The Effect | Giving Tuesday

We’ll never heal into wholeness until we can first see ourselves as we really are. So if Einstein is right, and we can’t solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it, we can’t use old beliefs to inch up on a completely different reality. It takes great courage and desire for change, but at some point, there has to be a clean break, a leap into faith—living as if the wholeness we seek is already present. Seventeen years ago, we took a leap…began working as if we could loosen the soil of entrenched beliefs and help people become entirely ready to leap themselves. There’s been a lot of leaping ever since.

The experience of true recovery and spiritual formation is unlike that of anything we materially achieve in life. Not a planned and measured striving to acquire, but a pushing back and letting go, a freefall into a promise not yet fully formed. It is the ultimate expression of vulnerability and always feels risky, if not terrifying. But with the model and support of others who survived their falls, like fledgling skydivers, we learn to enjoy the ride as we realize any risk we feel only exists in our minds, and the experience of trustworthiness can only happen while in a fall with trust.

Trust and anxiety are inversely proportional. As one goes up, the other goes down. We can measure our trust in anything or anyone by how much anxiety and fear we feel, how much we work to control each encounter. It’s the same interiorly. The trust we find in the falling allows us to fearlessly look into ourselves, accept what is affirming and begin work on changing the rest. Trust is the beginning of the end of our isolation from each other and God, and the beginning of the lift into the effect of connection—healing and wholeness.

The pandemic taught us to hold virtual meetings, and going online has opened our studies and discussion groups to a nationwide, even international audience. Up to half our weekly online groups are people from out of area, state, and country. But as powerful as these tools are, there’s no substitute for face to face connection, and hundreds of people come through our doors each week. In addition to our Sunday and special event gatherings, which are also streamed live, we have 12 weekly 12-Step meetings and other studies onsite every day of the week, some of which are “hybrid,” both live and virtual. We’re working hard to guide more people to engage their own transformational journeys.

Both teens and adults are reacting to an existential emptiness in our culture with negative coping behaviors such as overuse of social media, substance addictions, mental health issues, eating disorders, school failures, and even suicides. Understanding these issues helps us to extend our adult services to adolescents as well, treating symptoms with a physical, mental, and spiritual approach to help both teens and adults thrive and attain lasting transformation. Then beyond helping people attain regulation and balance, we’re also working to take them further with online group workshops on resilience and recovery integration.

It’s no secret that the disconnection we’ve all experienced from a quickly changing world has brought stress, anxiety, depression, and complications with substance abuse and relationships to the surface. People are experiencing layers of stress from every corner of their lives, feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and not knowing where to turn at a time when mental health services are also overwhelmed. Many providers can’t even accept new clients, so we continue to work with our community members and all who seek us out, through individual counseling and therapy service availability including addiction, family, relationship, grief, and EMDR.