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Acceptance vs. Approval

5/27/2019

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.[1]"

When I entered into recovery in 2006 I was living in denial. I was denying that I had any type of a problem. I was denying the fact that I had no part of being abused, I was just a person that had a black cloud over his head. A person that just deserved to be treated poorly. After all my parents divorced when I was just ten-years old. Then God took my father from me when he died of cancer in 1969. However the final blow came when my stepfather began emotionally, physically, spiritually and sexually abusing me right after my father died. It must have been me. If only I had been a better son, student or athlete. If only I had been better looking and smarter then none of this would have happened to me. I had to arrive at place of acceptance that what happened to me had absolutely nothing to with me.

Remember this, acceptance does not mean approval. Acceptance is not submission, it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation, then deciding what you're going to do about it.
If we are not accepting people places and things, then we are fighting them. I had to quit fighting everyone and everything. I had to come to with grips that I am a man , and no less of a man by admitting that another person had abused me. The reality is it takes a strong and courageous man to admit his weaknesses, and in doing so he will become stronger. An old-timer once told me, Randy you have the power to change the world within you.” I thought he had lost his mind. However he was absolutely correct. When I quit fighting everything and everyone and arrived at a place of acceptance the world did change. Actually the world didn’t change, it was my perception of the world that changed, and yours can too.

Are you still living in denial?
Who and what are still fighting”
Are you willing to quit fighting everything and everyone?
What action steps are you going to take to arrive at a place of acceptance?

[1] Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition p. 417

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Anger

5/20/2019

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Growing up in a Christian home and being emotionally, physically, spiritually, and sexually abused by Christian parents, one a Deacon of the church and the other a member of the choir, left me confused and very angry. Not only was I angry at my parents and the world, I was angry at God. After all, isn’t God supposed to be our protector?

For over thirty years that anger fueled a hate and resentment that nearly destroyed me and my life. Did I have a right to be angry? Absolutely, however I was using that anger in the wrong way. I was using it to assassinate my mothers and stepfathers’ character and turn others away from God and the church. It was only when I was allowed to talk about my feelings; being angry with God, my parents, the church, and myself without being judged or told to just forgive, forget, and move on, or it happened along time ago move on with your life already, that I was able to start letting go of my anger and move into a place of acceptance.

Genesis 50:20 says - You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. I am grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness. Today I have turned that bitter anger and hate into compassion and love for others that have gone through the same suffering. I know that through all of my abuse, God was always right next to me weeping and protecting me from grave harm.
I want you to know that no matter what you have been through, there is hope and healing for you. There is a better life waiting for you. Jeremiah 29:11 says - For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Are you still harboring anger towards something or someone from your past?
Are you now ready to release that anger and give it to God?
What action steps will you take to release your anger?

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Never Forget

5/13/2019

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For the last four weeks I have been talking about forgiveness. The one thing I always touch on when I talk about forgiveness is the four death words of survivors; You just have to Forgive, Forget, and Move On. I say with love and compassion we must forgive and move on. However, we will never forget and for myself, I do not want to forget. This week I am going to discuss Never Forgetting.

Believe me, in some ways I wish I could forget about the abuse that happened to me as a child. I often wonder what my childhood and life would have been like had I not been abused and suffered all the trauma. Then on the other hand, I wouldn’t change a thing. It has made me the man I am today.

First it is not psychologically possible to forget the traumatic events in one’s life. There is a little almond shaped object in the middle of our brain called the Amygdala. The Amygdala is the filing cabinet of our brain. It registers emotions such as fear and anxiety. It processes memory. Here’s an example of how it works. As a teenager I was constantly being told that I was an idiot, that I would never amount to anything by my mother and stepfather. Believe me I’d just as well like to forget I had ever heard those words. The problem is, every time I would make a mistake, which was a trigger, my brain would go into the filing cabinet and pull up the “idiot” file. The Lymbic System of the brain would then engage and the broken record would start playing. It would not only remind me of what I was told as a child and teenager, it would also let me know that my actions were just proof that what I was told as a youth, was true. The feeling that comes with the memory can be as real as the times I was actually hearing the words from my mother and stepfather.

Let’s look at it from a spiritual stand point. The enemy (Satan) hates the truth. John 8:44 tells us – “….He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of all lies.” Satan can’t see into our future, but what he does know all too well is our past. As we enter into recovery or begin our walk with Christ, he is not real thrilled with us. In my case, prior to my recovery journey, I was his number one advocate. Today I am his number one adversary with the ministries I’m involved with. When I am emotionally and spiritually drained is when the enemy goes to work on me. He knows my weaknesses and goes right after them reminding me of my past sins. He also reminds me of the emotional and spiritual harm as well as the lies that were instilled in me by others. These were all traumatic experiences that kept me trapped in my victim mentality, my addictions for thirty-five plus years, which the enemy wants me to stay trapped in.

So then how do we reverse the lies that we have believed, either consciously or sub-consciously, for so many years? These lies and false beliefs have been etched into the neuro-pathways of our brain and engrained into the fiber of our being. So, one might believe that we can’t change, either our behavior or negative thought patterns. I’ve heard so many people say; It’s just the way I am and if you don’t like it, too bad.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We can change. It just takes time and action on our part. Because of the plasticity of our neuro-pathways, it is possible to change our negative thought patterns and in doing so, change our behavior. However, as I said, this will take time. For myself, I lived with these lies about myself, negative thought patterns and less than Godly behavior I displayed, for thirty-five plus years. To tell you the truth, I expected change to take place right away. Many of the people I work with expect change to take place instantly as well. However, we have years of false beliefs and behaviors to overcome.

There are two very important steps into the process of change. First it is important to stay in the word of God and read what He has to say about who you are. We are all perfect in His eye. We are the head and not the tail. We are blessed going on and blessed going out. We are loveable, loved and we are enough. For many, believing what God says about them to be true is very hard as we have had our view/understanding of God skewed by religious people and pastors who have harmed us in the name of God. Why staying in the word is important, for myself, I had been so wounded by the church, I needed much more than the words of God. I needed to see actions that matched the words of the ones that were mentoring me. I needed to have words of life spoken into me. I needed to be shown how to live with a positive attitude. I needed to be taught how not to believe the lies that were insistently being whispered in my ear and replace those lies and negative thoughts with words of affirmation and life. God blessed me with these mentors. It has made a huge difference in my life. I will also say this; I must make a choice everyday to not allow the lies and negative thoughts to control my life as well as surrounding myself with only positive and uplifting people.

So, why then do I never want to forget about all the negative and trauma that occurred in my life? I tell the people I work with that everyone that comes into our life, rather for a fleeting second, moment, hour, day, or year is a teacher. Everything that happens to you in life is a lesson. If I were to forget about my past, then I would be forgetting about the countless lessons the past and the people in my past, good or bad, have taught me. It is likely that by forgetting my past, I could fall right back into the patterns and lifestyle that caused me so much grief and pain. Furthermore, if I were to forget my past, I would not be able to help those I’m helping today. It is only through these experiences of my trauma and my healing journey that I am able to help others that have suffered in the ways a have. The difference today is my past is what I use to help others instead of hurt others and I no longer live there.

There is one more very important reason one must never forget the past. The reason lies in Deuteronomy 8:2 – “Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.” In other words, God had to humble me and bring me to a place where all I could do was depend on him. I had finally arrived at the place where I had nothing else or no one else to count on. God had called me to a place of obedience. This obedience was and is based on remembering what the Lord has done for me while I was in the wilderness of the world.

In order to experience true happiness and freedom, we must forgive and move on. Please don’t mistake the fact that you can’t forget the past for not forgiving someone. You have been hurt, and in some cases, hurt badly. So, choose forgiveness, freedom, and happiness over not forgetting. If a memory pops up from the past, honor it, look at the lesson it taught you, love yourself, then say goodbye to it. Return to the moment and remind yourself that you are loved and safe today.

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Steps to Forgiveness

5/6/2019

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For the past three weeks, I have talked about forgiveness. What it is, what it’s not and some of the fruits of forgiveness. I have also stated that it is my opinion and personal experience that in order to experience true happiness and freedom, forgiveness is a must. That being said, I have also made it clear that forgiveness is a process. How long that process is for any one individual depends on several variables. The first of which is their willingness to surrender and let go of their death grip on the past. So exactly how do we forgive? I will be sharing a few ways that others have forgiven, but most importantly how I was able to forgive my perpetrators.

First, we have to start by forgiving ourselves. It is difficult, but not impossible, to forgive others before you forgive yourself. Self-forgiveness can be especially difficult for survivors of sexual abuse, who tend to be pretty hard on themselves. We have to realize the inaccuracy of the child-logic that made us believe that if only we were better, bad things wouldn’t happen to us.

One thing that helped me was to focus on the present. For many years, I focused on my past, the very part of my life I couldn’t change. Eventually, I realized that the past was over, and the only place the abuse was still occurring was in my own head. Shifting your mental focus from past pain to the present moment takes practice. Start by bringing your focus back to what you are doing right now. Find the joy in life in the here and now—sitting with your favorite pet, walking in the garden or on the beach, or playing a musical instrument. Know that your past will always be a part of you, and you will inevitably think about it. But whenever you do, just gently bring yourself back to this moment. If you are living mostly in the past, ask yourself this one simple question, “How’s it working for me?”

Another important step in the forgiveness process is accepting the pain. Acceptance does not mean approval. My mother and Jack hurt me deeply, scarring me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I wallowed in that pain for more than thirty years. But once I started my recovery, I came to a place of acceptance in order to move forward. What they did to me was absolutely wrong, but how long was I going to let it ruin my life? In order to grow and move forward, I had to accept the fact that the abuse happened and understand that obsessing on “shoulds” was only hurting me. It helped to remember that acceptance does not mean approval.

Next, I had to become willing to at least start the forgiveness process. For thirty-eight plus or minus years I was completely unwilling to even talk about forgiveness. Remember that forgiveness is a “choice” not a “feeling.” For years I was letting my feelings control my life and actions at any mention of forgiveness. This in part was a result of not being allowed to talk about what happened to me or my feelings without the words; “You just need to forgive, forget and move on,” or “That was a long time ago, just get over it.” I never knew that I had a choice to forgive or not to forgive. Other people’s well-intentioned comments only drove me further away from forgiveness. Not until my therapist Deborah Mients-Pierson and my counselors at the Betty Ford Center allowed me to talk about my abuse without judgement, but instead with empathy and understanding, did I become willing to start the forgiveness process. Not only were they non-judgmental, they never once uttered the words “You just have to forgive, forget, and move on.” It was presented to me as a “choice’ and not forced on me.

Once I was able to accept the pain and the fact that the abuse happened to me, that it was not my fault, I had to surrender, let go and let God. Now, I know too many people the word surrender brings to mind many pictures. Perhaps a white flag waving above a platoon of outnumbered soldiers with their hands raised high. More often we associate surrender with defeat. For many of us the reality is we have been utterly defeated, but our pride won’t allow us to admit it. After all, to surrender is a sign of weakness, right? The reality is that surrendering is not a sign of weakness, rather a sign of strength. In fact, once we surrender, once we admit our powerlessness, and give it to God, the real power begins to go to work, the power of God. Surrendering does not mean we will ever forget what happened to us. We were hurt and some of us were hurt in a way no child should ever be hurt. However, that does not mean we can’t heal from that hurt, we can. For me that healing began when I let go and let God. My abuse stopped when I was eighteen years, yet I kept the abuse alive for another thirty-one years. During that time my abusers went about their lives as though nothing had ever happened. In fact, my mother and stepfather were kind and generous with other people, just not to me. The past was over and there was nothing I could do to change what happened to me, but there was something I could do to have a better future. But first I had to quit fighting everybody and everything. First, I had to surrender.

The one thing that helped me complete my forgiveness process of my stepfather and mother was empathy. It’s important to remember that hurt people, hurt people. This is not to justify or condone their actions or behaviors, rather to help me understand their actions and behaviors. Both my mother and stepfather were alcoholic. They were both emotionally, spiritually and sexually abused themselves. Their childhood was likely far worse than mine. Yes, you would think that they would not want to inflict that pain on others, but they were only doing what was done to them – learned behavior. Yes, they knew what they were doing. Yes, it was wrong, but understanding the why behind the actions and behaviors made it really easy to forgive them. During this process I worked hard on cultivating compassion. See if you can go beyond empathy and actually wish for happiness for the people who have hurt you. Again, you are not doing this for them. They won’t feel it; you will. As you allow love to grow in your heart, overtaking the anger and hatred, you will find greater happiness and peace.

I know how hard even the thought of forgiveness can be, but I am hopeful that this blog has made it easier for you to start the process. If you are a Christian, you know that countless scriptures impress upon you the importance of forgiveness. It is part of the Christian faith to activate the grace of forgiveness. In Buddhism, the practice of forgiveness prevents harmful thoughts from wreaking havoc on your mental well-being. Buddhism recognizes that feelings of hatred and ill will leave a lasting effect on your mind and heart. Therefore, Buddhism encourages the cultivation of thoughts that leave a wholesome effect. Many Native American traditions tell us to “walk the path of light without holding contempt for anything or anyone.”
Whether you are a Christian, Buddhist, or Native American, or hold any other faith, or none at all, your path to an abundantly free and happy life is to forgive those who have harmed you, no matter what the offense was. Until you forgive, you are still hostage to those that hurt you. When you do forgive, you set yourself free.

You can read more about forgiveness in Randy's International Best Selling Book - Healing The Wounded Chid Within - available on Amazon

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About The Author

Today I can honestly say that I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I have been happily married to my beautiful bride since 1983. We have three amazing kids that have grown into well respected and loved adults in our community. I am the proud "Papo" of three beautiful granddaughters and a handsome grandson. I enjoy spending quality time with my family as well as cycling, hunting, fishing, and playing the classical guitar. I love traveling with my wife and although we have been to several foreign countries, our favorite place to travel to is the beautiful island of Maui.

Acceptance vs. Approval

Anger

Never Forget

Steps to Forgiveness

About The Author

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