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.