Saturday, November 10, 2012

layers

I am such a bad blogger lately.  It has been over a month since my last post.  Sure I have had lots going on but blogging is a release for me so I should not let it go. this is what happens when 'life" takes over.  I shut down from posting.  I want to shut down from life.  I want to revert back to doing things the way I used to do.

Because it is what I am used to.  Because it is comfortable.  Because it is how I have coped with everything bad that life throws at me.

Then I remember the chaos it causes.  The irreversible damage it does to anybody within the walls of my home.  The agony it causes inside my soul.

the co-dependence is being shed in layers.  Every layer that is shed brings to light new ways I need to retrain my brain to healthier ways of thinking.  

The first layer came when my world turned upside down in March.   I finally came to the place I had no power over things going on with people around me.

The next layer came after a couple months of starting Alanon, working my steps, and coming to the realization the only person I can change is me.  I had to have the "Spiritual Awakening" to all the manipulating I did to all around me to get them to do what I wanted because everybody should do things the way I think they should.  It was then that I decided no more enabling and no more getting upset if the people in my life do things they way they want not the way I think they should. It was so freeing to stop taking responsibility for others and what they do.  I also started learning things about myself, what I liked and disliked, and standing up for me.  This is because for years I never knew what I wanted or liked.  I did and liked what everybody else thought I should and changed what I liked based on the people I was hanging around out of fear of not being loved.


The book that changed my life

  Things I had been taught in Christian circles have just been wrong and learned it is OK for me to set up boundaries and still be living biblical principles.   Because there has been such false teaching on forgiveness and reconciliation.  Most teachings are this is one and the same.  They are not.
Forgiveness means I release the person from a debt they owe me.  I have to do that.  God says.


Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.


If I choose to not to forgive, it means I want something from that person.  My opinion,in most cases, that means revenge (with me that meant staying mad at them and having not so nice thoughts of what God should do to them or allow to happen), and that allows me to be controlled by that person. Forgiving sets me free.

Reconciliation or restoration comes when the other person and myself have truly owned up to our part of the problem.  I can not be the only one to do this.   Even God does not reconcile with everybody only those that are willing.  He forgives all but does not reconcile with all..  Forgiveness takes one person-me.  Reconciliation takes two -me and the other person.  This reconciliation takes time.  Once trust is broken, especially over and over again, it takes time to trust again.  The other person needs to own their behavior and then truly repent, which means to truly turn and do the opposite of what they were doing.

Fruit will be produced in keeping with repentance Matt 3:8.

Sometimes this takes weeks, months, or even years to happen.

I have made this mistake of confusing forgiveness and reconciliation as one and the same  too many, many times and when rushing reconciliation before it should happen ugly cycles have repeated themselves. Hence, I remove the boundaries and do the same things over and over again and expect something different to happen.

This time I choose to have boundaries in place.  I wait for the trust to be built which is slowly happening.  I am in no mood to rush it like I always have.  I live in today.  Today things are good.  I deal with things as they come up instead of letting them turn into resentments that lead to bitterness and "my crazy".

I learn to say how I feel, not what I think others are feeling, and leave it at that.  They get to choose what to do with it.  I get to choose how to respond.  This even applies to my children.  I no longer tell them they can't do that or be a certain way.  I simply tell them if they choose the behavior, they get a consequence.  I don't do this perfectly.  But I get better at it everyday.  My home is becoming more peaceful everyday.  The people that live in it are happier.

I choose to live in today.  I choose to be responsible to the people in my life not for them.   I choose to forgive and not be resentful.   I choose to respond and not react.  I choose to live in today.

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