I wanted to do a little bit more explaining about Celebrate Recovery and the journey I have been on since July 2013.
I was stuck. Stuck in a pattern of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. I lived on a roller coaster of emotion. I was constantly looking for happiness and ever finding it for long. I had accepted that I had issues years ago. I knew that I had all this “stuff” I needed to deal with. I would often tell my husband that maybe I needed to go to counseling. I held onto a lot of hurt from the past, a childhood that wasn’t perfect and was dysfunctional, an absent father for the majority of my life, along with struggling to let go of mistakes I had made trying to cope with all of that. I would find myself angry and wanting to blame everyone around me for the way I felt. If things would have been different then…… If you would act different now……. If we wouldn’t have made that choice.
Struggle. That is what I felt daily. I could feel this person I wanted to be always standing in the background. It was like I knew who God was calling me to be, but I couldn’t figure out why in the world I couldn’t just be her. I was insecure, never sure of any choice I made and always looking for others approval in my choices because I was not confident in myself alone. I was always over thinking everything, to the point that I would decide all kinds of things that were not even true! I would play out situations and decide what people really thought. I struggle with trusting people to be genuine. Why would they be nice to me or compliment me? This thought process lead me to believe that everyone disliked me. I even did this with my husband. Nothing he ever said or did was good enough because there was no way I was going to allow myself to believe he really wanted to say and do nice things for me. I wasn’t sure how to be positive about anything. I saw EVERYTHING in a negative light. I struggled to see positive. After starting CR, I learned I am co-dependent. Curious what that means? I am sure it is much more then you think. Here is a quick link to explain a little more about it.
To sum it up, I was a mess. When I finally started going to CR, things started to change. I wanted so badly to get better. I wanted to be healthy for my family, for myself, and I truly believed that I needed to do this because God was asking me to. I almost felt an urgency to do it. The first few months were hard. I began to realize that although my past and present troubles were very real, that I was making choices every single day. I was choosing to stay where I was, those people, those situations, they were not making my choices, I was. It was hard to hear. It was easier to allow myself to blame all the other stuff. It was easier to apologize to my husband for the way I behaved, then explain to him why I acted that way, after all he understood that I had issues and loved me any way. (thank you Joel!) But now, now I am facing a harder truth. A truth that if I want healing, I have to work for it. Fight for it. Choose it.
After about 3 months of going, I really started to see so much change. It was all gradual, but day by day, I was defeating disfunction, irrational emotions, and turning over my will to God. I have a sponsor who is so amazing and continues to help me through this process. She was so great in the beginning to be patient and help me understand all the of steps. To talk me through each situation as they came up.
I started focusing on myself, and what I needed to do to get my life back. It is crazy because the more I worked on figuring out my stuff, the more that the other stuff seemed to work out on its own. When I stopped trying to control and really just relied on God, everything started falling into place. Being able to be calm and in charge of my reactions was a huge step! Starting to see positive things all around me was such a joy! The changes that I see in my marriage are amazing! Am I a new person? Yes! Am I free from all of those “issues” no, I am not. I still struggle daily. It is hard to explain it all. Most of the time you hear people say they are in recovery from things, you don’t hear them say “I am recovered” because that is just not the case. Those struggles become easier to deal with, you learn and grow, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t still struggle sometimes.
CR is like turning on a light in a dark room. When the light is off, you can’t see anything. There are obstacles that are in your way and you almost feel helpless trying to navigate around them. But when you turn the light on, you can see the obstacles clearly. You know they are there and can see how to move them or get around them safely. The stuff that is there in the dark, is still there in the light, but now you can safely see it, or in CR terms healthily deal with it. It is not magic, the light doesn’t change what is there, it just allows you to see if all differently.
I want to encourage anyone who is reading this to decide not to be stuck. Everyone has hurts, habits, or hangups. Maybe it is not controlling your entire life, but maybe it is greatly affecting a part of your life. Maybe you can’t relate to any of the struggles I face, but my prayer is that my transparency will help you to be honest with yourself. I am so thankful and blessed to have found CR, the community that comes with it, and the healing power of stepping out of denial and turning my will over to Jesus!
All the things 