Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean

Getting Our Affairs in Order

A few months ago I received word that some blood work I had drawn during a routine physical came back with some “anomalies.” Further tests were conducted and I waited to hear more news. The news could be good - no problems detected. It could be annoying - we need to run more tests. It could be manageable - here is what we found and this is how we fix it. It could be bad - you have an un-treatable condition, get your affairs in order. These were my options. It turns out it was all good news and there is no reason that the blood work would indicate that Pete should go shopping for a replacement wife.

This was not my first rodeo with a “get your affairs in order” speech. When my eating disorder was at its worst and my heart began to have issues I did not get my affairs in order despite dire warnings from my cardiologist; I continued to compulsively starve myself for months. I can say from personal experience that when I was at the “get your affairs in order” stage of sickness, the nature of my sickness meant that I was poorly equipped to follow advice and heed warnings.

Eventually, reluctantly, I began the healing process but it was messy and slow and relapse-prone. Eventually, my metaphorical blood work began to improve. The level of insanity was down; not normal, but down. I heard others speak about their own experiences and I opened up to the possibility that I did indeed have a condition I would manage for the rest of my life. I was reasonably confident that I could not handle it on my own. I was absolutely certain that my best efforts were not enough to save me.

I had a decision to make. It needed to be a different decision than all the other times I had made promises to myself and others and made commitments I was incapable of keeping. What was I going to do this time that I had never done before? Have you ever been at the end of your rope? How did you climb out of the pit? Are you there today? Who could you ask to help you start the long road back to wellness?

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Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean

The Benefits of Being an Outsider

One of my favorite people in the whole wide world is in a free fall. After years of sobriety, he has relapsed. I feel so very, very sad. Until I think about his faith. This guy believes that God loves him and he is deeply spiritual. He understands that God loves “the sorry people”. He’s in bad shape AND God is in the business of restoring broken people. No problemo. The cynics among us might scoff at this. In fact, just the other day another person I know said this: “Well, he couldn’t have loved Jesus as much as he said he did if he has gone off and gotten back on the sauce.” Big, big sigh.

Can we talk about this? If loving Jesus served as a spiritual vaccine against doing stuff that goes against our core values, then we would NOT have so many church folk doing hood rat stuff - like having affairs, watching porn (at work, even at work being a pastor), abusing others, stealing from the petty cash drawer, getting divorced, etc. I’m not judging the sin here - but I am just pointing out reality. Loving Jesus doesn’t stop us from messing up. So why in the name of all things holy do we think it provides an insurance policy against relapse?

But...just because Jesus is not the equivalent of a vaccine against going against our own values does NOT mean our faith is of no value. It just shows up in a different form.

Right now my friend is on the street buying drugs from folks he once tried to help get sober. He is a serious outsider, isolated from his tribe of recovery warriors. But drug dealers will sell to anyone. People are talking. They are saying that the guy who used to help them is now in need of help himself. Can you imagine how nervous they feel? Their leader now needs a good shepherd to guide him back home. Everyone is just sick over the situation. I just want him to come back home. No judgment here, brother, Just. Come. Home.

Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”

Matthew 9:12-13 The Message

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Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean

Meditation Moment

Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.”

~ John 8:32 The Message

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Take this step for you. You are worth it. Find some quiet time to sit and breathe. Imagine what it would be like for you to stick with your faithful pilgrimage. Dare to dream of what it would be like to be a spiritual being in an earth suit. What would your day and evening look like? Just imagine. No pressure.

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Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean

Recovery is a puzzle

“To me, recovery is like trying to put together this puzzle. There are all these different puzzle pieces. They are not the same for everyone, but for me, those puzzle pieces have been therapy, medication, fellowship and 12-Step. All of these puzzle pieces come together to allow me to stay sober, and they are all really important. However, they are different for everybody. I wish there was one solution that worked for all people, but unfortunately, that is not the case.” Excerpt from Beautiful Boy: An Interview with Nic Sheff, John Lavitt 10/12/2018, thefix.com.

You were created by a loving God with great intentionality. You are not alone in figuring out your puzzle.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

The days of my life all prepared

before I’d even lived one day.

~ Psalm 139:15-16, The Message

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Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean Teresa McBean

Seeking wholeness in all the wrong places

Dr. Carl Jung, a noted psychiatrist, once said that addiction is an unconscious quest for God. Restated, Jung believed that we are seeking wholeness for ourselves through artificial sources. Obviously, there are tons of ways to journey through life. Some have more side-effects than others. But Jung believed we cannot escape this primal quest for wholeness - nor should we!

Nic Sheff began his quest through an absolute commitment to drug use. His favorite was methamphetamines, but he was not too picky. Nic’s story is laid out for the world to see in the books, Beautiful Boy, written by his father David and Nic’s book Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.

“Smoking pot for the first time felt like the first real answer that I had ever found. I kept turning to drugs to cope with everything from success to failure to shyness and everything in between. Thus, when I wasn’t using, I really developed no skills to handle what life threw at me. I kept going back to the drugs because they were the only coping mechanism that I’ve ever learned.”

If smoking pot was the answer, what was his primary question?

Long before he [God] laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

~ Ephesians 1:3-6, The Message

The quest is a sacred pilgrimage. But in Nic’s case, and mine, my brother’s and maybe yours - we stumble upon an answer to the wrong question that does not hold up for the long haul. In recovery, we can choose to embark on a healing journey with intentionality. This will lead us into a whole new way of being. Recovery does not return us to who we were before we started using, it breaks us out of the prison of our mind, clouded by dysfunctional thinking, feeling and behaving. Maybe you think this does not apply to you. Are you sure? Is there any person, place or thing that you absolutely believe you cannot live without? You might just have a dependency!

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