`I HAVE TRANSFORMED MY CUP OF LIFELONG SUFFERING INTO THE MEANING OF MY LIFE.’
The author has experienced a wide range of emotional sufferings since childhood. He wants to use his extensive experiences with wounded self-esteem combined with insights and strategies derived from many other psychological and spiritual books to help other victims to build their own bridges to transcend their pain, shame and emotional helplessness. In managing and partially overcoming most of these problems, he is convinced that the answers to unlock his emotional problems lie in crafting his own keys to open the doors of the dungeon cells from inside. In short, it is important to maintain an open mind with self-honesty so that one can really take responsibility for one’s own life without any self-denial. Acknowledging one’s mistakes honestly will better prepare the mind for continual on-going self-improvement. More importantly, he believes in himself- in his integrity & in the philosophy of showing compassion for self and for others as well as trust in the unconditional love of God.
At the end of the day, it is the suffering victim who must lift his/her own hands to pull himself/herself out of the ruts to go on living a life that God wants him/her to live. Nobody else can do this job of rebuilding his/her wounded life. The ultimate reality is that the victims must be the authors who must take the ultimate responsibility of writing the scripts of the future chapters of their lives.
The author hopes that he can make a positive difference in the lives of some suffering souls who are looking for some light in their pitch-black tunnels. He realizes that he can’t do it alone because the doors to other people’s souls are sacrosanct and sacred. He believes in the power of the grace and unconditional Love of God to bring about inner healing and happiness for the victims. To benefit from the divine grace and love, one must be aware of this unconditional love and one must be willing to accept this divine love with a humble spirit. This mental frame of mind has been validated by the tremendous success of the Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) worldwide in the treatment of the compulsive disorders of the alcoholics.
The Philosophy behind this blog is to share the unconditional love of God for everyone whose self-esteem has been wounded in one way or another. The unconditional love of God is the most powerful healing force to restore their mental health by neutralizing the negative impact of toxic shame in the victims seeking recovery. The rationale is simple. If our Creator can accept and love you as you are without any preconditions, then the victims can also love themselves as they are because God is our ultimate Judge who knows everything.
In other words, no human being (including you) can judge unerringly. As Dr. Alexis Carrel, the Nobel-Prize Winner for Medicine, once said, “To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.”
Once a person afflicted by toxic shame is convinced of God’s love, then he/she can learn to accept himself/herself (even though the self-esteem has been badly distorted and wounded by others). Then the victims can learn to become more compassionate towards their wounded life including their inborn flaws, mistakes and offences. This awareness of God’s unconditional love is the key to nurturing self- compassion and unconditional acceptance which are so essential to the wholesome recovery of the victims of deep shame.
The concept of compassion for oneself is based on the facts that any flawed human being (because of his/her limitations, finite intelligence, flawed perceptions etc) simply cannot see the whole truth about himself/herself. At best, the victim can see a partial subjective truth of his life. So how can a flawed person with biased negative perception judge rightly when he/she cannot even fully comprehend all the other intangible factors exercising a significant impact on his/her life? Moreover, no person (regardless of his/her moral, social, financial, or political position) can really fully control the unseen forces operating in his/her life. In view of the above observations, no wonder, Carl Jung, an eminent modern psychologist, draws this conclusion, “The greatest and most important problems in life are all in a certain sense insoluable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.”
At the end of the day, every person has to come back to God for an assessment in his/her report card. Hence it is so important to appreciate the three great gifts that the ancient Chinese philosophy offered to mankind- simplicity, patience and compassion for oneself.
Above all, learn to accept and trust in God’s unconditional love with humility.
David Alp. YKK
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF MY LIFE?
- GOD’S MYSTERIOUS WAYS ARE UNIQUE AND MEANINGFUL IN EVERY INDIVIDUAL LIFE IF ONE HAS THE EYES TO SEE THEM.
I still remember that three years ago, when I was in the US on vacation, I was pondering what to do with the last lap of my life. I was stuck at the crossroad of my life and was confused about my spiritual disorientation. I had frequently asked this proverbial question, `Why me, Lord?’ whenever I reflected on the mistakes and adversities in my life. More often than not, I simply could not find any satisfactory answers to the most important questions in my life. As a matter of fact, the more I stirred the water, the more muddy it became and the end result became an exercise in futility leading to more mystery and more profound questions. The only acceptable conclusion was to accept the verdict of this author, Brian Tracy, “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”
During those difficult times of feeling lost, whenever I pondered on the negative circumstances in my life, this profound concept kept coming back to haunt and challenge me, “The elixir is hidden in the toxin.” Yes, the more I reflected on this deep insight, I became more convinced than ever that what I needed to do was to find the answer or the medication that was hidden and buried in my toxic events and circumstances in my life. Finally I was convinced that the antidote to my inner poison and emotional malaise actually was embedded in my personal adversities and mistakes. Look for your solution and answer there. Look with your heart and intuition, not with your eyes. As a result, the more I pondered and reflected on my life, the more proactive I became. Then I even applied the creative concept of recasting to change my perception towards my problems of wounded self-esteem . How can I make a positive contribution towards rebuilding a better world for other victims suffering from similar problems like those of mine?
I was sure that there were millions of suffering souls out in the world who suffered in quiet desperation and despair. On matters of wounded self-esteem, the victims are often trapped and entombed by deep shame and imaginary guilt that they don’t want to talk about. Hence, silence is often their worst enemy because this insidious enemy has the total freedom to run riot in their imagination. That is how such victims often become paranoid and suffer from delusion and distorted realities! That is how their warped minds become the devil’s perfect workshop! That is how they perceive poisonous snakes what other healthy people see as ropes! That is how the poor victims see their minds as half-empty instead of half-full! That is the beginning of self-hate! That is how their flawed perceptions create their own warped realities! That is why John Milton, the blind poet, shares the wisdom of his `inner sight’- that the mind is a place of its own, it can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven! What a wonderful paradox! One in which your own personal perception can make a world of difference in the way you see your adversity and mistakes.
Many thanks to the loving Lord for giving me the wisdom and the grace to see the light in my tunnel that was filled with darkness and fuzzy distractions. It is God’s unconditional love that has inspired me to do something about the mistakes and shadows of my life and recast them into stepping stones for other fellow-travelers who can barely trudge with their wounded feet and bowed heads with wounded self-esteem. It is only God’s infinite wisdom that he had planned and provided so many intricate mysterious bits of the puzzle that I can only comprehend on hindsight.
He had planned and challenged me to take up this vocation of writing this blog by planting all kinds of embarrassing and shameful circumstances in my life -even when I was conceived in the womb of my mother who had an abandoned childhood when her own mother (my maternal grandmother) was forced to `abandon’ her to remarry another man after the death of her husband. Then years later my grown-up mother was compelled to marry my father, who was old enough to be her father if not grandpa! Then after my birth, my life was chained to the roller-coaster with more downs than ups; with toxic shame stalking me throughout my childhood, my adolescent, my adulthood until my old age! Most of the time, I was not in control of the negative circumstances in my life. I could only react to the negative events that kept hammering on my already wounded self-esteem. I have been exposed to my embarrassments and shame-based incidents much more than any normal person. Sometimes, I just wonder why God has given me such a huge appetite for a wide range of wounded experiences, disorders and flawed emotions. The patterns of such events spanning over seven decades were so intricate and well-planned that that the main dominant common thread visible in the fabric of my life is a wounded self-esteem. Lord, how can things be so bad? There was a numbing senselessness in my personal world that I often became disorientated and confused by the obvious contradictions that are simply meaningless. I suppose the Good Lord has a purpose in His mind when he wants me to go through all the various kinds of toxic experiences that would have shattered the personal self-esteem and faith of most people.
In his goodness and wisdom, the good Lord has allowed me to be contracted with a moderate dosage of compulsive disorders related to smoking, gambling and massage. Based on my several years of reflection and hindsight, I am convinced that God wants to ensure that I know what I am writing about- something meaningful and relevant that will be of practical help to the victims of codependency and compulsive disorders. He has allowed me to be put to the test to have a taste of the bitterness and sourness of the lemons that are the fruits of my life. But at the same time, He gives me the commonsense and humility of blending my lemons into a lemonade drink to quench the thirst of some suffering souls in our broken world.
I know that it is not easy to write on this difficult topic especially for a non-professional. The only expertise that I have is my own life experiences. Most of the time, I have been grounded and hence forced to see things and life from the viewpoints of the victims who ponder and mourn about their problems at the base of the ivory tower. I suppose I have the advantage of writing some meaningful stuff for the codependency victims from ground level- by a fellow codependent who understands the fears, shame and ugly thoughts and put them as honestly as possible in simple terms that the victims can relate to in his/her life. I suppose I am one of those writers who have the self-honesty to write about the hidden things in the minds of the codependency victims – the kinds of stuff that are unspeakable, shame-laden, and shattering for self-esteems. Yes, to put it succinctly, the kind of stuff that nightmares are made of! I can write about my own toxic experiences because God has given me the faith and courage to rise above my life. In other words, I see my life as a broken vessel that God has used to distribute his unconditional love to awaken the slumbering souls suffering from the human condition. Maybe, some poor suffering souls may be able to gain some benefits from my postings to alleviate their suffering and despair. On hindsight, I am convinced of God’s infinite wisdom. Now armed with an extensive pool of personal experiences (the good, bad & ugly ones); a small library of psychotherapy books collected over the years under his guidance; and a sincere intention to recast my experiences into stepping stones for other suffering souls to demonstrate that the good Lord really cares and loves them. Now this blog has become the meaning of my life because if God wants to pour rain in my life, then rain shall be my showers of blessings. If He wants me to be a stepping-stone for other people to use to cross their chasm, then let me be the best stepping stone that the Lord wants to create! This is his will and this is my humble destiny. This is the meaning of my life that the Good Lord has filled with love and grace. And I hope that He will make me into a loving human being who can fulfill Jesus’ command- `Love one another as I love you; by this will others know that you are my disciple.’ This is my deepest personal prayer- to play my role as a fitting humble piece in the great puzzle of life according to God’s design and agenda.
In this blog, you can detect a little bit of love, humility, empathy, simplicity, forgiving spirit, awakened awareness, faith and trust in the goodness and unconditional love of Jesus, my gentle Shepherd. It is with the healing grace and supporting presence of Jesus that I can cope with the emotional burdens afflicting my life. Just as the good Lord has promised, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:27)
Submitted by David (Alp.) YKK
