In the Eye of the Storm - Part 3: Cow

I’d like to tie up my “In the Eye of the Storm” series today.

Does anyone remember the movie “Twister”?  There is a scene where they are driving through the core of the storm and a cow flies by. Helen Hunt simply says “Cow”.   

Ladies, we and our husbands are in the eye of the storm. Sometimes it’s calm, sometimes it’s chaos. But we need to be aware of, well, what we need to be aware of. 

In my family, in our case, right now... it’s not about the addiction. For my husband and I, we had to back off of the strict accountability for daily "bad" behavior and try to focus on more positive things. We need to look for flying cows that may or may not be a problem. We need to focus on the chaos around the addiction and try to bring some order to it.

My husband is seeing a counselor. His counselor and I have come to the same conclusion, at about the same time; that my husband is suffering from depression. His counselor is helping him to see himself more clearly. He is realizing that even before the addiction started, he thought of himself as "mediocre".  He's just never liked or respected himself all that much.

So with my last post, In the Eyeof the Storm - Part 2: Becoming a Peripheral Visionary, I talked about focusing on other things. If he can get more sleep and more exercise, he will physically feel better. If he can get to work on time, he will respect himself more, make more money and he will feel more successful and more like a provider for his family. If he can give more to his calling and meet with the bishop more often, he will feel closer to Heavenly Father. If he reads something spiritual each day, he will invite the spirit to abide with him more frequently. 

We need to peripherally view our life right to see if maybe there’s something else to be focusing on. We need to know how to nourish and feed and strengthen him right now and not just focus on this huge negative elephant in the middle of our lives. Or cow, maybe it’s the cow in the room now? 

Now, I hope I don't sound like I have it all together and I've found all the solutions. I don't. I tried this approach in a different form about a year ago. An attempt to structure and organize his life more. It failed for two reasons: 
1. He wasn't ready. 
2. I was coming at it from a selfish perspective. I wanted to take over his life and tell him how to live it. 

I needed the last year to learn that this needs to be HIS process.  I needed to be more empathetic and less desperate for immediate change. 

But now, there has been an immediate change in his attitude. That is the critical thing. He has humbled himself to be willing to make some changes that are against his instincts. And how successful he is will honestly, be secondary to that change of heart that he's had. Elder Richard G. Scott recently said, 

"The joyful news for anyone who desires to be rid of the consequences of past poor choices is that the Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy."   

- Personal Strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ

There is great hope for the weak, through humility. My husband feels lost right now and completely out of his comfort zone. I've told him to just trust me and his therapist. He will not be able to see clearly for awhile. 

So I will try to see what cow we need to focus on and guide him in that direction. If he can trust me when he's terrified, and take some of these steps, maybe he will start to find his own footing. That is my hope.