Why We Remain Miserable............ 2/4/18

        I am at so many crossroads.

     All of them are magnificently good.  Good afternoon, visitors to my inn. I wish you all the best.

     The best can only happen when we are present.  This is pos-sible when we are free of mind chatter and the need to please others.

     We do not need to validate ourselves.  We are wonderful.  Good enough, we are.

     Because of God's great, patient and gracious love for us, we can know forgiveness.

     Not long ago, I gave up on a client.  He was not real, with himself.  This fellow lived within the coffin of being hyper-control-ling.

     He does not allow anyone to know him.  He constantly controls outcomes.  He operates from fear.

       This trait revealed itself dur-ing our last session.  He had a negative mindset, before even knowing what we were going to do.  And it was an affirming exercise.

     The setting.  There's a gift I have for most clients.  A positive one.  Of course, it would be.

      But there's a routine we go through first.

      I ask them to tell me their greatest fear.  They do.  Then I pull out the gift.  It is one all clients enjoy.  It is a helpful antidote for their fears.

     With this person, I was astonished.  His response was like none other.  He is constantly in his head.

     His reaction revealed the source of his depression.  What did he do, you ask?

     Before receiving it, I asked him to read it.  It was a placard about his good qualities.  He was asked to stand.

     This is the routine for those receiving this gift. As he rose to grasp the placard he said, "I'm not sure I'm going to like this."

    That small comment reveal-ed plenty.

"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Prov. 23:7

    This man was negative dur-ing a positive ceremony.

    I do not do the work if a client wants a better life.  They do.   A person's desire to get better has to be stronger than my desire to help them.

     This fellow chooses to remain miserable.  Why?  Because that was his normality, how his life has been, remains, and will continue to be.  If a client is motivated, I am, too,

      If they aren't, neither am I.  I cannot push people towards their progress.  I am not codependent.

      I do not rescue people.  Clients need to push through painfully responsible action.  Until it becomes routine.

     When they do, they are moving towards wholeness.  I help clients get the life they want and deserve.  If they are motivated.

      I work from a recovery-based perspective. This means there is work to do if we want a better life.  We have to work on our weaknesses until they become our strengths.

     Ninety-six percent of all counselors do not operate from this point of view.  Because 96% of all counselors are codependent.  They have not worked on their codependency.

    They perhaps studied about it, for a semester, in a class on chemical dependency.  But they have never worked on their own codependency issues.  As Anne Wilson Schaef states:

        Most mental health professionals are un-treated codependents who are actively practicing their dis-ease in their work in a way that helps neither them nor their clients. The ignorance of the mental health profession about codependency has resulted in costly long-range, and ineffective treatment.  It has how-ever, kept the therapist's pockets lined. 

        It has probably served to perpetuate her or his [the thera-pist's] codependence. 

  Anne Wilson Schaef, Co-Dependence Misunderstood-     Mistreated, (Minneapolis:Winston Press, 1992), 4.

     I have worked on my codependency.  I have done so at least two hours a day for the past fourteen years.  Usually, it is more than that.

     If we continue to look through the eyeglasses of our childhood and respond from that perspective, our future repeats the past.  This is why we remain miserable.

    We need recovery.

     Wishing you a great and grateful Sunday.  I know mine will be.           Pablo