Many of us have those images that we carry with us. Images that can refine or tear down closely held Values within us. Maybe you know what I am talking about. These are the images fixed in moment in time that we sometimes we wish we could forget, or that we never want to forget. Maybe we remember because it is grief, didn’t make sense, is part of a great success, or any other host of reasons. For some it is pain of the flashbacks of tragedy, for others the beauty of beginning of life. For many people it is both.
It was cold out.
I had made the 20-minute drive once again to my Father’s house in Veneta, Oregon. Mostly known now days for the Oregon Country Fair. Veneta actually really does exist the other 360 days out of the year as a bedroom community of Eugene, Oregon. I don’t remember the drive there, or home, probably because I had done it hundreds of times.
My Father was dying and I had to go to his house to provide respite care. I had been at my classes at college in Eugene, back to my job at the church, home to my wife, and now out to take care of my Father. We talked that day, but mostly I watched my Father’s weakening figure sleep in a pain killer induced slumber. My Father was strong man weekend by his 2 year battle with cancer. I think he had actually been sick much longer, but only after a couple of years of feeling poorly did he seek help medically.
As I left, I drove out of the rainy driveway reluctantly headed back to Eugene, and as I looked over at the old house I saw my Father raise up and wave his hand at me in the foggy window by his bed.
In the moment I felt the weight of leaving, the weight of staying, and the weight of the impending loss.
For years after, that memory of that cold February day, could bring me to tears or sullen mood. Even though that day was not my Father’s passing it has come to symbolize the end of His life to me. It was His way of saying goodbye. It was, and is a powerful image to me. Even as I write now, it brings me into a mixture of sobriety at the experience of the moment, and joy in the knowledge of my Fathers freedom in the after-life.
These moments sometimes help us and can sometimes hinder us as we live our lives from this point forward. We find ourselves looking at these moments differently as time puts its inevitable space between us and that event (now 20 years ago for me). Yet at times, for no apparent reason, it quickly comes to mind. It is important to remember that the power of these events cannot be measured against the events in other people’s lives because it is distinctly your own experience shaped and shaping your personal Values.
Some of our memories, and powerful experiences can create prisons from which we struggle to escape. The memory can en-cage us in a place that seems frozen in time. Maybe that is the case for you today.
These thoughts and emotions can keep us in a place of stuckness.
We may start to avoid the thoughts and emotions thru distractions or coping strategies all the while noticing that the more we avoid the more strength they seem to gain. Some of our actions when we have these memories are more helpful than others. Some actions are healthy leading to growth and direction, and some can be avoidant of tough feelings even downright destructive.
I realized after several years, and the wise words of a friend spoken in passing, that nothing seems to cement these difficult images as much as feeling that I violated my own value system in the process of this image being created.
For several years I felt guilt for leaving that day and the image would remind me of that. With time and reflection, I have come to know this and other moments as sacred memories of the passing of my Father, during which I was not able to provide him with all of the care that he needed. I have accepted that it was better for him to have help from another caregiver for his own values of dignity and personal respect. The gift I was given, was to spend those times and days with him in the end of his life. It was in the moments that we mended old wounds and I received his simple Arizona cowboy wisdom about life that I have found to be more helpful than half the books I have read. Reconciliation was the Value that was important and God gave him and me that gift.
2 years later as I lay in that same house, and in that same room that the hand in the window memory was created, I held my new-born daughter on my chest as I lay in the recliner.
We had just come home to the house that I had inherited from my Father 2 years before after his passing. I lay there somewhere between great joy and a small amount of sorrow because I had this new amazing creature in my life and I couldn’t share it with my Father or my Mother who had passed suddenly 8 years before. I hold that memory as even more dear today as my daughter is heading to college in 2 months and is looking at her future journey as an adult. This was the place that one life had ended and a new life now resided.
I know that she will experience her own memories. Some will stick with her like the hand on the window or the little child snuggled close, and many will flash on by with time fading in their importance. For those that were created in inevitable difficult circumstances I hope and pray that she will accept and not avoid. That she will look to those internal values that are important to her and seek out an action that affirms rather than violates those values.
These images shape us, they can encourage and can discourage us, but most importantly they teach us something.
Values such as compassion, connection, respect. At the same time, they can remind us that turning away from our Values can create lasting challenging images that are difficult and influential to our lives.
I have never met anyone that hasn’t violated some sort of personal value at some point in time. The key to moving forward in life is what you do with those images now.
Do you re-orientate and redirect your actions towards your values? Do you express the same compassion to yourself that God gave and gives you? If you find yourself reflecting on an image today that is closely held and powerful in your life I encourage you to look at how the importance that this closely held image informs you about your Values. How can you use that information to move forward and live more fully into your Values? For more detailed information subscribe to my blog and receive a free 3 part email on defining and living into your values.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
In a prior blog post
you were asked to take some time to identify 10 Values that are important to you as you live your life. Remember that you may not be fully living into these Values in the way you would like, or even believe possible at this point. Remember that it is one thing to know and not yet be there, but more of struggle to be moving in the wrong direction without knowing at all.
In this email you will look at identifying some of your barriers to your actions that should be guided by your Values. We will also look at ways to move beyond those barriers.
Many of our barriers are based in thoughts and feelings that are trying to keep us on the “safe path” even if it is taking us away from our Values to places of unworkable actions and dissatisfied living.
For Example: For many of younger years I wanted to be more social (a good, but distant desire) and yet I often found myself alone and afraid to put myself out there for fear of rejection. At that time, I had unidentified and unmet Values of Connection, Compassion, and Curiosity, and my desire of being more social was not a goal aligned with any Value. I did not know the real solid reasons that I had that desire or what I could do the move towards those Values.
My feelings and thoughts were telling me that I would be safer at home watching television, avoiding eye contact, and generally doing things that weren’t very social. That worked fine for my perceptions of safety and rejection avoidance, but I was surviving, not living, becoming more anxious, and dissatisfied with my life at that point (although I hid it).
Workable action for my life came from realizing that this was an unworkable feedback loop. My actions were not in line with my values and were making my life less vital and more dissatisfying. I like people and I wanted to have connection, show compassion, learn about, and help others, and here I was at home watching TV safe and miserable.
Let’s look start looking at ways to figure out aligning Actions with Values by answering these questions!
Where are your actions out of alignment with one or several of your Values that you listed?
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If you are stumped here are some helpful questions for this exercise:
What do I need more of right now?
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“Where do I feel I could do better with my values?
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What do I need less of?
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What am I yearning for?
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What am I starving for?”
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Who or what is causing me to feel resentful and why?
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Another piece to look at is where are your actions in line with your listed Values?
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The Second part of this exercise is to take some time to identify what actions can be taken to move in the Direction of Your Values and what feelings or thoughts will occur and will come with those actions.
If I took one or more different actions today to move towards my Values what would it/they be?
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What is the emotion or thought that comes to mind that is compelling you away from that Value? (that is the emotion or thought that you will have coming with you when you move in the direction of your Values) (could be anxiety or it could be Joy or any number of other emotions)
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If you are not moving in the direction of your Values, then a feeling or thought may be telling you not to. When I finally decided to work on being more social it was not an easy decision, but staying where I was, was worse.
For Example: If you are wanting to express, your compassion Value by volunteering in a shelter, but you are afraid of some sort of emotional discomfort then that feeling will likely dictate your actions if you allow it too. If you listen to the feeling and its prompting, you will likely continue to exist slightly outside of your Value of compassion and dissatisfied. Allowing that feeling or thought to just be there and going the help at the shelter anyway often reveals that the feeling or thought had very little merit or reality to it.
In fact other thoughts and feelings will likely also come that are more in alignment with your Value. Those thoughts and feelings can be a noisy back seat driver if allowed. It is like the annoying guest in my Blog titled “Why Men Aren’t Anxious about Anything”the party or just allow to be and go enjoy the party.
Let’s go enjoy the party! See the next email for helpful suggestions to move forward from surviving to living by setting goals aligned with the Values you have identified and address those pesky back-seat driver emotions and thoughts!
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Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
Aren’t depression and anxiety causes of loneliness you say? Yes, they are diagnosed at an epidemic level in the USA and increasingly in other countries as well, but often acute anxiety and acute and even chronic depression are fueled by our isolation and feelings of loneliness.
Statistically, one of the groups of people reporting the greatest loneliness are 18-24 year old adults. While media shows happy young adults hanging out together statistics point to a different conclusion. While not exclusive to this group, there are significant transitions being experienced. Transitions that can be related to living situation, vocational changes, and/or the beginning or ending of significant relationships.
As with any group that is going thru transition there is an increased risk for depression, anxiety, and general dissatisfaction with where they are relationally. This is not to say that the 18-24 year old group has to be struggling with depression, anxiety, or loneliness from transition, but that there is enough studies of these issues to make a significant statistical impact.
It is truly enough of an issue that appears in repeated studies that many colleges are instituting anti-loneliness campaigns to combat issues of loneliness.
It would seem that our constant connection thru social media platforms would create less loneliness, but reported levels of loneliness and isolation are higher than in any historical statistic has indicated to date.
The “snapshot communication” while producing the quick dopamine blast associated with affirmation or initial connection is not the same as walking and talking with someone (even on the phone or Skype). Social media can be like being stuck in the infatuation phase of a relationship and never moving to the deep commitment phase, a bit of a rush but not really satisfying over time.
At best, most social media platforms could be classified as pseudo intimacy, enjoyable times to show highlights of life, or trully intimacy with very little chance of vulnerability.
At worst we hide carefully behind phone and computer screens creating idealized and even narcissistic views of ourselves, narrated and photo shopped with little chance of others seeing the real ups and downs of our existence.
Sitting in a restaurant recently I noticed a couple sitting across from one another both engrossed in their phones reading and vigorously texting for most of the hour that they sat there. Was there nothing to talk about? Was their no new joy or pain in the day, week, month? Too tired to talk but not to comment on posts? Maybe there was something going on I don’t know about, but personally I could comment on stuff at home over ramen noodles and save the money of going out with friend and paying $12 to not talk.
Have we traded the art of conversation for one sentence typed comments on idealized snapshots? It would seem we need more than this. When did this become the norm?
This was an excerpt from the first google article that came up when I searched loneliness statistics in college students.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/university-loneliness-back-to-school-1.3753653
“More than 43,000 students were surveyed for the National College Health Assessment (Canada).
It found about 30 per cent of students “felt very lonely” within the last two weeks.
The study also found nearly half of the students surveyed felt debilitatingly depressed in the past year.
44 per cent said they “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.”
That’s almost 13,000 students struggling with loneliness, and almost 20,000 that were so depressed that they not functioning effectively.
Long before the days of social media I found the profound loneliness and depression that can be associated with the early adulthood time frame of life.
May of 1992 marked the beginning of a very tough and lonely year. I was 19 years old and I was about to have my world shook.
On May 6th, 1992 my mother suddenly passed away. It was unexpected and traumatic for my Father and myself. After the condolences and platitudes I was left to be alone with my questions and grief. 2 months after that I had a girlfriend left for college in the Midwest. It was August 1992 and I felt more alone and purposeless then I ever knew to be possible.
My Father was deep in grief and medical debt and most conversations would turn to one of those 2 subjects for the next 2 years. I struggled with the loneliness that grief, the end of a relationship, and being very young and not really having a strong identity could produce. I thought that going to college would help, but as I have mentioned in another post I did not have a real vision or purpose behind this so I did very poorly. By the time Christmas rolled around I was frequently sitting in my room for hours doing nothing, but thinking about how bad things were, grieving the loss of the life that I had known, or ruminating on not really wanting to be alive anymore. Life didn’t feel like it really had any hope in it at that point.
In 1992 and 1993 there wasn’t any social media or really any real internet to speak of yet. So phone calls, letters, and face to face conversations, were how connection happened, and it really wasn’t happening for me at that time. I also did not have a current support system of relationships because I was raised in very isolated fashion. I had a church I attended at the time, but it was the prime example of being alone in a crowd.
As I reflect back on those days it can feel as if I am looking at another person, but at times I can still feel that part of myself alone in the crowd. In the Spring of 1993, I was coming out of the dark space I had been in, and it was because God, and other people who came into my life to let me know that there was plenty more life to live. This healing season came thru relationships, and was the opposite of isolation and the loneliness that I had experienced before. It was thru face to face conversations , real-time spent, and corporate Christian experiences.
The state of my mind did not change overnight, but I can say in truth that staying the way I had been was not living, and it was barely surviving. If I had social media as my primary form of connection I believe that I would have been stuck in the isolated world I was living in much longer.
There are as many reasons that people of any age feel loneliness or are alone.
Trading face to face or even over the phone conversations for social media snapshots and comments and then living an isolated and lonely life is akin to cutting of your nose to spite your face. As in my case, and others circumstances such as loss, grief, rejection, or even abuse and trauma can create a space of self isolation and depression. Left alone in this state more distorted options such as self harm and suicide start to look viable as a cure for the pain.
It is of paramount importance that those we know that are struggling with the above issues are reached out too with love and relationship despite their, or our discomfort in the moment. Listening to people’s struggle without judgment and with concern and compassion can help move someone from the precipice of survival to the mountaintop of life.
What then of the isolation that we self inflict due to our own insecurity and the normal social anxiety of early adulthood. Overuse of phones and other electronic devices provide the perfect way to avoid the fears of rejection and the skill of making real conversation, dialogue, or be soothed or challenged. Much like the pacifier in the mouth of a 4-year-old providing comfortable distraction, over use of electronic media stunts the ability to learn self soothing in real-time, and can create a false and unsatisfying connection with others around us. Social Media is nice short way to stay connected but it is not the same as true connection.
Many people would wonder why is this 4-year-old has a pacifier in their mouth but never ask why 30 adults in a room are all staring at their phones and never speak a word to one another. This wouldn’t be a big deal if it was just one room but it’s in many rooms, buses, homes, planes, churches, schools, bedrooms, coffee shops, car trips, holiday gatherings, board meetings, cubicles, lunch rooms, parks, hikes…..get the picture. 13000 college students lonely in just one survey ….20000 more with depression that is interfering with functioning. Our overuse of “connecting thru social media platforms” as a primary socialization tool is not making us better it is creating a false sense of intimacy at the cost of the real thing.
The nitty-gritty beauty of relationship happens in face to face, or even in video or phone calls. We need each other, so after you done with this post close Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc. and go talk, or call someone (maybe they are right next to you already in your dorm, home, classroom, or even in the same bed).
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
We often get Values and Goals confused! Goals are achievements, but Values are why we should set Goals in the first place. If we don’t know what our Values are, and then we set Goals there can be problems with achieving those Goals or even an inherent dissatisfaction with the achievement because it may not be in alignment with our true Values.
Living marginally with our Values or even contrary to our Values can cause a strong sense of distraction, inner dissatisfaction, loss of focus, and even anxiety. We have often been taught thru many ways that our Values are not important and that our Societal, Family, or Peer Values or Goals are what we should Focus on. This type of thinking may create a struggle and even unworkable and ineffective action in life, if it runs contrary to our Values.
God is the author of Values. I believe that when we are living into God’s Values we are “renewing our mind”. God is who has made us valuable. I believe that there are some core Values that God wants us to live in so that we can have full Vital lives.
Lives lived in freedom and not slavery to fear! Creative and Beautiful lives that are more than surviving and filled with God’s creative genius!
Below is a NON-Exhaustive List of Values (easily found on many internet sites, and in daily life)
Using the List Below and maybe others that you can find or think of look at what you believe to be the 10 most important Values that you regard as guiding points in your life. At this point it is not about whether you are living in these Values, it is about identifying what they are. I want to be clear, this is about listing what are important Values even if they seem remote to you right now! We are designed to grow to wholeness and this can be a great first step!
We will examine ways to know why you may not be fully living with these Values as well as workable actions to assist with moving you into living in your Values in the next 2 Emails you signed up for so stay tuned.
Let’s Take a Look!
Rank the Value 1-3 in importance and then go back thru and find the top 10 highest Ranked.
Highlight them for use in an upcoming 3 part email series on Values !
Remember to sign up for Blog notifications thru your email as well as upcoming helpful freebies that I will be delivering to my Email list.
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o Acceptance: to be open to and accepting of myself, others, life etc
o Adventure: to be adventurous; to actively seek, create, or explore novel or stimulating experiences
o Assertiveness: to respectfully stand up for my rights and request what I want
o Authenticity: to be authentic, genuine, real; to be true to myself
o Beauty: to appreciate, create, nurture or cultivate beauty in myself, others, the environment etc
o Caring: to be caring towards myself, others, the environment etc
o Challenge: to keep challenging myself to grow, learn, improve
o Compassion: to act with kindness towards those who are suffering
o Connection: to engage fully in whatever I am doing, and be fully present with others
o Contribution: to contribute, help, assist, or make a positive difference to myself or others
o Conformity: to be respectful and obedient of rules and obligations
o Cooperation: to be cooperative and collaborative with others
o Courage: to be courageous or brave; to persist in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty
o Creativity: to be creative or innovative
o Curiosity: to be curious, open-minded and interested; to explore and discover
o Encouragement: to encourage and reward behavior that I value in myself or others
o Equality: to treat others as equal to myself, and vice-versa
o Excitement: to seek, create and engage in activities that are exciting, stimulating or thrilling
o Fairness: to be fair to myself or others
o Fitness: to maintain or improve my fitness; to look after my physical and mental health and wellbeing
o Flexibility: to adjust and adapt readily to changing circumstances
o Freedom: to live freely; to choose how I live and behave, or help others do likewise
o Friendliness: to be friendly, companionable, or agreeable towards others
o Forgiveness: to be forgiving towards myself or others
o Fun: to be fun-loving; to seek, create, and engage in fun-filled activities
o Generosity: to be generous, sharing and giving, to myself or others
o Gratitude: to be grateful for and appreciative of the positive aspects of myself, others and life
o Honesty: to be honest, truthful, and sincere with myself and others
o Humor: to see and appreciate the humorous side of life
o Humility: to be humble or modest; to let my achievements speak for themselves
Knowing what is Valuable can be incredibly helpful in understanding the next steps, overcoming fears, or setting long terms goals in your life!
Remember to sign up for emails of my current Blog Posts and to receive future notifications of upcoming courses and products from 3 Rivers Creative PNW! Thanks, Gene
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
It ironic that I am writing about avoidance when I am late on posting this week ;).
Most people have some sort of avoidance mechanism in their life. Other words for it might be procrastination, distraction, busyness, or plain old fear. For some people there is healthy avoidance, it’s a moment of quiet to regroup ( stepping away, taking a breather, playing a brief game on your phone), and for others it disrupts their life on a regular basis (unopened mail, hours of screen time, overworking, even substance abuse).
There are literally hundreds of books on how to overcome procrastination, avoidance, and other descriptors for distraction, and yet it seems that it is still a pervasive human experience. While I don’t have the all-inclusive solution for all avoidance issues I would like to distill it down into a few thought-provoking questions, and an activity that will allow for a look at the good, the bad of avoidance, and a way to start stopping avoiding;).
In 1992 I decided to go back to college and I enrolled in community college to become an audio engineer. I liked the “idea” of being an engineer and my girlfriend at the time was a singer so I thought in my 20-year-old brain that this would seal the deal, so to say, about our future together.
I soon found myself floundering in a sea of incomplete tasks, homework that was done poorly or not at all, and poor grades. The truth again was that even with my new audio engineer idea, I had no vision or passion for what I was pursuing and no external support to hold me accountable to completion. Instead of doing homework I would watch television, or other activities that were not really about becoming and audio engineer. I was avoiding, because my goals were out of touch with values. I new deep down that vocation was not really what I was called to.
After one term I quit school and worked part-time. I took the incomplete and several D’s as a sign that my audio career was not to be. What happened over the next 9 months was multi faceted, but essentially I became aligned with my values again.
were values that were very important to me.
In September of 1993 I enrolled in school with a new “idea” and vision of becoming a counselor which I did achieve. It was long and hard and I had to make some changes.
I learned quickly that television was not a good idea if I was to complete homework. I set up a space in front of a window and set specific times that I would engage math specifically. I did not have a home computer at that time so I went to the computer lab at the college and spent many hours typing English papers in a less distracted environment.
Most importantly I had a vision, and at that point people who saw that vision in me as my future. I have to confess that it was not and has not been easy as I am easily distractible from what it is that I am doing, but I have learned that this distractibility, and avoidance can be based in some definable fears.
Finally, an experiment for you this week;
Avoidance isn’t all bad, sometimes we just need a course correction, a vision of the values that are steering us, goals as markers along the road to those values, and sometimes we just need a break to breath. Avoidance (breaks) can serve a purpose when it is managed as a tool of rest, refocus, and rejuvenation just don’t let that purpose turn into something negative such as being stuck, consistently frozen in fear, and/or detached from your values.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
So males; got it all together? No anxiety here! Money in bank, stable job, solid relationship, God on speed dial just in case? It’s easy to see that this is a fallacy of the highest degree, but I hope it got your attention.
I am a man, a follower of Christ, and I am a long time anxiety experiencer. Certainly anxiety is not gender specific or limited, but I write today as a male because I have talked with so many men who are isolated and miserable in their internal world. They think that they are the only one (or only one of a few). Anxiety has in the long past been almost debilitating in my life, but I have learned one important fact. I experience anxiety, but I do not want it to define me; I am not anxiety! Thru communicating with others, counsel and prayer, I experience it, but I can make the choice about the relationship that I have with it in my life. It only directs my day if I let it do that.
Predispositions to anxiety, historical trauma, and acute and chronic depression are just a few of the factors that can influence how, when, and how severely anxiety is experienced. Lets face it, we want to life to be predictable so we aren’t scared about the future, and yet so many of us walk around scared and anxious because of unresolved or undiscussed past experiences.
So many men who are locked up inside with all sorts of trauma, fear, and depression.
Some choose to self medicate by doing destructive things to themselves, and destructive things to others. Some lose their health to all sorts of chronic illnesses exasperated by stress, and still others commit suicide. Many of these scenarios have built to there painful crescendo in an isolation of a distorted view of manhood as a wall of unemotional strength, power and/or control. Help and seeking help is for the weak. Pursuits such as money, sex, and a whole host of unhealthy distractions eclipse life and eclipse the creativity of God that exists within it really is the difference between thriving and surviving.
I have even heard it said in some Christian circles that “anxiety is sin”! As if we needed another thing to be anxious about. Yes, it does say in paraphrase “Don’t be anxious” 20+ times in the Gospels, but Christ is expressing this as a concern and an affirmation of God’s desire for our wholeness and God’s providence for us. It is a wholeness of peace that grows in relationship to God, and as we relate to other believers (our proximity to relationship effects our Christian walk profoundly). “Please don’t be anxious I will take care of you!”
According to one statistic in Men’s Health Forum, in 2014, in America, most of the suicides by men were in the age range of 45-59 and the risk factors identified were age and socioeconomic status. I will not fill this article with large quantities of statistics. For this purpose it is enough to say that we have a significant suicide problem. I am not writing today to figure out all of the etiology of why some men, women, adolescents, or even children commit suicide or slide into deep depression and struggle day after day with debilitating anxiety. There are far to many varied reasons for me cover in this article.
Being the strong silent type doesn’t work. Isolation and silence is our enemy. Out of isolation comes all sorts of suffering and struggle. Out of internal isolation and bottling things up all kinds of poor relational actions take place that effect us, and those around us. We live in misery with our anxiety afraid to voice it lest we be called weak or broken.
There is a great Acceptance and Commitment Therapy metaphor image, by Russ Harris that talks about acceptance vs striving and resistance:
Your life could be like a house that you purchased on a beautiful street and you desire for all your new neighbors to come over and visit. After all you want relationships that you can share your life with right. You post a flier inviting those around you over for visit. The guests arrive and you send them to the beautiful backyard for food and drinks. 1/2 hour into the party the bell rings, and you open to find your next door neighbor Anxious Smith standing there. We will call him A. Smith for short. A. Smith pushes his way past you, and out to the backyard which is fine except that most the guests are dressed pretty nice and A. Smith is dressed in filthy clothes, talks really loud, coughs a lot, and eats with his mouth open (all of the shrimp cocktail). The Party becomes very uncomfortable …for you.
You usher A. Smith into the kitchen which he try’s to push his way out of again. Alone in the Kitchen holding the door you battle with A. Smith. Hours go by, and the party dwindles. The happy attendees leave the party and so does A. Smith. Exhausted and alone you wait by the front door watching the guests leave and a new guest, Depression Smith approach. Looks like he will take the night shift in your home.
Sound familiar? Maybe, maybe not? I don’t know about you, but isolation can look a lot like this. Tons of energy keeping whatever that anxiety is about contained, and hidden. Putting on the best face, all the time stuck in the kitchen worried that the guests in our lives will see A. Smith and run screaming out of our lives. We can be alone in the crowds and miserable.
Lets try this from a different perspective. Think now about your “life” house on your street, and the party with all the neighbors there and A. Smith shows up, dirty, coughing and eating all the shrimp cocktail, but instead of pushing him into the kitchen you follow him into the backyard and introduce him to a few people. A. Smith still isn’t really any more attractive, or fun, but you just allow him to be in the space. He floats from group to group and you continue to enjoy your party. You aren’t isolated anymore hiding in the kitchen battling by yourself because you are no longer living alone in your experience. Life becomes more connected and A. Smith may be there, but you give him less attention then you once did.
Talking with trusted people and allowing them to know you, is taking back your life by stopping the avoidance and engaging in activities that make meaning in your life. That action steers you towards what is valuable to you which is fulfilling relationships. Anxiety Smith and Depression Smith will both try to tell you that keeping them secret is the best way to avoid rejection or shame. These are just thoughts to try to keep you safe, but they actually keep you stuck and put you in more danger because they don’t work.
The key is not to change the thought, but to change your relationship with the thought, and place what is valuable in front of you as a guide. In this case relationship, freedom, and intimacy. Usually secrets aren’t helpful values to live your life by!
Let me tell you, there are places and people to help. If you have been telling yourself that your anxiety (or depression) is ridiculous and just trying to suppress it down by yourself let me ask, “How is that working”? Same thoughts and feelings just a different day. Try something new if you want something new.
Whatever is feeding your anxiety there are methods that can help you change your relationship with it. Historical trauma can feed a great deal of anxiety and finding and participating in a counseling relationship can go far to unpack and heal those experiences.
Other routes for removing isolation are to confide in a trusted friend, but if that doesn’t fit then a counselor or pastor to confide and talk to is a good option. Finding the right body of Christian believers to be involved in can be a huge help. First and foremost, pray and ask God to show you people to build relationships with so that you can shed the isolation myth. This may take time, but ask around for groups of men (or women if you are a woman reading this) that meet to support one another in the community, or in a Church. Pastors or counselors can usually point you in the right direction. You can live a life that is vital and abundant in spite of anxiety.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
“My Story isn’t very interesting it doesn’t convey anything that others would want to know”.
What is interesting about this statement is that up until that moment, as the person was talking, they were mentioning many things that connected them to a broader human experience, and demonstrated the Creator at work within their life.
I was that person not to many years ago. I would listen to someone talk about their redemption from a drug addicted violent life and I would think that person can talk all day about how God changed them, how successful they now were, and people will listen and be in awe. “That person” has a powerful story and I have a boring story.
Raised in church, went to a Christian school, parents were Christians and so on a so forth. This was the so-called boring story I had in my head about myself.
My view was all wrong, and so was my motivation. The story wasn’t for me it was others to see how much God cared, because my story was and is laced with redemptions, creativity, and pain.
We all have amazing stories that have a person somewhere waiting to hear them, but the first person that needs hear that story is you.
Most all human beings share the same fundamental ability to engage in the stories of others.
One of the fundamental desires of people is to be known. When people don’t feel known they live in dissonance or disconnection between their outer lives, and their inner lives. Hiding sometimes in a pseudo intimate fashion in their relationships (being only partially known). People deep down want to be known, but are afraid for many reasons to reveal themselves for fear of rejection, criticism, or abandonment.
If your heart is passionate about something……..anything…… then what does that tell about you. You didn’t get that passion by accident. Iit grew out of your story. Your life sometimes seems “to normal” because that is what you have known for so long.
I am here to tell you that your life is full of amazing things that can help you and others live more vital lives. Like a singer who suddenly gets found and made famous, you too have a story inside of you waiting to be told to someone.
Some people do not tell their stories because they don’t want to be seen as “narcissistic” or they don’t want to be “vulnerable” to those around them. Your story can be a gift of life for someone out their. We live in an increasingly isolated, and anxious society that needs connection and human interaction desperately. Your story can be that connection.
In learning to be counselor I was asked to explore my own story in as much detail as possible and recognize my own journey as valuable, vulnerable, and in need of recognition….by me. I learned that having a mother with schizophrenia and a father who did not finish 8th grade was a way for me to understand and connect to some people who struggled with mental illness and poverty. I learned that my stories of loss created more compassion and empathy for others experiencing loss.
I learned to forgive for things that had happened to me, as I told my story to myself first, and saw that God worked in many ways to help me to become a new person despite what I saw as significant limitations. I learned that my story when told to others helped me and God within me to be known and not hidden. It helped me to be free.
It is important to understand the sometimes telling your story will take time, and may uncover events that are hard to process due to the pain that occurred from them. I would encourage you not to give up, but to take that uncovering as a motivation to find someone trustworthy such as a counselor or pastor to work thru those parts of your story, so that you can find healing and vitality.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
but you don’t have to wait for those events to change in fact the best time to refocus is now!
6 years ago, my life changed completely; 6 years ago, I started chemo after a sudden stage 4 diagnosis. It would be an understatement to say that this kind of experience changes your focus on, and perspective about the world. I had been hurtling along thru life with work, ministry, and family obligations galore for years. I think I was pretty tired even before I hit this moment. This was a difficult forced moment of pause and a change of focus.
Maybe today you are hurtling forward with life. Busy with work, kids, spouse, ministry, school, Facebook updates 😉, volunteering all over the place, but still feeling unquiet in your spirit as if you are missing something.
Are you tired? I don’t mean that good kind of tired that says wow something really good was accomplished. I mean that weary, “ I feel like I am doing a lot with very little at the end, but more to do” tired”. There will always be seasons of the latter in life, but I hope that it is not all of your or my life.
• Can you see it or is your purpose remote or not well understood?
With this health event I started a journey, and in this journey I was confronted by the incredible need I have to focus on God.
Recently I have been given the “all clear” from my oncologist. No more CT scans every 6 months, and no more trips to meet with the oncologist every 6 months. I have felt healthy for quit a while now in reality, but there is something about hearing that it’s been 5 years, and your blood work ,and scans look healthy. With the conclusion of one journey another journey has started, but the needs are the same. I am looking for God each day whether events are going great, or there is great struggle. Whether I have cancer or I have clean bill of health.
In past seasons God could too often became my “help me cry” in moments of trouble, and not the God that I fall at the feet and worship. It takes time to be with God and time was not what I would give up in the past. In my recent relocation, and subsequent stay at home father role I have had to draw into God in a way that I probably have not engaged in since my early 20’s.
The only thing is, I am not in my early 20’s and a lot has happened since then. 22 years of marriage, 4 significant losses, 3 births, 4 jobs, 1 financial crisis, a health crisis, graduate school and seemingly innumerable smaller events both, amazing and joyful, and amazing and heartbreaking.
This year has been challenging. This school year my children have made some poor decisions which have required difficult correction. I have had struggles in this new role with being the husband, Father, and follower of Christ that is best. I have doubted the decision to move to a new town and take this new role. At the same time, I do not begrudge this season, or this decision for I am firmly convinced this has been a season of transition that was needed and God directed. My focus has changed and it needed to. I have a deeper desire for my first attentions to be oriented on God and His presence.
Brian Houston writes in “live, Love, Lead”, that when we worship God, God becomes bigger in our hearts, and “our problems don’t have any room to grow”. I want to make that choice, not to avoid my problems, but to grow closer to my God.
As little as a year ago I would spend my weekends rushing along distracted from many things that would have renewed me for my weekly work, even fulfilling my church attendance “obligation” as another check off on the to do list. I would then start the next week again, hoping that I could make a difference, but somehow feeling like “Ground Hog Day”. I was repeating the same tough role with brief glimpses of success, but with lengthy periods of struggle.
I believe that a positive difference was made, but I frequently missed the most important part of my entire life, my focus on the one that calls me. I was doing, but not seeking, surviving, but not fully living with God. My life, my achievements, my education, my career, my surviving cancer, the struggles of my home life growing up, my losses, my children and on and on, “ I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” Philippians 3:8.
These are not the things that define me. They are part of my story, my goals pointing towards my values, but it is God revealed in these parts of my life that is the real person. It is the vision of Christ in those areas of life that are tough and beautiful, successful and full of struggle that is the real life.
I believe that my need for God and His presence is never more important than at this moment because this is the moment that I have. Out of that presence great things can happen. This is the vital life.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
Staring up at the slowly eroding wall of dirt it dawned on me that this was really turning into a colossal disaster. In fact, it was a masterpiece of a failure. Have you ever had a masterpiece failure? A masterpiece failure usually encompasses the perfect amount of bad decisions coupled with the perfect amount of mistakes and misjudgments and a dash of wicked happenstance for extra saltiness. This was one of those situations.
While I wouldn’t wish a masterpiece failure on anyone and would not take lightly any such story that anyone has experienced or is experiencing I do not now regret one of my own. What came out of it produced many things of beauty, and dare I say……. growth.
It all started in early 2005 when I saw a small “for sale by owner” sign in the bushes while driving my then 2-year-old son around at 10PM to get him to just go to sleep. It was a big piece of private wooded property in the City and it was very reasonably priced (maybe a little to reasonably).
The “property” was in one of the most beautiful and exclusive areas in our town. Nestled on the Southern wooded and hilly edges of the community we called home. The property felt like it was in country while literally being minutes from downtown. With the sun and wind in the trees it felt like a Northwest Paradise. What made it even better was that the homes in the area were all large beautiful custom homes with 2 acre lots. This added to the overall attraction.
We bought it …oh rapturous joy …we were are on our way to building our dream home on a dream piece of property. The summer of 2006. We secured our building loan, drew our plans, and planned to General the job ourselves (as I had grown up in construction I had a general idea of the process). We broke ground in July of 2006 and slowly prepared our land for the foundation. Then it happened.
Have you ever been sideswiped, sucker punched, or just plain sickeningly surprised?
Well we were! After months of preparation and a very large sum of money and debt accrued we found upon excavation that the property was sitting on an “ancient landslide”.
By the way the Willamette Valley and most of western Oregon and Washington are full of them (just sayin). This of course changed everything.
We had to re-excavate, redesign a completely different house and the time that this took pushed us into the thick of the rainy season which brings me to standing in front of the rapidly eroding wall of dirt I started the story with.
Maybe you can relate to that feeling in your stomach, neck, chest, or back, when you realize wow this is really not good.
IN FACT, this is really awful and I can’t fix this. This was late 2006 and early 2007 by this point and some other events were happening in the US relating to the collapse of the mortgage market. Our bank backed out on us at this point leaving us with most of the bills for the excavation and dozens of other asundry services in our lap.
After 12 months of no movement in the process of building I was sliding deep into an anxious depression. My chest hurt everyday to the point that I went to Dr., worried that I was having heart problems.
Turned out it was stress.
We prayed and prayed, but it felt like it was just one of those moments where the only way out was to trust and move thru. I thought maybe I could see the light at the end of tunnel and hoped that it wasn’t an oncoming train. I slowly became consumed in the stress of trying to fix the problem while assuming all the bills with more debt. I lost all perspective.
One late night I sat out in the backyard and stared up at the sky, something that I started to do each night after this. I started to regain perspective thru looking at God’s creation. I realized that this was a small part of my life in the years that I would be alive and that I was small part of what I was looking at in the sky. I had been caught up in the sense of failure, the shame, and seemingly impossibility of the situation. The situation or more importantly my reaction to it was robbing me of what was valuable in my life such as my relationship with God, my family and even my vocation as a counselor.
God started to draw me back to reality thru his immensity.
I started to turn my focus back to what really mattered, and it took time.
In my brokenness I wanted to truly follow God’s design for our lives, but there were a lot of pieces to pick up. I felt stripped down and raw and that is where God met me.
Are you in the midst of a masterpiece failure situation?
Has a financial, relational, or vocational sure thing blown up in your face?
Are you in the position that feels Isolated, and alone?
The first and most important thing is that you should do is seek help! I stayed isolated and embarrassed way to long. God’s people are there to help shoulder the burden.
Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
The thing that you probably should not do is to isolate for long periods, stop doing healthy activities, or distract yourself with unhealthy activities that pull you away from what is important.
This may be professional help, it may be a church group, it may be a pastor. Most likely it will be a combination of people and groups that will help you regain your perspective and start to see how to move forward. In fact, God may open some doors in those relationships that you cannot imagine were possible.
It may seem a paradox, but I am glad to say that I can’t end this story with a quick fix miracle. The truth is that we made these decisions, mistakes happened, and part of the story did not go well, there were tears and struggle, but that was not the end of our story.
Thru this experience God was present to help us learn a great deal about ourselves, His grace and provision, and compassion for others. The “others” that I am referring to are those that find themselves in the beginning, middle, or end of a masterpiece failure.
2 years after the triumphant breaking ground and after being for sale for 6 months the neighbor bought the bare ground for the mortgage owed on it. This was the only offer in the midst of the worst recession since the 1920’s. The neighbor was only in town for one month and it was a take it or leave it situation. God was gracious and we sold it. 10 years later we have finally paid off the rest of the money we accrued in our magnificent failure and I don’t begrudge a dime of it. We struggled with the repercussions of the situation for years after and it took me over 5 years to even drive by the property without feeling horrible, but God is sovereign, and has created in me, and my family something special in spite of and because of this struggle.
God has revealed himself in ways that I may not have ever been open to sitting in my beautiful home on my beautiful property in my beautiful town.
I would not wish magnificent failure on anyone, but it seems that they can come whether we are prepared or not.
Sometimes it is someone else’s doing that has brought us there leaving us bitter and estranged feeling the weight of their failure impacting us! We are left to figure out those next steps.
Magnificent Failure can be the catalyst for transformation to have magnificent life. I do not say this lightly because there were many night, weeks, months, and years where I did not have the perspective to see living anything, but the failure. What it said about me, and my vision of the future was that I was a failure. I was not a failure….I was a person that had experienced a failure. That eroding wall of mud can be a metaphor for many things that happen to us as humans.
God has a desire for us to transcend even our most magnificent failures turning them into vehicles of newness and creativity. This is not a forced thing. I believe that God collaborates with us when we are willing to see a new perspective, experience pain, and move forward rather than avoid pain and stay stuck. Time will move forward and you can too.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
We live in world filled with the promotion of “moving on” as the key to emotional freedom. People are told to move on from one relationship to all sorts of new relationships: move on from loss, move on from a job, or just move on to a new place.
Moving on from something painful seems to have become equated to emotional health and strength. While staying still is equated with being stuck and ineffective at life.
Maybe no place is this more apparent than the concept of “moving on” from a broken intimate relationship or close friendship.
We are shown in media that “moving on” is healthy and “should” happen within a certain time frame. In seeming contradiction human observation sometimes tells us that after “moving on” many people seem to pick similar intimate partners, or friends (sometimes over and over), or repeat similar lifestyle choices leading to the same results again. One observable factor in these situations is the pressure from the broader culture to “move on” quickly. Sometimes this pressure can even come from those closest to us. All of this moving on without really moving forward with life.
When people are always “moving on” without examination, or learning, they can remain stuck in the same feedback loop of thinking, behavior, and choices without any change. They are in fact “moving on” without moving forward!
“Wherever you go, there you are” is an old-time saying with a great deal of reality based wisdom. The idea of the saying is that whatever is with you; the joys and/or internal struggles, will be there in some way even if you change your geography. This is not to say that geographical changes are unhealthy, or even unneeded (issues of safety, or leaving toxic relationships sometimes necessitates quick moves), but generally if those issues are not present, running to something is frequently better than just running away from something.
The difference is important, “Moving On” is often equated to leaving one place/situation and moving to the next. Moving forward can be likened to a struggle in one place that teaches us about moving to the next. Back in the day just ”moving on” was often referred to as the idea of the “grass being greener on the other side”.
Yea, that sounds amazing. It has been a great day of snowboarding. A triumphant return after nearly 5 years of not riding. There were miles of beautiful runs with fresh powder to ride and then, ” we should go to the massive bowl at the top of mountain?” The sun was shining, the snow was light and fluffy, the air cold and crisp. As we got off the lift at the top of the mountain, my companions said, “we have to hike to the bowl and traverse a double black diamond chute to get to the bowl”.
As I slowly slid across a double black diamond run on a narrow traverse I should have listened to the small voice whispering…This was probably not a good idea.
“Five- years off….. really old equipment…out of shape muscles, out of practice body…. snowboarding across an ice covered double black diamond run. But all I heard was untouched slopes await… the snow is so much better… let’s move on… or at least keep moving.
We strapped into our boards at the top of the double black diamond chute (a very steep snow run between two towering rocks). We set out on our traverse (crossing the chute). It was a narrow snow path beat thru the solid ice on the slope. The chute was probably 50 yards wide, but it felt like 100.
There was no hint of the soft powdered glory of the rest of the mountain here. Half way across the ice sheet, headed towards the rumored glorious powder of the “bowl”… it happened. From up above I heard “look out”. A snowboarder had fallen further up the chute, and he happened to be headed right for me.
Pause…
So what did I do?
Was this about that time that I cheated in chemistry in High School?…
Un-pause.
The chute was so steep that I was almost standing straight up and laying against the hill side. The fallen rider was now tumbling towards me rapidly, and his board hit me in the back of the head (never went again without a helmet).
My board came off our little traverse path, and I slid 3 feet down the chute fallen rider in tow, or maybe he was towing me. He let go and fell/slid 500 or so yards to the bottom, a distant tumbling mass. I think he was fine, but I did not see him again. I was now in a precarious place. Every move I made just made me slide further, and I couldn’t get my snowboard edge to hold in the ice. Moving on down the chute wasn’t looking good at all, but I still had to move on, across the chute, to my friends, and to perceived safety.
I couldn’t really move though, without sliding, and the only thing that was really holding me there was my fists punching holes in the ice, and my snowboard’s very ineffective edge.
Ski patrol had seen what was happening from the top, and apparently had been rescuing people all day from this chute.
I came to find out they were rescuing people from the” amazing bowl” as well. Patrol slid down next to me, and asked me if I needed help. I could have let my pride take over and said “no”. I wasn’t feeling really prideful about my “moving on” decision to ride the bowl that day so I said “yes, of course”. Patrol slowly made his way down to me, and assisted me by helping me to unstrap, and punching stairs with his ski boots into the ice and snow. We walked an ice stairway up and out of the chute. 15 minutes later I stood at the top looking out at Central Oregon and nursing my sore head.
I later learned from my companions that had went on to the “amazing bowl” that the entire “amazing bowl” (basically most of the top of the mountain) was a solid sheet of ice.
The messages seem to be telling you that moving on is the healthy thing to do, the beautiful thing to do. Maybe it looked greener, and you leaped to soon into something with disastrous results. Now, you find that you are in a desert or a spotty grass field? Maybe it is starting to look like the very field that you just left?
Moving forward admits that there were some things that were tough and challenging and accepts that those issues can influence future decisions. Moving forward is sometimes slow and sometimes fast.
Moving forward is not a knee jerk reaction, running from something with no clear objective, and it doesn’t lack purpose.
Moving forward doesn’t mean you have all the answers, but it does have sense of purpose to the next step.
Sometimes we need another person to step in and help us move forward in a healthy way, and sometimes we might even need them to guide us forward!
I was stuck in that chute headed for another stuck place! My life was not being held in the balance at that point, but in my mind, it was.
In my mind there was no way out (without much pain). It took someone else with a different perspective and set of appropriate skills to come along to help me see another way to move forward. “Moving on” was at the bottom of the shoot or on across to more of the same in the giant bowl.
By the way, both of my companions made it across the chute only to spend the next 2 hours slipping, sliding, and falling down the middle of the mountain top, which was covered in ice!
I could have said, “no, I got this”, and tried to get across only to find that it was probably worse. More of the same from here! I needed help and I needed to get real about where my ability and equipment level was at. Moving forward is an evaluative process. This means we have to think about what has happened, how it happened, and ways we want for our next steps; however, small to be meaningful and vital.
This could be seen as a funny campfire story and maybe seems disconnected from the more painful situations that you or I may face today. It wasn’t funny then though, and I actually stopped snowboarding for a while because of that situation. I started again though and now I enjoy it even more. How much more has serious painful loss, or other tough situations stopped people from moving forward with life?
I have lived thru many losses in life both deaths, some painful relationships, and poor decisions. I have “moved on” on my own, and the grass wasn’t greener. It took unnecessary time to learn that in those moments that “moving on” wasn’t moving forward with my life. I could’ve used “a person” to punch that stair thru the ice of my life to help me move forward, but for whatever reason I didn’t seek it.
I repeated some of the same mistakes and lived in struggle when I could have moved forward into a more vital life. If you are tempted to “just move on” from your situation think about what moving forward looks like, how it could be different, and who could help you do that.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
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