Why Do I Do What I DON'T Want to Do?

Posts Tagged ‘shame’

I was reading a posting forwarded to me this morning from Seth Godin’s blog called The Problem with Positive Thinking.  In the post he writes “Key question then: why do smart people engage in negative thinking? Are they actually stupid?

The reason, I think, is that negative thinking feels good. In its own way, we believe that negative thinking works. Negative thinking feels realistic, or soothes our pain, or eases our embarrassment. Negative thinking protects us and lowers expectations.”

I found his comments so interesting.  I have struggled in my life with having that attitude of gratitude, always being positive, seeing the glass half full instead of half empty, etc., etc.  This is a great place for Christians to really beat themselves up and experience guilt and shame.  We need more of that you know!  KIDDING!

It hit me that I have felt that if I didn’t honor my pain I was somehow stuffing it or living in denial.  It hit me this morning that it was a lie.  Along with the 52 million other lies that I have lived off of this is yet another one.  Growing up in a chaotic alcoholic family where no one is talking about the white elephant in the middle of the living room I moved to a place of recovery where people “got it” and listened.  They validated my “truth”.  But it so often I see people get stuck right here.  The negative feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc that they grew up become so familiar that they in themselves become a somewhat of an addiction, a familiar place to take your pain.  At some point in every recovery there has to be a shift at where you give yourself permission to have fun, be happy, etc.  I have watched people in recovery spend years wearing mourning clothes for a lost childhood, adolescence, your adulthood, etc.  That in some way that is honoring the past person that grew up in that alcoholic home or became an alcoholic themselves and endured the abuse of that environment. 

So my challenge for the days is what would happen if instead of looking at the harshness in each situation you saw the joy?  What if in each situation instead of looking at the bad, you focused on the good?  What would happen?  Would that really mean denial?  Would that really mean you weren’t seeing the truth? 

Truth is so evasive.  Truth has multiple sides and what I have learned is that what I see or hear and especially feel is not always the whole truth.  I never know what God is working on for my good at any single moment.  When you get to your mid-40’s the thing you realize is that in your life things that you thought were the most incredible opportunity have turned out to be nightmares and the things that you thought were the end of the world have turned out to be incredible blessings. 

So just for today I challenge you to choose positive in all situations.  Just for today honor that childhood lost, that teenager lost, that young adult lost with positive energy/thought.  Just for today focus on the word of God in Romans 8:28 “We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.” 

Today choose to honor God’s truth, God’s word rather than your pain and your interpretation of the truth/reality.  God works off a different playing field than the world.  Just for today choose to believe what He says about you rather than what you think or feel about you!

Blessings ~

Tammy Hardin, Relapse Prevention Specialist and Life Coach

I am currently teaching a Genesis Change Group and this week’s topic is FEAR!  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that “fear is an evil and corroding thread and that our existence is shot through with it”.  Wow those are some pretty strong words.  After all these years I can tell you without question fear is driving THE bus.  That is what motivates most everyone to act out in unpleasant manners.  Fear is the thing that says “I am scared that I will not survive so I need to numb (drugs, alcohol, food, anger/rage, sex, etc.) in order so I won’t have to feel this pain”. 

As we learn in the Genesis Change Process fear has three responses Fight (anger), Flight (escape) or Freeze (play dead, go numb or appease).  Anger is probably the one that I personally have pulled out of the rabbit hat more than any others.  It can seem like an effective response because it appears to increase control, which reduces vulnerability.  When kids grow up in an abusive home (alcohol, physical or emotional) they are often shamed, they in turn become bullies and begin to protect themselves by shaming others. 

Anger is designed to anesthetize the emotion of fear.  Remember God has made you in His image.  As stated in The Genesis Process for Groups Book 1 “ALL of your emotions were designed by God for your good and can be used both positively and negatively.” (Michael Dye, CADC, NCACII, 2006)  That had never occurred to me.  ALL my emotions are designed by God for good.  Wow!  I guess this is like the brick story.  The brick is a brick, it can be used to build a house for comfort, protection or it can be thrown through the window in an act of violence.  The brick is still just a brick.  Wow!  When you grow up in an abusive home you are so off kilter all the time in regards to emotions.  People are raging one minute and telling you it didn’t happen the next.  You become so unsure of fact and try to make sense of it all with the limited knowledge of a child that it creates so much anxiety.  Children are pretty self-centered so they typically assume that the problem is them and they begin to think they have some control over it, that they caused it and can fix it.  Big responsibility for a kid! 

My experience in working with individuals is that most people are trying to anesthetize fear of criticism, rejection, abandonment, disrespect, shame, embarrassment, secrets, vulnerability and especially intimacy.  Have you ever said “that guy really pushed my button”?  Have you ever gone from 0 to 100 in less than one second and you are not really sure what happened afterword? That is a sure sign that you are responding in the current to a past hurt.  I want to reassure you it can all be redeemed.  No one is too broken to be fixed.  Jesus worked with a lot of hard cases!  Then the thing every addict hates to hear; You have to FEEL to HEAL.  I wish there was a shortcut or work around but the truth is you have to begin to feel again both good and bad in order to walk in freedom from anxiety, fear and addiction/compulsions.  We will continue to talk more about what it takes to walk through that process.  I will remind you that if it was easy everybody would do it!

Blessings ~

Tammy Hardin, Relapse Prevention Specialist and Life Coach

Works Cited

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Michael Dye, C. N. (2006). The Genesis Process Change Group Book 1. In C. N. Michael Dye, The Genesis Process Change Group Book 1 (p. 35 and 36). Auburn, CA: Double Eagle Industries.

Hungry, ANGRY, lonely or tired…what happens next?  I often have people come talk to me about what they consider a failure.    Failures can be small or large but I always ask the question, where were you on HALT?  Were you hungry, angry, lonely or tired?  When any of those exist we are more susceptible to not sticking to our plan of recovery.  It may not be that you go back to drinking/drugging but it could be that you got angry/raged, binged, or overspent and that shame smacked you in the face.  You were uncomfortable in your feelings so you used another coping behavior in order to change the way you were feeling. The reality is that if we pile up shame, guilt, etc.  the need to cope gets greater and the ways you cope get more serious, requiring more numbing. 

Please know this isn’t an original thought this is one of things that Alcoholics Anonymous taught me. It is one of the tools in my toolbox that I pull out often to gut check myself and others. 

Blessings….

Your Emotional and Addiction Recovery Coach

Shame Filter

This was probably the best graphic to show my life.  I could not receive.  I kept going to church, listening to sermon after sermon, praying prayer upon prayer but I could not receive.  I did not understand that shame was blocking me from receiving the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. 

Then came that spiritual experience when all the sudden my defenses were down, I was a loving child of God and my heart opened to receive Him.  For that split second I was able to experience God’s love, grace, forgiveness, redemption, and healing. 

Being a cross between the prodigal child and the woman at the well I needed an experience.  What changed me was not more head knowledge, I needed a heart experience.  I needed a meeting of the heart with Jesus. 

Jesus took all my shame to the cross and it has been covered with the blood.  I am free, free indeed!

*this diagram re-created  from Helping Victims of Sexual Abuse by Lynn Heitritter and Jeanette Vought