Dealing With the Impact of Relational Dysfunction

Join Lysa TerKeurst; her licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress; and Proverbs 31 Ministries’ Director of Theological Research, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, for a conversation about therapy and theology.

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Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

And so I think all of this contributes to the silencing of
a woman, especially in terms of emotional abuse. So what do we do about it, Jim?
And I loved when we were processing this.
You said, first of all, we don’t wanna take our response to an extreme So we don’t wanna take, like, okay.
We’ve gotten to the place where we don’t wanna be silenced about the emotional abuse we’re experiencing, but you made a great point we don’t wanna immediately go from being absolutely quiet about it to suddenly swinging the pendulum in the other direction and taking our are voicing of it to such an extreme.
We can be. Lord knows I can be a creature of extremes.
So I will have no voice or I will have cosigned literally cosigned someone’s unhealthy treatment of me.
I read a book, podcast, podcasts like this one, and I get some insight, which is good insight.
And I take this beach ball that a, proverbially, I’ve held underwater.
And you know, I have this in my office.
I have a beach ball, and I have a hand grenade. It’s been gutted, but it’s a real hand grenade.
Right? And I hold it under water. Finally, I began to go, yeah.
I need say something here, and I come out like a grenade.
And I do things, and I have this massive vulnerability hangover later, which means I just went out and settled the stuff.
And I’m like, I should have not I was not emotionally self regulated during that time. I understand this.
So the idea of being able to slowly be able to find a safe person and began at 30 and feed and say, I’d like to tell you here’s what I’m experiencing it versus coming out moving from, you know, being, you know, quiet like a mouse and then getting a megaphone, I understand why.
That’s that danger. It goes quick.
When I finally found my voice and I get to proclaim it from the rooftops, you’ll regret that.
especially if you’re doing that in such a way that you have a bit of vengeance. I’ve seen that.
I mean, just I wanna get somebody. You’re gonna regret that later if you have integrity, I think.
And so besides just the knowledge of, okay. We wanna find our voice
—
Mhmm. — but we don’t wanna go from mouse to megaphone.
Right.
So what is what does that middle ground look like?
So I what I’d literally experience would do with people if I have a chance to to work with them is to have him come and say, I would like to listen.
So I know I’m a safe person as a licensed professional counselor and licensed clinical mental health counselor, I am bound by confidentiality.
They know it. So say, let me hear your story.
I, to use my words in the vernacular, I don’t egg them on. Yeah. Come on. Wow. Woo.
I need to stay. I mean, act adult and be like a professional. Right?
At level level and say, but the three words I use is Tell me more.
So I’m trying to slowly invite them to put out their data on the table.
And, you know, because we’ve talked so much about fact and impact. I’ll say, okay. Let’s stop for a moment.
Here’s the fact this is what happened to you. Let’s talk for a moment. What’s the impact?
I’m already slowing them down trying to. What do you think that did to you?
Remember the same son that hardens clay softens butter? What do you think that did to you?
And then I’ll say, let’s just take a thought.
Just a thought Chent Lingo, where might you be in your family of origin story, naming not blaming.
Where are you we said if it’s hysterical often, it could be historical.
Where did this ever happen to you before?
I will leave it right there, and we talked about this in the live last podcast, Jesus, the woman at the well.
He’s deep into the narrative. I mean, he could have said, listen, I’ll tell you right now.
You’re sleeping with dudes. You do he finally says, and I just feel him lean back.
and say, tell me about your husband. Now that’s a wise counselor.
That’s a wise friend that doesn’t just go for the juggler right away. Mhmm.
So I try to draw them out, and I’m trying to invite them to emotional self regulation that they literally in this amygdala part of their brain, where trauma is can slow themselves down, regulate, and say, you know, this is what happens, and I used in my hub.
It’s not a technique. It’s true. h u b, I hear you, ma’am.
And I understand you or I’m trying to understand you and b is I believe you and I believe in you.
because most people here’s not believed. They’re gonna think, oh, boy.
But I’m working and you as a good friend watching, tuning in, listening today, can help your friends as Iron Sharpen’s iron.
You can help them regulate and let’s just remember the word of god in Proverbs 151, a gentle answer, turns away wrath, turns away anger, double hermeneutic.
As I get gentle with you, it’s gonna lower my anger. Woah.
I’m gonna it’s soften, and it will help you soften. But harsh words, come on.
You ought to get him. I can’t believe he did that.
My harsh words stir up my anger and will stir up yours.
That is one of the most powerful applicable verses for talking about emotional and spiritual abuse.
I like what you said there, Jim, about facts and impact because sometimes the facts get a little confusing.
Well, does that qualify as emotional abuse does this qualify as emotional abuse? You know? I don’t know.
I don’t know. And so I think with the fact, we have to look at the spectrum of severity and the spectrum of currents.
Mhmm. So that’s important. But I think a bigger thing that I think gets left out of the conversation is the impact.
I think it’s easier to identify emotional abuse when you consider the impact that it has had on the person experiencing the fact.
And we’re back to the bruised hand that we can see — Mhmm.
—
the coloration in Joel’s excellent point that he elaborated on.
That is the impact where it gets harder to say, what is the impact to my soul?
I think it just takes some time. Proverbs 20 verse 5.
The purposes in all of our hearts are deep water, so we must go down deep to draw them out.
It’s harder to see that emotional and spiritual impact.
Joel, I wanna get to you. But before we do, Jim, there were 3 g’s that I found really helpful
—
Mhmm.
—
when you were talking about Okay.
We don’t wanna be like a mouse, but we don’t wanna swing it over to a megaphone. Mhmm.
And that was grovel, grandstand, and then grounded is in the middle.
So do you wanna just touch on those 3 g’s?
Pretty simple. I just sat with someone one day number of years ago.
And I said, you know, you don’t wanna do this. Thank you, seriously, holy spirit for being my teacher.
His the holy spirit gave it to me. And I said, you’re in a relationship. You don’t wanna grovel.
That’s just begging and walking on egg shells.
If you walk on egg shells, the relationship in integrity is over for the moment. Mhmm.
Real integrity in relationship cannot have a real connection. If somebody’s walking on eggshells, don’t grovel, please.
Is there any way would you just hear me? Even the voice box tightens. The other extreme is fine.
I won’t grovel. I’m going to Grandstand.
And I had a person once, no kidding say to me, I finally got your point.
I stopped walking on eggshells, and I started, set it word for word, I am stomping on eggshells all over my spell.
They kinda miss the point. Don’t grovel. Please, bag. Don’t grandstand. I’ll just get big.
And here’s my line in the sand I dare you to cross it. I see people do that.
And start throwing emotional abuse.
Right there, Quid broke old Clarice. It’s like bambambam bam. and then to be grounded.
And that is to be that healthy adult self. You wanna love Wellforce Corinthians 13 when I was a child.
I’ve gone gone and I acted like a child thought reason.
I love the reason to rationalize like a child, but when I became an adult, no therapist, no bible teacher, no theologian for a moment, I put away childish things.
I put it so that piece is to be grounded as to say, is somebody going to come at me and that I just react or do I wanna learn to take a breath lean back and respond not react.
It will change over time. You say, man, I feel like I’m I feel more like an adult. I’m responding.
They came in and pressed buttons so you don’t have to show up to every drama you’re invited to.
You just don’t. You got popcorn on a Coke and say, I might show up to this one. No.
No. I think that’s so good.
And I think part of staying grounded is to realize you’re empowered to call out hurt without expressing and creating more hurt.
Well stated.
And So we don’t wanna grovel beg that person to change when they be maybe unwilling or incapable of changing.
Right? Mhmm. And we don’t wanna grandstand, throw abuse back at that person. Mhmm.
We wanna be grounded in the middle, find our voice appropriately and get help.
Because, ultimately, we want the emotional abuse to end. Mhmm.
Oh, did you see that, by
the way, under the 3rd g
would be grounded. Do you just see what’s right below it? That 4th g snuck in on us. And you
know what it is? Greaf.
We talked about that. We’ve talked on our webinars we’ve been you and I’ve been doing with Joel is the grief to have all good healthy boundaries in self care require grief.
What do you mean is But if I have this boundary, this person may talk about me.
They may blast me on social media. Stop liking my post, or they may divorce me or leave me.
And so the idea of staying in that grounded place usually, I think, will require grief.
You may not see it coming yet, but the idea it will cost you something to stay grounded. Always does.
Yeah. And to connect these things theologically, I remember when you were talking about this for the first time, Jim, some lights were off in my mind of thinking of these responses with our identity as image bearers of god.
Mhmm. So here’s what happens. When you grovel what you’re doing is you’re participating in being subhuman.
We’re actually denying the image of God.
And so a woman who who goes into a position of silence or grovel, whatever it might be, it is actually denying your image that you rightly bear in in God.
Grand standing is now the opposite. It is being superior or akin to being like God.
So if groveling is being subpar subimage, then grandstanding is actually elevating yourself above the image that was given to you.
That was granted to you. It’s a position of superiority.
So being grounded is actually rightly living out the reality of being in the likeness and image of God.
And so, I’m gonna connect the 4th one. Well, how do you do this? Grief. That’s what you just described.
Grief is the counterbalance. It’s the protection for us to keep us from falling too deep into groveling or elevating too high into grandstanding.
Grief taps into humility. and humility is what grounds us. And I think that’s so important.
And I just wanna just from another standpoint, when we hear silence, I want us to be careful that we don’t equate silence with, like, a one dimensional not talking Right?
Because after
— —
wisdom. No. I I don’t know if that’s what you mean. Like, there’s a place to not talk.
Yeah. So there’s a place of meditation. So yeah. And we’ll get to that.
But I’m also thinking about the Garden of Eden when the temptation the first temptation takes place with the serpent.
Yeah. The serpent is so deceitful because the serpent doesn’t just squash the conversation. Right?
The serpent actually reframes re altars.
It it brings in theological dishonesty And and what what happens is a silencing through suppression.
So the woman is able to speak with the irony is that Adam zone is silent the whole time.
Right? That’s the greatest irony of this entire thing.
But there’s a suppression And so if you’re in a position of suppression where you’re being silenced or you’re being almost manipulated and this is the the other danger, You’re being manipulated and almost lead with the the breadcrumbs down a certain way to think to act to feel a certain way that is a type of suppression of your identity of who you are as a human being that takes away that rightful brushing of being able to be honest and transparent with what you’re feeling and what you’re doing.
And so here’s the the other question. Well, why do I deserve a voice? like, theologically.
I don’t know if there’s anybody thinking, like, you know, why do I even deserve
You can count on that because I’ve heard that myriad of times. Do I even get to speak, should I?
Do I have the right?
And I and my answer is really simple because you’re a daughter of the king.
Come on.
because you’re a son of the king. because you’re made in the likeness and the image of the king.
Now here’s the interesting thing about being royalty.
Being royalty gives you incredible privilege, incredible honor, and there’s also simultaneous massive responsibility.
And so we have the opportunity, and we’re being welcomed into a conversation.
And the action of denying that and stripping that away from you is an an offense.
This is just me tit talking at this point. It is a fence against the royal image that you bear.