Episode #19: Why It's Important to Find Kindness for the Younger You

 These posts were written beginning in the fall of 2024. However, I am posting them years back so that they are not at the top of my Blog, and if you want to read them, you need to go "find them" :)

In this episode, Jason's father had started to do his own work which then allowed Jason to feel he could look into his own story. Guest speaker, Jason, moved across the country as a young, married parent, and when he did, he found himself in a deep depression. It was his parents and wife that sat down with him and said, "Something is going on. And you can't live this way."

No one sat me down, but my body fell into such a horrible pit that I had no choice but to reach up and say, "Someone please help me!"

This is what I want everyone to know: 

If you are battling depression, there is a reason WHY. There is always a reason WHY. You don't just have depression for the heck of it. It is a signal that something needs to be looked at.

Have you ever sat with people who were willing to look into the face of their pain? Jason did that. His body was telling him there was something BIG inside of him, even though he had no idea that there was even a story to discuss. 

He went into his first session saying, "Okay. I'm here. Let's get this thing fixed TODAY!" But at his meeting, his father was actually there. His father was a leader in this church group and had been doing his own work looking into his past stories. And as he started sharing with his father, and his father said, "I don't remember this, but I believe you," the walls began to come down. 

Jason had gotten to a point that he knew if he didn't SPEAK, none of this would go away. Jason's story parallels my own a lot. The body saying, "You need to talk directly to the people in your life that love you about this," is the beginning.

Many people don't get that response from their parents. But Jason and his Dad began to let walls come down that were so intense for him. In Jason's case, as in mine, it was intense depression that forced his hand. I am not sure I would have ever had the courage to look into my pain if the depression had not forced its way out of me. 

So what if you want to look into your story (and by "story" I mean your "past), but you know your parents can't and won't be able to look into this with you? 

Jason told his group leader after his first 9 week session that he felt more screwed up then that he did when he started. I want everyone to know this! You will feel more screwed up when you start working on this! I wanted so badly to put the emotional sludge back into the box. But I couldn't. It was out! I didn't want to feel this way anymore. 

His leader said, "It sounds like you came to this group with the ground so hard and now there is a crack there in the ground!" 

Yes! That's what it feels like. 

But even if your parent or friend or person who hurt you can't listen, the act of actually speaking it out and have someone bear witness to it, is so healing! You've probably done a ton of work to pretend you don't have this pain. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. 

Once we are grown-ups, we have to start working on having a lot of compassion on the younger version of ourselves. We have to look at them kindly. 

Let me give you an example from my own life so that this makes more sense. About five years ago, I started having arguments with my husband that were on a level I had never experienced before. He and I fought, but rarely, and not usually very intensely. But suddenly we are having these really BIG arguments. 

As my boys became teenagers, the arguments seemed to show up in conversations with them as well. What was this in me?

I realized that the arguments always have to do with me feeling stupid. Always. That's why as my boys were becoming men and they were starting to question me as a mother and a person, the anger was coming out at THEM. They think I am dumb! They think I don't know what I am talking about! Why are they treating me like this? 

For years this argument went on with John and then, as the boys got older, I started seeing it emerging with my boys as well. And I didn't understand it. 

It wasn't until I got into therapy due to the terrible depression and anxiety, that I started seeing those arguments in a different light. I learned about intrinsic memories. Something was causing my body to respond this way? What was it? 

Do you know I still am not sure what causes me to feel that way? I don't feel my parents ever looked at me as if I was stupid. I don't think my teachers did. And in fact, in college, I was the scholar athlete my senior year for my University. Why, deep inside, did I feel stupid? Where does this come from? 

I actually don't know. But now, when that feeling comes up, I try to look at it with curiosity. Instead of not knowing where the feeling of complete rage I am feeling is coming from, I try to look at myself with compassion and curiosity. What is causing that? Why is it happening? What would I say to me if I was my best friend? How would I come alongside Wendi and encourage her? I also try to let my husband help me walk through this? 

Here's the thing. When that feeling emerges in me, almost always in conversation with my husband and sons, my brain will then spiral into ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). I never saw this before, but now I do. I can see them. I can feel them. The thoughts tell me all kind of horrible things about how horrible a person I am, what a failure I am, how messed up my kids will be because of me, and how much better my husband would be without me. Those thoughts have always been there, but now, because of my willingness to look into my own story, I can see what is happening and look at them with a different viewpoint! How powerful!

When these feelings occur, ask yourself, "How old do you feel right now?" And allow people in your life to speak TRUTH in you. "You are not dumb. You know things. You are strong." I can listen to my husband say, "Wendi, you don't have to prove to the boys or to me you aren't dumb." These people are incredibly important in our lives. 

I encourage you to listen to this podcast if you find yourself having rage or frustration or anger come out of you for no reason at all, it is for a reason! Listen to it. Pay attention to it. Jason always say himself as an angry person. Angry. Tough. Strong. But people started speaking into his life saying, "You are also tender, Jason. This can be true also. Both can be true at the same time." 

Our glory will leak out. And then other people see it. And there are some courageous people that will actually name it. And that blesses us and invites us into owning it more fully. We think it doesn't show. But we are image bearers. Thank God we leak it and thank God that people will call us out on it. 

Episode #82: How Your Story is Affecting Your Relationship with Your Children

 These posts were written beginning in December of 2024. However, I am posting them years back so that they are not at the top of my Blog, and if you want to read them, you need to go "find them!" :)

What follows are my notes from this podcast: 82. How Your Story is Affecting Your Relationship with Your Children

What do you do with the moment that you begin to look into your own story and you suddenly realize "Oh Crap. I am hurting my own children." 

This can actually distract you from looking into your own story. You shift and want to work on relationship with them instead of your own wounds. 

This guilt is holy. Some things do need to be addressed. You want to make it right. Your broken heart is evidence of your deep desire to love your children better. 

"The past isn't dead. It's not even past."

Your past experiences in your life are profoundly affecting how you are interacting with your children. 

But have we thought about, neurologically, why we are losing it with our children? Most parenting failures are caused by dis-regulation in the parent.

(Go back and listen to Episode 20 on "Affect regulation" if you want to learn more about dis-regulation.) Who doesn't know the experience of feeling triggered by your child? Yes, even a five-year-old can trigger us. Your child does something and your body goes into a different physiological state. We suddenly aren't being the parent we long to be. But why? 

Because issues from your past are being activated. In other words, you are remembering something from your past. But you don't have the sensation of recall. That's called implicit memory. (Check out Podcast 11 for more on that.)

Suppose when you were a boy or girl, you were not allowed to cry. It was off-limits. And now you have a seven-year-old son who cries often. When ever it drags on longer than you think it should, something in your body begins to change. You get dis-regulated. 

Why? 

Perhaps the fact that you were not allowed to cry when you were a child is playing a role. It's this sense of, "Look, I held it together as a kid. I never cried."

Have you named your own reality? Have you grieved about the particular losses that are bound up within that reality? Without that space for grief, it is very likely that your inability to cry as a child is contributing significantly to your diminished tolerance for your son's crying. 

You must address this part of your story to "fix" this. His crying is connecting you to part of a story that has not become engaged. So you become hyper-aroused. And now, you've taught him that he is not allowed to cry. And so, the process of generational wounding continues. 

What is driving your upset feelings toward your son? You are yelling at your son because you are trying to get your dis-regulation to stop! When we are dis-regulated, we will do whatever it takes to get regulated again. You want to be more comfortable in your own body. 

Your parenting failures are often bound up in your story. That means you must engage your story in order to improve in your own parenting of your children -- whatever age that they are. 

Is there a linkage in your parental failures and unaddressed part of your story? Be curious about that. 

It can be very hard to see the way your parents harmed you AND the way you are harming your children at the same time. It's like you are being squeezed from both sides. It can therefore become easy to get distracted by your own story work to deal with how you are treating your kids. 

So .... how do you respond when you realize you are hurting your children?

The single most important thing you can do is ADDRESS YOUR OWN STORY in your family of origin growing up. (This is actually data not opinion!)

"The best predictor of how our children will become attached to us, that is how emotionally healthy they are, is how well we as parents have come to make sense of our lives. How well we tell a coherent story of our early life experiences." -- Dan Siegel

A great book about this is Parenting from the Inside Out by Dan Siegel.

If you want to be a better parent, there are two things to do: 

1. Focus on yourself as a CHILD. Do the reflective work to make sense of your own story when you were growing up and when you were a child. In some ways, you need to parent yourself as a child in order to be a better parent to your child -- even if they are an adult now!

Become curious about when you get dis-regulated with your children. Rather than being furious at yourself for losing it with your kids or grandkids, be curious WHY DO I GET DIS-REGULATED WHEN MY GRANDKID DOES ______." Your dis-regulation is about YOUR STORY not their behavior. (Even if their behavior is atrocious!)

2. The second thing you need to do is make sure your children feels FELT. When your child has big emotions, they need you to join them in those feelings. They need to know that you are attuned to what they are feeling on the inside. You join with them through the sharing of non-verbal communication!

When you realize your child is feeling sad because he wanted to play with his older brother and his older brother didn't play with him, your mind has the ability to feel that sadness and disappointment inside YOUR body. That is empathy. You can put yourself in your child's shoes. Let your mind attune to your child's facial expressions and tone of voice. Your son will know that you are feeling something of what he is feeling. He will feel joined by you and feel felt. This is REGULATION for your child and the main ingredient in SECURE ATTACHMENT. 

"Moments of joining, enable a child to feel felt. To feel that he or she exists within the mind of the parent. When children experience an attuned connection from a responsive, empathetic adult, they feel good about themselves because their emotions have been given resonance and reflection." -- Dan Siegel

Your child MOST needs emotional connection to you. 

Your child was created in the image of a triune God. A "we" and not an "I". Therefore, your child's deepest need is connection -- feeling joined -- feeling felt. 

And if you are listening to this and you feel like you do not emotionally connect with your child, START NOW. All harm can be repaired! 

Integration: means linking of separating parts is what brings healing.This brings Shalom. 

"The key to staying in connection with your child during times of discipline is to align yourself with your child's emotional state" -- Dan Siegel

Your child is throwing a fit wanting ice cream before dinner. You don't have to give them the ice cream in order to let her feel felt. You can empathize with your child's want to have ice cream without giving them the ice cream. Once you feel something of those feelings inside your own body, you might find yourself saying, "Oh! I know you want ice cream right now and that would be yummy, but you can't have any right now. Maybe later."

The magic of that statement is in the non-verbal communication. Your facial expression and your tone of voice let the child know you are feeling something of their disappointment and unmet longing.

Adam's son told his dad he didn't think his dad was noticing that he was working hard to learn to calm himself down. You can say to your child, "I am so sorry I have not noticed you when you are trying to behave correctly." They will feel loved when they hear you just say, "I am heartbroken I have not noticed you trying to calm yourself down." Notice that this story starts with Adam's failure as a parent and ends with the son feeling loved. 

Every parenting failure can become the opportunity for a parenting success if you are willing to do the work of repair. 

The second part of this two-parter will be entirely focused on how to repair!

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The Place We Find Ourselves: Hearing from God

To listen to this episode in its entirety click here. 

 "People are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to." -- Dallas Willard

Think about Enoch! God in the garden with Adam and Eve! Moses! These are examples of the normal human life God intended for us. These moments are not meant to be exceptional. They are meant to be normal! Mannnnn, haven't we all thought that those were for exceptional people only? 

But let's look at what God actually did:

1. God created words. God created ears. 

2. God created the idea of a relationship and you talk to a friend and your friend talks back and you grow in intimacy with each other.  

3. We somehow think that the God who created words, ears, and relationships, would speak to us on a regular basis. 

The whole point of the resurrection is UNION!

 "Union with God consists chiefly in a conversational relationship with God, while we are consistently and deeply engaged as his friend and co-laborer in the affairs of the kingdoms of the heavens. God has created us for intimate friendship with himself." -- Dallas Willard

We need conversation! Our memories of our earthly father isn't memories of lectures. We need conversation. We need relationship. We need connection. 

OBSTACLES IN HEARING FROM GOD INCLUDE: 

1. One of the reasons that hearing from God is so fraught for many of us, is it because when we make movement toward listening, it connects us immediately to our longing to hear from our father or to hear from our mother when we were growing up. Have you come to terms with how deeply you longed to hear one or both of your parents to speak into your heart -- good and strong words. If we let ourselves hear our longing to hear God's voice, we will feel the longing we had to hear that connection with our parent. 

2. "The problem is not that Jesus isn't speaking or even that you aren't hearing, it's that you don't believe you are hearing." We don't believe that we are hearing from God. We immediately dismiss the words as our own voice. Are you thinking that if you hear from God you will automatically know it is HIS voice? Hearing from God is something that you learn, over time, by experience. Just like anything else in life. Being uncertain doesn't mean you haven't heard. 

3. Some of us don't feel the freedom to be in his presence. If you didn't develop a secure attachment to your parents, it can be hard for you to feel securely attached to your God.

4. We are not attuned to the gentle stillness of God's voice. In 1 Kings 19, God's voice is heard. It says that God was not in the earthquake or fire but he was in the still, small voice. The translation might just as well read, a gentle whispering. Messages from God are actually supposed to subtle. 

SO WHAT DO YOU DO IF IT IS HARD TO HEAR FROM GOD? 

1. Be curious as to why that is. Give yourself grace. 

2. Take seriously Jesus' words that you are in HIM and his spirit is IN you.

3. Start small. Ask simple questions. And wait and see what wells up in your heart in the next few minutes.

4. Be patient as you learn.

I am a HUGE fan of this podcast. If what I am writing is ministering to you, I encourage you to support THE PLACE WE FIND OURSELVES. He does NOT do advertising. He simply has people support the podcast.

Episode #11: Implicit Memory: The Thing That is Running Your Life

 

I am going to be taking notes on and sharing about a podcast that is simply transforming my life. It is called The Place We Find Ourselves. 

I have done this previously, but I am going to start compiling all of these similar posts. You will be able to find these posts at this link: My Blog: Mental Health. The screen shot above shows WHERE this is on my Blog. Anytime you want, you can click there and see the most recent Podcast I took notes on.

I strongly encourage you to listen to the episodes I link to. However, if you don't, my notes can help guide you. 

Also, I will try to note when a particular episode talks about something that might be hard to hear. (Sexual abuse for example.) Today's episode has NOTHING in it that should cause you discomfort and it is entitled:  Implicit Memory: The Thing That is Running Your Life

Daniel Siegel (neuroscientist) says: "The brain is an anticipation machine that shapes ongoing perception by what it automatically expects based on prior experience." The brain's job is to anticipate whatever is going to come next.

Memory is the way in which a past experience effects how the mind will function in the future. 

A memory is not a thing. There are no storage folders. There are no bins.

Implicit memory RUNS YOUR LIFE. Explicit memories are the actual events that are stored in your mind. Around 18 months of age, our body can start to store these memories. Implicit memory is operational before you come out of the womb. Here are two key takeaway notes from this episode:

1. Everything you learn in the first 18 months of life is recorded in implicit not explicit memory. You have to be paying attention to record something in explicit memory. You do not have to be paying attention for implicit memory to be stored. For example, there is a true story of a man who could not store explicit memories. But he was taught how to braid. He couldn't remember that he had learned this, but he was able to braid without realizing it because his implicit memory was fully operational. 

2. When you recall an implicit memory, you do not have a sensation that you are remembering something. So when an implicit memory pops up, it feels like the memory is happening in the present. Let's say you are walking in the park and a dog comes flying at you and you are very scared. You have no memory of being attacked by a dog when you were five. But your body remembers that attack. Implicit memory tells you how the world works and what you can expect from the world. Implicit memory is about the feel of things. 

If the only paintings you saw during your entire life were Monet and you never saw another painting, you would believe that this was what paintings looked like. You wouldn't think this is what Monet looked like. This is what happens with your understanding of relationships. Your brain summarizes all of your experiences of relating to your mother and father and instead of thinking "This is what a relationship with my MOM is like or my DAD is like", you think, "This is what relationships are like." So when we set out into the world, we carry those implicit memories with us and those memories tell us what to expect around every single corner. 

The issue is: the relationship with your parents wields a disproportionately strong influence on your implicit memories because they are the two people that have been there from the very beginning. We continue to store implicit memories throughout our life, however, experiences in adulthood have a much weaker influences on the brain. Childhood brains create the foundation of our brain because that is when the brain is growing and developing.

"What's crucial to understand about implicit memory is that implicit memory cause us to form expectations about the way the world works based on our previous experiences. Implicit memories creates something called priming in which the brain readies itself to respond in a certain way."

Do you ever feel intense emotion that you can tell that is more than the situation calls for? They seem to be overreactions or you've been told you are overreacting. But you have no sensation of recall. You are not aware that you are remembering something. In other words, it is not that you are too sensitive or you are a drama queen. You simply have a brain with a treasure-trove of implicit memories. So when you are making a mountain out of a mole hole. As far as your neurons are concerned, in your brain, it is a mountain.

The sensations in your body always tell the truth. They never lie! Pay attention to when you experience a shift in your body. That is telling you that implicit memory has just been expected. When do you find yourself shutting down or going numb or getting panicky or fearful. Situations that evoke strong emotion responses in us, make implicit memory known!

Condemnation says, "What's wrong with me? Why did I react like that?"

Curiosity says, "Wow! That was a big reaction. I wonder what implicit memory is behind that?"

Implicit memory is the reason that you have had such a hard time TELLING YOURSELF TRUTHS that don't seem to make their way into your "heart."

How do you change implicit memories then? You change it through EXPERIENCES. 

For example, if a man is riding a bicycle that operates backward (turning left makes wheel goes right and vice versa), it took a scientist three weeks to train his brain to do it backwards. Even though the man knew what he had to do, his body was so trained that it was really impossible to do without a LOT of practice.

Episode #12: Trusting Your Gut

Why Trauma Makes It Hard to Trust Your Gut with Janet

 

Around the 41 minute mark, Janet says the following, and it really jumped out at me. Here are some of the parts that really ministered to me as I listened to this particular podcast.

To look at a relationship or a friendship, it takes more work to trust and believe that I have something of worth and value in the relationship. So I will endure suffering for the littlest bit of connection. I am finally giving myself permission to engage in friendships simply for the joy in delighting in someone else and allowing them to delight in me. I now believe that's possible. I believe that's good. To not feel this obligation to measure my worth and value in what I bring in order for them to be enough for them to consider I am worth having as a friend. We don't consciously reenact our past. But some part of us chooses that in the hopes that we will come up with a different world. Do I want to keep ignoring what I know to be true and approach relationships from a position of less than or shame or am I committed to mutual delight and trust. It feels really vulnerable.

For me, it has always been much easier to rage at myself. The inner critic in me is loud with a lot of accusation. Surely this is my fault. This is because of who I am. Any betrayal means: I shouldn't expect any better. The voice will say "So you knew the truth and yet the same thing is happening. So why are you here again? And having tremendous contempt for being here again." The self-contempt for me in those mornings protects me from seeing the horror of the betrayal.

The core dilemmas of our growing up years become re-enacted over and over again in the stories of our adult lives.  Ultimately that drama forces us to deal with God in very close quarters -- if we decide to let it. "Really, God? We are here again?!" And Jesus is saying, "Yes, we are here again. Because this is your chance for you to experience something redemptive.

God is very committed to healing and maturing us, growing us up. Making us more solid versions of ourselves. Solid. Grounded. Stable. 

Needing love is fundamental to who we are. Believing that we are worthy of that is extremely important.