Letting Go: Family Trauma And AddictionSample

Take Some Time for You

Day 3

I often hear people say “I don’t know where to start when it comes to healing.” This is pretty common when you are carrying around years of trauma and pain from your past that has not been dealt with.

If you struggle in your personal life, you may not have good boundaries in place. You might also be carrying around someone else’s baggage.

Let’s look at some areas in your life that might be out of order. First, if you are self-destructing in any way or struggling with an addiction, those are just symptoms. There is usually an underlying root cause that leads to these behaviors.

To heal, you have to be willing to make some changes. But sometimes we don’t even know what those changes are or where to begin. You can always go to God and ask for help, but sometimes you may need help in a human form until you get confident enough in your relationship with God. Not only that, sometimes you can have so much stuff going on in your head that it is hard to hear from Him. That’s why additional help from an outside source may be helpful.

I started attending a twelve-step recovery program, and I went to therapy for years. Also, I attended church on Sundays, but when I was going through my healing process and my body needed rest, I permitted myself to stay home from church and my meeting. This wasn’t an excuse to isolate—my body was asking for rest. This is called self-care and learning to listen to what your body needs. These actions were very important since I had neglected what I needed for a very long time.

I had to remain faithful to my healing and recovery process. I had to keep doing the hard work, even when it didn’t feel like it was working. This is where most people, stop or stay stuck. They don’t want to remain faithful to the things that will make them feel better. For most people it is so much easier to run back to the same comfortable environment, no matter how bad it is. Most people are used to staying stuck in their misery because it’s often harder to break away from it. You must reach a point where you are done feeling this way.

When you truly want change, you have to be willing to do something different. To heal, we must take the time and put strong boundaries in place that will support the process.

Reflection

What can be your first step in getting the help you need?

Do you have someone in your life who can walk by your side through the healing process? If not, pray about it. Ask God to lead you to the person or resource who is perfect for you!