Honesty Over Silence: It's OK Not To Be OK

Patrick Regan OBE is an activist whose passion is speaking about resilience, courage and wellbeing. He founded two award-winning charities – XLP and, most recently, Kintsugi Hope – in partnership with his wife, Diane. Kintsugi Hope has pioneered Kintsugi Wellbeing Groups all over the UK to help people in the area of their mental health. Patrick is a mental health first aider and a campaigner on issues of social justice, and was awarded an OBE for his services to the young by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He is an Honorary Fellow of the South Bank University for his contribution to Justice and Wellbeing. Patrick has written seven books. His other titles cover his work with tackling poverty and educational failure, and his own journey with mental, emotional and spiritual health following major limb reconstruction surgery. Patrick is also a director of Brighter Days (https://www.brighterdays.life), providing high-quality training on well-being in the workplace, educational settings and local authorities. Patrick is married to Diane, and they have four children. Find out more on Twitter: @patrickregankh and Instagram: @patrickregan2726.

Liza Hoeksma is a writer who has worked with a number of authors. She has partnered with Patrick Regan on all seven of his books to date. She works in communications for a charity based in Hertfordshire as well as being a life coach, working with clients across the country. Find out more at www.coachingwithliza.com and on Instagram: @Coaching_with_Liza.

CONTENTS

Part One: Learning to let go

1. Letting go of the pretend smile

2. Letting go of anxiety

3. Letting go of the clock

4. Letting go of the stigma

Alan and Jackie’s story

5. Letting go of pain

6. Letting go of perfection

Rachel’s story

Part Two: Learning to be

7. Being in community

8. Being loved

John’s story

9. Being still

10. Being authentic

11. Being hopeful

Afterword

Endnotes

CHAPTER 1

LETTING GO OF THE PRETEND SMILE

When I wrote When Faith Gets Shaken, I was determined to be honest about my struggles.

After many years of excruciating pain in my knees, I had to have major limb reconstruction surgery. This involved breaking the fibula and tibia, severing the associated muscle and tissue, and having nine pins screwed into my leg (four of which went all the way through the leg and out the other side; the other five were screwed into the bone). These pins attached to a huge metal frame that circled around my leg, and were adjusted to help my bones set straight. Being in so much pain – and being fixed to such a huge frame – I had limited mobility, and my wife, Diane, had to clean the sites where the metal went into my leg to prevent infections. I wore the frame for six months and, even after it came off, there was still a long road to recovery.

Physically, the journey was tough – but in some ways the mental, emotional and spiritual journey was far tougher. I felt like I was running on empty; overwhelmed with anxiety, sometimes seething with anger, and desperately trying to find hope when everything looked bleak. I was anxiously trying to see where God was at work in it all, and in the other struggles we were dealing with – which included my dad having cancer, my daughter Keziah having a horrible condition called HSP (Henoch-Schönlein purpura), and Diane and I losing a baby in the early stages of pregnancy.

We were dealing with so much, and I was done with being one of those people who say everything is OK when it’s not. Why do we do that? Why do we assume that people don’t want to hear how we really are; they just want to hear that we’re fine? Why do we think we have to present a perfect image to the world that says we’re coping, no matter what is going on?

So the purpose of When Faith Gets Shaken was to be real and honest, but I was still hesitant. Despite my intentions, truthfully I wondered if people would judge me and question whether I was really a Christian if they knew the extent of my anxiety and doubt. Throughout the writing process I worried that I wouldn’t find the right line between honesty and introspection, healthy disclosure and over-sharing. I didn’t want to wallow in the things that had happened to me, well aware that I wasn’t the only person facing challenging circumstances. But once the manuscript was submitted, there was no turning back. The book was published and my story – some of my most private thoughts and fears – was out in the world for anyone to read, for anyone to judge. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so vulnerable.

Within weeks I started receiving emails and messages on social media, and the common theme seemed to be people saying, ‘Me too! I’m struggling as well; I’ve got pain and doubts and fears and I don’t always know how to deal with them, particularly when I feel I should have faith.’ I received messages from some of the most wonderful people going through desperate and heart-breaking situations. One in particular stuck out for me. A lady called Vivien wrote and said:

I loved my job as the manager of a busy pub. I felt needed, like I was making a difference in my community. I wore my busy-ness like a badge of honour, but one day it all came to an abrupt halt. My ankle collapsed, partly due to osteoarthritis, and I had replacement surgery to try to fix it. It never occurred to me that there would be any problems with the op or my recovery, and I fully expected to be bobbing back to work within the minimum six to eight weeks’ recovery time. After all, I was a Christian and I had lots of prayer support from my church community, so why wouldn’t everything be fine?

But everything went horribly wrong from the first moment. A nerve was accidentally severed during surgery, I developed multiple infections, and six weeks of plaster turned into five months in a wheelchair. I developed a blood clot in my lung, all the metalwork didn’t bed in properly and, as I was on steroids, my bone didn’t grow.

I was distraught. I felt guilty that I had let my prayer supporters down by not being healed; I felt robbed of an amazing testimony of healing and I dreaded people asking me how I was getting on. I began to have a sneaky feeling that maybe God didn’t love me enough to heal me... maybe I wasn’t even a Christian after all? I felt I had lost my identity; that I was useless and a burden. And then the well-meaning friends started with the ‘I wonder why God hasn’t healed you…’ conversations, which hung in the air like accusations.

I kept a prayer diary during some of that time, and the pages are full of either woeful lament, or desperate attempts at self-motivation to kick-start my hope again. And in the midst of this kerfuffle, a wonderful friend sidled up to me in church one day, mightily apologetic, and thrust a copy of When Faith Gets Shaken into my hand, saying God told her I was to read it.

I didn’t start off with very good grace (I was firmly attached to my pity puddle), but it felt like you [Patrick] had read my mind. I was jumping up and down (mentally at least!) saying, ‘That’s me – that’s how I feel too!’ It released torrents of tears, but gave me permission to express how I was feeling to friends and, more importantly, to God. It restored my relationship with Him.

Now, 17 months on, I am still in an air-cast, on crutches, and awaiting a consultant’s decision as to whether I am to have the whole procedure done again or not. I still firmly believe in miraculous instant healings – I’ve been privileged to see them – but I now know that this situation is a far deeper source of loving healing and refining than just fixing a wonky ankle and spitting me back out into a crazy job again. I’ve come to see just how amazingly blessed I am to have been given this experience – the people I’ve met, the stories I’ve heard and shared, the things God has shown me – none of this would have happened otherwise. But it was the honesty of When Faith Gets Shaken that put me in the place of being able to receive all that God has for me, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

The circumstances may have been different in every story I heard, but nearly everyone said the same thing: ‘I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability; now I can be honest and vulnerable too.’

I’m a big fan of Brené Brown, who has spent many years researching courage and vulnerability. She says:

‘Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage… Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.’¹

It’s the sort of quote that sounds brilliant – until we try to put it into practice! It’s hard. We risk others judging us and even hurting us, but we have to be willing to share our imperfections if we are to become more human and more approachable. There’s always a risk, but there’s also the possibility that we will help someone else, and that they will show us love and acceptance – making us feel less alone too. I was totally humbled by the response to my vulnerability. It was healing for me to see people respond not with judgment but with love and understanding. I was so grateful that God had taken something so awful in my life and used it to help other people in their own pain.

ON THE ROAD

The next challenge for me was the idea of taking When Faith Gets Shaken on tour. I was filled with doubts about whether anyone would come; whether it would be helpful; whether it would look self-promoting. I spent far too much time worrying what people would think of me. Thankfully, I was working with the brilliant Andy Flanagan, a good friend of mine – a talented singer-songwriter who loves to use music to explore how we find hope in a broken world. The tour picked up the themes of the book, while Andy and I shared as honestly as possible about some of the challenges we’d faced, and how we found God in the midst of some very dark moments.

From both the book and the tour, I was astounded at how many people were willing to let their guard down and put aside their perfect smiles when they saw that we were willing to be real too. Every night, people came to share their stories: people who had cancer or who were seeing those they loved being ravaged by the disease; those with a myriad of mental health challenges – often that had plagued them for years; marriages that were breaking up; people who could only express their pain through self-harm; those dealing with domestic violence and abusive relatives; young people who told of failed suicide attempts and a lack of hope for the future. Faced with these heart-breaking situations, I wondered how much sharing my story would help but it turned out there was a power in breaking the silence – it allowed others to talk about their deepest pain too.

One of the most powerful points in the evening would always be when we challenged the idea that when we suffer, it’s our fault. For me, that had been a huge struggle – as though I had somehow brought suffering on myself. I would describe a scene in the film Good Will Hunting, where Will, a troubled but gifted young man (played by Matt Damon), is meeting with his psychotherapist, Sean (played by Robin Williams). In the scene, Sean holds up the file detailing the years of abuse Will has suffered and says, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Will shrugs it off, but Sean says again, ‘It’s not your fault.’ He repeats and repeats the same line until Will breaks into sobs as the truth finally washes over him. He knew in his head he’d done nothing to deserve it, but his heart hadn’t received the same message until that pivotal scene.

Do we struggle with that same truth? Do we consciously (or sub-consciously) think that we have somehow caused our own suffering because of our sin, because we misheard God, because we don’t have enough faith or because we don’t trust God enough? Sometimes we struggle to accept it’s not our fault because our self-esteem has been so damaged that we believe, when things go wrong, that it must be down to us. At the heart of it, we’re often questioning, ‘Does God really love me?’

In the Church, we’ve often added to this by misquoting Scripture in saying, ‘God won’t give you more than you can bear.’ The idea of this can cripple us when we feel that we can’t cope. It was a phrase that was unhelpfully shared with me during the long process of my knee operations, and only made me feel angry and unloved. When someone tells you God wouldn’t give you the burden if you couldn’t handle it, you feel as though God can’t know you at all – or that you are just failing some sort of weird test that He has set. It implies He’s the one doling out the pain, and will push you right to your limit but then stop right before you crack.

The verse people are referring to when they say this is 1 Corinthians 10:13, which actually says God won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. The writer, Paul, was trying to show the Corinthians that God was with them when they were tempted, and would help them find a way to resist. We need to let go of this strange image of God measuring out how much pain we can deal with. This only confuses our understanding of who He is and how He relates to us in our suffering. I know people mean well when they say it. They’re usually trying to find an encouragement in a painful situation and that can be difficult. But sometimes, rather than trying to find a spiritual explanation, it’s better to just say, ‘I’m sorry things are tough. I don’t understand why you’re going through all of this, but I am here for you and am I standing with you.’

We finished the When Faith Gets Shaken tour sessions by talking about the cross, and inviting people to write down on a sticky note someone or something – perhaps an issue or a memory – that they felt like they had been carrying for too long. There was then time and space for them to bring that note to the front and place it on the cross, symbolically saying, ‘God, I need you to help me with this, I can’t do it on my own.’ Meanwhile, Andy would sing a song of lament based on Psalm 22 (‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’). It was such a moving