A Survivor’s Journey

Because I see you.

​I see you struggling to make your life work when everything seems to be working against you. I see you working on yourself, healing your childhood traumas, growing as a person, and still not being able to break out of the cycle you find yourself in. I see you reaching out for your old rock solid truths that used to hold you steady…and finding that they’re not there anymore. The things about the world, yourself and God that you KNEW to be true…aren’t. 

You feel like you’re adrift in the open sea; looking to the stars to navigate you back home only to realize that you are in a different hemisphere and these stars are foreign to you.

​You feel lost.

To answer that I need to tell you first about what I call your Inner Sanctuary.

Your Inner Sanctuary is the sacred space inside you where your person-hood resides; it houses your beliefs about yourself, your family, the world, and higher powers. It is a place where you can retreat when life gets hard, when you are confused about a major choice, afraid of the future, or overwhelmed with life and need a safe place to rest.

If this is a new concept to you, here is a quick meditation to help you tune into your Inner Sanctuary. 

• Find a quiet place with no distractions and sit comfortably or lie down. 
• Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Try to imagine your breath reaching all the way into the bottom of your lungs, and then fully exhale that breath.
• On your second breath bring your mind’s eye to your heart
• Imagine a room there. Imagine that this is a safe and sacred space. It’s a home inside your spirit that is 100% yours. 
• You might see a cozy fire place, or a big soft cushy couch. 
• The walls, paint, furniture, and pictures are all symbols of your beliefs. They represent what you believe about God, society, other people, money, work, family etc.
• Maybe you have a special chair or meeting place for the Divine to come in and visit with you.
• When you’re in this space you are safe and free from the opinions and thoughts of the world outside you. The noise of your day slips away and you are left with peace and quiet.
• This space is your altar. It is the sacred space inside you where you can go and meet with God, or find peace and stillness.
• When you’re ready take another deep breath and bring your awareness back to the room and open your eyes.

In most cases, our sanctuary was first formed by the influential people in our lives. These are our parents, teachers, relatives, pastors, and even our siblings and friends. As we grew we were supposed to add our own personality to it. We tear down pieces that no longer fit us and rebuild them to fit our experience and personality. This can happen over and over as we meet new people and are exposed to new ideas.

But what if you were never allowed to do that?

What if you were told that your inner sanctuary had to stay exactly how it was designed, and that to make changes was wrong. You might have believed that you would lose your family and your friends if you changed it. You might have been told that you would upset God if you changed it. So as you grew you had to live with an Inner Sanctuary that represented, housed, and protected you less and less.
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At some point you began to meet new people and be exposed to new ideas. No matter how hard you tried you could not make those new ideas fit with the beliefs that you held inside you. Every time you asked a question, allowed a doubt to have a voice, and expanded your view, a piece of that sanctuary would crumble. Because you had never been allowed to replace those crumbling pieces with views and beliefs of your own, you were left with a weathered and crumbling inner sanctuary that could no longer protect you from the elements of the world.

How might this show up in your everyday life?

• You have a hard time making decisions for yourself, especially important decisions.
• You feel like life is one catastrophe after another
• You feel anxious and depressed most of the time
• You have few passions of your own, preferring to support the desires of others
• You find yourself in destructive relationships with romantic partners, friends and family members who constantly take from you and rarely support and feed into you

Then it happens. You wake up.

You realize that you are no longer willing to live life in a crumbling spiritual structure. Who cares if it’s wrong to build your own? The people who forbid you from thinking and believing for yourself would have you living with a dilapidated and damaged spirit, so they clearly don’t have your spiritual, physical and emotional health in mind.

You decide it’s no longer worth it to trust them and as terrifying as it is you step away from the people who first formed your beliefs, worldview, and sense of self. You leave the relationship, you set boundaries around your family, you say goodbye to those friends, you leave that toxic church, and set out in search of truth.

It’s a brave step, one of the bravest things a human being can do. And it’s just the beginning of the journey.

So what now? How do you rebuild?

How do you get from this place of pain, with your spirit living in an Inner Sanctuary that is crumbling and open to the threats of the world, to a place safety, stability and joy?

You will go through 6 stages during this process. I’m going to give you stages 1 and 2 here, then we will work through the remaining stages during the next several articles.

Stage one: Crisis Management and Triage

Put out the fires and deal with the life threatening stuff.

Once you realize that your world is spinning and that your old ways of being in the world are no longer going to support you, then it’s time to take stock of the crisis and start putting out fires. This is usually a very practical stage because being in this place is having major real life consequences. Your finances are out of control, your relationships are terrible, and you have major health issues. So right now it’s about taking stock of the worst fires and addressing them. Create some hard boundaries around your life and your time. Separate from that toxic relationship. Remove yourself from the environments that are hurting you. This process is usually not glamorous or delicate. It can feel harsh and intense, but it’s necessary

***For survivors this can be a difficult and dangerous transition. It is important to be working with counselors, therapists and advocates to help you make the best choices during this stage***

The next step is triage. What damages are the most pressing? Is it your health or finances? Or is it your emotional/mental health? Start taking steps to repair these areas. The goal is to get to a point of survival. A point where you are no longer sinking and being buffeted by storms.

I want to reiterate that this stage is not glamorous or efficient. You will not be using perfect long term fixes, and the solutions you find will likely be solutions that will work really well in the short term, and then need to be replaced with long term solutions later.

Consider the illustration of your Inner Sanctuary. If it has holes in the roof and walls, missing doors, and trees that are about to fall onto the house, and a storm is coming, then you are not going to take the time to call a contractor and get a whole new roof right now. You are going to patch the holes, chop down the tree, and do what ever you have to do to create safety in the moment.

This is the duct tape phase of recovery. Be okay with that. Be willing to do whatever works to get yourself safely to step 2.

What does this look like practically?

It could mean finding a job that supports you, even if it’s not ideal.

If you can’t pay all your bills right now, then look at the bills you have, rate them in order of importance (house and car being at the top) and decide which ones can wait for payment.

I know this sucks, and if you CAN pay them all, then obviously do. Just know that there were months during my own recovery where I had to decide that a few credit cards would just not have to be paid because I needed to buy food. It felt crummy, I hated it, but I survived it and was able to repair that damage. This is not something that should be done lightly, and I suggest getting advice from a financial expert if you can, but I need you to hear me say that if you find yourself having to make these types of decisions it is not the end of the world and you will be okay in the end.

Find a way to make extra money outside your job

• What can you sell?
• Can you do some online temp work?
• Use your car to advertise for a business?
• Drive for Uber?

Accept any help offered that doesn’t put you back into a toxic dynamic. This is not a time for pride and shame. We have been conditioned to think that leaning on others is failure or makes us a burden. I have felt that, too and I know how strong it is. Consider this permission from me to accept help when it’s given with out any shame at all. Let that friend watch your kids, receive that help with your car or utility payment. View every single offer of help as a rung on a ladder and grasp those rungs and use them to climb out of the hole you are in.

Stage 2: Survival

Survival means having enough money to pay basic bills each month. It means being able to manage every day life. You can finally breathe and you are no longer constantly fighting to stay alive. This is an important place to reach, and it’s a good place to stop and rest for a minute. But…

Don’t stop at survival!!

Being in a state of survival is sooooo much better than being in crisis, and it’s easy to get comfortable there. The problem with that is that you are constantly one or two setbacks away from slipping back into crisis mode.

You will find that you are constantly under stress to keep working and striving because if you slow down then you’ll fall behind. This stress is so much more manageable than the stress of being in crisis, or of being in a toxic situation, that you hardly notice it, but don’t let that deceive you.

This is a stage where something like a job loss, you or your child having a medical emergency or your car breaking down can land you right back in crisis mode. So while it is good to take time to rest and breathe when you reach this point, it is also vital that you don’t stop here.

Unfortunately, this is where many survivors do get stuck. Why is that?

Remember earlier when I said the tools you were using to get you out of crisis mode and into survival were temporary? The tools you used to get yourself to safety will not work to get you past this point. Duct tape and tarp will only keep you safe from the elements for so long. It’s time to start working on those long term solutions.

I have a four step process that teaches those long term solutions and allows you to rebuild your Inner Sanctuary so that it is resilient against the changes that life brings. It will keep you strong, centered, safe and full of joy and love of life as you grow and move forward. Stay tuned to this blog because I will be talking about those steps one at a time over the coming months.

If this resonated with you and you don’t want to wait for the next installments to come out, or if you know you need guidance as you walk through these steps, then reach out to me and we will set up a time for you to talk with me one and one about how I can support you.