“If you want to get out you have to go in.”
~ Nancy Ryan
Have you ever decided
to touch your pain, to embrace your past so you could live in the moment and
look forward to your future? To visit
what has been violated, who would do that? I had spent the first thirty-four years of my
life having my body, soul and mind violated.
This led me to live in survival mode daily. To numb the pain I would use and abuse whatever
was in front of me at the time, substances, people and I became my drug of
choice.
“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”
― J.K. Rowling
Then one day, half
way into my thirty-fourth year as a human being, my life came crashing down all
around me. The pain became greater then
my passion to keep my past a secret. My
habits, hurts and hang-ups caught up with me like cops chasing robbers, I hit a
dead end, through my arms in the air and waved my invisible white flag. I gave up and turned myself in. Ten years of running, came to a screeching
halt.
In those ten years, I
had a few almost accidental overdoses behind me and a third one on its way when
I found myself crying out to God. My
heart was shattered in a millions pieces.
I knew I had two choices, learn to live, or, let go and die. There in a dark room in the back of my house,
staring at the ceiling, I cried out to God.
“I don’t want to die but I don’t know how to live.” Up
until that moment, I thought death was the answer and dying in my addiction was
going to be the smoking gun.
Yet, there was a tiny
bit of light shining through all my pain.
The light was all it took to disengage the invisible gun of my
addiction. Courage came through the
light. It was the kind of courage that
means to tell ones whole story in all of its entirety. It was the kind of courage that walks hand in
hand with hope.
The courage to tell
my story was the catalyst that helped me begin the process of going back
in. It was time. It was finished. No longer did I feel the need not to
exist. I was now hungry for the will to
live. However, the direction for me to
welcome that will, pointed to my past.
It was following that map where I learned the term; you cannot heal a
wound by pretending it is not there.
No more pretending, I
went back in with my eyes wide open and my broken heart ready to be
healed. I learned from the start that wounded
hearts act out in ways that healthy whole ones do not. I realized I had lived in a world where we trained
people to hide their hurt, habits and hang-ups and it was going to take time to
find others who had gone before me, others who could shed light onto my darkest
places. Those were the people who were going to help me find hope as I touched the places of my past that caused me so much pain.
Going back in so I
could come out meant finding others who could hold my tears and space as I
untangled my past. I had become proof
that with out help, your past would catch up with you.
“We were not created to cry alone.”~ Nancy
Ryan
My advice, be prepared, listen well as you look for those people who
can do just that.
As I celebrate my
tenth year of recovery, I have the privilege of looking back at the last
decade. What do I see? I see a sea of people who have stepped up and
stepped into my struggle. I see people
who held my tears and space so that I could process my pain and my past as I
worked my way out. It took having people
around me cheering me on and reminding me I could do it.
Small steps,
deliberate pressing into my past and visiting the pain was the only way for me
to get out. I thought going back in was
going to cause me to curl up and die. Touching my past and dancing with my pain
was not an area I had been looking forward to embracing. Yet to get out I had to be willing to go
in. Visiting my past was about finding
healing and wholeness, connecting the dots, asking forgiveness and giving it as
well.
As I completed my
rehab program, before my release, I met with my counselor one more time. Sitting in her office waiting in anticipation
for her to release me our eyes locked and I felt the tears starting to well up
in my eyes. We had made a deep
connection the moment we met. She walked
me through anger, resentment and rejection but that was just the
beginning. With sincerity in her eyes
and compassion in her tone, she challenged me.
She made it clear through that if I did not find the underlying cause of
my why of what I did, I would end up back in the same place with worse habits,
hurts and hang-ups. She made it clear
that I needed to find the root cause of my abusing and using. She made it clear I was going to have to go back in to get out.
It has been ten years
now since I first took her up on that challenge. Ten years of sweat and dirt under the
fingernails of my soul, diving, digging and pulling back layers after layers of
my past. Sometimes I would find myself
so deep in my pain, stuck in the past that I needed help getting back out. In the process of healing, I also learned to
look to my future with hope and anticipation.
As my heart healed so did my body soul and mind. There
is a fine line, a dance if you will that those in recovery learn. It is the dance that helps one not to travel
to long in the past or the future, it is a dance to help one stay balanced in
the moment. The greatest gift of
recovery was learning to live moment by moment, one day at a time.
I am not sure how I
arrived at this time and place so quickly, at least that is how it feels today.
Though I do remember at the beginning
of the process, having three days in the program and hearing someone say they
had three weeks, I sat listing to her story and was not able to even conceive
having three weeks, three months let alone three years. Thirty days felt like an eternity back
then. Time has away of feeling as if it
stops and stands still when pain is involved.
I assure you, early recovery involves a lot of pain, cleaning out an
open wound can not be done any other way then going in and removing the junk.
Yet today, looking
back it does feel like it happened in a blink of an eye. What I did not understand back then is that life is about transitions and cycles. Something has to die so something can come to
life. An area I had fought off for the
last decade because it felt like it went against my recovery lessons. It felt like I was giving up and not fighting
for something when in reality there is this cycle that is death, life, death. To get, we must give up. Something must die to come to life, it ebbs
and flows it is the way our creator created us.
I can look around me and if I pay attention, I could see that nothing
last forever. Letting going is part of
living life.
My past had to die;
it took a decade to decapitate what use to be, and now I am not her anymore. Healed and set free, that is me. The gift of recovery came with the ability to
now self-regulate my emotions, relationships and experiences. Today I am able to embrace my feelings first
before acting on them, which allows for deeper richer relationships with those
I love the most. Today I am attracted to
those from the same tribe, those who look into the reflections of the water and
see the same thing. The gift of recovery
allowed me to see I was not alone. After
ten years of searching, experiencing life and learning to love and let go, I
also learned along the way what I did not want in a relationship and that was to
be someone’s second best, I did not want to be treated as if I was important and
valued only when I had something to offer.
What I wanted was to be valued regardless of what I had to offer. I wanted relationships where I walked hand in
hand, side by side not in the shadow of someone else’s life.
Why would I encourage
anyone to go back in and visit what has been violated? Simple, that is where healing and wholeness
happens. That is where you will find the
strength and courage to live in the world outside of the pain of your past.
Today I live in the
moment while trusting God with my future.
To my people, I write specifically to you, to offer hope, healing and a
piece of heaven for all your broken peaces.
Going back in to get out takes courage, faith and tenacity to believe
there is more to life then broken pieces.
I write to you to cheer you on, to let you know you are not alone. Do not give up, do not give in, there is a
plan and a purpose for your pain. God works out all things for the good.........
Fellow Traveler
Cris Nole
