Episode #27: Will you join me on the floor?

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!" :)

I recently stumbled upon an interview with KJ Ramsey which lead me to an article she had written entitled: "The Education I never signed up for".

"Sickness has an inelegant way of reversing relationships, and where I had previously played the role of comforter, I found myself learning the harder role of recipient." KJ Ramsey

This

was 

me. 

Two different times in my life, I have found myself crumpled on the floor of life, unable to function. My pain was in no way comparable to what KJ Ramsey suffers from with an autoimmune disorder called Ankylosing Spondylitis. But the pain was ... incredibly ... painful.

Both times that I encountered this horrific suffering, I've ended up in a position similar to KJ, however, in my cases, my suffering offered an ending. I was hopeful, in both instances, that it would not continue forever. KJ was not. Her suffering, most likely, will never end. That is incomprehensible to me. But it also indicates to me that if I am going to learn from someone, this is the person to learn from.

The first time my suffering brought me to my knees was when I was pregnant with the Pomegranate. My third pregnancy and fourth child, I had never had easy pregnancies, but this one was on a completely different level. I found myself nauseous nearly every minute of the day for the entirety of the pregnancy. Even worse: I couldn't throw up. No relief. Just dry-heaving. Nothing helped. I had to use medicine to sleep. And shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I began having panic attacks and then depression settled in. In the midst of it, I became nearly suicidal and truly did not know how I could endure nine months of this.

"In my life of daily pain, my body carries the inheritance of the education I never would have signed up for but have so desperately needed."

I was confident that when I delivered, the suffering would end. But my previous two pregnancies had included horrific bouts of post-partum depression. Would I trade in one set of suffering for another? Thank God that I did not. The moment she was delivered, everything left. The depression. The anxiety. The sickness. It was over. 

This past February, a new level of suffering settled upon me. I found myself the recipient of, well, I suppose the old-fashioned word is a nervous break down. Maybe mental breakdown. I fell apart. I couldn't function. It started with anxiety. That was bad. But then as that dissipated, the depression that came upon was like nothing I had ever experienced in my previous fleeting bouts of depression or in the PPD I had encountered with my first two pregnancies.

I found myself, literally, on the floor of my closet many times. Absolutely unable to get up. I remember one day, specifically, that I needed to get out and do sheep paddock. The sheep had to move. I had to get up. And it took me a solid two hours to get myself out to the paddock. Thinking back to it now, I can't even explain that level of pain. Of suffering. It was horrific. 

KJ talks of a similar experience. In the beginning of her illness, she would be unable to sleep from the pain, and eventually would end up on her floor, crying. One of her suitemates would often find her in this position. KJ says that, "Instead of turning the other way or quipping how early she had to get up for an exam, she would join me on the floor, massaging my aching hands as I sobbed into her chest."

"She would join me on the floor ..."

I love that statement. I love that statement for what it tells me to do for others and what it tells me that I need to do for others. 

I had people that joined me on the floor.

And truly, that is what this post is about. This is about the willingness to join people in their suffering. Oh we need community! Oh we need to let that community support us!

"Receiving other's care means you're exposed And it means you might be hurt. It takes courage to let people see you in this position. It takes courage to receive their care."

We need to make the linkage between physical and emotional pain. Many people don't suffer from the physical pain KJ does, but many of us will face the emotional pain that hits this level. 

We all have weakness. But most of us try to hide it. This is often subconscious because most of us are running around scared, hiding how weak we really are. "We try to project that we are strong and that others need us. That feels safe to our souls and our bodies," KJ says, "but when weakness rears its head, when depression strikes, when anxiety makes you feel like you are going to crumble, when your body fails you ... you are faced with a level of weakness that you can't ignore. You can't run away from your weakness anymore and you have to let it be by someone." 

And it is perhaps one of the scariest scenarios we can imagine.

When I collapsed in February, I had to admit I couldn't function. I had to allow people to bring me meals. I had to let people take care of me. I couldn't help anyone. In fact one day I remember laying on the floor of my closet and realizing that I couldn't help anyone. I couldn't help my kids. I couldn't help my husband. I couldn't be there a single person. I could barely take care of myself. 

The portion of the brain that registers physical pain is identical to the portion of the brain that registers emotional pain. My emotional pain is no less intense than when I break my arm. Society will reject emotional pain as real. But your pain matters! Your emotional pain matters! Sickness (mental and physical) forces us to be vulnerable which forces us to need other people.

"I was ashamed of my vast needs even as I realized I truly was inadequate to meet them on my own."

But even if our needs aren't vast, human beings tend to be ashamed of our needs. There is an essential struggle in every human heart to be more than God ever intended that we would be. Do we think we are supposed to be God? 

We are frail. 

We are needy. 

And what we need sometimes it ... another person's care. 

Will you risk receiving care from another?

One of the hardest things, especially during this horrific six months of depression was to be completely vulnerable and let people help me. I had to turn to my in-laws, my husband, and a few key friends and allow them to carry me. I said yes to people bringing me meals. I had to admit that I was completely incapable of taking care of myself and especially not my children. 

There is something about being joined by another on our floors that is holy. It is holy because it is Jesus. He joined us on the floor of this earth. When someone is willing to join us on the floor, we experience the core of the trinity.

When someone is willing to join us on the floor, we experience the core of the trinity. Jesus. Me. And someone else. 

Infants, instinctually reach both hands up looking for care. But grown people are weighed down by their grief coupled with the care that they haven't received. They often have a belief that no one will care for them. Faith looks like being little children who reach out for care in the needs they cannot meet on their own. Faith is the belief that making that choice will provide for us something that our soul critically needs to be whole.

When we reach out and those needs aren't responded to properly, that can hurt on multiple levels. "It triggers our core wounds of the way we were not adequately received in our family of origins and by important people in our lives. It reinforces this belief that we really are misunderstood and alone." 

But the belief that we are not understood and we are alone is actually a lie. Because Jesus bore that scorn on the cross. We are part of a bigger story where God himself took on a frail body and had to feel our pain. That than changes how lonely we have to be when people don't respond to us. When someone minimizes our pain, we can remember that Jesus remembers our pain. And that can help us regain strength so we can try again. 

My suffering has resulted in a newfound intimacy with Jesus. And every believer can experience this.

KJ's second article is entitled: "God Made Our Brains To Need Others."

In the exposure of learning to receive love in my most broken places, I have found the deepest joy. 

We can allow people to respond to our pain even if they don't respond properly.

When I first came up upon this horrific beast of depression which gripped my in March of this year, my cousin Cara offered to sit with me in my pain. She fully committed. (And I've realized that full commitment is also really important. I couldn't afford for her to abandon me in the midst of my depression. I didn't realize that. But she did. So her saying "I'm in" meant she was in for the long haul. Daily texts. For what could be a year. Years. 

Cara told me she'd be there every day. She texted me EVERY SINGLE MORNING. She encouraged me. She'd call and listen to me cry. She spent hours on the phone with me. Her presence became a balm to my incredibly depressed soul. 

She stood next to me when I started therapy. She listened when I started revealing incredibly painful things about my past. She was kind. She was understanding. She looked at me in my pain and attuned with me. That's what we truly need. Someone who can look into our pain and say, "I see you. I see your pain. And that pain would hurt. I see that it would be painful. I'm sorry it happened."

I remember the first time she offered to let me chat on the phone. Cara and I weren't especially close, and I wasn't a phone talker. And when she suggested it, my bodily instinctively said I would never do that. I knew I would never call her. 

But she called me.

And I answered. 

And I sobbed. 

Not just cried. Sobbed. Deep, awful, horrific crying. Painful. To the depths of my soul.

And she just listened to me cry. 

Many times.

She laid with me on the floor. 

Cara knew something in that moment that I had not come to understand yet. We need people with us in our suffering. I didn't understand that. I couldn't imagine suffering with people. I wanted to suffer by myself. In my closet. By myself. I didn't see how integral community was to my pain. 

Pain demands a witness. 

I had no idea. But through this season of pain, I came to understand how much I needed her. And how much we need each other as people. It is crucial to our healing journey to do this journey with people. 

This post is two-parted. In other words, it has two goals. The first is to encourage you to allow people to lay on the floor with you. LET THEM. 

And the second is, be willing to lay on the floor with someone. This means not fixing it. This means just saying, "This sucks. But let me be here with you."

I feel like this post could go on forever and ever and ever. God is doing such amazing things in our community. So many women finding the same pain and looking it in the face and needing community. I have so much to share. 

Tune in!

Episode #56: Affect Regulation: A Mindfulness Practice (The Wheel of Awareness)

 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" :)

To listen to this complete episode, click here: Affect Regulation: How Mindfulness Can Help Integrate Your Brain

Trauma impairs integrative functioning in the brain. 

Neuroscience has demonstrated is that when you are a kid and you experience trauma or abuse is that your brain's natural process of integrating gets blocked. When you experience these things, the neurons in certain regions of your brain, are prevented from linking up with the neurons in other places in your brain. Integration refers to the connection between neurons. Trauma impairs integration in the brain. In other words, the various regions of your brain do not make enough neural connections with one another. 

When neurons are well-connected, your brain is more stable. And when you hear the word "stable" you should be thinking about affect regulation (go back to podcast episode #20 if this isn't familiar to you.) You know what it is like when you get unstable emotionally. It happens to varying degrees everyday for most of us. Affect disregulation happens when your brain is not well integrated. 

The brain is a complex system. These systems are most stable when their component parts are (a) differentiated and (b) linked. Your brain has 100 billion neurons. One neuron is connected to between 1 and 10,000 other neurons. This means there are billions and billions of connections in your brain. When you are disregulated, the neurons are not sufficiently connected! However, there is something you can do to promote integration in your brain. You are not bound by your brain's present level of integration. 

Today, we are going to discuss an exercise you can do to promote integration in your brain. When the brain heals, it becomes more integrated, and when it becomes more integrated, it heals. The Biblical term for this is the word Shalom. This refers to the webbing together of differentiated parts in a way that brings stebility, harmony, and peace. 

Dan Siegel wrote a book called Aware. In his book he uses the WHEEL OF AWARENESS. 

What does the word mindfulness actually mean? This means to paying attention on purpose to the present moment and doing this without judgment. For example: if you are doing a breathing exercise, and you get distracted, can you just come back without judging yourself for wandering? 

Mindful practices matter because they change the linkages between neurons in your brain. Repeated experience is why your brain acts the way it does right now. Aside from genes you were born of, everything is a function of the experiences you have had in life. Connections grow stronger by repeating the same thing repeatedly. What is practiced repeatedly, strengthens brain firing patters. With repetition, neural structure is literally altered. And if you do this each day, a state becomes a trait. 

The hipposcampus will actually GROW with practice and the amygdalia will SHRINK. Like for real!

 

Here is the WHEEL OF AWARENESS. 

1. The hub of the wheel -- this represents the knowing of being consciously aware of the knowns on the rim.

2. The rim of the wheel -- this represents all the knowns of life. Also includes your sense of relationship connectedness to other people. 

    A. Five senses -- what we we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch

    B. Sixth senses -- interior of the body

    C. Seventh senses -- the mental sea inside of us. 

    D. Eighth senses -- the relationships we have with other people (interconnectedness)

3. The spoke of the wheel -- the spoke represents attention. This extends out from the hub and survey the various knowns on the rim. 

At this point, you need to lay down somewhere calm and click on this link below. Don't think this is crazy. Just do it! Here is the link. It is 17 minutes long so give yourself time to do this.

Here is a recording for you to work through this mindfulness exercise yourself.  

Research has shown that mindfulness exercises: 

1. Increased growth in the prefrontal areas of the brain (which are largely responsible for regulating your affect) 

2. Increased growth in the corpus callosum which integrate your right and lefts sides of your brain

3. Increased growth in the hippocampus which deeply affects implicit memory (which I have spoken about before on my Blog.)

Here is a link to more information about this particular episode. You need to try to do this everyday. Add it to your morning devotions before you get up everyday.

Episode #57 How to know if you have Experienced Trauma

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!" :)

How to know if you have Experienced Trauma

I honestly think there are many people who do not believe they have experienced trauma. However, it is quite possible you've experienced more trauma than you realize. Today I am breaking down another episode of the amazing podcast: The Place We Find Ourselves.

What follows are my notes from listening to the podcast. However, I encourage you to listen to it yourself! These are SO eye-opening. I personally believe nearly every human has endured at least some aspect of trauma. You may have handled it well and not need help. But chances are you, or someone you know, is greatly damaged by it, and you understanding what it is could be greatly helpful. 

What is Trauma?

Trauma comes from the Greek word WOUND and it changes the physical structure of your mind and body. 

In order to experience trauma you must have: 

1. A feeling of helplessness combined with

2. Abandonment by those who could have helped but didn't. 

The event itself is not what determines whether something is absolutely traumatizing. Trauma does not reside in the event proper. Trauma involves not being able to use your body or voice to make the bad thing stop happening. This is followed by the realization that you are utterly alone and there is no one that you can run to or talk to and be there for you and understand you and help you process what happened. You may look back and not even realize these emotions exist. 

Trauma introduces a pair of agonies into your heart. It says: "I can't say or do anything to make this awful thing to stop happening. And the people who are supposed to be protecting me aren't there to engage with me and protect me and protect my devastated heart."

You are alone. 

What DID you need as a child?

So what DID you need a child? Well, this is another episode entirely but Polyvagal Theory is a big thing that can give you a lot of information on this topic. 

All kids need their BIG SIX needs met by their parents (Visit Episode 2 for more information about the BIG SIX.)

1. Be attuned to them. 

2. Be emotionally responsive to them. 

3. Engage their hearts

4. Be willing and able to regulate their affect

5. The parents need to be strong enough to handle child's negative emotions

6. The parents need to be willing to repair when they harm their child

If there is a poverty of any of these things, the brain does not develop properly. 

For example, think about some abuse that may have happened in your life. When you ask the question: "Who did you talk to first about it?" If your answer is that you didn't go to anyone -- that indicates a problem. Abuse victims often couldn't go and ask either parent. 

You will probably be tempted to think "that wasn't my parents' fault. I withdrew from them and didn't tell them." But you are wrong. The most basic human instinct is to run home and tell your parent when something bad happens to you. If you did not run home and tell your parents when something bad happened, there is a very good reason for that. 

Individuals who were present for 9-11 and went home and properly digested with their family, did better than those who did not. This is why trauma at home is the worst kind of trauma. It is developmental trauma. 

Symptoms Do Not Lie

Symptoms don't lie. If you have the symptoms of trauma, you probably have trauma even if you can't remember it. Here are three of the common symptoms of someone who has had trauma in their past? 

1. Problems with affect regulation. Do you get disregulated often and have a hard trouble bringing your body back to.a place of comfort and rest. (Episode #20) "The byproduct of trauma is an unregulated body experience, an uncontrollable cascade of strong emotions and physical sensations. Truamatized people frequently experience themselves at being at the mercy of their sensations as well as their emotions, having lost the capacity to effectively regulate these emotions." People will either fall into (a) panic, terror, rage (b) shame or hopeless despair. Do you feel anger bigger than the circumstance warrants? Do you have disproportionate fear or anxiety that just feels bigger than it should be given the situation? 

2. Problems with interpersonal regulation. Developmental trauma results in insecure attachment.(Visit Episode 5 and Episode 7 for more information on attachment). This can even be that you do NOT have difficulty with people because you avoid that difficulty at all costs. OR there is tons of debris in past relationships. The mark of a healthy relationship is the degree to which the two people can navigate conflict. How does the relationship do after there is relationship rupture? If you have trouble with #2 there is a history of broken relationships or there is never any issues because you have avoided them. When you are deregulated (Symptom #1) it is hard to stay connected to another person (Symptom #2). Disregulation makes us either super clingy because we need the other person to regulate us or it makes us isolate from others so we can self-regulate. Healthy relationships allow you to remain as an individual. But when you are insecurely attached, it is difficult to stay connect to and differentiated from another person especially if there is conflict between the two of you.

3. Problems receiving kindness, care, and comfort. Difficult receiving kindness from others and especially hard giving yourself kindness. (Check next episode 58 for more information about your posture toward yourself in trauma). You will tend to long for kindness from others but at the same time you are suspicious of this kindness or you will feel this nervousness and discomfort about it. Is it hard for you to receive compliments? If it is hard for you to receive offers for kindness and care for others? People with a history of trauma, they have a MASSIVE WAR with being kind to themselves. When you are struggling, what posture do you have toward your heart or body? Or do you tend to push through or endure or push yourself harder or beat yourself up? Is it difficult for you to be kind toward your own body? 

Some of you may be opening to the possibility that you experienced more trauma than you realized. It is very common to get derailed by minimizing your story. "I feel like what you are calling my trauma is relatively small. I'm not starving. I wasn't beaten every night. Those are the kids who have trauma." 

There are people who have experienced more severe trauma than you. Does that mean your trauma is not worthy of engagement? Does a broken arm hurt any less because it is not the worst pain you could be in? 

Episode #109: Anxiety: What It Is and How to Repsond to it

 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" :)

 

 

INTRODUCTION

This is episode 109 on The Place We Find Ourselves podcast: Anxiety: What it Is and How to Respond to it. I encourage you to listen to the episode for yourself. If you EVER battle anxiety, this will help you understand WHY.

Oh, how I wish someone would have explained this to me when I was younger and my anxiety started popping up. I wish they wouldn't have just given me medication and instead would have said, "There is a reason you are feeling this. Let's find out WHY!"

WHERE DOES ANXIETY COME FROM?

 "Fear is an emotional reaction in the presence of genuine or perceived danger in the environment. Anxiety is what you feel when you are avoiding important emotions." 

Anxiety is what you feel when you push down core emotions like grief, sadness, anger. 

If you are feeling something that feels like fear but you are not in any danger in the moment, than you are most likely experiencing anxiety. 

Our experience of anxiety is often linked to early experiences of emotions. Suppose you were sad a lot as an eight-year-old boy and your Dad got frustrated with you or didn't listen to you. The little boy learns to push the sadness down and suppress it and avoid it. As a result, the sadness will not be able to flow through his body. Little boy can't deal with the sadness. And in time, this boy will begin to feel anxiety whenever sadness bubbles up. 

Please note: Everyone has this in their childhood. EVERYONE has some sort of trauma from their childhood. Much of it was not intentional. Some of it just happened. It could have happened from an innocuous comment someone made one time. This is not about blaming the people in your past. This is about naming what happened so you can heal from it.

Why does this little boy feel anxiety?

This boy's brain has paired sadness with: Dad withdraws or Dad gets upset with me. Also, he begins to accumulate a reservoir of "unfelt" sadness. He should have been able to process through this sadness, but now, as an adult, he is overwhelmed by the cumulative "unfelt" sadness that is in his body. Now, when he feels all that "unfelt" sadness inside his heart, he feels anxious. 

Many children may be taught that if they feel fear or anger, they are bad.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Ponder a few questions for me: 

1. When you felt fear or sorrow as a kid, were those emotions welcomed by your caregivers? 

2. Did your parents sit with you in your fear or sorrow and help you process through it? 

3. Did you somehow get the message that your fear or sorrow was bad or weak or simply, unwelcome? 

4. What about anger? Was that anger welcomed by your parents? 

5. Did your parents make space for your anger? 

6. Did they hear you out and let you express that anger? 

7. Was there room in your home for your anger?

The avoidance of his sadness is not this little boy's fault. And as he grows up, he is not making a conscious decision to avoid this sadness. But if the parent can't tolerate the sadness, avoiding sadness is the little boy's only option. He has learned to do this subconsciously. And it worked for him. Until it no longer worked anymore. 

THE PROBLEM WITH A CHRISTIAN'S EMOTIONS

Here's another BIG one that may have come into your home ... accidentally ... and this one is very common with Christians.

Feeling sadness, grief, or anger can also conflict with other beliefs that are important to us. As a Christian, what should be your response when you feel one of these emotions? For many Christians, feeling sadness conflicts with their beliefs about what they should be feeling. They should be "rejoicing in the Lord always." Or what about fear? We are taught that we should be strong and courageous and trusting in God and not fearful. Feeling anger does the same. They aren't supposed to let the sun goes down on their anger. 

As a result, when these emotions bubble up, you shove them into the basement of your heart because you feel like they are ungodly things to feel. And that shoving LEADS TO ANXIETY.

Anxiety is caused by avoiding feelings that your body is TRYING and NEEDS to express. If you are angry because you have been wronged by someone and you shove that anger down because the good, Christian thing to do is not get angry ... you will eventually experience anxiety. Your emotions don't go away because you ignore them. 

What happens when you start to feel anxiety? Very often we respond the same way we responded to our sadness, grief, and anger. Instead, we feel guilty for feeling the anxiety. I say, "Wendi, you aren't supposed to be anxious. The Bible says not to feel anxious about anything. Stop this. Just trust God." 

Here's the problem with that. 

You are attempting to push your real feelings down. But remember! That's what causes anxiety in the first place. The Bible is far more complex than we want to acknowledge. It cannot be reduced to a single sentence. This means, yes, Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything. But, two chapters earlier, Paul talks about his own anxiety when he discusses having to send his friend back to a previous church saying," ... that I may have less anxiety." Paul felt fear! He says, "For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within."

He was afraid. For many Christians, anxiety is caused by not expressing the anger that is inside you. Christian men can have a little anger. But Christian women aren't permitted anger at all. 

THE LINK TO YOUR STORY

Anxiety is almost always linked to "your story" which is your past .... the story of your past. Are you anxious about your child being ostracized? Others finances. Others work. Why are some people anxious about one thing and someone else is anxious about something else? There is a reason that you are anxious about the things you are anxious about. And that reason is rooted in your story. 

Anxiety needs to become a prompt for you to be curious about your story. Especially your story from -18 in your family of origin. Your anxiety is almost always connecting you to unfelt emotions from your past. Especially those that you experienced in your 0-18 years and that you weren't given space to feel. Anxiety is a light on the dashboard of your heart that says something isn't right with your emotions inside. You have unfelt emotions in your engine that need tending to and needs your attention. It wants your attention!

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE FEELING IS ANXIETY?

How do you know you are feeling anxious. If you experience any of the following, you may be feeling anxiety:

• increased heart rate
• sweating
• dizziness
• chest pain
  
• shortness of breath
• muscle pain
• tension 
• tightnesss (especially in the head or neck or face)
• felt sense of nervousness or restlessness in your torso
• or a sense of doom in your throat or chest

There are lots of other things that can cause the bodily sensations above. But, if you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms, it might be your body's way of saying you are anxious. 

We need to be familiar with our body and inparticular, the sensations in our body. Emotions are FIRST bodily sensations. If you arne't familiar with the sensations in your body, then you can't name what you are feeling and you can't engage it well. 

DYSREGULATION

When most people say, "I am feeling anxious," what they are confessing is that their body is in a state of DISREGULATION. 

Affect is the felt sense of what is happening inside your body. It refers to your inner emotional and bodily experience. Affect exists on a spectrum.

If you are in a restaurant and a man holds up a gun, most people will get dysregulated. But what about if you get dysregulated but something very different like just someone not liking them. If you have a history of trauma, you will get dysregulated more often than other people AND you will also have a much harder time getting regulated again. 

Not everyone's brain has the same ability to self-regulate. 

HAVING CURIOSITY & KINDNESS

So, what do you do about all this? What do you DO when you are dysregaulated. The TWO most important words as you begin engaging your anxiety are: 

CURIOSITY: Will I be curious about what this anxiety might be telling me?

KINDNESS: What would it look like to be kind to my body right now?

What do you think God wants for your body when your body is suffering with high levels of cortisol. And sustained levels of cortisol are not good for the body or the brain. When you are feeling anxious, YOU ARE SUFFERING! I think God wants: 

1. You to experience the comfort that kindness brings, and in time ...

2. God wants you to take your body seriously and wants you to think about what your body is feeling and why. 

So next time you feel anxious, do the following: 

1. BE AWARE! Notice the anxiety. Notice where in your body you are feeling the anxiety. Where is it? Tune into it. Just notice it. 

2. ASK YOURSELF: WHAT WOULD KINDNESS TO MY BODY LOOK LIKE RIGHT NOW? Part of kindness is doing some things that bring regulation back to your body. Pressing your feet into the ground and mindfully taking some deep breaths. You can approach with:

• Top-Down approach: Use your thinking brain to calm your anxiety -- self talk to try to calm your anxiety. You know this often doesn't work very well. This is because top-down doesn't usually work nearly as well. 
• Bottom-Up approach: Uses your brain stem to calm your limbic system. Breathing. Slowing your breathing. After you have breathed a little, you can ask yourself what else would bring you a deeper sense of calm. Music? Smells? A bath? You have to find out what those things are that soothe your body. 

3. WHAT EMOTIONS MIGHT I BE PUSHING DOWN OR SUPPRESSING? WHAT MIGHT MY ANXIETY BE TRYING TO TELL ME? Be curious about what your anxiety might be protecting you from feeling? Are you sad? Are you angry? Do you feel grief? 

THE GOAL: LET THE EMOTIONS FLOW

The goal is to let your emotions flow. The goal is to experience and express the emotions that are underneath the anxiety. The unfelt and avoided emotions. If your emotions are a river, you want your emotions to flow, freely down the river. You want to express is fully and feel it freely. 

When rivers can't flow freely, bad things happen .... like FLOODS. It is the same thing with emotions. So, if you are sad about something in the present today, you need to let your body feel that sadness and express that sadness because it MATTERS. 

If you have unfelt sadness from your past, you must let your body feel that sadness and express it. You must bear witness to the suffering you endured as a child (which we have ALL felt!) There is a part of us that needs to pay attention to this and take it seriously. There might be an angry part of you from middle school that needs to have some space and take that anger seriously. 

WE NEED COMMUNITY!

It is especially helpful if you can do this with one or two other people. We are designed to let this happen in community, with others. Many cultures have communal rituals for the expression of sorrow and rage. You need at least one person there to bear witness to your expression of sorrow. This is what the spirit of God does. Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." God will bear witness to your story and your suffering. 

12x12: February #8: "Anxiety"

This is part eight of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Adam discusses "Anxiety."

Anxiety is different than fear. Fear is a response to danger or perceived danger in your environment. Anxiety is what you feel when you are avoiding important emotions. If you feel something in your body that resembles fear, but you are not endangered at that moment, than you might be feeling anxiety.

Our experiences with anxiety is often linked with earlier experiences with emotion.

Picture an eight-year-old little boy whose father withdrew from him when he felt sad. Or maybe dad got irritated by little boy. Little boy learns to avoid that sadness or to suppress it. And, the sadness can no longer flow through his body. He can't digest that sadness. And in time, little boy will begin to feel anxiety whenever sadness bubbles up. 

Why? Two main reasons for this:

1. The neurons in the boy's brain have paired sadness with "Dad withdraws or gets upset with me." When he feels sadness, he braces for Dad's response. Even years later when the danger isn't in the present.

2. Little boy begins to accumulate a reservoir of un-felt sadness in his body because he wasn't allowed to feel it in his home growing up. The cumulative, un-felt sadness in his heart is too much. So now, at 38, it connects him to that reservoir inside his heart. 

Anxiety is what you feel when you are avoiding feeling important emotions. Remember: the avoidance of little boy's sadness is not his fault. He's a child with a dad who won't tolerate sadness. Avoiding sadness is his only option. (And this is just one example. There are thousands of examples you could use.) The price little boy pays for not being able to feel this sadness is that lots and lots of sadness begins to accumulate inside of his heart and body. And in time, that leads to anxiety.

The body keeps the score

Many children receive a message that if they are bad or weak for feeling sad. If they feel fear, they are weak. Remember all the No Fear hats from the 90's. That entire sentiment is CRAP. Many children are taught that if they feel anger, they are bad. You aren't supposed to feel anger at your mother or father or sibling. Your emotions aren't welcome.

Unfelt feelings lead to anxiety

Two questions for you:

1. When you felt fear or anger as a kid, were those emotions welcomed by your mother? Your father? Did they make space for it? And did your parents sit with you in your fear or your sorrow and help you process through it? Or, alternatively, did you get the message that your fear or sorrow was bad or weak or just not welcome? Were your emotions allowed? Did they hear you out? How did your primary caregivers respond to you when you felt anger? 

2. Another reason we pushed these down was because feeling those things conflicts with other values that are important to us. Oh and Christians were the worst with this! Rejoice in the Lord Always or were you supposed to be Strong and Courageous. Hey, remember don't let the sun go down on your anger. As a result, the emotions are bubbling up inside you and you shove them down into the basement of your heart because it feels ungodly or wrong to feel sadness, fear, or anger. 

This leads to anxiety. Why? Because anxiety is caused by avoiding feelings that your body is trying to experience and that your body needs to express. But anger doesn't just go away. Sadness doesn't just go away. 

Time doesn't make emotions go away

So what happens when you feel anxiety? How do you respond to that anxiety? What's your posture toward it? Very often we feel guilty about feeling anxious!! How many times is my body filled with anxiety and I respond by saying, "The Bible says don't be anxious about anything." Do not be anxious about anything. Stop feeling anxious! Just trust God!

Here's the problem: you are attempting to do the very thing that is making you feel anxious in the first place. You are attempting to push your real, genuine, authentic feelings down which is what causes anxiety in the first place. You are trying to put your feelings in the basement of your heart -- feelings that you've got inside and need to feel felt.

The Bible is far more complex and cannot be reduced to a single sentence. Yes, Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything. But two chapters earlier he is talking about his own anxiety! Are you serious?? Do they teach you that in Sunday school? Paul is eager to send his friend, because when he sees him again, he will have less anxiety. Paul had anxiety. Paul had fear. He had fears when they came into Macedonia. Paul was human. He felt fear. In II Corinthians he has fear over all the churches he's planting. 

For many people, anxiety is caused by the refusal to own and express anger. Many Christians believe that they are not supposed to be angry. At least not that angry. Christian men can have a little. But Christian women? If they turned over tables like Jesus did? The stories they would tell. 

Your anger is telling you something important about your present circumstances or about your past story or both

Anxiety is almost always linked to your past. When you feel anxious today, there is a reason for it. And that reason will be found in your story. This is not referring to genuine fear of course. This is referring to anxiety -- the feelings you refuse to feel. Or don't know how to feel.

You may be anxious because your child is being mocked at school or there may not be enough money to pay the bills. So why do we become anxious about different things? Why are some of us anxious about money and others are not? Because wealthy people don't need to worry about money? Nope. Wealthy people are just as anxious about money as someone with no money.  

There is a reason that we are anxious about the things we are anxious about

That reason is rooted in your story. Your present anxiety is often connected to un-felt emotions from your past. They are often connecting YOU to unmet emotions from your past. 

Anxiety is a light on the dashboard of your heart that says, "Something is not right inside. Something needs tended to. Something needs attention. Something needs care. Something needs to be listened to." You have unmet emotions inside that needs tending. 

When most people say, "I am feeling anxious," what they are saying is, "My body is dysregulated." This connects to affect. Affect is your internal sense of your bodily state. We've discussed this chart, below, before, but here it is again:

When you are in 5-6 land, your body is regulated. Your nervous system is regulated. It is the zone of optimal arousal. From 1-3 your are in hyperarousal. From 8-10 you are in hyperarousal. Whenever you are out of 4-7, that's when your body is in a state of dysregulation. Either the panic zone or the shut-down zone. 

Most of the time, when people say "I feel anxious," what they mean is, "I'm not in the 4-7 zone."  This means that they are hyperaroused. "I'm feeling 8 or 9 or 10!"

Everyone gets dysregulated, however, some people get dysregulated more frequently than others and some get more dysregulated by more subtle stimuli. (This is often the case in people with a history of trauma.) 

The double-whammy of trauma is that you will get dysregulated more often than others more frequently, and if that's not hard enough, you will also have a much harder time restoring regulation to your insides. Not everyone's brain/body has the same ability to self-regulate. 

So, what do we do?

We show ourselves: 

Curiosity

and

Kindness.  

Ask yourself: 

1. Will I be curious about what this anxiety might be saying to me? (Data and information)

2. What would it look like to be kind to my body right now? 

Here is the crux of the issue. What do you think God wants for you when you are feeling anxious? When you are anxious, what that means physiologically is that there are elevated levels of cortisol coursing through your body. This isn't healthy for you. This means we are suffering. God wants: 

1. You to experience the comfort that kindness brings and 

2. In time, for you to take your body seriously. 

What is your body's anxiety trying to tell you about your life and about your story? 

Next time you are feeling anxious, try this: 

1. Notice the anxiety. Tune into. BeFriend it. Flesh it out. What do you need me to know? What are you trying to tell me?   

2. What would kindness to myself look like right now? Even just pressing your feet into the ground will get your body feeling a bit more grounded. 

You can respond to anxiety with: 

1. Top-Down Approach: Attempting to use your cortex (thinking brain) to calm yourself down. Saying things to yourself etc. However, in that moment, this doesn't often work as well as the Bottom-Up because of the way our brain is wired.

2. Bottom-Up Approach: Focus on your breathing for example. This will start to move you in the right direction. And then you can ask yourself: "What brings my body a sense of calm? Maybe music, smells, nature etc. Once you are slightly calmed down, ask yourself: What might my anxiety be trying to tell me? Are you sad about something? Be curious about what your anxiety might be protecting you from feeling. Are you grieved? Angry? The goal is to let your emotions flow. Experience and express the emotions that are underneath the anxiety. 

Especially pay attention to the following emotions: fear, sadness, and anger. 

Think of your emotional life as a river. You want the river to flow freely. When rivers can't flow freely, bad things happen. (Like floods.)

Your body can be flooded with anxiety when the river of your emotions is not free to flow. 

Very often, when we feel anxiety, there is a part of us that our body wants us to pay attention to it and to take seriously. 

There are un-felt feelings in all of us. Many of us, growing up, did not have space to experience emotions and distress. Oftentimes anxiety can be a cue that there is an un-felt emergency right under the surface that needs tending to, care, curiosity. 

For more information on Adam Young (and to listen to tons of different podcast episodes on this very topic), visit his website.

12x12: February #7: "Internal Family Systems"

 

This is part seven of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Adam discusses "Internal Family Systems"

The foundation of IFS (Internal Family Systems) is the idea that no part of us is bad. There are no bad parts. They might be doing a bad job at part of it. 

The 6 F's

1. Find the Part: take a breath, direct your attention inward. Is there any specific section of your body that you are feeling more than the others? As you direct your attention inward, is there an emotion or a thought that comes forward and seems to want your attention. If you just pause and breathe for a moment and direct your attention inward. Why? Because there is always energy flowing inside of us. It might be a knot in your stomach or a lump in your throat. You might notice an emotion like anger or sorrow. But you will notice that there is energy there. Notice what is presence inside. Identify one of those things that you notice. The first step is just to notice it.

2. Focus on the Part: Give it some attention. Suppose you found a part of you that is angry or sad or feeling ashamed, whatever it is. Turn your attention inside and spend some time with that part of you. Can you allow whatever is emerging to just be there? Spend some time recognizing that there is a part of you that wants some attention right now. Focus on it for just a moment. And if you aren't aware of anything right now, that's okay. You may be moving too fast and need a little more time.

3. Flesh it Out: Get to know more about it. It might have a shape, size, or color. Or maybe it doesn't have any of that. Maybe it is a younger, scared part of you. (This was weird for me before I started counseling, but I've begun to lean into this.) There is a part of Wendi that is a six-year-old girl that is in her childhood. What is that part of you? 

Example: Adam's son has a thirteen-year-old son that watches screens more than Adam would like. And any time Adam sees him on screens, three different parts are activated: (a) part of Adam is ashamed that he lets him watch this much youtube (b) part of Adam is angry at his son for watching screens so much (c) part of Adam is helpless in his fathering of his son. He feels powerlessness. Right there in this simple example, Adam is aware of three different parts of him that are being activated. Remember, all of these parts are good. They are doing a job within the self-system that is intended to help his son grow into the man he will become. So, spend some time noticing each of these parts and flesh it out a little bit at a time.

4. Feel: Ask yourself, how do I feel toward this part of me? Let's say you identify a part that is afraid. Whatever your part is that you've identified, ask yourself, "How do I feel toward this fearful part of me?" This is a real big deal. Why? You will become aware that there is a you that is not a part. There is a you that is your essence, SELF. Ask yourself, "How do I feel toward this angry/shameful/fearful part." There is a you that is observing this part of you. And that is your SELF or your ESSENCE. 

When you ask yourself how you feel, chances are, the answer is not very kind. You are mad at yourself. You can see a bit of a war occurring inside of you. You need to bring curiosity and compassion to whatever part you've identified. "Can I be curious and can I be compassionate toward the fact that I am angry at my son? Because I am."

5. beFRIEND it: Ask the part of you that is troubled, "What do you need me to know?" Listen. Let that part of you speak. Take the part that feels helpless about his son's screen time. When Adam says to his helpless part, "What do you need me to know?" What it says immediately is, "I want my son to grow up in a healthy way, and I'm not sure I'm powerful enough to guarantee that." Parts speak! Wow! That's where this behavior is actually coming from. You are getting to know the part's positive intention. I worry that I am failing as a parent. This part's positive intention is, "I want you to be a good father. You love this boy." You want to him to be successful. 

Speak to that part. Be friendly. Say, "I get it! I get why you feel helpless. You love this boy. You want him to be successful." And then ask the part, "What else do you need me to know. These parts will give you precious data and information. Maybe you got in a fight with a partner. And you felt like a 15-year-old in that fight. Lean in. BeFriend that part. Ask it what it needs you to know. Be kind to that part. There's a part of you that is being activated. And you want to get to know it. But you need to bring curiosity and compassion to the part.

6. Fear: What is this part afraid will happen if it stops doing it's job. Take the part of Adam that feels ashamed of Eli being on screens so much. What is the ashamed part afraid would happen if it stops making Adam feel shame. "I am afraid that he'd be on screens all day, every day and turn into a zombie." The part will give you precious information.

12x12: February #6: "How Else Would I know?"

 

This is part six of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Rob discusses, "How Else Would I Know?"

When that haunting sense of failure creeps in, here are some mantras you can use:

How else would I know? Is there some other way to know how it works to be a human being than to actually BE a human being? 

How else would it work?

How would you set up a universe? 

Or you could just say, Well, now I know. 

What did I learn? 

What was the lesson? Don't go to Toledo in the winter. Don't date that woman again. 

How much is the wisdom I gained in that decision, going to save me money during the rest of my life? 

Anything around failure and what was I thinking? change the mantra around to say, Here is what I was thinking. Or you could also say, What was I afraid of? 

When that haunting sense of failure creep in, sit with it. 

For example. After a bad relationship. What were you thinking: Well, I had hope. Oh I gave my heart away because I wanted to love and be loved. Now, you are bumping up against something that feels very human.

Why did I pressure my kid like that? Well, I wanted my kid to do well in the world ... and that doesn't sound like a monster. That sounds like a pretty standard parenting position.

As you get closer to naming what you were thinking, it softens the shame.

And, what if you just said: I am learning. 

With your kids, try this: You know what, I am learning to be patient. And I have all kinds of funky messages in my brain that are trying to figure this out. 

I have done this with people. I've just been incredibly authentic and vulnerable and to tell people I am learning and messing up. 

Wendi Kitsteiner is a first-time event. 

Learning begins with a posture of How in the world would I expect myself to get this right on the first try? 

If someone points out a failure, try replying this way: It has been an abundance of attempts? When people encounter someone who owns every square inch of their story, they will react so differently. When someone smiles and tells you they know they've failed, the authenticity is contagious. 

I am very good at trying. 

We should be saying Good job to people for so many things. Having a wonderful evening taking your children out for pizza after growing up in abuse? 

Go you!

 

12x12: February #5: "Kindness"

This is part five of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Adam Young discusses having kindness to yourself.

A year of kindness to yourself will take your farther than weekly sessions with your dream therapist. The harm we do to ourselves through self-contempt is often greater than the actual trauma itself. How do you respond to yourself? 

When you think back to yourself as a ten-year-old, what is your posture toward that child? What about at fourteen? At what about today, when you have an argument with your spouse?

Self-contempt blocks the healing process more than any other single factor. The anecdote to self-contempt is kindness. Romans 2 says, "The Kindness of God leads to repentance." Then, why does a part of you feel like the best way to change and grow is to be harsh with yourself? What comes up for you when you even think of being kind to yourself? Or in receiving kindness from other people? 

Is it easy to ask for someone else for care or support? For many of us, when we aren't doing well, we tend to get angry at ourselves about the fact that we are not doing well. In the moments when we are most in need of care and soothing, we are usually the most harsh with ourselves. What do you tend to say to yourself when you are anxious or afraid?

"This is because I don't trust God enough."

"If I had faith like so and so I would do better."

When your body floods with cortisol, I chastise myself for not being more mature than I am. How is it that my dysregulation becomes an occasion for me to accuse myself for not having grown enough or matured enough? 

Self-contempt blocks the body's natural healing mechanisms. What if you began to explore your story with kindness? 

"That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “You fool,” and condemn and rage against ourselves." C.G. Jung

For some reason, Christians feel selfish if they care or think about themselves? We think that thinking about ourselves is a bad thing. It's not! It's a human thing! He made our brain with a default-mode-network that needs to think about heart, mind, body, etc. 

1. We have a relationship with ourselves.

2. How would you describe your relationship with yourself? 

If I asked you how you felt about your best friend, you could tell me. But what characterizes your relationship with you? Is it warm? Affectionate? Or is it harsh, conflicted. You've got a relationship with you. 

We are called as Christians to the hurting one? But what if the hurting one is you! I can be kind to others in pain. Why can't we be kind to ourselves? We are resistant to receiving kindness. One of the bi-products with trauma is a war with kindness. 

Your past is present. Your past story is playing out in your present story. Have you ever considered why it is so hard to bring kindness to your own heart and body? What if it has to do with a time in your past when you had a need of kindness and care and when you were, were you shamed for that? Were you abandoned in your moment of need? When you were hopeless? Overwhelmed? Upset? Were you shamed for having a need?

Are you willing to bring caring kindness to yourself when you are dysregulated? Why does this situation continue to bother me? Why is this person still affecting me so much? 

It is very common for people with a history of trauma to be at war with our emotionally activated body. People with a history of trauma, they get emotionally dysregulated more often. One of the harder things in life is actually allowing yourself to receive care and kindness from others. 

Comfort comes from with and strong. Comfort is being with someone to strengthen them. To be with. Withness is so important. To be with someone out of a desire to strengthen them. And anytime someone is truly with you, you are strengthened. To be emotionally present with someone, you are inevitably strengthened. They may not understand you completely. But they have the courage to enter your hurt with a desire to hear you and understand you. 

As you explore your story, it is very important to grow in kindness to yourself. And bringing comfort to yourself is something that can be learned. 

Remember, every child needs THE BIG SIX from their parents.

Would you consider giving yourself the Big Six.

1. Are you attuned to yourself? Are you aware when you are in pain? 

2. Responsiveness. Are you emotionally responsive to yourself when you are struggling? 

3. Engagement. Do you engage your own heart? 

4. Ability to regulate your arousal. Can you handle when you get dysregulated?

5. Strong enough to handle your negative emotions.

6. Willingness to Repair.

You don't have to respond to your story by joining in violence toward yourself. You can have kindness to your frailty ... the way God would!

God says, "A bruised reed I will not break." God doesn't hate that we are bruised reeds. Why do we hate that we are? 

Do you just strive harder and turn against yourself when you are struggling? You don't have to respond to your brokenness with all matter of self-accusation? What is keeping you from responding to yourself with kindness instead of grinding it out. 

Have you made a list of those things that bring your body a sense of calm, soothing, comfort? What music calms you? Have you made a playlist? And if you, will you be kind enough to your body when it is struggling next time and listen to that soothing music. Engaging in your story is about tending to your dysregulated body AND writing out your stories and looking at your past. We need to do both. 

When we treat ourselves with kindness, it begins to awaken unmet longings that weren't met in other parts of our life. So we don't want to be kind to ourselves. Because then we will feel the angst of unmet need.

For some of us, the desire for comfort and care, actually brings us a sense of humiliation because we realize we have needs. And being needy is a shameful thing. 

But, child, you have been designed to need. That is part of what it means to be human. We need care. 

Are you at war with the way you have been designed?

Here's a side-note: For many people with a history of trauma, the person who offered you kindness, care, and comfort, also then abused you. That is the nature of the grooming process. Therefore, receiving another's comfort will feel way too close for ways you were abused and groomed. Your brain has therefore paired kindness, care and comfort with something bad is going to happen. Therefore, when someone is kind to you now, your gut thinks, "There's got to be a catch. What does this person want from me? What will be asked or required from me?" This is a huge dilemma for some people with trauma. 

When do you tend to turn against your heart? It is often when you are hurting and there is a possibility of comfort. 

In the end, it is not truth that changes people. It is kindness. 

Truth is necessary. But we need kindness even more. From others and from others. This is why a year of kindness to your own heart will take you farther than anything else on this journey of healing. The more we are kind, the more are brain heals. 

The more we are open to receiving comfort from others and from ourselves, the more our brain seems to change.

Will I open myself to receiving good care, now, especially when I am struggling? There are people who have come into my life that offer withness and we sometimes become suspicious and push them away. You have neurons that have paired kindness with something bad is about to happen. 

But ponder this: What is your posture toward yourself? And what would it look like to bring some kindness into your relationship from you to you.