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Month: October 2020

04 Ruts in My Road

Published by Brian on October 17, 2020

I no longer wake up at 2am like I am running for my life like I used to. (See “The Long Hard Road” first entry if you don’t know what I mean).

For a long time, I used to think I could avoid this or fix me. Then, bam, I’m shot out of a cannon at 2am and I have to deal with it. It reminds me of that scene in the movie “Groundhog Day” where Bill Murray wakes up over and over at 6am to a an obnoxious radio DJ on his clock radio, who then plays that sappy Sonny & Cher song, “I Got You, Babe.”

The picture above is of a 2000 year old Roman road made of stones. The two grooves were cut there by chariot wheels, worn in by countless chariots and wagons passing by day after day, year after year, decade after decade for hundreds of years.

Some of our problems and traumas are like this. If you were traumatized over many months and years as a child, your behavioral, mental and emotional ruts may be very deep indeed and criss cross all over the place (some professionals even name it “complex trauma” or develomental trauma). But, a significant, intense horror like witnessing violence or murder or war, or experiencing rape or abuse can imprint such ruts deep and quick.

I have two kinds of ruts in my road: permanent, deeply worn grooves, and more transient, more easily removable grooves:

1. One kind, is the chariot ruts in the Roman road of my character that are not going away any time soon. They are not just permanent scars. They are continual reminders of the well-worn path I was on for so long that I EASILY go back to and get tripped up on if I am not paying attention, get stressed out or just lose my way. If I just start wandering around I will 100% hit that rut with my bike tire and flop on the ground. I have to live with focus, joy and intentionality if I want to keep from tripping and stay on my feet.

2. The other kind is more like the ruts that bike tires make in mud when you ride through. Sometimes they are wet. Sometimes they dry and harden. When they are wet we lose traction. When they dry out, they can be more treacherous than Roman chariot ruts. The chariot ruts have been there a long time and are always in the same place so they are known. The mud can move (though it is usually in the same low spot), and the hardened mud ruts can have sharp or high ridges that catch my bicycle tire more easily and flop me down. The great news about these kinds of ruts is that the next rain can make them easy to smooth out and IF the rain is hard enough it smooths them out all by itself.

“Heavenly Father, help me thine to be. You let the rain fall on the good and the bad so let the rain fall down on me.” (Larry Norman)

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03 The Trail Goes Back A Long Way Behind Us All…

Published by Brian on October 11, 2020
Sometimes you have to walk more than a mile in someone else’s moccasins to truly understand them.

No one has a simply sweet life. Most trauma survivors have problems that others see as too complex, too hard to understand, too messy to deal with. What others think of us is sometimes none of our business because they have not been through what we have been through, and they don’t understand it.

The truth is BEHAVIOR MAKES SENSE. That is, if we really understood what someone has lived through, then how they are acting would be completely understandable to us. Messy? Yes, and complicated too. Maybe only a god could really make sense of us and accept us like this, but I can at least try to be a little more humble in my assessment of others, a little less harsh in my judgment of them, a little more patient in trying to understand them, a little more kind in my assessment, a little less shallow in looking at how things appear instead of taking the time and effort and patience to understand what things they say and do really signify.

Maybe you are not ready to be that unconditionally accepting of the flaws of other people, so how about trying it on yourself first? What if you completely accepted yourself as a person with a lot of problems and flaws as well as a person with some good qualities and promise? What if you stopped feeling ashamed of what you have done, habits you have and quirks you carry? What if you told yourself, “My behavior makes sense. I act this way for a reason, and “If they only knew what I’ve been through, they would get me instead of judging me”?

What if, for a moment, you said hey, the road goes a long way back behind me. I would not gladly again choose to go through some of those things, trust some of those people nor do many of the things that I did. But, that is now water over the bridge…uh…water over the dam and under the bridge (well, let’s face it, a lot of things in our past can feel very overwhelming, like floodwaters swamping a bridge).

Life is a play you can’t rehearse. Sometimes it just comes at you too fast. Sometimes other people hurt you bad. Sometimes you let yourself and others down. 20-20 hindsight doesn’t help do anything other than cultivate shame or guilty gazing at your own behavioral belly button.

Today, I am going to forgive myself and accept myself as I am, without shame, guilt or self-condemnation. I’m going to try to accept myself like God accepts me. I’m not going to worry about what other people may think or say or do. Yes, I have fallen down many times, but today I choose to get up and start walking anew. There are lots of places yet to travel, things to see and people to meet. When I fall down, I’m going to get right back up and keep going, even if everyone can see me limp.

And, I am going to remember that all the help of heaven is with me and following after me: “Surely, my goodness and my mercy will follow you all the days of your life” (God, Psalm 23).

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