A recurring theme in recovery work is gratitude. Same thing in the church. A general authority gives a talk on trials and mentions gratitude as part of it. What?
I'm realizing, though, that all these people are on to something. Gratitude is a silver bullet that dispels the feeling of despair. It keeps a bad day from becoming a bad life. It keeps a bad moment in perspective, you know? Is it weird to say I am thankful for gratitude? Cuz I am.
Sometimes gratitude is a choice, and sometimes I feel like gratitude floods my veins when I least expect it. It is hard to choose gratitude in a bad moment. When your husband lies to you again and your world feels completely unsafe, it's hard to feel grateful that the sun was shining when it happened. But the times I've been able to do that, the stings of life are slightly less painful.
Today was one of those days where the gratitude seemed to spontaneously fill my heart. We got invited to a party to celebrate the end of the school year. I was nervous because we moved in just a couple of months ago and I hardly know anyone here, and I tend to be shy as it is. I didn't know who was hosting the party, but I thought it would be a great way to go and meet some friends.
As I pushed my toddler in the stroller and watched my new kindergarten graduate ahead of me on her scooter, I felt so grateful. The weather was perfect. I have these two beautiful, healthy, happy kids as my sidekicks. We live in a nice neighborhood with good people that are reaching out to us. I realized that even if my husband relapsed a couple of weeks ago...even if we had some of the worst fights we've ever had...even if my future is uncertain...that doesn't mean I have a bad life. My life is so full. I have so many other good things to be grateful for. So many good, kind people to fill it with. How lucky am I?
The older I get the more intense the highs and lows seem to become. Life gets pretty hard at times. But then other times it is so, so good. I'm trying to relish those times, be grateful for every little moment in them, so that when the trials come I can draw on the good memories and associated warm fuzzy feelings, and hopefully see the other good things around me too.
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Friday, May 30, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Healing steps
Over these many years of being aware of my husband's problem addiction, I never felt able to talk to anyone about it. It was my private, shameful struggle. How could I explain it to someone without them pitying me, criticizing me, blaming me, or telling me to leave him? None of those things helped. I was on my own.
There were times I wanted to talk to my bishop about it, since I felt like that was the one person obligated to listen to me. My addict husband wouldn't hear of it. He didn't want me advertising his secret. Probably even more, he couldn't accept that porn was not ok for me or our relationship. He wanted me to just get over it and be ok with it. If I pursued help, that meant I was serious about things not being ok.
This week I took ownership of my story and my recovery, finally. I had been feeling prompted to meet with my bishop, so I did. It was scary. I've never really done that before. Even worse, I had never even met my bishop! We moved into our ward a few months ago, and due to our church time and the size of our ward I've never spoken a word to our bishop. This totally wasn't how I wanted to get to know him, but hey, what can ya do?
The husband knew I was meeting with him and was supportive (yay for recovery). I've heard horror stories about meetings with bishops not going well - being blamed, chastised, or blown off. I was prepared for things to not go well. Thankfully, they went fine. It wasn't earth-shattering necessarily. My bishop seems to be a man of few words generally. But he listened and tried to empathize. He encouraged us to get some counseling and offered to have the ward help pay. He gave me a blessing. He asked us to meet with him together the next week. It was good. I felt good, because I felt brave.
Last night the husband and I met with him together. It was another brief meeting, but it was good because we went together. It was good because my husband had a good attitude. He was open and willing to do this as a team. At one point, he even volunteered the info of when he last acted out and what the bishop would like him to do in terms of sacrament and temple attendance. That was a surprise for me! We're going to get some counseling. We're going to have the bishop to be accountable to and to help us.
Keeping secrets is the worst. Keeping a secret that isn't even your secret but somehow becomes your secret is especially painful. Letting a secret both drag you down and tear you apart as a couple is ridiculous and heartbreaking. It doesn't have to be that way. Now that we've finally started TALKING, to each other and to other people, it feels like this secret isn't as powerful and shameful as we thought it was. Still, we have a long way to go, but I feel proud myself -- and of us.
There were times I wanted to talk to my bishop about it, since I felt like that was the one person obligated to listen to me. My addict husband wouldn't hear of it. He didn't want me advertising his secret. Probably even more, he couldn't accept that porn was not ok for me or our relationship. He wanted me to just get over it and be ok with it. If I pursued help, that meant I was serious about things not being ok.
This week I took ownership of my story and my recovery, finally. I had been feeling prompted to meet with my bishop, so I did. It was scary. I've never really done that before. Even worse, I had never even met my bishop! We moved into our ward a few months ago, and due to our church time and the size of our ward I've never spoken a word to our bishop. This totally wasn't how I wanted to get to know him, but hey, what can ya do?
The husband knew I was meeting with him and was supportive (yay for recovery). I've heard horror stories about meetings with bishops not going well - being blamed, chastised, or blown off. I was prepared for things to not go well. Thankfully, they went fine. It wasn't earth-shattering necessarily. My bishop seems to be a man of few words generally. But he listened and tried to empathize. He encouraged us to get some counseling and offered to have the ward help pay. He gave me a blessing. He asked us to meet with him together the next week. It was good. I felt good, because I felt brave.
Last night the husband and I met with him together. It was another brief meeting, but it was good because we went together. It was good because my husband had a good attitude. He was open and willing to do this as a team. At one point, he even volunteered the info of when he last acted out and what the bishop would like him to do in terms of sacrament and temple attendance. That was a surprise for me! We're going to get some counseling. We're going to have the bishop to be accountable to and to help us.
Keeping secrets is the worst. Keeping a secret that isn't even your secret but somehow becomes your secret is especially painful. Letting a secret both drag you down and tear you apart as a couple is ridiculous and heartbreaking. It doesn't have to be that way. Now that we've finally started TALKING, to each other and to other people, it feels like this secret isn't as powerful and shameful as we thought it was. Still, we have a long way to go, but I feel proud myself -- and of us.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Climbing back up
My last post 10 days ago was from a pit of despair. Oh, was I ever angry! Oh, was I heartbroken!
The lie my husband told me was just a little lie, in all honesty. But it cut deeper than I could've ever guessed. It burned within me for days. It was as if all the other millions of lies my husband had told me over the years had piggybacked onto this one, and I felt the weight of all of them.
I wouldn't say I trusted my husband before this incident. Our trust died a long time ago. But I had the hope of trust. I thought that now that we'd embarked on this recovery journey for reals, that he would rise to the occasion when he had something difficult to tell me. When that didn't happen, I was utterly crushed. I guess I forgot how baffling and cunning addiction really is.
That night, I said a tearful prayer begging my Heavenly Father to take these awful feelings from me. Part of the Twelve Steps is learning to turn our lives and our wills over to God, and trusting that the Atonement can heal our hurts. I was trying so hard to do this. To give it to God and trust that the pain would stop burning in my heart.
My pain didn't disappear. I woke up angry and sad the next morning. BUT, I did manage to fall asleep without too much trouble, which was a tender mercy. The husband was very contrite and apologetic the next morning and said he wasn't feeling well the night before, so he had a hard time coping.
Later that day I lamented to him that I didn't know if the Twelve Steps would work for me. How do you turn your negative feelings over to God? How do such awful, piercing emotions go away? Maybe I just didn't have enough faith.
We managed to smooth things over a bit, although I still feel much more guarded and less willing to be vulnerable. A few nights later, I was reading my scriptures. As I was reading, a string of thoughts suddenly came into my mind. I realized that I was feeling better. Yes, the memory of the pain I felt was still there, but I didn't have that burning pain in my heart any more. My mind was calm again. The thought came to me that my awful feelings were taken from me. It wasn't instantaneous, and that is ok. We are here on this earth to have the mortal experience, and sometimes that means feeling pain, sadness, hurt, and frustration. The few nights before when I was in so much pain wasn't because I didn't have enough faith or because God didn't hear my prayer, it was because I am human, and sometimes that happens. Heavenly Father blessed me instead with the ability to fall asleep that night. He knows more than I do, and He knows what I need to learn. Sometimes learning requires discomfort. And a few days later, through the Atonement of Christ and my faith, my pain was taken away.
As I sat and pondered on these thoughts that were brought to my mind, I was filled with humility and gratitude. How silly of me to expect that I should say a prayer and *poof*, I feel happy and as good as new within an instant. Not to say that God couldn't make that happen, but that's not what this life is about. I was grateful to have learned this lesson, and I was grateful that my Heavenly Father saw fit to teach me in a quiet moment through the Spirit a few days later so that I could understand.
As I've worked through things the last couple of weeks, one of the biggest things I am learning is patience. I need to have patience with trials and with my husband and with myself. I need to have patience with God as my life unfolds.
Everything will be ok.
The lie my husband told me was just a little lie, in all honesty. But it cut deeper than I could've ever guessed. It burned within me for days. It was as if all the other millions of lies my husband had told me over the years had piggybacked onto this one, and I felt the weight of all of them.
I wouldn't say I trusted my husband before this incident. Our trust died a long time ago. But I had the hope of trust. I thought that now that we'd embarked on this recovery journey for reals, that he would rise to the occasion when he had something difficult to tell me. When that didn't happen, I was utterly crushed. I guess I forgot how baffling and cunning addiction really is.
That night, I said a tearful prayer begging my Heavenly Father to take these awful feelings from me. Part of the Twelve Steps is learning to turn our lives and our wills over to God, and trusting that the Atonement can heal our hurts. I was trying so hard to do this. To give it to God and trust that the pain would stop burning in my heart.
My pain didn't disappear. I woke up angry and sad the next morning. BUT, I did manage to fall asleep without too much trouble, which was a tender mercy. The husband was very contrite and apologetic the next morning and said he wasn't feeling well the night before, so he had a hard time coping.
Later that day I lamented to him that I didn't know if the Twelve Steps would work for me. How do you turn your negative feelings over to God? How do such awful, piercing emotions go away? Maybe I just didn't have enough faith.
We managed to smooth things over a bit, although I still feel much more guarded and less willing to be vulnerable. A few nights later, I was reading my scriptures. As I was reading, a string of thoughts suddenly came into my mind. I realized that I was feeling better. Yes, the memory of the pain I felt was still there, but I didn't have that burning pain in my heart any more. My mind was calm again. The thought came to me that my awful feelings were taken from me. It wasn't instantaneous, and that is ok. We are here on this earth to have the mortal experience, and sometimes that means feeling pain, sadness, hurt, and frustration. The few nights before when I was in so much pain wasn't because I didn't have enough faith or because God didn't hear my prayer, it was because I am human, and sometimes that happens. Heavenly Father blessed me instead with the ability to fall asleep that night. He knows more than I do, and He knows what I need to learn. Sometimes learning requires discomfort. And a few days later, through the Atonement of Christ and my faith, my pain was taken away.
As I sat and pondered on these thoughts that were brought to my mind, I was filled with humility and gratitude. How silly of me to expect that I should say a prayer and *poof*, I feel happy and as good as new within an instant. Not to say that God couldn't make that happen, but that's not what this life is about. I was grateful to have learned this lesson, and I was grateful that my Heavenly Father saw fit to teach me in a quiet moment through the Spirit a few days later so that I could understand.
As I've worked through things the last couple of weeks, one of the biggest things I am learning is patience. I need to have patience with trials and with my husband and with myself. I need to have patience with God as my life unfolds.
Everything will be ok.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
A full heart
It's been just over a month since I last confronted my husband about pornography use. I was so scared to do it, but I felt like I had to. I'd been living in denial for years, but knew based on the direction our relationship was heading that something had to be done. I braced myself for arguing, lies, and having to make a tough decision about whether to stay or go, just like all the times in years past.
I was totally wrong.
This last month has been hard, but as I sit here right now my heart is so full of joy and gratitude.
My husband got his 30 day sobriety chip from SA today. He is proud, and he should be. He is happier than I've seen him in years. It is a joy that I've never seen come from him. A contentment and easy-going nature that is demonstrated in through his smile, a quicker laugh, and happy words that tumble from his lips. He is open and kind, willing to listen, and humble and willing to learn. He has hope. He's not perfect(and never will be in this life, just like the rest of us), and he still has a long way to go. But oh, it has been wonderful to see these changes!
I am so proud of him. I am so grateful! So very, very grateful. After dealing with this in an ugly and angry way for seven years, I almost never thought I'd see this kind of progress made. In my wildest dreams I'd secretly hope for it, but I didn't dare count on it. I'm so grateful that his heart has been softened. I'm so grateful for an SA and S-Anon group that meets literally around the corner from my house. I'm amazed at this wonderful FREE resource, where people meet humbly with the sole intent of improving themselves and each other. It is so inspired.
Most of all, I'm grateful for my Savior and the Atonement. For the first time in my life I'm actually coming to understand what the Atonement means and how to apply it to my life. I am so humbled by the love of my Savior. I'm grateful that I have come closer to my Savior, and that I can recover and heal and improve in my own way too. I have a lot of work to do.
Sometimes, though, I have to admit that my joy and gratitude makes me afraid. Afraid that this is all too good to be true. Afraid it will crumble to bits and fall between my fingers as I desperately grasp at it, remembering what it was. Afraid that when it does, it will be worse than ever before.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Tim. 1:6–7.)
I need to remember where that fear comes from. I need to replace my fear with faith. Everything will be ok, one way or another. Everything will be ok.
Tonight, I choose to feel joy and gratitude.
I am so grateful.
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