Below is an excerpt from Inviting Intimacy: Overcoming the Lies and Shame.
Whatever your story, (in the process of dealing with past baggage) you must recognize the shame and guilt that led you to isolate. Abandonment kills our sense of safety and security, not only the abandonment of others but also the ways we abandon ourselves. In such moments, shame in the form of self-contempt enters and hardens. The brain wires itself in trauma. And you feel alone.
It may be easier to shut down feelings and block memories, but doing so stops the story. A concluding period enters the narrative when a comma is required.
So how do you edit? How do you begin to write new paragraphs and new portions of your story? Believe it or not, you must confront and engage the past within new and safe relationships. Within the context of safe relationships, our hearts open and our minds can be rewired. Old identities can be uprooted, making room for something new. As we uproot the past in context of the present, we are given a chance to examine what we have come to believe about ourselves. What messages have we accepted? What lies have we taken on about ourselves? What truths can replace them?
In the shame and trauma of the past, it is possible that you only listened to two voices: your own and the voice of the Enemy. But in the presence of new and safe relationships, you can expose the lies you have long embraced as true: relationship bestows identity.
Learn more about one woman’s struggle through promiscuity, faith, and recovery and download chapter 1 here: Inviting Intimacy.
