Being vulnerable and "needy," or being isolated -- do we have to choose?

Published: Thu, 09/27/18

Renew Weekly

Thursday Update 09.27.18

I help people who are stressed-out and anxious to restore their well-being ... and to get greater results in their life and work while maintaining it. I do this through teaching, writing, and coaching. This newsletter is part of that work.

What you'll find in this issue:

1. A brief word about this edition's feature article

2. Christians and 12 Step Recovery Groups

3. FEATURE ARTICLE -- Being Vulnerable and 'Needy,' or Being Isolated -- do we have to choose?

4. Quote of the week

1. A brief word about this edition's feature article

For once, in this edition of the newsletter, I'm not using an excerpt from my forthcoming book for the feature article. I thought it would be good to break the pattern! I'm still looking forward to the launch of the book this Fall though. I hope you're doing well, and find this material helpful.

2. Christians and 12 Step Recovery Groups

As a pastor who interacts with a wide variety of people in the Christian community, one of my ongoing frustrations is the alienation that exists between many conservative Christians and 12 Step Recovery. Many Christian distrust 12 Step Recovery because it does not specifically talk about Jesus Christ in its materials, and advocates that people seek help from a "Higher Power" or "God, as you understand God."

Such distrust has led to the formation of a variety Christian alternatives to 12 Step Recovery groups, such as Celebrate Recovery. While I love the Celebrate Recovery program, and believe that many people have been greatly helped by it, I'm still saddened by how it has taken so many Christians out of 12 Step programs.

This has two consequences: (1) It diminishes the influence of Christians in 12 Step groups in their communities. I've gone to 12 Step meetings where it's clear, from discussions in the group about spirituality, that very few of the members are practicing Christians. This is a big loss for the 12 Step groups. (2) It's also a big loss for Christians to be alienated from 12 Step groups, because there is a huge treasury of wisdom, and a deep commitment to doing "whatever it takes" to recover, in these groups that is often missing in the alternative Christian groups.

I also find that Christians often have a lot of work to do around Step 2 -- coming to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity / recovery -- and many Christian recovery programs don't allow room for this. Most Christian alternatives to 12 Step groups simply assume that participants are in a good place spiritually, and have the right understanding of God, and orientation to spiritual things. Not so. Most Christians who are addicts have MUCH to unlearn about spiritual things ... assumptions they have about God and the spiritual life and are patently untrue and destructive. These spiritual distortions are often left unchallenged in Christian programs, which are happy to keep pushing messages like, "Isn't it great that Jesus can help you overcome your addiction?" And finally, too many Christian groups over-focus on the roots of addiction from the vantage point of immorality and sinfulness, and not enough on addiction as a coping strategy for pain and trauma that needs healing.

I was reminded again of the strong connection between 12 Step recovery and the teaching of Christianity when I was reading from the devotional book "24 Hours a Day." I think every person in recovery needs to own and regularly use this book ... and especially Christians. It does a great job of offering daily reminders of recovery teaching, specifically highlighting 12 Step teaching from the standpoint of Christian faith.

If you don't own this book, you should. If you aren't reading from this book, you should start.

3. FEATURE ARTICLE: Being Vulnerable and "Needy" or Isolated ... Do We Have to Choose?

"There's a great deal of scientific evidence that social connectedness is a very strong protector of emotional well-being, and I think there's no question that social isolation has greatly increased in our culture in, say, the past 50 years, past 100 years."
- Andrew Weil

One of the great challenges in our society -- and one of the key reasons addiction is so prevalent -- is our isolation and individualism. Most of us are very isolated from the people around us. Even if we are living in urban or suburban environments where we have frequent people contact, we still keep the people around us at arm's length.

I've lived in small towns, suburbs, and now I live in a major urban center. I think people in urban centers are just as isolated as anybody else -- maybe even more so. Just because you're surrounded by people in the course of the day doesn't mean you interact meaningfully with any of them. People can be -- and often are -- lonely in the midst of a crowd.

Meaningful relationships take time and hard work. Since everybody is so busy, we have to be intentional about developing and maintaining relationships. It's easy to keep our relationships surface-level and safe.

To have relationships that move into the territory of meaningful, supportive friendships takes an investment of time, a willingness to work through disagreements, misunderstandings, and disappointments, and -- probably hardest of all -- the willingness to be vulnerable.

Letting people know we value them and their friendship takes a certain measure of vulnerability.
Being open with people about what is really going on in our lives -- our struggles, fears, and foibles -- requires us to be vulnerable.
Expressing our true needs and desires requires us to be vulnerable.

And for many of us, this is very uncomfortable.

When we start opening up to people, sharing our honest and deepest thoughts, they will see our weaknesses and insecurities, and learn about our failures. They might think less of us, because they're not seeing the air-brushed, edited social-media version that we like to project.

We don't let people know what's REALLY going on in our lives, because we don't want them to think we're needy.

To answer the question posed by the title of this article: "Being vulnerable and 'needy,' or being isolated -- do we have to choose?" I think the answer is YES. We have to choose. We can't overcome our isolation without being vulnerable ... and at times feeling like we're being "needy."

This is especially hard for people in leadership

I know this has been an important issue in my own recovery, and emotional / spiritual growth. Not only am I a member of the hyper-individualistic modern West, I'm also a pastor ... someone who's used to being the "go to guy" for other people who have needs, but not someone who is needy himself. It is very uncomfortable for me to reveal my problems or insecurities. Over the course of my life, I've developed patterns of relating to others that help them feel safe and comfortable around me, and willing to open up to me about THEIR problems and needs. Having it work the other way around is harder.

This is very detrimental to healthy relationships. What happens when all your relationships are one-sided is that you get isolated. In this kind of environment, leaders and caretakers can get into trouble, because they don't get help.

How needy and vulnerable should a spiritual leader be?

I remember talking about this some years ago with my then-mentor, Leith Anderson. I was trying to come to grips with how to have authentic relationships as a pastor, and I think my zeal to do this was making him worried about me. He was concerned about how to do this in a healthy way as a minister. He used this analogy (and I'm paraphrasing here):

"When you're a pastor, your job is to help the people in your care. When I go to my doctor, I tell him about my problem ... I don't want him to then start telling me about his problems. That wouldn't be helpful to me at all. I don't really care what's happening in his marriage, or if he is having back pain, or whatever. I'm going to him because I want him to help me get over my sickness. But not only that, the more he talks to me about his own problems, it will undermine the confidence I have in him. I might start to wonder: if this guy has all these problems, is he really going to be able to fix mine?"

That was really wise advice, and it illustrates the challenge that people in positions of leadership have with vulnerability. I don't think this is a black and white issue -- there is a spectrum between tight-lipped isolation on the one hand, and boorish over-sharing on the other. We need to find our place on that spectrum, and it will likely vary from person to person, depending on a host of factors.

My point here is simple: I believe that many people -- especially those in leadership -- are too far on the side of tight-lipped isolation. The relationship a pastor has with parishioner, or a teacher with students, or a manager with employees, is not purely professional, it's also personal. And because of this, a certain amount of back and forth is healthy and expected.

That said, I agree with Anderson that there's a line to draw in vulnerability with the people we are responsible to care for and teach. Vulnerability requires that -- at the very least -- we be honest with them by not seeking to project a more holy or "together" life than we really live. But as a general rule don't burden them with our problems and look to them to care for us ... our calling is to care for them

We find other people -- people outside the system -- who can provide the deep care and support we need when we are struggling and need support.

A Meditation on "Having Needs"

Recently I came across this meditation from Melody Beattie in her great book "The Language of Letting Go." My takeaway? ... It's okay to have needs, and to share those needs with others.

We can accept ourselves as people who have needs - the need for comfort, love, understanding, friendship, and healthy touch. We need positive reinforcement, someone to listen to us, someone to give to us. We are not weak for needing these things. These needs make us human and healthy. Getting our needs met - believing we deserve to have them met - makes us happy.

There are times, too, when in addition to our regular needs, we become particularly needy. At these times, we need more than we have to give out. That is okay too.

We can accept and incorporate our needs, and our needy side, into the whole of us. We can take responsibility for our needs. That doesn't make us weak or deficient. It doesn't mean we are not properly recovering, nor does it mean we're being dependent in an unhealthy way. It makes our needs, and our needy side, manageable. Our needs stop controlling us, and we gain control.

And, our needs begin to get met.

4. Quote of the week:

"Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest."

- Mark Buchanan

Let's keep in touch ...

I write and speak at events as director of Renew Resources. I also am leader and teacher at Loop Church in Chicago. If you're ever in the area, come join us on a Sunday morning! Places to find my writing:

https://medium.com/@markbrouwer/

http://lastingleaders.com

http://sexualsanity.com

Also follow me on Facebook

The Recovery Journey

Check out my 90 Day program for starting (or renewing) your recovery from sexual addiction / compulsion called "The Recovery Journey". There's also a special program for the partners of addicts.

Other Audio Products:

The Spiritual Issues and Challenges of Recovery

Eight Keys That Unlock Lasting Recovery