00:00:01.380 Hello and welcome to MilMac Musings, where we reveal the intersection between God and Science for Living Wholeheartedly. Hi everybody and welcome to Mill Mac Musings, our podcast that is part of the Ministry for Destined for Glory. Today we're going to talk about dealing with trauma and how trauma actually shatters your sense of self.

00:00:28.920 And we're going to talk in a little bit more expansive level on that. But first, Gerard is going to read to you a very important portion of the book that we're reading. Yeah, it's amazing as we talk about it, just the trauma that people go through. And I just want to start out by reading this. It's really dealing with the trauma. Abuse shatters your sense of self. When you were abused, the people around you communicated that your thoughts and feelings about what was happening were irrelevant.

00:01:00.060 Your words were treated as meaningless. Any expression of truth about yourself had to be hidden away. That's powerful. When you're talking about first of all, the abuse itself is bad enough. But as we've mentioned a number of times, it's about believing the person who comes out and says these things. And I just think as far as and again, we go back to the church because there's a lot of misinformation out there about how people deal with the trauma and trauma awareness.

00:01:32.040 So I believe that when people are going through this, just the heartbreak of not having to be not being heard, not being believed. So they shut down. They bury that to suppress it. So we've talked a number of times about unprocessed emotions and dissonance, which you're just separating yourself. Your mind is just going to other places just to get out of the experiences you're dealing with with your emotions. So it's putting it back. They don't want to deal with it. Yeah.

00:02:00.240 And you know it's like when it's so real, it happened to you and then you share with someone what happened and they tell you or they don't believe you, then you actually begin to think, "Well, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe that didn't happen to me." And that's where your emotions get really messed up too. You had a really good illustration about just an example of what we're talking about. Yeah.

00:02:29.520 One of the examples is you know well, first of all, abuse happens everywhere. There is no home that is exempt from it. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, if you're educated or uneducated, it doesn't matter if there's power or powerlessness. It does not matter. You know It's just famous or not.

00:02:54.480 But the example that I was going to share is about there could be a town drunk, and there could be a very well-loved pastor. And the two of them could be put side by side. And everybody would probably most likely point to the town drunk to be a perpetrator of children simply because of appearance.

00:03:26.520 Exactly. It's the outward appearance. Yes. And in reality, we know that there are pastors that are misled, misguided, and are perpetrating. And so it's just really important for us not to only look at the appearance of someone. Exactly.

00:03:52.380 And there's been other examples within the book and other research that we're doing where people are just trying to just it's abuse of power. Absolutely abuse of power. And so many of the victims that were reading during our research have commented that their appearance as a family on the outward side of things was perfect. So you know for example, in one illustration within the book we're reading by Dr.

00:04:20.040 Lamberg was that the people were in the pews. There were people within the church who were very, you know, really good givers of the church, and they were in front of pews there with the family. And the person who the abuse was happening to was just saying, "Nobody knows what's going on behind the scenes, behind closed doors." And that's a sad thing. And again, we're all guilty of this, too, about the appearance.

00:04:47.280 They're looking at the appearance of things and the outward appearance of behavior and judging and the issues that we have inside of us to look at the two and say, "Oh, that person, I mean, how could they do that? That person is a man of God." But again, it all comes down to abuse of power. And one thing I want to add to that is the abuser has an issue in many of the cases about you know as you look at the generational mirroring.

00:05:15.720 You know So they're just from one generation to another to another, they're hurting, hurt people. And it doesn't make it right. It's just that there's such a huge outcry today, and we're so glad to be a part of this about understanding adverse childhood experiences. And understanding how that can be something that can you know how can I say it? The perpetrator looks back on that, has those issues, and brings it forward.

00:05:46.260 It's the people who finally deal with it and say, "Enough is enough. It's stopping with this generation." And that takes a lot of work. So I just wanted to bring that into the mix. Yeah. I think that's very good. That's a great point. I mean, it's not I mean, we do work with those who are the survivors of abuse. But we do understand, too, that the reason that people abuse most of the time is because of the generations before.

00:06:16.500 And so we do understand and you just think about all of these appearances, and you know there are these wonderful people that are sitting in the pews of the church, and they look so prim and proper, and they know all the right scripture and everything. But when it really comes down to it, if these are people that are perpetrating, then what they're doing is making themselves look godly to others who have no understanding of that.

00:06:48.180 And this is just not from God. This is totally not from God. It is evil. It's absolute evil, intelligent evil. And it's something that what I'm saying is not an excuse. It's just a reality of what's happening in many, many cases. Yeah And you know as children are looking for help, they're going to shut down real quickly if people don't believe them.

00:07:13.860 So again, that's part of what we want to bring forward with the trauma awareness in the church is when it comes forward, don't look at the pastor, this wonderful pastor, who may be you know just somebody who is so wonderfully gifted in preaching or teaching because that doesn't matter. And as you're saying, godly, it's not godly. And that's behavior that is horrific. And we as the body of Christ have to really address that. And it's abuse of power.

00:07:43.680 We have to step in and help the people who are going through this terrible, terrible abuse that they suffered through. Yeah. You can't exempt really anyone that's in the circle of the children that may have had the opportunity to do anything. If a child comes to you and tells you that something has happened, then like Gerard said, and we've said numerous times, believing them and just trying to understand where they're coming from and helping them connect the dots.

00:08:14.880 But also, you know as we develop into adults and if we haven't dealt with all of those things that have happened, we've said this before. Our view of ourselves, our view of God, and our view of others is very distorted and for very good reason. For very good reason.

00:08:38.820 And so you know we make choices about things in our lives that hurt our lives. And that comes into play with our relationships. And I think you were going to talk a little bit about that. Sure. I'm going to read another quote if that's okay. Abuse damage your emotion, and I'm going to go to another one quickly. I look behind the scenes. You will not heal from the evil of sexual abuse by pretending, denying, or lying about it.

00:09:08.700 And that gets back into dealing with it from yourself, your perspective. And it's difficult. It's difficult to really look inward, but you want to be healed. You want to get over this. I know inward you want to you're crying, you're kicking and screaming, but you know that inner child of yours has to come out to deal with it to help you with having positive interpersonal relationships and just to live life wholeheartedly.

00:09:38.400 And it's something that's difficult, but it's very doable. Yeah And when we sit down and start the journal and we do some of the things that we're going to mention in some of the workshops coming up, the tools that we'll be able to give to help you do that, to understand the ability to do that and how it really helps you. And I'm just going to just interject one thing here. We've talked a number of times that we've walked this. We have walked this out.

00:10:04.500 And so dealing with this from my perspective, I've said it well, not 100 times, but a number of times. It has been so helpful for me to write it down and to get my thoughts on paper. It's easier to do it that way. So you can start to look at it and analyze it and start to really kind of see your emotions that are inside of coming out. And when it comes out to the light, that's where Jesus comes in and tries to heal us.

00:10:31.980 I'll just read one more quote. "Abuse damaged your emotion. Trauma causes us to lose the ability to feel and understand without fear. When we experience ourselves as weak, helpless, and dependent, or when we find ourselves neglected or damaged, we often become we also become non-sensing and non-feeling. And that is just because you're pushing it behind. You're just getting it out of your mind. But it always comes up.

00:11:01.860 What I mean by that is it's because it's affecting your relationship. It's affecting yourself, your self-worth, the shame and the guilt and other things that you're feeling are all unprocessed emotions. And I know we keep harping on it, but I think it's important to really do that because when people are going for counseling and other workshops or whatever else is out there, these are tools that really will maybe most likely trigger things.

00:11:33.000 So we talked about it, I believe, the last time, the nightmares and you know the triggers and stressors and other things that will take you back. And you're living in the moment of that abuse as sometimes you go through that. Yeah And it takes you back there. And you're kind of taken out of your mind. You're going back there. It's like just another reality, so to speak. It's a dissonance where you're just leaving your body and you're going back there to the same time of when it happened.

00:12:04.320 I say all that because it's a work in progress. Yeah. Any thoughts on that? It's a process. You know Abuse is just it violates every part of you and it shatters, like we said, your sense of self. And so you know if you grow up not knowing the truth, if you're taught that you know good is evil and evil is good, or if you're not given you know what you need to really develop a level of self-confidence.

00:12:37.680 If the relationships that you have with your parents are not relationships that really help you to develop individually and also to nurture and care for you where you need to grow, then I mean, these are just areas that will come back into our lives as adults if we haven't dealt with it.

00:13:05.700 And even when we have dealt with it, there are times you know that it can come back up again, but you've learned how to navigate through it by that time. So as Gerard said, we know very well these experiences. We have lived them. We've had relationships where these things have happened in our relationships.

00:13:34.680 And it is just so critical, I think, for all of us. I know for all of us to really understand that when we press all this down, when we pretend that everything is okay, when it's not really okay, we're really doing ourselves an injustice. And if you're a family person and you're already married and have children, you're doing your children and you're doing your spouse and injustice too.

00:14:07.260 I mean, of course, first and foremost is to get where you can live wholeheartedly. But you know there's just a domino effect with it. And so yeah, it's just the tentacles are just deep. It just runs all through you. Oh, absolutely. I'm just going to mention an example in my life.

00:14:34.380 Yeah One of the things that I've always when I was a young child, I was always told is everything stays behind closed doors. You cannot tell anything to anybody. First of all, that puts a lot of stress in the child. And you know when I say the abuse, we're looking at more adverse childhood experiences, which you do have abusive things. And again, we're not blaming. We're just bringing this to the forefront to let you know that you can't do that.

00:15:03.780 And for me, I did that for such a long period of my life that because we talked about this the other day, masking. Why did I mask so well? Oh, my gosh. I don't know. Actually, the movie called The Mask. That's what I did. I had a mask on. And so when you look at it and you see from the abusive standpoint and from your unprocessed emotions, you really have to work on that and work through that. And that's something that it took me a long time to do, but I'm so thankful.

00:15:34.080 And again, it's the patience of God to go to him as I'm going through this. And he brings the right people into your life, too. And we're not saying it's a bowl of cherries. It's hard work, but he's there because what happened to you is not his will. It's not his way. Again, each of us have free will. And so when we're going through things that all we have learned is from generational mirroring, it's very difficult to understand that the other choice is there as well.

00:16:07.080 We just only know what we know through that. So it's very difficult. There's going to be another Yeah, I love that. This one is really about abuse damage to your relationship. Abuse destroys relationships instead of being known. We are hidden instead of being loved. We are used instead of having a voice. We are silenced. Instead of having an impact on life and others, we do not matter. The lessons learned in such an environment are powerful.

00:16:36.600 And when you think about all that, we think about how that destroys the inner person. It really, really does. And the it goes back again to something that is really part of our ministry. And we can't emphasize this enough. Adverse childhood experiences, adverse childhood experiences. And on other podcasts and workshops and so forth, we'll be listing how you know it just really hurt.

00:17:06.840 So much damage to not only your mind, but it does so to your health and your relationships. And we've mentioned this a number of times, but health is an issue too. And when we're going through all of this, just think of all the unprocessed emotions and all the things that are very deep inside of you, your lack of self-esteem, your lack of self-worth, and all of these things play into your health as well.

00:17:32.400 And when you're not living wholeheartedly, which is our end goal, there are really serious things that can happen to your health. So I just wanted to throw that in there. But the emotions on this and how you feel from the relationship perspective of how damaged you are from it is terrible. Yeah.

00:17:53.820 And if you think about just what you read and what that does to you, and then you try to have a relationship with someone, yeah and you feel all those things about yourself, you think those things about yourself, which aren't true. They're all lies. It's just based on what happened to you. But your relationship can never be real cohesive because you're constantly focused on how you feel, or you feel unloved, or you don't feel intimate, I guess, would be a good word.

00:18:32.760 And so it's just so important to really understand what happened to you in your life. And again, no blame. Not at all. No blame whatsoever. It all goes back to the generations and what was learned and what was seen and what was done. And it's nobody's fault. It's just it's what we learn.

00:18:57.960 I mean, you know if you walk down the street right now and you have a child walking behind you, probability is they're going to try to walk exactly like you're walking. And so it's just what we see when we're children and what we learn by what we see and what we hear. And then you add the element of it's not that they don't love you, I don't think.

00:19:27.360 It's just that lack of knowing how to love you. And nurture and give you the things you need. So when you come to that place of dealing with all of this and working through the unprocessed emotions, it is hard work and a lot of people choose not to do it.

00:19:55.260 But we have done it, and we have seen other people that have done it, and we see people that are doing it right now. And even though it's hard, they're gaining a freedom that they've never had before. Exactly. Again, when we bring it out to the light, because what happened to you is absolutely evil. There's no question about it. Again, it's not blaming anyone. It's the evilness that's behind it.

00:20:24.540 And it's Ephesians 6, as we've gone through a number of times. It's really the unseen realm, the evil that's out there. So when you bring it to the light, you have the opportunity to and again, we've said this so many times. It's Jesus that comes in. When it comes out into the light, you can talk to God. God is a big God. He's not afraid of you being angry at him or you being doubting him or anything like that. But go to him because he has the answers.

00:20:53.820 And it's written in his word, and his word came down. Yeah And it's just the evilness is behind this. So when we're talking about Ephesian 6, we're talking about looking at a person knowing that there is something behind what they're acting or whatever the case may be. And they love to keep things in the dark. Evil does that. Intelligent evil does that. They want you to just feel inadequate, powerless, deal with the emotions of shame, guilt, and anything else out there.

00:21:26.160 And they do a good job at it. But you don't have to stay there because we, as born-again Christians, are loosed from all evil. We have our king warrior Jesus fighting for us each and every day, and he is our king. And when we bring this, this is where we come together with science and become the biblical aspect because they both work together. So if you're going through something that was from a church perspective or a church abuse, you have maybe a very conflicted view of God, as we talked about before.

00:21:59.220 So I just wanted to reintroduce this into this podcast about how important it is from my perspective. It's very important. Yeah. I mean, and you know when I think about trauma itself, and while we are talking about abuse, it's abuse of power in the church. And you think of there are numbers of people whose parents have been through divorces in the church.

00:22:25.080 And you know as a result of the divorce, the people were no longer welcome or you know they were no longer welcome there. And then the children felt that. And so this is another area of trauma and your perception of who God is. And you know whatever you learned from that clearly is not true, but it's a reality of what you went through.

00:22:56.580 And one of the things that we do here at the ministry is to really take up where some of the great biblical scholars out there, what they have researched upon research. And we're so fortunate to be able to just glean from that wonderful teaching because that's the truth. Sometimes you hear things in the church or sometimes you hear things from preachers or teachers that just aren't true. They're just not true at all. So that's why we love both Alison and myself to really dive deep into the word, and that's very important.

00:23:28.020 So these are all tools that we will be showing you and helping you with. And you know we're introducing it to the biblical scholarship and the people behind that. But it's important to understand that not all denominations, not all preachers or pastors or people in power understand the true Word of God. And because of that, you have so many other issues, as you just mentioned, divorce, and things like that. But we'll bring that up in future podcasts as well, but that's important, I think, to just break forth.

00:24:04.140 Yeah, we do need to talk about that more later, so. But as we talk through things today, you know we were focused on how this impacts our relationships, our life, and as a whole. And so our heart, which is God's heart, he's concerned about our heart. He's concerned about all of our hearts more than anything that we've been through.

00:24:31.800 And he's our healer. And so as we progress through our podcasts and then have our workshops and some groups out of that, then we'll help walk with you through that. Exactly. We'll meet you there with hearts that understand where you've been, that understand what you need, and will help you to come to that place where you can live wholeheartedly.

00:25:08.820 But it takes work. Right. We keep saying that. It's the truth. And again, we've lived it. We've walked it. We've walked it out, and we're on the other side of that. And again, it doesn't mean we're through everything. It just means we're on the other side of that particular part of our journey. And we want to come alongside you to help get you to that point, and then we can continue on as we both move forward with things to help you move forward as well. Okay. Well, thank you.

00:25:38.640 We thank you for joining us. And we just, again, you know I truly don't think you understand our hearts because we just love this. We love to be able to help people. And that's the love of Christ working through us to help you get through what you need to get through and want to get through. Yeah, we do. It's our heart. And we don't really even fully understand it other than knowing that God placed it there. Right. Exactly.

00:26:08.340 So that's why we're here. And if you have any questions or you would like us to talk about something specifically, please feel free to email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Or you can also visit our website, destinedforglorymin.org.

00:26:33.180 And we just thank you so much for being with us and for supporting us and for sharing our message if you know of anyone who could benefit from that. That's a great point. And thank you. Thank you again for joining us here today. Thank you for joining us. We hope that something we've shared today has touched your heart. If you'd like to learn more, connect with us at DestinedforGloryMin.org.