Reclaiming Your Voice in Recovery

Greg Miller

For those people who struggle with addiction, because what we talk about addiction is trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way and repetitive pattern. And so part of recovery is getting clear about what are my needs, what are my wants, and asking for those. And what's true is for many of us, we grew up in environments where our needs were not validated, they were not affirmed, they were not encouraged.

Greg Miller

And so we learned to just suppress them, ignored, deny them. And then they leaked out in these destructive ways. And so really, a healthy family system is one where everyone's needs, everyone's wants, are brought to the table. And what's also true is not everybody's needs and wants are going to be able to be met. Sometimes needs and wants can compete against each other, can be conflictual, but the fact is I get to name them, I get to bring them and talk about them, and then we get to negotiate them to see how we can move towards this.

Randy Evert

Welcome to the Faithful and True podcast. I'm Randy Everett, your co-host, and we are here again today with our usual host, doctor Greg Miller. Greg, good to see you.

Greg Miller

I don't know if there's anything usual about me, but I appreciate.

Randy Evert

That we're here with the unusual.

Greg Miller

That feels more true.

Randy Evert

Our unusual host, Greg Miller. Greg, great to see you. Great to have you back in town with us. Greg, of course, is here to lead the Men's Journey workshop, which starts here at Faithful and True tomorrow morning. And again, we have the special guest that we. Well, we went upstairs to the main level and we dragged him out of his office.

Randy Evert

It's the clinical director of faithful and True Jim Farm. Jim, how are you doing?

Jim Farm

Yeah. Glad to be here, Randy.

Randy Evert

Appreciate it. Debbie likes when we give all the credentials, but Jim's list is so long. He's. He's an left. He's a CSat, and he's just a swell guy. So we're happy to have Jim back with us today. And we're here to discuss the the Seven Freedoms. Well, it's short but sweet. The seven, the Five freedoms of Virginia satire.

Randy Evert

And she is a a long, long time. What's the word? I want to therapy. Family therapist. Yeah. And quite the expert for us. So we're here to to discuss the Five freedoms today and Jim's.

Jim Farm

Yeah. Yeah.

Randy Evert

You're going to talk about that.

Jim Farm

Thanks, Randy. It was a you know, it was a I came up with the idea and a staff meeting recently because we were talking, I think Debbie had brought up Virginia Center and and for some reason, I know that I thought about the Five Freedoms because we hadn't talked about that for a while. But really, if you've been around our center for a while, we, you know, Mark and Deborah treated by marine graves through their own recovery, who was a colleague of Virginia satire.

Jim Farm

So a lot of the underpinnings of our work really goes back to Virginia satire. And so a little bit about her, the 1950s was kind of this. They describe it as the decade of marriage and family therapy because, you know, before then it was, you know, we saw, you know, maybe struggles that people have as something that's intra psychic.

Jim Farm

It's something internally you no names like Freud or Erikson where they kind of looked inside the person on the 50s. They decided, well, there's got to be, you know, systems that might have an impact on how someone's functioning. And that was just what we describe as marriage and family therapy. And so Virginia, Satara was one of the pioneers in that field.

Jim Farm

In fact, they call her, I believe, the mother of family therapy or grandmother or family therapy, one of the two I've heard both of them.

Greg Miller

Well, and what's true is she really invited people to look at how the dynamics and the system of the family were working, that there's an acknowledgment that we don't live in isolation, that any organization, any group, any family has its own systems. And so she encouraged people to not just look at themselves, but look how they fit in a greater organization.

Greg Miller

And for those of you that, like Jim said, have been around faithful and true, the whole iceberg model that we talk about that are couples workshop. That is something also that Virginia City came up with. And we've just kind of put our own faithful and true spin on that. But she was the first one to say, you've got to look below the surface.

Greg Miller

And, you know, one of her phrases is, whatever the issue is, it is a issue, but it's not the issue. And we've got to get in there and figure out what is the issue that's driving this conflict or this disagreement.

Jim Farm

That's right. And you've heard us talk about in previous podcasts as well, The Stages of Change. And she was one of the ones that initially developed. What are the stages of shame? She did work on self-identity or self-esteem. And so a lot of the things that we talk about have some underpinnings of Virginia City's teaching around those as well, right?

Greg Miller

One of the things I've heard Deb say is that she herself, Virginia, was not a writer. And so when she was living, there wasn't a lot of her stuff written down. And then it was later that colleagues came around and started trying to organize her teachings and put them into books, but she herself didn't author any books. So you're not going to find anything from Virginia satire, but you are going to find things about Virginia satire.

Greg Miller

And like Randy said, we're going to be talking about the five freedoms that she identified. And, you know, what's interesting is I read these. It's, you know, you could use the word these are the the rights that people have. These are the, you know, the expectations that someone could have. But I really do like the idea of these freedoms, this idea that if we're going to be in a healthy, functioning system, these are the things that are free to everyone.

Greg Miller

So do you want to tell us about the first one?

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the things before we do that, one of the things that I often talk about when I'm working with clients about the freedoms is if you've been around our center, have been to our intensives or workshops, one of the things we'll do is we'll talk about family rules. And so oftentimes, you know, we grow up in families where maybe the rules weren't so helpful for us.

Jim Farm

And so I've often seen these five freedoms as like a healthy set of rules, if you will. Right. But I like the term freedoms. I don't like the word rules. I'm just kind of resistant to that. Right.

Greg Miller

Well, and what's true is we hear the idea of rules and it feels very restrictive and limiting. You know, it's an expectation of what you're supposed to do. These are more of what what is present when a family is functioning well or a system is functioning well. In some ways, they're also like an invitation. You're invited to live out of these places or these things in in a healthy family system.

Jim Farm

That's right. Well, let me read the first one. I'm not going to butcher it by just trying to remember it. Yeah. So the freedom to see and hear what is here instead of what should be, was or will be. So in other words, she's saying the freedom to stay present.

Greg Miller

Right. Well, and I also read it as the freedom to live in reality, that the whole idea is we are going to have the freedom as a system to name what is true. And we're not going to deny, we're not going to minimize, we're not going to rationalize, we're not going to justify. But there is an invitation to name reality.

Greg Miller

And sometimes this is difficult because reality is painful or it's difficult, but what's true is in healthy functioning systems, we just live in what is true and kind of like what she says, not what we wished was not should be. But the reality of this is what is true for our system, and we're going to live into the reality of that.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah, I always kind of give examples of this because some of us heard some of these things when we were kids, like, you know, you don't turn your homework in, you're going to fail like you did last semester, or, you know, you keep doing that. You might end up in jail someday, right? You know what I mean?

Jim Farm

So it's this foretelling or bringing back to, you know, these past experiences where we've failed or something, rather than dealing with what's right in front of us. What's the reality right now in the present?

Greg Miller

Right. And a family system that doesn't value truth and reality. You know, we deny the dysfunction or the pain or the challenges. We don't own that. There's something not working in our family, but in this particular freedom, we get to name what is real. If somebody has an addiction, we get to talk about the fact that there's an addiction.

Greg Miller

If somebody has an illness, we get to acknowledge that there is an illness. We're not going to shy away from something. And it is interesting how many of us lived in family systems where denying the truth was one of the expectations of rules. And so it's interesting how there is a freedom when it comes, when you live in the truth.

Greg Miller

You know, the Scripture says the truth shall set you free. And systems that live in the truth experience that freedom.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. I love how you use the word reality because I'm now I'm getting my Greek and Hebrew from seminary out. Most people don't realize this, but the word we translate into truth both on the Hebrew and the Greek is this. These two words that actually mean reality, like aletheia, this Greek word that means truth. It literally means reality, right?

Jim Farm

And so I love how you're using that word, Greg. Yeah.

Greg Miller

Well, the second one is the freedom to say what you feel and think instead of what you should. And again, in all of these, we have this sense of obligation. I should be feeling this or I should be thinking this. And we feel that pressure from others. But in the healthy system, whatever it is that we are feeling or thinking, we're able to express that there's no sense that this is what is appropriate or inappropriate.

Greg Miller

This is what is expected or not expected. If you are feeling it, you get to express it. If you're thinking it, you get to express it. It's kind of like all opinions are welcomed. And in many systems, there's kind of like an expectation of this is how we're supposed to feel. This is what our family thinks. And anything outside of that is not welcomed.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. And I've often heard this. I think you may even say this at the men's workshop when we kind of go through the family rules, is this one rule where as kids, you're to be seen but not heard, right? You know, and this is exactly what Virginia is talking about. You know, the freedom to say what you're actually feeling, right?

Jim Farm

And she she actually said this. It doesn't matter what age you are, right.

Greg Miller

Yeah. Well, say I did that. Everybody gets their voice, you know, what are the things that we talk about at the couple's workshop and is in a healthy, functioning couple ship? Everybody gets there. Yes. And everybody gets their no. So I don't have to change my perspective in order to fit in. I get to bring my perspective. And then as the community, as the family, we negotiate and figure out how to create space for everybody's voice.

Greg Miller

And so many of the men that come to our workshop, one of the things that they are struggling with is when they were children, their voice wasn't welcomed. And so all these years later, their attempts to have a voice have actually become hurtful or destructive, or they've learned to be silent and then they end up being that passive aggressive where their voice leaks out in other ways.

Greg Miller

But when you grow up in a family system where you're able to have an opinion, you're able to speak your your your voice. And Beth often talks about the story of she was a very small child, and her family was talking about getting a dog, and they went to everyone, mom and dad, her brother and her, and asked, what is your opinion of having a dog?

Greg Miller

And I think she was only like 3 or 4 at the time, but it was important if the family was going to get a dog, they heard from everyone. And so one of her core beliefs growing up in that system was my voice matters. Well, that's exactly what Virginia satire is talking about. Everybody's voice matters. And typically we want to avoid somebody's voice because our assumption is it will create conflict.

Greg Miller

And if we don't have the skills to know how to navigate conflict, the one thing we want to do is avoid it. But in Virginia, Virginia system, everybody gets their voice. And then you figure out how to create space for that voice.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking I'm marking Deb's book. You know, the seven desires, which one of them has to be the need to be heard and understood, you know, and obviously that comes out of my my assumptions when they wrote that book that came right out of this, their understanding of Virginia as a tear I often dug about.

Jim Farm

I had, you know, I had three boys. And there were times when we'd like, for instance, go out to eat and we'd ask the boys, you know, anything sounds good tonight. Where do you want to go out to eat? And one of my sons typically would not say anything. So there was this opportunity this time where I just said, hey, we're going to go wherever.

Jim Farm

I'm not going to name the son, we're going to go wherever he decides to go, wants to go tonight because he normally doesn't say where he wants to go. So of course, I'm already anticipating one of my other sons, you know, kind of resisting that, right? Randy knows my son, so he's probably and he's probably figured out which one.

Randy Evert

He could be any of them. Yeah.

Jim Farm

But anyways, he chose and of course the other sons, like, no, I don't want to go there. That's gross, you know. And but we stuck with it, you know what I mean? But we wanted to make sure that he knew that it was important. Whatever. You know, that he was heard and, you know, he had the right to say what he wanted to do.

Greg Miller

Well, one of the things when we're talking about the desire to be heard and understood, it really is the desire to be known. And we can't be known if we are silent and we can't be known if we are invisible. And really, what this freedom is talking about is everybody's presence matters. You know, for a lot of the men that come through the workshop, one of their negative core beliefs or their shame messages, I don't matter and my presence doesn't matter or my voice doesn't matter.

Greg Miller

And that's so oppositional to the truth of the Scripture that we all matter, that everyone's voice matters. And one of the most challenging things to do is to create a culture, a family and environment, a community where everybody's voice gets to be heard so that everybody knows their voice matters. And I think that this is what that freedom is talking about.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah, I think so. To move to the third one, because it's kind of connected. It's the freedom to feel what you feel instead of what you ought. You know, I always give this example. I had a client one time. He he described his dad as never be an emotionally connected with the rest of the family. And so he came to group and he was really actually feeling guilty because he said, you know, I, I didn't really feel sad at the funeral.

Jim Farm

Like I didn't have any sadness, I didn't have any tears. And I felt so much shame that I wasn't feeling sad, you know, because he had this idea I should be feeling sad. I should be, you know, tearful because of my dad died. I said, well, you know, you didn't really have a relationship with your dad, right? You know.

Greg Miller

Well, and I was talking to a client and same thing. But in this case, he had gone away to college and he was talking about the fact that while he was in college, he did not miss his parents. And he felt guilty that like, you're supposed to miss your parents. And what's interesting is, as he described his relationship with his parents as he described the attributes of his parents, I was able to say, well, it makes sense that you don't miss them or you didn't miss them, given how they showed up in your life.

Greg Miller

And as I kind of fed back to him how he described them, I said, doesn't it make sense that you wouldn't miss someone that showed up in your life this way? And for the first time, he began to see that his feelings were actually revealing something about himself and his parents and his relationship with his parents. And so many times we're taught to believe there's right feelings or wrong feelings, but really, a feeling is just a reaction.

Greg Miller

And that reaction is telling us about our needs, our desires, our hopes. And so that's where if we deny it or avoid it, we are missing out on some aspect of truth of who we are. And this also allows us to get into some and this so I can, you know, not miss my parents. And I can also be thankful for what it is that they have provided for me.

Greg Miller

I'm same thing with your client. It didn't feel sadness or grief when his father died. He can be thankful for whatever it was his father provided and not grieve him in that moment.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes we hear these messages. Well, you shouldn't feel that way. We probably all heard that at some point in our life. Well, you shouldn't feel that way. You know what I mean? And you know, what we know from neuroscience is our emotions are kind of in this part of our brain that are really involuntary. That's why psychologists call feelings neutral.

Jim Farm

They're neither good nor bad. They just are what they are. So in essence, what you're telling someone when you shouldn't feel that, what you're saying, you shouldn't have that reality right now. Right.

Greg Miller

Yeah. Well, and we use this example at the workshop for those of us who grew up in the church, many times Scripture is weaponized to dismiss our emotion. And so I use example. I'm a kid, I have a big test, I'm feeling anxious about the test. And then somebody, somebody just rushes in and says, be anxious for nothing.

Greg Miller

You know, remember the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and you're going, wait, wait, I got a test. But now I'm being told that my anxiety isn't right or my anxiety is outside of my faith and it suddenly dismissed. Or I'm feeling sad about something and I'm told, you know, count, count it all joy, and I'm not allowed to feel sadness.

Greg Miller

And so in that open environment, everybody gets to name whatever their emotions are. They get to feel their emotions, they get to express their emotions. And what's true is when emotions are regulated and reduced and contained, that's actually when emotions become more destructive. Either we internalize them and they eat kind of away at our system, or we contain them until they explode.

Greg Miller

But when we're in an environment that welcomes our emotions, no matter what they are, we learn that they can just flow out and they don't have to be dangerous. And so this is actually a way, you know, a lot of people may be hearing, oh, we can't have emotions. They're too big. But the reality is if we steward them, we can create safety in the context of our community and bring our emotions to that community.

Jim Farm

Yeah. And I think we run into that, you know, with the folks we work with here, Greg, sometimes, you know, early in recovery in particular, you know, if a spouse is angry because of the betrayal and things like that, sometimes things we run into with some guys is they want to try to smooth things over quickly, to not have their wife or spouse feel angry.

Jim Farm

In essence, I'm not telling her I don't want her to be angry by, but by me trying to rush her to get her not to be angry, which we just said is not really a possibility, is we're basically telling her it's not okay to feel that way, right?

Greg Miller

Well, the idea is our responsibility is to create space for other people's emotions. And so we create space for our wives anger. We create space for our wives grief. And when we don't do that, like you said, we try to dismiss it or move them on to quickly. I, I've heard the women that work here talk about the fact that one of the most painful things is when a wife is pushed to quickly to forgiveness, and maybe they hear it from the church, or maybe they hear it from their husband, or maybe they hear it from their community.

Greg Miller

But the reality is, when we move someone to a place that they're not ready to be, that is a form of dismissing their emotions. So allowing someone to be in their anger as long as they need to be in their anger and be in their grief, as long as they need to be in their grief, that is their way of moving forward.

Greg Miller

And we talk about the idea that recoveries, like running a marathon on a track, you end up doing the same laps over and over again. And so I may do several laps of grief for several laps of anger. And it doesn't mean that I'm not making progress because I am running the marathon. I'm just doing another lap of that emotion, and sometimes we can shut it down ourselves.

Greg Miller

Go, oh, I thought, I've already dealt with. I thought I had grieved or I thought I had, you know, been angry, but it just makes sense. If we continue this journey, we start to experience those same emotions again, maybe in a different context.

Jim Farm

Yeah. And they become less intense, less frequent. I know you were going to bring running into this whole it was a matter of time. It was just we had better go.

Greg Miller

Every.

Jim Farm

Podcast dropping. Right. I love it though actually.

Greg Miller

And the next freedom is the freedom to ask for what you want instead of always waiting for permission. And this is huge. You know, for those people who struggle with addiction, because what we talk about addiction is trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way, in a repetitive pattern. And so part of recovery is getting clear about what are my needs, what are my wants, and asking for those.

Greg Miller

And what's true is for many of us, we grew up in environments where our needs were not validated, they were not affirmed, they were not encouraged. And so we learned to just suppress them, ignore him, deny him. And then they leaked out in these destructive ways. And so really, a healthy family system is one where everyone's needs, everyone's wants, are brought to the table.

Greg Miller

And what's also true is not everybody's needs and wants are going to be able to be met. Sometimes needs and wants can compete against each other, can be conflictual, but the fact is I get to name them, I get to bring them and talk about them, and then we get to negotiate them to see how we can move towards this.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. That's so good. I, you know, I, I like the how you changed it from because Virginia is called it wants. But I like that you changed it to needs as well that we have that freedom to do that. Right. You know I think you know you're exactly right. I, I always share the, the story when I, when I go through this with clients.

Jim Farm

I, when I was in seminary, we used to keep the apartment really warm because it was cold. So we invite this couple over. It was for the NCAA tournament basketball on Monday night, and it was the first time we had this couple over. And so we recognized we had dinner. And as the night went on, it was kind of mid-winter.

Jim Farm

It's like in March. So they had their sweaters and dress shirts on and and I started to recognize, like both of them were down to their t shirts. And I'm like, what's going on here? And if finally I just said, you guys, like, I just noticed, like, your sweaters and shirts are off and you're down to your t shirts and they're like, well, it's like a sauna in here.

Jim Farm

I'm like, well, you could have asked for your need to say, you know, can we turn the heat down? Right? You know, but it was a perfect example. They were waiting for us to recognize that they were hot. Yeah. And so they just kind of suffered for a while.

Greg Miller

Well, and I love that, you know, the idea of Virginia talks about instead of always waiting for permission. Yeah. You know, so many of us were taught to live very small lives until we were given permission to live a bigger life. And this really is very different. It's not allowing someone else to define my needs and desires based upon them, but it gets to start with me.

Greg Miller

And if I have a need, or if I have a desire to be able to speak it out loud, I'm one of the inside jokes. Beth and I are a part of this group, and we get together occasionally, and you know, we're a part of a community and everyone knows if you're going to host us at some point, Greg is going to say, can I have some coffee?

Greg Miller

It doesn't matter what time we're meeting, it doesn't matter what we're serving or eating. I'll just say, hey, can I have some coffee? And it actually was very important for me to learn to say something as simple as, I would like a cup of coffee, because one of the family rules where I grew up was, don't be a bother.

Greg Miller

And another thing about don't be a bother is you don't ask for something extra, you don't look for something additional. You just accept whatever's in front of you. And I use the example of its kind of like going to a salad bar. And if I were to go to a salad bar and there were four items on the salad bar, it would never occur to me to ask, hey, can we have some more stuff on the salad bar?

Greg Miller

I would just try to make the best salad I could with those four ingredients, and if there were more, I would use them more. But this recovery has taught me it's important that you ask, hey, are there other things that could be on the salad bar? And if they say no, those are the four things we have, then I'm going to make the best salad.

Greg Miller

I came with those four things, but if they go, oh no, we've got all kinds of other stuff that we could add. I'm missing out. And so we need our voice. It kind of gets to one of the early ones. I get my voice, I get my feelings, I get my needs, I get my desires. And it's not me being selfish.

Greg Miller

You know, one of the things that you know, family systems can do is shut people down by saying, well, you're just being selfish. No, I'm being defined. I'm being clear. I'm being myself, which is part of what God wants us to do is live fully into the uniqueness of who we are. And what's true is I like coffee.

Greg Miller

And, you know, the beauty of my community is now they know it and it's typically there at some point.

Jim Farm

So do you do the decaf in the evening or. No.

Greg Miller

So you just know that it's.

Randy Evert

The real thing.

Greg Miller

Yeah. And part of it is, you know, our our small group meets throughout the Chicago area. And so typically Beth and I have a drive afterwards. And so it's my little boost to get home. And it's just something that is fun for me when I'm gathering with other people. Yeah.

Jim Farm

Elizabeth Griffin and I did a conference, spoke at a conference on zoom. I think it was a few years ago. But one of the things we brought up because it was a pastors and Christian therapists, was this what I describe as a deprivation theology, that, you know, that we somehow have been taught that it's more valuable to live in deprivation, right, than to ask for something, right?

Greg Miller

Well, it's like the difference between abundance and scarcity. And even though we are promised the abundant life, what we've been taught is it is more righteous to live in scarcity. And so really moving to that idea, what does it mean for us to have an abundant life? How do we ask for that? How do we move towards that?

Greg Miller

How do we actually create that versus that, waiting for something to come to us. And again, there's there's a different using our language, a wise man lives in abundance. A survivor man is selfish. But for the wise man, it's self-care. It's having those needs, those desires met and doing it in a way that doesn't deplete a defeat or distract from the community, but actually enhances the community.

Greg Miller

Yeah, yeah, we have one more.

Jim Farm

Can I just do one? One example of this because I was talking to a client about this yesterday because he was like, you know, how is this? How is this, you know, how is this right with with my faith. And I'm like, well, Jesus himself actually experienced this because you think about the gardening of somebody. He brings his three closest buddies and he only he asked for what he needs.

Jim Farm

Can you guys just stay awake? You'd think like these guys, you know, this is God here. You know, I'm going to stay awake for this guy, but they don't. And so he himself experienced the the willingness to ask for his needs, but they just couldn't meet it. Right. And he actually says that, like, your spirits are willing but your body is unable, right?

Greg Miller

Yeah. It's naming the limitations of their sleep deprived bodies and the fact that sleep kept him from being able to meet the need that he had.

Jim Farm

Yeah. So I think that's an important point for a lot of our listeners is they might think, well, I asked for my needs and they didn't get met, you know. Right. And so that's why we talk about the importance of community. Because if we just focus on maybe, for instance, like our spouse is going to meet all of our needs, well, she's finite, just as Peter and James and John was.

Jim Farm

Right. So we do have to have other resources that we can go to, healthy resources to.

Greg Miller

Well, and the other thing about it is not all of our needs are going to be met, which means there will be times I will need to grieve that my community, my spouse, whoever it is, isn't able to meet this need. It's a legitimate need. It's a valid need. And if I don't choose my grief and I choose resentment, then it's going to become toxic.

Greg Miller

You know, I often talk about we avoid grief, but there's always a consequence. If we avoid grief, then it can lead to bitterness and resentment. And so, yeah, not everyone's going to be able to meet our needs. Our needs are not always going to be met. And so when we allow us to ourselves to grieve that loss, it still lets us move forward.

Greg Miller

That's right. And one more. And that is the freedom to take risk in your own behalf, instead of choosing to be only secure and not rocking the boat. And I think this is huge, that I'm willing to have my voice, even though it may be disruptive. You know, I like the fact that you talked about rocking the boat.

Greg Miller

Yes, many of us were taught live small, don't ask for too much, don't take up too much space, don't rock the boat. And yet, if I show up fully the person that God created me to be, there will be challenges to that. There will be opposition to that. It will rock the boat and depending on what the circumstances are or the system is, the system learns how to right size and respond and keep the boat afloat.

Greg Miller

But the fear of rocking the boat forces me to live in a very small space.

Jim Farm

Yeah, and oftentimes the boat rocking is actually a sign of growth, you know. Right. And my, my my youngest son, he had had this assumption that we wanted him to go to when he was choosing colleges, that he assumed that we wanted him to go to these other colleges. And he really wanted to go to this one. So he was really afraid to share that because he thought it was going to rock the boat, you know?

Jim Farm

But he kept pressing, this is really where I want to go. And so it's a perfect example. I'm risking in my own behalf, even though I have a fear that that might rock the boat, it might create conflict, it might, you know, require, you know, end up in disappointment. And but that's a perfect example. Sometimes, you know, being able to share things that we don't know how the other person is going to respond.

Jim Farm

I often kind of put this in different language. When I'm working with guys and recoveries, I'm risking vulnerability and letting go of the outcomes rather than I'm, you know, limiting vulnerability and trying in order to manage the outcomes.

Greg Miller

Right. Well, and there's not growth without risk, you know, and what's interesting is there's a balance between safety and risk. And the safer a person feels, the more likely they are to risk. And so one of the things that we know in healthy systems, there's enough safety. That risk is welcomed and encouraged and is an opportunity to move beyond what I'm currently doing or what my current expectations are, and allowing myself again to have a bigger life.

Greg Miller

And so much of what these five freedoms are is to live the fullness of life, live the big life, live the abundant life, rather than this very small, contained, restrictive type of existence. And so the counseling center that I would go to often would say, you get all of your space, you get all of the space. You need to fully be the person that God created you to be, and everybody needs space to grow.

Greg Miller

I like the example of plants. If you plant a plant in a pod, eventually the size of the pot will limit the growth of the plant. So we're constantly expanding so that we can grow, that the space that we need is getting bigger, and that there's enough space for our desires, our voice, our needs of us can show up and have space that we need.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah. A lot of these five freedoms are really, you know, when I, when, when I read about them is really about learning to live authentically, you know, transparently and not hiding anymore. You know, we talk about that a lot in terms of our work here is hiding and oftentimes how that leads to shame. Yeah.

Greg Miller

Well, one of the things it's true is obviously many of the men that come to our workshop, they've been hiding their addiction. But what's also true is they've been hiding so much more of themselves. That's right. And so what they discover is when they start to get honest about the addiction, there's so much more about who they are.

Greg Miller

I often talk about growing up. There was this secret room in the back that I hid. All of the chaos, all of the fear, all of the emotions, all of the addiction. And then when I was exposed, the room was exposed. But what I discovered was there was a lot of me that was also hidden in that room.

Greg Miller

And it's taken time and courage and encouragement and support and community to begin moving out and living more fully. And I think that that's what these freedoms do. They invite us to live the fullness of life.

Jim Farm

That's right. I had a client that recently said, you know, when he first started working with me, this was five years ago, that he always described himself as this quiet, shy guy. And he said, you know, my coworkers were commenting on how big of a goofball I was recently. And he recognized, like, yeah, that's the part that he.

Randy Evert

Bringing the real him.

Jim Farm

The real him is out now.

Greg Miller

Yeah. Well, what's true is the addiction takes our life away from us, literally takes our life. But recovery brings us and gives us the life that God desires. And I think that's what these talk about. Yeah. Well, thanks for being here.

Jim Farm

Yeah, yeah.

Greg Miller

And thanks for bringing this.

Jim Farm

Yeah, I love this. You know, Virginia City was so bright, obviously, you know, and Debbie and Mark had such a good respect for her. And I still do. You know.

Randy Evert

It's a subject matter that I think that our regular listeners are really going to embrace because this is really helpful, helpful stuff here. So we do as Greg said. Thanks, Jim. It's always a pleasure to have you on the podcast, and we hope that our listeners and viewers have benefited greatly from today's podcast. We also want to invite you to visit our website.

Randy Evert

If you've never been there. It's faithful and true. Com and there you'll find many resources that are available to you. The majority of them are free resources. It's also all of the information and online registration capabilities for you to look into our three day intensive workshops. Every month we do the Men's Journey workshop, and then throughout the year you'll see that we have two different Women's Journey workshops and also two different Couples Journey workshops.

Randy Evert

So to read about the details involved, visit Faithful and True and we would just love to have you come to our center and be a part of those events. In the meantime, we hope that this coming week for you will be a week that's filled with many blessings and with great vision.