Pull the Weeds

I hold to the assumption that every breathing person has endured a degree of betrayal and harm that not only damages our soul-heart, but also leaves us in the pit of shame.

If you have survived school recess or sport locker rooms or sorority induction, then you know the sting of being made to feel unworthy because of who you are. Sadly, too many of you have experienced betrayal from a father, mother, or spouse: being made to feel your body was wrong; routinely punished for not being “good enough”; discovering the one you made a lifelong vow to has given their body to another; feeling the weight of abuse as another body rapes you, punches you, locks you away, or threatens you. 

Now stop and consider what your body is doing after reading that paragraph. Note how your heart feels, how your breathing feels. Look at how you are sitting. See where your arms and hands are.

Pay attention to what your mind is doing. 

Why am I asking you to monitor yourself? It’s because of how human memory works. Right now your body is telling you about your past experiences related to betrayal, shame, and abuse. 

Our brain only records “charged” events into memories. Surges of stress or bonding hormones, for example, must accompany the event otherwise we won’t remember it. The reverse is also true. When we recount a memory-story to ourselves or someone else, our body experiences the same “charge”, although not necessarily to the original degree. Fun memories with a good friend increase our oxytocin (a bonding hormone) when we tell the story. Talking about a delicious meal increases our current levels of dopamine (a pleasure hormone). And do you see where this is going in regards to wounds and betrayals and abuse? When we recount those memory-stories, our bodies experience a real-time increase in cortisol, too (a stress hormone). 

This is why no one wants to go into their own stories of pain! Our brain and body don’t care about time as a linear factor.

Stories, and even segmented stories or fractured images, can produce a real-time stress response.

Please join me by reading this quote from Dan Allender out loud:

“The first great enemy to lasting change is the propensity to turn our eyes away from the wound and pretend things are fine.”

We don’t want to acknowledge the damage. Therefore, we can never acknowledge the need or desire to heal, to be made whole. We must simply keep up the image, maintain the status quo, and put on a false disposition. 

BUT!

It is eminently worthy labor to pull up the weeds and tend to the debris in our lives which keep the ground of our deep hearts unable to bear good fruit. Denial of being hurt, abused, and betrayed in our past prevents us from starting this work of reclaiming and redeeming. It is my hope and prayer that each one of us fully engages in the work of reclaiming the truth of our stories. It matters for your soul-heart, and it also matters for your relationships with those you love. If the only thing you literally do today is stare into the place you want to avoid, doing so with love and tenderness toward yourself, then you have done holy and beautiful work.

You are worth being made whole.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Jen runs workshops where she uses her own life experience and her biblical counseling to help you reclaim what has been lost through trauma or suffering! Reclaiming Truth is a workshop about how betrayal, loss, trauma, and/or suffering affect our way of thinking and being in the world. Reclaiming Experience is a time to process what you have learned and put it into practice. We will use our real lives as the material. See Jen’s other work at reclaimingourstories.blogspot.com or EMAIL HER AT THEWELL.JEN@GMAIL.COM