CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

Character Defects

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Like A Ship Without A Rudder

getty_rf_photo_of_man_with_anxiety_in_bedroom“Big boys don’t cry.” “No pain no gain. Tough it out.” “Only sissies get hurt feelings.” “It’s a sign of weakness to let people know you’re hurting.” Men are cautioned to not discuss their feelings, to avoid feelings altogether and to not discuss love, sorrow or pain. Men will often make a joke out of a difficult situation rather than face it directly. Men are taught to be checked out toward the emotions of others, and keep their true feelings inside. All this is not to say that men are incapable of intimacy, dependency or vulnerability. They are quite able but our culture does not support it. One of the main reasons for drug and alcohol  use (and sexually acting out) is for medicating pain and that would include emotional pain. Men, who feel bottled up, sad, angry and depressed will often become workaholics, (sex addicts), drink or do drugs to avoid feelings. For men to understand how to be intimate they must first learn more about who they are, what they want and what is truly important to them. Feelings tell us what we want and what we need so without them we are like a ship without a rudder. So many men lead lives of quiet desperation, never letting anyone in or themselves out. For men to take a look at who they really are and allow their essence to be known are actually far stronger than the burly silent types who live their lives in utter isolation. Taken from an on-line article by Bill Cloke http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-why-men-have-trouble-with-intimacy/

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” – Sigmund Freud

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How Journaling Heals Wounds, Part 2

stop-child-abuseWriting that both describes traumatic events in detail and also examines how we felt about these events at the time and feel about them now (describing both negative and positive emotions), is the only kind of writing about trauma that clinically has been associated with improved health . And this is accomplished in Pennebaker’s (Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas) experiments by only one hour of writing – fifteen minutes a day – over a four-day period. Later studies showed that the more days people wrote the more beneficial were the effects of writing. Dr. Pennebaker’s work is compelling. I knew nothing about it during the years when I was working on When the Piano Stops, my own memoir of recovering from incest (and Never Tell: The True Story of Overcoming a Terrifying Childhood, which was the title given its best-selling, UK print). From time to time during those years, my beloved uncle, who had a very limited understanding about what’s involved in healing from childhood sexual abuse, expressed concern about my continually revisiting the most horrifying experiences of my life. The information in this blog would have been great to share with him at that time, but of course I couldn’t. Today, however, I have the opportunity to share it with you, and I do so with the hope that if you’re a survivor of child abuse you’ll take it to heart, gather your internal resources, your memory, your pain, and your creativity, and write on! By Catherine McCall, MS, LMFT
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/overcoming-child-abuse/201209/how-and-why-writing-heals-wounds-child-abuse

“We must be content to grow slowly. Most of us will still barely be at the beginning of our recovery by the time we die. But that is better than killing ourselves pretending to be healthy.” – Simon Tugwell

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How Journaling Heals Wounds, Part 1

I often wondered why I was supposed to journal my thoughts and feelings when I entered recovery.  Honestly, nobody answered the why, it was just something that was supposed to be done.  Initially, I felt like some teenage girl in her bedroom writing in her “diary” because I did not understand the basis behind putting those thoughts and feeling to paper.  Below is a good summary of how journaling can help God heal our wounds!

journal-bestThere is a profound connection between writing and healing. Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas, after considerable research, explained in his book, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, that excessive holding back of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can place people at risk for both major and minor diseases. More than simply a catharsis or venting, translating events into language can affect brain and immune functions. The subjects he tested had an increase in germ-fighting lymphocytes in their blood and lower stress levels. Writing was found to reduce anxiety and depression, improve grades in college, and aid people in finding jobs. He also reported that months after people had written about traumas over 70% reported that writing helped them to understand both the event and themselves better. Writing provides a means to externalize traumatic experience and therefore render it less overwhelming. At the same time, as the upsetting experience is repeatedly confronted, the emotional reactivity one feels as s/he assesses its meaning and impact is weakened. Once organized, traumatic events become smaller and smaller and therefore easier to deal with. Having distilled complex experiences into more understandable packages, survivors can begin to move beyond trauma because the process of writing about it provides a means for the experience to become psychologically complete, therefore there’s no more reason to ruminate about it. But not just any kind of writing will do. Dr.Pennebaker explains that the more writing succeeds as narrative – by being detailed, organized, compelling, vivid, and lucid – the more health and emotional benefits are derived. Likewise, over time, the work of inhibiting traumatic narratives and feelings acts as an ongoing stressor and gradually undermines the body’s defenses. By Catherine McCall, MS, LMFT
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/overcoming-child-abuse/201209/how-and-why-writing-heals-wounds-child-abuse

“A journal is a tool for self-discovery, an aid to concentration, a mirror for the soul, a place to generate and capture ideas, a safety valve for the emotions, a training ground for the writer, and a good friend and confident.” – Ron Klug

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Just Can’t Seem To Quit Self Gratification

February 26, 2013
by Prevailing Word Ministries

Oh, heaven NO!!!!

No relapse on my part. Not on your life because we are getting too close to the finale. I know that’s it’s been a while since my last blog. However, this is not a report of me backsliding kind of blog.

The trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we that are alive and remain will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

To stay holy is my one goal. I do not plan to be fulfilling the lust of the flesh and satisfying myself when Jesus comes.

Some of you may recall the 10 virgins. Five were wise. Five were foolish. When the bridegroom came, it was time for them to go to the wedding. The five wise had enough oil for the journey in the night and the five foolish did not. The five foolish asked the five wise to spare what they had, and the wise ones declined.

The five wise told them to go and buy for themselves. So they went out to buy oil for themselves, and they found some, but by the time they got to the door, it was shut.

They knocked on the door and the bridegroom did not let them in.

It was too late.

There are many incentives to take advantage of to quit sexual immorality, however, very few will incorporate such incentives.

The pleasures of self gratification can be overwhelming because of the rewards it offers. However, the reward of heaven with Christ outweighs the pleasures of self gratification. There comes a point in your walk with the Lord where masturbation is something you do not need.

Dr. Mark Laaser, who wrote a book on Healing The Wounds Of Sexual Addiction, did a course and placed a powerful lesson on Sexual Addiction on CD. He asked a question, “Can you do without masturbation and sex with your wife?” That’s radical. Because he continued and said, “If you can’t, you do not have full control and you cannot manage your sex life.”

The release of sexual tension is powerful. However, there comes a point where these pleasure of life must come to an end one way or another. Either through self discipline or when the catching away of the people of God takes place. Even after that, people will still engage in some form of releasing sexual tension. Even then, it’s just a matter of time before it all comes to an end.

NO MORE SEX!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!

For many people, a sense of hopelessness and shame clouds the mind. Hopelessness is the fog of war in the mind and flesh.

As long as this feeling of hopelessness lingers in the mind, the attempt to break free is the light at the end of the tunnel that is seemingly a fleeting thing. Many men and women have dashed their hopes because the urges and impulses dictates their every move.

In my studies about sexuality, I learned that many people plan their day around sex. It usually is at the expense of a marriage, their job, and ultimately, their relationship with the Lord. It was true for me too. The obsession, infatuation, day dreaming, open minded thoughts of reading a newspaper, magazine, women watching, and porn. My whole day was planned around an orgasm.

All these things and the true worship of God takes a back seat. In most cases, a relationship with God in hypocrisy is better than no relationship at all. As ridiculous as this sounds, this is where many of God’s people are. I can identify with this because when you refuse to equate the sin of self gratification as part of the religious ritual of false penance, it is easy to think that you are just as close to God as if you never sinned.

Like John, the apostle of the Lamb said, “If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

I know you are not going to let me off the hook about calling masturbation a sin because there is no specific chapter and verse that declares that masturbation is a sin. However, where the Bible is silent, it is never to be assumed that it is safe to commit an act. Besides, not many people will agree that since Jesus didn’t do it, neither should I.

This stops all of the pretense.

I mean, we are to be like Christ in every way? Right?

If this is so according to, Romans 8:29, and if we are to prove that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, to yield our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service according to Romans 12:1, then we should be able, at least consider the fact that the Lord desires for sin to not have dominion over us according to Romans 6:12.

The majority of the time, we are always looking for a reason to “continue in sin that grace may abound” according to Romans 6:1. When we get to the place where we desire to please the Lord, we find ourselves looking for reasons to continue in righteousness so that grace may abound. We look to cut our hands and our eyes, we look to strive against sin even to the shedding of our own blood to stop sin.

No, put the Rambo knife down.

Jesus and the writer of Hebrews spoke of entering a place of radical cutting off of the instruments and members so that we would stop sinning.

Paul said, by the Spirit of God, “The body is not made for sexual immorality.” 

The physical body was made to be indwelled by the Lord. The Lord desired to inhabit man and the body is not for fornication (pornea).

As long as we make provision to fulfill the desires of the flesh and mind, we will never break its cycle.

Millions of men and women throughout the world masturbate every day. For reasons that range from sexual perversion to fulfill lust, to releasing sexual tension is a major problem. It seems like marriage, which is the answer to stop masturbation is no longer the answer that man wants to accept. Additionally, self control, a fruit of the Spirit according to Galatians 5:22, is cast to the side.

The parable of the sower is the most powerful parable that Jesus ever spoke. In that parable is the answer to handle the problems we face in life. It also serves as the gauge or measuring tool to locate where you are in your relationship with the Lord. Producing fruit is the thing that most concerns the Father. Galatians 5:22. John 15:1-5 confirms this and Jesus further confirms this when He said that we are known by our fruit.

Man will stand in four places. Good ground, wayside, stony ground, and thorny ground.

The last ground, thorny ground speaks of people that are trapped in cares, riches, and pleasures of life. 

The pleasures of this life come with a price. If we are unable to cast aside the pleasures of this life, we may never be free. But thank God your failure is not final. While there is still time, you can enjoy freedom in Christ from the powerful urge to masturbate. You can return to experience a healthy sexual life with your wife or husband if you are married.

Most importantly, you can be restored in your relationship with the Lord in righteousness and true holiness, laying aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset you, to lay aside every filthiness and overflow of wickedness, to cleanse ourselves from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Hopelessness is coming to an end for you. New life in Christ is at hand for you.

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Should An Affair Be Revealed? – Part I

Castimonia recommends that disclosure of an affair (or numerous affairs) be done in the presence of a qualified therapist or counselor who can immediately assist the betrayed spouse in processing their feelings in healthy ways.  We recommend the use of the 3-day intensives offered by Comfort Christian Counseling and Hope & Freedom Counseling, both linked to the left of the page under links.

Posted by James Browning on February 25, 2013

bad20relationship20adviceGuilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it’s not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it’s the first step toward marital reconciliation. Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. “Why add insult to injury,” they reason. “What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?” As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don’t think they will ever be discovered, and so they don’t expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse. But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy. It isn’t honesty that causes the pain, it’s the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it’s in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity. It’s patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth. From “Coping With Infidelity Part II” by Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.” – Soren Kierkegaard