Hiding from Love: How to Change the Withdrawal Patterns That Isolate and Imprison You [Paperback]

I have so far worked through most of this book which is aimed specifically at those of us who, due to traumatic events in our past, find it impossible to trust others and to allow them to get close to us (Hiding from Love). The book takes you through the biblical text and examples of how God wants us to be and actually tells and shows us how to learn the skills and abilities within ourselves and in dealing correctly with others in a manner anyone can understand. If you are someone who is lonely and a loner 'by nature' then let this book set you free from that bondage. Within a month of starting to work through the question and answer sections of this book I found myself reaching out to people in a way I have never been capable of doing before. I have great hope for the future and in the knowledge that the way I am learning is the way God would have me be.
Best of all about this book is that it does not beat you with the scriptures but leads you to freedom at your own pace and in a way that you can, if you don't want to make this journey alone, share with other people one-to-one or in groups if that is helpful to you.
My best wishes to any other 'Hiders from Love' out there. God bless you.

In this book the author (who is the co-author with Henry Cloud of the Boundaries series) uses an extended allegory to explain the problem that many people have in their relationships. In the allegory, a girl has to hide from enemy forces that have taken over her town. She learns not to trust anyone especially soldiers in uniform. Eventually when friendly, liberating forces arrive she responds to them in the same way i.e. with fear, mistrust and hatred. This allegory is presented as a picture of the tendency of people who have suffered emotional hurt or abuse to take these experiences forward into their subsequent relationships.

The author argues that typically these experiences manifest themselves in four destructive ways:

* The inability to recognise both good and bad in people / situations
* Attachment deficits - the inability to open up to people emotionally or to allow them to get close to you
* Separation deficits - the inability to say "No" to certain people, to establish boundaries with people, always feeling the need to do what people say, to agree with people regardless of one's true feelings
* Authority and adulthood deficits

The author discusses in detail many things that may help to repair the deficits in these areas. I strongly recommend that people read the book for themselves. However here is a list of principles which I personally have found helpful:

Recognising Good and Bad
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Give up the need for perfection both in ourselves and in the world around us. Stop striving for the ideal. Accept that "good enough" is good enough.

Accept that both we ourselves and the people around us are not 100% good or bad but a mixture of good and bad.

Think of the people that we admire and respect. Are we in danger of putting them on a pedestal? Dwell for a moment on their bad points. Notice how they are a mixture. Try not to idealise people; it will just make it more difficult when they do let us down. At the same time notice how despite their bad points, we can still appreciate the good in them.

Recognise where we have been in denial about our own personal failings and errors. Accept responsibility for our mistakes. Confess our mistakes to other people and give them the opportunity to accept and forgive us; this could be the start of healing for them as well as for us.

Think of some people that we have come to dislike - perhaps people that we try to avoid. What is it about them that made us start to dislike them? Can we think of any good points about them? Have we been fair in our judgement of them?

Recognise that most days are a mixture of good and bad. Sometimes we say that a day (eg a day out or a holiday) has been "completely ruined" by one thing going wrong. Try to see that that is not true - one small problem should not cancel out a whole period of time when everything has been more or less OK.

Make sadness our ally rather than our enemy. Most people recognise that grieving the death of a loved one is a normal part of the healing process and that suppressing one's emotions in such circumstances is not a healthy way of dealing with it. However this principle is also true in less traumatic situations; the grieving process can be a vital way to bring about recovery from any kind of disappointment. Sadness and grieving can be God's way of resolving past hurts.

Attachment Deficits
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Don't allow the bad experiences with people in the past to drive us into a state of isolation. If we are prone to doing this, we need to find safe, warm relationships in which emotional needs will be accepted and not subjected to criticism and judgement. Healing comes from openness to people. Clearly this does require that we take risks with our needs, a great deal of patience and perseverance, and a determination not to retreat into hiding when people do let us down. We need always to bear in mind the principles above i.e. that everyone is a mixture of good and bad.

Separation Deficits
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If we have difficulty saying "No" to people, or feel a pressure always to agree with everyone, we may need consciously to "practice disagreement" i.e. go out of our way to disagree with people and to emphasise our own opinions.

Ask God to help us to become truth tellers even of negative truth

Find people who celebrate our separateness i.e. people who respect and accept our "No" as well as our "Yes"

Learn to respect other people's separateness i.e. respect other people's 'no' as much as their 'yes'

Authority and Adulthood
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Recognise if a particular person or people have an excessive or unhealthy degree of control over us. Do we relate to that person almost like a child towards a parent rather than as two adults? (This can include relationships between parents and their grown up children. "Good parenting should culminate in a relationship based on friendship and equality, not continued control").

See authority as a positional not a personal issue - eg we should give a manager the respect and submission that his position demands, but that doesn't mean being blind to his faults. Also we need to remember that authority has limits and parameters. We need to recognise what these are.

Take an inventory of our values and convictions. Ask ourselves, "what do I believe?", then find out "why do I believe it?"

Develop your talents. Adulthood involves finding out what our passion is, what we really want to accomplish in our lives and what gifts we have to do it. This may be different from our family's expectations.

Hiding from Love is an amazing book and showed up my hiding patterns and also revealed ways to come out of hiding. I am still using it and would reccomend it to anyone. I also have the work book and the combination of the two are amazing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I believe it will release alot of people from the unneccessary pain they are going through and will allow them peace and the courage to move forward as healthy, whole adults. Henry McCloud and John Townsend are sensitive and insightful writers and communicate the truth with love, the way the Lord wants it. I love their work. Agape Love, Geri Mee