Today I want to talk to you about the trauma healing journey and specifically the subject of discernment. Even more specifically self discernment the ability to look at your heart look at what's going on in your journey and to understand what is it that you need in order to take some more steps in your healing and freedom journey. What I'm going to address today has to do with how you relate to yourself, how you see yourself. Do you see yourself the way that God sees you? I'm praying by the

end of this broadcast that I'll be able to help you take one more step toward seeing yourself and what you've been through, what you're going through through God's eyes. Welcome to the healing and freedom journey. Mark Deesus here. I am your brother from another mother bringing you insights along the way. I'm all about mental, emotional, and relationship health. And if you are too, you have arrived at a great place. Had to get that brother from another mother. rolls out of my tongue sometimes

too fast. Okay. When it comes to healing from trauma or really working through any mental health battleground, how you see God, how you see yourself is incredibly important. So, what I want to do is I want to take the lens and I want to look at how you see yourself. Is it really based on how God sees you? Is it really a lens that is how he looks at you and deals with you? or do you find yourself trapped in unfruitful cycles and it's coming out of the lens that you're carrying? So, when you're

struggling, whether it's anxiety, old wounds that keep surfacing, being triggered, or relationship battles or flashbacks that are coming, you know, we we we have an instinctive reaction of what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong with me, what's wrong with me. But here's what most of us miss in the process. How we examine ourselves, the lens that we use to examine ourselves determines how things are going to start happening from that point on. So there's two

mindsets, two lenses we're going to look at today when it comes to our struggles, our traumatic history, and the things that we wrestle with. And I want to get into those today. And I'm praying that I'll help bring some illumination to you. and and through this you'll begin to go okay I'm going to make some shifts here in how I relate to myself more like how God relates to me. So the two lenses I'm going to get into is first is a shame based examination. I talk a lot about shame and its toxic impact. I'm

going to get some more into it today and I want to talk more I talk about it a lot but I don't talk about it some more today about compassionate grace and what compassionate grace-based discernment is. Okay. So, we have shame based examination. I won't even call it shame based discernment because it's not discernment. It's examination. And then I also want to talk about compassionatebased compassionate grace-based discernment. These are the two lenses that we're going to get into. Okay. So, the first

one I'm going to give you an overview and then I'm going to go a little bit deeper. I'm going to do it for both of them and then I want to give you some some legs and branches to this to help you process it. now with stuff that you're going through because when we're struggling and we're trying to understand what's going on, when shame comes in, which is very common, especially when it comes to trauma, it's going to it's going to want to dilute the lens by which we're seeing. So,

here's some things we need to keep in mind is it's going to base itself based on law and condemnation. Condemnation is the force by which shame gets leverage and it's based on law. And what happens? There's three Ds that I want to bring out here. When you're you're having symptoms or when you're having flashbacks is shame is always going to look to disqualify you. You're unlovable. You you you you're unworthy of being able to receive love. Two, it's going to

dismiss. It's going to dismiss your pain. It's going to push you and what you've been through away, right? All the things you've been through, dismiss it. It wasn't that bad. You know, it's cuz you're just not strong enough. And three is keep this sense of disconnect going. And you have to remember this. It's going to promote a sense of separation from God, yourself, and others. That sense of separation from self is very important when it comes to trauma healing and understanding, working

through it. It's going to default to judgment without mercy. That's a very key component. It's going to inflame a hostile relationship with self. It's going to prioritize flaws and failures as as the main things that you look at. It's going to lead to panic reactions, not sober ones. Many people are recognizing, okay, that's that's something that impacts how I relating to my traumatic history. We become vulnerable to quick fixes. So, we're looking for just something quick, quick,

quick, quick, quick, which keeps us in a shallow world of dealing with ourselves. Then there's this thing where we're doing constant introspective unproductive staring within. We're just staring at ourselves, staring at ourselves, staring at ourselves. And trauma doesn't gain healing through staring at yourself, even though sometimes we think that's what it's going to take. It inflames performancedriven striving but remaining in the cycle with little to no healing or transformation. Okay? So you're just

like try harder, try harder, try harder. Constant repeated cycles with little change and our default response can be to shame others. So when people are very shamy in how they deal with other people, it's coming out of the lens in which they carry and how they even see themselves. they've not come into compassionate grace. So the danger of this pattern is what shame does. When we try to discern our trauma- related pain or brokenness through shame, we create a second layer of wounding. Because for trauma, it creates two

layers of wounding. Number one, one layer is what happened and how it affected us. Two is shaming ourselves about the struggle. So now you have two problems. So I tell people, why do you want two battles? You've already got one to begin with. Why are you going to add on a second one? Let's work through the shame issue as I've mentioned in past broadcasts about working through that factor so we can gain some greater healing in our perspective. All right. So when we move into compassionate

grace-based discernment, we're entering a different world because in that world it delays judgmentalism and clings to mercy. In compassionate grace, it cultivates greater self-compassion. So now you become a witness of compassion to yourself rather than being a hostile, militant tyrant to yourself. Now, in compassionate grace, what it's going to do is it's going to reinforce our righteousness in Christ. This is a time to be reminded of where your righteousness is found anyways, not in

your performance. It's also an opportunity where we see our brokenness, sin, and struggle as a reminder of our need for grace. As we're working through traumatic triggering, it's recognizing even more how much we need God, how much we need help, how much we need is grace. But it prioritizes love as the Bible teaches. Shame-based people do not prioritize love. They they say it, they may preach it, but they don't live it. It's important to keep in mind. So, you have to be aware of of of what influences

your processing. An interesting thing about compassionate grace, because many people when they they hear initially hear me talking about compassionate grace, they think, "Oh, I just like pretends that problems or sin or things aren't even there. Compassion and grace has a very powerful sobering effect to us. When I talk about sobriety, sobriety is the ideal place we want to live in. Keeps us alert, keeps us awake, keeps us treasuring love, keeps us appreciating what is good of God that is at work within us. So we

have to remember that compassion and grace is actually going to lead us more and more into sobriety. It's going to treasure truth and helpful correction. Areas of where I I I see a course correction or a thought correction, a mind renewal. It's not an end of relationship. It's not, oh, God's leaving me because of this. No, it's actually improving relationship. And I, the Bible talks about how love loves the truth, right? Where it embraces the truth. And so when I see that discovery, even though some of the

healing is work and can I can feel resistance, I'm going to appreciate the truth because um it's going to lead to more transformation. It is proven that when we practice compassion and grace over ourselves in our journey, that transformation actually becomes a byproduct over time because you get more to the heart of it. You engage more of a journey. You're more patient with yourself. But the focus is not I got to change, I got to change, I got to change, I got to change. The focus is on

learning to connect in love, learning to apply grace. And see, when we reverse it, many of us, we want change and then then someday I'll be loved. When we shift that and go, no, I'm learning to be loved and learning to live in grace. And change actually flows out of that. It's not a thing that's done by force. So many of us are in performance force trying to get ourselves better trying to fix ourselves right. So when in this in this pattern we connect more to the flow of what God is doing. When people ask I

want to know what God is doing what's he working on what's happening this and that and it can get so mystical so out there and then we're in like subjective spinning about is this God is that God is this God is that God is God. When you connect more to what compassion really is, what grace really is, it actually leads you into the wave, into the flow of what God is doing in your life more than anything else. It also helps us to look up and out versus staring within. I've I I've in my

journey I've had that I've had that where I've had to confront that where I thought I got to look at this, look at this, study it, study it, examine it. And I actually found that there's a lot of power in me not staring at myself but looking up and out because many times part of my healing journey is being a blessing to others. And healing doesn't come about just by staring at myself. And so what grace does is it empowers learning and the next step. Grace sees everything as learning because your struggles, your

your weaknesses, your flaws are not going to suddenly make God leave you. So everything is about learning because now the relationship is there. He is faithful. I want to learn what I can. That's what grace is going to point you to. It's all learning. It's healing, learning, and you get empowered to take the next step. So with that overview in mind, let me go now a little bit deeper into the trenches because let me get back to shame based examination. It's going to inflame condemnation,

judgmentalism, destructive pattern. So what happens is we will attribute condemnation and shame to the voice of God. In my one-on-one uh interaction with people, the feedback I get, it's like, "Okay, you're shaming yourself. You're shaming yourself." And then they they put this label of this is God. So now God in a way becomes an enemy to your healing. See this this distortion that comes into play. So we end up hiding and avoiding from the very source of healing and renewal

that we need. Isn't that what shame does? Then we can interpret our struggle as evidence of God's rejection rather than opportunities for renewal and refinement. How many of you find yourself in your traumatic pain, rejecting yourself, feeling God has rejected you, abandoned you, when really this opportunity for healing, renewal, and healing refinement that's taking place because those that have been wounded traumatically can actually be very powerful vessels of healing because they come from a deep

experience of grace. Now, this is a big one because with shame base, we remain we remain a sinner saved by grace with an emphasis on the sinner part, not the saved by grace part. And many preachers keep perpetuating this every week in day in and out. We are such sinners. We are such sinners. And they're talking to church people. They're talking to believers hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering how much we are sinners. It's like, wait a second. We actually have a new identity in Christ.

Like yes, we are sinners saved by grace. Uh are we celebrating the new identity, the new connection, the new journey? So then what happens is our focus becomes more on what's wrong with us. Do you find that? You find that you're constantly what's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together? Versus learning to celebrate what is beautiful in us. Yes, in us. Oh, I don't want to say something's good in me. there comes a false humility even though the epistles write about celebrating every good thing that is at

work within us in Christ because Christ is at work within us. So then our focus becomes on where we've not experienced transformation instead of appreciating how far we've come. So what is deadly within this is judging and and judging is a whole topic in itself. I plan on addressing a healthy biblical view on judging. Judging is done without mercy. And without mercy, self-discernment is hopeless. It's hopeless. Will judge, condemn, punishment. Judge, condemn, punishment. Judge, condemn, punishment. And trauma has a

nasty impact of fueling that kind of mindset. Within our shame-based perspectives, the focus is fixing. I got to be fixed because I feel unlovable in my current state. So, I need to fix myself to approach God. I got to fix myself. And then it's a classic mindset of shame. And so, then we shame our faith walk. If I was a true Christian, I wouldn't have this kind of struggle, right? Or we compare ourselves to others. other people do not have this battle, which is just not true. They may not have your specific battle, but they

got some battles. The only difference between you and everyone else is who's hiding it more, right? So, we remain in stress mode about our struggles because our relationship with God is on thin ice. Our relationship with the world around us is unsafe and our relationship with oursel is fractured. So, we cannot see ourselves the way we need to see. So now we're in this foggy lens that we're in. Therefore, we can't see new possibilities because we're stuck in patterns that say, "I've tried

everything. I've tried all this. Nothing works." So then what happens is we see our survival responses as personal failures. Meaning that you you get triggered, anxiety rises up, which is just a a survival response that needs renewal. But we see it as failure. We see it as I'm bad. I uh something is so wrong about me versus letting compassionate grace help us walk into renewal. Right? Here's an interesting thing I observe often is we pathize normal reactions to abnormal circumstances. What do I mean by that?

Uh you've had a trauma, now your nervous system is is reacting in a way so you pathize everything. And and I do get concerned about living in a culture where we're we're looking at everything as a pathological disorder. Oh, I felt nervous. I felt this. Uh what pathological thing is this? What disorder is this? Instead of recognizing the humanity of anxiousness and the the sense of our nervous system needing some recalibrating and some renewing, what's wrong with me? Why do I freeze up like

this? I must have some disorder, something. There there is a part of diagnosis that's shamebased. Something's really wrong with me. This is a disorder. I'm not against diagnosis. I'm not against recognizing disorders. I spend a lot of my time talking about it. But under shame, we're we're like, "Something's wrong with me, so I got to get this thing fixed. So, tell me what it is so I can get it fixed." Then there's the aspect of we feel ashamed of symptoms.

When you get flashbacks or hypervigilance or even numbness, which is just your nervous system kicking up, needing the safety of perfect love that casts out fear, shame comes in. Am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling this way? And we believe we should just get over this years ago. It's a classic rejectionbased mindset. Why haven't I been healed 10 years ago? Why am I still like this? When trauma healing doesn't work that that way, it's a journey. So, some outcomes that take place, we

misdiagnose ourselves constantly. But, you know what? I must not be forgiving. I must not be a good Christian. I'm hard-hearted. You know, I'm not a real Christian. I'm like Esau. I'm a repbate. I've committed the unpardonable sin. I'm so dirty. I'm so rotten. My inbox is hit weekly in in in people asking questions where they are constantly misdiagnosing themselves. And we are so shamebased. We actually defend that diagnosis. So now I feel myself being pulled into debating people about their shamebased

perspectives. They're telling me, "No, no, Mark, Mark, I am just I'm a reprobate." No, no, you're not. You're struggling. Come into compassionate grace. Truth that sets you free. No, no, no, Mark. It becomes like a badge they wear to show how unlovable they are. The misdiagnosis may feel accurate, but remember it's leading you to remaining stuck. So this is where we get lost in our feelings and and and toxic interpretations. And so the result is we become an enemy to ourselves. We attack

ourselves rather than being loving, understanding and nurturing towards oursel. You cannot heal while attacking yourself. Just like I can't heal you or be a healing vessel towards you if I'm also attacking you, right? Same with yourself. So then within this number three, we make shame or fear-based decisions. And so what I mean by that is we choose kind of a quick response to um to just get the yucky feeling away rather than going okay I need to go deeper in my journey and stop with the

quick reactions cuz shame and fear partner together that you will you'll have a lot of quick fast reactions very impulsive uh to just quickly move into something actually compulsive just to try to feel better just to try to feel better just try to feel better so you get you get vulnerer- able to shallow quick fix kind of remedies. You know what you need to you attend you need to attend church more. You need to just pray more. You need to do more or give more. A lot of those kind of things. So

we isolate. This is the result of of what shame does. We hide from support. We hide from community. We hide from relationship even though that's what we need. Meanwhile, shame provides itself as a way out. Ah, if you just did this, you did this. You know, it just hammers us. But do you notice you actually keep repeating the destructive patterns? Isn't that interesting? Like we think with the shame base, we're, you know, we're knocking somebody into what they needed to do because shame reinforces

the behaviors we're actually needing to renew. So we get more exhausted, more exhausted, and we remain stuck. So, where I want to encourage you in your trauma healing journey is more within compassionate grace-based discernment. I want you to be able to when you look at your heart and what you're going through and your symptoms to have more compassion, more grace. I'm going to bring Psalm 1 103:8 into this. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in mercy. That first use of

the word, you see merciful and mercy. Merciful there in the original speaks of compassionate, gracious, okay, was pointing to God's graciousness. It's pointing us to his working, his his graciousness towards us, his grace towards us. Slow to anger. What's that speaking of? Patience. It's God's patience with us. And then the word mercy here, you could interpret it as loving kindness and goodness, which those uh patience and kindness are pillars of how love operates according to the scriptures, especially in 1

journey I've had that I've had that where I've had to confront that where I thought I got to look at this, look at this, study it, study it, examine it. And I actually found that there's a lot of power in me not staring at myself but looking up and out because many times part of my healing journey is being a blessing to others. And healing doesn't come about just by staring at myself. And so what grace does is it empowers learning and the next step. Grace sees everything as learning because your struggles, your

your weaknesses, your flaws are not going to suddenly make God leave you. So everything is about learning because now the relationship is there. He is faithful. I want to learn what I can. That's what grace is going to point you to. It's all learning. It's healing, learning, and you get empowered to take the next step. So with that overview in mind, let me go now a little bit deeper into the trenches because let me get back to shame based examination. It's going to inflame condemnation,

judgmentalism, destructive pattern. So what happens is we will attribute condemnation and shame to the voice of God. In my one-on-one uh interaction with people, the feedback I get, it's like, "Okay, you're shaming yourself. You're shaming yourself." And then they they put this label of this is God. So now God in a way becomes an enemy to your healing. See this this distortion that comes into play. So we end up hiding and avoiding from the very source of healing and renewal

that we need. Isn't that what shame does? Then we can interpret our struggle as evidence of God's rejection rather than opportunities for renewal and refinement. How many of you find yourself in your traumatic pain, rejecting yourself, feeling God has rejected you, abandoned you, when really this opportunity for healing, renewal, and healing refinement that's taking place because those that have been wounded traumatically can actually be very powerful vessels of healing because they come from a deep

experience of grace. Now, this is a big one because with shame base, we remain we remain a sinner saved by grace with an emphasis on the sinner part, not the saved by grace part. And many preachers keep perpetuating this every week in day in and out. We are such sinners. We are such sinners. And they're talking to church people. They're talking to believers hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering how much we are sinners. It's like, wait a second. We actually have a new identity in Christ.

Like yes, we are sinners saved by grace. Uh are we celebrating the new identity, the new connection, the new journey? So then what happens is our focus becomes more on what's wrong with us. Do you find that? You find that you're constantly what's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together? Versus learning to celebrate what is beautiful in us. Yes, in us. Oh, I don't want to say something's good in me. there comes a false humility even though the epistles write about celebrating every good thing that is at

work within us in Christ because Christ is at work within us. So then our focus becomes on where we've not experienced transformation instead of appreciating how far we've come. So what is deadly within this is judging and and judging is a whole topic in itself. I plan on addressing a healthy biblical view on judging. Judging is done without mercy. And without mercy, self-discernment is hopeless. It's hopeless. Will judge, condemn, punishment. Judge, condemn, punishment. Judge, condemn, punishment. And trauma has a

nasty impact of fueling that kind of mindset. Within our shame-based perspectives, the focus is fixing. I got to be fixed because I feel unlovable in my current state. So, I need to fix myself to approach God. I got to fix myself. And then it's a classic mindset of shame. And so, then we shame our faith walk. If I was a true Christian, I wouldn't have this kind of struggle, right? Or we compare ourselves to others. other people do not have this battle, which is just not true. They may not have your specific battle, but they

got some battles. The only difference between you and everyone else is who's hiding it more, right? So, we remain in stress mode about our struggles because our relationship with God is on thin ice. Our relationship with the world around us is unsafe and our relationship with oursel is fractured. So, we cannot see ourselves the way we need to see. So now we're in this foggy lens that we're in. Therefore, we can't see new possibilities because we're stuck in patterns that say, "I've tried

everything. I've tried all this. Nothing works." So then what happens is we see our survival responses as personal failures. Meaning that you you get triggered, anxiety rises up, which is just a a survival response that needs renewal. But we see it as failure. We see it as I'm bad. I uh something is so wrong about me versus letting compassionate grace help us walk into renewal. Right? Here's an interesting thing I observe often is we pathize normal reactions to abnormal circumstances. What do I mean by that?

Uh you've had a trauma, now your nervous system is is reacting in a way so you pathize everything. And and I do get concerned about living in a culture where we're we're looking at everything as a pathological disorder. Oh, I felt nervous. I felt this. Uh what pathological thing is this? What disorder is this? Instead of recognizing the humanity of anxiousness and the the sense of our nervous system needing some recalibrating and some renewing, what's wrong with me? Why do I freeze up like

this? I must have some disorder, something. There there is a part of diagnosis that's shamebased. Something's really wrong with me. This is a disorder. I'm not against diagnosis. I'm not against recognizing disorders. I spend a lot of my time talking about it. But under shame, we're we're like, "Something's wrong with me, so I got to get this thing fixed. So, tell me what it is so I can get it fixed." Then there's the aspect of we feel ashamed of symptoms.

When you get flashbacks or hypervigilance or even numbness, which is just your nervous system kicking up, needing the safety of perfect love that casts out fear, shame comes in. Am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling this way? And we believe we should just get over this years ago. It's a classic rejectionbased mindset. Why haven't I been healed 10 years ago? Why am I still like this? When trauma healing doesn't work that that way, it's a journey. So, some outcomes that take place, we

misdiagnose ourselves constantly. But, you know what? I must not be forgiving. I must not be a good Christian. I'm hard-hearted. You know, I'm not a real Christian. I'm like Esau. I'm a repbate. I've committed the unpardonable sin. I'm so dirty. I'm so rotten. My inbox is hit weekly in in in people asking questions where they are constantly misdiagnosing themselves. And we are so shamebased. We actually defend that diagnosis. So now I feel myself being pulled into debating people about their shamebased

perspectives. They're telling me, "No, no, Mark, Mark, I am just I'm a reprobate." No, no, you're not. You're struggling. Come into compassionate grace. Truth that sets you free. No, no, no, Mark. It becomes like a badge they wear to show how unlovable they are. The misdiagnosis may feel accurate, but remember it's leading you to remaining stuck. So this is where we get lost in our feelings and and and toxic interpretations. And so the result is we become an enemy to ourselves. We attack

ourselves rather than being loving, understanding and nurturing towards oursel. You cannot heal while attacking yourself. Just like I can't heal you or be a healing vessel towards you if I'm also attacking you, right? Same with yourself. So then within this number three, we make shame or fear-based decisions. And so what I mean by that is we choose kind of a quick response to um to just get the yucky feeling away rather than going okay I need to go deeper in my journey and stop with the

quick reactions cuz shame and fear partner together that you will you'll have a lot of quick fast reactions very impulsive uh to just quickly move into something actually compulsive just to try to feel better just to try to feel better just try to feel better so you get you get vulnerer- able to shallow quick fix kind of remedies. You know what you need to you attend you need to attend church more. You need to just pray more. You need to do more or give more. A lot of those kind of things. So

we isolate. This is the result of of what shame does. We hide from support. We hide from community. We hide from relationship even though that's what we need. Meanwhile, shame provides itself as a way out. Ah, if you just did this, you did this. You know, it just hammers us. But do you notice you actually keep repeating the destructive patterns? Isn't that interesting? Like we think with the shame base, we're, you know, we're knocking somebody into what they needed to do because shame reinforces

the behaviors we're actually needing to renew. So we get more exhausted, more exhausted, and we remain stuck. So, where I want to encourage you in your trauma healing journey is more within compassionate grace-based discernment. I want you to be able to when you look at your heart and what you're going through and your symptoms to have more compassion, more grace. I'm going to bring Psalm 1 103:8 into this. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in mercy. That first use of

the word, you see merciful and mercy. Merciful there in the original speaks of compassionate, gracious, okay, was pointing to God's graciousness. It's pointing us to his working, his his graciousness towards us, his grace towards us. Slow to anger. What's that speaking of? Patience. It's God's patience with us. And then the word mercy here, you could interpret it as loving kindness and goodness, which those uh patience and kindness are pillars of how love operates according to the scriptures, especially in 1

Corinthians 13. So here's what I'm pointing to when I'm talking about compassion and grace. A couple things I could expand on this more and more. I have in other teachings. First is the compassion part. There's three areas I keep reemphasizing. One is the loving embrace. Love moves towards you. Embraces you. This is the total unconditional loving acceptance. Tula that I talk about. The embrace in your goofiness, in your sin, in your struggle, in your pain, in whatever battle you're going through. There's an

embrace there. And within that, the two pillars of love that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13 come in. Love is patient. Love is kind. Patience is what love can handle. Kindness is what love gives out. These are things that you need to learn to apply to yourself. When you're having a flashback, for example, you dismiss from yourself. You escape from yourself rather than lovingly embracing where you're at. It's okay that I'm not okay right now. Right? And we're very impatient with

ourselves. And that's usually what happens in our frustration. We get angry and we're very unkind. So these three areas are what sets the template. now because now grace comes in and grace points you to Christ and his work in your life. So I can take a deep breath. God is at work. Stop my striving, my incessant pressure, my go slow down. Two, it's going to remind me of my standing with him because traumat trauma has a very unclean nature to it to make you feel very unclean and very disconnected from

him. Now you and he tells you your relationship with me isn't based on that anyways. It's based on me. And what it does is grace, it opens up empowerment. Empowerment is a big thing about grace. And two things I want to emphasize with this to learn, take the next step. What am I noticing I'm learning here? What am I learning in this season of my trauma healing journey? Ask I want to ask you that right now. You can even put it in the comments. What are you learning currently in your trauma healing? This

is not about judgment, condemnation, dismissal. What are you learning? What's illuminating to you that you're needing more in your life and moving towards more in your life? Okay, take a step towards it. That's where faith operates. And grace and faith work together. You can see though in in in in my teaching. Okay. So in compassionate grace, we we we recognize our connection to God has not collapsed because we're in pain or struggling. Let me give you some statements here. I want you to just wash over your heart.

The scriptures talk about where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. There's something about grace that when it's yucky, it moves in even stronger. There's something that Christians need more and more and that is an understanding when we talk about how God sees us. He sees us in Christ. So let's take the lens. Let's remove the shame and let's put in the lens of in Christ. It's a new identity. It's a new nature, new family, a new destiny, a new journey that you're

walking into. He sees you in Christ. So, the connection is not collapsed because you're you're inflamed somehow or you have some symptoms, unwanted symptoms going on. The focus is about you being loved by our father and dearly loved children with the identity of Christ within us. This is how God looks at you in Christ loved by him. You belong. You are his child. So that's an embrace feeding that loved identity. So within this mercy, oh mercy, God, thank you for mercy. Mercy is God's compassion towards you in

your sin, struggle, and suffering. And a lot of what we're talking about in trauma is the realm of suffering, the struggle, the wrestling. And yes, we could talk about sin, but that for many, their journey is very sin focused, not righteousness focused. And I had to make a shift in my journey because I was very sin focused most of my life and saw things through that lens. And it pushed away the beauty of mercy. The Bible talks about how mercy triumphs over judgment. It's easy to go into

judgmentalism. Anyone could do that. Anyone can look at someone, shame them, condemn them, and send them to punishment. Anyone can do that. It takes depth to see through the lens of mercy to let compassion open up. It takes work to see through the lens of mercy. not works at earning something. It's work of the heart. Because in order for me to connect to mercy, I I got to open up my vulnerability of my goofy yucky areas. And because that's where mercy shines and sees me and his love embraces me and

heals me. That's the work, right? It's that un discomfort, right? We have to when we we shift from condemnation to mercy, it's a big change that takes place. But do you see yourself through that? So in compassionate grace base, the focus is on learning to be loved versus trying to make ourselves better to be loved. Let that sit for a moment. The focus is on learning to be loved versus trying to make ourselves better to be loved. We're always being tempted to fix ourselves from a distance. I'll fix this, then

I'll connect to God. I'll fix this, then I'll connect to God. And sometimes we feel like we're making an improvement and it gives us a little dopamine burst. So then it reinforces that I got to keep doing that. I got to make sure I'm good. I got to make sure I I get I keep things together. Healing is not about trying harder or placing more force. It's more about letting yourself enter into compassion and grace. It's not this like pushing pushing pushing. It's more about

a releasing of letting yourself into it. You see the difference of of metaphors there? Now, I'm not saying that's easy because we all recognize grace, mercy, compassion are uncomfortable at first because we have so much unworthiness and so many things that push back. But it's more about a letting yourself enter into. It's a letting go of striving. It's a letting go of hypervigilance. It's a letting go of control. It's a letting go of all these self-protective mechanisms to go, I am

safe in this. So in this we face shame and fear. Well, how do we do that? By embracing our brokenness and God's love for us and his grace towards us. I go, "Okay, I'm goofy." What a powerful step it was for me to go, I'm a mess. Not in a way of like, you're a mess and you need you need to be you need to be removed from here. Of going, I am such a hot mess. God, thank you that you're loving me in the midst of this. So now I face myself. Shame doesn't let you face yourself.

It shoves your face in the mud, but you never actually see yourself for how you need to see it. You just see the sin, the darkness, the brokenness with no remedy. Just see all the junk. But in compassionate grace, I could see myself cuz he's not leaving me. I'm not dismissed. I'm not in timeout. I'm not unloved because of this. Let me take a moment just kind of let that walk slowly through the pain. So when you have a traumatic flashback or something or anxiousness or anger, rather than

feeding a panic reaction to escape and feel better, I don't chase that anymore. When you slow down, you let the deeper insight show up. I'm not saying you slow down and 10 seconds later you're going to get a thought that's going to illuminate and change everything. No, no, no. You're going to slow down. So now, because truth and and and and the illumination we need to understand, we have to slow down for insight. And you're going to start seeing yourself now differently through a compassionate lens instead of

this hostility that you're accustomed to. And what's cool about compassion and grace is it actually soers you up because many of us are drunk on shame. We're drunk on denial. We're drunk on our defense mechanisms. Compassion and grace actually soers us so that we see life the way that we need to see it. You're also daily reminded that you are on a journey. We you begin to see everything in your life as an opportunity for learning. You open your vision to new possibilities you couldn't see before.

In addition, you become more empowered to take renewed steps. You become much more empowered in being a blessing to other people and their struggles because of what you've been through and what you're working through. So, what I want to call and encourage you is to make the exchange because we're making an exchange here. You know, in Isaiah 61 it says, "Beauty for ashes, you know, garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." I want to encourage you to make an exchange of shame for

compassionate grace. And so when we do that, here's some word shifts to help your thinking. Tell me which one sticks for you. Patience over panicking. When you're patient with your journey, you're able to notice what's going on more rather than panicking to hurry up and make yourself feel better. So you calmly notice. I like that word notice, by the way, because when I notice it, okay, I see it. Oh, look at that. I'm getting anxious over that thing. Hm. Wonder what that's about.

Okay, I'm not really getting information on that. Okay, that's all right. That's all right. I just be aware. I be aware. Okay, when that happens, I get real angry. I get real defensive or I get this. All right. Oh, I I just want to get out of the room. I push people away. You're noticing it now because in shame it's like, "Oh my goodness, I do this. Uh God is going to maybe I'm" We start to We feel like the the rug is being pulled out from us. A shame attack hits

under compassionate grace. Oh, I don't no need to panic. Patience. Patience. So now I'm in context over criticism, right? When you embrace compassionate grace, you you get more context of what's going on. It helps you to see other people with more context. What do I mean by that? It means like there's a story around this. I had to I had to teach people a lot of this in pastoring because they're quick to judge and quick to shame. Oh, sister so and so, she's just oh, she's so weird and she got does

Corinthians 13. So here's what I'm pointing to when I'm talking about compassion and grace. A couple things I could expand on this more and more. I have in other teachings. First is the compassion part. There's three areas I keep reemphasizing. One is the loving embrace. Love moves towards you. Embraces you. This is the total unconditional loving acceptance. Tula that I talk about. The embrace in your goofiness, in your sin, in your struggle, in your pain, in whatever battle you're going through. There's an

embrace there. And within that, the two pillars of love that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13 come in. Love is patient. Love is kind. Patience is what love can handle. Kindness is what love gives out. These are things that you need to learn to apply to yourself. When you're having a flashback, for example, you dismiss from yourself. You escape from yourself rather than lovingly embracing where you're at. It's okay that I'm not okay right now. Right? And we're very impatient with

ourselves. And that's usually what happens in our frustration. We get angry and we're very unkind. So these three areas are what sets the template. now because now grace comes in and grace points you to Christ and his work in your life. So I can take a deep breath. God is at work. Stop my striving, my incessant pressure, my go slow down. Two, it's going to remind me of my standing with him because traumat trauma has a very unclean nature to it to make you feel very unclean and very disconnected from

him. Now you and he tells you your relationship with me isn't based on that anyways. It's based on me. And what it does is grace, it opens up empowerment. Empowerment is a big thing about grace. And two things I want to emphasize with this to learn, take the next step. What am I noticing I'm learning here? What am I learning in this season of my trauma healing journey? Ask I want to ask you that right now. You can even put it in the comments. What are you learning currently in your trauma healing? This

is not about judgment, condemnation, dismissal. What are you learning? What's illuminating to you that you're needing more in your life and moving towards more in your life? Okay, take a step towards it. That's where faith operates. And grace and faith work together. You can see though in in in in my teaching. Okay. So in compassionate grace, we we we recognize our connection to God has not collapsed because we're in pain or struggling. Let me give you some statements here. I want you to just wash over your heart.

The scriptures talk about where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. There's something about grace that when it's yucky, it moves in even stronger. There's something that Christians need more and more and that is an understanding when we talk about how God sees us. He sees us in Christ. So let's take the lens. Let's remove the shame and let's put in the lens of in Christ. It's a new identity. It's a new nature, new family, a new destiny, a new journey that you're

walking into. He sees you in Christ. So, the connection is not collapsed because you're you're inflamed somehow or you have some symptoms, unwanted symptoms going on. The focus is about you being loved by our father and dearly loved children with the identity of Christ within us. This is how God looks at you in Christ loved by him. You belong. You are his child. So that's an embrace feeding that loved identity. So within this mercy, oh mercy, God, thank you for mercy. Mercy is God's compassion towards you in

your sin, struggle, and suffering. And a lot of what we're talking about in trauma is the realm of suffering, the struggle, the wrestling. And yes, we could talk about sin, but that for many, their journey is very sin focused, not righteousness focused. And I had to make a shift in my journey because I was very sin focused most of my life and saw things through that lens. And it pushed away the beauty of mercy. The Bible talks about how mercy triumphs over judgment. It's easy to go into

judgmentalism. Anyone could do that. Anyone can look at someone, shame them, condemn them, and send them to punishment. Anyone can do that. It takes depth to see through the lens of mercy to let compassion open up. It takes work to see through the lens of mercy. not works at earning something. It's work of the heart. Because in order for me to connect to mercy, I I got to open up my vulnerability of my goofy yucky areas. And because that's where mercy shines and sees me and his love embraces me and

heals me. That's the work, right? It's that un discomfort, right? We have to when we we shift from condemnation to mercy, it's a big change that takes place. But do you see yourself through that? So in compassionate grace base, the focus is on learning to be loved versus trying to make ourselves better to be loved. Let that sit for a moment. The focus is on learning to be loved versus trying to make ourselves better to be loved. We're always being tempted to fix ourselves from a distance. I'll fix this, then

I'll connect to God. I'll fix this, then I'll connect to God. And sometimes we feel like we're making an improvement and it gives us a little dopamine burst. So then it reinforces that I got to keep doing that. I got to make sure I'm good. I got to make sure I I get I keep things together. Healing is not about trying harder or placing more force. It's more about letting yourself enter into compassion and grace. It's not this like pushing pushing pushing. It's more about

a releasing of letting yourself into it. You see the difference of of metaphors there? Now, I'm not saying that's easy because we all recognize grace, mercy, compassion are uncomfortable at first because we have so much unworthiness and so many things that push back. But it's more about a letting yourself enter into. It's a letting go of striving. It's a letting go of hypervigilance. It's a letting go of control. It's a letting go of all these self-protective mechanisms to go, I am

safe in this. So in this we face shame and fear. Well, how do we do that? By embracing our brokenness and God's love for us and his grace towards us. I go, "Okay, I'm goofy." What a powerful step it was for me to go, I'm a mess. Not in a way of like, you're a mess and you need you need to be you need to be removed from here. Of going, I am such a hot mess. God, thank you that you're loving me in the midst of this. So now I face myself. Shame doesn't let you face yourself.

It shoves your face in the mud, but you never actually see yourself for how you need to see it. You just see the sin, the darkness, the brokenness with no remedy. Just see all the junk. But in compassionate grace, I could see myself cuz he's not leaving me. I'm not dismissed. I'm not in timeout. I'm not unloved because of this. Let me take a moment just kind of let that walk slowly through the pain. So when you have a traumatic flashback or something or anxiousness or anger, rather than

feeding a panic reaction to escape and feel better, I don't chase that anymore. When you slow down, you let the deeper insight show up. I'm not saying you slow down and 10 seconds later you're going to get a thought that's going to illuminate and change everything. No, no, no. You're going to slow down. So now, because truth and and and and the illumination we need to understand, we have to slow down for insight. And you're going to start seeing yourself now differently through a compassionate lens instead of

this hostility that you're accustomed to. And what's cool about compassion and grace is it actually soers you up because many of us are drunk on shame. We're drunk on denial. We're drunk on our defense mechanisms. Compassion and grace actually soers us so that we see life the way that we need to see it. You're also daily reminded that you are on a journey. We you begin to see everything in your life as an opportunity for learning. You open your vision to new possibilities you couldn't see before.

In addition, you become more empowered to take renewed steps. You become much more empowered in being a blessing to other people and their struggles because of what you've been through and what you're working through. So, what I want to call and encourage you is to make the exchange because we're making an exchange here. You know, in Isaiah 61 it says, "Beauty for ashes, you know, garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." I want to encourage you to make an exchange of shame for

compassionate grace. And so when we do that, here's some word shifts to help your thinking. Tell me which one sticks for you. Patience over panicking. When you're patient with your journey, you're able to notice what's going on more rather than panicking to hurry up and make yourself feel better. So you calmly notice. I like that word notice, by the way, because when I notice it, okay, I see it. Oh, look at that. I'm getting anxious over that thing. Hm. Wonder what that's about.

Okay, I'm not really getting information on that. Okay, that's all right. That's all right. I just be aware. I be aware. Okay, when that happens, I get real angry. I get real defensive or I get this. All right. Oh, I I just want to get out of the room. I push people away. You're noticing it now because in shame it's like, "Oh my goodness, I do this. Uh God is going to maybe I'm" We start to We feel like the the rug is being pulled out from us. A shame attack hits

under compassionate grace. Oh, I don't no need to panic. Patience. Patience. So now I'm in context over criticism, right? When you embrace compassionate grace, you you get more context of what's going on. It helps you to see other people with more context. What do I mean by that? It means like there's a story around this. I had to I had to teach people a lot of this in pastoring because they're quick to judge and quick to shame. Oh, sister so and so, she's just oh, she's so weird and she got does

this thing all the time. She talks too much or you know what this person, you know, they act goofy when they and I'd say this constantly. If you knew what they had been through, you would be a thinking totally different about them, b you'd understand why they struggle with what they struggle, and c you'd be a little more sober about yourself. You see, if you if you the way I look at our battles, if I had your life and your history, I'd have some of the same struggles, too. See, our struggles exist within a story.

Past wounds that need healing, present stressors that are overwhelming our capacity, areas of developmental gaps that are needing to be filled in. There's this stuff I didn't know when I didn't learn that I need equipping in. There's areas of my heart that need reparenting. When you when you get in compassionate grace, you stop being so critical and instead you see things in context in the story. Now you're becoming a powerful vessel for yourself and for others. It's so easy to just

criticize. It's just easy to do that. So now you become more curious. It's curiosity over condemnation. Hm. I wonder what's going on beneath this. Right? Instead of me asking what's wrong with me, I can move towards, hey, what's what's going on? It's just like if you're if you're helping someone else, let's say a friend of yours starts popping off in anger and going off, right? And you this you love this person, right? You come over and you go, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, what's

happening? What's going on?" Right? And instead of, "What's wrong with you? Get out of here." Now, I know things get intense and stuff like that, but just for illustration sake, what's going on? That's a different posture. Now, then you allow yourself to maybe get more to the heart of what's happening. You move into need over neglect. What do I mean by this? Most of us when we're in pain, we neglect ourselves. What's wrong with me? I I got to stop this feeling right now instead of what

is it I'm needing right now? What's what is an unmet need I can bring to God I can be kind to about myself. It's more about dis discovery versus disqualification because we constantly disqualify ourselves. Pushing us further into the pain, pushing us further into bondage and then we don't learn anything. I think we do this a lot on social media too and how we interact just being honest. We constantly move to just criticizing and disqualifying, just shutting down people rather than taking

a sober look in compassionate grace at ourselves and recognizing, okay, I wonder what's going on. It involves process over perfection. I didn't put that on the slide there. It missed it missed it on the slide, but uh process over perfection. So, we celebrate movement and steps. I'm on a journey here. Arrival is not a thing anyways. I'm being transformed. Growth is a messy process, but it's still precious to God. Growth is a messy process, but it is a precious journey before God. So, I want

that journey to be precious to me. That's why I am such a passionate embracer of journey mindset thinking. Journey over judgmentalism because with judgmentalism you judge with law with no mercy. So you plunge your view into self-punishment. But in compassionate grace now I'm now I'm now loosening the hold of shame. I'm loosening the hold of fear to just see it. Rejection's not screaming as loud. But even if it is, it's not ruling my life. So now I get more empowered. And

one of the one of the signs that you are entering into empowerment is you start shifting your questions. Let me say that again. One of the signs you're moving into empowerment is you're shifting the questions that you ask. Because under shame, our questions are why me? What's wrong with me? Um why can't I ever get it together? Why do we just it just cycles us under compassionate grace? We start getting more empowered. So questions like what am I really needing right now? Ah now you're sobering up to identify

some heart things that are going on. What's this emotion trying to tell me? And and how is how might God be meeting me actually in this place versus God being disappointed or being away? What's a new mindset that I can embrace? I've had to do this a number of times where I catch myself in love. I catch myself cycling in the same conversation over and over again. And I've learned that when I do that, it's like, okay, I got a pattern here. What's the pattern? And what's the new mindset I can

embrace? And how can I take a step in that today? Because many of our disempowering patterns have loops to them, and then we we stay in them. We turn in them, we get more angry because they don't get answered. So we can often change by asking new questions. What possibilities are here? So what would it look like to take one small step towards this this healing perspective that I'm gaining? So see, compassionate grace has just a different perspective. It it recognizes triggers are information. They're not

failures. It shows us where we carry pain that just needs some more healing. Flashbacks are not indictments against us. They're informative, helping us to see our our mind and our body are trying to process something overwhelming from our history. Emotional flooding is not sin. You have a bunch of emotions flooding up. Now, you can learn how you respond to emotions. But these emotions flooding in is not about about sin. It's a nervous system response. It needs some regulation, some compassion skills. That

dissociation or numbness, this isn't about you being spiritually dead. It's it's it's these are survival me mechanisms that need renewal. Even our hypervigilance, it's not about like your lack of faith and beating yourself up about it. It's more about where perfect love is needing to have a deeper root. Your nervous system has been trained to find safety in its hypervigilance, but you're making an exchange here. You can lovingly acknowledge it, but go, "Hey, we're going to build new pathways on how

we feel safe." And we build love which then actually builds your faith. You see how shaming yourself, you don't have enough faith, you know, just keeps you in a unproductive cycle. And we realize that emotions need to work their way through us. Very, very important. It's not fixing it. Get rid of it. This thing needs to work its way through me. And I have to do rounds and rounds and rounds of letting the emotions work their way through through it all. I'm reminded that God's power is

his healing power is not in a hurry. That is very helpful for me to be reminded of for us. We're in a hurry to get somewhere to get to this thing. His healing is not about quick fixes. It's more about a journey of learning to grieve. Cuz remember, all trauma leads us to grieving. And grace gives us the opportunity to enter into that. Grace says what happened mattered. it impacted you. Okay, it's okay. Your pain is seen and help is here. Jesus doesn't dismiss trauma. He enters into our trauma

healing journey with us. So, what compassionate grace brings about is a sober perspective. And what I appreciate is it allows us to hold two things simultaneously. And for many of you in your mental health healing journey, you need to learn how to hold two things that are true that are working together. Sometimes we get we feel like we're bouncing back and forth. So grace allows us to hold two things. Number one is we are deeply loved and accepted in Christ right now. Nothing we discover about ourselves changes God's

commitment to us. At the same time, number two, we are in a process and on a journey. God's love doesn't mean we stay where we are because it's unloving to just leave you where you're at. It provides love and empowerment to grow to take the next step. So here's a couple practical things I want to I want to give you in the context of trauma healing journey. I want this things to be some some steps in movement forward and uh to shift out of this compa out of shame into compassion and grace. Number

one, to name what you're feeling and delay judgmentalism. I found myself doing this a lot with people practically. I go, "Okay, what are you feeling? What's going on?" And normally what they do is they name the feeling and then their interpretation comes right after it and they usually just immediately start shaming themselves. Well, I feel this way because, you know, I can't get it together and I'm all over the place. I'm a mess. Stop. And and and and this is the phrase I used. I it just kind of

bubbled up and I found myself using it over and over. I go, "Let's delay the judgment." Okay? And just delay it. Put it over there. And while we delay it, tell me in in compassion what's going on. I notice I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling angry, feeling depressed, overwhelmed. Delay the temptation to quickly judge yourself. Okay? Give yourself room to let insight show up. What is What is What is this about? What is this about? And if nothing comes to you, don't go, "Forget it. Nothing."

Patience. Okay? I'm not seeing it right now. But at some point, understanding is going to come to me cuz now I'm shifting my reaction to how I relate to myself. It goes without saying in my materials, but I need to say this anyway. Invite God into your process. And I think, not necessarily goes without saying, I think we need to be intentional and we need to say it. God, thank you that you love me and see me through Christ. This is an important one. God, I thank you that you love me and

see me through Christ. Will you pause and take that in? God, I invite you into this process. You can even say this right now. Father, thank you that you love me and you see me through Christ. You see me in Christ. Help me see it even though right now I can't feel it. It's okay. And ask yourself, what does love say? Now, a lot of times in Christianity, we go, "Well, what's God saying in your heart?" But what happens is when we say that we we often trigger the shame based, punishment based, condemning based lens

this thing all the time. She talks too much or you know what this person, you know, they act goofy when they and I'd say this constantly. If you knew what they had been through, you would be a thinking totally different about them, b you'd understand why they struggle with what they struggle, and c you'd be a little more sober about yourself. You see, if you if you the way I look at our battles, if I had your life and your history, I'd have some of the same struggles, too. See, our struggles exist within a story.

Past wounds that need healing, present stressors that are overwhelming our capacity, areas of developmental gaps that are needing to be filled in. There's this stuff I didn't know when I didn't learn that I need equipping in. There's areas of my heart that need reparenting. When you when you get in compassionate grace, you stop being so critical and instead you see things in context in the story. Now you're becoming a powerful vessel for yourself and for others. It's so easy to just

criticize. It's just easy to do that. So now you become more curious. It's curiosity over condemnation. Hm. I wonder what's going on beneath this. Right? Instead of me asking what's wrong with me, I can move towards, hey, what's what's going on? It's just like if you're if you're helping someone else, let's say a friend of yours starts popping off in anger and going off, right? And you this you love this person, right? You come over and you go, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, what's

happening? What's going on?" Right? And instead of, "What's wrong with you? Get out of here." Now, I know things get intense and stuff like that, but just for illustration sake, what's going on? That's a different posture. Now, then you allow yourself to maybe get more to the heart of what's happening. You move into need over neglect. What do I mean by this? Most of us when we're in pain, we neglect ourselves. What's wrong with me? I I got to stop this feeling right now instead of what

is it I'm needing right now? What's what is an unmet need I can bring to God I can be kind to about myself. It's more about dis discovery versus disqualification because we constantly disqualify ourselves. Pushing us further into the pain, pushing us further into bondage and then we don't learn anything. I think we do this a lot on social media too and how we interact just being honest. We constantly move to just criticizing and disqualifying, just shutting down people rather than taking

a sober look in compassionate grace at ourselves and recognizing, okay, I wonder what's going on. It involves process over perfection. I didn't put that on the slide there. It missed it missed it on the slide, but uh process over perfection. So, we celebrate movement and steps. I'm on a journey here. Arrival is not a thing anyways. I'm being transformed. Growth is a messy process, but it's still precious to God. Growth is a messy process, but it is a precious journey before God. So, I want

that journey to be precious to me. That's why I am such a passionate embracer of journey mindset thinking. Journey over judgmentalism because with judgmentalism you judge with law with no mercy. So you plunge your view into self-punishment. But in compassionate grace now I'm now I'm now loosening the hold of shame. I'm loosening the hold of fear to just see it. Rejection's not screaming as loud. But even if it is, it's not ruling my life. So now I get more empowered. And

one of the one of the signs that you are entering into empowerment is you start shifting your questions. Let me say that again. One of the signs you're moving into empowerment is you're shifting the questions that you ask. Because under shame, our questions are why me? What's wrong with me? Um why can't I ever get it together? Why do we just it just cycles us under compassionate grace? We start getting more empowered. So questions like what am I really needing right now? Ah now you're sobering up to identify

some heart things that are going on. What's this emotion trying to tell me? And and how is how might God be meeting me actually in this place versus God being disappointed or being away? What's a new mindset that I can embrace? I've had to do this a number of times where I catch myself in love. I catch myself cycling in the same conversation over and over again. And I've learned that when I do that, it's like, okay, I got a pattern here. What's the pattern? And what's the new mindset I can

embrace? And how can I take a step in that today? Because many of our disempowering patterns have loops to them, and then we we stay in them. We turn in them, we get more angry because they don't get answered. So we can often change by asking new questions. What possibilities are here? So what would it look like to take one small step towards this this healing perspective that I'm gaining? So see, compassionate grace has just a different perspective. It it recognizes triggers are information. They're not

failures. It shows us where we carry pain that just needs some more healing. Flashbacks are not indictments against us. They're informative, helping us to see our our mind and our body are trying to process something overwhelming from our history. Emotional flooding is not sin. You have a bunch of emotions flooding up. Now, you can learn how you respond to emotions. But these emotions flooding in is not about about sin. It's a nervous system response. It needs some regulation, some compassion skills. That

dissociation or numbness, this isn't about you being spiritually dead. It's it's it's these are survival me mechanisms that need renewal. Even our hypervigilance, it's not about like your lack of faith and beating yourself up about it. It's more about where perfect love is needing to have a deeper root. Your nervous system has been trained to find safety in its hypervigilance, but you're making an exchange here. You can lovingly acknowledge it, but go, "Hey, we're going to build new pathways on how

we feel safe." And we build love which then actually builds your faith. You see how shaming yourself, you don't have enough faith, you know, just keeps you in a unproductive cycle. And we realize that emotions need to work their way through us. Very, very important. It's not fixing it. Get rid of it. This thing needs to work its way through me. And I have to do rounds and rounds and rounds of letting the emotions work their way through through it all. I'm reminded that God's power is

his healing power is not in a hurry. That is very helpful for me to be reminded of for us. We're in a hurry to get somewhere to get to this thing. His healing is not about quick fixes. It's more about a journey of learning to grieve. Cuz remember, all trauma leads us to grieving. And grace gives us the opportunity to enter into that. Grace says what happened mattered. it impacted you. Okay, it's okay. Your pain is seen and help is here. Jesus doesn't dismiss trauma. He enters into our trauma

healing journey with us. So, what compassionate grace brings about is a sober perspective. And what I appreciate is it allows us to hold two things simultaneously. And for many of you in your mental health healing journey, you need to learn how to hold two things that are true that are working together. Sometimes we get we feel like we're bouncing back and forth. So grace allows us to hold two things. Number one is we are deeply loved and accepted in Christ right now. Nothing we discover about ourselves changes God's

commitment to us. At the same time, number two, we are in a process and on a journey. God's love doesn't mean we stay where we are because it's unloving to just leave you where you're at. It provides love and empowerment to grow to take the next step. So here's a couple practical things I want to I want to give you in the context of trauma healing journey. I want this things to be some some steps in movement forward and uh to shift out of this compa out of shame into compassion and grace. Number

one, to name what you're feeling and delay judgmentalism. I found myself doing this a lot with people practically. I go, "Okay, what are you feeling? What's going on?" And normally what they do is they name the feeling and then their interpretation comes right after it and they usually just immediately start shaming themselves. Well, I feel this way because, you know, I can't get it together and I'm all over the place. I'm a mess. Stop. And and and and this is the phrase I used. I it just kind of

bubbled up and I found myself using it over and over. I go, "Let's delay the judgment." Okay? And just delay it. Put it over there. And while we delay it, tell me in in compassion what's going on. I notice I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling angry, feeling depressed, overwhelmed. Delay the temptation to quickly judge yourself. Okay? Give yourself room to let insight show up. What is What is What is this about? What is this about? And if nothing comes to you, don't go, "Forget it. Nothing."

Patience. Okay? I'm not seeing it right now. But at some point, understanding is going to come to me cuz now I'm shifting my reaction to how I relate to myself. It goes without saying in my materials, but I need to say this anyway. Invite God into your process. And I think, not necessarily goes without saying, I think we need to be intentional and we need to say it. God, thank you that you love me and see me through Christ. This is an important one. God, I thank you that you love me and

see me through Christ. Will you pause and take that in? God, I invite you into this process. You can even say this right now. Father, thank you that you love me and you see me through Christ. You see me in Christ. Help me see it even though right now I can't feel it. It's okay. And ask yourself, what does love say? Now, a lot of times in Christianity, we go, "Well, what's God saying in your heart?" But what happens is when we say that we we often trigger the shame based, punishment based, condemning based lens

people have in how they relate to God, their religious levan, their law base. It's not going to go, okay, true love and the way the Bible describes it, what does love say? If you were to look at yourself and where you're at with true love, what would you see? Many times people will first say, "I don't know. I don't see anything." So that indicates the journey of learning what love is. I got a whole series on what is love, what love looks like, experiencing God's love as your father. All those resource,

all the resources are in many ways helping us to learn about love and learn the language of love and learn what it looks like. What would you see? And again, I like this word be curious. Don't p be panicking. Don't be hypervigilant in your response. What is this feeling telling me about what I need right now? Do I need some connection? Do I need you to talk to a friend? Do I need some rest? Do I need to let go of some self-pity patterns? Do I need to let go of some victim thinking? Right?

Do I need something very practical just to go for a walk? Do I need a break? Do I need to slow down? Do I need to go help someone? I'm too much in my head right now. I need you to go help someone. Get out of my head. See, when you're curious, when you operate more on what I'm talking about, insight shows up to you versus you pushing and digging and excavating. There's a lot of you out there like trying to excavate. What's my problem? What's my problem? What's my problem?

What's my problem? That's not how this shows up. We got to slow down and let it show up in time. So in this I'm going to be aware not excavating but just be aware of some disempowering and toxic beliefs because in it they're going to come to the surface because trauma has a way of crushing your belief system how what you believe about God yourself the world around you and those beliefs then follow you and they get inflamed and then we we have a cognitive bias we develop. So if you feel like God never shows up for

you, then you'll see something that doesn't work out and you go, "See, God doesn't show up for me." So then, right, we stay in the cycle. So we're going to lovingly just notice and be aware. Maybe it was shame beliefs. What I went through wasn't that bad, was stupid. Minimize it. Maybe blanket beliefs. People are unsafe. Churches are abusive. I can't trust anyone. The world is not safe. these things that we blanket over everything. What about self-attacking beliefs? I'm

unlovable. I'm a failure. I'm worthless. What about self-d disempowerment? I can't do this. I I cannot I can never do anything. What about limiting beliefs? I can't catch a break. I have to do life all on my own. Stuff just doesn't work out for me. A big one we have to recognize in our healing journey with trauma and mental health in general is victimbased thinking. Feeling sorry for ourselves, spiraling in our old story without love and hope, self-pity patterns, self-loathing patterns, beating

ourselves up, falling into that quick sand. I've had to do business with those many, many times in my journey because it kept on a feedback loop, feedback loop, feedback loop. What we can do, we can realize in love that what we believe with these disempowering toxic beliefs is that um what we're believing is been influencing how we feel. Because we feel it, that doesn't mean it's true. But we feel it. Okay, you feel it. All right, that doesn't mean it's true. And so we we're at a point now in the

journey where we have to make a decision. And this is what God in his love won't do for you, but he wants you to. And he's called you to it. To make a decision to move in a new healing direction. Cuz love leads us to challenge our old beliefs to now move into new ones. What are the new beliefs I need to start embracing right now? Because his love empowers you to make a decision. Okay, I push people away. I I push them back. I don't let people get close to me. Okay, I got to make a decision now. I'm going

to slowly be open to people getting to know me, right? Pick up on your patterns. When you're in shame, you don't pick up on your patterns cuz you're in survival mode. When you're in love, everything's not a panic reaction now. So now you can look a bit more. Now you can actually observe, right? when when when when you're trying to figure something out in life, does it take Okay, slow down a second. You have to kind of slow everyone down. When we're rushed and we're hurried, we can't

notice. So, I make a decision for me based on love. Most of my powerful decisions in life have been based out of me connecting to love. Love from my father, love for myself, and love that I want to give out to other people. And this leads us then to just taking one compassionate action step. This isn't about, oh, I need to I need to get a massive overhaul. Nope, just one step today. Maybe it's, you know what, I'm going to get out of the house and I'm going to talk to one person. You know

what? I'm going to reach out to a friend. You know what? I'm going to read that book I've been putting off. You know what? I need to set a boundary here because this person is operating in an unloving manner. You know what? I'm going to join that support group. You know what? I'm going to get that therapy that I need. You know what? I'm going to practice resting and I'm I'm not going to feed the guilt that makes me feel bad for resting. You know what? This was a big decision I

made for me. You know, I'm not going to be an enemy to Mark anymore. Not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to be my own biggest encourager rather than my biggest enemy. Or you know what this I'm going to bring this one new habit back. I'm going to start eating more nutritious meals to take care of my temple because my temple needs it. I'm going to make more room for rest. I'm not telling you to do all these things. I'm just giving you a bunch of examples in love. What comes to

the surface? Because the beauty of this, brothers and sisters, is that when we practice grace-based discernment, we can be honest about our struggles without fear of rejection. It's like, okay, if I'm if not if I'm no longer feeding the fear that I'm going to be dismissed, disconnected, or disqualified out. I'm still here. You're still here, God. Now, I can be honest about everything and work through it. You can identify patterns without spiraling. It's like, hey, I do this thing where I overt talk.

I do this thing where I shut down. I do this thing where I get angry and I start popping off at people. I do this thing where I get anxious and I and I I I don't make a decision. You can do it without self-hatred. You can ask for help without shame. You can even fall and you learn and you practice again and you return to try again. And what's even more powerful is you can also help others. I want to pray a prayer for you in all this. And I I want to pray a prayer that God, you will help continue to

illuminate our hearts by your word, by a work of the Holy Spirit, that you'd help us to connect to how you see us because you see me in Christ, righteous, and on a journey. But each day, I'm your son. I'm loved by you, and that doesn't change according to my performance. That's because who you are is greater than my performance. I thank you for that. I thank you that in my worst state where I'm flooded with anxious shame-based emotions, you're there. You're there.

As the psalmist wrote, "You hemmed me in from behind and before you laid your hand upon me." Such knowledge is too lofty for me. It's just way out there. Wow. No matter where I am, you're there. You're there with me cuz you love me. And I ask that your compassion and your grace would help my brothers and sisters watching this to displace shame. Let the loving waters of compassion and grace, mercy flood out in a good way flood out the toxic mildew, mold, contaminated elements

so we can be settled and our root system can be developed deeper in you and that we'd be a blessing to other people. So I thank you for this all in Jesus name I pray. Amen. What was helpful in this talk today? What helped you the most? Do me a favor. If you enjoyed it, click that like button, click subscribe. You can also go over to markahus.com where you can find out more about materials, resources. In fact, there's a whole trauma resource page on my topics page. Go over to that button

topics there and you can find out more. Go to past broadcasts. There's also a healing and freedom community where a lot of materials are put together in a library in training course packages and you'll have access to all of it as well as weekly Q&As that we do. Get a little more personal touch and forum interaction as well. You can support these videos by going to mark Jesus.com and clicking on the donate button. It's all a blessing. It's an honor to be your brother from another mother. And Lord

willing in the creek don't rise. I'll be back with more insights for your healing and freedom journey. But in the meantime, I'm out.

people have in how they relate to God, their religious levan, their law base. It's not going to go, okay, true love and the way the Bible describes it, what does love say? If you were to look at yourself and where you're at with true love, what would you see? Many times people will first say, "I don't know. I don't see anything." So that indicates the journey of learning what love is. I got a whole series on what is love, what love looks like, experiencing God's love as your father. All those resource,

all the resources are in many ways helping us to learn about love and learn the language of love and learn what it looks like. What would you see? And again, I like this word be curious. Don't p be panicking. Don't be hypervigilant in your response. What is this feeling telling me about what I need right now? Do I need some connection? Do I need you to talk to a friend? Do I need some rest? Do I need to let go of some self-pity patterns? Do I need to let go of some victim thinking? Right?

Do I need something very practical just to go for a walk? Do I need a break? Do I need to slow down? Do I need to go help someone? I'm too much in my head right now. I need you to go help someone. Get out of my head. See, when you're curious, when you operate more on what I'm talking about, insight shows up to you versus you pushing and digging and excavating. There's a lot of you out there like trying to excavate. What's my problem? What's my problem? What's my problem?

What's my problem? That's not how this shows up. We got to slow down and let it show up in time. So in this I'm going to be aware not excavating but just be aware of some disempowering and toxic beliefs because in it they're going to come to the surface because trauma has a way of crushing your belief system how what you believe about God yourself the world around you and those beliefs then follow you and they get inflamed and then we we have a cognitive bias we develop. So if you feel like God never shows up for

you, then you'll see something that doesn't work out and you go, "See, God doesn't show up for me." So then, right, we stay in the cycle. So we're going to lovingly just notice and be aware. Maybe it was shame beliefs. What I went through wasn't that bad, was stupid. Minimize it. Maybe blanket beliefs. People are unsafe. Churches are abusive. I can't trust anyone. The world is not safe. these things that we blanket over everything. What about self-attacking beliefs? I'm

unlovable. I'm a failure. I'm worthless. What about self-d disempowerment? I can't do this. I I cannot I can never do anything. What about limiting beliefs? I can't catch a break. I have to do life all on my own. Stuff just doesn't work out for me. A big one we have to recognize in our healing journey with trauma and mental health in general is victimbased thinking. Feeling sorry for ourselves, spiraling in our old story without love and hope, self-pity patterns, self-loathing patterns, beating

ourselves up, falling into that quick sand. I've had to do business with those many, many times in my journey because it kept on a feedback loop, feedback loop, feedback loop. What we can do, we can realize in love that what we believe with these disempowering toxic beliefs is that um what we're believing is been influencing how we feel. Because we feel it, that doesn't mean it's true. But we feel it. Okay, you feel it. All right, that doesn't mean it's true. And so we we're at a point now in the

journey where we have to make a decision. And this is what God in his love won't do for you, but he wants you to. And he's called you to it. To make a decision to move in a new healing direction. Cuz love leads us to challenge our old beliefs to now move into new ones. What are the new beliefs I need to start embracing right now? Because his love empowers you to make a decision. Okay, I push people away. I I push them back. I don't let people get close to me. Okay, I got to make a decision now. I'm going

to slowly be open to people getting to know me, right? Pick up on your patterns. When you're in shame, you don't pick up on your patterns cuz you're in survival mode. When you're in love, everything's not a panic reaction now. So now you can look a bit more. Now you can actually observe, right? when when when when you're trying to figure something out in life, does it take Okay, slow down a second. You have to kind of slow everyone down. When we're rushed and we're hurried, we can't

notice. So, I make a decision for me based on love. Most of my powerful decisions in life have been based out of me connecting to love. Love from my father, love for myself, and love that I want to give out to other people. And this leads us then to just taking one compassionate action step. This isn't about, oh, I need to I need to get a massive overhaul. Nope, just one step today. Maybe it's, you know what, I'm going to get out of the house and I'm going to talk to one person. You know

what? I'm going to reach out to a friend. You know what? I'm going to read that book I've been putting off. You know what? I need to set a boundary here because this person is operating in an unloving manner. You know what? I'm going to join that support group. You know what? I'm going to get that therapy that I need. You know what? I'm going to practice resting and I'm I'm not going to feed the guilt that makes me feel bad for resting. You know what? This was a big decision I

made for me. You know, I'm not going to be an enemy to Mark anymore. Not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to be my own biggest encourager rather than my biggest enemy. Or you know what this I'm going to bring this one new habit back. I'm going to start eating more nutritious meals to take care of my temple because my temple needs it. I'm going to make more room for rest. I'm not telling you to do all these things. I'm just giving you a bunch of examples in love. What comes to

the surface? Because the beauty of this, brothers and sisters, is that when we practice grace-based discernment, we can be honest about our struggles without fear of rejection. It's like, okay, if I'm if not if I'm no longer feeding the fear that I'm going to be dismissed, disconnected, or disqualified out. I'm still here. You're still here, God. Now, I can be honest about everything and work through it. You can identify patterns without spiraling. It's like, hey, I do this thing where I overt talk.

I do this thing where I shut down. I do this thing where I get angry and I start popping off at people. I do this thing where I get anxious and I and I I I don't make a decision. You can do it without self-hatred. You can ask for help without shame. You can even fall and you learn and you practice again and you return to try again. And what's even more powerful is you can also help others. I want to pray a prayer for you in all this. And I I want to pray a prayer that God, you will help continue to

illuminate our hearts by your word, by a work of the Holy Spirit, that you'd help us to connect to how you see us because you see me in Christ, righteous, and on a journey. But each day, I'm your son. I'm loved by you, and that doesn't change according to my performance. That's because who you are is greater than my performance. I thank you for that. I thank you that in my worst state where I'm flooded with anxious shame-based emotions, you're there. You're there.

As the psalmist wrote, "You hemmed me in from behind and before you laid your hand upon me." Such knowledge is too lofty for me. It's just way out there. Wow. No matter where I am, you're there. You're there with me cuz you love me. And I ask that your compassion and your grace would help my brothers and sisters watching this to displace shame. Let the loving waters of compassion and grace, mercy flood out in a good way flood out the toxic mildew, mold, contaminated elements

so we can be settled and our root system can be developed deeper in you and that we'd be a blessing to other people. So I thank you for this all in Jesus name I pray. Amen. What was helpful in this talk today? What helped you the most? Do me a favor. If you enjoyed it, click that like button, click subscribe. You can also go over to markahus.com where you can find out more about materials, resources. In fact, there's a whole trauma resource page on my topics page. Go over to that button

topics there and you can find out more. Go to past broadcasts. There's also a healing and freedom community where a lot of materials are put together in a library in training course packages and you'll have access to all of it as well as weekly Q&As that we do. Get a little more personal touch and forum interaction as well. You can support these videos by going to mark Jesus.com and clicking on the donate button. It's all a blessing. It's an honor to be your brother from another mother. And Lord

willing in the creek don't rise. I'll be back with more insights for your healing and freedom journey. But in the meantime, I'm out.