Let it go, experience freedom

More than a few times in any given day, and myriad times over a lifetime, we find ourselves drawn into concerns that are beyond our control.  Succumbing to anxiety is the lot of the human life.  But the situation is not hopeless.

Even the experience of feeling crushed
can bring the gift of perspective.  

Nobody wants to be crushed with grief,
but suffering sorts some anxieties from others. 

The chief blessing I experienced in the tyranny of languishing, lasting grief twenty years ago was the entrapment of gratitude that I had for the things that could never be taken away from me.

Over these for which I had command there was real freedom.  The list seemed endless when I dug deeper down.

Spiritual blessings.  I was alive.  I had the love of my kids, my parents, new friends that came into my orbit.  Fire breathed into my faith, for God had captivated my heart in the dread of loss.  A newfound discovery, the love of service.  The power in overcoming addiction to alcohol.  None of these were little things.  

The more I surrendered
the material things I could lay hold of,
the more spiritual blessings
flooded into my perception.  

All of what I was experiencing — yes, the joy — came amid much sorrow and fear for the calamity that my life had become overnight.  I had lost my wife, my home, free access to my children, all joy in a job that required me to travel but alas a career that demanded I be away from my kids.  I had to let go of that life and centralise my efforts and focus.  Then freedom rushed in.

Materially, I had lost incalculably.  Every one of these single losses in and of themselves was enough to floor me.  Even as they piled on top of one another, I was forced to look for higher ground.

That season felt like I had lost everything
that meant anything to me,
but of course there was much
that was only then beginning to come in.

That season I learned what I had control over — what I thought, said and did.  

That’s it.  That’s all.  

Everything else I was forced to let go of, and in that season the gift of letting go was granted to me.  (I’ve had many seasons since where letting go seemed the hardest thing to do.)

Ultimately, we let go for freedom, but letting go must be done in faith, for it never feels like the right thing to do.  

But as we let go, we receive something intangible that we could never have otherwise.

Letting go redeems the reward that the
truer possessions cannot be taken from us.

The truer possessions cannot be taken from us
because they are not of this world.

Loss is the invitation to the spiritual.

Empathy, compassion beyond judgement

Many people struggle to understand how or why people do certain things.  Beside the intention of evil residing in some that would do the unthinkable, nobody is beyond making a significant error of judgement.  Nobody is beyond temptation.  Nobody is protected from the folly of human weakness.

Empathy for those who have made a mistake should not be hard.  It’s a kindness that may not make their situation better, but at least cruelty isn’t an added burden.

Empathy is a gift to both the one
receiving it and to the giver. 

Nobody likes to suffer, but there are lessons in it.  There are none more so apt here than what happens in a person who suffers for having made their own mistake.  To be kept in that place of suffering for the shame of having made a significant error of judgement seems cruel when we are there.  But it teaches us something far deeper than we can learn any other way.  It teaches us a vital lesson.  

We learn empathy deeply
through our own need of it.

There is a love of kindness and compassion that should rule all our hearts, but many have not yet learned such an empathy that exemplifies understanding. 

When we experience the deeper compassion of empathy when we feel we ought to be judged, it may be that the person who empathises has suffered and been taught deeply a love that is beyond judgement.

Judgement can be a sign
of a lack of understanding.

We must always ask ourselves when we are judging another person, “Have I never made an error worthy of judgement?”  Or, “Is there any chance I could make an error of judgement in the future?”  “Would I appreciate being judged?”  And, “What would I prefer to experience from others, empathy or judgement?”  

Empathy does not save a person from the consequences of their actions, but it does convey to a person that they are more valuable than what they do.  

The truth is we are all more valuable
than what we do or what we have.

Judgement is an error in itself. 
It reveals a lack of empathy. 

Those lonely nights lost to God saved me

In a season God found me, 

I felt incredibly lost to God. 

What seems a contradiction is actually a fact for so many I have had the privilege of journeying with.  As a pastor and counsellor, I’ve heard many recount exactly the same story.

What follows is an account of how God was found even in the plot of feeling utterly lost to God; 

… like God was completely silent.

I recall it like yesterday, whether in my dingy flat or in the slightly more well-appointed townhouse I subsequently moved into.  

Myriad experiences of feeling utterly alone,
zero Presence of the Lord with me. 

Yet in that dusky time, even as I questioned the very existence of God as far as I was concerned, there was something in me that could not let go.  Part of me had to believe in faith.

The more God seemed absent,

the more I sought His Presence.

Of course, what I describe here is much like the dark night of the soul, as St John of the Cross put it.

There was about this time a kind of non-living experience that forced me into the ethereal. 

Even as God’s Presence was void in my life on many such occasions, lonely nights where there was just me and my tears, there, in fact, in those moments, was the Presence of God.

I just could not see it at the time, and because I could not bear the idea that God was not present, I imagined He WAS present, praying as if He was, even though I could not feel His Presence. 

You may be forgiven for needing to reread this a few times.  It may make no sense to you.  But it makes all the sense in the world to me.

In those times when my soul was vanquished, and my spirit was tested beyond its apparent pathetic strength — because when it was tested, I really had nothing of my own — even as I had nothing left, God proved His Presence with me, even as He was absent to me. 

You may need to be in that position to understand what I’m saying.  And I trust that if you ever are in such a position you don’t run from being completely lost.  Refuse to let go of the hope that God is WITH you.

I found I needed to be completely lost

before I would truly need God to save me.

Amid the moment of our personal Gethsemane, we’re blessed in being reminded of this: just when the Father seemed to turn His face from Jesus, we cannot reconcile that reality without contrasting with it the reality of the resurrection. 

That’s right, we cannot contemplate the truth of Gethsemane and the Cross without also contemplating the Resurrection just a few days later.

Likewise, when God seems to turn His face from us, as He did with Jesus, He still has us (we just don’t know it at the time), and His pervasive resurrection plan is in full roll-out mode.

In these moments of absence,

the bridge of faith is absolutely vital.

No life comes without faith.

How do we hold on in times of God’s absence?

We hold onto a faith that says He is present.

We ignore every screaming distraction pushing us away from our pain, and we enter the journey of being in the lostness, for that is where God will surely meet us. 

We should not expect this 

will be a lovely experience. 

It’s the worst experience of our lives — levels deeper than we could ever previously conceive or imagine.

But that is where the true God meets us;

in the hell of our private Gethsemane.

But we don’t feel met at all. We just feel lonely and abandoned. That’s the paradox in being truly saved. We need to feel truly lost first.

God saves the desperate soul 

who is so lost only He can help them.

This is an article for you to save for when war breaks out — the war against the soul whose life has departed into the ether.  When your life as it was is lost.  As it was when it ceases to be.

You will know it when you land there. 

A living hell descends in grief outbound of loss.

Nothing will make sense. And nobody will seem to understand, but, praise God, some will try.  Humour them.  Trust them.  God will use them.  There is a ministry of God in the space where human help is benign. 

Trust those who have such humility 

to feel hopeless and helpless WITH you.

Yes, when you’re in these lost places,

it’s only those who cannot help you who do help you!

Fixed mindset versus Growth mindset

One thing my colleagues and I talk a lot about in our work is a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.  It’s vital in the work we do in supporting the wellness of fire and emergency services workers.  We all have our battles, but when your role immerses you in trauma and stress it’s doubly necessary to build a bigger frame for recovery.  

Growth mindset principles work in all our lives.  Most lives involve trauma and stress.  Growth mindset principles are therefore vitalising in the quest for hope-filled recovery.  

But a growth mindset delivers 
a life of blessing in any context.

The simplest premise is this:

An empowered life is a life 
motivated to look within and learn. 

It is a GROWTH mindset. 

But a life that externalises everything—
blaming others, resisting ownership and agency— 
loses the only power available to them. 

A life capable of learning 
and turning from wrongdoing 
is a powerful life for itself 
and for the others 
who love and care for that life.

Ultimately, the happiest life 
is a life that considers others’ lives.

Selfish lives are confined to unhappiness.  Kicking against the goads of life isn’t enough.  They keep doing it.  And their misery is always extended to those who love and care for them.  Misery for one is misery for all.  

Such a fixed mindset won’t allow the person even the awareness to SEE let alone the insight to motivate the action implicit in a growth mindset.  The fixed mindset is a prison for those blind to life.

LIFE – ADVENTURE OR NOTHING

Helen Keller famously said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”

We are better off waking to the challenges 
the day ahead presents rather than bingeing Netflix.

Those with a growth mindset don’t resent or spurn the challenges—they see them and take them on.  Those with a fixed mindset either cannot see the challenges to be faced or they lazily avoid them or fearfully refuse to take them on. 

The only difference between both perceptions is perception itself—honestly, heaven or hell.  Seriously, for simply a shift in core attitude YOU and I CHOOSE whether we will live a life of heaven or hell.

Those with a fixed mindset will see that a growth mindset requires continuous ‘work’, and it does.  But that’s all it requires—a work ethic.  Those with a growth mindset look at those with a fixed mindset and say to themselves, “This isn’t hard, all I choose to do is face reality and work the challenges, all in the knowledge that every challenge is designed to be overcome.”

To those with a fixed mindset, challenges are a lamentable and despicable part of life that make life out as a painful, terrible existence, at times not worth living.  But those of the growth mindset have joy in ALL their work—they’ve transcended all fear of work.  

When work is a joy, rest is bliss.
Life for the worker is all upside.

CHANGING WHAT CAN BE CHANGED, ACCEPTING WHAT CAN’T

The only challenge that is insurmountable for those with a growth mindset is the existence of people with the fixed mindset who refuse to grow.  

Those with a growth mindset are daunted by many things without being resigned to despair, but those fixed in a fixed mindset are beyond them.

The only resolution for such situations where horses are led to water but refuse to drink is the common acceptance that we all reap what we sow.  Justice flows down as we all end up accounting for our overall behaviour in the final analysis.

Nobody gets away with reprehensible behaviour.
But a good life lived delivers an eternal legacy.

The growth mindset delivers to the person enrolled 
in its wisdom a peace that is personal and communal.

Everyone benefits when a life is turned toward learning, 
for those who continue to turn and learn are a blessing.

Why would we not want to be a blessing in our life?
The power to bless lives and be blessed because of it.

The courageous have humility in common

One thing sets the courageous apart.  It is the quality that allows them to rise up to counter the adversity set against them.  It is what separates them from the also-ran who gave up or who chose to blame others or who denied there ever was a crisis to be reckoned with.  It is the definer of persons.  It divides the top one-percentile from the rest.  It alone has the final say.

What is it?  
It is HUMILITY.

Humility is the dynamism of courage.  When all else is loss and there seems no hope whatsoever, humility borrows the required hope in the faith that there simply must be a way forward.  There is always a way forward.  

That way forward is what courage looks like.

Though it may take twenty years to fully recover from some major setbacks, the one with humility will have the courage to take the challenge deep within themselves.  

Only with humility is there the serenity to accept what cannot be changed with the tenacity to do what can be done—one step and one day at a time.

TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS LIFE

Though there are two kinds of people in this life, they are not evenly spread 50-50 through society.  Only a few go down the road less travelled.  In my experience it is more like a 1-99 spread. 

There are the one-percenters 
and then there are the rest.

There is life in striving as the one-percenter strives.
There is only despair and death in what the rest do.

One percent of people have what it takes to look within at the circumstance and say by their responses to the adversities of their life, “What can I do?”

One percent of people insist that there 
is something they CAN do to move forward.

One percent of people refuse to get stuck in a myriad of factors that ‘explains’ why they are where they are; they resist guilt, shame, bitterness, resentment, paralysis, etc.  But they are deeply interested in learning about the real explainers.

One percent of people refuse to believe the dialogue that is spun, that it’s hopeless, that there’s someone to blame, that there’s some conspiracy theory that explains it.  Or they acknowledge the dialogue and use it as impetus to move forward.  Life is replete with red herrings, and it serves nobody to get stuck anywhere that won’t facilitate progress.

Only when we rigidly stick to what WE can do are we able to resist externalising.

Only when we refuse to enter into the folly of falsehood and insist instead upon a way forward do we enter the trek of courage.  It takes humility to stop the voices coming to ‘our aid’.  

The easy thing is to listen to what seems comforting, what is personally vindicating.  When that’s all we’re getting—i.e., it’s unbalanced—it takes us nowhere good.  It is harder yet so much better to prefer an unsavoury view that with courage can be contemplated.

Using the higher order mind, the powerful pre-frontal cortex, not submitting to the hijacking amygdala response, we take the path few are prepared to take.  It’s a path with few sojourners, but it’s a path that leads to life. 

It is why prayer works.  
It is why contemplation is mastery.  
It is why pausing before responding works best.

Resorting to our own understanding is a poor modus operandi.  Surely wisdom would instruct us if only we would not prefer our default comfort-centred mindset.

Humility and humility alone will give us what we need to bear the discomfort of looking within in whatever adversity we find ourselves—that is courage personified.  It may not have the appearance of courage but there is nothing harder to do on this earth than that.

Take up the cudgel.  
Don’t go with the crowd.  
Go the lonelier path that leads to life.  
Don’t refuse the learning offered in this pain. 

The most courageous of persons 
don’t entertain any other option but asking, 
“WHAT CAN I DO HERE?”

True healers – humility and connection

Humility and connection advance the cause of recovery and healing.  I’ve seen it so many times in my own life, in the lives of those I’ve helped, and in others’ lives that have been helped.  

The moment we are honest enough to accept help 
is the moment from which our recovery and healing starts.

We must put our hand up when we are struggling 
and say, “I need help” or we will continue to flounder.

When we are enduring a dark night of the soul, it is terrifying how constrictive our vision becomes.  As if entering a tunnel of doom, we feel more and more disempowered and alone the further we run without reaching up and reaching out.  

The worst thing we can do is say, “I got this!” 
when just a little help would work wonders.

Of course, we need the RIGHT 
sort of help to be at our disposal.

I have said it many times over the years, depression for me is always recognised with the fight trigger.  It is always the irritable and nonsensical reaction to something out of my control that revealed to me my sad plight.  

Whenever I’m of good mental health it is easy to acknowledge what is beyond my control.  Joy and hope and my peace, they are my constant companions.  But when that dark cloud forms over my head, all grasp of joy, hope and peace disappears as if they were never mine!

The humility to put our hand up and simply say, “I’m struggling just now accepting what I cannot change,” is a masterstroke circuit-breaker in entering the connection of help that will ultimately heal us.

To have a person simply sit with us and listen to how impossible life seems is the connection that will eventually heal us, propelling us on our road to recovery.  

The best reality by far is to be in a life situation where joy, hope, and peace abide, and there is space and the will to help through the listening and encouragement we all know helps.

Humility begins from within, to recognise 
we would prosper with some help—to receive it.

Connection will do its job when we can 
rest in the comfort of trustworthy others.

~

A final word – the receiving of help does not come with an entitled spirit.  It comes with a grateful, humble spirit.  Equally, the help that helps is a humble and safe help, without the spirit of entitlement about it.  Entitlement destroys all hope of healing.