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Exploitation for Sale

I am judging my desire for unconditional love as good.

Acknowledging and embracing my desire for unconditional love brings me closer to living life fully, one day at a time. Conversely, denying it brings me closer to living life in a bubble of delusion, one day at a time.

When I get confronted with a conscious decision regarding my desire for unconditional love, I am aware that the enemy of my soul has a primary strategy in his mission which is to kill, steal and destroy whatever moves me closer to living a life of love.  Satan's strategy involves his proposal being presented in decorated goods or theories, that will cater to what I am created to desire, because he relies on bait.  Without it, his strategy to exploit my desires towards accomplishing his mission, which is to keep me from living a life of love, are exposed.

The proposal will always be one which appeals to my desires, that is the bait.  But, it demands a high down payment.  The down payment is not in the form of money or material goods, although similar to money and material goods, it is in a form that holds universal value nonetheless: spiritual faith.  Which perception of God will I bet on being the real God when it comes to investing my faith?

There are 3 options, no more and no less:

1. the God who is for meeting my desires.
2. the God who is indifferent to meeting my desires.
3. the God who is against meeting my desires.

In each decision I become consciously aware of making, I can choose which of the above options of God I will invest it.

Investing in the God who painstakingly incarnated Himself in the person of Jesus and laid down His life on the cross to cancel our debt of sin, is a spiritually risky business.  No wonder why Jesus said few will enter in.  It requires investing all my faith in the God who is explicitly for meeting my desires, or else I'm done with because I've invested everything (all my faith) in him.

But the other alternative God-options come with covert and hidden assumptions about the Investor (person with free-will regarding their faith) that needs to be explicitly acknowledged at the same time:

• the Investor believes one can live fully without God.
• the Investor does not have desires.
• the Investor is not worth living a full life.

In my bias opinion of spirituality, I believe that believing in those assumptions above about myself as the Investor, creates pain that I would need to swallow if I swallowed the bait.  The bait entices because it appeals to meeting my desires, because it needs to disguise the lies I need to believe about myself in order to invest.

The hidden assumptions about my own self that I consent to agreeing with if I am to invest my faith in a God who is not for me or is indifferent with me are that I am defective or I have no desires, in which then the bait would not be bait in the first place and I wouldn't be drawn to it.  And there the the double-bind comes out of hiding.  The self-destructive contradiction which the sale is dependent on is exposed, this is a scam that I'm being tempted to invest in, based on a double-bind, a sly lie.


Decision-making tool:
Is this bait, or is it presenting the full picture of God and what it means to be human, revealed in Jesus?

"Exploitation for sale, 1 life a pail..."

Buyer beware, seller holds you liable for everything. no exclusions.

Spiritual Growth Centers Around a Mirror

Knowing and seeing God as he really is, (not who i want him to be, but who he really is apart from who i want him to be) is essential to knowing me.  often i discover that who i want God to be, is not far off from who he really is.  actually, in many ways, he is a better version of who i want him to be.

just as in my own childhood and young adulthood i denied certain parts of me and what i experienced regarding reality and disassociated from the truth and created my own truths or beliefs so that i could keep my parents in the parental role without fearing them or seeing how far off they were from what i really needed them to be for me.  i idealized them, out of survival.  because if i couldn't trust these people and saw them as less then perfect or strong, who would provide for me?  I couldn't do this on my own.  when they proved to be less than perfect or strong, i raged because i internalized it as me being the defective one.

as an adult in recovery, i am starting to uncover the truth, and seeing my parents as they really are, not in the lenses i needed to see them through in order to keep them in my idealized parental role.  the lens of seeing my parents or other adult authority figures as more ideal than real, is indicative of me being dependent on them for my survival.  i needed them to care for me and provide for me, so i had to see them as able and capable, and when there was any discrepancy between what I needed them to be and how they were for me, i took the blame for it.  that was the safest route i could take as a dependent child.  i can now see they are broken and wounded people who are just as prone to sin and hurting themselves and those closest to them,, just as i am.  they are much more like me than i could tolerate before, because of the power differential and dependency needs I legitimately had with them as a child.  I needed them to be so much stronger and wiser and able to guide and provide for me and my needs...simply because of the fact that i was unable to do that for myself.  i depended on trusting my parents in order to survive, and when they did things that betrayed my trust by not meeting my needs, i filled in the gaps by blaming myself.  I would reason that it was somehow my own fault, that i had done something wrong or that there was something wrong with me, and that is why I was feeling pain.

But now, as an adult.  I can see the whole picture.  I can see my parents for how they were and really are AND I can also start seeing myself as I really am, beginning with how I was as a child.  My needs were legitimate and not defective, but my parents were the only people who could provide for those needs.  They held that position, but they themselves are imperfect humans, trying to meet the perfect needs of a child, while they themselves as children, went with their own perfect needs unmet by their imperfect parents, who as children themselves had their own perfect needs unmet, because their parents were imperfect...on and on, all the way down to Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve had perfect needs.  They were not defective because of their needs.  They were created in likeness of God.  They had emotional, spiritual and physical desires that they depended on God to meet.  he alone is the perfect parent who can meet the perfect needs of his children perfectly....until sin entered in.  Sin entered in through exploiting our perfect desires and distorting ourselves as defective and in need, and that God was not the solution to our problem...the problem that didn't exist...us not like God.  It all began with Eve being told two lies, and then given a false solution to a false problem by seeing a false picture of God: a lie about herself; that she was not like God, a lie about God not wanting her to be like God, and the false solution to the false problem: eat the fruit that God said not to eat.

The way I see God is all important.  It is not just a peripheral issue.  It is central to who i see myself, which gives way to how I see others.

Just like a baby.  A baby will look to her mother to absorb her own self.  The thousands of times a infant sees her mother's face and how she feels in response to her mother's face, is forming her own identity and how she sees her own self.  Her mother is her first mirror.  She doesn't even exist yet, outside of her relationship and dance with her mother.  The primary way she will learn how to dance with her own self is profoundly wired by the way her mother dances with her in the first few years of life.  

God is like the birth mother.  The primary caretaker of an infant.  The way I see God and how he dances or interacts with me is profoundly impacting the way I see and dance with myself.  And the way I perceive, dance and relate with my own self will be replicated in various degrees with those who are closest to me.

My picture of God is all important, for I came from him.  His being breathed life into me and I am made in his image, just as a baby is made in the image and likeness of her mother and father.  god is the mother and father.

relationships are critical to emotional and spiritual health.  the relationship i have with others is directly linked to the kind of relationship i have with the different parts of my own self, and the relationship I have with the different parts of my own self are directly linked to the relationship I have with God and how I see the way He sees me.  Jesus is the face of God.  no other comes close.  any other face would be a reflection more of humans, not of God...the parent.  God doesn't want me to settle for less than when I relate with my own self, others, and that's why my picture of God is all important....

What picture of God does your mirror hold?  It has one, regardless if you admit it or not, you imitate that all the time.  Spiritual grown for me is aligning my mirror to reflect the true God back to me, and that is by staring at Jesus.

Damn Diabolical Double Binds

"Be alert and of sober mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."  - 1 Peter 5:8 niv

"We don't want Satan to outsmart us.  We know how he does his evil work."  
- 2 Corinthians 2:11 nirv

Satan is crafty.
Oxford Dictionary's definition
"clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods"
" of, involving, or relating to indirect or deceitful methods"

One of Satan's primary ways to bait us is through using double-binds.  It's a psychological strategy which fits in very well with how Satan operates and communicates.  "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."  Nobody wins.  But that is the point, since Satan already knows he is defeated.  Misery loves company.

In double-binds, there is a psycho-logical illusion that you will come out ahead by choosing one of the options the controller wants you to choose, which traps you because it's not what you really want, it is an illusion.  What you want is being used against you, to bait you.  Double binds are crafty baited traps, which trap you in and leave you with no options that truly benefit you.  Double binds are incredibly covert, and often go undetected if the unsuspecting person cannot recognize the underlying distorted and flawed assertion.

In the garden of Eden, Satan temps Eve by putting her in a double bind.  He knew she was created in the image and likeness of God, and that she enjoyed reflecting her Maker, whom she adored.  He used her desires against her, by fooling her into thinking she was missing out of getting her desires fulfilled.

At first, Satan tries to misquote God and twists His words around to portray Him as restrictive by withholding from her what she desires most; to be godly or just like her Maker because she adored Him.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"  -Genesis 3:1

The woman thoroughly corrected the serpent, thinking it was harmless at worst, or perhaps helpful at best. Imagine that, ladies!

"The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the tree in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"  -Genesis 3:2-3

She set him straight!  Or so she may have thought.  Instead, she was unknowingly giving him another chance to deceive her, and to gradually go for the kill.  She kept engaging with him, even though she had just corrected how the serpent misquoted and misrepresented God as being - a withholding jerk.  But without her realizing it, she was giving more space to the serpent to worm (no pun intended) his way into undermining her pure image or portrayal of God according to HER truth, based on HER own experience of God.  He was very subtly and covertly, yet progressively discoloring the woman's experience with her Maker.

"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman.  "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."  - Genesis 3:4-7

Time out.

This serpent just called God a liar.  He just confronted what God told Eve and injected his own twist, with God  now sitting in the liar seat because what God told Eve was not true, per the serpent.

But, he also came to Eve and served her an illusion on a silver platter.  The illusion of her satisfying her deepest desire to be like God.

This is the diabolical double bind which went undetected: she would need to mistrust God in order to be like God. 

The desire to be like God, but not to trust God because He isn't trustworthy, is the diabolical double bind.  It is damn sneaky.  If the woman desired to be like God (which she did) AND she believed what Satan was saying, then these were her options:

1. Miss out on being like God by knowing good and evil.
2. Don't miss out on being like God, by mistrusting God and by invalidating God's words and doing the only things he said not to do.

There was a third option, had the double-bind been detected.  This would have required the woman to doubt the serpent, be assertive and tell him to leave her.  This did not happen because she did not doubt the serpent, she trusted him.

Now, just as with all double binds, there is a strain of truth which gets twisted and dragged out of its proper context, therefore causing confusion.

God did know that when the woman and man ate from the tree, it would cause their eyes to be opened. Opened to shame.  Their eyes were opened to Satan's version of God, not their own that was based in their reality and experiences of God.  They exchanged their own perceptions of God for Satan's, and in doing so, were introduced to shame.  Shame's first target: their own bodies.  They were ashamed of being naked.  They were ashamed of their own bodies.  That is like living in a double bind, being ashamed of your own body.  How can one live and not be in their body?  It's impossible, but there is an illusion that people buy into all the time, bodily-dissociation, in which gives way to all sorts of ailments, disorders and illnesses on every level; physical, mental and emotional.

Back to the story....

God went looking for them, even after they sinned and ate from the tree he commanded them not to...God pursued them.  Their response?  - to hide.

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"  - Genesis 3:8-9

Sin does not separate us from God, shame does.  And sin induces shame and THAT is why God prohibited the tree's fruit from them, because they would then experience death.

Shame kills the human spirit because it separates us from God.  

Shame doesn't separate God from us, but us from God. 

There is another example of Satan trying to bait a human being, to completely thwart God's plans, but it didn't work.  The human was Jesus.  The most noticeable differences to me are the ways Jesus responded to Satan by not engaging with him outside of Scripture and he kept with it even when Satan tried to misuse Scripture as well.  He didn't explain himself or enter into debate with Satan.  He used God's words within context and being consistent with God's character.  After three attempts by Satan, Jesus told him to get lost.

"Jesus said to him, "Away from me Satan!  For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only."  -Matthew 4:10

Jesus sets us free from the lies that shame brings and leaves.

Scripture says, "The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
-Romans 10:11/Isaiah 28:16

One way to detect diabolical double binds is to ask the question:
Does this temptation or offer present me with a substitute that subtly invalidates God's trustworthiness?

If so, proceed with caution, trusted community and mindfulness that God looks like Jesus.

Downward Spiral of Shame and Sin

Shame

 Sin

Shame
Sin
etc., etc., etc.

The symptoms of believing a lie about myself and about God is palpable, it is painful.  It is shame.  My body has a physical reaction to it.  Shame is feeling bad about who I am, it's a symptom of believing a lie about my own self hood, which brings immense pain.

Shame is like a painfully malignant tumor.  If ignored, it will grow and multiply.  It's survival is based on me believing lies about myself, which produces shame, which produces pain, which produces a desire to stop the pain.  When I try to numb out the pain of shame, by depending on my own devices, it keeps the pain at bay, but only temporarily.  Eventually, the pain will present itself again because the food source of the malignant tumor is still present: a lie about God and my self.  

When I believe that I am bad (a lie) based on my own judgment or the judgments of others, not God's, I am feeding shame.  The common remedy is a more culturally accepted solution -yet a false solution to solving the root problem: believing a lie about God and myself, because I am made in his image. 

Extracting the shame by relying on my own resources introduces more sin (depending on myself and not God because I don't believe He is trustworthy) to numb its pain.  This results in further shame and hence furthering the addiction cycle or false dependency on myself in place of God, all while trying to get free from shame without trusting God's intervention is the vicious cycle of legalism and self-righteousness.

God's intervention: the Cross.  Jesus dying on the cross to cut off the root of sin, which is shame from believing that God is not trustworthy and that He is not really FOR me.  Any other intervention on this cycle of shame and sin, will miss the mark, because it depends on HUMAN effort which bypasses trusting completely in God because of believing a lie about God, that He is untrustworthy when it comes to the important things in life, and that is the foundation of sin - believing a lie about God.  To demolish the foundation of sin, which is believing a lie about God, I need to have the truth about God, which is the foundation of an effective intervention to disrupt the sin/shame vicious cycle.  God takes care of that himself by authentically revealing his own heart and character towards us, which is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The Domino Effect of Beliefs

When I believe a lie about God, I will believe a lie about myself, because I am made in God's image. When I put my faith (the actions or choices I make resulting from my beliefs) in lies, the result will be sin.

False God + False Self  = sin.

Examining the beliefs I hold about God and myself through examining my choices and feelings - particularly fear, uncovers where I am at in my spiritual journey towards wholeness and truth.

That which I claim to believe through my choices vs my words, gives a clearer picture of my beliefs than anything else.  This awareness is critical to my spiritual growth.  It aids me in recovering from delusional self-righteousness and denial, which keeps me stagnant and complacent.

Know Pain, Know Gain

"Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate pain." - Carl Jung

Pain can be the greatest gift in disguise.  It isn't just for the privileged, it does not discriminate it is an equal opportunity gift.

Neurosis is caused by believing that I need to avoid and numb my pain in order to live fully.  The way to mental and spiritual health is through feeling my pain and learning to suffer, grieve and endure it.  Neurosis the the result of me avoiding my pain so I can appear "normal".

$$$

 Dear Money, You do not own me unless I sell myself to you. Your capacity to provide for my needs is appreciated and valued, but it is also confined. You cannot provide for my emotional, relational and spiritual needs, yet you make big promises that you can. The needs you can meet for me are important, but limited. I'm putting you in your proper place, which is in a servitude role under me, not over me, one day at a time.Sincerely,Your Manager

“No one can serve two masters. The person will hate one master and love the other, or will follow one master and refuse to follow the other. You cannot serve both God and worldly riches."  - Matthew 6:24

Dancing in the Storms of Life

There is no contract between me and life that says:

"If you do everything the "right" way, life will go your way.  If it doesn't go your way, you will be entitled to a settlement which requires life to compensate for it."

Life. Isn't. Fair.
Life carries challenges.
Life gives us hard stuff and easy stuff.

I can do everything "right" and the shit can still hit the fan.

As a mother, I am equipping my children to handle all of life's ups and downs by allowing them to experience the reality of life, with all the good, bad and the ugly.  I will do my best to protect them from pain that I can keep away and teach them to keep away from, but I cannot keep all pain away.  Life has pain, it also has pleasure though.

Shielding my children from all pain is shielding my children from learning important life-lessons.  My best bet is to help them build a tolerance level for pain through teaching and modeling to them how to cope with it. I can provide modeling to my children with how I myself feel pain through grieving, and trusting my body and my God to guide the process in ways that don't involve harming myself and/or others as part of this process.

Just like me, my children DO have the right to feel angry at whomever or whatever they feel angry at.  But, just like me, they do not have the right to harm others or themselves because of their anger.

I want to teach, model and affirm these core-beliefs surrounding anger to serve as a guide in their relationship with anger:

• You CAN set boundaries with your anger without having to fear its existence.
• You CAN feel angry while NOT harming the person you feel angry towards.
• Anger doesn't travel solo, there are hidden emotions underneath it, search for them with God's help.
• If you think that expressing the emotion of anger only helps you be in control, you will be held hostage by anger.
• Being angry doesn't mean being mean.
• Anger is a normal human emotion.  It is more harmful to resist feeling it, then to allow yourself to feel it.
• You are not responsible for managing other people's anger.  Whenever you either volunteer or accept that role, expect disappointment and resentment.
• Do not hold other people responsible for managing your anger for you, when you do, expect disappointment and resentment.
• Expressing big and intense emotions of anger does not mean someone needs to be harmed by them.
• Others may feel uncomfortable in their own skin while you're appropriately discharging anger (without harming yourself or others as part of the process), and that is OK.  
• How other people feel in their own skin while you appropriately express your anger has nothing to do with you, but them.  
• Appropriately expressing anger that does not harm self or others is not culturally "normal", it is hazardous only to the ego or false-self.  
• Whenever possible, express it with those whom you trust and feel emotionally safe with.  
• If you do not feel this is possible with any of the people you are in relationship with, re-evaluate the health of your relationships..healthy relationships can contain anger without being extinguished by it.

Live well and learn to dance in the storms of life.  You CAN dance with anger, not be overcome by it.  It is something I can personally vouch for in saying it will serve you well to learn to dance with anger, not around or under it.

Emotional Baseline Earthquake

My baseline of emotional pain has shifted.  The foundations which are my own personal paradigms of how I view myself, have been shaken where I respect and value myself.  From that foundation, I can validate myself and am able to allow that truth to guide my discernment in who I go to for validation and affirmation, and who I will not accept invalidation from any more.

From my own childhood, I grew up feeling emotionally invisible and disregarded.  The less 'needy' I could get myself to feel, the better life seemed to go within my family-of-origin.  This was my normal, my relational-emotional template, my baseline that I operated from, with its foundations unchallenged or unexamined until I entered into recovery a couple of years ago, on the other side of a downward spiral.

The downward spiral was inevitable, even though I was unaware of it at the time.  I'd been surviving so long with trying to medicate my emotional needs away through pseudo intimacy and pseudo spirituality via a confining Fundamentalist Christian religion which brought me to hitting my rock bottom, just as a drug addict experiences before entering into recovery.

Feeling numb to my own emotional needs was my learned-baseline, and within a Fundamental Christian religion, it was viewed as pretty damn 'spiritual', I had it made.  My drug of choice was readily available and I was enabled through the same people who were also addicted to my drug of choice, and I enabled them in return.  It was quite a successful drug ring, it was all legal and respected by mainstream Christianity.  My dysfunction fit very well into this religious pedagogy I rigidly adhered to, and I could feed my ego with it until God intervened through a crisis of my denial's own making.  That is God's grace - saving me from my own denial in which I could not have recognized on my own.

Indifference to my unmet emotional needs and its pain felt 'safe' to me, because it was my normal...the pain was familiar.  It was not a deviation from what I was programmed to accept as "just the way things are".  My emotional thermostat was programed to hold steady at "0".  Not needing anything emotional from my relationships.  I was programmed to be OK and tolerant with not needing any emotional deposits or investments which would carry me over to above a "0".  Contributions like attunement, empathy, nurturing, validation, affirmation, affection and emotional reciprocity would have overloaded me because I was programmed to sit comfortably at "0".  While at the same time I did not receive overt negatives or withdrawals in the form of visible and obvious physical or sexual abuse.  I didn't have regular black eyes and bruises to prove my inner pain.  Neglect left me at a numb "0" - surviving proudly because I was not physically dead, but not truly alive and thriving either.  That kind of stuff was for the really "needy" people.  In my childhood, my baseline of "emotional safety" was programmed to alarm me only if I was to be dramatically physically (beat) or sexually abused (raped), neglect wouldn't register on my radar, because then I'd be in constant alarm and feeling my depravity on a regular basis.  That is the sly nature of neglect.

Then I experienced the wake-up call.  There was an earthquake through a personal and marital crises where I came to admit that my "normal" I had learned to settle for simply wasn't working anymore and that I was powerless to make it or fake that it worked for me.  I could not persist in my dysfunction by subconsciously trying to fend off these emotional needs and come off as being "super spiritual", and in an attempt to do so, sabotaging myself from getting them met in healthy ways.

Currently, I have announced I will divorce my husband of almost 10 years.  I find myself going through all the different stages of grief in a 24-hour period.  From denial, to anger, to bargaining, to depression...and even getting glimpses of acceptance, though they are still fleeting.

Right now, I am acknowledging that I've been in and out of denial.  It is so easy to fall back into being complacent through tolerating my previous "normal" emotional baseline of neglect.  Why?  -Because when it comes to the pain I feel through the particular nature of the abuse I am so well accustomed to, it is so easily hidden because it is not physically manifested to the unaided eye.  It is emotionally and spiritually visible to the emotionally and spiritually discerning person though.  The abuse I am so familiar with is covert and is emotionally/psychologically rooted in shame.  It's roots are under many thick layers of concrete denial, which requires lots of taboo-ish types of digging and demolishing to get at.  I've had a shovel in my hand for several years, as well as inviting others who have earned my trust to come along and shovel out the layers of denial, deception and bullshit along with me.

Until an abuser comes to the awareness of their own shame, and grieves with others, themselves and a loving God of their understanding, over the covert abuse they themselves received in their own childhood, it is impossible for them to see how they themselves inflict the same abuse onto others.  The abuse from having to fear their parents if they did not comply, and being punished or humiliated when trying to get their own valid emotional needs met in their early childhood emotionally stifled and crippled them, and when that wound is unattended to - the abuse cycles through to others.  Forgiveness is on the tail-end of this.  How can I forgive the abuser of the abuse which I am in denial of?  That's putting the cart before the horse.  When forgiveness is attempted to be given in order to bypass having to experience pain and grief over what happened, then I am short-circuiting myself from healing and becoming whole.  By doing so, I am unconsciously playing with kids as we play with fire.  I will prevent the cycle of abuse from being broken.  I will complicitly be passing this infected wound down to others I am in relationships with, especially my children and not excluding my spouse.  This is how I see shame and the ensuing sins getting passed down from one generation to the next, while abusing my children in the name of  "for their own good".

When I say 'abuse', I'm referring to a pattern of behavior that aims to control someone else which results in harming them.  Not only the kind of overt harm that can land you in jail, but harm that injures relationships with one's self, others and God.  I have to make that distinction because we've all been hurt and in turn, hurt others.  Abuse isn't just the presentation of hurt, or a black eye or a bloody nose.  Abuse is a pattern of behavior that usually gets denied and unacknowledged, and therefore doesn't get corrected or repaired. Sometimes abuse has only emotional wounds, but it is still abuse.  It still causes harm, and if left unhealed, they will eventually manifest physically in various degrees of presentation from addictions to other compulsive behaviors regardless of how culturally accepted they are (work, religion, codependence, being ultra healthy), and/or in some form of a physical illness or chronic pain.  That is my belief and understanding at this time, however it is evolving just as I am.  While I don't believe every single ache and pain can be exclusively attributed to a particular unhealed abuse, either by one's self or by others, I think abuse that isn't healed and remains stored in denial, contributes way more to our physical pains and addictions that what we realize.

How did I survive the covert emotional abuse, which is also known as emotional neglect, in my own upbringing?  -Through escaping the pain and trying to alleviate my suffering through compulsively entering in and exiting out of emotionally unsafe and dysfunctional dating relationships with guys who exploited me and I colluded with it because I did not know my own worth.  I knew nothing different.

My family is where the nurturing my emotional health would have most safely been acknowledged and met, albeit  imperfectly, if it is met more than not or promptly repaired/corrected when it caused harm, that is good enough.  But this was not my experience in my family growing up, in my early childhood or adolescent years.  To survive this developmental emotional needs being neglected, I had developed a compulsive dependency to be validated and affirmed by an emotionally unavailable and unsafe male who would usually sexually exploit me, while my emotional needs were being numbed out within my own family because when I tried to get them met I instead received shame for having such 'big' emotional needs in the first place.  The shame often came as a result of me trying to get my own emotional needs met when I felt hurt and angry, so I practiced self-sabotaging behaviors due to the compelling driving force of both my unmet emotional needs in combination of my parents' own denied and unconscious toxic shame from their own childhoods.

My current marriage is not working for me anymore, because of this emotional baseline shift from an earthquake of a spiritual awakening.  My current husband doesn't perceive and access safety like I do now, but rather perceives it the way I used to before this earthquake which has demolished my old self-image of my emotional needs being less than important.  I used to perceive safety in terms of primarily physical indicators.  But shame is not safe, not because of the immediate physical harm it inflicts, but because shame (which is believing I am bad) lends itself to seeking relief through sin and the shame that further ensues from sin and sin plus shame separates me further from myself and from God, and propels me further into sin and shame...until the gift that a crises can unwrap of admitting I am powerless over controlling other people, places and things in order to meet my needs and that my life has become unmanageable.

Incognito Transparency

I have gone incognito.

If you've followed my blogs before this, you'll know it's still the same author.  If not, I will write anonymously.  There is a freedom in self-reflective writing while keeping my identity incognito.  I do not do this to deceive or disguise my true self while I'm in relationships with real people.

The people who I currently trust and choose to be in closest relationships with know who I am, and they would not be shocked by my disclosures here.  I mainly do this to protect the anonymity of others who are not writing my blog, but whom I interact with because I do not live my life in a vacuum, nor do I live my life with people who are all OK with such self-disclosure, and that is what I want to honor.  This is about me and my story of reclaiming my authentic self, and not about other people, but at the same time, wanting to value the anonymity of other people.  I'm sure many will be able to relate with parts of my story here, and anonymity highlights the dynamics and principles of relationships that humanity knows well without being distracted by the identities of particular people.

My hope is that others will be able to see themselves and parts of their own story within mine, and be touched by me just being honest about my story, about my life because I believe Truth is transcendent.  But how do I come to know and see Truth if people will not be transparent enough to let it reveal it's essence and character in their own lives?  That is what steers me, the desire to help alleviate the suffering which I have experienced and have contributed to myself and perpetuated to others as well.  It's been from a fear-based control that disguised itself well as being "righteous" and "spiritual" but required hiding my own subjective truths so that I could try and claim my possesion of an Ultimate Truth.  I am coming to believe that Ultimate Truth, or this Higher Power, is perfectly capable for revealing itself/himself/herself (my Higher Power is not a human being confined to a gender) to those who are open and desiring to see and experience Ultimate Reality and Truth themselves, which requires the dismantling of shame's toxicity, not through ignoring or pretending it away, but through confronting it, stripping it down, and therefore reclaiming the truth and my dignity because that is what remains standing in the rubble - my dignity.

Please make yourself at home here.  Your identity will be kept anonymous, and so will mine.  People who know me personally will not see a completely different version of the me they interact with.  I value being consistent in who I am and how I perceive people, places and things within my own story, while also trying to discern a balance of sharing my story honestly while also honoring others in my life who do not feel comfortable living their lives with such an open-book approach because it is indeed scary and risky.

The risk is worth it to me, and this is evidence of shame's toxicity already being stipped down of its power over me.

Truth is transcendent and I want it to transcend in and through my own life, both in front and behind the 'curtain' of living as a human being.  There are two distinctions of truth, the metaphysical Truth of a Higher Power and how I am learning to relate to this Being, and there is, my subjective truth (which is equally as valuable when in a reciprocal relationship with my Higher Power) which is my truth, of which I am the most qualified and credentialed expert on and in which my Higher Power is not intimidated or threatened by when I share it explicitly, but is honored by my disclosure of it.

This blog will continue to serve as an asset for me in my own recovery from toxic shame and all the various forms and patterns it has manifested in my life.  As I see it now, my greatest liability isn't that I've become transparent in my living in terms of my own inner world, but rather it is that I deceive myself into believing I can fool others more than I can fool myself by maintaining two different personas with conflicting archetypes of what it is to be markedly human and markedly spiritual.

By living in fear of my asset of living transparently, I am feeding a corpse, an illusion of who I am - which is the false self who I've learned to create in order to survive a life that's been injected with toxic shame.  There is no escape from being human and being injected with toxic shame.  It isn't a measurement of the worth and dignity of my parents or my personal environment and relationships that impact me, which leads me to conclude that I was injected with toxic shame.  It is a conclusion I've come to make from being born outside of 'Eden', outside of Paradise or 'Heaven' which I acknowledge and validate my desire and longing to return to within as good, with the awareness and acceptance that though I cannot force my outside environment or external relationships to long and seek to return to that place or paradise, I can do that for my own self.  I can do this internally, and I either support that decision or confound it primarily through the intimate relationships I chose to participate in.

This is a journey that takes up a lifespan.  One day at a time.

Peace to all those who visit here.

The Year 2013 in Review

2013 was a year of self-discovery and growth for me in recovery.  What I discovered was my true voice, and I practiced (imperfectly but persistently) using it in ways which represented my inner-truths out of a place of equally valuing myself with others whom I otherwise felt certain degrees of shame-based intimidation if I questioned or disagreed with them openly.  I experienced trusting myself more, and therefore fearing less what other people might or might not think of me.

There was the experience of using my voice to challenge my own therapy when it resulted in painful shame and confusion, and being sidelined by a clinical director who wouldn't take me seriously until others intervened.  I also was candid about being openly concerned about another person within a leadership role of a non-profit organization ministering to emotionally/spiritually vulnerable women, which ultimately led to me voluntarily stepping down from leadership.

During this time period and shortly following it, I was receiving weekly one-hour speech therapy for a functional voice disorder MTD (Muscle Tension Dysphonia) at the University of Minnesota Lions Voice Clinic that had been formally treated and misdiagnosed as GERD, for nearly 8 years.  The exact etiology?  I may never know.  Perhaps I had trauma at birth by having my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck.  I have no access to my medical birth records in Korea to find out.  What I do know is that in my speech therapy, I learned that the way I've always functionally used my voice was in an overly strained manner.  Structurally and organically, nothing was wrong with my voice, the cause was only how I used my voice muscles when I spoke or when I constricted them to contain words and/or emotions.  The muscles surrounding my voice box had been overly strained by expelling too much energy/force, for too many years towards constricting the muscles when I was and wasn't using my voice, which led to random and sporadic strong prick sensations in my throat/voice area.  It rendered me voiceless at times and caused me social anxiety because it would often result in uncontrollable coughs, then gagging and sometimes vomiting.  It was awful.

Another likely cause of this repetitive strain injury to my voice muscles was overly using the muscles to get my epiglottis to hold back tears or strong emotions that would evoke certain muscle being relaxed in order to cry.  In short: holding back my tears was a likely cause of the MTD.  I had to re-learn how to breath and relax and trust my body.  I had to learn how to relax my muscles when speaking, breath differently while speaking, and how to speak louder without overly constricting my voice muscles.  I also learned how to relax my voice muscles should I ever have another episode of the throat pricks from hell.

It has been over 6 months since I had an episode.  Even though I am using my voice to say what I wanna say, I am using a lot less force and a lot less restraint in order to not say what I want to say.  Metaphorically and literally speaking (no pun intended), I've re-learned how to use my voice in ways that are healthy to my body, heart and soul.

In 2014, I hope to keep using what I've learned in using my voice so I don't find myself overly restrained by trying so hard to hold words and feelings in, and then forcing them out to get relief when the sum total is more than I can contain and also be healthy.  A certain amount of emotional and verbal containment is healthy, but I was over and beyond that limit, for who knows how long.  I also want to learn through practice, when to use my voice and when it's time to give my voice a rest, because no matter what I say, how many times I say it, or how loud I say it, I am not being heard and it has nothing to do with my voice.  I am more open than ever in discovering other choices I have when this happens and then to make them accordingly.

A pivotal lesson I've learned in 2013 isn't how to just physically make my voice function better for me, but rather to see and acknowledge that my voice is a powerful yet delicate instrument (physically and emotionally) in displaying how I value my own self while in relationship with others, including my own self.

Welcome 2014, I am excited to see what you will bring forth out of me.

Abuse in Disguise

"but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" - Luke 22:48

I am coming out of the closet and will no longer remain silent, while I feel like I am being killed softly and by the 'well-mannered' effects of emotional and psychological abuse.

What kind of emotional or psychological abuse do I live with that is most harmful?

Gaslighting and invalidation from others neglecting their soul's wounds from shame, and therefore redistributing its stench to others.

I believe that all forms of abuse; physical, verbal, spiritual, sexual, emotional, financial etc. is a redistribution of shame.  Is there any hope of stopping this?  -Yes.  When I am willing, one day at a time, to do the work of recovery and healing from wounds inflicted to my soul by shame.  This can be a powerful antidote and preventative measure from shame being redistributed to the next generation and those I walk with today.

These emotionally/psychologically abusive tactics are silent, invisible and insidious.  It is a very passive and covert way of inflicting harm on another.  A certain amount of trust has been established, though in my new awareness, this trust hasn't been earned but granted based on the law of familiarity.  This kind of 'trust' which is the only kind of trust I thought existed is easily established because it feels familiar.  It's an either/or black/white, all-or-nothing type of trust; either I trust myself OR I trust the person I'm in a convoluted relationship with.  There is a polarizing conflict between each person's interpretations of motives, intentions, actions, words, nonverbals and other behaviors.  To choose to trust or believe myself is to doubt the other person and their purported motives/intentions.  To choose to trust or believe the other person's reality is to invalidate your own.  There is little, if any room for the grey area that make adult relationships sustainable, or negotiable when conflict arises.  This is the painful double-bind; damned if I do, damned if I don't.  There is a gripping sense of discord, disharmony and dissonance.  Nobody wins.

The experiences and interpretations of each person's experiences can become a growing threat to the relationship and to each individual, unless there is a successful intervention towards reconciliation.  Reconciliation cannot take place unless there are two willing parties who come to the table to work towards healing and reconciling with a non-negotiable agreement to tell the truth and be honest.  When defensiveness is active and isn't owned (aka. denied) and sedulously explored by the one who is on the defense; rigorous honesty is greatly undermined.  Agreeing and following through to intentionally and consciously tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a non-defensive way is vital.

In much of my own experiences, the effects of gaslighting aren't easily detected because of its covert nature.  Intimidation isn't overt, there often aren't threats made of what they WILL to do harm you, instead, the tactics are implemented immediately through cutting off an emotional connection in an intimate or personal relationship through withholding, stonewalling, minimizing, invalidating (passive-aggressiveness) usually out of them being convinced that they are the victim of your "abusive" or "nasty" behaviors.  While you may have expressed your anger in a flammatory or inappropriate manner, it is visible and overt.  Is is pretty obvious and not hidden, it isn't being disguised and therefore easily denied.  That does not justify it or make it more OK, it is still harmful, but you will likely NOT get away with it as easily as the more passive-aggressive emotionally and psychologically abuse forms involves.  Therefore, you will more likely be held accountable and exposed for your harmful behavior than the one who induces the subtle and passive-aggressively harmful tactics.  That is the difference I'm highlighting here; their presentation/visibility factor, not their 'OK' factor.  Neither are OK, neither are without harm.

The harm and abuse is real, but its evidence and traces are more hidden and subtle.  Abuse that's isolated to being inflicted emotionally and psychologically are the best kept secrets when it comes to abuses' tricks of the trade.  Sadly, this type of abuse often continues much longer because of its indistinct concrete nature, unlike physical and verbal abuse (which are not OK either), it doesn't get recognized as abuse.  Denying it by both parties is a very common and crafty self-deception.

The behavior that warrants their withholding or protecting themselves from you is that you're not complying with an unspoken or implicit agenda that the person has with you.  The agenda or request is not explicit or fully disclosed.  Scattered fragments perhaps, but not the whole entire expectation or agenda.  I think it's either from a conscious decision (voluntarily) or an unconscious decision (involuntary).  Usually after the confusion between whether or not the unspoken or vague nature of the expectation/agenda is a conscious or unconscious one is confronted, it then becomes apparent if it is out of either unconsciously unresolved shame, or consciously resolved denial.  Big difference, little similarities.

I think everyone has a varying degree of unresolved shame.  It just comes with the territory of being human and living in a beautiful but broken world.  But, what also comes with the territory of being human is the ability to consciously make a choice to either accept or deny someone sharing their truth of how they experience you as they're in an intimate or personal relationship with you.

It makes it a hell of a lot easier to accept hard truths about oneself when they are delivered in a non-inflammatory applicator, or from a respectful and gentle tone.  But it is also a hell of a lot easier to deliver hard truths in a non-inflammatory applicator, or a gentle tone when it can be trusted to be received and sincerely considered, while getting beyond defensiveness if needed, because of notable experiences with this person, which leads to believing that they highly value truth, humility and growth within their relationships with others.

"It is better to correct someone openly than to have love and not show it."
-Proverbs 27:5

"The slap of a friend can be trusted to help you,
but the kisses of an enemy are nothing but lies."
-Proverbs 27:6

"When you are full, not even honey tastes good,
but when you are hungry, even something bitter tastes sweet."
-Proverbs 27:7

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire

"So each of you must get rid of your lying.  Speak the truth to your neighbor.  We are all part of one body.  Scripture says, "When you are angry, do not sin."  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.  Don't give the devil a chance."  - Ephesians 4:25-27

When (not if, but when) I am angry, I don't want to sin.  What is one very common way that I sin when I'm angry?  -Denying that I am angry, through first lying about being angry to myself and believing I am "above" getting angry, then lying to others and God out of successfully deceiving myself first.

The way I can get rid of my anger is by admitting I am angry.  It is not sinful to be angry.  It is however, sinful and therefore spiritually, emotionally and physically unhealthy and pernicious to lie about being angry, to myself and others.  When I deny that I am angry, I am lying to myself and others out of fear which is stemming from a lie, that says: "I am my feelings."  When I lie to myself, it doesn't take long to successfully deceive myself, and this gives the devil a chance to exploit me with my permission.

A good bedtime ritual is to practice self-examination and see if there are any lies I'm telling myself about my feelings, including especially when it comes to anger.  Denied anger will backfire.  It may not set my pants on fire, but I will get burned somehow.

Am I angry?  If so, tell myself the truth about it.  This is a form of "spiritual fire prevention".  It prevents me from giving the devil a chance to operate in my life with my passive yet complicit consent.  Instead, I am acknowledging the truth, which is necessary for being set free.

"Then you will know the truth.  And the truth will set you free."
- John 8:32

Judgement Disorder

When I confuse my identity and role with God's regarding judgment, I suffer from judgement disorder.  The primary symptoms I've noticed from this pervasive and insidious disorder are shame and/or pride, along with fear of doing life without operating from this familiar disorder.  Most of my life as I've known it, has been lived in submission to this disorder.  Living with its symptoms is all too normal.

The root of this disorder is based in believing a seemingly insignificant and harmless lie.  Why else would I not want to run like hell away from the root cause of this disorder?

The lie:  I am no different than God as far as knowing what I need to know to judge like God.

When the resulting symptoms of shame/pride (two sides of the same coin) along with fear are since accepted because they are so damn familiar, I settle myself short, without ever knowing it.  Any hope of healing from this judgment disorder and its nasty symptoms of shame/pride and fear will remain out of reach.

To believe that I am like God when it comes to judgment, is how all sin is perpetuated, which usually gives way to more judgment of myself and from/towards others, which gives way to more sin.....the crafty serpent's little lie was that we could be like God, knowing good and evil (judgment) if only....I eat from the proverbial fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil  (judgment).

"God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!"  - Genesis 3:5


The truth:  I am in God's likeness because I am human.  Period.  When I feel tempted to judge (others or myself) because I believe I am defective as is, I am believing a lie.

"So God created human beings in his image.  In the image of God he created them.  He created them male and female."  - Genesis 1:27


Judging as if I am God isn't needed to make me feel better about myself.  In fact, it is poisonous and strictly prohibited by God.

The remedy for judgment disorder:  Showing mercy to the one(s) I judged, including myself.

"Those who have not shown mercy will not receive mercy when they are judged.  To show mercy is better than to judge."   - James 2:13


"God is the only Lawmaker and Judge.  He is the only One who can save and destroy.  So it is not right for you to judge your neighbor."  - James 4:12


"Don't judge others, or you will be judged.  You will be judged in the same way that you judge others, and the amount you give to others will be given you."  - Matthew 7:1-2



The vision of my own spiritual life's direction involves recovery from judging myself and others as if I am God, one day at a time.

Affirming What Is...

• I can trust myself and others when I acknowledge and do not deny what I know, see, feel and hear.
• I acknowledge that I may never be totally without pain and suffering AND I can learn to protect and nurture myself.  The two are not mutually exclusive
• I can take care of myself and it won't kill others.  
• My self-care is my business and my business will go bankrupt if I rob myself of self-care.
• My feelings have equal value as other people's; not more and not less. 
• Other people's willingness and capacity to accept and love me for who I am is not my business to own.  I am not responsible for running other people's businesses.
• I can function even when I'm scared.  I can be scared and uncertain, and still be OK.
• I can pause while feeling strong emotions, I do not always need to act immediately.  
• I can know when it's better to just sit in my emotions and ride them out, before acting on them.
• I know how my insides work best; what I need, what I perceive, what I intuit....when I listen and honor myself.
• I need to admit how much I needed them, before I can let go of needing them now.
• I can tell my shaming inner-parent, "Your message has been received, now shut-up!"
• In recovery, I can separate and individuate while still showing up for myself.  All else will follow.
• First things first.
• My trust in God, myself and other safe people will grow.
• I no longer need to live in denial, because God has my back when it comes to acknowledging hard things.
• The more awake and present I am in the moment, the better I can take care of myself and others when I consciously choose to do so.
• My emotions cannot kill or harm anyone else, ever.  My actions, however; may or may not.
• I can take ownership of my choices and feel empowered with the self-awareness I gain from doing so.
• I can hear criticism from others and perhaps extract beneficial information for my own recovery, without absorbing shame and unwarranted guilt.
• Most decisions I make are not life or death (even if they feel like it).
• If I'm having self-destructive thoughts, I can ask how my heart has been missed.
• My inner child has wounded/injured parts as well as healthy/strong parts.  I can respect both.
• My pain is all I need as proof that I am hurting.
• I can learn to trust myself and ask for what I need.
• I can choose whom I will and will not let into my inner life.
• I can stop giving away my power to others out of fear, and take steps towards reclaiming my personal power.
• I can be present and sincerely listen to another share their raw pain and anger, without having to take responsibility for fixing or rescuing them from feeling their pain.
• I can always listen to my inner-child.
• Feeling deep abandonment pain is not self-hate or self-pity, it helps heal my inner-child.
• I can see that I have many options and choices.
• Getting well and becoming whole is the sweetest revenge!

for more, click here

X-Rated Manual for Mature Men

If you cannot take things in gist at the moment, please come back later.  This is shared in all seriousness with some sarcasm, because sometimes I find that life is easier to talk about when sarcasm is used.  Right or wrong, tis what it is.

If you are a man and are feeling gypped when it comes to the quality and quantity of sex within your marriage, and you're open to getting advice from a woman who will tell you like it is, read on.  Perhaps you'll find this helpful.

Nobody is making me do this (or not do this) other than myself.  I do this feeling compelled to do what I can for happiness to be realized within marriages, be it ever so unorthodox.  It's a battle, for both genders.

Perhaps many Christian men are already getting this information from their Christian brothers from another mother.  I have a little hunch that this isn't always the case, as much as I had assumed.  Just as men don't typically seek out mental health or physical health screenings as often as women, consider this posting a free and private service.  This is gonna come from a "sister" from another mother's perspective.  An unorthodox one, but take it or leave it.  I ask that you please receive it as coming from a sister in Christ.

If you want to enjoy your wife while she enjoys having sex with you, then the first body part you need to become well acquainted with is her brain, not her vagina or her breasts.  You see, the key to activating her sexual desire isn't by pushing some secret button in her genital area.  That knowledge can come in useful, but first things first.  Understand her brain and how her heart (emotional sanctuary) operates first.  Do not forget, as much as our sexually "liberated" culture propagates, she is as much a sexual being as you, but is hardwired differently.  God has created her to enjoy ecstasy and pleasure just as much, and if not more, than you.  She has been hard-wired to have the ability to have multiple full-body orgasms.  As for you -just one, then you're done.

Her sexual arousal which she's also been gifted to have and enjoy within her marriage, is something that isn't activated the same way yours is.  Generally speaking, she is not as primarily visual as you.  All women vary, just like men do, but generally speaking, she will not become sexually aroused by what her eyesight lets in alone.  Her major sexual control panel is not the incoming signals that register mainly through her eyesight, but what incoming signals get registered through her insight and her no bullshit intuition, which can be hugely understood by studying under her hood - her heart, her emotional sanctuary - the CEO of her body chemistry.

Without getting scientific, because I am not a scientist, sex-therapist, marriage therapist or anything of the sort.  My credentials are in being married for nearly 10 bumpy years and somehow managing to get through the school of hard-knocks that my marriage experience has been.

Your wife is not as complex as you, or she, may have come to believe.  Let's not call her "complex" if it's really your resistance to go the extra mile to activate her sexual arousal.  Perhaps that isn't your case, so then just skip over that..it doesn't apply to you.

First things first:
Pursue her.
A woman is attracted by a man whom she can respect.  She will not find herself sexually desiring a man she doesn't truly respect.  A man she can respect is a man who is confident in himself.  I'm not talking about pseudo-confidence that acts like he doesn't "give a rip" about what she thinks and won't be a "yes ma'am" man.  That isn't confidence, that is denial.  Remember, she has an uncanny intuition that detects bullshit.  If you struggle with confidence, it is much better to come clean with her and then do something about it, then to deny it.  A woman finds it nearly impossible to respect a man who lives in denial and is a master of his own deception.  Sorry, but it's a passion-killer; a man in denial.  No matter how well he can articulate, analyze, intellectualize or spiritualize his denial; it will likely register on her intuition control panel if she's practicing walking in tune with it.

Pursuit doesn't mean a few safe-tries with little risk to the ego, then calling it quits.  A man who respectfully pursues, yet persistently does so from a place of authentic confidence is VERY hard for a woman to resist.

If you find it hard to pursue out of an authentic confidence, admit it to yourself, God and another brother.  There is some needed repair, recovery and healing needing to take place.  Nothing can substitute that.  There is no shame to be had in this.  Women need to confront this just as much as men do.  The more you acknowledge and take ownership of this recovery process, the more confidence you will gain - and that will register on her radar.  This is where authentic brotherhood is so vital.  She cannot repair this for you.  She can support you in this process, but this is where you need men to walk with and guide you down this journey, because they know what it's like as a man.  It takes humility to accept this, and humility is much more attractive than foolish pride.


To be continued......

The woman answers,

"Among the young men, my lover

is like an apple tree in the woods!

I enjoy sitting in his shadow;

his fruit is sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banquet room,

and his banner over me is love.

Strengthen me with raisins, 

and refresh me with apples, 

because I am weak with love.

My lover's hand is under my head, 

and his right arm holds me tight."

- Song of Solomon 2:3-6

reLationaL interventions

When a relationship has sustained an injury, which acknowledgment by the injured party alone is insufficient for keeping the relationship well intact, a loving intervention is often the next best step in trying to restore the fractured relationship.  I am starting to see a new principle and application brought to light in Matthew 18:15-17 that I have not always seen before.

"If your brother sins against you, go to him.  Tell him what he did wrong.  Keep it between the two of you.  If he listens to you, you have won him back.
"But what if he won't listen to you?  Then take one or two others with you.  Scripture says, 'Every matter must be proved by the words of two or three witnesses.' (Deuteronomy 19:15)  But what if he also refuses to listen to the witnesses?  Then tell it to the church.  And what if he refuses to listen even to the church?  Then don't treat him as your brother.  Treat him as you would treat an ungodly person or a tax collector."
- Matthew 18:15-17 (NIRV)

Matthew 18:15-17 gives me a clear and practical blueprint by Jesus in how to approach relational interventions.  The goal is to restore the fractured relationship.  If I am the wounded party, this involves me having the willingness to be humble and vulnerable with the person who hurt me and that I'm in relationship with.  As far as whether or not this blueprint should be applied to all people I feel significantly hurt by, or only the relationships where I want to risk being vulnerable in because they matter enough to me - that is up for each person and each unique situation to be discerned.  I don't see it as a one-size-fits all outfit for all conflictual interactions.  Conflict between humans is too complicated to be given a one-size-fits-all formula.

Once it has been decided that doing a relational intervention is the next best thing, I can apply this blueprint.  I do this by me being the one to show my wound to the person who has caused it, just between the two of us.  It is a linear line from me to them, not a triangle of me going to a 3rd party and that 3rd party going to the offender instead of me.  Triangulation easily proves to be malignant.  If I feel the need to discharge lightening bolts of emotional energy before going to the offender that I am trying to win over, I do not see any danger in me going to one of my friends whom I trust and who won't be placed in a conflict of interest by providing me with their empathy and a shoulder to cry on.  Many times these friends will help me get clear so that I can go directly to the person I am in conflict with.

This is the L-shape concept.

But when that 3rd party person does what I myself am to do first, it draws a third line which can easily detonate the triangulation bomb.

If I go directly to the offending party and show them my wound, just between the two of us, and they will not listen to me, I am to kick it up a notch.  Not 10 notches, just one.  By the way, there is a difference between hearing and listening, one is a passive function which is involuntary (hearing) unless you're hearing-impaired, while the other is a proactive skill that requires voluntary action (listening).  For a good article on the difference between hearing and listening, click here, or for a much shorter explanation, click here.

I can seek out others for support in trying to win over this person, and preserve or restore a relationship.  The point is to win this person over, not coerce them.  Who are the best people to seek out when I'm trying to kick it up a notch?  I think they will be people whose voice matters to the person I am trying to get through to because of their authentic relationship with the offending person.  They will have a trusting relationship with the offending party where emotional safety and integrity are valued.  - BTW - we all take our turns in playing the role of the "offender", the "offended" and "the witnesses", we are all fair game.  This is not a court-hearing or a litigation.  This is a relational intervention that seeks to bring restoration or reconciliation, not "justice".  Nobody needs to play the role of "Judge" or we would all be hypocrites judging one another.

Now, if I have no access to people who will go with me, and will be a substantial voice to the offending party, I am short-handed which places the relational intervention in jeopardy.  I guess I am to do the best with whatever I have to work with.  This is why doing life within a shared-community is so vital, I am just now realizing this.  In American culture where we normalize idolize "independence" to our own downfall specifically within our closest relationships, this is presenting as a subtle but harmful ripple effect of over-appraising independence; the loss of a shared-community to support us in relational interventions which have real potential for bringing forth reconciliation.  I guess that is why our mental health field is burgeoning, as well as our addictions, inside and outside of the church.  We have a shortage of loving shared-communities, they are an endangered asset, while our independence is proving to be more of a liability than an asset.

If I do have the rare benefit of a shared-community to support me in doing relational interventions, and I take one or two with me (whether it's done literally or figuratively) as long as the message is congruent, not all the physical bodies need to be there I suppose, I am well equipped.  I am setting myself and the offending person up, as best as possible, to result in reconciliation.  I am after a win/win result.  Being well supported or well-equipped though, doesn't take away another person's free will to choose to listen or not.  If they still do not listen to me, or the witnesses, this blueprint given by Jesus instructs me to kick it up yet another notch.  Go tell more people within this shared-community, and go to the offender with the same message, yet with the presence of more people.  If this still doesn't result in the offender listening to this message, I am to surrender the wound in this relationship from being repaired by the offending party, which redefines the whole relationship by changing the context it is viewed and operated from.

Why?  - Because I'm giving up on this person and don't care about them because they won't listen to me?

No.  Because I am adjusting my treatment and expectations of this person to fit the context which is to match how I am being treated by the other person.  I am to acquiesce in a sense, after doing all I can including reaching out for outside help from my community.

"Then don't treat him as your brother.  Treat him as you would treat an ungodly person or a tax collector."  

The context is now changed to acquiesce to the offender's will which is demonstrated through their behavior in response to you following the blueprint in Matthew 18.  This is not a reciprocal relationship.  The other person is not reciprocating my efforts or mirroring back my will/desire for the relationship to be mended, so I am to respond by respecting their will, not trying to win it over anymore.  I am to surrender my will for the relationship by stop trying to get them to agree with my will, when they will not.  This person still has value and worth, but the relationship is now redefined with their actions leading the way, not my will.  I am to love them and respect their own choices, without confining myself to relying on trusting someone to reciprocate what they will not reciprocate in order to repair a wounded relationship that isn't needed to be repaired in order to follow legal obligations only (i.e. paying taxes).

Where does marriage fit into this?  Ya got me, kid.