How Can I Get On Track?

By Susan Mitchell

Even when you are at your stickiest impasse, here are some things you can do on your own to break through or at least survive. 

Cultivate friendships. We all need people who give us time and attention, love and affirmation, a respite of fun and humor. Find those people and cherish them. Practice the art of appreciating them. Exercise or camp outdoors, eat and drink together, pray for each other, borrow things from each other, join a service group or small group together. 

Gratitude journal. Watch for and capture in two sentences the good that you find in every day. Focusing on these moments and verbalizing them has been shown to rewire your brain — in a better way! The Greater Good Sciences Center (link to https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/what_we_do/major_initiatives/expanding_gratitude) agrees, noting that "people who practice gratitude report fewer symptoms of illness, including depression, more optimism and happiness, stronger relationships, more generous behavior, and many other benefits.” This is not a new suggestion. 2000+ years ago, Paul told the church, “Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always” (Philippians 4:8 TPT). The nice thing is that when you appreciate God, you open yourself to hearing him speak back, such as in dreams.

Dream journal. As soon as you wake up, write down any dream or images you remember while sleeping or drowsing. Personally, I don’t believe in pizza dreams. Just about every dream I’ve interpreted had significant meanings attached. In fact, I get a lot of life direction from my dreams. I started practicing the decoding of my own dreams by using an amazing, Bible-based compilation of symbolic interpretations called The Divinity Code. (link to http://thedivinitycode.org/) This gave me a way to start tuning into God's voice, to learn the good plans he had in store for me. It’s also helpful to discuss solve these together with a friend and your helper, the Holy Spirit.

Music and art. We will talk more about the parts of our heart, but for now let me say that some of us need music or art to get past our own guarded walls that block out tenderness and intimacy and keep us numb and hard. Music and art somehow bypasses all that to speak directly to our emotions. So spend time at art museums, concerts, and lengthy worship experiences where you can just relax and soak. If you’re in worship and you sing all the time, let the functional/doer part of you take a break so God talk to you through the music and lyrics. You might hold a question for him in your heart or a problem you can’t solve. Just hold it and let him highlight truth or show you images as you wait on him. You can draw your feelings and questions and his answers, too. Listening, writing, drawing, painting are all modes of discovery and connection.

Life! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

By Susan Mitchell

A friend of mine who is both a doctor and an engineer once told me, “It’s not a surprise that people are born deceased in utero or with defects. The miracle is that with all the complexity involved in the nine months of gestation that they ever arrive into the world with all their organs and appendages intact and able to kick, breathe, scream, eat, and poop!” 

And it shouldn’t be a surprise that we end up as tweens, teens, adults, and seniors with an ever-growing list of life-altering traumas. 

Even in the womb, some fetuses can absorb the trauma of hearing parents yell and believe they’re unwanted, or suffer from alcohol, drugs, or poor nutrition coming through the umbilical cord and feel the world is an unsafe place. If you resonate with that kind of rejection, abandonment, mistreatment that goes back even longer than you can remember, you might want to learn more from the https://cfreedomlife.com/freedom-quest.html psycho-theological videos on Conception, Intra Utero Development, Birth Part 1, and Birth Part 2. 

In infancy and toddlerhood, there can be all kinds of attachment issues. These may not even be what we consider abuse, that is, Trauma B for BAD things people do, like physical, sexual, or verbal abuse. They could be all the ways we simply didn't get what we should have gotten, that is, Trauma A for the ABSENCE of good things like hugs, affirmations, good nutrition, attention, and so on. Professionals believe Trauma A can be most confusing and damaging for our self-image because it’s harder to realize that the absence of good things is not normal, especially when people dismiss the pain: “Oh, that’s not so bad. Suck it up!"

As tweens and teens, life can feel so emotionally charged that we almost universally make some sort of vow of stoicism, and then as adults we wonder why we don’t feel anything. Then there’s the sense of FOMO fueling a brand of anxiety that is afflicting the current generation as never before, and leading to inwardly self-destructive behaviors or outwardly damaging attacks on their social spheres. 

Then adulthood brings on all sorts of responsibilities in various circles of influence. If we haven’t properly addressed the issues of the first 25 years, we may relive it and inflict it on others, or receive continued traumas that perpetuate the patterns we still see as normal. As adults, we have more power and resources to hurt each other, so betrayals and unfairness may be perpetrated on us if we don’t learn how to dismantle the structures that keep us in stuckness. 

Finally, retired seniors have time to kill, freedom to do whatever! But so often in the transition from the structure of work to the openness of home, our identity, purpose, health, resources, or connections get compromised, and we lose our way and our momentum. 

So, lots of things can go awry in life, and we have experience with tools, processes, and resources that address many of them. You can get unstuck. You can learn new ways of living in freedom. We can help.

Why Do We Do What We Do?

By Susan Mitchell

We are people like you. 

We have been wounded by life events and people. Our hearts have shattered, and we have responded with all of the human emotions of helplessness, hopelessness, grief, fury, revenge, pride, bitterness, disgust, fear, and self-loathing. We have made vows to avoid this or that person, situation, place, or time. We have looked for ways to escape the pain, seeking comfort in entertainment, food, drink, and other mind-altering substances and processes. Over time, we have borne pain, trauma, negative expectations, crushing responsibilities, and overwhelming fatigue. We have replayed some of our worst experiences over and over obsessively. Our guilt and shame have weighed us down. We’ve made up stories and embraced lies in an effort to make our world make sense. 

But it didn’t come close to making sense until we met people —

  • Who understood. 

  • Who actively listened to us. 

  • Who honored and respected our views. 

  • Who help us lay down some of the heavy things we carried.

  • Who helped us get additional perspective and release blockages and constraints.

  • Who gave us tools that allowed us to feel love and gratitude, which led to peace and joy, which blossomed into patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and faithfulness. 

People now tell us, “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but you’re a lot nicer than you used to be. What happened?”

We will be sharing our personal stories to answer this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! For now, suffice it to say that we have been actively working for 7 years to lean into this healing and absorb the strategies for sharing it safely and effectively with others. Are you ready to let go of the things that used to give you purpose and momentum, but now just seem to keep you stuck? Let us cooperate with you to get unstuck. Unstuck is what we do.