CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

resentment

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The Fruit of a Tree and Sexual Brokenness

Originally from Regeneration Ministries. https://www.regenerationministries.org/the-fruit-of-a-tree-and-sexual-brokenness/

You’ve probably heard it said here before that breaking a habit of unwanted sexual behaviors goes beyond “Behavior Management.”

Setting up filters or throwing away devices might eliminate the cues to your addiction, but it still leaves you exposed. There’s deeper work to be done.

Ultimately, to change your behavior you need to understand the why’s to your behavior. The actions you choose are connected to your emotions, to your thoughts and to your beliefs. 

You are wonderfully complex. In this episode, we’ll be looking at the design of a Tree to illustrate how you work and why you need to go deeper. (Be sure to look to the Homework section for ways to make the Tree model work for you.)

Highlights: 

FRUIT (Our Behavior)

The fruit of the tree, the leaves of the tree represent the behavior, the outward sign.

BRANCHES (Our Emotions)

When we experience some type of emotional pain or discomfort in our bodies, that serves as a trigger to move us towards these other behaviors to either medicate the pain or to get away from it.

TRUNK (Our Thoughts)

Your thoughts are more expansive than just a sentence, it holds with it some sort of image that connects to an idea.

ROOTS (Our Story)

This is where our Core beliefs lie. For example: What we learned about family based on our experience, about ourselves as kids, what God is like, about the world around us, what men are like, what women are like.

SOIL (Our Influences)

Things that influence our beliefs: Family of Origin, Abuses we’ve experienced, great disappointments, losses, etc.

The things we choose to think can be soil around our beliefs. What we choose to do can also serve as soil that nourishes the soil of what we believe.

Homework:

We are praying you choose to do the harder work of uncovering. You hold a powerful opportunity to change the trajectory of your life.  If, along the way you find yourself needing extra help, consider reaching out to us and we will set you up with a Spiritual Coach to come alongside you in your important work.

Branch Questions:

When you struggle with an unwanted behavior, begin by asking yourself, “What was I feeling before I started moving in that direction?”

If you’re feeling tempted right now, begin to notice and understand “What am I feeling in my body right now? What are the emotions I’m experiencing in my body right now?”

Trunk Questions:

What am I thinking that’s producing the kinds of emotions I’m experiencing now?

Take some guesses: What was going on for you that day? What’s coming up for you?

Root Work:

Take some time to write out what you think about the idea of Family (for example). Write the word Family on a piece of paper and then start brainstorming all that comes to mind about what a family looks like, who’s there, what they do, what does a week look like, what happens on the weekends, what does home look like to you, what role do you play. Taking time to write out the construct of what Family looks like to you can deconstruct some of the feelings you have attached to it.

Soil Work:

Nourish your beliefs through things like – exercise, scripture memorization, silence, simplicity, worship, communion, confession.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh’s latest musing on this topic at, If You Keep Repeating Your Sin

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Dynamics of Addiction

Originally posted at: https://applyingmybeliefs.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/dynamics-of-addiction/
by applyingmybeliefs

I’ve been reading a book “Not the Way it is Supposed to Be – A Breviary of Sin” written in 1995 by Cornelius Plantinga, it has been very interesting.  Chapter 8 of the book is titled “The Tragedy of Addiction”, and in it the author reviews the broad subject of the connection between sin and addictions.

One of the most important things he says in this chapter for those of us who deal with addicts and addictions is this:

  • Involuntary sin is still sin.

It is all too easy for a therapist, a psychiatrist or a social worker to believe the lie taught or implied in psychology textbooks that the addict is controlled by his or her addiction, so that it is “not their fault” and no sin is involved.  This is an example of what Paul talks about here:

Rom 1:24-25 – Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  ESV

The truth is that sin is at the root of all addictions, and sometimes we forget that.  This truth is why we need God’s help to overcome addictions, and also why spiritual programs of recovery are more effective than secular programs.

In the geographical area I live in, Katy Texas, all of the successful secular recovery programs that I know about have a spiritual component.  Yes, they might use the term “higher power”, but that is their attempt to connect to God without calling Him God.  And God in His mercy still comes through for them!

Also in this chapter the author displays a good understanding of what addiction is all about and how it ensnares us.  He provides the following list and calls it “The Dynamics of Addiction.”

  1. Repetition of pleasurable and therefore habit-forming behavior, plus escalating tolerance and desire.
  2. Unpleasant aftereffects of such behavior, including withdrawal symptoms and self-reproach.
  3. Vows to moderate or quit, followed by relapses and attendant feelings of guilt, shame and general distress.
  4. Attempts to ease this distress with new rounds of the addictive behavior, or the first rounds of a companion addiction.
  5. Deterioration of work and relationships, with accompanying cognitive disturbances, including denial, delusions, and self-deceptions, especially about the effects of the addiction, and the degree to which one is enthralled by it.
  6. Gradually increasing preoccupation, then obsession, with the addictor.
  7. Compulsivity in addictive behavior; evidence that one’s will has become at least partly split, enfeebled, and enslaved.
  8. A tendency to draw others into the web of addiction, people who support and enable the primary addiction. These “co-dependents” present certain addictive patterns of their own- in particular, the simultaneous need to be needed by the addict and to control him.  The codependent relationship is thus one in which primary and parasitic addictions join.

Those of us in the world of Christian recovery will recognize this as an excellent description of what we see each day.  I recommend that we all copy this list, and if we use it, be sure to attribute it to the original author, listed below.

The reference:

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be – By Cornelius Plantinga Jr.  (1995) Erdman’s Publishing.  ISBN 978-0-8028-4218-3

 

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We’ve All Been There…

That’s why we need to work a proper Step 4!

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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.

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Lingering and Waiting

For those men who have been sexually abused as a child, I encourage you to attend our Barrayo meeting on Tuesday nights in Sugar Land.  Please contact Barrayo@merimnao.org for more details.

cut-the-stringsThe more you face the truth, the angrier you will probably become. You have a right to be angry about being sexually abused. You have a right to be angry with the perpetrator, regardless of who it was, how long ago the sexual abuse occurred, or how much he/she has changed. From “The Right to Innocence” By Beverly Engel

“I’ve tried to cut it out, to starve it out, to purge myself of this inherent evil he rubbed off on me. I’ve tried it all; pills and booze, food and lack of food, bruises, cuts and burns. My mind’s shut down, refusing to remember. My emotions have gone on leave, and despite all this, I can still feel the darkness inside me, lingering and waiting to engulf me again.” – From “Power” A poem by Caiti Le