Speaker 1: 0:00

is really finding out who I am and whose I am. One of the best things that my husband ever did for me was he got me the Bible Woman Thou Art Loose, and it really loosed some things in me when, I was able to see how much God loved women and how he was calling us to greater things. And he says I have called you by name and you are mine, and I'm sorry. Isaiah 43 and 1. And just knowing that he had called me by name, and he calls me righteous.

Speaker 1: 0:41

And there's all kinds of things that he calls us, and when we know who we are we can really start to walk into healing yes, yes, and that identity.

Speaker 2: 0:50

That might be something that we have to revisit several times in our lives in fact, I think it's healthy I would like to see it. Think of it as a mirror, you know, and then, um, the mirror might point out some things that you need to address. Right, you might look in the mirror and notice, oh gosh, I have some lipstick.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hello everybody and welcome to A Better Way to Heal where faith meets therapy. Well, hello everybody, I'm Ellie and I'm Issa, and you are watching. A Better Way to Heal where faith meets therapy.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yes, yes, this is our podcast. We've been doing it for a couple of years now, right? Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:27

We actually just hit. We kind of go back and forth between this and the shame podcast and we're trying something new. This the end of this year, we're trying to get more weekly. So we're hoping to hit that. So a little bit about us If you have never watched our podcast. I'm a licensed professional counselor. I'm not operating in my field as a counselor, although I am still a counselor, so I'm just not your counselor.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Her opinion, her professional opinion, is yours. Absolutely but she's not your personal counselor, right.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Unless she is, unless she is, unless she is, unless you're watching and you're one of her clients, yes, Yep. Yeah, and the whole purpose behind this podcast is Issa read my book A Better Way to Heal, integrating Faith and Psychology to Heal Inner Wounds. That was a mouthful, but she read my book. Well, here too far, call it a better way, correct? And she said people need to hear about the things that are in this book.

Speaker 2: 2:29

yeah, and what better way to do than a podcast? I know, um, people are short on time, sometimes we're driving and sometimes we just are too exhausted to read uh, mama's busy mama's sometimes listening to it while you're cooking or while you're driving and we thought this is another outlet. It's not a substitute to the book or the companion guide or her shame materials that she provides, but it is a supplement, I guess we can call it, and it's a way, kind of to put a face and a voice to the words in her book and to expand it. To see for you to relate, because, unlike her, I am NOT a licensed therapist, I am lame.

Speaker 2: 3:13

A person that just believes in the Lord and believes that God wants us to heal and confess your sins to one another doesn't have to look like you just going to a priest or sitting down with a brother and sister, um, especially if you have trauma that doesn't allow that kind of intimacy with another person. Which who gets that? But, um, therapist is the third party. It's still the concept of what god says to be true will always be true. And confess your sins to one another in order to heal is something that happens in therapy. You are essentially in a safe space. Do we want the church to take that role? Absolutely, but if but it, god can use therapists as well, absolutely so.

Speaker 1: 3:58

today we're going to be talking about trauma and how trauma is not your identity, and I think sometimes at least I know in my professional experience that people come in wearing these labels that the world gives us and they will often wear trauma as their identity.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Correct, Correct, trauma as their identity. Correct, Correct, and it could be different things. It could stop you from healing because you've clinged on to this identity and it makes you feel safer to feel that way than to actually process that and heal it. It can isolate you from everything that God has for you and it can prevent you from helping others to heal because you know not that God has for you and it can prevent you from helping others to heal because you know not that God wanted you to go through this so that you can testify. But he will use what you went through in order to heal other people.

Speaker 2: 4:53

I think sometimes we misuse that and make people feel like, well, God wanted it happened. It's not what he wanted for you. He doesn't want any of us to perish, he doesn't want any of us to suffer, but he knows the world has suffering and he wants us to work through these things in order to come out stronger.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Yeah, absolutely Well, trauma is. I mean we talk a lot, especially in the book. We talk a lot about what trauma is big T traumas, building T traumas, neglect from childhood, childhood sexual abuse, all kinds of things, rape, war, all kinds of things with trauma. But when we go through traumas they leave shards like broken pieces, inner wounds. We talk a lot about inner wounds and they leave those and they impact how we relate to one another. It impacts how we relate to ourselves. It impacts how we relate to the world that we. We have this story that we tell ourselves I am dot dot dot dot.

Speaker 1: 5:57

People are dot dot dot dot and the world is dot, dot, dot, dot, and so we live in these, these different states, and that trauma colors how we see ourselves and how we see others correct and when we uh, when we stay and when we identify, as I'll give you a perfect example. Um, when I was in and out of bad relationships, and I talk about some of this stuff in the book, but when I was in and out of these relationships, I thought, well, they ended because I was bad.

Speaker 1: 6:33

No one could love me because, well, after all, I was tainted and that was the identity that I wore and that was how I approached life and how I approach people. Well, you're just going to leave me anyway, so why should I get invested?

Speaker 2: 6:49

in you and it kind of limits, like you were saying before, your fullness, your wholeness. We walk into situations when we wear our trauma as our identity, already, with preconceived notions, and we do not allow the experiences to shape new realities, because we come with this reality of our own that is usually, you know, bad because it's trauma, right, and we kind of like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You come in thinking that you're not enough. So whenever there's trouble, because there always is trouble, it'll validate that thinking that you're not enough. So whenever there's trouble, because there always is trouble, it'll validate that thinking that you already have you. You think you're no, nobody's gonna love me. So the second, the flawed person that you marry, just flawed as you, does anything to trigger that. Oh, you see, I was right. I was right. What's the point of even trying, what is the point of even letting people in and um, those mechanisms that, yes, our body created to protect ourselves from really bad situations have become now our identity. So now we walk into everything with a negative, um light, right?

Speaker 2: 7:58

and that is not the way that we want to live, that god wants us to live. It hinders us from our true purpose and our true calling if we are labeling ourselves something other right than what we are right, yes, so trauma leaves shards.

Speaker 1: 8:13

They, it doesn't. They don't those. These shorts don't define us and often we, we grab ahold of them. You know they. They're their lies about our identity and that's what we kind of start to believe about ourselves and you know, some people will even say that about us. Well, you know, look at her she is. You know the she's, she's the grumpy old woman or she's the that, these kind of things that I, that we've learned to identify ourselves with, and I think about the in the Bible where it talks about David and.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Elijah, and some people could say that they were. You know, god said David was a man after his own heart, and yet David had been through some things. I mean he was on the run for how many years? And he could very easily have been grabbed hold of that identity of I'm less than because I mean I'm out in the field. My father doesn't even bother to pull me in when Samuel wants to see all of the sons.

Speaker 2: 9:30

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 9:33

No, I was going to say it's great that you used Daniel. I mean David because I instantly thought of the moment when he was in hiding and there was a season to hide. There was a season where he was supposed to be on the run from Saul who wanted to kill him, but it was a point where he was in his stronghold. That's literally the word that was used. He was in a stronghold that he was sent to originally to go by the prophet and to hide, but he stayed there a little bit too long and God gently reminded him that he was created to fight, gently reminded him that he was created to fight a particular battle and that he wasn't going to be able to do that from that stronghold. So that stronghold is something that we create in our minds, our bodies, because God created mechanisms within us to protect us, can disassociate, can negotiate, can create hypervigilance, and that has a purpose. It has a purpose, but that's not the state he wants us to live.

Speaker 2: 10:33

So that's exactly what happened to David. There is a purpose. There's a time to hide, there's a time to heal. That's not your place of residence. That's not what he was called to. He was called to be a king that would take on gathering his people, gathering God's people, under a kingdom, and that can't happen from a stronghold. So Elijah as well, he was a prophet and he done, performed amazing miracles. And he was being persecuted by Jezebel and he fled, and at some point that's where he needed to be. God allowed him to be there, nurtured him, sent birds to feed him and let him rest. But that's not his purpose. That is just a stop on the road and it's a place where you can utilize it to heal or you can let it hold you forever. Right, right.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Right, right. Well, you know, we can really allow things like shame to identify to. You know, define our identity, or we could allow our identity to really be rooted in talk about this in the book is really finding out who I am and whose I am. One of the best things that my husband ever did for me was he got me the Bible.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Woman, thou Art Loose, and it really loosed some things in me when, I was able to see how much God loved women and how he was calling us to greater things. And he says I have called you by name and you are mine, and I'm sorry. Isaiah 43 and 1. And just knowing that he had called me by name, and he calls me righteous. And there's all kinds of things that he calls us, and when we know who we are, we can really start to walk into healing.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yes, yes, and that identity. That might be something that we have to revisit several times in our lives. In fact, I think it's healthy. I would like to see it. Think of it as a mirror, you know, and then the mirror might point out some things that you need to address. Right, you might look in the mirror and notice, oh gosh, I have smear lipstick and we're operating from a place of healing and knowing that my identity is not the lipstick.

Speaker 2: 12:56

The lipstick is on me, it's not me. We can wipe it off and move on and not think about it. When we're not healed, it becomes a social chain and we can start thinking and be self-conscious all day. It's my lipstick, out of place. So it's a very limited analogy, but it's essentially what happens when we look in the mirror of life, or in the mirror of our expectations, or in the mirror of Scripture. Even might be some things that are pointed out that are off center, but it is not with the intention to shame us. When it comes from the place of the Lord or people that love you, it's from a place of okay, I know where I'm at right now and I know where the problem is. Now let's work on fixing it.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Right, yeah. So that leads me to my next point is how do we? You know what are some of the steps that we can take to reclaim our identity, and so I want to share. One of the things that I like to talk to my clients about is finding statements that they can speak over themselves that sound real, that sound real. I'm not going to be an astronaut. And telling myself, writing words of affirmation that I'll be an astronaut, is not going to sound believable to my mind, and I'm going to discount it immediately. So finding something that I can speak over myself that sounds at least somewhat true, that I can, something I can grab a hold of, like, maybe today I really like my hair and I can speak for just thinking that I was like your hair looks so good, ellie.

Speaker 2: 14:34

So you see that shows that I should have just said it.

Speaker 1: 14:36

But I didn't want to.

Speaker 2: 14:37

I love the cut.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Yeah, it's so funny yeah. But I mean, I love your color lipstick and you know it's just so beautiful. You know we can lean into those things that feel and I don't. I mean we're. We're being playful.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Yes. There are much more deeper things that are of value. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Start somewhere. Yes, but start somewhere. If you have to start with something external or minimal, start there wherever you are. That's a good place to start. Just take the next step. What's the next step? The next step might be identifying something you can speak truth over.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Yes, absolutely, and it's interesting that she says that. But I'm going back to that. Start small. We take for granted a lot of things in our life that are miraculous and amazing, because of trauma or because we're constantly comparing us to other people. So I would say one of the things is, when you're looking at your image in that mirror, that you're working on, that you're getting ready for the day, do not compare it to the other person. That's not even in the room. Yes, um, because it's never going to match, it's not supposed to. It doesn't diminish you or the. Because it's never going to match, it's not supposed to. It doesn't diminish you or the other person. It's just not meant to be that way.

Speaker 2: 15:51

Absolutely, you can work towards things and you can admire people's discipline and exercising. That's fine, that's achievable. Saying I want to look like Ellie is different than man. I want to have her discipline and participating in runs or the way she does her hair and her nails, and we're still superficial. But it's just to give you a point of reference. Yeah, um, it's still going to be me and we have to work in being grateful for those things. So, going back to why there's nothing that small, saying my lipstick looks good today and I feel good about it, is just as important because we take for granted that that thing all I can be grateful for today is the color of my lipstick. Well, that's a lot that some people don't even have a mouth or a mirror to look on, you know, and it sounds yeah simple, but it's effective. Yeah, it's like gratitude can replace that self-loathing.

Speaker 1: 17:26

So one of my favorite things that I did and I did this for the very well, not the first time, but recently I had a client that came in and the client was comparing and this isn't the only client. I have clients that compare their life and their journey and their healing to other people and I encouraged them to. Every time they caught themselves wanting to compare because comparison is the thief of joy it is I encouraged them to find something small that they could be grateful for in their own life. For everything that they compared, they had to find 10 things that they had to be grateful for. So you know, I'm not saying that's what you should do, but maybe that's what you should do.

Speaker 1: 18:15

You should do, yeah, absolutely, and we would love to hear about some of the things that that you find that you're grateful for. Um mindfulness exercisesfulness is one of my favorite things to do. Yeah, yeah, because it's really the act of being present.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Yeah, and, in fact, when you are having anxiety attacks or feeling triggered, kind of grounding yourself in that way and being okay. I'm here and I feel this table and I'm existing, and even though my anxiety is telling me that the roof is going to fall over my head, is it really, you know, and it's not in a judgmental way? I know that sometimes we are in crises and having people say stuff like that to us can be triggering in itself you know, if I could do it, I would have done it.

Speaker 2: 19:01

I understand that again. Think, think small. Think small in your eyes and you will see how big it actually is, how things that we take for granted the ability to breathe on our own. Yes, there's people in this earth living life without that ability, and it just start with that gratitude. That doesn't mean that's the best you can do, but that's what you have right now, and then it'll point you to oh, that's true, I can breathe, and while I'm breathing, not only can I physically breathe, I'm allowed to breathe, absolutely. Wait, and I'm not in a prison cell, a physical one at least. Give you a perspective in which you start to appreciate the positive, so that, from that place of victory, you can combat things that feel like they're defeating, and rightfully so. In many cases, there's things that are heavy to carry. Yeah, so you need to strengthen the things that you have the ability to strengthen and then work towards working on the other things that are not that strong. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 20:08

So, one thing at a time, take the next step. If I look at an elephant and I'm thinking, man, I've got to eat this thing, I'm going to go back to the bed and put the covers over my head.

Speaker 1: 20:24

I'm not that hungry after all, absolutely Because if I have to eat that whole thing, it's just not going to happen. But take a small bite, bring a friend along to help and, you know, really just focus on one simple act that you can do today that will help you, whether it's reclaiming your identity, rewriting some of the stories that you're telling yourself. But really externalizing is another thing that I find so helpful when it comes to I, when we over identify with something, and trauma is something that happened to me. It is not me, it is not who I am. It's something that happened to me.

Speaker 1: 21:12

So if we can externalize it instead of internalizing, it that will help us in the long run we really have to get it outside of us because of that identity, it it forms who I am if.

Speaker 2: 21:28

I keep it internal and it also forms who people are outside of you too. If you pick up which Ellie started kind of a podcast that way, if you identify yourself as a victim of I don't know I don't want to point something out and make somebody feel bad about what they're struggling with but of food like my weight, and I am a victim of like no, I just can't lose weight when I do this and you identify yourself by that, it's going to limit your ability to then really externalize and be like well, actually, do I always make the best choices in?

Speaker 2: 22:03

food and instead of empowering yourself to be like, okay, I am overweight, but that doesn't have to be my life. Where can I start? Maybe I can walk for 30 minutes every day, maybe I don't eat the second slice of cake and it comes from a place of empowerment instead of shame. What happens with guilt and shame and in unhealthy guilt, because there's a process of conviction but is that we start identifying with that and deteriorating our value ourselves. So we start saying I just have no self-control. Instead of saying I have no self-control, say to yourself how can I control myself today? There's a difference. It's still addressing the fact that I need self-control without diminishing myself. I do that to my friends all the time with little things. I've done it to Ellie I'm not that creative. Stop saying that. You know, and she stopped. She stopped. But if you go back a few podcasts you'll see it. She did it.

Speaker 2: 23:00

I was like do not say that you are creative, you're just creative in your own way. But we've written a story in our minds that creativity is being an artist like a painter, or creativity is decorating your house really nice, and some people have decided that's creativity, when creativity is being able to do many things, even the way you put yourself together is creative. The way you decided to wear your hair is creative. The way you decided to set your house. However that looks, it doesn't have to look like a magazine.

Speaker 2: 23:30

That was your creation, right, and if you start seeing things like that, you'll notice how creative you actually are in different ways creative with words, with visuals, um, but that's essentially what we're trying to say, right? Yes, switch the narrative. It doesn't mean you're going to dismiss the things you have to work on. In no way shape or form is dealing with your trauma or being, or self-care means that you live in this bubble in which you're denying the things that need work. No, it's operating from a place of what I can do today is enough because I did something right, and it might just be washing your hair, because sometimes there are seasons when that's the hardest thing you could do is wash your hair, get up out of bed and take a shower, and that's okay if that's what you can do that day.

Speaker 1: 24:19

So as we start, to wrap up just remember trauma is a part of your story, it's not who you are.

Speaker 1: 24:27

It's not your value, it's not your destiny. You don't have to stay there. If you want to hear more about my story, my books are available on my website, eleanorbrowncounselingcom. A Better Way to Heal. A Better Way Integrating Faith and Psychology to Heal Inner Wounds. Check out our other podcast. Uh, check out my shame resources. I write a lot about shame. I have the same quiz. I have a shame workbook. Uh, many of my things are free and some of them just minimal cost, just because I want to make it affordable and just you know so we can continue to print them.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Um, but yes, please go out to our social media and comment, ask questions there. We can base a lot of the episodes on things that you want more detail on. Do you want to understand something that we may have said briefly here and would like for us to expand on a particular topic, a particular process? And maybe you're like, okay, that's great, but how do I overcome this? You just don't know how bad I've had it. Please share, and if you need to do it privately, ms Ellie can private message you and maybe she can set up a consult. I don't know, that's her department, but we can definitely publicly kind of address certain things, point you to scripture, point you to scripture, point you to other counselors in your area and just really kind of like help you understand that this is for wholeness. This is part of God wanting to see you embrace who he created you to be, not who the world has decided you are.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Yeah, absolutely, because there is a better way. Yes, there is. Thank you for watching, bye-bye, bye. Thank you for watching us. 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.