Relapse Recovery and Inner Child Healing

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast , where we help Christian men outgrow porn . Why ? So you can change your brain , heal your heart and save your relationship . My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go . Today , we are talking about restoration after relapse with Rocky Pizer , a certified husband material coach who has lived this out .

Speaker 1 0:29

After you take a step back in recovery , maybe doing something you thought you would never do , how do you move forward in marriage , in leadership , in life , how do you process this kind of thing with curiosity and compassion rather than shaming and blaming , while also taking it seriously ? You will learn how to proactively watch out for signs of an impending relapse . You'll get a chance to hear how Rocky interacts with his inner child and what he did to pursue restoration in his marriage , what we do at Husband Material in a leadership context in order to be vulnerable , create safety for others and also make this redemptive and restorative . If you stay till the end , you'll also hear my story of my most significant season of relapse in 2014 and how that moved my recovery forward and , ultimately , how . All of this is an opportunity to discover more of who we are , who God is , and how life can be so much better than what we've settled for .

Speaker 1 1:33

Enjoy the episode . Welcome to Husband Material . Today I'm super excited that we get to hear from Rocky Pizer , who is a certified Husband Material coach amazing human being . He's also certified by Ace Overcomers to help people process adverse childhood experiences . And , Rocky , I love your handcrafted identity statement . How would you introduce yourself in your true identity ?

Speaker 2 2:02

Well , I always start out that I am designed to be an image bearer of God and in doing so I know that he fully loves me and no one or nothing can take that away from me I'm a beloved son and that he made me to be a counselor and a coach and a businessman and a husband , a grandpa , and out of that I get to live life . So I want to be before I do . That's who I am .

Speaker 1 2:35

And we had such a powerful process at the last Husband Material Retreat where you were helping us all to smash some of the lies we believe about ourselves .

Speaker 2 2:44

Absolutely . That was so much fun , that was so powerful .

Speaker 1 2:48

Yeah , and I still have my identity statement as well . So , thank you for that , Rocky . What else do people need to know about you ?

Speaker 2 2:59

I've always been considered to be a late bloomer , and so what I'm living out today is really the epitome of what my desire has been to be able to be a coach or a counselor and to make a difference , just like it's difference has been made in my life , is for Jim to do restorative work that's really a passion I have and to be able to do it with my wife and minister or coach together , which we do , that which is awesome , coach together , which we do , that which is awesome , and the difficult reality for all of us is that , even though we have this amazing identity and calling , even if we don't know what it is , a lot of times we are not always living in alignment with that .

Speaker 1 3:41

Very true with that , very true . Last year , there was an event which was really the opposite of who you want to be and what God is leading you into . So what happened last January ?

Speaker 2 3:59

Well , last January I began my day by coming to the office here and just sorting through my emails , checking the posts I put on some social media , and there was a pop-up . I followed that pop-up . It was very enticing and before I realized what I had fully done , I acted out on that pop-up . I went to a link and acted out and I think we counted it was 17 years since I'd done that and within minutes I felt the devastation of that act and my big question was what just happened and why .

Speaker 1 4:41

Rocky , thank you so much for your vulnerability . In this episode we are talking about relapse , how to prevent it , process it and then also , as someone who I deeply respect , in how you handled that event and how we worked through it all together as a leadership team , and I hope that everyone listening will be able to benefit from all that God has done , even through this relapse , after 17 years of sobriety . What were some of the signs leading up to this ?

Speaker 2 5:31

Stress was a big one . I was having nightmares and I didn't really recognize it . Usually nightmares or night terrors have to do with something there's some unrest or something going on . I had great disappointments in my life . We had some family deaths for the past year and a half and , on top of that , an event which led to me doing a memorial service which was scheduled the same time that we were going to do a coach's retreat , which is like a huge thing for me , and so it was just a disappointment . One of the big challenges in my life is that I felt like I've never fully been included in any group and I felt like I've been included in this group and now I'm getting ripped away from something that's going to be huge , and didn't realize how deeply that affected me and those were looking back , some of the drivers and the fact that I wasn't doing my basic core value work that I've done daily for those 17 years .

Speaker 1 6:36

Grief and loss .

Speaker 2 6:39

And loss .

Speaker 1 6:40

There were so many layers of grief and loss and I find , predictably , that in seasons of grief and loss our lives are so disrupted and oftentimes that grief and loss becomes sexualized . It's a sexualized sorrow . There's no space for me to really fully process that , digest that and release it . So where does it go ? Oftentimes into this subconscious sexual energy .

Speaker 2 7:12

Yeah , and grief in particular . It's not linear . I can't just process through A , B , C , D and be done with it . It's just like a bowl of spaghetti . It's everywhere . You just take one strand at a time and you work through it . And it was just confusing and hard and difficult and I need to go comfort myself . Little Rocky's like , ah , we're going to do this . Before I knew it , we did it .

Speaker 1 7:35

How was Little Rocky feeling ? What was he saying to you ?

Speaker 2 7:39

Our parts . We have and I've done a lot of inner child work and there's Little Rocky and a lot of parts to him . But Little Rocky himself , the way he communicates , is important . You have to know how you communicate to yourself and why you're communicating . And I know Little Rocky really well because I used to hate him because he brought unhealthy coping mechanisms into my adult life unhealthy coping mechanisms into my adult life . And through getting to know him I found out that this guy was brilliant to develop coping mechanisms and make it through some pretty difficult trauma , horrendous trauma . Growing up those unhealthy mechanisms were the only thing he had to survive childhood and so now I've honored and loved him and cared for him . But he's still watching out for me and when things seem to be going really awry he loves to go back to one of those old mechanisms and they worked for him . They still work for him , but they don't work for the adult Rocky .

Speaker 2 8:44

I acted out that was little Rocky . He's having a tantrum or , in our family , a conniption fit , conniption fit , right . So he's having a tantrum , conniption fit . And many times when I've acted out it's because little Rocky is having a tantrum and I'm not recognizing him and loving on him and hearing him , because he was aware of something I wasn't aware of . So always be connected to all the parts of me that's important . So I listen by being intentional .

Speaker 2 9:21

So you ask me , how do you hear him ? I believe I make room for him . You know we have calendly , we have the schedule , we have all these things going on , but I've scheduled in time to be with my little guy . I love that little character . That's why there's a little portrait of him on one of my shelves , or you'll see it next to the light at a certain age , to remind me that this guy helped me be who I am , because he was brilliant enough to cope with life when nobody was there for him . So the other side of that is self-reliance . That he was the beginning of understanding how I had to be self-reliant in order to live life because nobody I felt like nobody was there for me . That was my experience , and so that's when he pops up , when it's like , well , I'm here , nobody else is here , I'm here .

Speaker 1 10:14

And our job is to find that little boy within us . Yes , Our job is to take care of him . It is not his fault that he feels these things or sometimes has these strong feelings or urges as the adult self . He's our responsibility .

Speaker 2 10:40

He is .

Speaker 1 10:41

But we don't always do that and we just keep going as if everything's fine or we continue to incur losses without even paying him any attention .

Speaker 2 10:53

And since he's self-reliant , he doesn't always want to accept that help , even though we befriended him , because that's what self-reliance does . It's like I got it , I got it . And when you read scriptures like when we are weak he is strong it's like , oh well , I've got to invite Jesus in because he's waiting for an invitation . He just doesn't barge into our life and ask for it . We need to give him that invitation and so , leading your little boy into a relationship with Jesus , there's a whole new meaning to the two areas in the New Testament where Jesus chided the disciples for not allowing children to come to him and he says bring those children to me , let them spend time with me , but think about our little boys and how important that is . So I make sure he has Jesus' time too , because that's so powerful , so nurturing .

Speaker 1 11:53

Yeah .

Speaker 2 11:54

And he helps him with his self-reliance so he can be a kid .

Speaker 1 12:07

Yeah , and he helps him with his self-reliance so he can be a kid . Yeah , and oftentimes , in that spaghetti of grief , some of our spiritual practices and recovery rhythms oftentimes don't make sense or they just fall off the map and we neglect them too . Yeah , they just fall off the map and we neglect them too .

Speaker 2 12:18

Coupled with intentionality going away in times of stress or busyness , I'm not doing any of those attentional disciplines or practices that are so life-giving .

Speaker 2 12:33

And it just added to the void in my life . It's just a setup , a setup I wasn't recognizing . So , yeah , there's a lot there . I'm not going to beat myself up over it because I've learned a lot , and that's the thing . The takeaway is when you have a well lapse , relapse , slip there's there's three different terms that I'm used to hearing over the last 20 years and basically , if I have any of those in my life , then it's not a matter to beat myself up , but it's an opportunity to say , okay , where do I need to make some changes in my life , because this is not who I am . So what happened ? That was a big question . I asked myself for days , okay , what just happened ? And I took it to my accountability . Guys took it to the Lord .

Speaker 2 13:19

And then the big thing is to act immediately in the opposite direction of the slip-up or the relapse . I'm a coach , I was a staff counselor at a counseling center and in both those positions , a relapse means I need to take a year off or be dismissed with the center , and the opposite of what I feared is I faced the fear and I talked to my administrators at the counseling center immediately and we sat down and talked that afternoon and I talked to the coaches at Hudson Material and we realized , well , we need to work through this and have some kind of process . And then my wife was in office that day , so I let her know hey , when we're done with our sessions , can you come to my office and we need to talk before we head home . And so that very day that it happened , we sat knee to knee . We understand what it's like to have active listening . That's really important to us . And so we sat knee to knee and I said , hey , is it OK if we talk about something serious ? And she said , yeah , I'm ready for that .

Speaker 2 14:30

And I shared about my relapse . My wife is not an external processor , so she can't process back immediately , and we know that about each other . I process externally all the time . She's internal . So I said when do you want to finish this conversation and give you time to process ? And she says , oh , two or three days from now we can talk about it and I'll have some cohesive thoughts about it . And it's really important to know your spouse that well , you know how to go through that . So all that started immediately . It was just let's get this going .

Speaker 1 15:03

And why is that so important ?

Speaker 2 15:05

Because this is . You started down a path and if you don't immediately change your directions , get back on the path that's designed for you , you're going to go farther and farther and farther away , even if it's just one or two degrees months from now . You are so far off of who you are and what you should be doing . So so important immediately

Effective Leadership and Vulnerability

Speaker 2 15:28

.

Speaker 1 15:28

Rocky , I'm especially thinking about leaders , men in positions of ministry leadership , recovery leadership or even just business and leading a family , for example . I mean , how would you advise leaders to be vulnerable when they're struggling , either emotionally or sexually , with a slip or a relapse or a long-term pattern ? How do we ensure that we are not abusing our power and yet also being wise about how we share this stuff ?

Speaker 2 16:02

That is the question for leaders , and we have to have peer relational accountability in place so when a lapse takes place , we automatically know that we can turn to somebody who this knows . It's inside out , and vice versa goes both ways . And so the first thing is , if you haven't developed that as a leader , then that's something to begin to work on and find people who can be in your life and you'll be in their life , where they understand relational accountability and especially this redemptive process to get free and recovered .

Speaker 1 16:42

This is not about punishment . This is not about reprimanding or retribution . It's about restoration .

Speaker 2 16:48

It is about restoration and there's many popular recovery programs that people turn to , and when something happens , they have this list of questions they ask and they're usually negative questions like so now you completely crashed . Let's look at what is going on here , and every one of them sounds punitive . Those questions are punitive , but God's questions are redemptive . So what's the redemptive questions of God that I can have in this relationship with others ? So I have this peer accountability and church leaders . I know it's tough .

Speaker 2 17:26

I've been in church ministry before and I've either led on staff or in lay ministry and many churches . If you're on staff , you're afraid you're going to lose your position , and I was a staff counselor . That was my big question . But the most important thing is you want to live the life as God intended you to have , so you've got to bring it out immediately . And so for church leaders , it's scary to know that you have to have accountability when that's something that hasn't been trained in you Many times not modeled for you , but if you go to the New Testament church , it was modeled .

Speaker 1 18:02

With the degree of daily community that was normal for them .

Speaker 2 18:09

Yes .

Speaker 1 18:10

Rocky , I love that you mentioned these redemptive questions , and I believe you've put together a resource on how to process a relapse that we're going to put a link to in the show notes , right .

Speaker 2 18:21

Yes , I did . In fact , to process a lapse or relapse is , first of all , be curious about how you got there , what just happened , and for me I found it's helpful to list observation about what the possible drivers were , and that it starts with what I can list and it continued on in talking with my wife about it . Now some of you guys you don't have a good conversations with your wife yet about recovery because they're hurt and they're working through their own recovery , and so find guys that you can do that with and list observation about drivers , current events that have affected my well-being , any ongoing health concerns that might be impacting life I've been dealing with the effects of COVID off and on . Those were tough for me and what are your core recovery disciplines or recovery values , and are they all in place at this point ?

Speaker 1 19:18

disciplines or recovery values , and are they all in place at this point ? Right , because usually all of those questions have a very important answer .

Speaker 2 19:26

Yes .

Speaker 1 19:27

We need to be asking those questions without judgment , with curiosity and compassion and , at the same time , recognizing that these are not excuses . They're explanations . They help us understand ourselves better and get back on the path of restoration and recovery . This is not beating ourselves up , this is not shaming or blaming . It's taking ownership and really having clarity , while also having kindness at the same time .

Speaker 2 20:03

Yes , kindness is so big , it's because we all have

Recovery and Intentional Life Transformation

Speaker 2 20:07

self-talk . And I mean , right after it took place and I thought what just happened here , I could hear that inner voice one of the many I have just telling me oh , oh , you're such a dumbass , what's the matter with you , and that's that . That's an old , old voice . I mean , as it goes way back , I hadn't heard it for a long time . I'm like , oh , my goodness , yeah , there is something going on here , starting with you , and I want to find out why you don't feel loved anymore , if , mr really yeah . And it's just like what am I missing here ?

Speaker 2 20:40

And so I became aware of what was missing and it was helpful to say , okay , these need to be back in my life . There's redemptive recovery , and then there's stewardship of that recovery for the rest of your life . And those stewardship principles that we live the rest of your life , and those stewardship principles that we live our lives by , are life principles , whether you're recovered or not . These are life principles that are godly , that you should be , don't shit on yourself . That's important to , that's important to live throughout your life . And so that , to me , is the recovered life , and that's what I want to do . So that's the questions I asked .

Speaker 1 21:21

That's awesome , and you guys can get a link to Rocky's document about how to process a relapse in the show notes or the description for this episode .

Speaker 2 21:28

Yeah , and you can also sign up for Husband Material Academy and find many of these principles in that academy and work with other guys to do the same thing . That's why I love your academy so much . It has a lot of this in there .

Speaker 1 21:44

Thanks , Rocky . I know not everyone listening to this is married , but for you , Rocky , how did you process this with your wife ?

Speaker 2 21:54

I was intentional to include her as soon as possible . I used to just spring things on Lila back during my recovery like , oh man , I messed up today and I just kind of basically vomit on her and she's like , she wasn't ready for us , like she's like . But now I said , hey , can we talk this evening after we're done with sessions ? Would that be okay ? Okay with you ? She said yeah . I said serious , are you okay with that ? Yeah , so the first thing we did was I gave her permission to say yes or no about the conversation , because she may not be in a space at the end of the day , after class or whatever we both might be spent . So check back in . She says I'm ready . So the first thing was are we both ready to talk ? Are we in good space to do that , she not knowing the topic . And then the second thing was to sit together , knee to knee , face to face , and invite her back in . Again . I said , well , as we begin our talk , can we invite Jesus into this too ? Yeah , let's do that . So we invited Jesus into it and then I just I shared .

Speaker 2 23:07

I had already written out a little narrative , so I didn't miss any points that were important . Knowing my wife , she needed to know a few of the details , without going too deep , and just shared with her and then sat together in silence , which is really deep sometimes , and we felt the weight of it as we sat there together and it was okay . Jesus was also feeling the weight of it and there's this amazing dynamic of being nurtured by God while you're working through something difficult . Now we're celebrating our 47th anniversary in May and probably just before this podcast comes out we'll have celebrated 47 years . So we've been doing marriage for a while , but it's only been the last 15 years that we've learned how important it is to have this kind of communication . And then we never took our eyes off of each other and I asked her how she was doing and when she would like to share and again giving her permission to set that up and that's so important to honor . There's a gentleman by the name of Danny Silk . He wrote a book called the Culture of Honor and it's amazing , when it comes to marriage or friendships or your God relationship , having a culture of honor and always having invitations and so being kind and considerate and you can be impassioned without being hurtful or harmful to somebody else . So we did that and we continued that conversation .

Speaker 2 24:39

I have in my follow-up journal . I have three or four times over the next few weeks where we sat down and talked some more about it as she processed it and any guy who's married to an internal processor . You have to have patience because that's her process . She's not quote slow or it's not that she doesn't get it which I hear a lot of that from guys . It's just that that's the way she's made and that's honoring somebody , getting to know them , just like knowing their love languages . For those guys going through recovery , how , the people that are in your life , how do they process ? How do you process ? Do you even know ? Yeah , so that's what we did and we talked for quite a while and came back to it and I've given her updates and she hasn't had to ask for them . It's just part of our process . Amazingly true , she never lost trust in me during this time and that's just incredible For anybody married that's going through any kind of recovery to still have trust wow .

Speaker 1 25:46

So let's talk about that , Rocky . When harm has been done and trust has been broken , when is it appropriate to step back , either temporarily or longer term ?

Speaker 2 25:57

If harm is going to continue , then it's important to step away . Our Father God does not intend harm towards anyone and he's not going to promote it . And as much as we need to engage , if it's still harmful stuff going on , it's time to take a step back and reevaluate and get to a place where we can be healthy enough as in you know who your core person is . You could step back into it without attack or without blame or all those harmful words . Or even if you step into a room , you can just feel somebody's the place they are emotionally . You know that , what would you call it ? It's kind of like whoa .

Speaker 2 26:41

My wife would say , yeah , I can feel you emanate that anger and I just it's so repulsive for me . Well , we don't need to be talking until I get to a healthier place . So I think that's the key . And as I'm talking , I'm thinking church , because I know there's a lot of church hurt . That goes along with this , and that means you have to have healthy leadership in the church as a community . I mean community is huge , whether it's the lay community , leadership community or those two communities interacting in a healthy way together , so they know each other well , and many churches don't experience that .

Speaker 1 27:18

And we acknowledge that these questions are complex and we're not going to be able to address every situation here , but what I really want you guys to take away is a lot of hope and some practical help . Yes , rocky , it's been over a year since that relapse . What positive results have come out of this ?

Speaker 2 27:42

First of all , reconnection at home with my wife and reconnection with the various parts of me . It has also reinforced that intentional life is really the way that I think we can live in a healthy way . There's certain intentional aspects that need to be in place at all times and those are healthy boundaries . We talk about healthy boundaries in other things . Well , an intentional life is a healthy boundary . So that's been positive and I've gotten feedback from my wife , which is important . I've been more open , relaxed , approachable , kind to myself and others .

Speaker 2 28:22

Many things that used to bug me . Lila's like you're so laid back about things . It's such a difference . So it's changed basically how I take life and my response , my trigger to anything that's going to trigger my amygdala , has been I'm a fighter my entire life and now I get to pick my fights . There is times when it's appropriate , but many times for me it was not the appropriate times . I've learned . So those are big positives and my self-reliant has taken a backseat and self-reliance . You know we venerate that in our culture around us , but many times it gets in the way of relying on God in areas where we should rely on Him or community . So , yeah , it's changed a lot in a good way .

Speaker 1 29:15

What the enemy intends for evil , god can use for good , and that applies to this situation . I've seen it . It's been amazing . My last season of relapse was one where I felt like I had lost all my progress , where I felt like I was very , very set back just at the beginning again , as if all the healing was for nothing . And in that place I found that all that momentum downward , which felt like a fall , was actually driving me forward . And that is so much of the good , of what can come out of an event like this Not minimizing the harm , not minimizing the damage , just seeing the opportunity for accelerated growth , for deeper dependence on God , driving us into His arms , making us desperate , realizing our need for him and therefore opening us up to having our desires truly met and not settling for less . It's good .

Speaker 1 30:28

So it's been fantastic to see how you have approached that personally .

Speaker 2 30:34

When you got to that place , which you just shared . So how were the results for you , for your heart , for who you are as a man ?

Speaker 1 30:42

It was 2014 . I had just graduated from college and I was leading a network of small groups of young men and women at Wheaton College who were all focused on healing sexual brokenness . We had about 200 students and after I graduated I thought right , I'm the leader of this thing , I don't really need to be in a group , I don't really need to continue my own recovery journey . I felt like I had arrived . At the same time , I lost my entire support system . My best friend just got married and moved away so many layers of grief and loss . I was overcommitted , doing stuff at church , school , job , trying to write a book , and my self-care slowed to a trickle . My spiritual practices were non-existent . This was before I had ever done any deeper work in my childhood , but little Drew was suffering and I was just going along like I can do this . I got this . It was that self-reliance you talked about .

Speaker 1 31:45

It became so clear to me after processing with the guys I trusted that this does not invalidate my previous growth . It just shows the limit of how far I've come and the lack of everything that has helped me up to this point . Having that clarity showed me exactly what I needed to do . I needed to humble myself and get back into a group I needed to start receiving again so that I could be filled up and not have the need to act out , be just so strong and so loud every single night . During that time I committed to having a five-minute phone call every night with a close recovery friend for the duration of our winter break and it was incredible that every night , intimacy right before bed , even just for five minutes , praying together , sharing our emotions on the phone , was huge and getting me back on track .

Speaker 1 32:55

And that actually led me into realizing the need to have deeper healing , because at the core of all of this , my sexual fantasies were lurking in the dark and I had no idea why they were there or what they meant and I just hated myself because of it . So this actually was the start of what took me on the journey of what has now become husband material , where I realized that my fantasies were not random and there was a whole lot of stuff in my family of origin in my past that I had never even thought about before . So there has been incredible redemption that came out of that relapse . You know I didn't have a healthy leadership structure back then , it was just me and a bunch of students doing this grassroots thing , but now at Husband Material , we have processes in place that are restorative and appropriately taking things seriously too . And , rocky , I want to thank you because the intentionality that you had with processing all of this showed me the need to create something for all of our leaders .

Speaker 2 33:57

It's good . I love your answer , drew , and you interjected a concept in there that was probably a little newer for you than it had been , and that is having five-minute calls daily with another guy that were intimate relational calls , intimate relational and how important that was for you to stumble forward , and I think that's so powerful , too , that you saw that and realized that and what you recognize , that change . I think that's important for everybody who's going to see this .

Speaker 1 34:34

Thank you .

Rediscovery and Redemption Through Relapse

Speaker 1 34:36

You know , sometimes people say don't waste your pain . I also want to say don't waste your relapse .

Speaker 2 34:44

Right , 100% of the time a recoverer is going to have a relapse , and that's not said by very many people , it's true . We all have had one .

Speaker 1 34:54

Learn from it . Allow yourself to be loved in the middle of it , let it take you deeper and farther than you've ever gone before .

Speaker 2 35:02

Yeah , by not being punitive but being redemptive .

Speaker 1 35:07

And creating safety for those around you .

Speaker 2 35:10

Yes .

Speaker 1 35:11

One of the best ways to do that is to give yourself the space , the time , the community , the professional help that you might need to come through it stronger and safer and wiser , and to have those peers that you talked about earlier who can help you discern if and when leadership makes sense again .

Speaker 2 35:35

That's so good . This whole process is an emerging process that's how I like to describe it and you're just emerging a little bit more , and emerging a little bit more your whole life . You're emerging as an image bearer of God , fully blossoming into who he imagined you to be . You know Psalm 139 , which we talk about a lot . He knew us before we were born . He stitches us together in our mother's womb . His imagination is weaved into the very fabric of our lives and we get to embody God's imagination just by being us . That just is like incredible . It's so energizing for me . I get so passionate . I'm like what God's imagination embodied . Yeah , jesus was . And I have that opportunity . And this is really what we're talking about with all this .

Speaker 1 36:32

Rocky , you not only teach that , you live it , and I absolutely love the crafted identity statement that you prayed into every day after all of this happened in order to live from who God made you to be . Would you like to share that statement ?

Speaker 2 36:47

Sure , I'd love to share that statement , and this is specific to me . They're all customized to how God made us , and so it was a wonderful process , really connected to the Father and hearing His voice , the Holy Spirit . So I am Roscoe , a son whom Papa God has bestowed unsurpassable value and worth upon . I am a spiritual father who was made to be a mentor to God's beloved sons and daughters , so I know and speak the language of my heart , something I couldn't do for decades . That's so good . I carry in me Triune's ability to produce synergy .

Speaker 2 37:26

I'm a recipient of Triune's extravagant love , from which no one or nothing can separate me . I have an anointing for business counseling , mentoring , coaching , and I was built to live life with intentionality . I am inwardly healed . I receive affirmation without downplaying it as platitudes . Yes , I carry an empathetic heart that breaks shame in the lives of others , and I am built to leave the 99 and go after the one . That's the kind of pastor that God made me to be . I have the capacity to live in the tension of holding divergent views while relationally partnering with others in ministry , and I am so humbled that I'm a handcrafted creation designed to bear the image of God to the world around me .

Speaker 1 38:24

Amen .

Speaker 2 38:25

Amen .

Speaker 1 38:28

That's what this is about Rediscovering that , rediscovering us , sorting through the rubble and finding the masterpiece that we've been missing .

Speaker 2 38:43

Yes , that's so true .

Speaker 1 38:46

Rocky , what is your favorite thing about this journey of restoration after relapse ?

Speaker 2 38:53

I think one of my top favorite things , drew , is to discover more of myself in this journey . Drew is to discover more of myself in this journey , and that discovery really is discovering more of myself , more of God , more of the people I'm in relationship with , all at the same time . I love that . I actually love that .

Speaker 1 39:12

I love that too .

Crafting Identity Statements for Transformation

Speaker 1 39:17

Thank you so much for sharing your story , for continuing to live into that calling , and if you guys want to reach out to Rocky as a coach or download his resource for how to process a relapse , go down to the description and the links in the show notes and you can find him there . And , rocky , you've created a course to help people craft that kind of identity statement . Can you say more about that ?

Speaker 2 39:36

Oh , I'd love to Drew . I have created a course , which I've done in person for a number of years , both with churches and recovery groups , and I'm in the process of moving that over into a Zoom type format . So we'll do an online group and we want to kick that thing off here soon , sometime during the summer , so that this is going to be available for so many more people to go through about eight weeks or so , and at the end you will have a crafted identity statement that really has captured succinctly who God imagined you to be and you can live that life out and watch yourself emerge imagined- you to be and you can live that life out and watch yourself emerge .

Speaker 1 40:22

Rocky , thank you so much . And gentlemen , always remember you are God's beloved son . In you he is well-pleased .