TIVI

Collection: Healing

Est. Read Time: 8 Minutes

I’m not sure which came first: my natural enjoyment of being alone or my desire to hide. For a long time, I assumed they were the same thing.

Today, I don’t think they are.

I’ve written before about shame and the way it quietly pulled me into isolation. That kind of isolation always seemed to tell me the same story: that I didn’t belong, that I was better off unseen, that I deserved to be alone.

For years, I believed that voice. It found me in dark rooms, at the far end of bars, under the influence of alcohol, curled up in bed long after the sun had come up. It convinced me that hiding was the same thing as peace.

It wasn’t. It was survival.

Over the years I’ve discovered there is another way to be alone. I’ve learned to call it solitude.

From the outside, they probably look the same. One person. No conversation. No noise. No crowd. But for me, they have become two very different places.

Isolation whispers, “Stay here because you’re worthless.”

Solitude gently says, “Come here because you’re worth restoring.”

It took me a long time to hear the difference.

When I was drinking, going outside felt impossible. I struggled to wake up. I struggled to shower. I struggled to look at myself in the mirror. The thought of walking outside where someone might see me felt overwhelming.

So I stayed inside.

The darkness became familiar. Alcohol made it quieter for a little while…Until it didn’t.

When I first found sobriety, something unexpected happened. I also discovered the outdoors.

Not because I suddenly loved hiking or camping. Honestly, I still didn’t enjoy being around people. So I started waking up before everyone else.

Four o’clock in the morning became my favorite time of day. The streets were empty. The world felt quiet. No one expected anything from me. I could simply walk.

Looking back, I don’t think those walks healed me. But I do think they introduced me to something I desperately needed: space. Not space to hide. Space to hear.

Over time I began noticing something. The farther I moved toward the light, the quieter the other voices became.

I don’t mean they disappeared. Some of them still visit me today. The voice of shame. The voice of fear. The voice that tells me I don’t belong.

But somewhere between the trees, beside rivers, on mountain trails, and under open skies, another voice slowly became easier for me to hear. A voice that spoke truth more patiently than shame spoke lies.

I can’t fully explain why. Maybe it’s because the outdoors never asked anything of me. A river never cared about my résumé. A mountain never measured my success. The sunrise never asked whether I’d earned another chance.

I simply showed up. And somehow that became enough.

Over time I even began wondering if maybe that’s how God had been seeing me all along.

The walks became longer. The longer walks became trails. Trails became camping trips. Camping trips became days standing in rivers with a fly rod in my hand. Days became nights beneath the stars. Eventually they became one-hundred-mile trail races through mountains I once couldn’t have imagined climbing.

People occasionally ask me how someone ends up running one hundred miles. I usually smile because I know the answer. I didn’t. I started by walking around the block.

Healing has felt the same way. It didn’t arrive in one dramatic moment. It arrived one quiet morning at a time. One sober day at a time. One trail at a time. One small decision to move toward the light at a time.

Always movement. Never perfection.

I still hear the voices that once convinced me to hide. Sobriety hasn’t erased them. Faith hasn’t erased them. Time hasn’t erased them. But they no longer have the same authority they once did.

I’ve learned where to go when they become loud. Some days, staying sober is the greatest victory I can claim. On those days, I call that enough. Other days, putting on my shoes and stepping onto a trail is enough. I’ve stopped underestimating small acts of courage.

One step became a walk. Walks became trails. Trails became a life I once believed I could never have.

Over the years I’ll probably write a great deal about rivers, mountains, trails, campfires, waterfalls, and long days in the wilderness. Those won’t really be essays about the outdoors.

They’ll be essays about renewal.

The outdoors simply became the place where I found it.

I don’t expect everyone to find renewal where I have. I only know that I needed somewhere I could hear the truth more clearly than the voices that had followed me for so many years.

For me, that place became the outdoors.

It wasn’t an escape from my life. It became the place where I slowly found the courage to return to it.

Reflection: Sometimes healing doesn’t begin with answers. Sometimes it begins with enough quiet to finally hear the truth.

Continue the Journey:

Previous: 004. A Seat At the King’s Table: What Mephibosheth taught me about identity.

Next: 008. A Friend That Almost Killed Me: The addiction that worked…Until it didn’t.

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Why This Library Exists

TIVI exists because no one should have to walk the road toward healing, accountability, and restoration alone.

Every story in this library was written to offer one or more of three things:

• Experience – So you know someone else has been there.
• Strength – So you can borrow courage when yours is running low.
• Hope – So you can believe healing and accountability are still possible.

If even one story helps you take the next right step, then it was worth writing.

Please feel free to reach out to us if we can help. We’re here.