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?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you are stumped here are some helpful questions for this exercise:
What do I need more of right now?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Where do I feel I could do better with my values?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What do I need less of?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What am I yearning for?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What am I starving for?”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Who or what is causing me to feel resentful and why?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Another piece to look at is where are your actions in line with your listed Values?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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!
Blog Sign Up
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.
You can sign up from the email list at the bottom of this page or thru the side menu
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.
Sometimes I wake up and realize that I’m doing it “that way”. I recently consented to take my middle son, and his friend to ride their ATV’s in Estacada, Oregon. The day had it’s own adventures, but the real teeth grinder was the effort it took to load two large atv’s into the back of my pickup. First, they are very heavy and require Tetris like skill to make them fit due to their width and their length. It soon became apparent whilst in the house that neither my son or his friend had “the whatever is needed” to accomplish this loading task on their own. So “we” heaved and groaned each machine in to the back of the truck eventually squirreling them in, and strapping them down.
At one point while holding the front of the first atv up in the air, over my head from the side of the truck, I waited for my helpers to dutifully push the back of the atv forward in the truck bed so I could set it down. Don’t try to picture it, just think Tetris mixed with Beverly Hill-Billies. My helpers were talking and had just sort of stopped working. My son’s friend said “man your dad is a savage lifting that like that “. While I guess being a savage might be a good thing to a 15 year old, this 45 year old was getting very angry. “Push the quad forward so I can set it down” I snapped loudly ……twice….. along with some other angry grumbling (truth is I really did not want to be doing this). They immediately complied and apologized, and I retained “savage” status which has not earned me any more money to date. I got to thinking about how I had said that I wouldn’t get stressed out and snap at people about things like loading atv’s in the back of pickups when I’m an adult. Definitely, not like my own upbringing.
In many ways I didn’t, but I started to. I remembered that this brief exchange of frustration would not have been the case when I was their age and all thru growing up. Such a moment could have brought hours of anger and withdrawal from those in charge, especially if it happened at the wrong time, already stressed, time crunched, already screwed up that day, maybe you get the picture.
Growing up I experienced a great deal of anger in my home. It was by no means the worst situation for me to be in, but it resulted in struggles (and decisions) that I as person have had, and continue to face. The truth is that many people are challenged by what they experienced from their childhood and adolescence, and that result in predilections towards certain behaviors and thinking. In my home of origin , frustration and anger as a result of very real financial stress, or very real unmet expectations, seemed to be a nightly occurrence. The result was a definite resentment and fear on my part towards the source of that anger and frustration which led me to saying, “I will never be like that” .
With much prayer, discipleship ,personal work, and most importantly the power of the Holy Spirit I now don’t live my day-to-day life with the kind of anger reactions that I was privy to growing up. That is not to say that I don’t have moments when old reactions work their way out, but even then not to the degree of years ago. There is no one size fits all solution to destructive expressions of anger or any emotion for that matter. I certainly don’t hold a special super ability to address my own triggers to strong emotions with great composure each time. In the moment of loading the atv’s that I could have easily escalated to react inappropriately, yelled, or stormed into the house. I certainly felt the urge. The quality of my relationships is valuable enough to me that I have needed to learn how to manage my emotions even in the midst of more important life frustrations and challenges.
One way that can be helpful in growing away from excessive and damaging reactions, is to carefully recognize who is driving your bus (life)? Is it you driving the bus towards your values , or is it backseat drivers of pain from the past…..fear….. or insecurity just waiting for the stress to tip the balance. We each have our own set of back seat drivers who, if allowed, will steer us into infinite feedback highways… loops of behavior, thinking, and emotions…. that don’t keep our bus headed towards what is valuable to us.
Often they loudly yell, and grab for the wheel to steer back to the familiar suffering that poor behavior produces. Behavior like withdrawal, angry outbursts, isolation is certainly not an exhaustive list, but I think that it’s a start. For me, keeping my relationships with family strong, trying to demonstrate compassion, and trying to live in a disciplined way are important values I want to steer my life towards. If I am allowing frustration, stress and anger to pervade and cause me to breach my relationships thru yelling and withdrawal then I am driving in a loop back to my past. If I am using my anger to control others thru fear, demeaning criticism, or demonstrate rage slamming and throwing stuff about then I am not driving my bus towards what is valuable to me.
The back seat drivers of fear, insecurity, past pains, complacency, and pride are screaming turn here, turn here, and I can turn if I don’t recognize them for what they are…..coping mechanisms that produce nothing, but more suffering. The reality is that it takes so much more energy to pick up the pieces of what I produce in poor relating then it does to do it differently…better. I want the “better” of life.
Moving towards what is valuable can be painful and even fearful at first, that is why your back seat drivers try to tell you to go back to what you know. Avoid, distract, get big, get small, drink this, smoke that, all become ways that our passengers keep us from pain …and from growth and from life itself at times. If you stay with what you know and don’t move thru, then that pain will turn to suffering as pain pushed away usually returns; festers. There is so much more that could be written about this subject, and nothing to be taken lightly as walking thru some of this type of thing is tough work, and can involve healing from pain and trauma as well as significant relationship realignments. It is worth the work because staying the same is even more exhausting in the long-term.
What is valuable to you today? ( just a couple of things for now will do)(these are not goals they are values) Don’t let them be remote to your life!
How are the back seat drivers pushing you, yelling at you to steer you away from moving forward?
What is it costing you in energy and lack of vital living to let them push you around and steer your bus away from what is valuable to you?
What would it look like next time there is frustration, stress, or fear, to take values guided action like using a new skill to act differently?
Changes take time and energy, but so does staying the same. The first type of energy is way more satisfying.
An Excellent resource for more information and skills to steer your life towards what is valuable can be found at https://www.actmindfully.com.au/free_resources
Russ Harris is an excellent therapist and author who has highly readable and relevant material about living vitally and moving towards what is valuable..
I would highly recommend his books, “The Happiness Trap”, or “The Reality Slap” as good starting places for looking at ways to address living into your values even with back seat drivers that are loud and unaccommodating..
Also if needed find an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) based therapist or coach in your area and check them out to see if it could be helpful for you.
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.
I am easily distracted from writing things. At the same time I am constantly thinking about subjects to write about. Usually things that are related to helping people live more fully and thrive, my own experiences, ways that I think God is speaking to me, and the occasional movie script. Today, I find myself writing somewhere between the distraction of my news feed and new ideas for art.
So much has been written about the power of distraction in today’s world as if distraction is this new and powerful coping mechanism that no one knew about until smart phones were invented. It is quite amazing the level that humans will go to create and participate in distracting events. Of course there are some great distractions out there……..wait a minute you think, I thought distractions were not good. Distractions can result in loss of productivity, procrastination, internet addiction, social media time-wasting, substance abuse. The reality is that there are healthy distractions and they are a natural way of alleviating tension and stimulating creativity, but like all coping mechanisms they can have a dark side. That dark side is when distractions move from restful moments to painful avoidance.
If I am concerned about what is distracting me the first question I have to ask myself is, “what am I avoiding and why”? Obviously, if we are too distracted we miss out on life, and we can also exacerbate or create significant relational problems, lose out on what is valuable to us, or most frequently stay stuck in the same patterns of unsatisfying behavior. Distractions as avoidance can take away not only the pain, or stress of the moment, but part of our total experience of the world as well.
I learned early on that trying to look at future rewards to get thru stressful experiences worked really good (at least in the first few years). The problem was that I couldn’t keep up with the need for bigger and bigger rewards as the challenges of life grew, and sometimes I was missing out on the moment just trying to “get thru”. Sometimes a hard day, hard week, or hard month ends in an equally hard way without any momentary reward, but the journey produces something in me much more important.
If our natural tendency is to avoid painful or difficult events than distractions or avoidance can take all forms. I believe that deep within us the natural tendency is to move towards wholeness, and that is why pain or challenge pushed away thru distraction tends to come back even stronger. Much like a splinter working its way out to keep the body whole. The splinter hurts to remove, but if left it creates greater suffering. Our very Spirit is trying to work towards healing thru experiences that challenge us to grow and change. Pain will inevitably be experienced, but pushing it away will create suffering. As we experience the full range of emotions from pain to joy we start to thrive in our lives.
Think of pushing on a spring, or holding your hand over a leaking hole. It takes energy to hold the spring, and it takes perseverance to keep the liquid in the container. I may be strong, but soon I start to buckle and release the spring, or the liquid starts to leak around my loosening hand on the container. All that effort to hold back the spring, or the liquid keeps me distracted and avoidant from the other parts of my life that would be filled with vital and creative living, enriched relationships, or freedom of choice. It is suffering to keep that spring pushed in and keep the liquid in the bucket all the time. Pain unfelt creates suffering, and robs us of tremendous energy in the act of keeping it stuffed away as the symptoms of anxiety and depression tell us that there is something amiss as much as chest pain tells us of an impending heart attack.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in early October, 2012 at OHSU, the pain in my hip was breathtaking. Not being one for opiate pain killers I waited. I finally gave in and felt the momentary relief . That momentary relief was just that, momentary. My transplant Doctor walked in and told me that he wanted to do another PET scan that night to see why I was having so much pain. After the PET scan he informed me that the cancer that was not evident on the PET scan 3 weeks earlier was now back with a vengeance. He told me that to proceed with transplant at that point had about a 35 percent probability of being successful. If it was not successful then I would be on palliative chemotherapy from this point forward, and there would not be another opportunity to try the transplant. You see in order to do the transplant the recipient has to be as disease free as possible going into the procedure in order to insure that the disease is eradicated and the new stem cells grow and rebuild the patient to cancer free health. “You will have to go back to Eugene, and do a new chemo drug to prepare for another attempt at transplant in January” he said. My heart and gut sank.
All of the preparation from moving our RV to Portland, placing our children, preparing our home, leave at work, and countless little details had been suddenly thrown into the blender, and splattered on the ceiling. I had a choice. Rush to the procedure with very little chance of success, and hope it worked. If it didn’t work then live on chemo for however many years that I was to have. I would be probably be alive, but ……..? The other choice was to go thru the uncertainty of a newer chemo drug and future transplant with all of its pain or struggle, but a higher chance of success at being cancer free. I choose to try the new drug and the transplant in the future. The process would be painfully drawn out in the short-term, but would give me the best probable long-term outcome with the least long-term suffering. We went back to Eugene and waited for January. That was 5 years ago.
Many of our decisions that we make in the course of our days are not this weighted, or maybe even this straightforward, but they do hold weight. Sometimes we decide to do important actions or avoid important actions based on our fear of the unknown, and the anticipation of pain. In the process we limit and distract ourselves from all that we were intended to be. That is whole vibrant beings, experiencing life and moving towards what is valuable to us. In fact, we increase our suffering, and end up surviving, but not moving to wholeness.
I was tempted to take the first option because I was tired after 4 months of salvage chemo, saying goodbye to my kids, seeing the stress on my wife. I wanted my life back. I thought, “lets just go for it” pushing all the other implications out of my mind. Ready to sacrifice the potential of the future on the altar of the day . Foolish right?
How many times have I done the same with other parts of life that mattered, but weren’t life or death. You can only distract, push away, take the shorter less painful way so much before it doesn’t work anymore. I wanted a chance at vibrant health. I hope that if this finds you in a position of making a decision to survive or thrive that you will choose to thrive even if that is tougher in the short-term. Seek counsel, seek a friend, seek a pastor, identify what is valuable to you and what is keeping you from moving towards it. Maybe it’s not the right time yet, but if its, and fear is leading you to distraction and avoidance, then pray about identifying what that first step is then carefully move towards it.
More to come about thriving and living vibrantly and addressing avoidance of pain…….
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.
Design by ThemeShift.