Feels Like Redemption by Seth Taylor

Author:Seth Taylor [TAYLOR, SETH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Seth Taylor
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 5 -WHAT WE BELIEVE

SETH: While reading Dave’s story, what did you experience? Were you struggling to believe him? Did you feel judgmental? Compassionate? Hopeful? Fearful? What is the difference between all of these things?

Whatever you experienced while reading it, understand that Dave’s story has an implication for your story. Dave’s story is a type of trailhead: a story of an experience of freedom that marks the possibility of a new path. You might not know what the path looks like for you, and neither do I, but you now know there is a path there. And if you’re up for something new, then let us dive into something Dave began to speak of in his story regarding belief and what power, if any, it possesses.

In order to defeat addiction, whether we are religious or not, we are required to engage our belief systems in an entirely different way from what we’re used to, like stepping outside of them to observe them. Think of it as putting all of your beliefs in an aquarium, turning on the tank lights, turning off the room lights, and then just gazing at the tank for no reason other than observation.

There are consequences when we begin to observe our beliefs. If we are coming from a point of addiction, whether that be to pornography or any substance or activity (this includes being addicted to the drama that our pain creates around us), then observing our beliefs will begin to stir things up.

Our beliefs serve the purpose of protecting us from the full realization of what we are medicating — the trauma and pain that lie deep within us all. Like scaffolding holding up a structure, our beliefs prevent the bandages and stitches covering all of our unresolved pain and repressed emotion from unraveling.

The reality is, this is going to be very uncomfortable and difficult. Accept that.

As Tom Hanks’ character Jimmy Dugan says in the film A League of Their Own: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” If you want freedom, you are going to have to step past that part of you that simply wants to avoid conflict within yourself and with the people around you, seeking a peace that can be more easily understood as “the absence of conflict.”

In my case, and in Dave’s, we had to be more concerned with what works than what we believed to be factually true about the universe.

I’m a Christian, but my faith in Christ is not dependent on the historical accuracy of the Gospels, but rather in the experience of freedom and the touch of grace on my life as I seek a deeper experience of God through a life spent walking the path I understand Jesus points toward. And in my Christian belief, I realize these ideas apply to any belief regarding addiction. Even the beliefs you may gain from this book are only true if they motivate you to take action toward forsaking the prison you live in.

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