Lesson 4 - Sanity

I will freely admit that my life is insane. It has been since I married an ADHD person. But the definition that Pastor John Baker gives for it is the best I've ever heard.

"Insanity has been described as 'doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time.'"

Wow! How accurate. We go through life doing the same things over and over again and getting nowhere.

My father was a die hard Kentucky Wildcat fan. I think that he bled blue. Game nights were sitting in front of the TV intently watching each player's move. But the "insanity" came in when a game was on during church or another very important event. He would tape it and then watch it when he got home. Then he would watch it again the next day, and again the next day, and again the next day. One time when he was watching it for about the eighth time, I sat down and watched a few minutes. I said, "You would think that as many times as this game has played that number 3 would realize that he would miss that shot."

Funny, but don't we do that in life? The insanity of my life is always expecting my family to be who they are not. Going through the same motions and expecting them to learn and grow when the message is not clear is insanity.

I need (as well as my family) to make decisions and take action based on wisdom and not on hope and desires. That is the only way sanity will show itself in my life.

Lesson 3 - Hope

The first question asked in this lesson is where was I placing my hope before I started to rely on Jesus. My first instinct was to say Jesus. After all, He has always been my Lord. But I had begun to see the underlying truth in my life.

Where was I placing my hope? My own power. The approval of others. Both of which is worthless.

I cannot accomplish what needs to be done on my own power. I am so limited. I get exhausted. I have medical issues that worsen the more I rely on myself.

I will never get true approval from others. I will always lack in their eyes. They will always want to control my life.

I had to come to realize that I wasn't relying on God the way I should. I needed to ignore the other people and focus on Him. It isn't easy only because they are so loud in my life. But with God all things are possible.

Principle 2

Principle two says that I need to "earnestly" believe that God exists and that He is the power that I need to seek to recover.

I'll be honest that this principle comes easy to me because I have believed in God my whole life and I know that He has the power to do ANYTHING. But do I actually act like I do? Do I really rely on Him and His power? In reality, no.

I think that I can do it myself. Why not, everyone else does it. They expect me to do it on my own power therefore I should. That is my co-dependency. I let others dictate my expectations and pathway instead of letting God guide me. It's not easy. I know I need to rely on God, but He is not like the people in my life who are in my face 24/7 nagging me and criticizing me. He is waiting on me to turn to Him.

This hurt. I believe in Him, but I have allowed others to control where I place my trust. No more. He is the only one that can help me, therefore I must rely only on Him and not on society or family for my recovery and future paths.

Principle 1 Verse - 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

Relying on God. Most people would say that they rely on Him each day. But do they really? Do we hand over to Him the stress of teenage kids? Do we rely on Him to handle your marriage problems? Do we rely on Him to help you find a job? Do you hand over to Him your emotional dilemmas? When we rely more on God, we see miracles that dreams could not conjure up. Only God can make the impossible look so easily done. The trials you are faces are not always death sentences. But they are real and they are not easy. But they are blessings. They are a chance to show that you can rely on Him and a chance for Him to show you just a little bit of what He can do. Give Him a chance. Give Him something to work with and sit back to watch the show.

Principle 1 verse - Jeremiah 6:14

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

What happens when you have an injury and you just ignore it? It usually gets worse. Infection can set in. If it is still not addressed, gangrene and death could await you. All this could have happened from a small innocent cut on the finger. We do that in the other areas of our life, also. We pretend that we don’t have any problems. We find ways to make the ugly pretty so that we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it is all a rose garden. We ignore the beatings, the extra drink or two, the inappropriate touches, the persistent desire for more and more, the urge to express our anger instead of our love, the extra 6 helpings of food, the fact that we never exchange polite words in our marriage anymore, anything that is dragging us down and hurting us. We apply dressing to the wound instead of medicating and seeking the much needed help to prevent more serious side effects. We think we’ve got it covered and all looks good. But when there is war, and you refuse to say there is anything but peace, the whole world sees the bombs exploding behind you and the fires of destruction burning. We lie to those in front of us. But worse, we lie to ourselves. Stop! Look at your life and see where you are hurt. See where you have been ignoring a “small” cut that now is swollen and infection is residing. Find where you need the help that only God can give. Find where you cannot cure it and find the ultimate cure. Stop living a fantasy. Start living a strength filled eternity.

Holding onto Anger and Resentment

Believe it or not we all tend to hold onto anger and resentment in our lives. Some maybe more than others, but we do it.

I don't do it as bad as many I know, but shamefully I do. I have a hard time letting it go. Why? Because it always seem to happen over and over again. The same hurt occurs. The same pain. I used it as a way to protect myself. If I stayed angry and remembered the hurt, then I wouldn't put myself back in harm's way.

Now, I was not being physically harmed. But emotional pain is just as bad. Being told that you are a plain Jane, not graceful, ordinary, below par, and just not good enough tends to hurt. Over time you begin to hold that pain close to your heart and begin to hate those that tell you that all time.

But as I was using it as protection for myself, it was also creating a huge crater in my soul. It was festering and preventing me from growing as a child of God. What started off as good protection ended up being the cancer in my life. In fact it was enforcing my co-dependency because I was allowing all the painful words they said to control my life and my growth.

I had to admit that I was holding the anger and resentment and allowing it to control my life. Healing can be painful!

Defining Co-dependence #1

I never thought that I was co-dependent until I read one of the flyers from Celebrate Recovery.

The first description was "My good feelings about who I am stem from being loved by you."

I have to admit that I didn't jump up and claim that this described me. Do I desire to be loved? Yes. Would knowing that my husband didn't love me devastate me? Yes. So I was ready to skip that description. But then I took it past my immediate family and hit the emotional brick wall.

So much of my self-esteem hung on the approval of my extended family including the in-laws. I was always trying to be accepted and loved. I would try to dress a certain way to get the approval. I would fix my hair a certain way. I tried to learn to cook better. I tried to be good at SOMETHING to get that pat on the back. And always failing. Depression would set in.

Oh, my. I can say yes to the first one. I do depend too much on others' approval for my self-worth.

I did not want to go on to the next one. This was devastating enough to me. I was never going to be good enough for any of them so why keep trying. I only need to please God and He cares about my heart and not about appearances.

Growing up is painful.

Lesson 2 - Ouch!

Lesson 2 really hurt in Celebrate Recovery. It had to touch on the pride issue.

Pride is what stops us from getting better, seeking help, or growing up. We think that we are perfect. We don't want to admit that we make mistakes. But, guess what? We do.

Pride is not wanting to see the truth before us. Our issues are not that big. We've got it all under control. NOT! We just think that we do. We we go about our lives like this, we are unknowingly playing God.

We cannot get over our alcohol, drugs, co-dependency, or food addictions if we continue to think that we have it all together.

I had a hard time admitting my co-dependency. I was not a slave to anyone. They didn't tell me what to do. But I was deceiving myself. I was not standing on my own two feet. I was allowing family and friends and even society to dictate my life and not let God do it. I felt guilt when I didn't measure up to their expectations. I felt like a nobody when I wasn't good enough. My goals were set based on others opinions. My parenting was reactionary to all those trying to tell me what to do.

I didn't have it under control. I was spiraling in a world of opinions, self-loathing, and resentment.

I am not God! and neither are they!

1st Step

I need to first face my denials. That can be hard. Since I'm already denying it, it is obvious that I don't want to face it. When I do that, I see my flaws.

We all have issues. One woman began to come to our recovery meetings and many of her answers and comments struck me as odd. Her words were that she had nothing to recover from and was here to learn to talk to addicts. As we got to know her, she needed to recover from pride and a judgmental attitude.

I denied my co-dependency for years. Maybe because I didn't have a name for it. I just pointed out the other people's roles in bringing chaos to my life. Now, they were doing that. If they weren't and I wasn't letting them, I wouldn't be co-dependent. My key word here is "letting". I realized that I was letting them walk over me and control me even though I fought it. I had to come to a point where I knew that I wasn't the one to control it all and they certainly weren't.

Because of my denials, I don't have good relationships with many of the people who controlled me. I fought with them. I argued with them. But because I thought it was supposed to be me in control, it was wrong. Now, we still have confrontations. But now I do it biblically. I seek God's Word. I let them know that I follow Him and not their earthly opinions and desires.

I'm on the road to recovery!

Principle One

I read principle one that states: Realize that I'm not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable.

At first I thought that I didn't need to focus on this one. I knew I wasn't God. I wouldn't dream of thinking I was Him. But then I got past the pride of knowing that first sentence to realize that there was more to that that I needed to listen to.

I've been told over and over that I should be in control of my life, my house, and my kids. Everything should be the way I set up. All outcomes should be expected by me. I should be able to work full time (ok, more than full time), come home to a husband and kids who have been home all day and know exactly where everything is. Because of that I always felt that I was so wrong and my goal in life should be the Mrs. Cleaver of the neighborhood though I was putting in 50 hours a week at work and at least another 20 for the church in my roles there. My life was chaos and I had to get it all calmed and organized.

Well, guess what? Yes, my life in unmanageable, but it is arrogant of me to think that I am the only one to get it under control. Only God can be the controller of my life and whenever I try to direct it the chaos continues.

This was a humbling discovery for me. In addition to having to realize that I'm not supermom and that I can't do it all, I had to deal with the anger that developed at the ones who were imposing that belief on me. Who were they to tell me that my house had to immaculate and my life perfectly laid out? Who were they to tell me where my priorities should be? Only my God can do all that, and He should be the only one I'm listening to.

I cannot dictate what tomorrow brings. I cannot dictate what today brings. I can plan, but I have to be aware that I live in a fallen world and chaos cannot be avoided when the things of the world are focused on.