Speaker 1: 0:00

to not say, okay, well, listen, it's all right. Well, there's nothing I can do about. This is just the way. I can't tell you how many people said this is just the way I am, please. No, this doesn't have to be just the way I am. This is where I am today, but tomorrow I can keep growing and growing hello everybody and welcome to a better way to heal, where faith meets therapy everybody and welcome to a better way to heal, where faith meets therapy.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Hello everybody, I'm ellie and I'm isa, and, uh, we are here today and we are going to talk about chronic stress, something that isa and I, I'm sure, have dealt with personally in our lives, and we want to explore a little bit about why and give some examples of how it shows up. Why, why is it impactful, what does it even mean? And some examples of how it shows up in our lives. We also want to bring in the biblical side of it. What does god have to say about this? And um, the complexities too, because stress is something that our body definitely rejects and our body has some very serious reactions to. But then there's cultural elements of what happens as well, along with trauma.

Speaker 1: 1:18

This is where ellie will step in and talk about how trauma can keep us on that stress level. Even even when things aren't actually that stressful, our body is still holding on to all that tension in healthy ways to let it go. Yeah, absolutely so. Stress can get better. Stress is actually good for us. We grow through.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Even the Bible talks about iron, sharpening iron, and that's a very stressful event. So we grow through stress, and the problem with stress is when it becomes chronic, an overload of stress, the cortisol, when it gets too high in the body, it can have a lot of health implications and I'm sure you see that even with the teens that you work with. Yeah, so when we've had early childhood traumas, it could be even something as simple as I say, as simple as a neglect and you not knowing where your next meal is coming from or which parent you're constantly on guard because you're walking on eggshells, because your parents are arguing or fussing, those kind of things, and that can cause a buildup of the cortisol. It can cause your amygdala kind of the fight or flight.

Speaker 1: 2:38

I'm sure many people have heard of that fight or flight. It can put you in that mode where you're constantly waiting for the next shoe to come.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Yes, and you know so. It's like our bodies are ready, even if our mind doesn't. We think we're in a safe place and our body's looking forward because it has so much stress built up in it. Correct, yes, so the way I mean, obviously I do not have all of the education that Ellie has, but I do remember when I was in college for biology and we were talking about stress. You know, we all have to take a psychology class and one of the things that really helped me understand it from healthy and unhealthy was what we call distress. It's like when the levels of stress become so chronic and invasive of your nervous system that it becomes distress.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Um, and biblically speaking, of that I see the iron, sharp and iron and work ethic and things that we do that are stressful. They call stress. It's like it's the motivation to get things done and do them well, the motivation to work and do hard things. So that's the positive. Stress is the motivation this is just blames terms of me explaining it of getting something done, getting through a day of work, getting a deadline accomplished, getting that's, that's good stress. It's not like you don't feel stressed, but it leads to production and then, when you get into distress.

Speaker 1: 4:12

There's a dysfunction of maybe you're not taking care of yourself or the people around you, but yet you're also not truly accomplishing the mission because you're so overloaded that it's an unhealthy way of meeting the deadline, a healthy way of dealing, and it could lead to alcohol consumption, it could lead to overeating and all these other things. But biblically, that's where we step in and it's like be anxious for nothing. It doesn't say stop doing, it doesn't say it just says no and understand that your best is enough. Yeah, and that's where we lose it.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Sometimes we start comparing ourselves and I think and this is beyond, I'm not touching on trauma per se, I'm talking just in general stress and distress. Um, trauma, we're going to get more deep into that, but just letting people understand that feeling of desire to accomplish things and drive is not what we're talking about as negative stress. It's more of a distress of anxiousness and unsettledness and lack of being able to concentrate. Survival mode like I am doing this to be, like I'm doing this to. It's more of a drive to survive than it is to actually thrive.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Right, yeah, absolutely one thing that I noticed that with the the distress, the dysfunctional type of stress, it can lead to physical problems in the body. It can lead to overeating, to obesity. It can lead to chronic migraines. A lot of people with childhood trauma deal with things like chronic migraines, heart disease, diabetes, all kinds of things that are kind of like an attack against the body. It can also lead to mental health issues, Things like PTSD. We've had a history of childhood trauma and something happens.

Speaker 1: 6:10

You're at a greater risk of developing PTSD. Of course, if the trauma is high enough in your childhood, you could go into adulthood life with complex PTSD, which we're still trying to understand totally, but it definitely is it's more than just a chronic stress, but the chronic stress kind of leads us in that direction, into potential chronic illnesses, in a state of mind which is not operating in a place of creativity, in a place of peace.

Speaker 1: 6:44

It's operating in a defensive, protective mechanism. So I know for me personally, my personal experience with it is I notice automatically the effects of cortisol levels in my body. Even the weight gain of it is different than regular weight gain, right, because I was in the military just over you. You know our bodies, my body has changed a lot before and after and I know what being fit looks like and I know, by getting a little bit of weight from pregnancy look like, looks like, and I know what stress weight gain is like.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Absolutely, I've been able to identify that by allowing myself to be aware and, um, when I first noticed that I looked it up and cortisol weight gain is very particular in women in the abdominal area and certain areas, because the body is essentially preparing for bad times. Right, absolutely, the body is just in protection mode and is saying, okay, I don't know how productive she's gonna be in the hunting and the in the taking care of herself, so I'm going to store all these facts and all these vitamins and all these things in weird places so that it takes longer for them to use and leave the body and they will sustain her longer. So god created our body with such a beautiful design, but he never intended us to be in a place where that was our mode. Right, it's one thing.

Speaker 1: 8:10

We go through periods in our life and we can go through a stressful financial situation at work or something like that, and it can cause an overload of stress. That's kind of time limited. It has the beginning, it has a middle, it has an end. But when we're talking about the chronic stress, that often happens out of childhood traumas and the childhood traumas that we're talking about again is the neglect, hunger, not having a safe environment as you're growing up, and or abuses and those kind of things. But uh, that kind of chronic stress. There's no real kind of identified a beginning, middle and end. Yeah, and for me, when I started getting healing when I started, I mean, I was literally I had a migraine every single day for my entire age, 16 and 17. And that was the beginning I was in and out of bad relationships.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I had so many bad relationships. I struggled as a young mom. I mean it just seemed like everybody else had a problem and I saw interpersonal relationships and I was sick all the time. All the time I was sick and it wasn't until I was in a stable relationship for a while. I mean for a while. And how my husband and I lasted those first five to ten years is beyond me. I don't know, he must be a saint, but it took that long for my system. And the system is the internal workings. You know, the body keeps the score when we've been through traumatic things.

Speaker 1: 10:00

So the amygdala has to know that you're safe and there are still times that it doesn't feel too safe and I don't even know why.

Speaker 1: 10:09

But it takes a long time for that childhood trauma that we've been through to kind of settle down to where the stress level isn't, where it is decreased yes, correct.

Speaker 1: 10:26

And when you think about it you say I don't know why it takes so long. There are certain things that happen in our childhood that happened through a long period of time, like you said, and our body doesn't know anything other than that. Like our body and our mind didn't know anything other than that until. And if you think about how resilient you actually truly are because if you compare your first 16, 20, 30 years of your life versus the last 15, 20 your body is resilient, it actually recovered from many things that were chronic in your life and I think part of the the situation with childhood trauma it's stress that's very pervasive is that your body is already predicting and little things can trigger it. That may or may not lead to that same behavior from other people, but it's so similar to the beginning and I can think right now I've been in narcissistic relationships and that's a very difficult thing to overcome.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Why? Because there's these, these lapses of love, bombing and these lapses of making you feel at the top of the world and then slowly corroding you. And a lot of childhood trauma comes from parents that have those traits that they're not like and they whether I mean that's their own trauma- really, if you think about it as trauma on top of trauma, trauma.

Speaker 2: 11:50

I'm not vilifying any parents.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I'm just saying, if we don't heal, we become those things to our children and we perpetuate. And there's also this belief that I have. The bible talks about any, the iniquities, generational iniquities, and the Bible also talks about generational legacy and blessing. So to me that's not just a material thing, it's not the possessions of family has, it can be part of it, but it's not. That's not actually. That's an outward manifestation of what's internally happening, and Iniquities are those things that we didn't deal with. So science is finally kitchen.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Yes, yes internally happening, and Iniquities are those things that we didn't deal with, things we didn't kill. Science is finally catching up to the novel. Yeah, and you can do some research. We don't have time to get into it, but there's a lot of research out there about Epigenetics and it's beginning to say that the things that your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and even further back have a lasting impact. If there was a history of trauma, you may notice something happened when you hit, like 16 that may have happened to a fourth or fifth grandparent ago and it is showing up in your body.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah, it's generationally. We're carrying things that, carrying things that haven't been healed Correct. That's why it's so important for us to find a better way to heal Correct and do a holistic approach and scripture like I agree. I just I love there's so many things going on with our times right now, but I do love the expansion and openness of knowledge, that knowledge has become something attainable, informational knowledge to people that if times in the past is obscure and some places in religion are like, well, you can't know this and be christian and you cannot when it's bringing gospel, it's bringing theology together because the truth is the truth, no matter how long it takes us to find it Right. And, like you said, science is catching up and part of that is utilizing the tools.

Speaker 1: 13:58

God gives the credit saying and what science is starting to understand about human behavior, human needs and how it's starting to understand that we carry the things unhealed and undealt from our generations before, whether they try to treat us differently or not. This is not about how they're treating you, that that helps, but it's more along the lines of you never healed and it's very subtle things as a child. If I don't know what kind of parent I'm going to wake up to, that's a stress. I don't know if this is a parent that's going to be happy for me or this is a parent that's going to be critical of me. There's different forms of abuse that are very subtle. I might be fed, I might be clothed, I might be, I might have these physical needs that are great and important from the pyramid, but I don't have self-validation. I don't have the sense of security that I'm not a burden to my baby. I don't have the sense of well-being that I can have feelings, that I can express feelings without it being a backlash right.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Right, yeah, absolutely, so a lot of times we don't even know, even as we become parents, and I think about my children that dealt with a parent that wasn't healed and so I carried on. Of course, I'm in the healing, in the healing phase of my life, and I have wonderful children, but there were things that they were missing in their childhood because they had a parent who didn't know, didn't have an understanding. That's why it's so important and I share about this in all of the things the books I wrote a shame quiz to help people identify about this. And all of the things the books I wrote a shame quiz to help people identify where are they struggling? There's a lot of times we don't even know. I have people that say, oh, I don't deal with shame, no, that's not an issue. Chronic stress, trauma, all of those things lead to I'm not enough.

Speaker 1: 16:04

I'm not good enough, I am bad. And when you have that, I mean the least of those things can send you in a shame spiral. And then your child wakes up and they don't know what kind of a parent they're getting, because the parent is in a shame spiral and cycling out of control and taking it out on the nearest parent. Yeah, and just to kind of bring it back into the context because I honestly could talk about this forever, not just from a sense of expertise, but from a sense of acknowledging that we're all on this journey I too have been a parent that has healed in front of my children Like I'm going to put it that way, that is healing. Parent that has healed in front of my children like I'm going to put it that way, that is healing. It has healed in front of my children and I think there could be some benefits for them in that.

Speaker 1: 16:51

But there's still some trauma that I've caused in the process of doing that. That's why my kids go to therapy, like because I and I acknowledge that to them I said you know, I am sorry that I have had to heal in front of you. That's hard, yeah, and I have had to learn to heal in front of you. I wish I was like healed and but you know, but? But it has an opportunity for them to also know that there's room for them to heal and to grow. Absolutely because I'm acknowledging my faults where I see them and I even acknowledge there's some that I might not even be aware of yet.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Some things I haven't gone to that layer of the onion yet.

Speaker 2: 17:32

Like, I'm still working on these layers.

Speaker 1: 17:34

There's so many layers and technically not technically we won't get to the center of that onion until Christ comes back and just fully heals and restores our bodies and minds. So give yourself some grace, but that's not an excuse to not continue to peel those, absolutely, absolutely. We have to. We have a responsibility. And then what you said I were talking about this feeling in front of our children, uh, which was not the person we had planned on going, but we're just going to go with it and we talked about it.

Speaker 2: 18:03

Let's see where this goes, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Uh, it's we. We have a responsibility to the next generation to not say, okay, well, it's all right, well, there's nothing I can do about. This is just the way. I can't tell you how many people said this is just the way I am, please no. This doesn't have to be just the way I am, please no. This doesn't have to be just the way I am. This is where I am today, but tomorrow I can keep growing and healing. I don't have to stay stuck, and that's the whole reason why we do this. Numbers. I don't. Even being a Christian doesn't make me healed. You know, being a non-Christian doesn't make me healed. None of that doesn't make me healed. Being a non-Christian doesn't make me healed.

Speaker 1: 18:47

None of that doesn't make me healed. I have to walk out the journey one step at a time, even though I'm not going to get to the full revelation until Christ comes back and we're totally healed. I'm so much, much more than I was 10 years ago, and it's less bleeding, less trauma. We're piling on other people and, in a way, as we heal, we're setting up the generations after us for success. That's how you have to see it.

Speaker 1: 19:21

I might not complete the temple this is David's perspective but I have gathered all the tools, the resources necessary, the knowledge necessary to pass it down to my son, who then will complete the temple. Right, and I just recently, as I was listening to you, I'm trying to remember the title of what I just watched, but I don't remember. I'll say the line. It was a dynamic that father-son relationships with the father had some issues and some trauma that he inflicted on his child, but then, in a conversation they were having as adults, it says you know, I had this happen to me and I was thinking I was doing something good for you, but I think I did a little bit better. Maybe now you will do a little bit better. And then, in the process of that, he was.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Remembering that because he was having an interaction with their child, but with the child, and seeing how he handled that situation better than his father handled that situation.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah, it was beautiful.

Speaker 1: 20:17

I give me goosebumps and I cannot remember the title of what I was watching, but that's the element that we're trying to convey. Yeah, and remember what it is.

Speaker 1: 20:26

I will yes, please, I don't know, it's actually so crazy because I was meditating on it yesterday and I couldn't remember the name yesterday. But I'd like to be analogy of the father I think he was an alcoholic, all these things apologizing to the adult son and saying but I did, I did my best, you know, I did better than my dad, yeah. And then he's like hopefully you'll do better than me. And then he's in that crossroads with his child saying I Did better than mine, right? Yeah, and that's you. That's the process of healing.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Yeah, I lost it today at the dinner table. Tomorrow I'm not going to. Tomorrow I'm going to apologize. Tomorrow I'm going to pull from the toolkit and ask for a time out. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I talk about a lot is this saying I'm sure I got it from somebody much wiser than me, but it's hurt people, hurt people, and that is true. Free people also have free people, and that's really where we want to get. I am not all there, lisa is not all there. We're farther than we were 10 years ago, which?

Speaker 2: 21:40

is why we do this.

Speaker 1: 21:41

Because we want to help the people coming behind us. If it helps just one person, it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth healing for yourself and it's worth healing so that the people around you and the people after you have a higher starting point. You know, it's like we started at a certain level of healing, but if we can have the next generation feel on top of us, that feels a lot of our world. So biblically there are a lot of instances that talk about that. That's why he had a remnant of people. There was a reason he was building a legacy through those people and generation after generation, there were certain things that were done so that Christ could be born. And then, when Christ was born, that's the other part of the legacy. Our lives can mimic that. Our lives are a representation of walking in the wilderness, lost, knowing there's a promise but not knowing how to get there, making mistakes along the way but allowing myself to grow through that and reach the promised land. But then, when I get to the promised land, there's giants.

Speaker 2: 22:45

you know like our journey is like that.

Speaker 1: 22:47

I was like oh good, you know I didn't lose it this time, or I'm so much better at handling this, but something else reared its ugly head you know, yeah, but there's victory in you know what.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Let me roll up my sleeves and let's go to work. Yes, yes, so there are. There's a never-ending plethora of little mess-ups, and one of the things that encourages me is that I just my brain is saying do I want to say it, but I just did something really silly and I just didn't pay attention to what I was doing. I just did something and it offended a few people, and in the past and rightfully so, because I really wasn't paying attention to what I was doing in the past what could have happened, and what has happened, is whether I wasn't approachable or they weren't at their own level of healing and felt safe with me. They could have just held on to that and they could have just ignored it. Instead, they reached out to me and said hey, you know, did you, did you breathe that before you or did you look at that before you? And I was like oh, oh, oh, and you know, immediately.

Speaker 1: 24:13

I was able to fix it and a rupture didn't happen. And that's what we want to get to. We want to get to a place where we're not causing and bring it all back to, we're not causing more chronic stress that we are. Situations come up, well, work through them so that it doesn't build up.

Speaker 1: 24:35

It's not another needle on that haystack and it's like the reference was fire and that's what it does. It's like they become defensive. I become defensive, then you go on the attack because there's a defense, but it's like it can be spitting out more toxicity that then causes more harm and it's a spiral. Somebody has to end the cycle and you know, sometimes it's hard. I'm going to be completely honest. Sometimes it's hard to feel like you carry the burden of ending the cycle for everybody. Like, sometimes it can feel like I'm not just healing for myself, but I'm healing for these people close to me and I'm not talking about children, because that is kind of our responsibility.

Speaker 1: 25:12

I'm talking about other adults in our life and it can become burdensome. But there are tools in scripture and that align your tools in psychology, that can help us process to them, and one of the ones that come to mind right now is they're each other's burdens but may each catch their own load, and I am like cutting through some bird it's just the same installations and says that his brothers and sisters me, me and Ellie and showing love to each other is that she can sit and essentially talk about her heaviness and she can tell me about her struggles.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Right, that's burying each other's burdens and me listening to her with no judgment, because then if I try to fix it, I'm actually carrying her load and further down it.

Speaker 1: 25:59

It says each one carried her load. So what does that look like? Practically I'm here and I'm saying oh my gosh, ellie, what a day I had today. So last night I went to bed super late, even though I had a meeting at 6 o'clock in the morning. I went to bed like at 3 o'clock in the morning and then then I got up and thought I only had an hour to get ready, but then I decided to play some games on my phone, just to like unwind, and then I didn't leave the house until like 5 o'clock.

Speaker 1: 26:30

So I made it late to the meeting and then you know this happened, I got fired or didn't get the job, whatever the result is. And then of bearing each other's burdens. I mean, it really does sound like you've had an incredibly stressful day. You're acknowledging the emotions that this person is having, but at the same time, when you move further, you don't allow this person to be a victim, and what that would look like. How would you respond? It work, mind you. We're in a relationship. She's not just a stranger. We're in a relationship. She's not just a stranger, we're in a relationship. How would you make me accountable and responsible for my load in life?

Speaker 1: 27:12

So I think, it's very important to explore. Do I have permission?

Speaker 2: 27:19

That's why I keep on reiterating she has my permission.

Speaker 1: 27:23

Even as a friend, you still want to make sure you have permission and explore. Well, issa, was there something on your mind that kept you up until 3? And really exploring that, what's that need? That may be you, you know what need is it that you are you so stressed out, you can't get your mind to slow down, and how how could you kind of maybe start laying some of that stuff down earlier in the day? And so we say, as a therapist versus a friend sometimes you don't even know how to separate the two. But as a friend I would say, maybe call a friend at night, explore or maybe journal a little bit at night and try to get to bed a little earlier so that you can show up and be your best at this meeting or in your workplace, so that you're not carrying this weight of rolling it down the hill, because it's almost like I'm kicking the can Right now.

Speaker 1: 28:33

I'm only focusing on right now. How do those actions, how are they impacting your day? Correct the way that I see it too. So if I were me talking to me and I am in a deep relationship with this person- and I know we have an iron sharpens iron type of relationship.

Speaker 1: 28:49

We can have tough conversations together without hurting each other. I agree. I would want to address why were you up? And, depending on that conversation, conversation, what else that person needs to share. Then I would have biblical, therapeutic and sound advice, like, instead of validating something that can be toxic in friendship, sometimes vilifying the offense because even though I was late, disrespected their time. Sometimes we tend to be these cheerleaders of toxic behavior, and that's not healthy. I think letting other people carry their load is accountability. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 29:37

And if you're not in a relationship, just be like oh, sorry to hear that that's where it should end. I agree, if you don't have a really good relationship, or at least a healthy relationship with somebody, you're not a therapist, you're it's not you're, you're it's not your load to carry right but it's a friend that I'm dating and if I'm walking, my car would be like.

Speaker 1: 29:53

You know, you've done this before. There might be a pattern and you can do better. There's things you can control and there's things you cannot control. So you have to be aware of what you can control, so what you can't control doesn't affect you as much. For instance, there was traffic on the way there, but if I would have left on time, traffic may have not mattered. You know those things, not in a judgmental, critical way, but in an empowering way. So I think that's that's. Bearing each other's burdens is essentially empathy. It's empathy and validation of feelings, while letting the other person carry the load is accountability. Absolutely it's accountability. If I don't rest, I'm gonna be tired and it might be hormonal. People say no, people tell me to rest all the time. Then okay, let's make a doctor's appointment. It's still. We have way more power than we allow ourselves to know when we're feeling this right, right, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 30:46

And yeah, and there may come a time when your relationship is so that you have to get really direct with your friend and say you know, and I love the fact that you brought up not vilifying Correct, not vilifying the place of employment, not vilifying the spouse who did their head off that happens a lot, I know, I know. I have a best friend that when I complain about my marriage. I don't do that often, but the few times that I have, she's like what was your part?

Speaker 2: 31:22

in that?

Speaker 1: 31:23

Can you believe what my husband said? And you know exploring that but it's that sometimes we need a little bit of tough love.

Speaker 2: 31:33

It's the love that.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Christ gave us. So Christ loved us in our sin. Christ loved us right there, but he didn't want to leave us there, right, he wanted to show us we have authority and power over the things that want to hold us captive.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Now there's a nursing season. Right, there's a season that we need empathetic and people that love us where we're at and can nurse us to health in a way without us burdening them with our own responsibility. What that looks like for me, so like I'm workaholic, that's. That's probably that is my coping mechanism. I use it to code and I have to acknowledge part of my healing journey is acknowledging that I use it to code. Just like some people use alcohol, just because I don't use alcohol, it can.

Speaker 1: 32:19

People like me can become self-righteous because I don't go to drugs and I don't go to alcohol and I don't use alcohol. It can. People like me can become self-righteous because I don't go to drugs and I don't go to alcohol and I don't go to this and I don't. I can. I can mention a list of all the things I don't go to very easily that give this workaholic behavior a validation and some kind of righteousness that it doesn't have, and it puts me in a position of victimhood in superiority at the same time. It's like very bizarre, but I have learned to acknowledge that in me and biblically, I'm sinning just as much as the person that's going to the bottle when I just create tasks for myself to distract myself from the emotions, whether I'm a victim of what's happening or not, it's not even the point. I'm re-victimizing myself by adding stress. I'm just dressed in my life when the bible says there is a time to rest and there's value in rest. Psychology says you should rest absolutely well, eat well.

Speaker 1: 33:14

All these things so I have a habit of doing during that working so much and I was working at a place that was very unhealthy. I mean, I was working so many hours and I wasn't able to give the residents the care they needed, and because of paperwork and all of this and everything and I get out of that position and then I start working like overdrive in, like a private practice setting.

Speaker 1: 33:49

And my supervisor at the time looked at me and said you sound like you're my old employer. Are you going to be a better employer than?

Speaker 2: 34:00

that.

Speaker 1: 34:03

I know, and it hit me just like that just like that ton of bricks. It's like okay, I really need to and I catch myself even in seasons like uh, this has been a very busy season for me and instead of taking a day off which I'm loving, how you're taking that time instead of taking a day off, I just kept going and I can promise you I will. There is a. There's a few days that are scheduled.

Speaker 1: 34:29

I've got a vacation coming up so trying to make sure that I'm not that same type of uh of employer to myself, because that can create its own chronic stress because my body is not resting. We need rest. And it leads back to the beginning of the podcast, when we were talking about distress being unproductive work.

Speaker 1: 34:53

We are working, we're doing all these things that normally would have a positive outcome and would be good for us financially, socially but then it becomes, uh, distressing, it becomes toxic, and it becomes where, yes, I'm at work and I'm doing all these things, but I'm not even completing things.

Speaker 1: 35:09

Well, I'm not really doing it to the best of my ability. I'm doing it to do it right and it becomes a distraction from actually healing and taking time and dealing with okay, lord, search my heart. That Bible verse is scary. It's scary, but it's essentially self-awareness. It's like show me the me that you're trying to transform. He's the person to go to first and, of course, the therapist can help us if they're a third party. If you think about how therapy works, it's essentially being able to go somewhere and unload, while getting back what should be pretty close to objective responses. God is the ultimate objective of man, like, if you think about it, he's the equalizer of all things, but yet there's so much love and compassion, and the cross, to me, is proof of that. It's proof that I'm like I died for you. I suffered for you Yesterday when I was teaching with you.

Speaker 1: 36:16

It was called Fierce and it was about identity a little bit and courage and what that means, and the Bible verse that we repeat a lot. I like to say it to runners, like when the boy can run, which is a joke. Exercise is great for you, but in this particular term, obviously I took it seriously to teach the kids the first half of that verse is paranoia. The wicked run when nobody's chasing them. That's what we do when we're distressed. And I know it says wicked. I'm not calling all of you wicked, it's wickedness. It's essentially that thing that's keeping us oppressed. That's what wickedness is. It's keeping us in bondage. And when you are not operating from a place of honesty and truth and transparency, you become paranoid.

Speaker 1: 37:04

Think about go back to an exercise and think about places in your life where you were not living a transparent, open life. You would be paranoid, and it happens in relationships. It's like, oh, look at how she looked at me, maybe she doesn't like me, maybe maybe. And then you start operating in that place and you're running from things that are they might not even be happening Absolutely. The other half of the verse is those that walk in righteousness are courageous. They essentially face it boldly. That doesn't mean they're perfect. Nowhere in there does it say they're perfect. Nowhere in there does it say they are without fault. They're just in a place that this is what I have right now. This is who I am right now, and I'm not running from it. I'm dealing with it and that's really my invitation for this.

Speaker 1: 37:49

Like stress, we've got to deal with the fact of the stress and pull from the toolkit Right absolutely, and we have wonderful resources on our website. We have a guide to help you understand a little bit about what I do. The better way, the better framework. We have a shame quiz that can help you identify the areas, because if I can identify, the very first thing in a better framework, which is the better way, is beginning to notice, developing a sense of awareness. Where am I dealing with chronic stress? Where am I dealing with shame? Where have I had trauma in my life? And the first I mean even biblically when we bring things to the light, there is healing, just in opening it up. Correct, just in unhuggling it.

Speaker 1: 38:43

And then we start, you know, then, we start doing really understanding and developing an understanding. It's like you had to. You had to get to a point where you recognize some things and why, and then you have to do some research on it and then you started taking down some of those defense mechanisms.

Speaker 1: 39:04

And it's really that's when transformation can start. And then we walk into further transformation and empower and establish a sense of safety and security. And then we hit the resilience, the rise up. And so there's so many tools that we have out there, but if you don't use them, you find your own healing strategies. But do something to move from the spot that you're at, to take a step, just one, yeah, one thing, one change.

Speaker 1: 39:42

If you used to have three shots before you woke, before you even got out of the house of alcohol, and you take two that morning, that's a victory. I mean, it sounds simple but it sounds ridiculous. Well, you still took two. That's how people. That that's judgment. That's the kind of judgment that keeps people in bondage when they do it to themselves and when others close to them do it to them, when somebody's excited for a little bit of progress I only smoked one box today, not three. Be excited for them. Yeah, absolutely. Like you're not condoning that they smoke one, you're celebrating that they we have to allow ourselves as part of resting.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Resting is not just laying down. I feel like rest is much more than I feel, and the Bible says it's much more than that. It's really being able to take in the progress. Think about when we first rested. It was in Genesis, after creation. God rested. He wasn't tired. He rested so that he could take in what he had created. He rested so that he could admire. And that's him showing gratitude. I mean he created it, but he was showing gratitude. It was good, it is good, and he allowed man, humanity to do the same.

Speaker 1: 40:58

And I think sometimes we get out of rhythm, and I just listened to a sermon a Sunday ago about it. Dallas Social was literally about that the rhythm of life versus rest. And there is a rhythm. Work is good, work is good for our minds, and that stress of wanting to create and build and have a desire for more is it's created. It's the part of God that's in us, but we distort it and we misuse it If we don't allow to stand in gratitude and be like man.

Speaker 1: 41:31

It was so hard working towards this conference, right, we didn't. Let's sit and enjoy that. Let's sit before we move on to the next one. Let's enjoy the good things in it. And this is just an example because it's recent, but it's pretty much with everything in mind. You know, instead of sitting there and assessing, it will be a time to assess what to improve, but also take equal amount of time, if not more amount of time, to enjoy what was good and call it good and retrain our brain to see the good in everything, because that will attract more good. It's like meditating on what is good. You know, this may have not worked that way, but I'm gonna enjoy it this day, right, and then it can use your body like that cortisol levels, like you know, in here there are some good moments.

Speaker 1: 42:21

Maybe I don't have to protect the body this way that much, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely well, asa, I think this has been a great conversation today. I'm so glad that we were able to carve this time out so important.

Speaker 1: 42:35

Yeah, um, thank you for watching, for listening. Thank you for watching for listening. I want to invite you to check out all the things that Lisa and I have been doing. We're always doing stuff, but we do them to help the community. I love what Lisa does with the youth in our community and I just again thank you for watching, Like, subscribe, Do all the things.

Speaker 2: 43:03

All the things and share.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Share this might be, just might help somebody, and we're all growing. This is not from a place of. I've arrived from a place, I'm on a journey and I have had some tools that I've collected throughout this journey that you're welcome to share with me. Yeah, absolutely well, thank you for watching all right thank you bye-bye thank you for watching us.

Speaker 2: 43:27

We really appreciate you being here. If you enjoyed the episode, like, subscribe, share with a friend and join us next time. Thank you, bye-bye.