a healthy life restored, go and sin no more, miraculous healing, a healing journey, Coeliac disease, Celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, SIBO, IBC, gut issues, self-preservation, safety & security, immune response, immune system, movement, motivation, dissociation, sedation, hibernation, spiritual healing, emotional healing, psychological healing, mental, physical health, lifestyle choices, stress, meditation, prayer, trusting, silence, anxiety, depression, diet, exercise, forgiveness, letting go, release, health challenges, lifestyle changes, gluttony and over-eating, over eating, know to do right, to him it is sin, murmuring and complaining, negativity, health effects, cortisol, laziness, couch potato, chronic fatigue, lack of forgiveness, anger, resentment, hatred, and the truth will set you free, faith and works

A healthy life restored: why you need to Go and sin no more

I began a personal healing journey in 2017, with no idea where it would take me. I certainly never expected all the spiritual and life lessons that I’ve learned along the way!

If I had known that I would be in 2021 and the journey would still be underway, would I have had the courage to even take the first steps?

I thought I would get the miraculous healing that when I reached a certain point it would be instantaneous. Instead, it has been a journey of a thousand steps, sometimes on spiralling stairs, rather than giant leaps forward.

Gut health challenges

Since about 2001, my health has been centred around my gut and immune system, with challenges of:

  • Ulcerative colitis
  • IBS (irritable bowel syndrome – i.e. we have no idea what’s wrong)
  • Coeliac disease
  • Diverticulitis (caused by the Coeliac disease going undiagnosed for 10+ years)
  • SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)

All of these are gut issues and are closely tied with the immune system – that part of you that is able to easily mount defences to defend “self” against “not self”.

If I look at this from an mBraining perspective, the gut has the prime functions not only of digesting and processing food, but also influences:

  • Our sense of identity: “this is who I am”. My lack of authenticity – trying to please other people – broke down my ability to identify “self”;
  • Our processes of safety and security. This is our self-preservation. It begins physiologically as the immune system, but there’s also an element in there of the autonomic nervous system, which I failed to recognise, leading to an immune system in overdrive and hyper-drive, as I strove to keep myself safe psychologically and emotionally.
  • Movement and motivation. We know physiologically of “bowel movement”, but if you listen to our language, we clearly speak about the fire in our belly that moves us forward. My trauma-informed dorsal vagal, however, was trained to sedation and hibernation in the face of danger, and while scientists know that this impacts the immune system, they are not quite yet sure of the exact effects.

A personal journey to healing: lifestyle changes

  • Spiritual healing
  • Psychological healing
    • emotional
    • mental
  • Physical healing

In order to heal my gut, I’ve had to recognise that every aspect of my life impacts how well this heals.

All of this requires lifestyle changes: because it’s impossible to solve a problem with the same thinking, habits and lifestyle that created the problem.

“The necessity of change makes healing a terrifying experience for many people.”

Caroline Myss

He who knows to do right and does it not, to him it is sin

There were so many pieces to the healing journey and changes that needed to be made. Doctors glaze over quickly the role that stress plays, saying platitudes such as “you need to manage stress better”.

Really?

Who doesn’t know that?

The question is: what do we do about it?

Most of us – do nothing.

We ask for the pills that soften the blow of the symptoms, so that we can get back on with life, exactly as it already was. But we don’t make the fundamental changes that are required in order for health and healing to happen.

If we did, the pharmaceutical industry would be out of business. Imagine how many blood pressure medications would be taken off the market if patients would actually follow doctor’s instructions about making changes to their lifestyle.

Faith without works: changing habits

You can no more show me your habits apart from your beliefs than I can show you what I believe apart from my daily habits. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
You can no more show me your habits apart from your beliefs than I can show you what I believe apart from my daily habits. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.

In my life, healing was not optional.

Change became mandatory, because I could no longer keep on keeping on. I was totally crashing and my body with it!

It’s not that I didn’t know ways of dealing with stress!

  • Meditation & Silence
  • Trusting the Divine
  • Dealing with the root causes of anxiety & depression

Part of me was refusing to look at diet, beyond the obvious factors of avoiding gluten (wheat, barley, malt & rye). But I could do more, like accepting that corn totally irritated me, as well as rice making me feel bloated, and that I needed to adjust my diet to accommodate inflammation and SIBO.

I have been physically active since my early twenties and am no stranger to the multiple benefits of exercise, even when you don’t have energy. I know how good it is for the digestive system (just getting out for a walk helps your gut digest more easily), as well as helping to regulate stress.

Perhaps most importantly, I know the role and importance of forgiveness, letting go and release. What I didn’t know was the depth of work I would need to do, and how much I have buried and hidden away (even from myself), in order to be able to survive.

Part of the healing journey has been accepting that sometimes it feels like I’m stuck in a loop, when I am really on a spiral stairway that keeps coming round to the same issues, just at a different level. It might feel, at times, that I am just going around in circles, but progress is not always in a straight line.

Bad habits are decisions we refuse to make

Take a moment to write down, for yourself, three habits that you have right now that are impacting your health and wellness, and that you are making no attempt or haphazard attempts to change. How would healing be possible if you made these changes?

Divine Presence, healthy life, healing from chronic illness, chronic disease, autoimmune illness, In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is "sin". If you know better, do you do better?
If you know better, do you do better?

I’m going to mention a few habits that most of us have (at some level) and that we know better, and yet it’s easier to continue doing it, than to change. We give ourselves all kinds of excuses.

Eating on the go

Who doesn’t know that eating-on-the-run is bad for their health? This might be that you are eating:

  • fast food while driving your car
  • standing in your kitchen while fixing food for others or doing some chores, or perhaps
  • sitting at your desk or computer, working.

There’s the risk of falling into a fast-food trap – with unhealthy ingredients, high sugar and high sodium. But it’s not just the ingredients, it’s the very fact that we are not allowing the body to go into “rest and digest” while we eat, but rather we are still eating while in motion (and quite possibly under stress).

All of these habits lead to:

  • increased risk of cancer;
  • risk of heart disease
  • high blood pressure
  • inflammation
  • issues in the immune system
  • and even memory loss.

Our bodies were created to rest and relax while eating, to enjoy the aroma and visual appeal – so that we get the digestive juices flowing. We allow ourselves the time and space to savour and chew. And to notice what we are doing, rather than having our attention focused somewhere else.

A lot of problems can be solved just by removing
some people,
some food, and
some habits
from your life.

Anonymous

Our sedentary lifestyles

We’re warned enough about laziness and sitting around in Proverbs, but more than just being couch potatoes, it’s even the way we travel to work and the conditions in which we’re working that create challenges.

Sitting for so many hours a day, whether it be in a bus, on a train, in the car, at your desk is exhausting mentally, leaving us wanting to stay sedentary when we finally get home.

What does this create?

  • high blood pressure
  • type 2 diabetes
  • cancer
  • obesity
  • heart disease
  • osteoporosis
  • stroke

Exercise – or more importantly regular movement – helps us with our digestion as well as improving the blood flow to the brain. It naturally helps our body keep our blood sugar under control, and possibly most importantly helps produce oxytocin – our “happy hormone” that is produced naturally in the body.

Over-eating

Do you really need me to tell you all the ways that this shows up? Perhaps you snack when you’re not actually hungry, you give into cravings, or you are just eating too much generally. Eventually, your body stops sending you the hunger signals (since you ignore them anyway) and just lets you know the cravings.

We create our own health challenges through over-eating:

  • obesity
  • heart disease
  • diabetes
  • acid reflux

These are just a few.

It could be as simple as wolfing down your food too quickly, so that you fail to notice the message that you are full. This, unfortunately, can lead to bloating, gas and acid-reflux.

If you’re eating too late, it may be interfering with your ability to get a good night’s sleep.

Not drinking enough water

Our bad habits are as simple as failing to drink water, and instead replacing it with energy drinks, soft drinks or coffee. But your body is 60% water, and we need the water for regular bowel function, optimal muscle performance and even for our skin.

When we fail to drink enough water, we run into:

  • bad breath
  • fatigue
  • constipation
  • sugar cravings
  • weight gain
  • mental fog
  • risk of stroke
  • moodiness & irritability
  • headaches
  • over-eating
  • slower metabolism

All because we haven’t built a habit of drinking water.

Skimping on sleep

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Yes, I have said that. I would burn the candle at both ends and then drink coffee (not water) to keep going. Skimping on sleep does more than just impair our judgement and compromise clear-headedness in decision-making.

It also causes:

  • irritability
  • heart disease, heart failure & contributes to heart attacks
  • high blood pressure
  • stroke
  • weakens immunity and the immune system
  • increases stress and cortisol levels
  • causes weight gain
  • increases the risk of diabetes
  • fuels depression

I justified to myself the choices of burning the candle both ends and continuing with my lifestyle choices, even daring to suggest that this was Biblical (Proverbs 31 – the Virtuous Woman). She gets up while it’s still dark, her lamp does not go out at night, and she does not eat the bread of idleness. But I’m pretty sure that she didn’t drive herself into the ground either!

My personal healing journey: lifestyle changes

All five of these issues came up for me in my healing journey, to different degrees. But when we talk about “go and sin no more” – what we each have to address our the habits we have that are holding us back.

Each one of us has strengths and weaknesses (and for many our strengths are also our weaknesses), and it’s a personal journey of discovery and transformation.

In my personal journey, there were four principal areas that I had to address, most of them more than once and in different areas of my life:

  • gluttony and over-eating
  • murmuring & complaining
  • laziness & failure to take responsibility, and
  • holding onto anger, resentment and bitterness, rather than letting it go with complete forgiveness.
The truth will set you free, but first... it might really piss you off!

Gluttony & over-eating

I’m not going into sharing a rift of Bible verses on gluttony. It’s the internet – you can look them up for yourself.

gluttony, excess in eating or drinking, greedy or excessive indulgence, glutton, Merriam-Webster dictionary, definitions
Definition of Gluttony: Merriam-Webster disctionary

My personal definition of Gluttony is slightly different, although it is certainly an excess of eating.

But what I consider an excess might be much more strict that what you are accustomed to seeing or hearing as “excess”.

So, I invite you to consider what your definition of excess might be.

For me, eating starts with the question (physical) – “Am I hungry?”. I’ve discovered over the past three years, that there are a ton of reasons that I might eat, when I’m not hungry:

  • anxiety
  • boredom
  • cravings
  • fatigue
  • stress
  • social constructs & pressure
  • the power of suggestion – “I see food, so I eat it”
  • comfort.
My body is a temple... Perhaps a little ancient and crumbling... needing urgent renovations.

When I’m hungry, it’s perfectly possible to postpone eating for thirty minutes or more without getting hangry. Cravings and emotional eating, on the other hand, demand to be attended immediately. The question is “how do I choose to attend to these demands?”.

If I acknowledge that my body is a temple, how am I maintaining it with discipline?

If I’m not hungry, am I willing to deal with the root issues and causes that lead me to the fridge, rather than eating and stuffing all my emotional and mental issues right back down again, swallowing my tears, and refusing to sit in the discomfort of what I am experiencing?

Stress eating:

Stress, especially chronic and ongoing stress, causes our body to produce cortisol. In a healthy situation of stress (i.e. where you literally ran away from danger), cortisol will make you hungry, so that you refuel your body. Unfortunately, my stress is not the result of running away from a tiger! The hunger signals are false, and I know this if I actually check in with my stomach.

What needs to change? When I’m honest with myself, this is about lifestyle, beliefs and choices that are keeping me in a state of stress.

  • Where’s the inner peace that passes understanding?
  • What happened to the faith that allows me to trust that things are truly working out for my good?

If I eat, I can ignore these questions, rather than addressing the root problem: one of faith. It’s very similar to eating when anxious. If I eat, I can focus on something away from the anxiety.

But aren’t I supposed to be “anxious for nothing” and instead to turn my requests over to the Divine and surrender? Eating bypasses the anxiety, rather than addressing the beliefs and faith issues. How do I expect physical healing when I am not addressing the spiritual?

Fatigue and being tired:

Another chemical process happens in our body when we’re tired:

  • Our gherlin goes up (produced to let us know we’re hungry) and
  • Our leptin goes down (produced by our fat cells to let us know we don’t need to eat – as it decreases our feelings of hunger).

So, when we’re tired, no matter the cause of our fatigue, our body asks for either rest or more fuel.

But what if the reason that we’re tired is because of bad sleep habits? It my case, it was caused in part by gut problems (bloating and discomfort, which lead to light and interrupted sleep). One habit that was effective in fixing this: eat before 6 pm, so that I sleep better. But do I change my habits and honour health?

We can feel the difference once again in our stomach between tired and hungry. If I really am tired, is what my body really needs healing rest?

Comfort eating and sweets:

Perhaps we eat comfort foods because they remind us of “being loved”. Or we need more sweetness in our lives, so we give into our sweet tooth.

But if what we need is comfort and connection, perhaps what we need to do is hop on the phone and call home. Are we hungering for a spiritual connection?

Whatever the reason for our cravings, when we eat, we block the request. The request has been attended to, but the underlying need remains unsatisfied.

Eating past the point of hunger into fullness

The challenge is not just to eat when hungry, but to stop at the right moment: when I am no longer hungry. There’s no need to eat into “crowded” or “full”, much less “stuffed”.

So why do we eat more than our body asked for?

  • I’m enjoying this too much – we have scarcity and deprivation thoughts related to food or enjoyment
  • procrastination – I don’t want this to end, because then I will have to go and take care of… On a more subconscious level we know: if I eat too much, I’ll be sluggish and tired, and have the perfect excuse.
  • I was told to clean my plate as a kid, and I’ve never adjusted this belief around being able to leave something on the plate
  • I feel the pressure of friends or family to “eat up”, especially when they want to offer a second helping.

But what if, instead, we chose to:

  • Deal with what I’ve been avoiding?
  • Accepted that there is abundance and I can have more enjoyment at another moment.
  • I give generously to those in need and don’t have to prove it by clearing my plate.
  • I serve myself smaller portions, so that I can finish with nothing left on the plate, and
  • I told the people that I love how I feel about them and how I appreciate them, so it’s not necessary to show this by eating more.

Unmet needs, desires & wants:

All of these examples simply go to show that we have unmet needs, desires, fears and wants. These may be mental, emotional or even spiritual.

The lifestyle change that was required for me is being willing to tackle them, rather than choosing to stuff them down with food.

Murmuring and Complaining

I had a major turning points in my healing journey in 2017, when I first listened to an old interview with Stephen Levine on YouTube, called Conscious Living, Conscious Dying.

It is so easy, especially when your illness comes with physical pain, to allow our grief and pain to turn into bitterness, anger, reproach and despair.

We are told to bless those that curse you. How about blessing your body and your pain? If you feel cursed, because you are carrying an illness or disease – are you blessing it?

Are you cursing your body or that part of your body that appears to be letting you down?

Is your heart raging against the Divine because of this cross that you have to bear? Are you raging against yourself for all the life choices you’ve made that lead to this point?

Perhaps complaining feels easier!

to murmur, a half-suppressed or muttered complaint, grumbling, complaining, murmuring
Definition of murmur, Merriam-Webster dictionary
definition of complain, complained, complaining, to express grief, pain, discontent, to make a formal accusation or charge
Definition of complain, Merrian-Webster dictionary

Ask and you will receive

In her book, “Unbound: A woman’s guide to power“, Kasia Urbanjiak talks about how behind every complaint is an unspoken request. We complain because it feels more acceptable than asking for what we really want.

Where is my faith in

  • “ask and you will receive”
  • “making your requests known”
  • “asking according to Divine will, because the Divine hears” and
  • “you do not have, because you do not ask”?

Of course… perhaps I’m not willing to take up my bed and walk! Maybe I’m too scared to get out of the boat, in order to walk on water.

It’s so much easier to murmur and complain, rather than to ask and then be responsible for my actions.

Let’s be honest – complaining is socially acceptable!

“Nothing unites people more strongly than a common dislike. The easiest way to build friendship and communicate is through something negative.”

Trevor Blake

Complaining impacts your health!

A cheerful disposition is good for your health, gloom and doom leave you bone-tired, a healthy life restored, why you need to go and sin no more
A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.

Health impacts of complaining:

  • fatigue
  • creates more stress
  • worsens anxiety & depression
  • it rewires your brain – in a bad way! The habit of complaining reduces the number of neurons in the hippocampus, the part of the brain used for problem-solving and cognitive function. Actual shrinkage!
  • Neurons that fire together, wire together – and you are creating a habit of complaining. So, you are likely to be creating new things to complain about and attracting to you people who like to complain!

And so, you find yourself in a place – that you have built – clinging to resentment, pain & trauma. You have become what you have focused on.

What would you like to focus on?

But as I said, you don’t receive, because you don’t ask. Complaining reinforces the idea “I’m a victim and there’s nothing I can do to change this situation.”

“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”

Professor Randy Pausch

I finally reached a point where I had to ask myself:

What if this disease is happening for me, not to me?

Can I search for the blessing, strengths and lessons that it has to teach me? What might I be grateful for in this journey? How does Divine Presence show up in my life through this illness?

And this takes me into the third thing I had to address: being willing to take small steps forward.

Laziness and the desire to stay a couch potato

Synonyms for laziness are indolence and sloth. Indolence derives from the Latin indolentia, ‘without pain’ or ‘without taking trouble’. Sloth has more moral and spiritual overtones than laziness or indolence.

Neel Burton M.D.The Psychology of Laziness

Anyone who’s taken time to read Proverbs or Ecclesiastes knows what they say about getting stuck under the covers! But sometimes, with chronic illness, there’s more than laziness to deal with.

Definition of lazy, Merriam-Webster dictionary, disinclined to activity or exertion, not energetic or vigorous, encouraging inactivity or indolence
Definition of lazy, Merriam-Webster dictionary

Allow me to clarify, that when I talk about the desire to stay as a couch potato and be lazy, I am not referring to:

  • Chronic fatigue and the need to rest
  • Clinical depression and how it drives you to inactivity
  • Shutdown caused by the dorsal vagus nerve
  • Resting to recover from illness

While I mention that my healing journey has required that I face my personal laziness, it would be unfair to myself and others to write everything off as laziness.

Fatigue

Most people with chronic illness deal at some point in time with chronic fatigue. I’m not talking about ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, although I can identify with every one of the symptoms listed for it:

  • brain fog, problems with clear thinking, memory loss, and even muscle twitching
  • disrupted sleep
  • aches & pains in joints, muscles and the body
  • heart palpitations
  • allergies
  • gastrointestinal changes: nausea, bloating, constipation & diarrhoea.

Being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and Coeliac disease, these are all part of the fatigue I’ve had.

Depression

Another symptom (commonly found with other chronic illnesses also) of Coeliac disease and ulcerative colitis is depression. For me, this was caused by two things:

  1. a natural side effect of having a disease in the gut that affects the ANS, immune system and gut microbiome.
  2. ignoring my grief and sorrow, trying to soldier on, without allowing myself to acknowledge what I felt I had lost.

For many years, I attempted to fore happiness and pretend nothing was wrong. “I’ve got this”. I was pretending to be strong, rather than finding inner strength. And if you’re any good at this, you can do it for years.

During this time, I failed to acknowledge all the sources of my depression: gut health & microbiome, emotions, mental, chemical and even the dis-regulation of my ANS.

Shutdown & avoidance as self-preservation

Until recently I didn’t even know that one of my primary survival instincts (those habits you create to survive, that later become your Achilles heel), was shutdown and avoidance. The body is an amazing thing – survival first.

While some people go into fight-flight when faced with danger, I learnt as a child that those were not options. The safest option was to be neither seen nor heard. It’s freezing like a possum that plays dead or the turtle that hides safely in its shell.

So why on earth, if I’m battling these three challenges, would I even mention laziness as a habit to be overcome?

Being lazy: disinclined to activity or exertion

It’s so easy when life is overwhelming to get stuck in “there’s nothing I can do about this”. As I said before, if I had known that returning to a healthy life would take so long, would I have even tried?

In most cases, it is deemed painful to expend effort on long-term goals that do not provide immediate gratification. For a person to embark on a project, he has to value the return on his labour more than his loss of comfort.

Neel Burton M.D.The Psychology of Laziness

I was not completely helpless. There were things I could do that would make a difference, but that required some effort on my part.

  1. Intentionally resting: rather than watching TV or playing computer games or mindlessly scrolling social media, I needed to sleep deeply, giving my body a chance to heal. To do this, I had to remove foods that interfered with deep sleep, remove caffeine and add in magnesium.
  2. Find out which supplements, vitamins & minerals would restore health. Some of these tackle inflammation, while others support the nervous system and neuro-processes, giving me clearer thinking and raising my energy levels.
  3. Build my own personal support network and groups.

I wanted people around me that were positive and believed restored health was possible. I needed accountability, not people that would listen to me complaining. Most importantly, I wanted to be surrounded by those interested in “being healthy“, rather than those whose mindset was “how do I live with this illness?”

I want to be healthy in spite of this illness

It takes exertion, motivation & discipline to make the changes (habits & lifestyle) that restore health & wellbeing. I constantly battle my innate survival mode of withdrawal and hibernation.

Laziness says

  • “I’ll deal with the mental, emotional and physical issues later – right now I’m just going to finish binge-watching this series on Netflix.”
  • “I’m sick. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
  • “I can’t run, so there’s no point in going for a 5-minute walk.”
  • “My joints & muscles hurt, so I’m just going to stay here.”

If I listen to that, I don’t even bother going to the kitchen to take the supplements that help relieve the inflammation & pain.

Laziness doesn’t just refer to being “a couch potato” – but it’s the state of mind of being stuck, unable to even move a single rung up the ladder.

Yes, I still want the magic pill of miraculous healing that allows me to bypass all this work and all these individual steps! But would I really have made the changes and addressed all these issues any other way?

Change the habits & lifestyle, so that the miracle can happen!

Medically speaking, it’s impossible to heal Coeliac Disease and ulcerative colitis. So far, they are vastly improved, but not healed. I’m not sure if it will be possible, or whether my personal healing journey will simply be one of discipline & habits.

But I finally reached a point where I am willing to continue the journey, irrespective of the final outcome.

And so I come to the last healing lesson I want to share with you: forgiving myself and others.

Learning to Forgive: letting go of anger, resentment & bitterness

Forgiveness and reconciliation are two entirely different concepts. Unfortunately, as a child I learnt a very skewed example of forgiveness and reconciliation.

We were made to say “I’m sorry“, with the threat of punishment hanging over our head if we didn’t. And if we received this unrepentant sorry, we were equally forced to say “I forgive you“, with that very same threat of punishment. At least we were equally afraid of the punishment that would be meted out if we failed to say sorry or I forgive you.

What lesson was that really in forgiveness?

There was not open-heartedness or vulnerability. There was no true desire to repair the relationship. We merely feared the greater punishment that awaited if we failed to say those words, no matter how meaningless.

I grew within myself a heart of stone, because it wasn’t safe to be vulnerable and open. Feelings were not safe and were certainly not to be expressed.

Personal forgiveness

I’ve had to come a long way in my own journey of forgiveness, leaving meaningless words behind and delving for myself into the heart of the matter. I no longer rush to forgive (going through the motion) or minimising my emotions and feelings. And I don’t need the other person to even be aware that I am forgiving them.

Forgiving you means I no longer dwell on what a cruel & unkind person you were. It doesn't mean you are no longer cruel & unkind. It also doesn't mean we still have a relationship.
Forgiving you means I no longer dwell on what a cruel & unkind person you were. It doesn’t mean you are no longer cruel & unkind. It also doesn’t mean we still have a relationship.

In order to truly forgive another, you have to acknowledge what you’re feeling. And those feelings might no be pretty. They might be more than pain and hurt or disappointment. Perhaps you feel angry and resentful. Worse yet, you might have allowed it to fester and turn into bitterness.

But until you can actually unpack your emotional baggage, and hang it in the sun to air and for you to see clearly, you won’t truly forgive. All of the feelings that you stuffed down, stowed away, and hid in the darkest corners of your memory have to be released and let go.

Forgiveness isn’t just spiritual, it’s also physical:

If we want to heal physically, we have to practice forgiveness – of ourselves and others. Whatever it is that we are holding onto.

…unresolved conflict can go deeper than you may realize—it may be affecting your physical health. The good news: Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. 
,,, Chronic anger puts you into a fight-or-flight mode, … changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health.

Forgiveness: Your Health Depends on It

When we hold a grudge, our attention stays focused on the past and it plays a role in the present moment, even in depression. This anger or resentment, when stored for long enough in our body, can even show up as pain or more illness.

Studies show how suppressed anger – that which we haven’t been willing to even acknowledge, much less vent – is showing up in cases of patients with cancer. Suppression takes a toll on our bodies, as we pretend that we aren’t hurt and angry. (Anger and Cancer: Is There a Relationship?)

On the other hand, when we hold a grudge, we create the feelings each time I mind replays the situation. So, now when I think of “forgive and forget”, I am turning off the “replay” switch in my mind. It’s not that I completely forget the situation, as if it never existed, but rather that I refuse to give the reruns “air time” in my mind.

I refuse to relive the stress of the memory over and over again in my body. I will not rehash – in this present moment – an event from the past. That is simply poisoning the present.

Among the many harmful effects that this loop has on your health is cognitive decline, dumping cortisol (the stress hormone) back into your blood stream, and affecting once again appetite, sleep patterns, heart rate and blood pressure.

“Living in a chronic state of tension disables your body’s repair mechanisms, increasing inflammation and the stress hormone cortisol in the body.”
“Forgiveness engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps your immune system function more efficiently and makes room for feel-good hormones like serotonin and oxytocin.”

Angela Buttimer

Forgiveness has a slew of health benefits as well:

  • improved mental health
  • less anxiety & stress
  • lower blood pressure
  • fewer symptoms of depression
  • a stronger immune system
  • better heart health.

I recognise that I’m still not done with the this process. But I’m finally willing to sit with emotions as they arise. I’m finally able to see how the spiral works in healing, no matter how long the journey.

And the truth will set you free

Not just knowing it… but truly living it! I started off with a video by Stephen Levine, where he talks about healing, not just physically but also emotionally.

Over these past four years, as I’ve worked on restoring my physical health, I’ve had to admit to the truth of where I am at and what changes and habits I have not been willing to change that have delayed the healing process.

I finally have begun to understand Jesus’ admonition to the man he healed “go and sin no more” – because I realise the effects that my lifestyle had (emotionally, physically, mentally & spiritually) on my health & well-being.

This has been the greatest gift of this illness: recognising that I have choice about how I choose to live in the presence of the Divine and how I choose to let it shine for and through me.

Active forgiveness: how to intentionally practice love

Today, as I look with great sadness at the anger erupting in communities in the United States, I realise that Christian leaders need to stand up and overturn a few more tables within the temple! Obviously, we haven’t overturned the tables of oppression!

Oppression can take so many forms: whether it’s the orphans (or children who are being trafficked), the widows (or human trafficking), the poor, the sojourners/immigrants/foreigners, or someone who you haven’t even recognised as your equal (race, education or any other standard).

The first table that needs to be overturned is the alter on which our individual egos sit.

Ego – that part of us that fails to understand that illness would become wellness if we would replace “I” with “WE”.

The illness of division could be the wellness of unity and cooperation, if we are willing to start within: with an awareness of our own feelings, anger, hatred and division. It is my ego that tells me that I am separate from those in pain.

When I saw the first posts about the events, questions came to mind – even along the lines of “is this another false flag operation” to get people to focus their attention onto something divisive, rather than awakening to creating the world and society in which we wish to live.

But the reality is that these events show the brokenness of the “normal” to which we wish to return.

How is it possibly okay for a white man (just because he has a uniform) to kneel on the neck of another man, already cuffed and in custody, until he stops breathing? Even if this was “created” to divert attention from something else: this requires our collective attention and healing! It is no less oppression, irrespective of the purpose which it serves.

My arrogance: daring to think that I am somehow above these events, says “not my problem”. But that’s not true.

It is exactly my privilege that is the problem!

It’s the fact that this would NOT happen to me that makes me the ideal person to say “something needs to change”. Deep within, I know that it’s time to heal within me the coldness and apathy that say “not my injustice”!

The collective pain

What springs to view with these events is the pain that many are suffering, sight unseen.

Today I read about the father that goes for a walk with his young daughter and the dog because he’s fearful of walking around his neighbourhood alone. I read about the young man being the only person of colour in his school, and constantly being pulled over by the cops, while his friends never received the same treatment.

And I realise that we are called to overturn the tables that allow some to be down-trodden, while others continue to live with privilege.

I’m not saying that I should “lose” my privileges, but rather that they should be the same privileges afforded to every person, regardless of race, creed, or economic strata.

Perhaps we need to learn a little more about restorative justice: the process where entire communities taking responsibility for restoring balance, harmony and the practice of forgiveness.

I’m talking about Ho’oponopono.

“Restorative justice is a philosophy that embraces a wide range of human emotions including healing, mediation, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation as well as sanction when appropriate. It also recognizes a world view that says we are all interconnected and that what we do be it for good or evil has an impact on others.”

— “Restorative Justice – The Pacific Way” Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Prison Abolition; Barcelona, Spain, 17 – 19 May 1995;  by Jim Consedine (see link at the end of this post)

I first learnt about restorative justice in law school in Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand.  Thankfully, I was at a very culturally connected law school, where we openly spoke about community justice systems and how the Pākehā system failed to take into account restoration of balance within the community.  It simply punished the offender (like a criminal justice system). 

But the community continued to suffer and hurt: with the criminal justice system, nothing is actually done to restore balance within the community.

Most people only know Ho’oponopono as 4 lines:

  • I love you
  • I’m sorry
  • Please forgive me
  • Thank you

But it’s more than just repeating the mantras… It’s opening up our awareness and emotions.

Ho’oponopono Practice: The Practice of Forgiveness

The origins of the Huna practice known as Ho’oponopono are a community reconciliation process. It is very similar to other Pacific Island restorative processes – which involved entire communities taking responsibility for restoring balance, harmony and the practice of forgiveness when harmony in the community has been broken.

Coming to Ho’oponopono from a lawyers perspective of community justice, I knew that it was so much more than simply 4 lines:

  • I love you
  • I’m sorry
  • Please forgive me
  • Thank you 

Not because I knew anything about the Hawaiian Huna practice itself, but simply because I recognized that there was so much more to restoration than simply saying “sorry”!  It’s much more than sending the “offender” to jail.

Restorative justice means righting the wrong that allows the crime to be committed in the first place. It addresses the question: “Why would four white men consider that it was okay, under any circumstances, to pin a man down under their knee until he stops breathing?”

True healing happens when we allow ourselves to experience what is happening in the community from every angle and clear the pain from every perspective:

  1. the perpetrator (Can I forgive him and his companions? Do I need to forgive myself for any hatred, anger or other feelings against them?);
  2. the victim (Can I forgive what others did to him? Do I need to forgive myself for any prejudice or feelings against him?)
  3. the bystanders (Is there any judgment in my heart against them? Do I feel that they failed in any way?)
  4. the family members (What forgiveness do I need to practice for the family of the victim or the perpetrators?)
  5. others in the community, including the protestors, police, first responders, or leaders (How do I consider that they have failed?)

It’s literally saying… I understand ALL of the pain and frustration – of every person involved and forgiving for each and every one of them for whatever I hold them at fault for. It is a process and quite possibly not something you can do in a single moment.

It begs the question: why were onlookers too afraid to intervene? It asks: “How did we create officers of the law that were so lacking in empathy and awareness, that they failed to hear this man begging and be moved by any compassion?”

be kind, love, forgiveness, ho'oponopono, practicing forgiveness, learning to forgive, I'm sorry, please forgive me, gratitude

Where do we start?

Forgiveness always starts within.

If you’re a Christian and you are moved to pray, then I invite you to start asking to be shown within yourself everything that needs to come to the surface and be dealt with! Before you go praying for peace in Minnesota or Minneapolis, ask to be shown the plank in your own eye that should be removed!

What are the little ways that you are failing to stand up for justice in your community? Where are you unconsciously supporting “the status quo”, rather than overturning the tables of inequality?

It’s so much easier to think that there’s a problem in Minnesota than to acknowledge that there is a problem in my own heart!

Don’t righteously pray to forgive those who are rioting and angrily violent: pray to understand the underlying emotions of that anger and violence, so that it touches your heart. Pray for empathy and understanding.

Yourself.

Hooponopono practice is the practice of forgiveness based on the knowledge that anything that happens to you or that you perceive — the entire world where you live — is your creation.  Whatever you have become aware of that exists in the world, has become your responsibility to set to right.

Everything in your life is entirely your responsibility: 100%. No exceptions.

Please don’t misunderstand what I mean.  I did not say it was your fault.  I said it’s your responsibility

You are 100% responsible for:

  • healing yourself and breaking down the barriers within your beliefs, emotions and fears;
  • changing the relationship you have with any other person of another race, religion or background that you have not been able to fully understand and relate to; and
  • changing your perception of the world, making it possible for you to overturn the tables of injustice.

Before you try to put in order what is wrong “out there in the world”, have a deep look within and see what needs to be put right within your heart.

homesless, beggar, guilt, forgiveness, prejudice, overturning tables of injustice, racism, discrimination
Who needs to feel your love and acceptance?

Ho’oponopono practise is a journey to restore inner peace and balance.  It begins by changing my inner world in order to effect change in the exterior world.

Three steps PLUS gratitude

How can we heal this pain with Ho’oponopono?

I love you

Start simply reminding yourself, regularly and consistently of Divine Love – “I love you”.  “I love you” just as you are today, with mistaken views and perceptions of the world, with perceptions that have not allowed you to grow and change your community, and with all the baggage that you have chosen to carry around.  I love you in spite of your fears and weakness. And because I love you, “I recognise that whatever comes to me in this life is my creation.”

Can you expand the circle of “I love you” to your neighbours?

What about to your whole suburb? Or the suburb next to yours? Can you extend that “I love you” to your town or city? How comfortable are you putting a face on “I love you”? What resistance are you feeling when you say “I love you”? Acknowledge it, so that you can forgive yourself fully.

I’m sorry

Once you recognise love and even those areas of lack of love, you can tell yourself “Sorry”.  Sorry for the errors of thought, words and actions that created those memories and held onto that energy. Sorry for failing to love fully and completely. I’m sorry for not practising unconditional love.

  • What do you need to forgive yourself for?
  • What do you need to ask your neighbour forgiveness for? What are you sorry for?

Don’t just say it: allow yourself to connect with the emotions. Perhaps you feel shame as you say “I’m sorry that I looked the other way” or “I’m sorry when I laughed nervously when someone said something rude to you, because I was too weak to stand up to them for you.”

Allow yourself simply to feel what needs to be felt. What you resist, persists in your life. If you fail to acknowledge what you are feeling, you cannot forgive yourself for it.

Please forgive me

It’s not just about asking for forgiveness: the miracle happens when you give yourself permission to release the burden you’ve been carrying. Forgiveness is about letting it go.

It’s impossible to turn over a new leaf unless we are willing to allow the old leaf to fall off the tree, decompose and become dust.

Take a moment to imagine a new relationship with yourself and with your neighbour. How will your view of the world change? How will you change your interaction with them?

Thank you

And then, of course, the practice of gratitude – gratitude for the freedom that this brings!  Gratitude for the change in my way of thinking, speaking and acting.  Thank you for the new opportunities this creates.  Thank you for the changes that will start happening in my relationships and how I relate to others.

coming together, building bridges, understanding, compassion, building communities, trust, love

Coming together as a community

Once we have taken care of the sty in our own eyes, maybe we can come together in small community groups and begin to work on this collectively: slowly building the size of the groups that do this together, until we have rebuilt love and trust.

But if we aren’t willing to overturn the tables of the status quo – nothing will change.

I invite you to join me on this journey of discovery – where we can learn together what it means to heal the world and restore balance to hurting communities, by starting within.

love and forgiveness, how to stop suffering, how forgiveness can ease the pain, learning to let go, Ho'oponopono, release, allowing, detachment, attachment, emotions, identity, learning to love, loving myself, loving others

Love and forgiveness: how to stop suffering

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

John Greene

As a child, growing up in a Christian environment, I was told to forgive and forget, the same way that God forgave and put our sins on the other side of the ocean. I was told to turn the other cheek and to pray for those who might persecute or mock me.

Be a proud martyr.

Unfortunately, the way I was taught forgiveness did not do me very many favours! It built and perpetrated many misconceptions of what forgiveness was, without in any way stopping the suffering! In fact, we were taught suffering was necessary. It was good.

It was proof of our faith – that your joy may be complete.

Yeah, right.

Some joy.

How I wish Christians would do a better job of teaching forgiveness and everything that it means!

What verses were used?

The following are two of the most common verses I heard as a child regarding forgiveness:

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Matthew 6:14 (NIV)

If you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven. So, now, I made him tell you he’s sorry and you have to say “I forgive you”. Of course, if we didn’t say “I’m sorry” we would have received a paddling. And if we didn’t say “I forgive you” we would equally have received a paddling.

I know they did it with the best of intentions. But this is no way to teach forgiveness! We went through the motions to avoid the physical consequences. I was no more forgiving than the other child was sorry.

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Colossians 3:13

Misconceptions of forgiveness & love

The way that I was taught forgiveness created several erroneous beliefs around the effect of forgiveness. These were reinforced through social norms and adult behaviours.

I know, they had good intentions. But good intentions pave the road to… well, suffering.

For example, as a kid, we were forced to reconcile with another kid – at least on the outside, going through the motions. I can tell you this strips all your power away. You are instructed to kiss and make up, by adults with authority to make you do so. And then you are forced to have a relationship with this person that hurt you, with disregard for how you might have felt about it.

But this doesn’t teach you how to handle and deal with the emotions that go with forgiveness. As you get older, you try to reason away the pain. I can’t count the times I told myself “I shouldn’t feel this way.” You still feel the anger, sadness and hurt, but now you stuff it down, rather than releasing it because it’s not supposed to be there!

So often I felt worse and hypocritical because forgiveness didn’t work.

Myth: Forgive, and everything goes back to how it was

My experience, even now with having learnt how to forgive, is that things never go back to how they were. When trust is broken, it has to be rebuilt. It doesn’t magically reappear.

Forgiveness does not rebuild trust or magically rebuild relationships. The best apology is changed behaviour.

Myth: Forgiveness means there are no consequences

Another way that we were dis-empowered as children were that when we forgave, we were expected to relinquish any hope of seeing justice. Forgiveness meant that the other got off “scot-free“, excusing whatever actions they had done.

So, for example, in the cases of child abuse, we were expected to forgive an abuser and then not request that any further action be taken. Otherwise, we hadn’t truly forgiven.

Myth: Forgiveness means you can’t have boundaries

One of my hardest life lessons as an adult has been developing healthy boundaries in relationships. I never learnt how to say “this treatment is unacceptable”. If someone mistreated us, we were expected to forgive them.

And then turn the other cheek.

How many battered women are told to forgive their husbands, and go back into a situation of domestic violence, only to have the cycle repeated?

Obviously, we weren’t praying hard enough. (Sorry – not sorry, every once in a while my sarcasm slips in).

Learning forgiveness through Ho’oponopono

As unusual as it might seem, I finally learnt forgiveness through the Huna practice of Ho’oponopono. Many people know this as a simple meditative practice of mantras:

I love you.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.

Ho’oponopono prayer mantra

For months, this was all I did: repeating this mantra over and over. With time, however, I changed. I began to understand it differently.

The Huna practice says that whatever comes into your awareness you are responsible for. You are 100% accountable for everything that happens in the world around – as you are part of the problem.

100% responsible

So, you hear on the news that someone was murdered last night – that’s on you. You read in the newspaper that a drunk driver hit a car and killed a family, that’s your responsibility too. Your grandfather beat a man within an inch of his life before you were born: that was you as well.

Everything is connected to everything. That flap of a butterflies wings in Africa that starts the hurricane that hits the Caribbean and then the East Coast of Georgia. It is all connected.

We are all connected.

The anger I feel in my heart and life is merely a connection to the anger that any other person in the world is feeling. The hatred and discrimination that I feel towards any set of people on earth feed hatred in the world. The carelessness that I show when driving feeds the negligence of that young driver that ploughs into the back of another car.

  • If I want less anger in the world: I have to stop contributing to the energy of anger.
  • If I want less bigotry and hatred towards me and “my people”, I must release and relinquish all prejudice and disgust I feel towards any others, so that there is less of it in the world!
  • If I want less carelessness on the streets, I must become present and aware at all times.
  • If I want more understanding in the world and compassion, I must be understanding and compassionate.

In any situation where there is anger, violence or hurt, there is a role that I have played. And I am 100% responsible for my part in perpetuating the violence – whether it is mental, physical, emotional or spiritual abuse!

Learning to break the cycle through forgiveness & compassion

This has not been a comfortable journey, much less one without relapses. I always find myself doing the inner work, recognising what I have overlooked.

Whatever I notice and see in the world around me is simply a call to look within and see how that is reflected in who I am and how I have expressed myself in the world.

An example of forgiveness in action:

Let’s say that a distracted driver caused an accident.

  • How do I forgive them for the hurt and pain that they have caused?
  • How do I recognise my role in participating in this?

I start simply by acknowledging that sometimes I am a distracted driver. I have looked at my phone while driving, eaten in my car, had a sip of my coffee, handed a toy that fell on the floor to my crying toddler, and many other moments of distraction. Maybe my distraction hasn’t lead to an accident, but I also am a distracted driver.

Then, I go through the emotions, thoughts and senses in my body and mind of what is happening within me when I am distracted driving. Am I frustrated? Impatient? Anxious?

Forgiveness is not just about “being distracted while driving” – it’s about allowing yourself to be present with WHY you allowed yourself to become distracted. What was really happening at the time?

This awareness allows me to really do the work of forgiveness and release! Then I forgive myself for the frustration, the impatience, the anxiety. I take the time to release those emotions from my body and bring myself back to love and compassion.

When I turn my attention to the distracted driver, it’s easy to forgive. I can feel empathy and compassion. I can experience the pain and suffering without allowing it to overwhelm me.

Because while I cannot change the world or any other person, I can change how I interact with the world. As I become aware of a situation and how I have participated in this in the world, I can practice forgiveness and release.

Forgiveness starts and ends with forgiving myself

Ho’oponopono practice has taught me that forgiveness is never actually about the other person! When I fail to forgive, my burden is pain and blame.

As I walk around carrying blame towards another, saying that I am the victim, I dis-empower myself. I continue, long after the event is finished, to give that person and the hurt that they caused me, power over my life. You might even say I give them greater importance than I have. They rule my life, my thoughts and my memories.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realise that prisoner was you.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness allows me to reclaim my power – to accept that I gave it away and forgive myself for having done so. Many times, forgiveness means to forgive me for having carried the burden for so long, rather than leaving on the roadside years ago.

Only as I begin to love myself do I begin to see that forgiveness is the only way to end my own suffering.

  • I don’t have to “kiss-and-make-up”.
  • There is no need to accept that others mistreat me or abuse me.
  • Living as a martyr is not standing in the power of love and compassion.
  • I will probably feel pain and anger and rage and those are all valid emotions. Acknowledging them is the first step towards letting them go, rather than stuffing them down within me and trying to “hold it all together”.
  • I can ask that justice be served and that someone receive their just deserts and the consequences of their actions.

Forgiveness is leaving the burden and suffering that I carried with me by the side of the road and continuing my life journey full of compassion. It’s a choice that I have to make each day: who do I want to give the power to?

I hope that each day I can choose to give the power to Divine Love within me.

 

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Generational Trauma: How to heal the past with love

I recently read and posted this comment, reflecting on how 2019 has been the best worst year of my life… or possibly the worst best year of my life. I haven’t quite made up my mind which it is!

Some of you are breaking generational curses and you don’t even know it. That’s why your attack has been so hard.

Unknown

And how it has felt like a struggle this year, but in a great way. I know I have done some deep healing work and growth, but it has also felt dark and dirty. Like weeding the garden – you get sweaty, dirty and now there’s gunk under my nails that doesn’t want to simply wash off!

Part of me, the part that grew up as a missionary kid, automatically hears in my head those verses from Exodus, Numbers & Deuteronomy:

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me

Deuteronomy 5:9

Of course, with modern psychology and even neuroscience, we begin to understand a new application of what happens. There is nature and there is nurture – what we inherit through our genes and biologically, as well as what we learn from our parents, grandparents and community as we grow up.

Earlier this year, I was working with a few girlfriends, addressing some of those generational issues that were coming up and keeping us stuck – visiting the experiences of our parents and grandparents and forgiving them or those that had harmed them. It felt dark and intense. But very liberating as well.

Consider these 2 examples:

Case 1: 1874

In 1874, the New York State Prison Board discovered that they have 6 members of the same family locked up at the same time. Mere coincidence? Looking back, all the way to 1720, they found a town trouble-maker and his less-than-lovely wife, who had 6 daughters and two sons. From those, by 1874, they had 1200 descendants.

  • 310 were homeless
  • 180 had drug or alcohol abuse problems
  • 160 were involved in prostitution
  • 150 had spent time in prison, 7 for murder

Case #2: 1874

Nonetheless, another couple, going back to 1703 had 11 children. His name was Jonathan Edwards, and as a family man and caring for his education, he went on to be the President of Princeton University. By 1874, they had 1400 descendants.

  • 13 college presidents
  • 65 university professors
  • 100 lawyers and 32 state judges
  • 85 authors
  • 80 politicians, including 3 state governors, 3 senators, and 1 President
  • 66 doctors

Is this nature?
Is it nurture?
Or perhaps a mix of both?

generational curses, generational trauma, epigenetics

Generational trauma & the study of epigenetics

Some of the most interesting work that is being done at the moment is in epigenetics, cellular biology, and neurobiology. In mice, the effects of trauma on the DNA and gene sequencing can be seen for up to 14 generations. But, on a more tangible level, we have scientists like Dr. Rachel Yehuda, from Mt. Sinai Medical in New York, studying the effects of trauma and PTSD on the children and grandchildren of those who suffered in the holocaust. The effects of the stress and trauma can be transmitted biologically up to three generations.

Similarly, we see the effects on the human body of those who have suffered through famine or war and political unrest. Have you dug deeper into your family tree and had a good look at the biological and environmental factors that affected your childhood, your parents and your grandparents? What stories did you hear? Or perhaps, more importantly, what stories would they refuse to speak of?

We read in the Bible that we reap what we sow… but sometimes we reap what others have sowed… and worse yet, sometimes we reap what others have been the victim of! Sometimes the changes in genetic traits works in our favours, and sometimes it might be considered a flaw. We might inherit genes for strength or we might be prone to certain syndromes or diseases.

Just remember this: when your grandmother was pregnant with your mum, you were there as an embryo experiencing the world. Of course, biology allows us to know that at the moment of inception, a “cleaning” takes place, which for the most part should take care of most of those “anomalies”. But that’s not always the case.

The vestiges of the US Civil War

Furthermore, as studies of the sons of men from the Civil War exhibited, there are also experiences that were specifically transferred down through the Y chromosome (only to the sons and not to the daughters). Whether it was the stress or the malnutrition that the father’s suffered is not yet known, but without a doubt, the sons of those who had been in prison camps died younger than those who were not prisoners.

Without a doubt, trauma in previous generations can alter genes and their expression in future generations. The reason (the story) for the trauma gets lots, but the behaviours and the symptoms are passed down. Our bodies, in order to manage stress, make a physiological change. Unfortunately, when the conditions for the next generation are not the same, these changes may not be for their benefit. But the evolution has occurred.

Nurture – the cycles of behaviour we learn

The same way that part of the trauma is stored and handled genetically, there are also many coping mechanisms that are behaviour and habits. Dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional adults. We are the product of our childhood upbringing and our socialisation.

So, even when there were experiences we had as a child – behaviour and responses that we swore we would never repeat when we had children of our own – unless we have done the healing work, we will run down the easiest neural pathway to the very same response. Whether we like it or not, how we were raised shapes our reactions, responses and attitudes.

  • Children raised in abusive homes learn that violence is an effective way to resolve conflict.
  • Boys who witness domestic violence are three times more likely to become batterers.
  • Children of alcoholics have a fourfold risk of becoming an alcoholic than someone who comes from a family of non-alcoholics.

You learned so much by simply watching others – even unconsciously:

  • how to eat
  • how to cope with stress
  • how to do marriage or relationships
  • what to do with your anger.

Have you taken the time to give serious thought to your life generationally?

The trauma embedded in your family line

Take a moment to look at yourself, your parents and your grandparents. Look wider at your cousins, aunties and uncles. What do you see of:

  • mental illness
  • drug addiction or substance abuse
  • codependency or enabling
  • depression
  • anxiety
  • stress
  • anger

When you see it all – as a single, big picture – can you get an idea of the importance of breaking the cycle?

If you were to shake the family tree – what skeletons fall out? What is hiding in the closets?

If you don’t deal with

  • the weight and obesity issue;
  • the debt and overspending;
  • anxiety and stress;
  • anger;
  • depression;
  • insecurity; or
  • drug addiction and substance abuse,

Those very same issues will be for your children to handle. They will face the same patterns and choices.

The traumas that are not healed in your generation will be for the next generation to heal and work through.

The path of healing

So, how do we get there? If you want for the buck to stop here – how do you make sure that you are the generation that changes the situation for the future?

Acknowledgement and awareness

It all starts with awareness. You cannot teach what you don’t know – so first, you have to become aware. This comes from evaluating your thoughts and feelings. It also comes from educating yourself – through personal development and self-improvement.

Through looking at what you want to be and then measuring yourself up to that model. For me, I would like to be able to say I am compassionate, creative and courageous. How do I measure up to this standard? I recently wrote about being an angry woman, and the healing that has to happen as I work my way through that!

what I know, I know that I know, what I don't know, learning and growth

Acceptance & ownership

Unfortunately, what you resist, persists. When you fail to acknowledge those thoughts and feelings – “I shouldn’t feel this way” and “I shouldn’t be thinking that”, you cannot change the pattern.

After the awareness, you have to own it – as yours. “This is what I feel”. You don’t have to agree with it or like it. Once you’ve swallowed it down and allowed yourself to digest it, then you can do something with it.

Just take ownership – “These are my thoughts, feelings and actions – and because they are mine, they are mine to change!”

Be the one in your family that was brave enough to do the dirty work of cleansing and healing!

Using forgiveness and release

When we go back to the root of the issue, we go back to that event in the past, and have a new experience of it with forgiveness and releasing the past. You will need a powerful experience to release the trauma, to override the trauma response in you.

When I was doing some of this work earlier this year, I came face-to-face with one of my survival mechanisms. When I feel attacked, I want to shoot someone. Now, to my rational mind, that makes absolutely no sense. I obviously don’t want to shoot someone. How could I possibly want to do that?

But my first thoughts always turn to “just shoot them down”. Sometimes I would literally do it verbally – destroy them with my tongue. But in my mind, the image I had included guns.

When I went into the forgiveness work with Sarah and Sharon, I realised my granddad was a rear gunner (or tail gunner) in WWII. If you know anything about that, it was the least likely position to survive.

This is what the tail of a Lancaster bomber could look like upon arriving home:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2d/a0/36/2da0369c0180b821c83f3449ee194614–bombers-air-force.jpg

But my granddad did survive and came home. He never – that I ever remember – spoke about his days in the war. He would remember his pilot and members of his crew fondly, but never told a single war story that I will ever recall. And as I did the work with Sharon & Sarah, I realised how good he must have been as a gunner to have survived so many battles. How many planes did he shoot down, so that he and his crew could make it back alive? He must have been a really good shot to have made it out alive.

Wellington Bomber, rear gunner
This is the kind of plane he flew in (photo of a print I have on my wall)

I sat with that deep sadness and guilt. And I realised why my survival instinct was “let’s just shoot them down”, but I’m not in that position.

I don’t actually need to shoot anyone down in order to survive:
Not with my mouth.
Not in my thoughts.

In my world, I can choose to be kind and compassionate.

So, I worked through forgiving the powers that were that started the war and put my granddad in a position where he had to shoot others down in order to survive. I forgave my granddad for all those people whose lives he’d taken in order to get home to my grandmother and mum alive. And I forgave myself for those crazy, irrational thoughts that I had carried around in my head for as long as I could remember, recognising them for what they were.

I then finally able to forgive myself for all the times I had shot others down with my tongue, tearing them apart with my words.

Yesterday, I discovered that a guy called Mark Wolynn has written a book called “It didn’t start with you: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle“. I’m definitely adding that to my reading list for January! Maybe I’m already doing the work – but perhaps there’s so much more that I could be doing.

Learning a new way

Breaking the cycle of generational trauma starts with acknowledging that you have a choice. That in that space that exists between stimulus and response, you can breathe. That space is yours.

It takes practice. You will need patience and understanding. Show yourself some compassion and mercy, because there will be mistakes along the way.

But you can – single-handedly – break this cycle, one decision at a time. You can choose what tools and support you need. Perhaps you need faith and a spiritual understanding, to reach out to a friend, a coach or a mentor, and in some cases, you might even need therapy.

But each day is a choice that allows the generational curses to be broken.

Because the buck stops here – in the worst best year of my life!

Empowerment after forgiveness and repentance

Empowerment after Forgiveness & Repentance


The book of John is the only gospel in which we find this part of the story after the resurrection, especially Jesus’ questions to Peter “Do you love me?”. For me, this is a beautiful story of restoration and empowerment, after the hard road of failure, forgiveness and repentance.

Failure

Peter, many days before, had been left crying bitterly at his failure and lack of faith. The very day that Peter declared that he would die with Jesus, when asked if he was a disciple, he denied it vehemently. Peter simply caved in to fear and the dread of the unknown after seeing Jesus voluntarily submit to his arrest. When Peter had lopped off the ear of one of the guards, Jesus had healed the man.

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Sermon: Accountable before God

Readings:

This morning in Romans we read:

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. … So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

And in Matthew we read:

So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

The reading in Matthew started with:

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
18:22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Some say that means that we have to forgive 77 times and others say that’s 490 times: seventy times seven.  So, imagine with me, for a moment, if God actually kept score of our forgiveness of each other, the same way that we keep score of how others have wronged us. How would that ledger look? Do you ever make it to forgiving someone 77 times for one offence? Ever?

forgiveness, behavior, heart, forgive, let go, let God, move on, grow, bitterness, anger, pain

And then imagine if God was as quick to pass judgment on us as we pass judgment on others. Romans asks us today, why do we despise each other? Some versions say “treat them with contempt”, others use the word “belittle” or “look down on”, and still other versions say “set at naught”. To set at naught means to treat as of no account, to disdain, to hold in disregard, to treat with ignominy, to hold as insignificant.

A loving Christian is meant to care, deeply, for others: family, friends, church members & neighbors. But when we go into survival mode, that vulnerability and authenticity get shut down. Poets have long claimed that hearts grow cold and become hardened:  we treat others with disdain and insignificance. In our attempt to protect ourselves from distress and dull the pain, we divest ourselves of caring and responsibility.

When broken people live together in a broken world, pain is inevitable for anyone who loves. The only way to avoid the crushing pain of a broken heart is to make your heart unbreakable. So, we become the person that says “I don’t care” or “whatever”, when the luxury of giving ourselves the time and space to feel is threatened. And much of this despising or indifference towards others comes from looking inwards at our hurt and pain, and the defense mechanisms that we naturally have to block this out: just stop feeling. And so our hearts become hardened. If you choose the becoming “unbreakable”, you will also choose to lose your compassion.

What is critical to remember is when a heart becomes hardened, the brain has its own reasons for pressing down upon vulnerable feelings. To feel sets the person up to get hurt and the brain is geared towards survival at all costs. To bring emotional defenses down, the heart must be softened. The question is how can this be done? For me, personally, forgiveness has played an incredible role. I have repeatedly worked with Ho’oponopono meditation, where you sit and repeat: “I love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you.” I’ve used this focusing on loving myself, loving others, loving God.

Forgiving and letting go is so much more than just my relationship with other people: a hardening of heart inevitably means I have hardened my heart towards God. And when you forgive yourself and others, truly forgiving them, you begin once more to experience God’s love and light in your life.

Jesus knew this: which is why he said we need to forgive an offense 77 times (or 490 if you read the KJV). If we want to be compassionate in this world, we need to allow people into our hearts. People will hurt you. People will take advantage of you. People will manipulate you. Not everyone and not all the time, but some will. And you have two choices: you can either choose to forgive or you can choose to become hard. You can’t have it both ways.  And forgiving is a hard practice: for most of us, it is not something we just do once and then we’re done. Hence the need to forgive again, and again.

When we remember the offense that the other person has committed against us, we have to repeat: practicing forgiveness. And for a while we will forget and let it go. But the memory of the hurt and offense will come back again, and we will have to repeat once more. And repeat once again. Not because you are going to leave yourself in a situation where that person will continue to hurt or take advantage of you, but because you are choosing a relationship with God over and above all things.

When you are consciously aware that such-and-such a person is “like this”: let’s say that they always ask you to lend them money and they never pay it back. When you make a decision to forgive them and also to keep that person in your life, you know that you will be exposed to more requests for money that will not be paid back. And then you have two choices:

  1. You can give them the money, as a gift, freely, with love; or
  2. If you cannot find it in your heart to give them the money lovingly, you can learn the life lesson of saying “no”. Of learning how to say “no” with love, without attacking them; without putting them down. Just “no”.

But if you give them that money with resentment, it’s like you are putting a curse upon them, because in your heart: you are cursing them and resenting them. If you are going to give, then give with love and joyously.  Make it truly a blessing.

1 John 4: 20 reminds us of this truth:

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

There’s a lot of emotional intelligence involved in being a true Christian! You have to set loving boundaries in your life: where you love yourself enough to be true to yourself, and yet you love God enough to be willing to do the work to be open, vulnerable and authentic. We say we love God, but then we’re not willing to let go of our pain and hurt. That’s mine – my precious. I’m holding onto that pain. I’m not letting it go, I’ve been carrying it around for so long now, it’s part of who I am.

We say we love God, but then we’re not willing to let go of our judgments and prejudices against others. Paul says in Romans 14: don’t judge those who are vegetarians, or those who eat pork, or those who honor the Sabbath differently from us. Are we supposed to respect the Sabbath on Saturday, or on Sunday? We live in a society where dressing in a nun’s habit is okay, but it’s not okay to dress in a hijab. A society where girls should be allowed to dress anyway they like – but it’s their own fault when they get raped for dressing seductively. If we read Romans 4, verses 2 to 4 from the version The Message, we read:

For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.

So who are we to judge another by appearances? Everyone has been invited to God’s table and is to be warmly welcomed. Even those who have hurt us. Even those who have somehow betrayed us. Our accountability before God is individual – I will be judged according to what I have thought, said, done or failed to do in honor of God. You will be judged and held accountable for what you have thought, said, done, or failed to do for God.

I leave us with this parting thought about the way we live our lives, in forgiveness and compassion for all others who are invited to the table:

None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It is God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other.  (The Message – Romans 14:7-8)