My friend Sarah texted me a "word for the day" this morning:
Clarity.
It was well-timed because I've been seeking for greater clarity recently. Clarity of vision. Clarity in purpose. Clarity in relationships. Clarity at work.
For me, I need clarity because it helps me align with what I believe is my mission in life.
Sometimes it's hard to see clearly on life's journey. I've found returning to spiritual practices helps. I've been reading more, meditating more, and reflecting more.
I've also been mindful to not get caught up in my head too much. I've said it before: the worst place I can be is to be caught up in my own thoughts.
Exercise helps me with that. So does reaching out to friends and loved ones for support.
I'm grateful for friends like Sarah. I'm also grateful that while sometimes we "see through a glass dimly", when we ask for clarity it will come. Maybe not in the timing that I'd like. But certainly in the best way possible.
I've been pretty transparent on social media the last couple weeks talking about life changes but haven't updated this blog.
Last month I resigned my position at The Recovery Place in Fort Lauderdale where I developed and directed a highly successful faith-based treatment program called Three Strands. It was a difficult decision but I noticed significant changes after new leadership took over Elements Behavioral Health, the parent company.
My decision proved to be a wise and strategic one because the following week after my resignation, Elements announced they would be closing the entire operations of The Recovery Place on December 4. It was a very sad and difficult experience watching a treatment center dwindle down to very few clients and witness a program I worked very hard to develop be brought to nothing. However, I am grateful for the two years I worked for Elements and the opportunities the company afforded me while there.
On October 19 I started as Director of Program Development and Outreach at Lifeskills South Florida in Deerfield Beach, FL. Lifeskills specializes in treating complex psychiatric and/or substance use disorders. Lifeskills is unique in that it is licensed both for psychiatric conditions as well as substance abuse. Many treatment centers do not hold licenses for the treatment of both. I will also be assisting our Intensive Outpatient Program in Delray Beach.
I am excited about this new part of my journey. If you know someone who is suffering from a mental health or substance abuse disorder, don't hesitate to contact me. I'll be happy to help, and if we can't help them at Lifeskills, will help you find the place best suited for them.
The following post is part of a talk I am giving on Friday, May 29, 2015 at the South Florida Spiritual Care Network lunch, an association of clinicians, counselors, clergy, law enforcement, elected officials, and other helping professionals.
Trauma is anything less than nurturing.
--Commonly heard definition for trauma in the clinical counseling community
If this definition is right, then we all have been traumatized on some level, and we all have some healing work to do. I often tell my clients when complaining about their lot in life, "Welcome to Planet Earth." While it may sound cheeky, it does help them to wake up to the idea that life on this planet does not exempt us from problems. In fact, being born on this planet ensures it. Mother Nature can be hostile. So can our own families and loved ones. So can our friends and enemies. So can we ourselves.
How do we bounce back from less-than-nurturing experiences?
Often, those of us in the healing professions are the last to personally apply our own work. We somehow delude ourselves into thinking that as we help others heal, we too are being healed.
And while it's a spiritual truth that in giving, we receive (the Prayer of St. Francis), this truth can't be activated in our lives until we practice another truth: we can only impart that which we have already received.
In short, we have to have it before we can give it to another.
But this begs to ask the question: where do helpers go for help? Where do we receive the strength, knowledge, healing, insight, and awareness to light the paths of those who come to us seeking to come out of their own personal darkness? How do we walk in the light and bring others into it as well?
I've found head knowledge is not enough. Intellectually knowing a healing technique or principle is very different than experiencing it. All of the education in the world might produce a lot of useful information but still in the end be very insufficient to transform the heart.
I suppose it's that aspiration for personal transformation that drives us forward. I know it does me. I find great fulfillment in seeing others transform their lives.
You see, those who work with me--especially those who know me well--understand that most everything I do in life, I do with intensity.
I work hard.
I play hard.
I relate hard.
I strive hard.
I sleep hard.
I weep hard.
I laugh hard.
I give with everything in my being. Rarely do I hold back.
I do so because this creates for a more nuanced and meaningful existence--at least for me.
I do so because I'm convinced that if I'm giving my all then I've done my best and hopefully made a difference in my world.
This last weekend I was walking home from a restaurant and I had an Aha! moment.
It went something like this: I can do anything I want to do. I don't have to do everything I want.
Sometimes it's as if for me the law of scarcity takes over. I have to make up for lost time. I have to do and experience everything because there might not be another chance. We aren't promised a tomorrow. All we have is today. So carpe diem, baby!
But my Aha! moment woke me up again to the idea that I can choose to not do the things I really like to do. I can rest in the place of being. In fact, just being is a phenomenal choice to connect me to myself and those around me. In that moment of my Aha! moment, scarcity vanished, and grace appeared.
I don't know how it appeared, but it did. This feeling of wellbeing came over me. I slowed down my harried and hurried pace. I noticed more the warmth of the sun on my face. I was more aware of the people passing me on the sidewalk. I felt more centered, more grounded, more connected, more calm, more alive. As my dad sometimes says, it was like I was being saved all over again. Saved from the bondage of self. Saved to live again. Renewed, resurrected, reborn, born again, all at once. In a moment, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, grace appeared.
Now how does one define grace? I was rhetorically asking my friend Richard this, just this morning. He was on his way to take care of something that we--his wife, Lisa, other close friends, and I--had been praying and hoping for, for a while.
I suddenly blurted, "I'm not sure we can define grace, we can only experience it."
Grace is something to be experienced.
We experience grace when we journey with others.
We experience grace when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and we aren't quite as afraid as we used to be.
We experience grace when we embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly in our lives and come to understand that everything belongs.
We experience grace when we realize that we are finite and infinitely powerful all at the same time.
We experience grace when we come to our wit's end and discover that the way out was there all along.
We experience grace when we survive hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and natural disasters--both literal and metaphorical--and come out on the other side grateful for the deeper life lessons we have learned.
We experience grace in the dark night of the soul, when the angry angst of human isolation, abandonment, and shame seek to snuff out our inner light, and we then suddenly realize that when forsaken and alone, we find ourselves in the best company ever.
We experience grace when the inner demons rant and rave and rage and have less power over us than they did before.
We experience grace when we face the inevitable mortality of those close to us and that of ourselves.
We experience grace when we risk vulnerability and share our stories with others and they with us.
We experience grace when we think our story is over and discover it's only just begun.
Grace is a uniquely human experience. Grace is all around. Grace is within you, within me, within all of us. Grace is already there. Grace comes when we ask. Grace even comes when we don't ask.
That's the beauty of grace.
I work hard, and grace appears.
I play hard, and grace appears.
I relate hard, and grace appears.
I strive hard, and grace appears.
I sleep hard, and grace appears.
I weep hard, and grace appears.
I laugh hard, and grace appears.
I give with everything in my being, and grace appears.
I live life fully, and grace appears.
I slow down and breathe, and grace appears.
I do nothing, and yes, grace appears.
So I return to my original questions:
How do we bounce back from less-than-nurturing experiences? Where do helpers go for help? Where do we receive the strength, knowledge, healing, insight, and awareness to light the paths of those who come to us seeking to come out of their own personal darkness? How do we walk in the light and bring others into it as well?
I don't have easy answers to these questions but I do think grace has a lot to do with it. I today choose to surround myself with gracious people. I choose gracious, compassionate and kinds thoughts toward myself and others. I endeavor to live a more gracious way of life.
I offer others the strength and favor I have received which I've done nothing to garner, earn, or gain.
I give freely even as I have received.
For it's in grace I live, move, and have my being.
I've long been a fan of Anne Lamott. Her books speak to my soul and cause me to live from my higher self. I'm grateful for her voice and writings.
One of my favorite memories with Anne is being in North Eleuthera, Bahamas years ago reading one of her books out-loud to my friend Misi. We had no TV so an even better pastime was to read Anne and laugh together and yes, share some meaningful sighs, touching soul to soul, deep calling to deep as the Good Book says.
I came across this interview through her Facebook feed and wanted to share her wit and wisdom.
She states in it: "It's the most spiritual thing you can do to touch another person."
That truth slows my frenetic mind down and reminds me that the people around me daily are worth hearing, worth connecting with, worth touching. It reminds me to hear deeply and with understanding.
Sometimes this is hard for me--especially when I go to church. My home church is so accepting and very touch-feely. They hug a lot, and people generally want to reach out and connect, hug, and give a holy kiss on the cheek.
I'm generally good with that but sometimes there are ones who come up behind and connect when I'm not expecting. At that point, it's like my inner New Yorker wants to reach out and visit them with a five-fingered blessing across the face. Sometimes my friends laugh at my startled response, and I've often questioned why it is people want to connect when I least it expect it and why it unsettles me so.
I think it's because we all carry a deep need to connect with another human being in a meaningful way. When we see someone that we think carries something meaningful, we want to connect with them in whatever way possible.
So my challenge in being more empathetic to others is allowing them to connect, even when it may not be the most comfortable for me. This means moving beyond my ultra-sensitivities and seeing their need. Because at the end of the day, their need is the same as mine: the desire to touch another human being in a meaningful and most spiritual way.
The PR Release on the Addictions Program I direct...
Ft. Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) June 03, 2014
The Christian addiction treatment program at The Recovery Place announces its new name, Three Strands, a title rich with symbolic references to faith and recovery.
The name "Three Strands" evokes the Christian trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – as well as the three prongs of healthy, holistic living – mind, body and spirit. The theme of "threes" is also in harmony with the 3rd Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, which relates to turning one's will over to a higher power.
"The number three is a powerful symbol throughout Christian teachings as well as recovery," said Three Strands' director Jonathan Benz. "It represents many important concepts, including the relationship among counselors, the group and the individual – a reminder that by coming together with others, we strengthen ourselves."
The program naming is part of a broader goal to develop a truly differentiated treatment option for Christians in recovery. Whereas many Christian rehab programs are essentially a "track" within a standard treatment program that offers an occasional Celebrate Recovery group or transportation to a local church, Three Strands is a comprehensive, fully integrated faith-centered program. Clients participate in traditional therapies, including educational groups, individual, group and family counseling, and relapse prevention planning, but treatment also includes:
Her talk immediately resonated with me, and I posted it on this blog. I also ordered her books and began utilizing her ideas in therapy.
I breathed a prayer that I could sit under her tutelage some day. I don't normally "follow after" people but her research on shame, vulnerability, authenticity, and telling one's story was so transformative for me it led me to tell my own personal story on bullying.
Telling that story released a whole new level of personal healing in my life as well as restoration of relationships. That story also helped many others heal as evidenced by hundreds of blog hits, re-posts, and private emails I received.
So I was very thrilled when early this year my parent company, Elements Behavioral Health, flew me and a few colleagues to San Antonio to be trained in The Daring Way™.
I was able to be trained by Brené and her faculty over five days. It was a wonderful experience. I got to speak to her personally and can assure you she is as real as she appears in the Ted Talk or on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. I am now a candidate as a Certified Daring Way Facilitator and should be fully certified by autumn.
I strongly recommend her books to you. I have shared them with family and friends. I am now utilizing The Daring Way™ in therapy and seeing huge breakthroughs in my clients.
I continue to make my own personal applications. It takes great courage to become vulnerable and tell our stories but it is a sure path to greater wholeness, healing, and joy.
Last year I received a call from an executive director of a treatment center in Fort Lauderdale. I thought the call was about a new center their company was opening in the Palm Beach area.
Initially, I wasn't too keen on being back in an exclusively Christian world. I really enjoy engaging people from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. I also have never had a huge desire to live and work in Fort Lauderdale.
But I felt a knocking on my heart and knew I needed to respond. I went through some interviews and was offered the position.
I am Director of Three Strands, The Christian Program at The Recovery Place in Fort Lauderdale. The Recovery Place is owned by Elements Behavioral Health in California. I have been nothing but completely impressed with the professionalism and high calibre of individuals working for this company. I am so grateful to be a part.
I have been privileged to develop programming that integrates spiritual principles with solid clinical therapy for individuals who are battling addiction and other co-occurring mental health disorders.
Three Strands believes that everyone is welcome at the table of the Lord. We create an atmosphere where people can move into the light and receive nurturing and healing for the soul. We also welcome people of other faiths and even no faith to enter the program. I still believe the Christian faith, when released in the paradigm of the teachings of Jesus, offers one of the greatest invitations to spiritual experience and transformation.
I recently received a huge compliment from a client who did about 40 days of treatment. He stated he entered somewhat agnostic, cynical and very mistrusting of religion. He said he left knowing that he can walk out his recovery following the teachings of Jesus and not having to be a dry, religious person. He said the days in therapy amounted to the greatest spiritual awakening in his life.
That made me smile real big. I feel blessed to be part of a healing center that honors both psychotherapy and spiritual renewal.
The Russian writer Boris Pasternak wrote, "When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it."
Be attentive to the knocking on the door of your life today. It is probably quite soft and more a sensation than even a noise. If you follow it, it might have the potential to release you into a whole new phase of your life.
For the last five years or so I have made a conscious decision to give something up for Lent.
Not food, drink, or material items, but something that I enjoy emotionally yet might keep me from connecting spiritually.
One year it was giving up a criticism. Another year it was a specific area of resentment.
I try to keep it real and psychologically meaningful, endeavouring to discipline myself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
I was at St. Brendan's in the City in DC for worship last Sunday evening and the announcements were made about upcoming Ash Wednesday. I silently surrendered to the Spirit that if there were something I needed to give up, it would be made known to me.
I should know by now not to pray those kinds of prayers. They tend to get answered. And quickly.
Nothing came to me. Yay! Relief! The best kind of silence. Nothing to work on.
For me, it sometimes feels easier to maintain spiritual status quo than to enter into a greater sense of mindfulness. I was happy to enter into the Lenten season just as I had entered into the New Year: keep things going strong, no major adjustments.
Then, I read it Wednesday morning.
Right there on my Facebook feed. A friend had posted a status update about the attitude of her heart she had worked on the previous year. I knew it was for me. She talked about her need to be right.
You see, I too have a great need to be right. (I know, you are shocked.)
The problem is, I often am, and that's not always beneficial for me.
I try to reason through my positions, provide a logical framework with good evidence to back up my case. When I'm in doubt, I try to respond with "you may be right", actually giving myself a little more room to be right or perhaps diffuse a situation where my ego might be bruised.
I suppose some of this compulsive "rightness' come from my shadow self--some egoic, self-loathing part of my soul that relishes the darkness of shame as opposed to the spiritual light of day. I think it's the part that Apostle Paul called the "flesh". Not physical flesh, but dark parts of the soul that keep me spiritually enslaved.
When I hit a shame hole, those shadows take over. I immediately run to prove my point, defend my position, hide my vulnerability, or validate my existence.
What a tiresome way to live, constantly on the defense!
I immediately texted my friend Richard, the rector of St. Brendan's. I knew he would think this a ridiculous idea and smack the spiritual sense back into me.
Me: For Lent, giving up my great need to be right.
Some time passes, I'm off the hook. Thank, God.
Richard: That is beautiful and got me thinking.
Prolonged pause on my part, need to talk him out of this.
Me: It's gonna be tough. Dying. Ugh.
Richard: Dying always is!
Some help he was. I was hoping he would tell me how utterly ridiculous of an idea this was.
Time to find a new priest, I thought. A mega-church pastor would never agree with him on this.
But I knew Richard was right. This is what I need in this season of my life.
So for Lent 2014, I commit to give up my great need to be right. This doesn't mean I can't be right. It just means if I am, I don't have to express it in every situation--or at all.
It also means I can say when I'm not right. Better yet, I don't even have to be right. My rightness does not determine my worth as a human being nor my self-esteem.
I can give up the need for self-validation, for proving my point, for justifying my position. I can be vulnerable. I can be silent. That's okay.
As a participant in TRP, I've read now over 1000 pages (really fine print too!) and been part of online discussions with 49 other Reformers from across North America. We've read pros and cons and looked at extant sources as well as more Greek and Hebrew words than I ever thought possible. If you're interested in this subject, a recommended read would be James Brownson's book Bible, Gender, Sexuality.
I've learned a lot but the one take-away for me has been a deeper understanding that the way the Church has taught these issues has been shaped more by popular religious culture than by a clear understanding of what the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts say in their proper, historical context.
In my opinion, these theological errors preached from some pulpits and television studios have made the Message of the Good News only good for certain varieties of Christians and actually pretty bad news for those that remain.
My intention had been to blog different insights all summer but the intensity has not allowed me to. Instead, you will probably hear bits and bobs in future posts, as I move forward with the new information and insights I've received.
Until then, enjoy your Labor Day Weekend in the US, and wherever else you are on God's green earth, be blessed!
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