Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss life at the intersection of Theology and Psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their life stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
57. Is It Them or Is It Me? (S5 E5 Paradox 2)
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The quickest way to get stuck in healing is to force a simple answer onto a complex story. We keep meeting people who hesitate to look at childhood wounds because it feels like blaming parents, excusing bad choices, or losing agency. At the same time, we’ve also seen the “whiplash” where new awareness turns into contempt and everything becomes someone else’s fault. Neither path tells the whole truth, and both leave us trapped.
We walk through a core paradox of trauma-informed Christian story work: things happened to us that should not have happened, and we also learned ways of surviving that can become harmful patterns later. You’ll hear us connect the language of protectors, coping mechanisms, and attachment theory with a thicker biblical understanding of sin as anything that is not the way it’s supposed to be. We name two common distortions, self-contempt and others’ contempt, and why both often chase certainty instead of wisdom.
From there we move into the felt reality beneath the paradox: ambivalence, the push-pull of two emotions at once. We talk candidly about shame, the body, and why healing requires naming what we’d rather avoid, without ever confusing bodily responses with consent or responsibility for abuse.
We also offer practical questions that help you hold space for your own story and for others, without platitudes or quick fixes. Here are a series of questions we give as a framework of engaging stories with more strength:
1. So, what really happened?
2. What did it cost you?
3. How did you respond?
4. How did that response protect you?
5. What has that response become now in your adulthood?
6. And how are you now invited to live differently?
Understanding what these questions are unpacking AND the answers to them will be a healing process for any of our listeners. We hope these are helpful also for anyone in friendships, care-giving, ministry, or parenting.
Welcome To Story Matters
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Emily Baker.
SPEAKER_00We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
SPEAKER_01We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
SPEAKER_00We're glad you're here.
When Story Work Feels Like Blame
SPEAKER_00One of the most common objections about story work that we've encountered is that for many people to begin asking about things that were done to them in their childhoods makes them feel like they're actually blaming somebody else for their problems. And it's a very scary direction. And so we find that people who are resistant to narrative-focused trauma care usually have something of what I just said going on. But there's a sort of a whiplash that can also happen. Whereas once someone really begins to see the harms in their story and feels the freedom to look deeply at their story, you can almost enter a cage stage reality where it's like everything's because of somebody else, so to speak. And there can even be almost a sense of often in a group setting when someone says, here's what happened with this family member. Yeah, they're evil or they're bad. And the participants often are like, whoa, pump the brakes. And that's what we want to talk about today is this paradox. It's seemingly, again, two things seem to be true that everything that happened to us in our childhood that was harmful had some effect on us, some things more than others. We call this trauma. There's big T and little T. And yet, the more work we do around those traumas, we'll find, oh, I actually developed patterns of survival, which trauma specialists call protectors. But in the world of the scripture, we would maybe call it sin. And what we mean by that word is anything that's not the way it's supposed to be. And so in this episode, what we want to do is look at this paradox that many of us may struggle with, trying to figure out how do we hold both of these at the same time. So the two realities are simultaneously true. Things have happened to me that should not have happened. I was born into a fallen world and have genuinely been harmed by others. The other side of that is I have responded to life in ways that are not consistent with shalom. I have harmed others, myself, and even my relationship with God, whether I'm conscious of that or not.
SPEAKER_01So the key question that people often pose in this paradox is where do I focus on the harms done to me or what I have done? Yes. And if everything I have done is in response to harms done to me, then doesn't it all come back to a blame game? So who is to blame? And the moment I insist that only one side of this paradox can be true, then the paradox becomes a bind. So it's it's a bit reversed, I think. We see the paradox in scripture, and I think we would read it often as the psalmist might say, sins and sorrows or enemies and my own sin. You read it and within a psalm or a letter or whatever it is in scripture, you'll hear both what I have done or what has been done to me. But the moment we insist that only one of those can be true, it's only my sin or it's only what's been done to me, then we've actually created a bind.
SPEAKER_00Yes. When you start with the paradox we're discussing, what we're saying as the thesis is we will find a place or more than one place where we are living in a bind we've never
Two Truths We Must Hold
SPEAKER_00named. So there are these two worlds that are pulling us into opposite sides. The world that many of us come to this podcast from and other types of story work is a world probably something of the evangelical world. Not everybody, but something of a modern church experience whereby most of us have been told a lot and talk a lot about the sins we commit. And again, we're not disagreeing with that need to do that. We need to look at our hearts, look at our lives, examine them, right? But that same world is highly resistant to anything else being part of the conversation, which creates this vine we're talking about. And I want to add, by the way, it's not only the evangelical world, it's other aspects of our culture that say you're the only one that can change you. I think I've we've talked about a sign when we're seeing at one of our children's elementary schools. And it was right at the entrance of a hallway where the child would enter and exit dozens of times in a day. And it simply said, if it is going to be, it is up to me. And boy, I get what they're doing. Yeah, quit blaming everybody, quit asking the teacher for a pencil, blah, blah, blah. But it really does reinforce this American stoicism that's highly on the rise right now of we can fix ourselves. And so I would say evangelicalism doesn't say that, but both of those philosophies highlight the problem still is in you. They may differ on where the correction comes or the healing comes, but most of us are predisposed naturally in this culture to say, if I have a problem, I'm gonna look at me.
SPEAKER_01I would venture to say that story matters was birthed out of a bind that you and I found ourselves in, and we've never said it like that. But you and I have come up through the evangelical world where the emphasis is almost solely put on our sin nature. Our sin, what we have chosen to do, what we have left undone, confession of sin. And the bind we came up against is there is another side to the paradox that harm has been done to us.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And patterns, protectors, and coping mechanisms have been developed based on harm done to us.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and for those of you theologically minded or curious, in our particular neck of the woods theologically, there's a fairly robust theology of sin that I think has been dumbed down greatly. But on at its robust level, it's not so much what are you culpable for exactly or what did you do personally only. It's let's just start with the definition that anything that is not the way it's supposed to be falls in that category of sin. And theologically, traditional categories are sins of the world against you, sins of the devil towards you, what we often call evil in this podcast, and your own flesh. Our circle doesn't do a lot with the devil. It's okay, that's another group, so to speak. And we don't do anything with the world. It's like, what can you do? There's sort of a shrug. We only do, it seems, the things we can control. And our world opened up. For me, it opened up a lot because I had dismissed my childhood, which has a lot of stuff. And I started with places where I knew I was already moving into young adulthood in my head. This was not intentionally. This is just the effect of like, well, you can't go that far back, but I can go to these places.
SPEAKER_01So the bind that we found ourselves in of being in our particular culture is there wasn't any questioning about what has been done to us. So we haven't said the word sin very often in our entire four and a half seasons of story matters because we are leaning into part of the paradox that has not been addressed in our neck of the woods. But I think we want to do due diligence in this episode and moving forward that there is a paradox that we do sin, but we equally have been sinned against. And so I think there's just that potential distortion if you fall off on only focusing on one or
The Cultural Pull Toward Self-Blame
SPEAKER_01the other. One potential distortion would be that the primary explanation of everything wrong with me is me. Yes. Whereas the other potential distortion is everything I do can ultimately be explained by what was done to me. So I don't have to take any of the blame. But neither distortion adequately tells the truth that scripture presents.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, to use myself as an example, I don't know that I noticed this until I read a certain book that's pretty good. It's called The Relational Soul. And I think I read that book right before going into the Allener program. And that book brought up attachment theory. I've shared this before. It really bothered me because what attachment theory is doing is it's pushing a lot of my problems all the way back to a time in my life that I had zero control, maybe not even language. And what probably was even underneath that for me was I know what my story is about, what my mom was like. And I felt it like the oxygen is taken out of my lungs. I can do nothing. And I was angry. I didn't just immediately wake up and go, oh, I think I was like, forget this. This is not helpful at all. Even though I'm not saying I don't want to believe it. I need us to focus on places where I remember making a decision. I know I did something wrong. Think of Augustine's confessions, like he's stealing a pear. I remember the day I stole a pear from the tree. But going back to attachment or anything where I was betrayed or was powerless feels and felt at the time like I don't want to do that because it took away something of my trust that I could overcome it.
SPEAKER_01Or it took away your agency. It took away your ability to change, right? Okay, I see the sin I committed when I was eight, so I can now confess that and not do that again. But I can't see what I did when I was 18 months old to get my mother's attention. And so, really, it's weird to bring this back, but we just did it is what it is. And I have actually heard people say about attachment, it is what it is. So why talk about it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in a famous book by M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, remember the poem's called A Road Not Taken. But in the book, he talks about his journey in psychiatry, but he's really trying to unpack what we need to be doing, like discipline. And it's a very good book. It really appeals to someone like me because it's like so you can fix yourself, even though it hasn't worked like that. But he does say in there that when he would meet with patients, he would always notice are they self-contempt or others' contempt? And so as we look at this idea of kind of my story, I am self-contempt. My knee-jerk is to blame myself. And you've admitted your others' contempt. And I think I've even used that against you a little bit. Because what he goes on to say is I can't help those people, others contempt people, which is really sad and not true, because I think the inference is like, hey, if you're others' contempt, you're living out of pride, blaming someone else. And what's come to me is my self-contempt is prideful. And that's been a weird revelation because it's saying, if the problem is not me, I'm powerless. And I want the power. I want to know that within my reach is my destiny. If that's not pride, I don't know what is. There's this kind of like almost stoicness to it. And I think it really, I think it really does bleed into a lot of the Christianity we were taught or we gravitate toward. It's not the fault. Again, the scriptures are beautiful and clear and true, but often the way they're espoused or interpreted, whether from the pulpit or even just ourselves or our Bible studies, how we talk to each other, self-blame is so prevalent and almost never aimed at discovery or healing. I almost hear a lot of self-blame as if that's the final word. Well, I just we got in a fight, my wife and I just I realized I was being a jerk. And it's like, okay, but I'm not doubting. But can we talk about that? What was causing that? Why was that your reaction? In other words, so often it's like it doesn't matter. I've said the sin, and that's that. I sinned, even if that word's not used. And that kind of ends the conversation.
SPEAKER_01So are you saying that your self-contempt could be less about humility, which it poses as that? Yes. I'm just this humble, I see everything as my fault.
SPEAKER_00I'm unbroken, I'm the jerk. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's less about humility. And are you saying that it's more about your refusal to acknowledge how vulnerable it would actually be? Like I like I felt like you were vulnerable just now when you said that about you've always used it against me. But I don't know. Speak to that. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00It denies my creaturliness. I grew up in a home of divorce with a mom that worked full-time from three months on. I was in daycare. I was taken there at 5.30 and picked up at 5.30. And all the things that go with all of that, and a dad who's absent most 99.9% of the time, when he pops in as arrogant and a superman at the same time. And then a brother who could do no wrong. These truths in my life shaped me. But as an 18-year-old, as I'm coming to Christ, I don't want to look at that stuff. I want to throw that away. I want to wad those truths up. I still like the people, but I wanted to wad up the thought of that shaping me and throw it away because I am now in Christ. I'm a new creation. Behold, the old is gone, the new is come.
SPEAKER_01Yikes. And so fast forward into your 40s and 50s, you're thinking this desire to blame yourself is a desire to have power.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's a desire to not be under the power of other people's harm. One of the aspects of abuse is powerlessness. I don't want to be powerless. So, listeners, we're always needing to look for these places. We try to regain our power.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When people kind of do the despairing, it is what it is. I'm not going to look back. I feel it with them. You can't change the history, the facts, but you can change how it impacts you today. And that part of your life that you really had no control over, what role it's playing in your everyday life
Protectors, Coping, And Sin Patterns
SPEAKER_01today. That's the essence of story work.
SPEAKER_00And this is the theme of this season is we don't want uncertainty. Part of the powerlessness that I felt as a child and all of us feel, especially in places of confusion and trauma and harm, is not only powerlessness, but confusion. What's happening? Our brains become fragmented in those moments. Our worlds are upturned. So the thought of going back to any of those places is crazy. It's like, why would I do that? I want a theory. I want something that's going to work right now, and I want to move forward.
SPEAKER_01So the simplicity of what some Christian circles are offering is that is just your sin. Everything you experienced is now just to generally repent of it and now just step into a new world. But the problem is the harm done to us doesn't merely hurt us back in that moment. We adapted to it. And those adaptations are now what we would call our sin nature. So to not understand what was done to us, we cannot understand what we're reacting to. That husband you brought up about him just saying, Well, I realized I was a jerk. But you're saying, Well, can we lean in a little bit more and be curious around what did happen in you becoming a jerk? I get it. You're saying you sinned and you became a jerk. But what got you to that place? What adaptation did you try to fight against that is part of your story that you could become more aware of so that you don't become a jerk again?
SPEAKER_00And just to flesh it out with a particular person in mind, it's if I don't say I'm a jerk only, I might have to name that my wife's not as perfect as I like to think. It's like I've set her on a pedestal. And even though there's plenty of things that I could name that aren't great, that pedestal is immovable. And so what has become easier is to just realize I'm the problem, but not in a real vulnerable way. And oh, by the way, dad was a narcissist.
SPEAKER_01So then he's seeing his wife on the pedestal as he used to see his dad. What he has in his body is that dad demanded it. Dad demanded to be on the pedestal. Narcissists do that. So he learned to adapt, to keep the peace, just agree that he's right and I'm wrong. And so he's taking that into his marriage. So she's not maybe demanding it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting. You say to keep the peace, yes, or homeostasis, maybe. The difference being one is like true peace is really calming. Homeostasis is okay, we're back to the whatever normal is. But often I think in these homes where that's the mindset of the MO, it's not dad's actually right. It's more fond of I'm just gonna say it so I can get back to what I'm doing. When I began to do this work, where I found a lot of healing was I'm opened up to a lot of adaptations, their maladaptive behaviors or processes, but they often go under the radar of the traditional like evangelical litmus test of sin, the seven deadly sins or whatever. So the fallout to a child who blames themselves is they adapt to it, right? And they find ways to restore homeostasis, ways like withdrawal or people pleasing or hiding or performing or raging, disconnecting, or refusing need. These are all symptoms that are possible, that most of them can easily stay with us into our adulthood as unseen maladaptive behaviors until we accept the fact that we need to look at the harms from our childhood.
SPEAKER_01So, listener, as you heard that list, a compassionate response would be why did that strategy, why did that behavior become necessary? Most of us resist wanting to blame our childhood on our current sin nature. And so the question we're posing is can you ask compassionately, why did I develop those strategies and why were they so necessary in my childhood? And then as you're compassionate, that next step would be, and how could I turn from or repent of these strategies that are now becoming part of my life that are affecting my relationships? So you have the bind. The bind is we don't want to blame everything on our childhood, and yet we don't want to fully blame ourselves. So when I can't tolerate that both exist, then I'm choosing one or the other. And here's side one of the paradox Others' contempt. They did this to me. You don't understand what I've been through. Of course I'm gonna act that way. Do you not know my parents? Victim mentality. But side B of the paradox, the self-contempt is it doesn't matter what happened. I make these choices, I'm the problem, the buck stops with me and my sin nature. So when held separately, side A or side B, not simultaneously, but when only one side is held, it pursues certainty.
SPEAKER_00Ah, there it is. We're looking for this in this conversation and in this series. Where are we looking for certainty? So both protect us from the frightening complexity of the paradox. To to gravitate toward others' contempt or self-contempt and at the same time like despise the other as not being even possible is a way to avoid the hard truth of all the paradoxes that
Ambivalence Versus Easy Certainty
SPEAKER_00we're talking about. And in this case, we're moving into another word, which is ambivalence, and that is, oh my gosh, I can feel two things at once. And we've done some work in our podcast around ambivalence, but I find it helpful for me and even and my clients, and I would imagine you too, listeners, to just kind of do a fresh re-entry to what that word means because we've been using the words bind and paradox, but literally a pivoting in the healing process is learning about the word ambivalence and more particularly learning to find ways it exists within our bodies, within our lives.
SPEAKER_01I'm so glad you brought that up because it's really the feeling behind these three steps that we've given with bind alert, choice awareness. There's kind of this there's pause, this kind of turning away from our normal behavior, but we haven't really named what that feels like. And if a paradox is an idea that two truths can exist at the same time, then ambivalence is the feeling in a paradox because ambivalence is feeling two opposing emotions at the same time. I hate and I love. I'm sad and I'm joyful, the push-pull of I do want, I don't want. And that's the feeling. So we've said the umbrella over all three of these steps is wisdom. I would say the feeling that surrounds all this is ambivalence. And if we don't name that feeling, we're not really leaning into what it feels like to live in a paradox.
Shame And The Body In Trauma
SPEAKER_00Yes. And the best resource by far that I've ever come across is Dan Alender, Shocker. And in his original book, The Wounded Heart, he really has a great chapter on ambivalence. But he does it again in Healing Path and in Healing the Wounded Heart and probably other works as well. In so many ways, I think one of the things he has brought to our world of sanctification is this idea that we really have to move toward our places of pain, which none of us want to do this. Nobody's like, yay, I get to look at my pain, but we're moving into places that are protectors, our bodies are saying, hell, literally, hell, no, no to evil. So what one of the things he does very carefully, and I'm not going to do a whole lot of clarity here, is in a paragraph in that chapter, he, with trembling, moves toward this idea that a victim of sexual abuse has arousal sensors on genitalia and in other parts of our body. When those are abused or activated in any way, our body can seemingly betray us. And yet no one wants to name that when coming to the realization of the abuse. Now, as we know, there's so many different levels of abuse as far as physically, how far did the like a covert sexual abuse, which is non-physical versus overt, which is going to be what the category Dan's referring to. But all forms of sexual abuse have the potential of having brought some sense of arousal in the victim, which is confusing and shattering. And we cannot heal if we cannot move toward these places where we have to name that there are these two feelings going on at one time, which is the ambivalence.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just recently reposted one of Dan's lectures that they recorded him saying that there's that push-pull of I want to be known, I don't want to be known. And that is the ambivalence. The most severe is in the sexual abuse of I want to feel, I don't want to feel. That's going to be the biggest war. But I think when you just mentioned covert sexual abuse, I want to give a very specific example in case a listener doesn't know what that even means. The other day we're riding in the car, and our daughter was riding in the passenger seat, and she said, Oh, I just got a text from my friend, and she said, Don't tell anyone, but I've got to tell you something. And so she my daughter reads this to me out loud. And I immediately said, Wow, what is it about the arousal of being in the inner circle? In the room where it happened, you're gonna get to hear something that you can't tell anyone else. Yeah. And she's like, I know, right? And our kids hate it that we use the word arousal because it feels like it's only a sexual word, but the arousal around being told something special, some. If your mother came to you and said things about anyone in the family, husband or another sister or another, and you got to be her confidant, that's a rousing. And even if it's mother to daughter and there's any kind of triangulation, like you're the special one, come here and I gotta tell you what happened today. It's a rousing because you belong. And that part of your brain is activated. Like, I must be special. Even if you're never touched, if this is happening to you, rarely can this be named, but this is where we're doing the work later in life to look back and go, can you name that there was ambivalence and that you thought, I don't want to hear this, I do want to hear this. Yes. I don't want to be your confidant, I do want to be your confident. That's my only role in your world and that makes me special.
SPEAKER_00I want it, but don't getting right at the core of shame. If I'm being chosen, which if I'm being chosen, especially if it's a family member, especially a mom or a dad, like you've just said, and I somehow reject it, I'm gonna be put to shame. I'm gonna be put away. And so shame's coming along and facilitating our survival in these places. As a caveat, what we want to say is pleasure or bodily arousal at the time does not imply consent or responsibility for the abuse ever. So please hear that. But what we're saying is our shame as an adult can be if some part of me experienced pleasure in that abuse, maybe I participated in what happened. What does that say about me? And then, of course, contempt arrives to resolve the unbearable ambivalence. Something is wrong with me. Again, apart from the gospel or help with a guide or some really solid work, contempt is coming in the form of something is wrong with me or everything is that situation or that person's fault. And this extends so far beyond just it's not just sexual abuse, overt or covert. We would include triangulation, we would include any of the forms of dysfunction, any type of insecure attachment. All of these things strike at the core of our identity and have elements of powerlessness and betrayal and ambivalence. And so it's a category we have to be aware of as we move toward this paradox of, oh, I see why we're looking at this now. Because my shame attendant, to use Kurt Thompson's phrase, does not want me to go toward the other side.
SPEAKER_01Right. I can relate with always thinking for a long time in my life, it's my fault. It must be me. The shame attendant came in to go, you did that. And then going through my story and doing story work and seeing they really did do that to me. What do I do now with this feeling of, but I'm culpable?
SPEAKER_00And what we're suggesting is that's once you've named it, which is the process of healing. What's shocking and where we want to spend a lot of our energy in the series is how many places we don't even ask the question. We just assume clearly they did that, or clearly I did it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So we're not even naming I'm gonna bind. Yeah, we don't do that naturally because both exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, to name that without the work we're talking through is like, why would you even say it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I came across a story once of a man meeting with a pastor, and this is just how prevalent this is in the evangelical world of you're the blame. And he's explaining his childhood abuse at the hands of an older person, an older child, but several years older. And I'm not sure how exactly you differentiate, but if it's not a peer-to-peer or roughly the same age, you would naturally call that abuse. The older person has the power dynamic, institutes the problem, institutes the action. No matter what level of participation the victim has had, it's not their fault, right? And this pastor gave the advice to the victim who, as an adult, you need to go to that person and apologize.
SPEAKER_01I don't even know what to do with that. It's apologize for what? Participating in what the older kid initiated. So apologize for what?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. I don't know, but the point I'm bringing up is if we're not struggling with ambivalence, you would say, shut up, or you're a bad pastor, right? If you are convinced that it was the other person's fault when you hold them in contempt, that would have never landed. The reason it was so jarring is all of us carry a question of how did I cause this? What did I do to be involved in this? Wasn't I partially part of this?
SPEAKER_01So then when the pastor says you need to go apologize, it speaks to that side of the ambivalence of, yeah, I knew it was probably my fault. I should do that.
SPEAKER_00It speaks to that pastor's story, unexamined. Here's what unexamined pastors with unexamined stories do great harm.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the bind that we came up against that led us to story matters. And that's what actually led me to doing work around paradoxes, is because in bringing some material to women's ministries, I notice there's been so much hurt because people aren't holding the complexities of life. They're giving quick, simple advice, and it hurts when you haven't held both. And in this paradox, it's we have sinned and we've been sinned against. And if our quick advice is blame yourself, it's all your sin, go apologize. The blame game keeps this bind going and it's no longer living in a paradox. The simple answer hurts people and you're putting them in a bind. So your dad did this to you, all your bad behavior is his fault.
SPEAKER_00Or so let me get this straight. When a person, in your case, in a woman's ministry, a woman hears something of harm and offers a platitude, that's either category A or B without the tension. You're saying it hurts the woman being told the advice, but conversely, and this is what's important, listener, but it makes you feel better. You feel like you did a good thing. I said good words, they're in the Bible. That felt really good just now. Rather than what I think should be more true, is we're providing comfort and we hurt. It's very hard as the person giving the advice to hold that space of tension because our own story is being activated if we're actually caring for them.
SPEAKER_01That's
Better Questions For Real Healing
SPEAKER_01so good. And I would just say, practically speaking, if you are in a situation and a complex story has been given to you, a more fruitful set of questions would sound like this. So, what really happened? What did it cost you? How did you respond? How did that response protect you? What has that response become now in your adulthood? And how are you now invited to live differently?
SPEAKER_00Yes, those are those are such good questions. I hope we can put those in the show notes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we don't want to ever be formulaic, but think about the progression of what that just did. It's asking for more clarity, it's seeing what was done to you was very costly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let me just reiterate these questions. What happened? That's their first question, right? Which is a powerful one. Like the history matters. What did it cost me? How did I respond? How did that response protect me? What has that response turned into now in my later years since that's happened? And then how am I being invited to live differently?
SPEAKER_01So a general progression of answers could sound like this I was harmed, I adapted. Some of the adaptations became harmful. I'm responsible for what I do that's harmful. I'm not responsible for what isn't mine, and neither truth requires contempt.
SPEAKER_00Now I want to come back to what did it cost you? So the questions we ask are what happened, and then the next one is what did it cost you? And I've noticed a lot of people just that makes no sense. So unpack that real quick.
SPEAKER_01What did it take require of you? So, for example, going back to a mother who confides in a child, if that child knows this is my way to stay close to my mother and she's happy with me, and then we have a close relationship, I even call her my best friend. What it costs me is that I have to listen to how she and dad had a fight last night. And I don't want to be, I don't want to know about her marriage.
SPEAKER_00So it cost me the innocence of being a child.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I was parentified.
SPEAKER_00So in a sexual abuse situation, obviously the cost would be easily said my innocence, but even more when you kind of tighten up that situation, it skewed what is beautiful. One of the most beautiful things in God's creation is sexuality, and it has now been co-opted with evil, and it's led to confusion, which now goes to the question of then how did I respond? How I responded was I also engaged.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you may have fawned because that's the safest thing.
SPEAKER_00And my response, my engagement protected me because in a power dynamic, especially with the family member, shame is so present. I've got to go along with this, right? So it's like my response is protecting me. I go along with things, but now what has it become? Is maybe I'm a people pleaser, or maybe out of disgust, I hate to even get near people physically.
SPEAKER_01I have plenty of people I work with that hate touch because an older brother or someone touched them in a way that it was not sexual, but it was invasive. And now they want nothing to do with touch. That cost you something because human beings need touch.
SPEAKER_00But the question finally is how am I being invited to live differently? None of these are easy. And I don't think you can just knock them out instantly, but I think these are helpful questions and unpacking our ambivalence.
SPEAKER_01Ambivalence is the feeling of paradox acceptance. So if we are pushing into this third step of our turning away from what's natural, we think is the right thing. I just I always answer the fool or I never speak up, whatever. We are saying this is your moment to ask, how are you invited to live differently? That's an overarching question and wisdom. How might I not see what I'm doing? And I need to and I need to turn. So we're inviting you into big questions, how story work even works. So when you tell your story, listeners, do you lean towards who harmed you? Or do you lean towards how you harmed yourself or others, like where you messed up? Which side of the paradox do you lean towards? And what truth on the other side of the paradox are you afraid might become true if you acknowledge it? Like, what if there's more to the story than what you've really lived with? Yeah.
Bringing Pain To Jesus Safely
SPEAKER_00And what if it shatters certain protections we've developed? Now, just to bring this back to Jesus and the gospel, John Owen famously said, big view of sin. You have a big Jesus that is experiencing him in a bigger and more real way, and a little view of sin than a little view of Jesus, right? What we've seen for a long time, Emily, and we've done in our first season is the same is true for the harms done to us and the subsequent responses our bodies engaged, many of those strategies of which are there today. What we're saying about about ambivalence is it's it feels like we're dying. When you move from one view is the only view, to what if there's a bind here, right? So we're moving into ambivalence. I'm feeling two things and they're very emotional. I'm feeling very charged by these two things. See, a paradox is there all the time. You can just say, here's one, here's another one. Ambivalence is what I personally am engage in very often around early wounds. Just be aware, what we're trying to do, whether we're others' contempt or self-contempt, is we're trying to avoid Jesus. We're trying to avoid the cross. It's scary. And yet the very essence of a believer is I will go to him in vulnerability and trust him, even though everything in me feels like maybe I'll be rejected. Please let me never be put to shame, oh Lord. But yet we come into the cross, he puts his arms around us, and we are safe. And one of the number one ways to really, I think, move into that is by asking the questions you just asked, going there in real ways around what happened, what did it cost me? How did I respond? Those questions, but doing so in the Lord, like I I may feel very young when I do that. I may feel very vulnerable. I will feel very vulnerable. And yet that's one of the ways that our stuckness, even spiritually, so many people are stuck spiritually because we've not allowed Jesus, the great physician, to come anywhere near our actual pain. And that's what we're inviting you to do, listener. So thank you for journeying with us in this very challenging and yet fruitful topic.