Why Bother?

    Someone asked me, "How are you growing through this experience with your friend?"  Good question. I think she was wondering why I was bothering to keep trying.  Here's my reply.
    I'm undoing a number of decisions I made as an infant when I felt others' anger and abandonment.  I turned away from these to trusting in Jesus to take care of me.  One assumption that I've often operated under is that people aren't able to handle my emotions.  People will leave me if I make known my pain, so it's better to live in my head. 
    So just the act of sharing my hurt and anger with my friend this last week, embarrassing and humiliating as I found it to be, was an act of growth.  More pain too came when I didn't get the response I wanted. 
    Did that make the interaction fruitless?  No, I'm not going backwards. As I've told my friend, the intensity of my hurt comes not from the present, but from the past.  Yes, wrong was done in the present, but the depth of my anger comes from what I experienced as a baby. Grief at mother's death is a part of my intensity too.
    Pain in the present is a door I can open to take me into the past.
    My counselor  does a form of Theophostic Ministries where a good portion of the time is spent in prayer. We ask Jesus to take us back to the source and root of the pain.  He did that for me.
    I hate going back there. I resist going there.  I occasionally forget my counselling appointment or, when I go, I keep things more on the surface. I can't be pushed there or I blank out.  It has to be my choice. But I did go there this time and it was easier than the first time. 
    Jesus is helping me see some of the decisions I made as an infant and to turn from those. We prayed prayers like, "I renounce always being a victim and always having to be in control."  "Renounce" here means a decision or vow that I made, albeit unconsciously - I was very, very young. I renounced the decision to not be a burden to others or to not tell others my emotions. I renounced the decision to always be distrustful. We prayed against terror, panic and fear.  Many, many other prayers were prayed too. 
    These prayers are powerful.  I've experienced in the past how they open up for me new paths to walk in.  Instead of just unconsciously continuing in my ruts, I see new options.  Through these prayer sessions I've been able to step out from under the yoke of fear, suspicion and shame.  Not that I knew I was under that yoke beforehand!  We often live our lives, thinking we're fine, until pain shows us we're not.
    A friend, who also is a counselor and has experienced and does for others Theophostic Ministries (TM), said once, "You have to be in a lot of pain to do TM."
    So that's what I got out of this conflict - motivation to go do TM work again and find more healing and freedom for my daily life.