CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

ptsd

By

Healing the Father Wound, Part 1 – VIDEO

I recently had the pleasure of watching the movie “Saving Mr. Banks”.  For those that do not know this movie, it is the story of the struggle between P. L. Travers (played by Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) in the creation of the movie version of Travers’ Mary Poppins books.  As I watched this movie, my recovery senses were tingling.  I had no idea what this movie was going to be about, much less an expectation of a much deeper meaning that would bring up my father wound and literally bring me to tears by the end of the movie (I love being able to feel these strong emotions and not stuff them deep down).  You see, P. L. Travers, formally named Helen Goff, grew up in rural Australia with an alcoholic father.  The childhood part of the story takes place in 1906, the “current events” portion where she is reviewing the Disney script takes place in 1961.

From this movie, I was able to see how deep the “father wound” ran in P. L. Travers.  Being the daughter of an alcoholic, she grew up to be what I call a “control freak” which basically means she needs to control everything and everyone around her in order to feel “safe.”  This control extended to the use of her Mary Poppins character by Walt Disney.  There are so many examples of her woundedness that I had to break up the original two hour movie into two 30 minute videos.  I highly encourage you to watch the movie in its entirety.  It is a great example of the father wound that all fathers can inflict on their children, some shallow, but for Helen Goff, some very, very deep. The reality that P. L. Travers, as an adult, was acting out for most of her life, trying to find healing for her father wound is unfortunately outside the scope of this movie.  Nevertheless, it is worth researching and only adds more proof of the depth of which P. L. Travers experienced her father wound.

Part one of the video is mainly the wounds being inflicted on Helen as a child and then bubbling to the surface (acting out with anger, control, manipulation, etc…) as she reviews all the story boards and music associated with the Mary Poppins movie.  I hope you enjoy watching this movie as much as I enjoyed editing it.  Keep an eye out for the comments I make throughout the film.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

By

Courage to Heal

Courage to Heal
(By John Joseph*)

The recovery process is an active one that demands a lot from me. It isn’t a passive progression that happens on its own—I must be a daily, and often aggressive, participant. I don’t like that, but it is true.

To deny my responsibility to pursue wholeness in the areas of my broken soul is to give my past power to destroy me through addiction, depression, and shame.

Am I going to let that happen?

The terrible truth is that there’s something in me that works against me. Call it my “addict,” my “disease,” my “inner child,” or the “devil.” Its name doesn’t matter. It’s still out to take me down in any way it can.

John Mayer wrote some poignant lyrics about this in his song Gravity:

Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh I’ll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away[1]

How many of us survivors have found ourselves on the edge of the emotional cliff, ready to jump off again? How many times have we acted out the same demeaning behavior only to go down the shame spiral again? Why do we feel the constant weight of what Mayer calls gravity in our bones that brings us to the brink, again and again, of throwing it all away?

Our various faith traditions may call it karma, fate, fortune, or sin. Whatever it is, it will gain the upper hand and destroy me if I am lazy or unmindful of it.

To recover is to have the courage to heal every day.

(*John Joseph is a pseudonym of a pastor. He’s a regular contributor to this blog.)

*****

[1] Writer(s): John Mayer Copyright: Reach Music Publishing-digital O.B.O. Goodium Music, Specific Harm Music, Sony/ATV Tunes LLC

By

Reenacting the Fall

http://www.ransomedheart.com/daily-reading/reenacting-fall

The story of Eden is not over.” Every day we reenact the Fall as we turn in our desire to the very things that will destroy us. As Gerald May reminds us, Addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are not their true desires. To define it directly, 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. (Addiction and Grace)

Addiction may seem too strong a term to some of you. The woman who is serving so faithfully at church—surely, there’s nothing wrong with that. And who can blame the man who stays long at the office to provide for his family? Sure, you may look forward to the next meal more than most people do, and your hobbies can be a nuisance sometimes, but to call any of this an addiction seems to stretch the word a bit too far.

I have one simple response: give it up. Let go of the things that provide you with a sense of security, or comfort, or excitement, or relief. You will soon discover the tentacles of attachment deep in your soul. There will be an anxiousness; you’ll begin to think about work or food or golf even more. Withdrawal will set in. If you can make it a week or two out of sheer willpower, you will find a sadness growing in your soul, a deep sense of loss. Lethargy and a lack of motivation follow.

Remember, we will make an idol of anything, especially a good thing. So distant now from Eden, we are desperate for life, and we come to believe that we must arrange for it as best we can, or no one will. God must thwart us to save us.

By

Father’s Day

Originally posted on June 17, 2012

In celebration of Father’s Day, I would like to tell you a short story about my father’s day 2008.  It was the first time I attended my current Church, The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch.  My wife and I dropped off our 10 month old baby girl in the nursery for the first time.  I was nervous and throughout the entire service, I was worried they would call one of our cell phones to tell us that she needed to be picked up from childcare!  To be honest, I don’t remember the content of the service (apologies to our family pastor who typically preaches on Mother’s and Father’s Day – Robert Jackman), I wish now I had.

When we went to pick up our daughter, I was overjoyed at how happy she was when we picked her up.  And then my “heart strings” were tugged!  The attendants in the nursery handed me a father’s day gift.  I looked at it and read it, and was so grateful for this gift that I made a decision that this was going to be the church for my family.  The nursery attendants took the time to place my daughter’s hand in paint and place her tiny hand print on a poem and frame the paper they used (see the photo to the side).  WOW!  My wife and I now work in the nursery with the infants and sometimes we can get overwhelmed with children, but the fact that these selfless people took time out of their stressed-out baby duty to do this for all the fathers was fantastic!

At the time, I did not realize that us visiting that father’s day and the poem were a “God Thing.”  As I look back at the last 4 years, I can obviously see that it definitely was.  It was less than a year later that I entered recovery for my sexual addiction and it was this church (more importantly the body of Christ – the members) that supported me in my recovery.  To be honest, up until I entered recovery, I was not involved in the church. I was one of those husbands, fathers, men that would come sit on Sunday mornings and let it go in one ear and out the other.  My biggest question after church was “what’s for lunch?”  I just was not invested in the church.

And then my life fell apart, and who was there to help me put things back together?  The body of Christ!  I began getting involved in church activities such as a couple of men’s Bible studies including one on Joseph, a Man of Integrity and Forgiveness (Swindoll).  It was during the study of Joseph where I confessed to having a sexual addiction.  I believe most of the men in the room were shocked and silent.  During the study on lesson 2, resisting temptation, I admitted my past sexual sin.  The funny thing is, after the study a couple of guys came up to me and also told me they struggled with about the same issues as I did.

From there, I took a Men’s Fraternity course, the Quest for Authentic Manhood that addressed a lot of my wounds growing up as well as showing me how the Bible defines manhood.  I continued on to various Christian studies and then in June 2010 I started the Castimonia Men’s Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group, meeting for the first time on Saturday, June 12, 2010.

Had it not been for the experience at the nursery on father’s day of 2008, I don’t think I would be where I am today.  I pray all fathers in recovery have had similar experiences and that they can reflect on how God used the love of their children to draw them closer to Him.  And for fathers that are still living in sexual sin and need a reason to get out, I would like for you to look into the eyes of your children and understand that if you remain in that secret sexual sin, then there is a high probability your children too will inherit that sin or marry someone who has their own sexual sin.  Had I stayed in my addiction and kept it secret, I am certain that my daughters would have grown up to marry someone who carried the same character defects and same sexual secrets as I did.  Furthermore, if I had sons, it would be much worse for them as they would end up with some sort of intimacy disorder, such as sex addiction, if I had kept up my isolation and secrets.  So please seek help and step into the light, the path of recovery is not easy, but it is so much better than a life of sexual impurity.  It is a much better life for you, your wife, and especially your children!

Happy Father’s Day!

Take what you like and leave the rest.

By

Jesus Loves Me!

Singing this song to my daughters, I thought to myself, “One small change to the song, and it has special meaning to me.”

Jesus loves me! This I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Addicts all to Him belong,
they are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

It’s so amazing that God loves me in my worst and at my best and all in between.  I am so weak and depend on Him to help me live my life, as they say in recovery, “One day at a time.”

Today, Castimonia celebrates 4 years serving our Lord and King, Jesus Christ!  I could not have sustained this without His mercy and grace, without the love and patience of my wonderful wife, and the amazing men who have stepped forward to serve in the ministry.  I also thank the Holy Spirit, who speaks with an English accent, for planting the seeds and having the confidence in me to start this ministry.

I thank all of you with all of my heart and am truly grateful for all God has done with this ministry.