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The fundamental premise of story work is that your past story is affecting your present life. This is just as true for your collective story as it is for your individual story. Your present day to day life is deeply affected by the past story of the collective to which you belong. The story of America bears great glory and great sin, just like the story of Mexico, Poland, and Thailand. Every culture contains deep goodness and every culture contains deep sin. Part of the story of America includes destroying the original dwellers of this land, and then exploiting black laborers so that white people could build wealth. If you live in America, these aspects of our collective story have profound effects on present day to day life.
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Memory is the way in which a past experience affects how the mind will function in the present. There are two layers of memory: explicit and implicit. There are two key attributes of implicit memory that are critical to understand. First, implicit memories are created whether you are paying attention or not. In other words, when you were a child, you recorded tons of information about your environment without trying to. It just happened. Because thatâs how the brain works. Second, when you recall something that is stored in implicit memory, you do not have the sensation of recall. You donât have that sense in your body of âIâm thinking back in time and remembering something.â When we leave home and set out into the world, we carry within us a storehouse of implicit memories. And those implicit memories tell us what to expect around every bend.
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Triangulation occurs when a parent requires a child to function as an emotional adult by meeting the parentâs adult needs and wants. Were you required to give, give, give to your parent, or was your parent continually giving, giving, giving emotionally to you? In a healthy parent-child relationship, there is plenty of connectionâbut the parent never imposes their emotional needs on the child. Triangulation results in two deadly dynamics. First, your goodness is consumed by one parent. Second, as a result of being consumed by one parent, you are setup to be envied by the other parent. When triangulation is present in a family, it is common (though not inevitable) for the triangulated relationship to become sexualized. By sexualized, I mean that there is erotic energy between Mom and the chosen son or Dad and the chosen daughter.
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Sexuality is an emotionally charged topic. Period. But when you are talking about sexuality for people with a history of trauma, you are stepping into terrain where angels fear to tread. However, if God intends for you to experience overflowing sexual pleasure and lavish sexual freedom, then exploring your sexual story is more than worth it. Human beings are aroused by particular things in the present because of our experiences of being aroused in the past. Your past story can help you understand why you are turned on by the things that turn you on. Your sexual preferences and sexual fantasies are not random. There is a connection between your painful experiences growing up and your present sexual struggles. Sexual harm in the past becomes reenacted in the present. This is because you have neurons... and that's how neurons operate.
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I am joined today by therapist and friend Reid Zeller who shares a story about egging cars when he was 16. Behind every story is a backstory. The backstory includes the nature of the environment we grew up in. When religious or spiritual expectations are placed on the shoulders of a child, pressure builds within that child. And when that pressure inevitably leads to a bursting, what results is always a mixture of dignity and depravity. Both. If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially.
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When you were a child, you were deeply dependent on your primary caretakers. This means that the development of your brain was contingent upon the level of care and kindness in your family environment. Today I identify the six things you needed from your parents, and give examples of each. The âBig Sixâ things you needed from your parents include (1) attunement, (2) responsiveness, (3) engagement, (4) ability to regulate your affect, (5) ability to handle your big emotions and (6) willingness to repair harm. To download a free document that explains the Big Six, click here.
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If you have difficulty regulating your emotion, there is a reason for that! No one comes out of the womb with the ability to regulate their affect. The way you develop the neurobiological structures to regulate your own emotions is by having your affect interactively regulated by another. This is the main gift that a primary caregiver gives to a child. Another name for this gift is âsecure attachment.â The essence of secure attachment in adulthood is that you have the ability to both self-regulate and reach for help (that is, receive regulation from another). If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially by clicking here.
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This episode is for people who experience emotional pain but feel like ânothing that bad happened to me growing up. I had a pretty good childhood.â As it says in Jeremiah 6, it is very common to dress our wounds as though they are not serious. One way we tend to minimize our wounds is by comparing our story to someone else who âhad it worse.â Another way we minimize our wounds is by spiritualizing away the harmful experiences we endured with sentences like, âGod used that terrible experience to shape my character.â What is keeping you from having compassion for the harm you experienced as a boy or a girl? If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially here.
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When I began exploring my story, five objections kept coming up for me. These objections kept me stuck. In today’s episode, I respond to each of the five objections. Objection 1: I should focus on the present and the future, not "dwell on the past.” Objection 2: Looking at my story is self-indulgent, introspective navel gazing; I should be focused on God and others rather than focused on myself. Objection 3: Who am I to judge my parents? Jesus says "do not judge.” Besides, I don't want to blame my parents. Objection 4: There's no point in looking at how my parents hurt me because they did the best they could. Objection 5: I can't change what's already happened, so what's the point of looking at the past?
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My invitation to you today is simple: to take your story seriously. Engaging your story is the single most important thing you can do to experience healing. When I say "your story," I'm talking more about the individual scenes than the overarching narrative of your life. Your storiesâparticularly your stories of heartache or harmâhave shaped your brain more than anything else. Which means that your past stories are shaping your present life more than you may realize. To support the podcast financially, click here.
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In âAs Long As You Need,â author J.S. Park writes that âGrief is not about letting go, but about letting in.â Letting in sorrow, letting in anger, and especially letting in other people who can be WITH us in our pain. This episode is about all kinds of griefânot merely the grief of losing a loved one. One of Joon Parkâs main points is that we often experience loneliness in the midst of our sorrow and pain. He says, âIt is possible to be in a room full of people, but feel more lonely than if the room had been empty. It is to be unseen. Unseen by those close to you is in some ways worse than having no one see you.â
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I am joined today by author Jay Stringer to talk about sexual stuckness/difficulties/pain. Healthy sexuality is deeply tied to the degree to which we have made sense of our story in our family of origin. Sadly, so few of us have ever been asked to connect the dots between our past life story and the sexual difficulties we face in the present. Today, Jay and I try to connect some of those dots. If you want to understand your sexual story in more depth, please sign up for The Sexual Attachment Conference on May 4th. We want to help you understand and transform some of the unique sexual difficulties you may be experiencing either individually or as a couple.
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I am joined today by Dr. Hillary McBride to discuss excerpts from her new book titled, âPractices for Embodied Living.â Topics covered include: how to feel your feelings, being alive in your body (eroticism), and the story of your relationship to your sensuality and sexuality. Finally, I ask Hillary about her beautiful claim that we often find the Holy precisely in the places we were told not to look (including in our bodies).
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Pastor and counselor Mike Boland shares a story from when he was 15 years old. Itâs a story about the interplay of longing for connection and, at the same time, dreading what will be required of him in return. We talk about grooming, and the war of ambivalence that rages in oneâs body in the midst of abuse. You can find out more about Mikeâs work at therestinitiative.org.
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The opposite of trauma is not "no trauma;" the opposite of trauma is connection. To be human is to be wounded. However, wounds heal naturally when the environment is right⊠and the right environment for healing is the empathic presence of another person. God made our brains and nervous systems to need one another. This is particularly true when it comes to engaging your story. You cannot engage your story alone. Sitting in your favorite chair with a journal, a Bible, a cup of coffee, and a good view out your window is not sufficient to heal your wounds. But the attuned presence of another human being can change your brain.
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Today I focus on two important ways that your body tells you things. The first is through your affect. Whenever your affect becomes dysregulated, your body is letting you know valuable information about your present environment⊠and about your past story. Dysregulation makes implicit memory known. And the second way that your body communicates with you is through impulses. Your body has impulses⊠impulses that it would like you to take more seriously than you probably do.
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You have a story and that story matters. Your story in your family of origin significantly affects the way you think, feel, and act in the world today. This is why Dan Allender says, âIt is time to listen to your story.â What if healing begins by listening to your story? By reflecting onâand engagingâthe experiences in your growing up years, you can better understand why your brain has been shaped in the way that it has. These are the topics that Dan, Cathy, and I explore in todayâs episode. If you want to experience more of the healing power of understanding your own story, join the three of us in Atlanta, GA, on Saturday February 3, 2024, for the StoryWork Conference. The conference will be live streamed if you canât make it to Atlanta. You can register by going to adamyoungcounseling.com. CEUâs are available for therapists.
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Your body knows things that your enskulled brain does not. Moreover, if you listen, your body will tell you important thingsâthings that will help you heal. Your body is a truth teller. It is the trustworthy prophet from within. In todayâs episode, I explain why itâs so important to listen to your body⊠and how to do it.
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Friend and fellow therapist Matthias Roberts joins me today to share a very vulnerable story involving triangulation with his mother. How does an adolescent boy answer his Momâs questions about his homosexuality when Mom is disgusted by it? This is a story about Matthiasâ deep love for God⊠and the torment he felt as a result. We talk about Matthiasâ immense hope that God would âhealâ his sexuality and how he came to feel Godâs blessing rather than shame.
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Therapist and fellow podcaster Vanessa Sadler shares a story from when she was 11 years old. As children, all of us needed to belongâto feel âa part of.â If we did not receive sufficient attunement from our primary caregivers, we likely experienced high levels of loneliness. The dilemma is that it may not have felt like loneliness because it was such a normal part of your life. Vanessa talks candidly about her loneliness growing up, as well as how she came to experience significant healing from that loneliness. You can follow Vanessa on Instagram @abidinginstory.
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