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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Healing Wounds Part II - Ok I Need Healing, Now What?

Click here for part I.

"Okay José, you told me that I need healing, and that there are some wounds that time cannot heal. So...what do I do now? It's not like I can just wait for my healing"

There is one thing we can do before we are completely healed from a wound.

Intentional healing takes time and energy, and I don't think (while some claim you can) you can simply go through a healing session of a couple of hours and declare yourself completely healed.

But life's demands are immediate and walk we must, even in our wounded state.

And so it is unreasonable that we should wait until our healing is complete so we can finally move on with our life.

In fact, I don't think we can ever get to a point where we can say "I'm completely healed". Life is one of continual intentional healing.

But there is something we can do in the meantime, something we can do about a particular wound before that wound is healed.

Every wound has a voice. This voice can be turned on inadvertently when certain situations in life activate the wound.

It can tells us many things, like you are worthless or you'll never amount to anything  or they don't really love you.

These wounds' voices, and the pain its bleeding leaves, can paralyze us and make us act in ways that are not Christlike.

It can make us avoid and hide from certain situations. It can make us sulk in our room, refusing to be consoled and yet yearning for it. It can make us proud and arrogant, convincing ourselves that we don't need someone or something, and thus a cold treatment to the situation or person ensures.

So what do we do with this voice?

One way to go about it is to ignore it. I tried this many times, but ignoring it only seems to make it worse in the end.

We could also listen to it and believe everything it says to us. This only seems to augment the pain, and in the end, we can believe things about ourselves and others that are not necessarily true.

I believe the best way to deal with it while we heal is to acknowledge the voice, and say "it is okay that I feel this way, but this voice is not telling me truth".

In doing this we are not ignoring the wound, we are paying attention to it, and yet we refuse to believe what it has to say as true.

The wound has a voice for a reason. It is like a child crying for attention, asking for help, trying to manipulate us or coerce us into submission.

We would be foolish to ignore it, and we would be miserable if we believe it.

The wound is not saying the truth, but it is saying a truth. It is saying that it needs healing and attention, demanding it with its bleeding and screeching screams.

Whenever a situation arises where I feel my wounds bleeding and telling me something, I have tried this, and I can say that after a while these voices slowly leave me alone.

This is the first step of healing the wound. With this we are paying attention to the wound and refuse to believe what it has to say. We do this before we bring the wound to God, where He can heal it completely.


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Healing Wounds Part I

One of the things I know I need is healing. The past always deals us cuttingly, leaving us more than just bittersweet memories.

Events that occurred in the past, even the ones we don't remember, can leave in us a wound that time never heals.

These wounds can manifest themselves in many ways, from anxiety and fear and even small personalities quirks. Unfortunately, these wounds can also prevent us from becoming what God created us to be.

These wounds can prevent us from being who we really are.

Anxiety and fear, for example, can create walls and avoiding behavior that serve as defense mechanisms against the object, event or person that creates the anxiety and fear.

Walls are divisive and can ultimately imprison us.

This is just one example of how wounds prevent us in living and being the life Christ calls us to be.

Healing is therefore essential in our spiritual growth, in our growing in likeness of Him.

One time I took a retreat to look deeply into the wounds that are causing my anxieties. It was a 3 day retreat in a ranch far away from the city. Silence and solitude were unavoidable. Even my guitar and Bible were left behind.

It was just me and God during most of the time.

What I found during my time with Him were memories from my childhood, some of them I had even forgotten about but were later confirmed by my parents as true events.

I could only go through some of my memories, and there is still much more healing to be done, but my anxiety has become more controllable ever since.

We can't simply wait out our healing, as present events can resurface old forgotten wounds. Sometimes we may not know why we feel how we feel because the memory might be lost, but the wound is still lurking behind, working behind the scenes with our emotions.

Healing is therefore intentional.

Christ is longing to heal us. He comes to us as He did with many of the sick people of His time, asking us "What do you want?"

I hope our answers will be "Lord I want to see".


Thursday, April 4, 2013

New Year's Resolution March Update!

It's amazing how fast this year is passing by! Though this should hardly surprise us, since we probably said the same thing about last year.

Anyways, it's that time of the month again, where I get to divulge my commitment (or lack of) on this year's resolutions. It is my way of giving value to these otherwise forgotten resolutions.

So let's start with Resolution #1!

Resolution #1 Achieve my ideal weight:

I still weigh the same, around 260 lbs. Yes, no weight loss this month, unfortunately. But I am not disappointed or discouraged, because I know that I will lose this weight.

I have decided to stick with my flexitarian diet, eating meat on weekends or in special occasions. Unfortunately, my criteria for what constitute a special occasion can be very loose and flexible.

I am eating a lot less meat now, however, and I hope that this diet is healthier for me.  

I am thinking of even making more changes to my diet. I'm thinking of even limiting what kind of meat I eat. I have no desire of eating more meat from these meat factories of today, where animals are simply treated as products.

Buying only grass fed beef, where cattle is treated humanely, is more expensive, and therefore not realistic to my budget, but on the other hand, my budget will guarantee that I really only eat meat on special occasions. The alternative of cheap meal is simply less attractive to me.

This is more than a leftist liberal turn to me but a Franciscan one, as St. Francis was one who cared deeply for animals, even calling them "brothers".

Resolution #2: Keep my room clean, year long.

I have seen some progress on this. I have rearranged some stuffs in my room and have more space in it. Things are more organized and clean than they were last month. But I still have too much stuffs and a desire has grown in me to give away a good part of it.

I was thinking of why I hate moving so much, and one reason of course, is moving all the stuff that I accumulated over the years.

My mounting collection of CDs. Seriously, why do I need so many of them?!
Having more stuff also means that I need to devote more time to clean them, organize them, and taking care of them. It is too much work, and I don't want to work so much for my possessions.

Resolution #3: Update my blog regularly, at least once a week.

Okay, I didn't post on my blog one week during lent! But other than that I have updated my blog pretty regularly, and I plan to continue doing so.

In fact, I want to update my blog more than once a week, maybe more than twice a week.

That's it for this month, see you next!