Recovery

Facts, stories & speculation

/ Chuck Spicka

This week I’ve been in a couple of conversations where people I care about have created elaborate stories how they’ve been done wrong, how they themselves are broken, or how God has abandoned them.  And the stories make sense, I have empathy, I can see how they’ve pulled their meaning from the facts, as they present them.  And.  It’s just not true.  It’s not the end of the story.

We all have choices to make about how we interpret the facts of our lives and the stories we tell ourselves.  Resist the urge to fill in the blanks.  You don’t have all the data, but here are a couple things to remember:

  1. God is good.
  2. That he loves you means he likes you and he’s happy with you right now, in the middle of your brokenness, weakness, sin, etc. (thank you John Dee)
  3. It’s not over till it’s over, and God is working all things for your good.
  4. You’re always free, you always have choices, you’re not a victim of your circumstances.

Suggested next step?  Read this post from Kris Vallotton.

No, it isn’t

/ Chuck Spicka

Maybe someone tells me, or I tell myself, “it is what it is.”

The space between my ears is the most valuable real estate I own. When fear, accusation, anxiety, worry, etc., come at me, I have to ask myself what I’m believing and where this story is coming from. In Rising Strong, Brene Brown calls this our “shitty first draft” and encourages us to consider whether our narrative is valid. Are there other ways to interpret the data points or facts? What’s possible here? If there were another way to see this, would I want to know about it?

The first step in renewing my mind is being aware of the chatter and challenging it. It’s your turf. Defend it.

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.” Romans‬ ‭12:2‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Maintaining perspective

/ Chuck Spicka

In her book Victorious Emotions, Wendy Backlund offers a simple daily exercise to strengthen confidence and deepen our sense of gratitude. Try it out tomorrow morning and see if it impacts your attitude.

  1. What are four things I did right today*?
  2. What are five things I’m grateful for?

* (or yesterday, depending whether you do the exercise at night or first thing in the morning )

If 2019 was your last year

/ Chuck Spicka

At dinner, near the end of 2018, my friends Todd and Sarah asked, “If you knew that 2019 was going to be your last year on earth, what would you do?”  Sure, we’ve had questions thrown out to us like that in goal setting sessions.  But this time, it hit me in a new way.

My answer:

  1. Keep short accounts with people along the lines of Steps 8 and 9 (see below)
  2. Affirm the shit out of people, cause we all need it.

What’s your answer?

 

Bonus Material:
Steps 8 & 9 from 12 step recovery.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Radical freedom

/ Chuck Spicka / Leave a comment

I’ve noticed that when I hit a wall, when I fail, when I sin – my default reaction is to step up the constraints on my life.  What if the actual answer lies in the opposite direction?

It is for freedom Christ set us free.  Why would I submit again to a yoke of slavery?

I may need a new understanding of how good the good news truly is, how good God is, how he wants me to manage my freedom and expand it, rather than institute a series of laws against myself that do not work. In fact, scripture tells us the laws we insert in our own lives have the opposite effect from what we intend.

Jack says it well –

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses

The God of Instead

/ Chuck Spicka

I’m indebted to Graham Cooke and a message I listened to that inspired the following coaching I gave a friend who’s wrestling with some lies he’s believed for a long time. Those lies have embedded themselves in his self-talk, and created an inner world of unworthiness, self-loathing and shame. He knows better, and he knows that he knows it. And yet he’s stuck in this rut and looking for a way out. I know what that feels like, having done this same work earlier this year.

If you’re in a similar spot, here’s the work I did and recommended for my friend:

1. Make a list for yourself of all the agreements and lies.

2. Recognize, along the lines of Isaiah 61, that he is the God of instead. Figure out the exact opposite of the lie/agreement from the first list and write that out on another list. This is the truth of who you are and how God sees you. The first list is just the attack, the enemy trying to keep you from being who you were designed to be.

3. Destroy the first list, there’s no reason to keep record of it, it’s not who you are and it’s not how God sees you

4. Take the list from Step Two and fashion it into a series of affirmations that you can read. This is your personal story and destiny with God. You’re going to start speaking this over yourself. Put it in an easy place to get access to, like your phone. You can pull it up and read it a couple times out loud per day.

Remember: Don’t save the first list. No one needs to see it and you don’t need to ruminate on it.

Do yourself a favor. Do the work, don’t just read about it. God will meet you in the middle of the actions you take to draw near to him.

Should a man tell his wife when he acts out?

/ Chuck Spicka

You’ll hear various voices talk about whether or not a man should talk to his wife about acting out when he’s on the road to recovery. Many of these voices argue that it’s in a wife’s best interest to not know too much or be burdened with the journey that her husband is still on, and that it’s wiser and better for all if he just shares this with male confidants. I don’t agree.

Here’s a response I sent to a guy who’s been in recovery for a while, who had some news I thought he needed to share with his wife, while two other men he knows (and I respect) thought he should keep silent:

“One thing we didn’t talk about: I’ve been evaluating what I think about men talking to their wives when they act out, regardless of where they are in recovery. I think it’s important in my life that I have nothing hidden, no secrets, no place where the enemy might break in and mess with me.

“It was the right call to not tell [your wife] the minute she walked in the door from [a serious medical situation in her natural family]. But at this point, I think you probably need to talk to her, and let her know that you talked to me and [a life coach/counselor] as well.

“Flip this around. What if a wife had a problem with spending and she talked to her girlfriends and her girlfriends told her that ‘you don’t need to talk to your husband about your last binge because he’s just had too much of this anyway and he will not be able to handle it from you and really you’re doing a great job, babe, everything’s fine.’ It would be a totally different process if in any area our wives were not completely honest with us. How would we feel about that?

“And listen. I know that you’re getting good counsel from lots of other people. So I’m cool with whatever you decide. I just recognize for me this has to be my process.

“To sum up, maybe don’t talk about it in the moment, but for sure talk about it because the goal is oneness and that means nothing hidden.”