3 Reasons Why You Can’t Get Free


Between my own journey with my eating disorder and past trauma and my work with my clients, Celebrate Recovery and church members, I have compiled a list of the main reasons why we cannot get free from our hurts, habits and hangups. See if you can find yourself in these.

  1. You don’t want to be free.  This is a tricky one that affects all of us. We have hidden behind our coping mechanisms for so long, we cannot imagine life without them.
    – If we have been isolating, then being healed means we will have to mix and mingle with other people, the one thing we have been avoiding the most.
    – If we have always used substances (food, alcohol, drugs) as a way to soothe, comfort and bring pleasure to ourselves, then giving that up can be very frightening and stressful.
    – Then there is the stress that comes from the responsibilities you will be expected to take back on now that you are “healthy”. That can make you shrink back as well.
    People say with their mouths that they want to be free, but the reality is that they would rather live in the uncomfortable misery they have known for this long than try to start over in an unknown way.
    ***THE SOLUTION:  Ask yourself what will happen if you are healed? How will your life change in a practical way?  Are there any areas of change that might be causing you fear and resistance to being set free?  Then talk through what frightens you and see if it is really worth continuing to live in misery.
  2. You haven’t learned your last lesson.  Precept upon precept, line upon line – that is normally how God teaches us. Yes, He can provide us with astounding revelation, but the way He usually works is to teach us foundational truths upon which we can build additional truths.  If you are stuck in a loop, not applying whatever God told you to do last time, don’t expect Him to suddenly give you advanced knowledge of how to handle the situation.  He needs you to experientially understand and apply His last instructions so you will have the capacity to understand and apply the next step.
    ***THE SOLUTION: Ask yourself what God’s last instructions to you were.  What did you do with those instructions?  If nothing, why didn’t you follow them? What were you afraid would happen? What stopped you?  Were you afraid of failing and feeling shame from that perceived failure? Or does this relate to #1 – you didn’t do what He instructed because you were afraid of the changes it would bring.
  3. You really don’t know what to do, and won’t ask for help from someone who does I meet countless women who know they have problems, but do not value themselves enough to spend the time, energy and money to get the help they need.   They think it will just eventually go away on its own, but it never really does. People who have experienced trauma rarely break free from the consequences until that trauma is dealt with and healed.
    ***THE SOLUTION There are countless affordable ways of getting help, including contacting your church’s pastoral staff, bibliotherapy (reading about how to deal with your issues) ,  and free groups such as Celebrate Recovery.  If you can’t afford individual counseling, you can join small counseling groups (on site or virtually) for $20 – $25 a session and still receive the personalized assistance you need.  Some counselors even offer sliding scales, so always ask.

If you would like a taste of affordable Bibliotherapy combined with counseling through messaging, you can join the Courses Only membership for $4.61/wk. Learn where hopelessness, disappointment, depression, codependency and more come from and how to deal with them through  ebooks, text courses and videos.  Then contact me for help directly through messaging in groups and forums.  If you need help figuring out why you are fighting against your desires to be healed, or getting past the fears that are holding you back, let me help you move forward in your healing.