Meet Aaron…

Freedom…huh? It wasn’t on my radar or, let’s say I didn’t have the capacity to imagine it even being possible. I can now say I was wrong. With the right support there is freedom, if you’re willing to put in the time, effort, and begin to learn to honor and give yourself permission to learn how to live.

My name is Aaron and it was roughly six years ago that my life was beyond functioning. I was nearly at ‘the end of the rope’ as some would call it. My job, my family, and my sanity were all hanging by a thread. I had tried it all, and I mean everything, to pull myself out of the water to keep from drowning. I had finally reached a place where I could no longer function and I struggled to make it through the day without some sort of emotional meltdown. My emotions and my head were playing games with me and they weren’t playing very nice. You see I had this thing called “anxiety.” It was a label I’d had all my life. I owned that word and had learned how to perfect it. I’d perfected it to a point that it ran me, my life, and the people closest to me, in vicious circles.

I had been seeking treatment wherever I could find it and whoever I could find it from. I’d looked for help out-of-state, been in counseling, been prayed for…you name it, it had been done to try and “fix me.”

Things became so difficult, I couldn’t hold it together in my job and finally had to step away in the hope that I could find reprieve from the anxiousness and fear. The problem was that the fear wasn’t just in my job. It was EVERYWHERE. It showed up in everything I tried to do. Drive, eat, walk, sleep, work, etc. This fear was in my face all the time. My obsessions and phobias ruled my life.

Because fear had been alongside me throughout my life, I had formed a friendship with it. It was the only “real” relationship I had, or knew how to maintain. I pushed everyone else away. The fear owned me and I believed it was the only thing keeping me alive. In reality however, it was slowly killing me. Then six years ago I met Dr. Peter Holmes and the Rapha community, and like so many of the other folks they’d come alongside and journeyed with, I too was a pitiful mess and at the end of the road.

The first season of my journey was about trying to get myself settled and to put some sort of stability back in my life. After that I was able to begin to sort through the emotional trauma that I was carrying. There were times when I just wanted someone to wave a wand or tell me how much it would cost to have the pain and trauma taken away. However, I came to understand that’s not how this “journey” works. It’s not about money or magic pills, but about taking time, being honest with yourself, and acknowledging the truth behind what you’re feeling. These were all things that were foreign concepts to me, but I didn’t care because I just wanted it gone and was willing to do whatever it took to get rid of it. I struggled to believe that listening to what I was feeling would change anything, but I would soon come to learn I was wrong. There is a tremendous amount of truth and healing in our feelings. We need others to come alongside and support, but learning to listen to our feelings and ‘feel’ through what is really there is where the healing starts.

Looking back now, it’s evident to see where the healing has happened. It didn’t happen overnight, as I still wish on numerous occasions that it would have. The saying “if it were easy everyone would do it” plays all too true with finding healing from the darkness we carry. It is work, and not always fun, to sort through the damage in our life and learn how to let go of it.

Today, I have a relationship with my wife, my children and many others that I never could have had before. Learning the significance of these relationships has been an important part of the healing journey. My wife and I now have a very real and meaningful relationship with each other – one that I would honestly not trade for another.