Tedder's Blog, page 25

You Cannot Remain Unchanged

Do you ever know you’re being compelled to do or say something but you ignore that deep inner feeling?

Trauma, more than any one thing, can break us off from our connection with ourselves and the world around us.

Often, we resist growing and listening to God when we are still stuck in the past, encapsulated in fear and pain.

We quickly learn that the stories we tell ourselves will keep us stuck unless we question them. Often, we are our own worst enemy.

We all seek to protect ourselves, especially emotionally. Tough defenses often fail to keep us as safe as we hope, because they keep us from healing.

The wear and tear of hiding from the pain can take an enormous physical toll on the body…let yourself feel the pain and let the pain change you and grow you into something new and different.

Let yourself be changed. The scar left by trauma is supposed to change you. It’s the natural response to an unnatural experience like trauma.

Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but to be unchanged by an unnatural experience just isn’t natural.

Learning to trust ourselves we can see more clearly the light that can shine through our own broken places and ultimately heal us.

B

Mirror Mirror ~ What is Protection?

Introspection — what better way to start a week.

Question – When you receive no protection as a child, how do you know what it feels like?

I can look up the meaning of protection and I understand what it means. But, my heart has a hard time discerning protection. When you don’t have a deep understanding of protection, you walk alone with sudden unknowns lurking in the shadows. That’s not a good way to live.

All of my life this burden has been with me. It creates fear and the need to control. But, I know in reality I control very little in the big scheme of life. I couldn’t even help the murdered woman with all of my wrangling of the police and different authorites. It saddens me.

And, I have lived a very full life. One that has been felt on the deepest levels that exist. I am proud of myself for carrying on inspite of the hurdles I was given. God remains my beacon.

Ask yourself this question: What does protection look like to you?

To the Dreary, Dead & Doubtful on this Father’s Day

May I first extend my prayer of love to you. I have known better the dread of Father’s Day than I have known anything else. I hate both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but I always try to unlearn and retrain myself.

The kindest gift my earthy father ever gave me was his death. His lying mouth finally silenced against me. His curses removed. His lurking evil, dark presence eliminated. Those are not easy words to type, but they are truthful.

I just want to send my love to every person who, on this side of eternity, will not have the real love of an earthy father, to the person who will never know a father’s protective love or the gentle caress of a caring hand.

I love you. I am sorry.

Jewels, Gems & Gunpowder

I would love to hear from you! Sharing Saturday with you.

A Jewel: When a survivor of incest comes out about the abuse, what happens most often is they lose the family they were born or adopted into. That is not easy and stops many of us from sharing our pain, talking about the agony, and learning to overcome the darkness.

New traditions helped me on my journey to freedom. Most of us cherish family traditions. When we lose family, whether good or bad, we lose family connection and family traditions. That’s not easy. So, I created a habit of starting new traditions with my girls. After I divorced their father after 17 abusive years, I had to start some new traditions all over again. And, it works.

Never give up. Never give in. Just start creating again.

A Gem: Finding your “tribe” as they now say isn’t easy when you’ve come from severe childhood difficulties. You don’t trust. People don’t know what to do with your story. They shut you down or offer some lame sympahty. Where and how do we find each other?

I am hopeful that each day I write these words, I find another little piece of you that can come by us, stand with us in truth and healing, and live just a little bit freer than you did yesterday.

Metaphorical Gunpowder: I am firm on the conviction of who I am. I will not give that right back to anybody. I believe in myself.

Please comment below by leaving your jewel, a gem or something you keep yourself free from with metaphorical gunpowder.

All love!

Forgiveness?

For me it was a long way down the line, after years and years of healing work, of prayer, and of raging (in therapy and in prayer) at my abusers, that I was ready to open myself to the possibility of forgiveness. No amount of willed or false or hopeful forgiveness was going to fix me or heal what had been done to me.

We can get to forgiveness, yes. But there are not shortcuts. And self-forgiveness and true healing must come first.

It is vital to remember, however, that forgiveness does not mean in any way that perpetrators should not be confronted or prosecuted, or that we are able to forget or minimize the abuse. Like Holocaust survivors, we must always remember and honor the full impact of what has happened. Neither does it mean that our outrage at the crime is no more.

Forgiveness is a hard-won gift of grace, and, if it is to happen in a healthy way, it will probably happen after much healing work has already been done. It should never be hung over a survivor of abuse as an expectation. It is my conviction that a loving God would want us to withhold any “forgiveness” that would cause us to fall back into spiritual sickness.

I also believe that God would not reject any abuse survivor who is not able to reach a place of forgiveness in this life. I have heard many comments on forgiveness that have failed to understand the delicate dynamics of forgiveness for victims of abuse and I think it can keep people from God instead of bringing them closer to him.  

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Going on a Road Trip? Take the Audiobook with You

Each one of us needs community. All survivors could use a tribe they trust. Join me as I share my journey, raw and real.

This is for the brokenhearted person stumbling their way through life. This is not a story for the bystander looking in.

Here’s on reviewer from the UK, his title “Bizzare,” his comments,

“This audiobook is strange, I found it difficult to sympathise with Jodie the further the tale continued. What happened to her was horrendous and how she still wanted love and acceptance from the perp at the end is hard to fathom, I wanted her to kill him but she hugs him instead.”

Audible UK Reviewer

He goes on to share that my recording was rough in spots. He was correct and those have been edited. He was not correct that the story is bizzare. Not to a person who has lived through such abuse.

Have a great weekend!

F N’ F (Fear Not Friday)

On the discussion of fear — Do you fear your dreams?

Nightmares, night terrors, agony — that’s what pursued me through the night hours for most of my life. Dibilitating if I let them. Sleep was a burden to me, not something I looked forward to.

The duldrums of life persisted whether I was rested or not rested.

The agony of defeat when a nightmare once again plagued me.

Some nights I would go to sleep with my bible in my arms, praying that God would protect my mind from night horror. Sometimes I didn’t dream. Sometimes I would drink so much wine in a protective measure that I knew I’d knock myself out and not be able to dream. That’s a terrible way to live but I had to get up and get to work. If a nightmare woke me up, it was far worse than overdrinking.

Sad. So incredible sad. But, I made it. I don’t have to get drunk to sleep through the night these days. I just don’t have to. It feels so good to have that freedom. Last night I dreamt of little rabbits that were running lose down the hall. I found those little guys, picked them up with snuggles, and brought them back to their den. What a remarkable dream to have. Finally free.

Do you still have nightmares?

Surrender the Struggle

There was a time in my life I felt like I was being buried alive.

I couldn’t function in relationships, in work, in my body, in my life.

My only concern was to blot out the agonizing feeling of simply being alive. The daily struggle to keep trauma-related memories locked down and out of mind is exhausting and I wanted to rest.

With addiction I was continually like a rat in a maze trying to capture the very first time I ever had that first hit.

If trauma makes a person question their life purpose, heroin addiction comes in and strips any remaining meaning.

Trauma creates a hole in your memory and so does addiction.

In many ways, I was retraumatizing myself with dope. Reenacting the loss, the chase of joy, the terrible isolation , the unending suffering of my childhood.

Living in fear. Terrified no one will come, yet terrified someone will. No relief, just fear and dread. No sense of control and a profound sense of isolation.

That was my life… from the moment I remember it until many years after I got clean.

But today, I am not living in fear. I am living in hope. And grace. My days can still be hard… but the hardest day now is nothing compared to my easiest day then.

B

Worth IS Worthiness

As a noun worth means the value equivalent to that of someone or something under consideration. Oh, that’s interesting. Under whose consideration might be the right question we should be asking ourselves. If under my own consideration, I consider myself quite worthy. Under another’s consideration, if I give them that right, they may consider me not worthy.

The level at which someone is valued or rated should not be taken lightly nor should it be given to anyone to fulfill. It’s like handing a blank check to someone and asking them to make sure there is enough to cover your monthly bills. What if they only gave you $50 to cover everything? That clearly wouldn’t work but we do it all the time with the value of who we are and what we are worth.

The value of finding your own worth is immeasurable! By seeing yourself through the lens of love and purpose, you drive out the noise of the naysayers, your abusers, damn near everyone. You see you! Take your eyes off of what other people think. The court of public opinion needs to stay far away from you.

Determine your own worth!

Comfort Zones

When I was on drugs sometimes it would occur to me that I was using them, in part, so that I didn’t have to face taking true risks and failing. I could always blame drugs on the fact that I wasn’t fulfilling my potential. I knew it deep in my heart and it would shock me awake for just a second … long enough to feel a sense of dread and panic.

The thing is, you don’t need to drugs to avoid taking risks and fulfilling your true potential. You can use almost any excuse in the book – work, past traumas, kids, financial problems, etc etc.

The inescapable truth for everyone is that you will not fulfill your purpose in life without stepping outside your comfort zone.

You’ll never know what you are capable of if you give in to fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

If you want more out of life you have to push your boundaries.

No this doesn’t mean you have to jump off cliffs or go skydiving, oftentimes it’s little changes or action steps that can make a big change.

If there is something that you feel hesitant to do at all, that is probably your sign to push through and do it.

Your comfort zone feels easy. So if life seems too easy lately, challenge that.

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