by Coach Tina | Nov 20, 2018 | Forgiveness, Growth
Not forgiving is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die – (quoted by many)
There was a time I had a really hard time dealing with offenses. If someone did something to me, not only did I make it personal, but I dwelled on it. I sat in the pain and allowed it to fester. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to mistreat or harm me. I was that person that would do anything for anyone. I just found it hard to justify why someone would deliberately hurt me. Then things would take a turn and I would search to see if there was something I did that warranted the offense. Many times, I would justify it with anything I could. Until I had to acknowledge that some people were just mean, and it had absolutely nothing to do with me. 
I also had to come to grips with “hurt people hurt people”. Once I understood these lessons and realized I was doing myself a disservice by making the offense about me, I was able to change the way I looked at the offense. What they were projecting had absolutely nothing to do with me but what they were feeling about themselves. Their “inner me” was having a field day revealing all their insecurities and to combat it they were lashing out at anyone in their path.
So, in most cases I decided to get out of their path and allow them to project that pain on someone else. No longer would I allow people to spur their hate and anger on me when I had nothing to do with it.
Although that philosophy was awesome and provided a logical explanation of their behavior, I found it did not do anything for the pain I still carried around because of the attacks that had already taken place. I found myself emotionally, mentally, physically even spiritually drained. I didn’t want to commune with anyone. I isolated myself from people. I shut down emotionally. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t move forward with the plans I was making for myself. I was a mess.
That is when I realized – I needed to forgive. I needed to really whole heartedly forgive. I needed to let go of the strings that were binding me to that pain and the offenses. I needed to stop allowing what they did to control what I was doing now. But how? How do you move forward from something that had become a customary part of your life?
Well in this week’s blog we will talk about not only how to let go but what happens if you don’t! I will show you how holding on to unforgiveness truly is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die. Holding on to forgiveness robs you of so many things; the most important thing in my opinion, is it robs you of who you were created to be.
Many may deny that unforgiveness causes physical and emotional breakdowns in a person’s life. But tell me if you can you relate to any of these statements?
1. You have unexplained burst of anger. You just get mad for no apparent reason. Everything can be going well and suddenly you explode. And the person at the end of the explosion is usually the person who has offended you in some way but that don’t always have to be the case. You can explode on any one that is in your path.
2. You insist on making sure the offender knows they have offended you. It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t bring it to their attention. They would certainly feel bad if they knew how you felt and maybe right the wrong. Right? Are you bringing it to there attention to help them or to help yourself?
3. You are petty and malicious. You look for things to bring up about the offense or about the offender. You keep track of what they do. You take subtle jabs and possibly send rude messages making sure they are aware of your pain. You gossip about them to anyone that will listen. You look for their flaws to extenuate them. Are you getting better or worse by talking about them?
4. You do not take responsibility for your part in the offense. You can remember exactly what happened, when it happened, what you were wearing when it happened. You can remember what the person smelt like when they did it. But you seldom remember your response or what you did after the offense. It’s always their fault! You did NOTHING wrong?
Do any of those sound familiar? YES!! Then you have a forgiveness problem.
I could go down the spiritual road about forgiveness and remind you, if you don’t forgive, God will not forgive you. (Mark 11:26). But, I’ll leave that for another blog. Today I want to let you know you will NEVER be able to accomplish the goals and dreams you have, holding on to unforgiveness! You will become so consumed with what that person did, it will rob you of your focus, your passion, and your desire. Is it worth it? Is holding on to a grudge that someone has done worth you forfeiting what you desire to do in your life?
You can sit and make all the plans you desire. You can make the prettiest vision boards (y’all know I love a vision board), you can hire the best life coach (that would be me) or you can purchase every self-help book written. Until you clear your heart of unforgiveness, you will not fully fulfill your lifetime dreams or goals.
Are you ready to let it go? It will not happen overnight, but I promise by doing the exercise below, you will at least have a desire to forgive! You will have the tools required to forgive.
- Identify the offender. Choose someone low on your list for this first go around. Someone whose offense was significant but minor. I want you to experience what forgiveness feels like. Many of you are holding on to years of unforgiveness and this will help you feel it for the first time. You will do this with each person on your list.
- Identify your feelings associated with the offense. How do you feel when you think of that person? Do you have rage? Are you angry? Are you shameful? Guilty? Write down the feelings. Write down what you smell, the color associated with it. Write down every emotion you are experiencing right now.
- Let’s forgive. Look at what you wrote on your paper. Examine the feelings carefully. Now imagine if that person was feeling any of those emotions when they offended you. What if someone did something to them that cause those emotions to rise in them and to compensate for how they were feeling they lashed out on you. They were hurting, and you happened to be a vessel they used to release the anger.
Here’s an example. I was riding down the freeway and a car cut me off. I was so mad! I blew my horn! I yelled. I thought about how I could have had a wreck and never seen my child again. I called her all sorts of names. Then I stopped and thought what if she just got a call saying her child was sick or even dying? What if she didn’t see me because her eyes were filled with tears? What if she didn’t even know I was there because her mind was somewhere else? It made me look at the situation differently. I was okay. No damage was done. I prayed for her to get where she was going safely and everything in her life would be okay.
That’s what happens when you forgive. It makes you change the way you view the person that offended you. No, it doesn’t make it right. They shouldn’t have mishandled you. You didn’t deserve it, but they were hurting. It had absolutely nothing to do with you. It was their projection of their pain onto you. But it had nothing to do with you.
Now here is the hard part; you must make a choice; do you continue to blame them for what cannot be changed? Or do you refuse to allow their pain to hinder you from your goals. Your plans. Your purpose.
Give them back their emotions. Their hurt. Their pain and move on with your life. Remember forgiveness is not saying the offense didn’t happen; it’s saying I refuse to allow it to control my life.
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Nov 5, 2018 | Abuse, Fear, Growth, purpose
A night with a sexual or physical assault victim can take an advocate or survivor down a very dark path if they aren’t careful. But it can also be a gentle reminder of their own strength and help them fight another day. It may give them courage to speak truth despite the fears that rage inside or it can quiet them and cause them to get lost in their own hurt and pain. Advocates struggle with memories, too!
Every survivor that I’ve encountered have memories. But each memory tends to be covered with grace. Although the memories hurt, they find a way to soften the reality somehow. Time does not help. Time will play tricks in the mind of a survivor and prompt them to disassociate from reality. Many will begin to replace ‘the bad times” with “the not so bad times” and “the not so bad times” with “the good times” eventually asking themselves “what was all the fuse about?” I’m convinced this is the body’s way of helping process what has happened in a way that is less invasive and tormenting.
Regardless of how long I advocate and work with victims and survivors of abuse, there is something about responding to a sexual or physical assault call that makes my heart sink, my stomach knot up and brief flashbacks of my own abuse take over my thoughts. Those first few minutes after the person identifies their self and
what they are calling about, I freeze. And on the ride to the location, I fight to stay present and not replay my own abuse or the feelings of guilt and shame associated with it. It’s because of those moments I’ve questioned if I should be advocate. But I now know that it is because of my experience that I make a great advocate.
One would say why would you feel guilty or shamed? Well, you clearly have never been a victim of abuse or in a toxic relationship. Those feelings for me were drilled into my psyche. I was told over and over how his behavior was my fault. How by talking about it I was bringing shame to the family and to God. How I needed to get thicker skin. The shame for me, was because I felt I wasn’t living up to the expectations that was established for me. I didn’t know it was abuse; it had become my norm.
Last night, as I sat with that young lady, looking at her bruised covered body, the sound of her saying “I should have known better. I should have listened to my gut”. Then to hear her conversation switch to “I shouldn’t have made him so mad. It’s all my fault”, triggered an anger inside of me. It was the anger I never allowed myself to feel against my own abuser. I had a quick flash back of standing in front of the judge as he said to me “I can see the bruises from here, but I need you to tell me what happened.” Full of fear my words became stuck between my voice box and my mouth. Nothing would come out and the longer I stood there the more embarrassed I felt for allowing this to happen. Yet the fear of what would happen if I said anything overtook me. I struggled with how I would be viewed. How he would be viewed. What if they took my kids. What if he got so mad that he left, I didn’t a job. How would I take care of my kids? What if the next time it was worse. What if a restraining order only made him madder. What if, what if.… Had it not been for the domestic violence advocate I would have stood right there and talked myself out of requesting the restraining order.
When I looked in the eyes of this young lady, I could see the fear as you struggled to make a very hard decision of pressing charges. My heart broke for her because I understood it so well. You just want the nightmare to be over. You are even willing to take an “I’m sorry” even though you know you had heard it before.
My job is not to convince that woman to leave. Although I’m going to do my very best to, my job is to stand beside her and support her decision. My job is help her see her value and understand no one has a right to hit her and make feel less than. Finding her worth hardly ever happens that night but to know that someone heard her and supports her decision is life changing.
I still struggle with sharing parts of my story and I don’t always see my own worth. But with each day and each victim I speak with, I see the purpose in what I went through and why it’s so important for me to share my story. My abuser cannot hurt me anymore. My self-worth is stronger than the fear I have of him. The desire to help others is more important than what someone who refuses to see the truth thinks of me. Knowing that I have helped someone find their voice makes mine stronger. No more victim! No more shame! No more guilt! At least not until the next the call and it pushes me even harder to stand up for those that don’t have the strength to stand up for themselves. At least not yet!
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Nov 2, 2018 | Focus
There are many definitions of equity floating around in society these days. Some would say it’s the DESIRE to be fair and impartial. Some would say it IS being fair and impartial. Then there is a few that would argue both of those definitions are wrong and inequitable because we can never provide a space where everyone is treated fair and impartial.
I personally believe there is no real definition of equity because how can society determine what’s fair to someone else? How can we determine as a society how our ways of thinking affect someone else? How can we judge others based on their upbringing? How can we look down on someone because they weren’t given the privileges and opportunities that we were given? Who are we to say our way of thinking is any better than anyone else’s? These are judgments not fairness.
You see each aspect of who we are, could be scrutinized, held against us and cause us to question if someone is being fair or impartial towards us. Perception is personal and fluctuates depending on our own emotions and experiences.
It’s not our job to determine if what we believe to be true is actually true. It’s our job to make sure what we believe does not make others feel mistreated or inferior because of what they believe to be true.
The fight for equity has posed an assortment of emotional outbreaks, marches, riots, pleas to be heard from everyone. Yet no one is listening to anyone. It must be determined that ALL lives matter, that ALL voices are heard, that ALL opinions are just that “opinions”. There is no right or wrong until what you determine to be right or wrong makes someone else feel less than.
My stand against the fight for equity is not whether people are being treated fair or impartial. My argument is why do we have to assure political correctness when approaching the intentional racist and derogatory statements of those in high places while disregarding the feelings and emotions of those that are being attacked. Just because of your color, your education, your status, your position does not give you permission to disqualify the emotions of someone else.
We could fight back and forth about whether equity is about fairness or impartiality towards others that are different than we are. But the real question is would it matter? Will determining an accurate definition of what equity is, change that fact someone is going to feel they have been treated unfairly or impartial? Why can’t we just accept that society as a whole has biases and there are differences in our upbringing, our beliefs, and our interpretations of reality? Why can’t we as society make a promise to not allow these differences to interfere with the way we see others, but as a way in which we can help each other? My way is not wrong. Your way is not wrong. But when we use it to disqualify another human being we all lose.
What do you think? Could equity be solved by taking a moment to evaluate how the other person would feel? Would it really matter? Could our society put the feelings of others before their own? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Nov 1, 2018 | Bible Challenge
Let me tell you about a friend of mine….
She knows there’s more to life but finds it hard to wrap her mind around it because she is so busy being mother, girlfriend/wife, employee, daughter, friend, sister…. She tries to make time for herself but fall short. She’s getting by but she’s tired. She’s overwhelmed and seems no one understands. Everyone keeps telling her “you got this” “keep going, don’t quit”, “it gets easier”. But she just can’t see it and some days giving up seems like the only option until she looks in the eyes of her child and realizes, she can’t give up; at least not now.
Does this sound familiar? Can you relate? Are you tired of giving everything you have yet it seems so unappreciated? You go over and above, but it seems it’s just not enough sometimes. Do you feel if someone asks one more thing of you, you will explode? Does your overwhelmed feeling make you uneasy because you asked for these things, yet they seem more than you can handle? Do your friends rant and rave about how wonderful your life is because you’ve covered up the things that suck with a smile that you painted on with your pretty makeup. 
Girl… I’ve been there! I wanted to give up so many times. I wanted to yell “I can’t take this anymore”. I would sit in the shower and cry because it seemed so overwhelming. I felt so alone. I felt no one understood. I would put on a smile, but I felt like everything inside of me was falling apart. I questioned every relationship I ever had and somehow determined I was the reason they weren’t working. I felt I dare not say anything because I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. It had to be a better way but what was it? Where could I find it? Who could I ask? My friends had this image that everything in my life was great, so I couldn’t confide in them. They looked for me for help.
This month’s Bible Challenge will address all those concerns. Don’t worry it’s not that kind of study. You don’t have to be some bible scholar to join in (because I’m not) and I won’t be beating you down with Bible stuff! (I hate when people try to make me believe what they believe). We are all here learning from each other.
Here’s what happens. Here are the scriptures. I will make a weekly blog post about them so make sure to check for it. But also read the scriptures for yourself and see what you get out them (I really want to know). I will give my thoughts about the different verses, you chime in with yours and we have an open dialogue. If you are following me on Facebook you can post your responses there otherwise drop it below!
I don’t have all the answers and the thoughts I leave are just that my thoughts, my opinions. I am in no way pushing you to believe what I believe but I am giving you resources to help you push past this moment in time and see things in a different way. It was willingness to see myself the way God saw me instead of living up to the expectations forced on me by what I thought or what the world thought that allowed me to start liking myself again.
Remember there is no right or wrong – it’s more of a continued effort to become better and to accept that YOU WERE CREATED FOR THIS!!
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Oct 31, 2018 | Growth
First let me give a disclaimer: I grew! I matured! I embraced who I am and who I’m not! I was stretched into a better person, a better leader, a better mother and a better friend. I learned the importance of fervent pray and consistency. I learned to set boundaries and make my needs clear. I learned that those boundaries shielded me from this month being even more dramatic. With that disclaimer alone, you can see that October tried to take me out! But it did not win. I’m still HERE! Thank GOD!
You would think that by now I would be able to identify the little tricks that arise to distract me and rob me of my focus. But NOPE, not yet! They sneak up on me, tie my shoe laces together,
push me down and take off running. One day I will learn to either check my shoes before I take off after them or turn the other way and completely ignore them. The ladder probably won’t happen any time soon.
One scenario, I’m sure others will follow….
I was given the grand opportunity to sit on a panel at a Domestic Violence training. The facilitator asked questions that brought out parts of my story that I had NEVER shared verbally to a large group. Although I had dealt with my personal shame and guilt through therapy, I still carried this extreme loyalty to my abuser and his reputation. I felt I had somehow sharing certain parts of the story was a betrayal to him. I couldn’t wrap my mind around where this sense of loyalty had come from. But somehow, I had violated it and I felt horrible.
The whole situation made me shut down, isolate myself and feel an extreme amount of shame. I was depressed and withdrawn from my loved ones. I didn’t want to look myself in the mirror. I questioned my abilities as a leader, as a mentor, as coach, as mother as a WOMAN!!
What had I done?
At the end of the day I realized – I grew! I gained strength. I reconnected with my purpose. I made myself a priority. I took back my dignity! I took back my power! I made myself proud! I stood up and decided I would not allow anyone to take my voice again. My voiced mattered. My story deserved to be shared and I could not allow fear of those that refused to see the truth to stop me from embracing mine.
I declared a do-over!
I wanted a chance to help that woman that approached me at the end saying how she could relate to my story. I wanted to be able to look her in the eye and say, “but look at you now, you are strong, beautiful and you are free”! I wanted to reclaim those hours that I laid in the bed thinking I’d done something wrong. I wanted to reclaim the time I wasted thinking they must have thought I was crazy staying in the abuse for so long. I wanted to push aside the thought that someone in the room knew him and was telling him what I said. I wanted to proclaim that whatever they thought or who was there was none my business and not care. I wanted to sit tall in the chair as I share my story so that when I looked at the video I wouldn’t see a scared young girl but a mighty warrior. I wanted a do-over!!!
And when I finally realized my story deserved to be heard and that I had survived things that many did not. When I picked my feelings off the floor and decided to never lay them down again. When I decided to NEVER give anyone power over me again. When I decided that I have NOTHING to be ashamed of. When I decided that he did not deserve my protection – I gave myself a DO-OVER!
I stood in the mirror with tears rolling down my face and declared I am worthy! My story deserves to be heard. I declared I would never allow the feeling of emptiness to overtake me again. I declared I will walk with my head held high and know that I did the best I could at the moment and now that I know better, I will do better.
So, for anyone sitting on your story thinking that by sharing your experience it will violate a self-issued protective order against your abuser, let me be the first to tell you “IT WILL NOT! Your loyalty is to you and your healing. Telling your story will be difficult but it will help with your healing process. You are not seeking revenge you are seeking healing. You are identifying your pain so that you can heal. You are snatching back your power. You are releasing the hold your abuser has over you. You are declaring that you are a survivor! You are taking control of your life. And that I am proud of you.
Until Next Time,
