The God Box

If you are dealing with betrayal trauma you have probably discovered that part of the ongoing process of healing and recovery is learning to surrender that which is outside of your control.

One of the lessons that must be learned over and over again in life, and in recovery, is just how much we truly cannot control and what to do when our desire for a certain outcome runs smack into the reality that we cannot make that outcome happen.

Since it is Christmas, I did some thinking about what I could gift you all that would help you on your healing journey and this thinking led me to the God Box.

What’s a God Box?

A God Box is a place where you surrender to your Higher Power the things that you cannot control and that you need to let go of in order to maintain your serenity.

It is a tangible, physical container of some kind, that you designate as the place where you can write down the things that are haunting you, dragging you down, worrying you and creating anxiety. You write them on a piece of paper and you put them in your God Box as a way of letting go of them and turning them over to your Higher Power.

So, for example, you might put your shame in the God Box in order to let go of it more fully.

You might put your desire for Disclosure in the God Box trusting that it will happen when it is supposed to and that the timing will be right and good for you.

You might put your pain in the God Box asking your Higher Power to help you heal and let it go.

You might put your difficulty trusting in the God Box asking your Higher Power to help you to know when to trust and how to trust again.

The God Box is a place to let go of things that you cannot do on your own and that you need your Higher Power to help you to do. When I put things in my God Box I write a date down in the corner. About once a year, I rifle through my God Box and look at the things that are in there. It is always amazing to see where I was and what has happened with those things that I surrendered.

Creating a God Box

A few years ago, I had a God Box party at my house. A bunch of my friends came over and we spent the afternoon making 2-3 dozen God Boxes for my clients. These God Boxes now reside in the lower shelf in the hutch in the corner of my office. When I am working with a client who is struggling with things they need to surrender, I will walk them over and let them pick a God Box for themselves to have and to use.

I wish I could let each of you pick a God Box out of my cupboard for yourselves. In lieu of that, I encourage each of you to sometime, during this pivotal week when we are preparing to turn the page and welcome in a new year, to find yourself a God Box.

If you are particularly creative you can make one for yourself.  Or you can go on a hunt through your house and see if you have some kind of box or container that you want to use. Or you can go shopping and see if you can find the perfect thing that will work for you.

However you create your God Box, my hope for you is that in 2018 it will be a place where you can let go of some of the burdens that weigh you down, releasing them to your Higher Power, and knowing that Love now has them and will carry them for you for a while.

Merry Christmas,

Michelle