Christmas 2017: #metoo and a Return to Fidelity

As 2017 comes to a close we are grateful for the opening of our second office in Long Beach.  And in 2018 we will celebrate Soul Restoration Project’s 10^th anniversary!  We celebrate the growth that has come from deep and steady work.  We thank you – friends, colleagues, pastors and clients -- for your contribution to our work.

One of our greatest goals at SRP is to help individuals, couples and families have faithful and intimate relationships.  Much of this work has to do with working though wounds and blocks that impact their capacity to slow down, trust and in all ways develop healthy relationship. 

A significant focus of SRP is working with those struggling with sexual addiction, their partners and other victims of traumatic sexual experiences.  Don Diva, Arsen Muradyan and Andy Park are trained Sexual Addiction Therapists who help sex addicts and their partners recover healthy sexuality and emotional functioning. 

I (Catherine Morrill) and Andy Park treat trauma sufferers with various modalities, including EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing).  EMDR (www.emdria.com) helps individuals revisit and transform traumatic experiences so as to foster healing and resilience.  Several of our interns will be trained in EMDR in 2018.  We seek to keep abreast of the advances in the fields of trauma and sexual addiction. 

This fall the issues we deal with regularly at SRP were in the news and culture in an unprecedented way.  The #metoo movement gave women the courage to voice their stories of sexual harassment or trauma.  As women voiced their experiences, the #metoo movement led to the firing of a number of big names.  I keep wondering what stories will surface next.  I hope this conversation will reorient people to long for honorable and faithful relationships rather than instant gratification.  And I hope and pray victims will experience healing. 

One word has been capturing my attention: FIDELITY.  What a beautiful word!  Fidelity is defined primarily as valuing and being faithful, often regarding one’s spouse but also extending to an idea or organization.  The word comes from the Latin root, fides.  Words with this root have something to do with being faithful.  It is the same root found in the words confident (faith in self) and the verb to confide (faith in the other). 

Fidelity has its own reward: it creates the trust and stability necessary for closeness.  And fidelity has its own difficulties.  Remaining faithful necessitates facing the challenges of relationship difficulties, disappointments and loneliness.  It entails feeling feelings and doing difficult relationship work that we would probably prefer to avoid and that we may not know how to do.  Remaining faithful also doesn’t mean a relationship will (or should) last.  Nonetheless learning to remain faithful to others is good for the soul.  It fosters wholeness.     

This year, as I consider the Christmas story, I think of Joseph, whom some have called the hidden man of Christmas.  I think of Joseph’s fidelity to Mary and how he chose to trust Mary and God when he could have recoiled at the strange and difficult path ahead.  He chose Mary and God above self-promotion or entitlement.  How different our history is because of the fidelity of Joseph. 

At SRP we seek to help our clients find the healing that enables fidelity and that produces wholeness. 

We – the SRP staff – are thankful for you who have joined with us on this journey.