Ebb and Flow

Something many abuse survivors do not anticipate is the nature of this journey. You make meteoric progress, notice real change and then - WHAM! You hit a wall and fall backwards. You substantially alter the way you treat your body and then one day you eat two bags of French fries. You place boundaries around yourself and gently enforce them with others, but then drop those safeguards entirely with a person you swore you'd never do that with again.

Two words: ebb and flow. This concept will save your sanity when everything you thought was a done-deal, a finished task, some real progress - comes back and slaps you in the face. It can be very discouraging if you're not prepared for it. If you are prepared, however, you recognize it for what it is: part of the process of living out change in the context of life.

It is normal to sprint out of the gate and think you can keep up this pace of doing it all RIGHT NOW! It is also normal to run out of energy after the first hundred yards! It is normal to go to a retreat or seminar and - sitting in that room - have great determination and a "can do" attitude. It is also normal to walk out of that building and have the breath knocked out of you by the enormity of the task. It is normal to read an article or a book and have everything spelled out so clearly that you completely know what to do and how to do it. It is also completely normal to have a brain-freeze within a matter of hours that leaves you convinced you never understood what in the world the author was writing about.

You get the idea - ebb and flow. If you're prepared for it, you won't be conquered by it. Think of the ocean's waves on a beach. They thunder in and they roll back out. It's a natural rhythm - a normal occurrence. It doesn't take anyone by surprise. I recently watched a program on television about tsunami waves in Hawaii. A tsunami wave is an enormous and destructive wave that originated far away from where it makes landfall. On this program, the scientist being interviewed said if tourists are on the beach and they notice the water from a wave abruptly receding back toward the ocean, they need to quickly get to higher ground. That abrupt withdrawing is a sure signal that a tsunami is on the way at any moment.

Your ebb and flow is going to be rhythmic and easy most of the time. You take a few steps forward and a small step back. A few more giant steps forward, perhaps one or two steps back. It's when you have unrealistic expectations for how giant those steps are that you need to pay close attention. Unrealistic expectations for you or others is a lot like that abrupt receding of water just before a tsunami wave hits. It's a warning.

Your journey is never going to be a straight path from point A to point B. It's winding, disturbing, exhilarating, and exhausting. Honestly, it's only when you look back over time that you really see how far you've come. Like the rhythm of the tide, your journey is ebb and flow. Some days you're going to do great, some days you're going to think you're actually losing ground. That's to be expected - at least if you're really working to become a healthier person. Ebb and flow. That's a visual of the journey you're on. To know this is to also recognize that extreme abruptness is a warning for you to get to higher ground - unrealistic expectations have set you up for a truly destructive experience.