Education & Information

There are many things we can do to help ourselves heal.  The first step toward healing is to acknowledge that we have been hurt.  The second is to recognize that while we can help ourselves, we cannot heal ourselves.  Healing takes place in community.  Those who have processed through some of their pain and gained valuable insights about it will experience even deeper healing when they begin to reach out to others and share their wisdom.  The following twenty-six positive life style changes have been tried and proven.  They will help us move out of our grief and into a place of relief and greater joy.

 

TWENTY-SIX POSITIVE LIFE SKILLS

A. Analyze everything. This is not the overwhelming chore that it may seem at first. Every thought, every feeling, and every event that comes into our life will affect us in some way. If we consciously analyze everything, it will wear us out, leaving us confused, fatigued, and immobilized. Some things require conscious, deliberate scrutiny. Major decisions, lifestyle changes, a move across town… all the rest of it needs to be analyzed in the same way a bank teller analyzes currency that comes through her window. She has been taught by exposure to authentic currency to recognize what’s counterfeit. She analyzes almost effortlessly, because she has been trained by the truth to recognize all that is false.

If we spend ample time in the Presence of Truth, allow our mind to be trained by Him, saturated in authenticity, we will analyze almost effortlessly and respond appropriately.

 

B. Beautify your environment. Confusion thrives in chaos. Clean the house, buy inexpensive ornaments if you need to, and create beauty in your home. Make it look good, smell good, and sound good through relaxing music that invites the soul to rest.

 

C. Clean it up. It is our responsibility and our privilege to be able to clean up our home, ourselves, and our environment.

 

D. Dare to do right. Dare to do what is right and leave the outcome up to God.

 

E. Edify yourself. Do those things that build up your spirit and your faith.

 

F. Forgive. Learn how to let go of blame.

 

G. Go. Get out of the house. Go do something that is good for you and others.

 

H. Help. Get help for yourself, and then help others who need your wisdom and comfort.

 

I. Invest. Invest your time, energy, and wisdom in the lives of others. Your investment will come back to you many times over.

 

J. Just do it. Don’t wait until you feel like it. Don’t wait until you feel qualified. You have a lot to offer at every stage of your recovery. You will never be more aware of the pain in others than when you’re hurting too.

 

K. Keep moving. Keep moving onward. Keep moving upward.

 

L. Let go. Let go of destructive ways of thinking and relating. Let go of destructive relationships. Let go of everything that hinders your health and healing.

 

M. Meditate on the truth. Apply God’s truth to your experience. Do it every day.

 

N. No. Learn to say no. Learn to say no when you need to. It’s okay to say no to good things if those things are not good for you—or if they’re not good for you right now.

 

O. Oppose when necessary. Oppose people, thoughts, and actions that bring you down. Jesus said that He came to bring a sword between even those of the same household. If someone in your family is behaving in destructive ways toward you—oppose that person with the truth. Learning how to oppose others in healthy, godly ways is one of the most important tasks of recovery. Opposition can be good!

 

P. Process everything. You wouldn’t leave a splinter in your foot and say, “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little splinter.” That splinter will fester. It will infect your entire body if you don’t get it out.

 

Q. Question everything. Any truth that will not stand up to scrutiny is no truth at all, but a lie. God’s truth is absolute. Our truths are relative; they’re influenced by our experiences, our misconceptions, and our peers.

 

R. Repent. “There is no one who does good, not even one,” the psalmist laments (Psalm 14:3). We know that we are not righteous. Christ alone is righteous, and He offers His righteousness to us.

Think of a child who has been targeted by an enemy. The enemy points his weapon in the child’s direction. “You are guilty,” he says. “You deserve to die.”

The Father leaps in front of the child. He spreads his cloak over the child—and the child is saved. The cloak of the Father’s righteousness covers us and will protect us from death and destruction.

What must we do to be saved, to be covered? We must repent. We must confess our sins to Him, our Divine Parent, who will never—ever—use our confession against us. He will, as the scripture promises, “forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9.) Isn’t that what we crave? Isn’t that purity what we all long for? To be absolutely pure, free of all the contamination of everything that has ever happened to us and everything that we ourselves have done that has muddied the waters of our soul? He promises to “purify us from all unrighteousness”—past, present, and future. All he asks is that we repent, turn away from our sins, and walk in a different direction.

“What sins?” we ask. Was the abuse our sin? Was our compliance sin? No! We are not responsible for the abuse or for our response to it. But we are responsible for our selfishness, our pride, our controlling ways, and our hatred of God. These and all other forms of unrighteousness are sins that we may have embraced, and healing will come only as we are able to repent and accept the righteousness of God as a covering for our past, present, and future sins. It is our responsibility to repent; and it is God’s privilege and purpose to restore us. Every day.

 

S. Surrender to God’s plan and purpose for your life. This is the hardest thing for us to do when we have surrendered to an abuser in the past and suffered for it. Surrender did not damage us—the abuser did. It is not our surrender that violates us, but the one to whom we surrender.

Surrendering to God, the perfect parent, the perfect lover, the absolute perfection, is our only hope, for it is by surrendering to God that we are saved from our propensity to surrender to fallen beings who will violate our trust and use us for their unholy purposes.

 

T. Trust appropriate others. This is another difficult task, for our trust has been violated in the past. Our heart once trusted and was torn because of it. The enemy of our soul targeted our trust for annihilation, for he knows that it is through trust that we attain intimacy with God. If he can keep us from trusting God, he will continue to victimize us all the way to the grave, for then we will place our trust in others, who will fail us, violate us, or abandon us.

Trust in God will teach us to extend appropriate trust to others and withdraw it from those who are not worthy of it. Unlike love, which should be given unconditionally, trust must be earned.

 

U. Understand. Develop an understanding heart. Learn to live the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi—that we seek not so much to be understood as to understand others and become a person of compassion.

 

V. Vault beyond victimization! When we are victims no longer, we will think like a victor and behave like a victor—even when we don’t feel like a victor.

 

W. Withdraw appropriately. Withdraw from people who don’t have your best interest at heart. Take a step back—or two or three—whatever it takes to “guard your heart,” for it is “the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23.)

 

X. eXpress your truths. Learn to communicate honestly. Resolve not to hide, hint, or manipulate, but to be honest and direct about your feelings, your needs, and your expectations.

 

Y. Yell. Do not keep secrets at the expense of your own integrity.

 

Z. be Zealous in your quest for wholeness. Say to yourself: “I hereby declare that I, like James and John, the ‘sons of thunder’ among the disciples of Christ, will ever be a zealot for righteousness.”

Other Helpful Behaviors

People who have experienced abuse or neglect may need to learn how to “tap in” to their own emotions.  This is sometimes called “emotional IQ.”  It is possible for an extremely intelligent person to become so accustomed to denying or masking their feelings that they don’t really know what they are feeling, and can’t respond in a healthy way to what their feelings are telling them.

It may help to place a chart such as the one below on your refrigerator or on your bathroom mirror, and practice naming your emotions when you sense your expression is similar to one on the chart.