What are the clues to recovery, where am I stuck?－Yumi Ikeda Morse
soulcare
These materials were used in "Hearts Set Free- A support group for people healing from spiritual abuse".
Date: October 2022
Presenter: Yumi Ikeda Morse
What are the clues to recovery, where am I stuck?
Clues to Recovery
What do you think is the key to recovery for you?
- people, who willing to listen, Time and space to process, Studying about leadership (knowledge) ,
- Trust God, New start= new Church, new condition, new community,
- Counseling, friends in
Where I am stuck
What are your current challenges in the process of recovery?
What does the Lord say? How can I give you an answer?
Summary prepared by: Yumi Ikeda Morse
The second meeting of Hearts Set Free was held in October. As in the previous meeting, six participants gathered from Japan and the United States. I (Yumi Ikeda Morse) shared my own experience on "What is the key to recovery and where am I stuck?
A summary of my presentation is as follows: I had a denomination where I was saved, committed to, and worked for. I belonged to it for more than 10 years. After I graduated from seminary and began working in the church, I began to counsel people who said they were suffering mentally and spiritually in their activities within the church and in their relationships with the pastor. This later became my own major awareness of the problem of spiritual abuse and cult-like churches.
I was searching for a way to solve the problem, but when I was transferred to a certain church, I decided to leave the denomination. My experience at that church was so spiritually and emotionally disturbing that it took me several years to recover after I left the church. I still feel, to this day, that I am in the process of recovery.
The following things have helped me in my recovery process
1. Receiving counseling from someone with insight on spiritual abuse.
Receiving help from someone who had knowledge about spiritual abuse was a great catalyst in my recovery.
2. Friends in a new environment.
In my new environment, I made new friends who took very good care of me and helped me regain my confidence little by little.
3. Rebuilding my theology.
I had to re-examine my own values and understanding of God and the Church.
The major lesson I learned was that the Church is not God. The mistake began when I put something that is not God in God's place.
The second half of my testimony was about what we are still working on as a process of recovery.
Where I was stuck.
When I was recovering from the spiritual abuse, I still found myself being told by those around me that I was abnormal, that what I had experienced was my mistake, my overreaction.
- I am treated as if my experience did not exist.
- I am told that what I am testifying to is a lie.
- Being told, or thinking, that I am still the same aggressive and negative person.
I testified that although I am in the process of working on myself and do not have the answers, I believe that understanding where I am now is the key to recovery.
After the presentation, participants offered their thoughts and questions. They discussed how long it took them to recover, what stage of recovery they were at, and what clues to recovery they could find.
