I’m honored and blessed that this nice article about my new counseling practice in Shelbyville, IN was featured in the town’s newspaper there. The writer did an excellent job of capturing and organizing the best of what I said during our interview. Thank you Shelbyville News!
Read the article here: “Addictions counselor seeks to help those in pain”
Of course, after I read the article, I realized all that I failed to talk about two very important words in the counseling vocabulary, “healing” and “forgiveness”. These two words, I think, go to the core of about everything that I help people do – if not as a primary goal, then as something along the way. And the words are seemingly inseparable.
People suffering with addiction frequently have unhealed emotional wounds hiding under a blanket of lies and illusions, some caused by the illness of addiction itself, some predating it by decades. Loved ones of an addicted individual are wounded in all kinds of ways, sometimes without their having a clue about what has happened to them or where their pain comes from. But, regardless of the presence of an addiction or not, people of all walks of life, each have their own healing to do.
It seems to be connected to the meaning and underlying purpose of our lives – to learn to forgive and heal.
Emotional wounds are similar to physical wounds in that they often do not heal properly without intentional action to promote it. And, like improperly or insufficiently healed physical damage, emotional wounds can cause tremendous discomfort and “refer” pain to places apparently unrelated to the original harm. Likewise, the healing process can itself be very unpleasant and is often avoided. But, when the journey is undertaken, the joy and wisdom gained is almost always well worth effort.
