.

Mine.

Yours.

Ours.

They may remain largely invisible but when denied or ignored for too long, they manifest externally by restricting our capacity to function as we might.

None of us get all this stuff right and the fact is that it is not easy being a broken, messed up human that is vulnerable to getting hurt by life. The alternative is to shut down and exist and endure instead of living.

But if we tend to, rather than deny our internal issues, we will in the long run save ourselves from a lot of unnecessary pain and hassle.

Problems rarely disappear of their own accord. We need to participate in addressing our internal issues. And where appropriate, engage help to do so.

It is always worth the pain of the process when you come through to the other side.

As I finally have with my bathroom.

Following four months without a useable shower, my bathroom is now fully functioning again. The shower was stripped out, all tiles removed, internal walls redone and the whole bathroom redecorated and fitted with a new shower. Yes there was disruption and hassle. But, I can now say, that my bathroom looks even better than it did originally!

It does cost to deal with internal issues.

But it costs more not to.

What do you need to deal with and what support do you need to enlist to do so?

Healing …

Last week I went to a meeting where the subject of healing arose.

As a woman of God, I believe that God Almighty is the ultimate healer. That He is able to heal any of us from anything. I’ve heard about those who have witnessed limbs grow, sight be restored and even epilepsy be healed leaving no medical trace of ever having been present. I’ve heard many such miraculous accounts of healings evidenced and confirmed by the medical profession.

Wow, wow, wow.

We all love to hear about the miraculous.

Who doesn’t love a good ending?

By good I mean, when things turn out the way we want and think they should.

But what about when healing doesn’t happen?

Isn’t it just as important to talk about this reality too? About the pain, disappointment, confusion, doubt, disillusionment, resentment and the consequent effect upon faith. I’m talking about how it can really be rather than the super holy gloss we can hide behind.

Refusing to talk about these situations simply leaves us to struggle in silence. And that makes us unnecessarily vulnerable and isolated at the very time when support and understanding are most needed.

The fact is that sometimes God does not heal. (Think Paul and his thorn whatever that was.)

At least not in any way or timing that we can see or understand. And as far as I’m aware, we don’t know why. I imagine we know only the tiniest fraction of what our God is capable of or of what is going on within the spiritual world that remains largely unseen by our human eyes.

I accept this reality because I have learned to trust God and I am continuing to learn to do so as this is an ongoing, lifelong lesson that is learned through experience. Especially the unwanted hard experiences.

Knowing intellectually who God is, is great if you want to know how to talk a good talk. But if you want to actually walk that same talk, you have to know who God is on a heart level. And that means knowing in your heart that He is trustworthy even and especially when we do not see, know, understand or like the situation we find ourselves within, in this instance in the area of healing or rather not healing.

So, what to say about when God doesn’t heal?

Aside from the superficial response of, ‘there must be sin in your life or you don’t have enough faith’, most people are left to suffer in silence because a lot of people don’t like to acknowledge much less discuss the pain of not knowing why healing doesn’t always happen.

Of course there is truth that sometimes there is sin and sometimes there is unbelief, both of which can block healing. It doesn’t matter how able and willing God is to heal if amongst an environment that does not acknowledge any need for healing much less a willingness to ask. Even Jesus was limited in his ability to heal when amongst those with no belief in Him.

But, whilst everyone loves to share and hear about the miraculous examples of healing, when faced with the unhealed individual, there can be an unhelpful silence.

What I see is that people can get very hurt by a refusal to engage in discussion beyond the superficial realm of pat answers. And when the reality that none of us has all the answers, is not acknowledged in a sensitive, wise way, the impact on the individual can be a damaging one. Heart level damage. On top of whatever healing need there was to begin with. And when that is not tended to, it starts to steal the appetite for the spiritual. Because as much as emotions are often treated as the enemy, if left unaddressed these can damage our spiritual health. (And our physical health).

The bottom line is that sometimes God doesn’t heal and we don’t know why.

We can either accept this reality (which doesn’t mean we stop praying or give up) and seek God for a way to live within it or we can continue to make up unhelpful, damaging human reasons as to why this happens.

We all prefer to think that such matters are within our hands hence we like the sin or unbelief approach because these are within our power to rectify.

What we don’t like to admit is that actually we’re all at the mercy of the Almighty and we simply don’t see the whole picture.

As much as it seems rather appealing, how much faith would be required to trust a God that revealed and explained everything to us?

When we really trust God, we make a choice to trust Him no matter what and we focus instead on the business of meeting Him in the midst of the unhealed situation/unanswered prayer or whatever it is.

The healing may be a question of timing or it may never come this side of Heaven.

Hard but true.

Yet there are many examples of inspiring individuals who have gone on to fulfil their purposes for God in spite of vast physical injuries or limitations that they refused to allow to restrict God from working through them regardless.

Check out the website of Nick Vujicic; https://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/, a man with no limbs but seemingly no limits. An inspirational example of living fully with what you do have.

Or for those who love a film based on a true story, see Soul Surfer which offers an honest illustration of the unavoidable process that takes us from experiencing the unspeakable through a painful process of grieving and adjustment in order to fully re-engage with life afresh with what we do have.

But as was highlighted last week by the excellent speaker Mark DuPont, there are also times when the healing doesn’t happen because for God to do so would be detrimental. In his example, an open leg wound that refused to heal and that wasn’t healed by God, eventually led via various medical professionals to the discovery of a damaged vein. This required dealing with before the external wound could heal.

In other words, the invisible root cause had to be identified and addressed before the visible, surface level symptoms could heal. If God had simply healed on a surface level, the unexposed root cause could have led to other issues, such as DVT as a frequent flyer.

We don’t see or understand all that is happening.

But God is trustworthy no matter how things look or feel to us.

He’s definitely not a half a job bob kind of a God. And way too loving to heal the symptom without the cause. But sometimes we have to go through a process in order to experience the healing. One where lessons are learned about God’s goodness even in the midst of pain that we don’t understand. Lessons that are not learned on the mountain top but the journey to get there.

Hard lessons but lessons that continue to move our faith beyond the intellect and in to the realms of heart level knowing. From which corresponding actions are made possible. Let us acknowledge that the man/woman on the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.

I don’t know why God allowed Mark to go on a long, painful journey to find his healing. We can all come up with our own ideas; meeting God during unanswered prayers and pain, learning that God sometimes heals through people – emphasizing our need for one another, obedience even when things don’t go our way (maturity), the call to persevere in all etc etc but the fact remains that none of us have all the answers and just as in Job’s day, our God does not have to explain or justify Himself to us.

In thinking about all of this, I can’t help but reflect upon my own ministry; healing of the heart and mind, especially as it’s becoming more and more common for individuals to experience physical symptoms as an expression of internal, invisible mental and emotional pain.

If God simply healed these physical manifestations with no thought for the root causes, how loving would such an act of healing really be? Simply reducing the symptom to seek alternative expression via other physical symptoms.

Neurologists are constantly coming face to face with an ever-increasing number of medically unexplainable physical symptoms. An increase that appears to coincide with the decrease in understanding of the importance of emotions and emotional health. Our Society is so fixated on external productivity that we are losing our souls in the process.

Whilst many like to imagine that emotions are some kind of poor relation to intellect, it is often the denied emotions that hold the power to bring us to our knees. Physically and spiritually.

Mental and emotional health matters.

The current resistance to addressing the internal issues of the heart is costing much in terms of health and even in terms of our experience of healing and indeed of the Healer.

We all love to experience God as healing us just like that and without our being required to having any input much less any pain, patience or work. It’s human nature.

But there comes a time when we need to learn to actively participate in our own healing by doing our part.

How else will we learn to grow up?

The time has long been here to take mental and emotional health seriously. A refusal to do so simply saps the appetite for the spiritual and without that, we’re really in trouble.

Overall, it is true that sin and unbelief do block healing.

It is equally true that in the absence of these, sometimes God doesn’t heal the physical symptom because it is indicating a deeper heart level issue that needs identifying and working through. A bit like physio for the soul – painful and costly but with life changing benefits.

According to my last pastors, during their thirty year healing ministry, 70% of people who came for physical healing were actually manifesting heart level distress. A figure that requires our attention for these issues do not disappear because we’ve pretended they don’t exist, that simply gives them permission to grow, fester and cause more damage. These issues actually need addressing along with the ultimate healer’s help to do so.

As I’ve said it is also true that sometimes God does not heal and we don’t know why.

This can be an incredibly painful, vulnerable and isolated experience for anyone. One where what is needed is love (in word and deed), compassion, support, encouragement and prayers. No one needs or benefits from the self-elected spiritual elite Job style friends.

God is our ultimate healer but sometimes we don’t experience the degree or level of healing we may want, whilst this side of Heaven.

The question is, will you allow this to stop you turning to the one who wants to comfort and help you to be all that you can be, during or in spite of any unanswered prayers for healing?

The Workplace Prison …

Last week I noticed a clear and recurring theme emerging.

A disturbing one.

It’s around current work place culture.

The notion that you should constantly clamber the career ladder irrespective of personal cost whether to your own health or that of your intimate relationships. And that should you fail to do so, you’ll lose your place in the race forever.

A kind of keeping up with the Joneses, corporate style.

Where people used to obsessively compete and compare with their neighbours using their homes as a measuring tool, irrespective of cost, physical or otherwise, the Joneses approach has gone corporate by extending its reign of ridiculousness to the territory of the workplace. Culminating in a destructive culture of excessive hours and responsibilities along with poor personal boundaries seemingly all in a bid to prove you’re more able to perform in a robotic and inhumane way than the next poor colleague who has become ensnared in this life stealing mindset.

As a result of this, I hear of many people staying within jobs that actually result in their body’s physically manifesting illness, being unable to sleep, some are anxious to the point of throwing up as part of their morning routine and others can’t manage anything outside the office besides gazing at the TV.

Consequently, relationships falter, health deteriorates and overall quality of life disappears. Going through the motions like the living dead becomes the new norm. So subtly and so gradually that it often remains undetected for vast expanses of time. As in years.

Of course the same corporate institution can evoke different responses in all but for many the current workplace culture has become nothing more than a prison. One that can lead to burnout, breakdown or a gradual robotization of our humanity.

Remember the saying, ‘If someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?’. It seems we’ve gone a step further and that the revised question is, ‘if Society walks off a cliff, would you follow them?’

I’ve been hearing that this destructive ‘quality of life stealing’ culture is even rampant within universities where it appears to be largely accepted that to ‘do well’, whatever that may mean, is to accept that a breakdown under the pressure to perform, is an inevitable part of the journey.

Recent stats around mental health suggest the problems are actually starting in primary age children – passed down through the generations and aided by a culture obsessed with external productivity. As if we are merely machines without a heart, soul or spirit.

Shocking.

And completely unacceptable.

When did we reduce our young people to becoming academia producing robots devoid of a healthy inner or emotional life or achieving fully rounded humanity?

And when did we forget that even machines can crash when overloaded.

Maybe when the adults fell in to role modelling this by remaining in any workplace that has become little more than a prison.

Do people really believe that ‘just because everyone else’ is doing this, that it’s normal? Or healthy? Or can even be passed off for living?

Is this where fear of the unknown, keeps people imprisoned by that old lie, ‘better the devil you know’.

Is it the tormenting taunts of said devil who whispers, ‘but you know the inside of this prison, you don’t know what it will be like out there beyond these prison walls?’ that keeps so many committed to their prison of choice?

Is it familiarity that keeps people choosing albeit passively, to stay within these types of prisons that steal quality of health, life and relationships?

Does it matter if you don’t know what life beyond your own particular prison looks like if you know the current one is destroying you?

Has our society really been fooled in to believing that life is one long prison sentence whereby we merely get to choose what we will allow to imprison us. In other words which particular prison we will choose to inhabit? Whether the workplace prison or any other institution or even that of an unhealthy relationship?.

I’ve been hearing recently that when one person finally reaches breaking point within their workplace prison, opens their eyes and realises that looking after their own life and health IS an option and IS more valuable than continuing to allow it to destruct within such environments, they quit. At which point, they are clamoured after by all and sundry, to stay. Suddenly pay rises are possible and all the stops are pulled out to keep the one who has decided to walk free, from doing so.

I just keep hearing this right now. Just as one person discovers the courage to open their prison door and start to walk free, the other ‘prisoners’ clamour for them as they go, making vain attempts to pull them back. It’s as if without the courage to release themselves all they feel able to do is to try and stop others.

And that’s the thing about walking free, once you taste it and I mean really taste it, you want others to discover it for their own lives whatever that may mean or look like for them. It’s simply too good not to share.

I realise of course that we all need to earn a living. Absolutely true for us all. But what exactly do we mean by ‘living’ because any job or other situation that destroys your health, relationships or life in general doesn’t equate to living. More, perhaps, to dying.

It is only when people begin to realise that however far back it was, it was THEY who had walked in to their particular prison and therefore it is THEY who can also walk back out again.

In doing so, people tend to go through an often painful, lengthy re-evaluation process which has allowed them to come out the other side to re train or simply to work in a totally different area or way. It usually but not always involves a reduction in earnings. At least initially. Something many would rather run themselves in to an early grave before they would be willing to do. But those who are willing to go through this go on to reclaim their peace, joy, health, sleep, self-respect, motivation and life itself.

In other words, they start living again.

I’m fortunate enough to speak from personal experience as one who left my own workplace prison some thirteen years ago. I’ve walked the path. And I’m still walking the path. It’s long, hard, messy, painful, uncomfortable and costly. But not as much as avoiding it. And I am immensely grateful for the many who have and who continue to help me along it.

Once free, it’s a natural response to help others become free because you realise that you’re not competing with those around you but walking your own path. And you discover from hard won experience that when one enters freedom we all benefit.

Life is short.

It can end at any moment.

Is it really worth choosing to spend whatever precious moments we are given, living in a prison of our own choosing and creation?

Of course, I’m not talking here about situations over which we truly have no control. That’s a whole different area over which we can control only our response. After all, none of us are actually entitled to anything in this life.
I think it’s too easy to forget that anything we are given is a gift, be it health, life, relationships, time, money, or anything else.

But if we’re really honest with ourselves do we sometimes write certain situations off as having no control over them when this is not entirely true? But more the whisperings of our fear?

Do you have the courage to release yourself from your workplace prison?

Or to say yes to going in search of that which brings you to life and gives you a reason to live. A purpose. An enthusiasm for parting company with the duvet of a morning?

Or will you live, or should I say exist alongside that old adage, ‘better the devil you know’.

Now, I’m not talking about constantly searching for greener pastures. The grass will be as green as you are willing to invest in it becoming. But if you know you’re in a situation that’s crushing the life out of you, what are you going to do about it? Because change takes work and work takes time and effort and usually a lot of help. And these things don’t just happen by themselves.

There is of course no such thing as a perfect job or even a perfect anything in this life but if you know your workplace has become a prison and you’ve allowed yourself to stay irrespective of personal cost because you’ve been backed in to a corner by the taunts of the fear promoting what if brigade, it may just be time to re-evaluate.

Life really is too short to allow a workplace prison to stop you living fully.

The Ultimate Helping Hand …

I’ve noticed recently just how many times people talk of their desire for guidance with whatever trials they are facing. It’s like, no matter how old we get or how many responsibilities we carry, we all just yearn for help and wisdom because we know that we’re mostly just muddling through doing the best that we can, without ever really knowing whether we’re doing this adulthood thing well or not. (And who amongst us can judge?)

As I reflected upon this, I decided that irrespective of age or gender, I believe there is a universal longing deep within us all for input from a wise, guiding presence that can assist us in navigating our way through all the tough realities and ensuing decisions that we each must face. Someone who has walked the path themselves, who knows some of the pitfalls and who is able to share some of their own hard won insights. A parent perhaps. But what if we don’t have that person for whatever reason or they simply live miles away?

Sometimes I think that the realisation that we are not in control of a lot of this thing called life, can feel positively or should that read negatively, overwhelming. When we realise that we’re all just fumbling around trying to work out what to do for the best or which way to go next in life, we can at times feel paralysed by the enormity of the responsibility.

Life isn’t always easy for any of us irrespective of any privileges or restrictions we were born in to, or whatever life has subsequently thrown at us. And yet, despite these realities, we all have equal access to the only perfect parent in existence; God Himself.

We are all invited to come to the Father who is able and willing to parent, help and guide us all. The pathway to Him is not blocked by lack of social standing, overdrawn bank accounts or any kind of dodgy past activity. The elite, whoever they might be, do not have the monopoly here for the pathway to God has been cleared by Jesus Christ for each and every one of us; privileged and marginalised alike, plus all in between.

Which is one of the many, many things that I love about this God. We can’t earn/impress or buy our way in to His presence, love or help, for He simply offers it willingly and generously to all who will ask. Yes, even those of us with decidedly murky pasts. Those of us who are all too aware that we could never get connected to this God or His help by our own merit.

For the truth about this God is that He isn’t impressed by designer clothes or big houses. There is nothing wrong with those things but God isn’t fixated on external results/performance, for He is way more interested in what’s going on within us. Which means that we are all on a level playing field; both those used to being elevated to positions of superiority whether through birth or graft and those used to being trampled underfoot, often by the former.

We all have equal access to this God who is able and willing to help us not only to navigate what life throws at us but to overcome it that we may continue to discover and release our true potential, irrespective of whatever attempts to knock us off track. If only we will stop trying to do it all alone, acknowledge His presence and seek His help, for He really is the ultimate, ever present source of help.

As a God who came down here and lived amongst us within the body of Jesus Christ, He knows a thing or two about suffering (what with the Cross and all) so He has heaps of compassion for us and all that we struggle with. (He certainly didn’t suffer from stiff upper lip syndrome – he was man enough to weep in the face of others pain, so the bible tells us). And, being the creator of the entire universe, they don’t come much wiser!

As someone who didn’t enter in to a relationship with God myself until the age of thirty, one of my first thoughts upon doing so, was, why on earth didn’t someone tell me about this God sooner? Which of course they did, but I wasn’t listening!

Life looks very different for me in these post encountering Jesus days. I no longer attempt to deal with my own pain, mess or responsibilities alone because I’ve discovered and keep discovering that I don’t need to. I keep realising that God is right here, right now, watching and waiting for me to acknowledge His presence and request His help. And now that I know that He does help whether with a practical need, with guidance as to which way to go in life, wisdom for the hard decisions, courage for the scary ones, comfort for the losses, encouragement from friends or whatever it may be, I’m not willing to attempt any of it without Him. Why would I struggle in that way when I don’t need to? Been there, done that. It was messy.

He has shown me again and again that He is the only parent who is available 24/7, is totally equipped to help me with whatever I’m struggling with and who always knows how to reach me even when I’m hurting. Which doesn’t mean He gives me everything I want or ask for, but He always responds when I ask for His help, whether with the small, huge or medium sized stuff. He meets me in the midst of it all. Wowsers.

In our decidedly results driven culture, with its obsession for the external, from physical appearance to position and status, I find it wonderfully liberating and totally heart warming that God Himself is willing to reach down to each and every one of us to help us to become all that we are able to be and in doing so, to release us from the prisons of perfectionism and materialism so entrenched within our culture.

What a gift – we don’t deserve Him and we can’t buy Him yet still he offers us the ultimate invitation. In to an adventure where He provides all that we need to become all that we are capable of becoming, irrespective of all the responsibilities, trials and bills that we face. He offers to help us to find our most authentic selves and in doing so to discover our unique gift set along with a way in which to use them within this world.

So, whilst the hysteria of materialism that accompanies Christmas starts to take hold of you this season, and difficult family situations begin to arise, just remember that the God whose birthday this is all about, is just waiting for you to stop and ask for His help with whatever you are facing.

The ultimate gift awaits us all, not just for this season but for all that follow.

Go ahead, try Him, He might not do what you want, when or how you want, but He will move, often in surprising ways, if only you’ll ask.