How grace & truth changed my life

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This post consists solely of an emailed letter I received yesterday. As ever, personal stories speak more authentically than any theory and I think its one of the clearest articulations of the core thinking behind this blog.  I am deeply encouraged to receive letters like this.

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Hi Jon,

I am contacting you to thank you for your excellent blog, which I discovered a few months ago and have been reading ever since.

I have been working with people experiencing homelessness for the past decade, and your words have been hugely important in helping me develop my thoughts about how we can have a positive impact.

I have also learned a lot about Christian social action, beliefs and spirituality; this is admittedly something I don’t know much about and I am just in the tentative stages of exploring, but your writing has been an influential part of this.

Complex problems

I wanted to share with you some thoughts about the role of grace and truth in recovery from complex emotional problems, inspired by the themes you discuss in your writing.

I have experienced homelessness myself in the past and spent many years of my life as a mental health patient, diagnosed with a personality disorder and PTSD, always in emotional crisis and engaging in harmful behaviours towards myself and others.

I had numerous interventions and therapies over the years with little success (I recall one psychologist expressing her pessimism that I would ever be able to benefit from treatment), yet ultimately was able to access support which helped me turn my life around.

Reflecting on my journey, I can now clearly see what made all the difference was the right balance of grace and truth.

Truth without grace

Some approaches had been all truth and no grace.

Often in the statutory mental health system, particularly if you have complex emotional needs which attract diagnoses such as personality disorder, there is a deliberate deployment of harsh and punitive boundaries to deter bad behaviours. This can include calculated coldness and withdrawal of support designed to discourage the ‘maladaptive care-seeking behaviours’. This leads to an oscillation between the parallel harms of overly restrictive treatment and neglect.

This approach can re-traumatise and feel like a replication of the neglect, abuse and abandonment that often led to these difficulties in the first place.

Grace without truth

Yet approaches which are all grace without truth can be equally harmful in their own insidious way.

I have also experienced those who have simply validated my feelings and beliefs, set no boundaries, and allowed and indulged my behaviours. Whilst this may have provided a fleeting and superficial sense of comfort, it did not help me to change or address any of the underlying difficulties.

Furthermore, as no human can truly give endless grace, often in these relationships, it would come to a point where their good nature was exhausted. They would then suddenly, forcefully impose boundaries in ways that felt shocking and harsh, or simply disappear.

Comfort and challenge

For a long time I also feared I was simply untreatable, until I was finally blessed with a therapist who was able to skillfully balance grace and truth.

The treatment was certainly not all about commiseration and comfort; frequently it was challenging, confronting, uncomfortable even. Yet this was built upon a trusting relationship whereby I knew she cared about me and had my best interests at heart.

She wanted to help me change so I could live a better life, rather than simply tell me what I wanted to hear.

Radical honesty

Another extremely important facet of my recovery has been the radical honesty of the fellowship of AA and working the 12 Steps.

At first I found this daunting; I felt I already hated myself and thought it was about self-flagellation. I soon found though that through this rigorous honesty and accountability, we can in fact find true self-worth and self-knowledge.

Furthermore, in AA, you become part of a community where you are both a giver and recipient of love and support. Plus you can build a relationship with your Higher Power, through which you can come to know love, grace and acceptance beyond what many of us have ever experienced before (even if you’re a former atheist like me!)

True caring

Too often, it is implied, if not explicitly stated, that the antidote to complex problems is limitless grace; a belief that we can heal past injustices through endless acquiescence and unconditional service in the present.

But my experiences have shown me that the truly caring thing to do is to balance grace with truth. This is the path we must take if we truly want people to support people to make real changes in their lives, become part of their communities and build true self-worth.