Welcome to the Lifting The Burden Workshop. Before you begin your workshop, I wanted to give you a brief overview as well as some important tips to help you maximize your experience.
For many of us who have endured relational abuse, there are multiple challenges that present themselves in our post-traumatic healing. For some, the challenge of healing forward is complicated by an overwhelming sense of loss, abandonment and betrayal. For others, healing forward is inextricably linked to deeply held beliefs that originate from a lifetime of false teaching, traumatic experiences from as far back as childhood, and grooming by an abuser. And still others are challenged by a loss of self or identity, or a difficulty separating their identity from roles. And for a large number of Christians, healing is challenged by beliefs that defy their faith, run counter with what God’s word actually said and undermine their identity in Christ.
Healing begins with reconciling our truth, or the truth we believe, with truth that reinforces our faith and grounds us in beliefs that must be relied on in order to regulate and support our mind to do our healing work. In other words, before we can begin healing, we have to establish or reestablish our truth which serves as our anchor, rudder and life preserver for our healing journey.
As Christians, we will be challenged to heal forward without a deeply rooted belief, trust and embrace of God’s word. This does not mean that faith bypasses the work of healing, it means faith provides the support for those challenges that we will face along our healing journey. Healing requires us to regulate our mind, and regulating our mind without truth is like building a house on sand: “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matthew 7:27). Thoughts come from feelings, feelings come from emotions and emotions come from our beliefs. If our beliefs are not healed with truth, as a part of our healing journey, it will prove impossible to overcome the mental and emotional battles that you will experience in the aftermath of trauma.
Whether narcissistic abuse or betrayal trauma, whether intimate partner abuse or abuse by a family member, time spent in an abusive relationship alters our truth in ways that are mostly unconscious. Truth about ourselves, truth about our power, truth about love, truth about relationships, truth about identity and even truth about God are compromised in an abusive relationship. Abusive relationships tend to transform our truth to conform to the requirements or conditions of the relationship. As well, identity and personal agency are often oppressed in an abusive relationship as the result of fear, forced cooperation, grooming, threats, an imbalance of power, and psychological abuse.
There is one truth that will set you free, God’s truth. It is not often considered a requirement for healing from trauma but the word of God gives us deeply profound, sobering and life-changing truths for every one of life’s questions including questions about why someone abuses or betrays — whether they are a narcissist or not, what love is and what love is not, why abuse is biblical grounds for divorce, why boundaries are not only necessary but required in all relationships, why remarriage is God ordained after divorce from an abusive spouse, why reconciliation is not a requirement to forgive, why basing love on what the biblical definition is critical for discerning healthy relationships, why trauma bonds are not love or related to the other person, behavior that defiles and destroys relationships and marriages, cognitive dissonance, narcissism, discerning behavior, boundaries, identity, personal agency and a treasure chest of truths that are critically necessary to and prepare for our trauma recover work.
Truth is the principle healing agent. Before we begin with the 7 Pillars of Truth, I want you to consider these important points about a toxic, abuse and destructive relationship:
To heal right, to heal forward from a toxic or abusive relationship, you have to use the truth about them, and nothing but the truth. You have to use the truth about emotional dysfunction, the truth about rotten fruit, the truth about love and what love is not, and the truth about what relationship means and what it doesn’t. If you try to heal forward with narratives that redefine the truth about any of the above or believe that somehow there was more to their behavior than the above, you will hinder your healing, compound cognitive dissonance and frustrate your freedom with questions and confusion that have nothing to do with the truth.
The truth is, no matter what you call them, they didn’t have the emotional maturity or integrity to be in a long-term and healthy relationship with you. You can call them a narcissist, a psychopath, a sociopath, or a baby demon, the bottom line is they are emotionally dysfunctional and you know that because of the behavior you witnessed that proved it. When someone is emotionally dysfunctional — whether intermittently or routinely, they are indifferent towards toxic, selfish, destructive, contrary and unhealthy behavior.
They didn’t all of a sudden change, they didn’t become a narcissist after they met you, they didn’t realize they were dysfunctional after they said “I do”, and they didn’t wake up overnight and become dysfunctional. They were who they are when they met you, and they were either effective at hiding it for as long as they could or they weren’t. But what is not true is that they became dysfunctional, narcissistic or otherwise a toxic individual after they met you. Narcissists aren’t created in adulthood, narcissists are created from childhood.
They didn’t all of a sudden discard or leave you. There is no such thing as “all of a sudden” with a dysfunctional, toxic or unhealthy person. They discarded you everyday, either covertly or overtly, through disrespectful, dishonest, dysfunctional and destructive behavior, and your history receipts will prove that. They physically left, ghosted, or walked out when staying no longer served them…when they found the next shinny object or another source of fuel. Understand something, a dysfunctional, toxic or emotionally immature individual treats relationships like a baby treats a new toy. It’s fun, exciting and the most important toy in the toybox until either it gets old or they get a new toy. There’s nothing new under the sun and it has nothing to do with you or how much you cared about them or loved them. Sinners have been sinning since before Jesus walked the earth, while Jesus walked the earth and will continue to sin until Jesus returns, we live in a fallen world. There is nothing, absolutely nothing new or different about someone who sins against you than those who sin against God, and God gives a detailed overview of what their behavior is and what to do about it in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
Define relationship accurately, truthfully. Use a definition that is spirit led and not emotion led. The definition of relationship is behavior that respects, honors and reciprocates love between two people who are mutually surrendered to God and healthy thoughts and beliefs concerning wellbeing and purpose. It is not a relationship simply because you loved them, or because they started out nice, or because they love bombed you, or because they used to be loving, or because you have kids with them, or because you thought you heard God say they were the one, or because you want them to change or go back to being the imposter you met versus the person they are, or because you prayed for God to change them against their free will of choice. They are a human and all humans will tell you who they are through their behavior. You will know all humans by their fruit, their behavior, and nothing else. Believe anything that is contrary to the fruit proof and you will compound cognitive dissonance and struggle to accept the truth about them, which will sabotage your self-esteem and keep you wondering about what if’s that aren’t true.
You cannot, will not and never have made someone harm you for no good reason. Anytime you wonder what you did to make them harm you, you’re flirting with danger. Emotionally, you’re denying the truth and you’re assuming responsibility for their choices, dysfunction and toxic behavior. The next time you have a thought about what you did to make them be who they are, remember this: Judas didn’t betray Jesus because Jesus didn’t love Judas or Jesus didn’t love Judas enough. Judas, like all betrayers, was a betrayer by nature and from the very beginning. Judas didn’t all of a sudden betray Jesus, Judas was a thief who loved money and was stealing from Jesus and the disciples, underhandedly, from the very beginning (John 12:1-6). That’s why the devil used Judas…because Judas loved money and would easily and quickly do anything, including betray Jesus, for money. Betrayers betray because betrayers are betrayers. Don’t tell yourself anything differently or you will forever be searching for answers that don’t exist.
The truth you use matters. And when you use anything but the truth you will struggle to heal, you will struggle to accept the reality of who they were, you will struggle to understand why wrong people don’t last long or forever, you will struggle to let go of false narratives, you will struggle to love yourself, and you will struggle to take the lessons out of the past and leave past behind. You have the truth, healing will challenge you to use it for your good and to turn it into your wisdom for your next chapter. Whatever you do, don’t try to heal with lies or false narratives, it is detrimental to your recovery work.
Before you begin the 13 trauma-informed recovery sessions and the resources, read the 7 Pillars of Truth to prepare, repair and position your biblical truth to support your healing work. Let the truth saturate your mind and fill your heart, let the truth uproot false narratives and misinformation. The 7 Pillars of Truth are a life-line, a rudder and an anchor that will give you a place to go to when your mind is wrestling with unwanted memories, cognitive dissonance, confusion and disbelief. To regulate the body, you must regulate the mind with truth, or else your mind will war against your body, which will trigger your body to stay in a fight or flight mode. No trauma recovery work can be durable if the mind wars against the body with untruths, false narratives and self-defeating thoughts. Truth, even inconvenient truth, is a gift to yourself and a powerful resource for healing forward with hope and expectancy.
Patrick
