I was at an event this past week with my family. My son was so wrapped up in playing with his tablet that he lost all sense of awareness and had a huge accident all over himself. In the moment, I knew what to do: clean up as usual. 

Then I find out, for lack of a better word, that he crapped all over himself. Really dude? He’s been potty trained for quite sometime now so the worst I expected was the number one. But, I kept pushing.

I had the extra supplies ready: new underwear, new clothes, wipes (o wait I forgot those in MY bag in the next room). The lack of wipes made the whole thing a lot more difficult. I didn’t have my phone to text hubby to bring what I was missing so it was on to improvising and wetting some napkins and proceeding as usual.

 

I’m trying to leave out the gory details for the sake of your sensitive stomachs BUT…

There was crap everywhere and I can imagine my son, who began to wail at the top of his lungs, was feeling terrible for this accident. This kid cried the WHOLE time.

I don’t know about you moms, but that makes it a lot more difficult for me to handle a messy situation. It heightens the stress times 10 because trying to console the uncontrollable emotions of a toddler who is still learning how to manage them AND cleaning up loads of crap (literally) is no easy feat.

 

In that moment I began to feel isolated. As a mom your used to the crazy messes in unusual places (thank God I was in a clean bathroom), but every now and then you want someone to experience the stress with you. It sounds kind of selfish if you look at it on the surface. It’s not the misery loves company thing, but its the let’s overcome together thing (like when moses needed the aid of two friends to hold his hands up to pray the Israelites through victory in battle).

Aaron cried loud enough so that people were knocking on the door to see if everything was okay. I said it was, but truly everything was not okay. But, in the instant I lied and asked God for forgiveness for it because I justified the lie believing that no one would truly understand the situation nor how I felt in the situation.  So I proceeded business as usual not realizing that I was deepening the isolation on my own merit.

This is just one very recent and specific example of personal experience, but I know it’s one of many kinds of opportunities mothers find to retreat to a place of isolation, which always starts from within—within your own mind of course and within the crevices of your soul where no one (but God) would dare travel. 

 

Maybe, it could simply be that you find yourself so caught up and engaged into a ROUTINE that when you finally look up, you realize you are so deep that it may take ages to dig your way out. 

 

Sometimes its on purpose and sometimes its not. Sometimes it is the very nature by which you operate. You are used to figuring things out on your own, you are used to not asking for help, you are used to holding your thoughts to yourself. To top it off you think that no one else is experiencing what you are experiencing, you think no one will understand, you think you are the only one making mistakes, you think you are the only one frustrated and so you keep it to yourself. You retreat because even when you have tried to share, no one seemed to truly understand. Well then, that means no one will ever understand doesn’t it?

WRONG!

God showed me something about the other night that I want to share. It’s the reason why I call this post “The Truth About Recovering From Isolation.” 

I think sometimes no matter how much of a support system you have, no matter how large your village, no matter how many phone numbers you have on speed dial, people have convinced themselves that isolation is the safest place to be and its not. It seems like everything makes sense there. It’s an island of ONE and no one is around to judge or criticize. But in reality:

• Isolation is an incubator for self-destruction.

• Isolation is simply unreasonable. Why? Because only one opinion exists, one perspective exists, one point of view exists. The sharpening comes from the wisdom and insight and revelation that God himself has poured into people that may very well be in your village, on your speed dial or in your support system. But you’re too isolated to recognize it. 

• Isolation keeps the blinds closed. What do I mean? It keeps the light from coming in, it hinders you from opening your heart to the God who wants to tell you some things, some truths that you’ve never realized before.

So how do you recover?

Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t believe that there is a “one size fits all” answer for this. Its easy to say go find some people to talk to, step outside of your comfort zone and get into your prayer closet because they all in fact do make sense. 

But the truth is, the process starts within yourself. One thing I have realized is that people approach life differently and therefore solutions and deliverance must also happen differently to match how they receive information and opportunities for change. 

Change your mind about a lot of the things I mentioned above regarding perception and then you have opened the bridge to recovery.

But then the question becomes: How do you get to the place of changing your mind? 

Tell me: what do you think? Inquiring minds (aka: me) want to know.