ACCESSING INNER WISDOM
My daughter, Sheryl and I were talking about the twelve steps and particularly about step four which calls for a searching and fearless moral inventory. She was explaining to me the purpose of this step and why it is so important that an addict do this. I think it would be a really great idea for everyone to do it, though most people never do anything like it. I have never been in a twelve step program, but I have done similar work and one process in particular made me think of step four, because it calls for fearlessness as I look at my life, and surrender as I give what I find to God for healing, recognizing that I cannot do it without Him.
There are things I have done in my life that I am not proud of. The way I used to handle these things was through denial. What a great tool denial seemed to be. I just pushed the stuff way back into my mind and covered it up with other stuff. Pretty soon, it was like I couldn?t remember it. Oh sure, I would get triggered from time to time and it would pop up. Those sudden unexpected pop-ups could be pretty disconcerting, but with a little effort I could usually get it buried again.
Another useful tool was blame. Actually, I could always find a way to place blame for nearly anything, and as long as that place was outside me, I considered the job a success. If I wasn?t being a very good parent then it was surely because my mom didn?t do a good job modeling that for me. With the way I was raised who could expect me to know how to parent. Or, if I lost my temper during an argument with my partner, it was his fault. His behavior justified my response. I mean, who wouldn?t have lost it when faced with someone who acts like him.
Sometimes, my behavior was so bad that I really couldn?t afford to think about it at all. I just couldn?t look at it. If I accidentally looked, if for some reason looking was unavoidable, I could spend the next few days in a deep depression. Sometimes I could avoid a response by keeping frantically busy. I spent a period of my life so intent on keeping my dark secrets buried that I shopped myself into bankruptcy.
The problem with dark secrets is that they poison you. They poison the personality. The symptoms are extreme whininess, depression, joylessness. They poison your behaviors and cause you to spend too much money, drink too much alcohol, do drugs, practice obsessive behaviors of all sorts. They poison the way you see the world and how you react to it. Your secrets make you feel vulnerable and so you spend your time defending yourself through attack. It requires great vigilance to keep those secrets buried so you become very self absorbed. You start to feel isolated and alone.
Your dark secrets spread their poison to your body. The stress this constant vigilance puts on your body, leaves you vulnerable for all sorts of illnesses. You begin to experience migraines or stomach disorders. If you hold onto grievances long enough you invite in cancer or arthritis.
A few years ago, I began to see another way to do this. I was introduced to the idea that I can forgive all this stuff. It seemed like a pretty farfetched idea. I had been harboring some of these sins for a long time. They had seemed bad at first, now they seemed monstrous. I couldn?t even look at them. How could I forgive them. Well, that was the second part of the good news. I didn?t have to look at them alone and I didn?t have to forgive them. I just had to be willing to accept forgiveness.
I have talked about the forgiveness process before. In fact, I have talked about it more than once. It works in a lot of ways, but this is the first place I ever used it. Let me tell you about how this happened.
When my first two children were still very young, I chickened out of being a parent. I was just terrified of the responsibility. I gave them to their father who I thought would do a much better job without me there to screw it all up. I visited them and they visited me, but I didn?t have to make those day to day decisions and do the work it took to raise them.
Then I spent the rest of my life regretting that decision. I felt such smothering guilt that I could hardly stand myself. I tried everything to run away from myself. I tried drugs, alcohol, many unsuccessful relationships looking for someone who could restore my self worth. I tried over and over to make up for my early error. I tried to be a good parent to them in every way I could think of. I had other children and threw myself into motherhood with a ferocity, thinking that maybe this second chance would afford me salvation. I suffered all of the symptoms of denial that I talked about earlier. Even when I wasn?t thinking about the guilt, it was there in an unconscious way affecting how I felt and how I acted. I was able to gain only temporary peace broken by periods of intense grief.
By the time I had begun studying for the ministry, I had made an uneasy peace with my misery. That was when I was first began to understand true forgiveness. I had been reading about forgiveness in the Bible and in A Course in Miracles, but I just wasn?t opened to truly forgiving. A fellow ministerial student took me through a process called Accessing Inner Wisdom. It is a really simple spiritual process. She helped me to get comfortable and relaxed and guided me into a meditative state.
She helped to provide a safe environment for me to access the Holy Spirit. God placed the Holy Spirit in me so that I would always have His Voice, but I seldom took advantage of that. I didn?t think I could afford to talk to God about my errors. I was afraid to do this, as if He wouldn?t know about them unless I confessed all. It?s a pretty silly way to think, but that seems to be the way I was thinking all the same. Finally though, I was able to trust Him enough to tell Him my secrets. I told Him the whole story, and how I felt about it, and how hard it was to live with my guilt. I brought up all the deep dark secrets, every bad parenting decision I had made that I could think of. Together, we looked at each one.
At first it was so painful looking at all this stuff, saying it out loud, hearing myself enumerate each supposed sin. Then it got easier and even started feeling better. I felt lighter as I unburdened myself. But we didn?t leave it there. My friend took me further through the process as she brought me into the Light where I allowed God to heal me. Before now I had not been able to look at this alone, and when I accidentally glimpsed it I was left only with pain. But when I looked with the Holy Spirit, and when I invited forgiveness and healing through God, it was a miracle.
In the final part of the process, I was directed to ask the Holy Spirit for a personal message, a new focus from an aware perspective. He said to me that I had never made a mistake in my life. He said I was only learning lessons and that I needed to learn those lessons, and now I could pass them on to others as well as to my children. Through this healing I would be able to give them what they need.
This was the most extraordinary miracle. I was able to release a lifetime of shame, fear, and guilt. Being free of that also helped me to be a better parent. I was able to focus more on my children and their needs now that I wasn?t always focused on my guilt and my need to be forgiven.
I use this process all of the time now. I don?t always use the formal approach involving another minister, but I do the same thing by myself. When I feel I need to forgive myself, when I?ve made an error, I invite the Holy Spirit to look at it with me. I tell him all about it just as if I were speaking to you. I?ve learned that it doesn?t matter what I do, it is never so bad that I cannot freely speak of it with the Holy Spirit.
I think of it as bringing my dark thoughts into the light. And what happens when you shine a light into a dark space? The darkness disappears, doesn?t it? The light doesn?t beat it back. There is no battle. The light simply replaces the darkness. That is what happens for me when I look at my errors in the Light of the Holy Spirit. Then I ask the Holy Spirit to heal me. I ask Him to heal my thoughts and to show me another way to see. He always answers, and the change He creates in my thinking is a real miracle. Then I ask for God?s love and comfort.
I use this process in a lot of different circumstances. If I feel sad or angry, guilty or fearful, I bring these feelings to the Holy Spirit and I ask Him to help me sort them out. With His help, I trace these feelings back to the thoughts that caused them, and then to the belief behind the thoughts. Then I ask the Holy Spirit to heal these beliefs and to give me new beliefs, beliefs that will work in my life and bring me joy instead of sadness. There seems to be no circumstance in which this process isn?t helpful.
It took some courage to take that first look into the dark closet of my secret sins, but I am so glad I did it. I am especially glad that I did it with the Holy Spirit and I am so grateful for the miracle of forgiveness. Now I naturally surrender control of my life to God and I don?t know why I ever hesitated to do this.
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