Don’t Hide: Facing your Life and its Difficult Consequences

Often I think of historical religious leaders who failed in their personal lives only to face the public’s scrutiny.  It is difficult.  Mostly, it is difficult because many times the fallen soldier must figure out how to stand up again with little communal compassion or supportive arms and words.

Yet, they do.  We do.  You can too.

Anyone Can Fall

Recently my online perusal revealed a woman who went to a prestigious K-12 boarding school.  She was expelled during her senior year and even though she came from a wealthy family, she decided to start a prostitution business after graduating from college.

Needless to say, she was caught, convicted, served time and re-emerged on New York’s social scene several years later. 

Shunned, shamed and confident, she began to rebuild her life.  She wrote a book, which is too expensive for me to purchase, and eventually caught the eye of a businessman who helped her market herself anew.  As fairy tale stories tend to end, it appears she is doing well now.

For some of us, that is not the case. 

Returning to the Public Eye

Surely this woman still sees the sideway glances when she walks into a room.  I assume those glances are easier to bear if you have a financial cushion.  That cushion allows you to travel, impulsively, to escape the glares, the whispers and the loneliness from a once familiar place.

This is where the toughest of the tough emerge.  This is when a sense of self and your own inherent value becomes critical to daily psychological survival.  Remember the pastor who was caught practicing homosexual behavior after publicly denouncing homosexuality?  Remember the Florida pastor who overdosed while traveling in New York?  Many other preachers have survived these challenges.  But there are also a bunch of musicians, actors, politicians and former presidents that have too.

So can we.  So can you.

Life goes on.  People get over themselves and our bruised egos begin to heal.  We had to learn the hard way, but the blessings and lessons of the struggle are clear:

1.       Be aware of your limitations.  When people fall, it usually isn’t an isolated incident.  Many people forget that there was a family connected to this person who fell.  The profession they tried to manage is now, most likely, gone.  Often, our poorest decisions are made in the heat a moment while trying to find a way to escape or cope with stress. 

But, sometimes falls happen because people are greedy.  No matter what the reason, the lesson is to know your limitations.  Overextending ourselves to meet materialistic goals or please others because we have a “title” or a “position” is dangerous.  When your psyche says, “I’m tired,” listen.  Respond. 

2.       Be aware of your needs.  Something is internally amiss when we seek external satisfaction for internal wounds.  Surely, someone is reading this and thinking, “Oh, yeah…blame it on your childhood.”  (I say, “Let’s forget that person for now.”)  Many of us have hidden secrets, shames, wounds and experiences that shaped us into who we are today. 

What can come out in therapy is the clear dysfunctions of our family that, in our mind, we have painted as rosy white picket fence experiences.  Stop lying to yourself.  Get some help.  Uncover those wounds and break free of your past hurts.  You are worth it.

3.       Be aware you lived to tell the story.  That pastor is Florida – he died.  But the rest of us, we have another chance at redemption.  We still have our life, our strength, our right mind (if lucky) and a story to tell.  Somewhere, someone needs to know you survived so they can equip their mind, body and soul to endure their particular situation.

It all seems for naught but it is not.  There is nothing better than knowing my personal testimony helps someone make a better decision, avoid a deep pothole or change the legacy of their family’s history. 

4.       Be aware you are valuable, worthy and deserving.  Mistakes don’t cancel our worth.  In fact, mistakes sometimes make us discover our true value to ourselves.  When we realize we don’t have to do or act in ways that are immoral or illegal to feel good about who we are, we find a sense of worth and value that was never there before.  Then, we realize we deserve a good life, because God said so.  We deserve and can have happiness and peace.

People may not forget what we have done, but God sees where we are going.  Let’s use our lives to bless others from both the places of success and failure.  You never know whose life you could save.

5.       Live.  Yes, live.  Live like there is no tomorrow, laugh like there was no yesterday, heal because you can and smile because the worst appears to be over.  Yeah, live!

Be blessed,

M