Abstract The Movement of Grace

Transcription

1 Abstract The Movement of Grace Participants in this workshop will be challenged to recognize the intimate qualities of the absence, the emergence and the living experience of grace in patients struggling with process addictions. Often, these challenging patients have experienced a broad range of difficulties in their efforts to treat their disease, even as they have reconciled to the idea of choice and have a desire to build a sustained recovery Innovative approaches and a variety of patient interventions will be shared in an interactive, experiential setting that will help participants identify the spirituality behind a collaborative therapeutic exchange. Through the use of movie clips, literature and music, this interactive dialogue will enable the clinician to expand the realm of traditional therapeutic skills in the treatment of the dual addicted patient. As a result of this presentation, participants will come to view and utilize therapeutic interventions as not merely a sterile interaction to elicit change, but as an emotional and spiritual experience that will empower the patients to dedicate their efforts to connect with their truth. This pathway leads the patients from their obstacles and struggles to solutions and a place of hope. The first objective of the workshop will be to enable participants to recognize the progression of grace in an addict s journey from active disease through recovery. Another objective is to provide therapists with tools they can utilize to enhance this process. Finally, the clinician will be reunited with their own appreciation for the spiritual journey of the ones we have the privilege to work with. Objectives for CEU s 1. The first objective of the workshop will be to enable participants to recognize the progression of grace in an addict s journey from active disease through recovery. Participants will be challenged to expand their understanding of how grace and truth work their way through the past, present and future of the addict. 2. Another objective is to provide therapists with tools they can utilize to enhance this process. Although we cannot predict the outcomes of life unfolding for the addict, participants will learn techniques to unlock their own ideas to help patients remain on the path of recovery. 3. Finally, the clinician will be reunited with their own appreciation for the spiritual journey of the ones we have the privilege to work with. The mystery of participating in a personal experience with recovery is a spiritual journey that should not be missed.

2 QUOTES When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for not knowing, for joy. Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to practice war? The first work of grace is simply to enable us to begin to understand what is wrong. Love of the truth puts you on the spot. Rather than indulge or reject our experience, we can somehow let the energy of the emotion, the quality of what we are feeling, pierce us to the heart. When we reach our limit, if we aspire to know that place fully which is to say that we aspire to neither indulge nor repress a hardness in us will dissolve. We will be softened by the sheer force of whatever energy arises the energy of anger, the energy of disappointment, the energy of fear. Reaching our limit is like finding a doorway to sanity and the unconditional goodness of humanity, rather than meeting an obstacle or a punishment. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and in our pain, our confusion and our wisdom. Lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it. So long as we cling, we are bound. The first work of grace is simply to enable us to begin to understand what is wrong. The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning by Earnest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham Spirituality is nurtured in community, the openness with others that springs from shared wisdom and shared goal, shared memory and shared hope. Healing happens in a community of love. Explain the verse that is in you.

3 Everything in the world can be imitated, except truth. For truth that is imitated is no longer truth. You wish to see; listen. It is our weakness that makes us alike; it is our strength that makes us different. Addiction and Grace I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God...this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. We frequently repress our desire for love because love makes us vulnerable to being hurt...love can make us suffer. God does not always come to us in the pleasant ways we might expect, and so we repress our desire for God. We may repress our longing for God, but, like the hound of heaven that it is, it haunts us. Addiction is a separate and even more self defeating force that abuses our freedom and makes us do things we really do not want to do. While repression stifles desire, addiction attaches desire, bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things and people. Addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity s desire for God. Addiction is a deep seated form of idolatry. The objects of our addictions become our false gods. These are what we worship, what we attend to, where we give our time and energy, instead of love. Addiction, then, displaces and supplants God s love as the source and object of our deepest true desire. Addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person s will and desire. Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest desire for love and goodness. Our addictions fill up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might. Our addictions can indeed deaden our responsiveness to grace. Addiction teaches us not to be too proud. Sooner or later, addiction will prove to us that we are not gods. Grace is the most powerful force in the universe. Grace is where our hope lies.

4 Our addictions can lead us to a deep appreciation of grace. They can bring us to our knees....with depression, by means of grace, came a chance for spiritual openness. To be alive is to be addicted and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace. Grace is our only hope for dealing with addiction, the only power that can truly vanquish its destructiveness. Grace is the invincible advocate of freedom and the absolute expression of perfect love. It is a gift that we are free to ignore, reject, ask for, or simply accept. It is often given in spite of our intentions and errors....when grace is so clearly given unrequested, uninvited, even undeserved, there can be no authentic response but gratitude and awe. Grace itself cannot be controlled, it cannot be possessed. Similarly, grace seeks us but will not control us. Hope is a child of grace, and grace cannot be stopped. Anonymous All therapeutic inventions point in the direction of helping patients find their truth. Helping patients find their truth is the essence of healing. Assume it s denial and you may miss an opportunity to hear what is blocking their grace, or you may miss an opportunity to help them get to the place. We do not know their truth before they tell it to us we are not all the same. Allow the patient to discover the origins of their resistance. Connect and go where the energy is. Laughter Become curious about their struggles Question with intent of learning what they believe Approach them with their struggle. Question What is missing? What they know and believe. Get them to be a part of this. I can t use successfully and will always think I can.

5 Suggested Readings: Silent Hope: Living with the Mystery of God, by John Kirvan The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu s Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age, John Heider The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chodron CONTACT INFORMATION: Jennifer Angier, NCAC II Executive Director, Foundations Recovery Network 114 Sloan St., Roswell, GA Jennifer.angier@FRNmail.com