Learning Guilt: Charles Finney

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4

A few months after becoming an Advanced Training Institute family, we began the Wisdom Booklet on the above verse. The major feature was a sermon by the lawyer-turned-revivalist Charles Finney. 

Charles Grandison Finney

I knew of Charles Finney as a dead preacher, but Gothard evidently admired him. Reflecting on the two men's controversial "ministries", one sees plenty of similarities of style and method. A PBS commentary on Finney quotes historian Sydney Ahlstrom, "In the Presbyterian church the tensions created by his kind of ministry contributed to a recurrence of schism."

Finney taught us to “mourn” over our sin and to pore over our wretchedness as with a microscope. In “Breaking Up the Fallow Ground”, he uses 19th-century psychobabble to instruct professing Christians in spiritual self-examination. We analyzed our souls carefully, searching for evidence of 26 different sins:

It is just as easy to make your minds feel on the subject of religion as it is on any other. God has put these states of mind under your control. If people were as unphilosophical about moving their limbs as they are about regulating their emotions, you would never have reached this meeting. 

If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin by looking at your hearts: examine and note the state of your minds, and see where you are. Many never seem to think about this. They pay no attention to their own hearts, and never know whether they are doing well in religion or not; whether they are gaining ground or going back; whether they are fruitful, or lying waste. Now you must draw off your attention from other things, and look into this. Make a business of it. Do not be in a hurry. Examine thoroughly the state of your hearts, and see where you are: whether you are walking with God every day, or with the devil; whether you are serving God or serving the devil most; whether you are under the dominion or the prince of darkness, or of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your actions, in calling up the past, and learning its true character. Look back over your past history. Take up your individual sins one by one, and look at them. I do not mean that you should just cast a glance at your past life, and see that it has been full of sins, and then go to God and make a sort of general confession, and ask for pardon. That is not the way. You must take them up one by one. Get a pen and paper and write them down as you remember them. Go over them as carefully as a merchant goes over his books and as often as a sin comes before your memory, add it the list. General confessions of sin will never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as they come to you, review and repent of them one by one. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you your past sins...

1. Ingratitude. Take this sin and write down under that heading all the times you can remember where you have received favors from God and others for which you have never expressed gratitude or thankfulness. How many cases can you remember? Some remarkable change of events, that saved you from ruin. Write down the instances of God's goodness to you when you were in sin, before your conversion, for which you have never been half thankful enough; and the numerous mercies you have received since. How long the list of instances, where your ingratitude has been so black that you are forced to hide your face in confusion! Go on your knees and confess them one by one to God, and ask forgiveness. The very act of confession, by the laws of suggestion, will bring up others to your memory. Put these down. Go over them three or four times in this way, and see what an astonishing number of mercies there are for which you have never thanked God.

2. Lack of love to God. Think how grieved and alarmed you would be if you discovered any lack of affection for you in your wife, husband, or children; if you saw another absorbing their hearts, and thoughts, and time. Perhaps in such a case you would nearly die with a just and virtuous jealousy. Now, God calls Himself a jealous God; and have you not given your heart to other loves and infinitely offended Him?

3. Neglect of the Bible. Put down the cases when for perhaps weeks, or longer, God's Word was not a pleasure. Some people, indeed, read over whole chapters in such a way that they could not tell what they had been reading. If so, no wonder that your life is spent at random, and that your religion is such a miserable failure.

4. Unbelief. Recall the instances in which you have virtually charged the God of truth with lying, by your unbelief of His express promises and declarations. God has promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Now, have you believed this? Have you expected Him to answer? Have you not virtually said in your hearts, when you prayed for the Holy Spirit: "I do not believe that I shall receive"? If you have not believed nor expected to receive the blessing which God has expressly promised, you have charged Him with lying.

5. Neglect of prayer. Think of the times when you have neglected secret prayer, family prayer, and prayer meetings; or have prayed in such a way as more grievously to offend God than to have omitted it altogether.

6. Neglect of the means of grace. When you have made stupid and meaningless excuses to prevent your attending meetings, have neglected and poured contempt upon the methods of salvation, simply because you dislike spiritual duties?

 And so on, for pages. I wrote carefully in the margins of my Wisdom Booklet, marking which sins I was guilty of, and giving specific examples. The project was completed in two or three days, but for decades afterward, the words "but let a man examine himself" made me shiver inside every time a pastor read from Corinthians before the "Lord's Supper". Just a few months before, we had learned to judge others by their appearance. Now we turned the same gaze of judgment in on our very selves.

Even years later when I had broken free of the cult and no longer imagined that wearing trousers was morally wrong or using birth control was an act of selfish pride, I could still feel the burden of guilt placed on my tender pre-adolescent heart.

There were so many sins to be aware of: sins of omission, sins of commission, original sin, and the scariest phrase of all in a Baptist preacher's toolbox--"known and unknown sin"! The Psalmist wrote, "In sin did my mother conceive me." Isaiah said even my righteousness was as offensive to God as a menstruous rag. Assuming that God was disgusted by bloody trash with vaginal odors, being alive as a human was practically a sin in itself!

And another sermon the same month would hammer that point home.

Dealing with Anxiety, Panic, and PTSD

Today I'm sharing some of the activities, articles and websites that I have found most helpful in dealing with complex post-traumatic stress (and all kinds of stress, really).


Activities

• Walking--on the treadmill, a trail or track, or around the neighborhood. With music on my iPhone or conversing with a friend. I think my forebears got out a lot of energy just keeping up with the garden and the washing and then relaxed in the cradle-like motion of a rocking chair. When my mind is frazzled, my body needs to destress, too, so walking is the perfect combination of exercise and soothing rhythmic motion. Some days I move quickly, with intensity and wide arm gestures. Other times I just need to maintain a soothing, strolling pace for a while.

• Yoga--after years of good intentions, I bought an inexpensive DVD for beginners. Some days those 40 minutes of guided exercises were the calmest my mind ever got. And there have been nights when I have gone downstairs to run through a series of relaxing stretches before bed. I love the term "grounding". The more grounded I am in my everyday life, the lighter and more balanced I feel.

• Coloring--yes, I have my own coloring books. When my brain is caught in a hypervigilant loop, coloring is a soothing, playful, creative activity that focuses my mind on the lines and shades and pencil strokes. Sometimes my daughter and I color a page together. Sketching with colored pencils is nice, too. I wish I could paint, but for now, coloring is my therapeutic artistic outlet.

• Writing--journaling, blogging, poetry, notes to friends. Research is showing that journaling does wonders for mental health! Writing condenses experience. It gives me the freedom to interpret, and reinterpret, my own narrative. 

• Herb tea--rooibos, mint, chamomile, Sleepytime. Especially good for winding down before bed. If I can sip from my steaming mug while wrapped up in a heavy quilt, so much the better.

• Hot soaks--I like to throw some lavender- or eucalyptus-scented epsom salts into the bath for a really restorative experience. The magnesium in the salts is good for regulating all kinds of body systems--from pain relief to sound sleep patterns. I might bring a cheerful novel along with me. Or just put on some mellow piano music in the background. 

• Nature--a little sunshine always does me good. I'm too prone to stay inside with my projects, but I feel better when I spend a little time each day with the outdoors. Walking, reading on the swing, touching the trees, bird watching, observing the sky and the seasons, working in my flowerbeds, whatever. Spending time participating in nature--even in my own yard--reminds me that I am connected to every other living organism on this planet.

• Photography--my camera helps me practice awareness, not just observing my life but taking notice of its details and savoring its beauty. When I need to settle myself down, I can sit somewhere comfortable and flip through photos of pleasant places and happy times. Plants and gardens are my favorite subjects. 

• Time with friends--I couldn't get out of my slump by myself. A couple of times I got desperate enough to get on the phone and ask my neighbor to come sit with me. I invited the lady down the street up for tea. I followed up on an internet contact and met an amazing new friend. I got together for coffee with a lady from my book club, joined a friend across town for lunch. The more fragile I feel, the more I need to draw strength from honest relationships with caring people, especially other women. 

Articles & Websites

Pete Walker, a therapist in California, has a website offering an array of hopeful articles. He outlines in plain English some really basic ways to manage triggers and flashbacks. They won't all apply every time, but there's a good chance one of them will help when you're threatened by overwhelming anxiety and your own stress points. Here are a few quotes:

Guilt is sometimes camouflaged fear. Sometimes I need to feel the guilt and do it anyway. 

 I used to know this, but I needed to hear it again from someone else. Felt like being thrown a life saver ring!

My perfectionism arose as an attempt to gain safety and support in my dangerous family. I do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved in the present. I am letting go of relationships that require perfection.

Walker has a special compassion for adults whose dysfunctional childhood homes left them with complex PTSD. Emotional neglect and abandonment, he explains, is at least as devastating as physical abuse. Anger and tears, he explains, are the way children release fear. When those expressions are punished, the fear gets trapped inside. But given time and little mental effort, it's possible to fully recover from that damage to our younger selves.

Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate - and then soothe - the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.

Walker's articles on Shrinking the Inner Critic and Shrinking the Outer Critic are packed with helpful advice for adults recovering from neglect, brainwashing, or emotionally detached parents. I keep returning to his website, each time finding more ideas I can use to develop healthy new ways of relating to myself.

Another therapist I found incredibly helpful was David Carbonell at AnxietyCoach. His calm, reassuring explanations make me feel like I'm having a therapy session with Mr. Rogers. He even makes up his own little songs about panic attacks, in spite of having no musical talent. I haven't yet bought Carbonell's panic attacks workbook (available inexpensively from Amazon) but if I start having trouble with them again I will definitely do so. The excerpt he shares from the section on "fear of driving" did me a lot of good.

This video gives Carbonell's summary of what happens in a panic attack along with useful suggestions for distinguishing danger from discomfort.

A similar tip I found was called the "12-second Chill". The lady who promotes it has a great introduction, but it quickly builds up to an annoying (and triggering) sales pitch, so I quit reading her stuff. The "Chill" exercise does work, though. It's kind of like a super-simple yoga position: sit in a comfortable chair and take some long deep breaths. Then close your eyes for 12 seconds (or more) and just observe the sensations you feel. If you're having panic/anxiety symptoms, the sensations will be mostly unpleasant, but just acknowledge them to yourself. The next time will be a little easier. Eventually you might even notice the feeling of the chair supporting you. It's not therapy, by any means, but it was a way for me to get a handle on managing my physical symptoms instead of letting them run away with me.

Finally, the Anxiety Centre website gave me courage. They don't offer a lot of advice online, but they do offer these words of hope:

While anxiety is a protection mechanism we need, it doesn’t have to turn into or remain a disorder. When it does become a disorder, it can be successfully reversed.

We produce anxiety by the way we’ve learned to live and interact in the world.

Anxiety can be resolved so that it doesn't disrupt a normal lifestyle. And YES, you can live a normal life again. 

Dealing with anxiety and PTSD was hardly something I would have chosen for myself this year, but it's been part of my journey. All those experiences and emotions that I think are forgotten end up surfacing sooner or later. And as they do, I'll work through them, grateful for "grounding", for connection, for secure and supportive relationships as I venture forward from here.