Water, water, water everywhere, nor any a drop to drink! ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)
The adaptations that many of us developed in order to survive have served as our most important skills. This is something we do not want to forget. It has often been said that our wisdom is in our wounds. Our courage and our virtuous strengths are often precisely the products of our suffering. This is where compassion is developed. Compassion, to me, is to get out of your heart and move into someone else’s heart and feel their pain. It’s one of those things you can’t fake. Believe me, I’ve known some religious terrorists who hold their Bible in one hand and a stone in the other.
We are people with addictions. One of them is insatiability. Ngdi ua le meched a rengud e diak el sebechel mo dùosb a rengud ra klaloe ma kerruul ma deruchall. Insatiability is the great enemy of life of virtue. Ungrieved wounds block true healing of deep wounds of the heart that separates you from your true self.
Abuses enmesh or entangle you with your abuser. I learned that when police officers respond to a domestic violence, like child abuse, they observe the child. The child always run to the abuser for self protection. He’s afraid that when the police officer leaves, the abuser will beat him/her up for snitching. It’s how an abused is enmeshed with his abuser. Enmeshed child has no boundaries. Abuser controls her life…what to study, hobbies, friends and etc. This is why grieving work is important. Grieving separates you from.your abuser so you can connect to your ‘true self. No grieving, no freedom. So we forgive then grieve our losses Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is letting go of your right to get even. No more demanding they pay you for all their mistakes.
As an adult someone shamed me by comparing me with another woman because I didn’t own a big house like her. Nor do I own a car. I realized that many people equates material possessions with success. I grew out of that mentality because it doesn’t satisfy. They never do. I was done with looking good, feeling good, with many goods.
God is omnipresent and He promises an abundant life but we keep leaving him and go to that contaminated well to draw water to drink. Why is that? Because we are thirsty. Sometimes God is too slow.
Insatiability is the root of all forms of addictions. Addictiveness is never just one thing. I know I’m addicted to what is known as “avoidance addict”. I’m afraid of intimacy so I run away to work, books, and movies and food. Now I’m addicted to YouTube claiming I’m learning. My favorite is Behavioral.Panel (body language experts). Hogwash! I know. Who am I fooling? Myself! I know. But they’re so good like a bowl of cookie dough ice cream or an evening of Downton Abbey.
The good news is we can heal our addictions? I’m progressing in building my boundaries and growing in prudence. I’m no longer chronically fantasizing unrealistic future (almost). This is where I want to be as C.S. Lewis in the movie about himself played by Anthony Hopkins. He said, ” I don’t want to be someplace else anymore, nor waiting for anything, nor looking around the next corner, nor the next hill. Here, now, that’s enough.”
When Jesus addressed our thirst he cried out… nguleldiu: If anyone thirst let him come to me and drink. (John 7:37). Jesus knew we are always thirsty. In verse 38, he said that if you believe in him from your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Isaiah says, “… you’ll be like a well watered garden.
Always remember that your healing process is a life-long journey through different seasons.
Be kind to yourself.