Tag: Analogies

What Did You Learn?

Whenever I, or someone I’m talking to in recovery, goes through a rough time or acts out, I ask, “What did you learn?”

I got this idea from a near-death experience book where someone had compiled several of these stories and pulled out the commonalities. One of the things they all had in common was a point in their experience where they met someone full of love toward them, so powerful that they could feel it. That person showed them a review of their life. They paused at crucial moments in their life; the good, the bad, and the shameful. The people expected correction or condemnation for the bad parts. Instead, for every single event, the loving person asked, “What did you learn?” The people realized that each event was a carefully crafted lesson by their Creator to help them learn a lesson.

This concept blew me away and changed my perception of God. I’ve tried to do the same for myself and others. So, every time I have a hard time, or if I’m talking to others having hard times of any kind, I ask, “What did you learn?” It changes everything. Shame and self-hatred turn into curiosity and discovering ways to navigate life more effectively.

Often the learning is about how well I’m doing my dailies or how connected I am with others in significant ways. Frequently it’s about boundaries and making adjustments to them. It can also be about working the steps and getting unstuck. It lifts me back up and helps me get back on the path, but because of this new learning, it’s a better path for me or others I’m sponsoring or just others in the group or outside the group.

Surrender

Surrender is a word that is used a lot in 12-step meetings.  They talk about surrendering our lives and wills to God in Step 3, for example.  Here’s an analogy that has helped me to understand how surrender works.  It has a lot to do with admitting the truth about my situation and letting someone who really knows what they’re doing be in charge.

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Self-Respect and Love

For this topic, I offer an analogy that played out in my heart that had a profound effect on me.

Before I got into recovery, I met Christ at the door of my house. I told Him that He didn’t need to come in – I made the mess, I would clean it up, and someday my house would be clean enough for Him to come in without judging me and thinking I was stupid, slothful, and filthy. I sent Him away empty-handed.

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The Result

Though my journey toward recovery is difficult, I am happier now and have enjoyed a few years of freedom from the compulsion of these addictions. Someone who is stuck in the middle of these addictions asked me if this is all worth it. If giving up the addiction is worth all of this trouble. They also asked me how much better it was to be free of it than to give into it. On the surface, the answers to these questions may seem obvious, but to the person trapped in this nightmare, there is real doubt that escaping it is truly worth it.

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Impeccable Honesty

If I can’t be honest, I can’t heal or progress. If I can’t share exactly where I am, not just with the group, but more importantly with myself, how can I see what really needs to happen for me to progress? I lie (or rationalize, minimize, omit details, intellectualize, etc.) to myself and others because of shame. Ironically, being honest against the fear of shame in the safety of the group helps my shame disappear. I can share where I’m at (without graphic details) and what I am struggling with or am having success with and people start nodding their heads in understanding instead of running from the room in horror! No shame there. I can then learn to stop shaming myself and can then become impeccably honest. Then Christ can heal me.

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Chess and Blindness

Sometimes I play chess against my phone. It always beats me. I can ask it for hints and win the game that way sometimes. If I play on my own for too long though and then ask for hints, it’s just too late and I’ve lost too many pieces to be able to have even the best hints in the world overcome the natural consequences of the choices I made on my own early in the game.

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The Wigs

I had a dream about a friend of mine. She was wearing a wig. After a while, she got an ashamed look on her face and took off the wig. There was another wig underneath it. The same process then happened over and over, each time she removed another wig, each time she got slower and more ashamed as she kept taking the wigs off. Eventually, she got to the point where she got to the last wig. It took her a while to get the courage to take that wig off. When she did, she had the most horrible look on her face as she took that wig off and revealed a badly scarred scalp with patches of ugly hair on it. She was so ashamed of it. I woke up but then received the last part of the dream in my mind. She didn’t know it, but that scarred layer was just another wig and if she had removed it, she would have seen her amazing hair underneath it.

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The Bandage

A certain man got wounded and he didn’t know how to take care of the wound. He did not clean it out, apply ointment, or put a bandage over the wound to protect it. After a while, the wound got infected. It was painful and wasn’t very pleasant to look at and so he put a bandage over it. That kept things from bumping into it and kept it from being so unpleasant to look at. This worked for a brief time. After a while, the bandage started to leak and the pain got worse so the man put another bandage on the one that was already there. It worked last time, so it might just work again. After all, it would be too painful to pull off the bandages and clean it out. This continued until the pain and mess became unmanageable. The only option was to pull off each bandage and then clean out the wound, apply ointment, and then put a bandage over the now cleaned wound so that it could heal properly.

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