Choices

This is a Prison of my Own Doing

I bought the lie this meme states: there is no healing from emotional abuse.

I’ve actually allowed this lie to dictate most of my life. The problem with living this lie, is that it creates more lies and infiltrates even more of your life, including your health.

There CAN BE healing from emotional abuse, but just like overcoming an addiction, it’s a choice.

The challenge, though, is you will have to break free from the bondage this emotional abuse has created and you have endured.

Is it easy? No

Is it possible? Yes

But you have to do some very hard work.

Another challenge is realizing that many times we like living in our own prison of our own doing. What do I mean?

The abuse is no longer there, but we act like it’s an ongoing thing. We have to change our mindset. We have to be willing to walk out of the prison into the free world. We have to be willing to say, no more does this define me or define my tomorrow.

We also have to learn that just because someone says something with a certain tone or uses a certain phrase, and it triggers a response from a time when the abuse happened, it isn’t necessarily emotional abuse, nor intended to be abusive, it just is just something that happened.

Are these real responses and do they need to be dealt with? Yes, but as you are healing you have a choice! I have a choice!

The problem is we have bought the lie that we don’t have a choice and there is no healing from emotional abuse.

3 things you need to know to be successful

I asked my dad a few months ago to teach me how to be successful. In reality that was not the question I intended to ask but that is how I framed it.  His answer was quite provoking to the point I have thought, prayed, and journaled quite a bit about it for many months.

His answer was “I can’t teach you to be successful. ”

I was actually quite offended by his answer because he is very successful in business.

“Why can’t you?” is what I wanted to ask as a follow-up question but instead God had me dwell on those words to make me realize “my dad was right”. 

He CANNOT teach me nor anyone else how to be successful.  To be successful in anything starts with a paradigm shift

First, you have to want to change.

Second, you have to see that you are worthy of being or doing something different.

Third, you have to put in the hard work

Turning your life around is not only hard but it is scary.

Why is it scary?

Because change requires effort.

Change also requires responsibility.

The other day I saw a status on Facebook and it was saying that this person was upset because they found out that their life was going to change and the very next thing was “I did not sign up for this.” Let’s just say, you play with fire you will get burned. Maybe not the first time but negative behaviors will result in bad consequences.

So change requires effort.  It requires responsibility, but change also requires that you are no longer the victim in the equation.

When I teach, I tell people that as long as they have breath in their lungs and they are NOT a complete invalid, where someone else is required to care for them 24/7, then they can change.

But there is a challenge when you have never done life without an addiction. An addiction is anything that keeps you enslaved to something or a behavior. Or maybe you have never done life without having a relationship, even when it is toxic (poisonous up to death) and dysfunctional (not operating as it should).

So if you want to have a different tomorrow, it starts today with a choice and tomorrow with the follow through.

It’s your choice

Shut Up B*#ch

Mom, I don’t understand. Why did you smack me? Those are the words he calls you. Why can’t I call you that?

Mom. I don’t understand. I just said the words he said. You know that guy who you told us to call dad. You know the one who yelled from his car as he drove by with another girl in the car.

Mom, I don’t understand. Why am I now in time out for telling that woman to shut up? I just used the words you used when that other girl from the car started talking.

Mom, why am I locked in my room? Do I embarrass you when I tell people shut up? I’m just using the language I hear others use when they are talking to you and the language you repeat back.

Mom, knock it off, you’re embarrassing me. Don’t you know I am just practicing for when I grow up and get me a baby mama like you. You know the one; the one where I can tell her what to do, call her names and then when I show back up, she’ll let me in. I’ll do all those things to her you let me watch on TV. I’ll treat her the way your music teaches me to treat the babies mama. I’ll treat her just like all those guys treat you.

Mom, and dad, your kids are watching. They hear what you hear. They see what you see. They do what you do.

If you don’t think kids are watching you then why did Rodney Atkins write a country song about it? This song spent 4 weeks at the top of the county music chart and was song of the year in 2007. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Atkins)

Driving through town just my boy and me
With a happy meal in his booster seat
Knowing that he couldn’t have the toy
Till his nuggets were gone
A Green traffic light turned straight to red
I hit my breaks and mumbled under my breath
As fries went a flying and his orange drink covered his lap
Well then my four year old said a four letter word
That started with “s” and I was concerned
So I said son now where’d you learn to talk like that

Chorus one

He said I’ve been watching you dad, ain’t that cool
I’m your buckaroo, I wanna be like you
And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are
We got cowboy boots and camo pants
Yeah we’re just alike, hey ain’t we dad
I wanna do everything you do
So I’ve been watching you

(http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rodney_atkins/watching_you.html)

Parenting is much more than having sex, and having an egg and sperm unite. It is a long term relationship with a child who is expecting you (the parent) to teach and train them to love, to serve, to become a productive member of society.

But just like everything in life, there are choices and consequences. Are you making the right choices? And if the answer is NO, then maybe you need to ask yourself this question:

Do I really want to be a parent?

If the answer is NO, then maybe you should call someone and make arrangements for someone else to raise your children. Because if you don’t, the streets will, and I can guarantee you won’t like those results.

If the answer is YES, I want to parent. Then decide today to get the help to make the much needed changes.

But for a lasting change the first call needs to be to Jesus. He needs to be the King, the Lord and the Savior of your life.