EPISODE 4: JOURNEY / STEPS TO RECOVERY.

COUNSELLING SESSION WITH DR TIMI OYEBODE @ RCCG AREA 27, PROVINCE 44; SISTER FELLOWSHIP UNDER THE THEME: RECOVERY FROM EMOTIONAL ABUSE, TRAUMA AND LOW SELF ESTEEM

1. The first thing you can do on this Journey of Recovery is to first of all IDENTIFY & DETACH YOURSELF from the pain you are going through.

… Your PAIN doesn’t define you! – it doesn’t.

Oh! So your Marriage is not happy? Does that make you an unhappy person? – NO!

Oh! Because the man does not love you or is not acting good to you, does that make you a bad person? – NO.

Oh! Does it make you less Spiritual? – NO.

“Your Pain doesn’t define you; it is your words that defines you”. And you have to define yourself. You are who you say you are!

I have shared my story in a lot of places; I have gone within and outside the Country to share my experience.

I have had Press Guys come over and say: Ok, Interview Sessions and they say ‘Madam: So you were a Lesbian?’ Or ‘you are a Lesbian’.

And I say to them – NO; ‘I struggled with Lesbianism, I struggled with Masturbation – My struggle with sexual challenge doesn’t make me one!

“… I am NOT my Struggle!” You are not your struggle too!

2. And you need to stand in that space of SELF IDENTITY – See it the way God sees you.

… That’s a good step step to Recovery.

And the only way you can do that, is to search the Scriptures; you need to search the Scriptures: So “What is God saying about me?”.

During my Journey of Healing, I had this big exercise book, and I was writing everywhere I saw in the Scripture starting with: “I love you!”.

In fact, if you see that, you will be amazed:

I started writing out from Genesis to Revelation; everywhere God used direct Word of: ‘I Love you’.

From there, I started taking them literally..

Isaiah 43:1; stands with me all the time; oh! Isaiah 60:3. (Let’s check it, to understand what am saying. You need to have an Identity.

“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”

When God has called us; another Version says “because I have LOVED you”.

Before any of the mess we ever found ourselves: God loved us!

One thing that the enemy wants us to believe, over the years is that: “God doesn’t care about our feelings” – No, He cares!

You know why I know?

Because if you now look at this Recovery Journey you will see what it means; because at the end of the journey, the Focus is always that “YOUR PAIN IS NOT YOURS’.

Jesus didn’t go to the Cross to save Himself. Jesus didn’t experience the pain to liberate Himself – He was already liberated!

Jesus went through the pain because of You and I.

You are going through your pain: whether Marital, Emotional, Financial, Physical Pains.

Whatever form of Pains you are going through: it is not because of you, it is because of someone else – That is the dynamism of God!

I don’t know why He does it, I don’t know how He does is; but that is how He does His things! – He may makes you GO THROUGH IT.

A woman was explaining to me recently, her passion for Widows. And then one day finally, she got a call, and her husband is dead!

She started crying and God said: “I saw that you are not taking that thing seriously; so you need to FEEL the Pains!”

… And that is why am telling you; you see, there are some things that you cannot question.

She said God told her: ‘So that you can feel the Pains of those people I have called you to help’.

Your experience in life is for you to feel the Pains!

So if you refuse to feel the Pains; if you start deadening that Pain – if you keep saying ‘it didn’t happen’; it doesn’t matter, it didn’t happen!

Whatever you have been through; the more you deaden it; eh! The more you are neglecting an Assignment God has called you into.

So pick up your Pains again; open those wounds – let us start cleaning them afresh!

And then the second one; Always, and that is why I said: ‘TAKE UP YOUR PAIN AGAIN!’

What do you do with it?

Track your first experience: when was the first time this thing ever happened to you?

Oh! Someone is Abusive; they are abusing the person, they keep abusing you.

When was the first time you can remember in your life that someone used negative words on you? Because that line was what informed you!

3. GRIEVE YOUR LOSS: That’s another thing to do!

Every abuse, everything in our Path takes something from us: whether it is our Abusive Marriage – it’s bad, it’s painful!

You have every right to cry over it. Don’t let someone tell you: ‘Your pain is too small’.

4. Identify the Negative Thoughts and Self Sabotaging Statements.

And that is why I said: ‘you are not your Struggle’.

Don’t join the world to say: You know ‘am addicted to Pornography’.

Who says? It is a struggle – a struggle is NOT YOU, okay?

… So please don’t use those words to define you.

5. FORGIVE YOUR ABUSERS (that’s another step).

Forgive your Abusers, forgive yourself!

Because that is why some of us feel ‘I caused it’. Or you were told!

Like a woman told me her own experience; she is an adult who has gone to look for a house. She has gotten Agents to take her; and they told her they have found the house. They took her to the house and they entered the house.

And while she was still looking around in the room, the man pushed her down on the floor there and raped her.

Yes! She was saying: I was not raped at age fifteen (15) to twenty (20). A thirty (30) something years old woman!

She said, maybe I should have not gone alone; maybe I should have called somebody – Self Blame!

Many of us are good at that – you start blaming yourself.

But I have come to tell you today; it doesn’t matter if you think you are at fault.

No! Because they are some Forces that were working against you – that was not even in your control.

It could be your unconscious mind attracting it; it could be that the situations around you that are actually attracting it.

…. It has nothing to do with you directly.

So I want you to drop the template today. Say: I am not at fault. I am not my Abuser, I didn’t make my Abuser do what he did to me. That is God’s own Daughter!

6. DRAG YOUR TRIGGERS – that’s another thing!

At what point do you usually feel that sadness? At what point do you usually know that ‘I feel worthless?’ Is it when they talk to you anyhow? What is it exactly that makes you know you are feeling that pain again?

7. ACCOUNTABILITY: And of course get Accountability!

What that means is that you can’t get your Recovery alone; you can’t go on the journey of Recovery alone.

When myself and Pastor (Mrs) were talking the other time, explaining how some of us feel like; ‘I don’t need to talk to somebody’. God didn’t direct us in isolation: there is a Place of expressing and sharing your pains.

But the reality is this: You cannot afford to share your own with just anybody. And that is the reality.

Because if they don’t use it against you (and that is another big trauma again all over) okay?

And that is why now you need to know that there are helps available; there are Professional Counsellors available.

I have chosen the Path of Counselling; I took that Path when God called me years ago. And I had to go into School to start learning it afresh! I left what I studied initially, to go and start studying about human mind and how to help people heal -because my Call is Healing.

And there are so many people like myself; and not just me. But you need to find them, you need to get out of your comfort space and look for help. You need to get helped!

… Do you get my pont? And that’s it!

8. And then LEARN TO RISE AND FALL AGAIN: Your recovery is not Automatic.

And that is why I explained to us earlier, I said: “Salvation is instantaneous, but Healing (Recovery) is a PROCESS”.

So you might find yourself fumbling again. And then you just find yourself in that Place where you are unhappy – it seems am unhappy again!

But you just need to say to yourself NO! My happiness is in my hands. I determine what happens to me. It doesn’t matter what am seeing: I just have to focus on myself and get my happiness from within.

9. CONFRONT YOUR FEARS please! That’s another thing.

How do you respond to the things you are afraid of? Because most of the times your fears happen to you.

… Job said: “the things I feared most have befallen me!”

If you are afraid that your Marriage will crush; sorry it will clash.

But if you stand up and say that even if this is my reality; even if it is the things I see;

He says, beyond what we see, is what we believed.

That is why I say to us, the Body, the Spirit and the Soul – the threw (3) of them are important!

So we are not moved; we are not humans by what we see alone!

So if my reality is saying this, I just need to get helped; and I need to stand on the ground that I know this, and that this is what I have. And you will get what you want.

But if you allow your fears take over (and some of us are in that space). Some of us are not even married: we have seen young Ladies who say, their Marriage will break – before they get married (you have not even seen the husband).

… Confront your fears!

And of course like always say, the last:

10. Use your PAIN to HEAL other people (repeatedly)

Healing is your choice!

That is what I have come to say to you today.

I can’t teach you how to get healed on the spot but I can say to you: There is a Healer. And I can say to you there is a Balm in Gilead!

If God could heal me, if God could forgive me to stand before you today: remember I told you earlier “Am not better than anyone of us”.

I am the same with you in so many ways; but our Journey might differ. Your experience could be worse than me.

But if I can stand today, and still show my face among Christians and say ‘I am a child of God’.

It doesn’t matter what you have faced, God has a Purpose for your Pains!

I want us to get up on your feet; put your hand on your chest quickly.

… Don’t worry, I will still take questions. We will still go into the Questions and Answer Section.

… What a Great Session with our Counsellor – Dr Timi – A Great Counsellor of People that has experienced Trauma, Abuse, Marriage Counsellor etc.

You will get to be reading a Dedicated Column of Dr Timi’s Messages on our DMC Websites on: www.discoveeymediacrew.com.

Also you can get to invite her to your Churches, Seminars and Conference – All you need do is to reach out to us @ DMC!

… Discovery Media Crew, Reaching out to the world through the Power of the Gospel!!!

COMPILATIONS BY

MOSES DURODOLA AND TITILAYOMI AJAYI

© DMC 2019