Disappointed But Trusting TRB #36 Danielle Cisneros, LMFT

A mother’s psychosis, a father’s kindness, and a daughter learning to trust God more than outcomes—this conversation traces how early wounds shape our faith and why secure love can tether a drifting heart. I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist and educator Danielle Cisneros to unpack trauma in a Pentecostal home, the silence that followed crises, and the loneliness that teaches kids to read rooms instead of resting in them. Danielle explains psychosis in clear, compassionate language, then shows how adaptive healing happens when safe people meet us where we are. Scripture became her refuge, but what truly rewired trust was a father who chose relationship over punishment and mentors who “mothered” her into wholeness.

We map how childhood survival strategies—control, people-pleasing, avoidance—break down in adult relationships and ministry. Healing doesn’t mean erasing the past; it means accepting reality, grieving what wasn’t, and practicing new responses until peace holds. We redefine ministry as meeting needs, not chasing titles—smiles, rides, protection, and presence where souls ache. And for anyone afraid to come back, we lay out simple first steps: watch a service online, fast from noise, read one psalm, write three sentences. Grace meets motion, and home starts with a single step.

Tune in for more....

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 3:25 Defining Psychosis And Family Impact
• 7:55 Childhood Trauma, Silence, And Church Support
• 12:10 Clinging To Scripture Amid Loneliness
• 17:05 High School Rebellion And A Father’s Gentle Attachment
• 22:40 Bible College, Calling, And Avoiding The Past
• 27:50 Mentors, Mothering, And Healing Through Safe Relationships
• 32:45 Adaptive Information, Attachment, And Resilience
• 38:20 Mindfulness, Introspection, And Shame
• 44:00 Broken Leaders, Secure Attachment, And Trusting God
• 50:35 Parenting, Shame Cycles, And Trust As A Litmus Test
• 56:20 Surrender, Sackcloth, And Learning To Trust
• 1:02:40 Identity, Surrender, And Redefining Ministry
• 1:08:15 Church Hurt Without Stone-Throwing
• 1:13:40 Trauma Responses, Unmet Needs, And Adult Patterns
• 1:19:10 Collateral Damage Versus Staying Connected
• 1:24:20 The Next Generation’s Transparency And Hope
• 1:29:20 A Word To Backsliders: Take One Step

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Red Team Backslider. With your host, Kathy Chester, Christian-based psychotherapist, the Redeem Backslider. This podcast is dedicated to those who are wondered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom foundation.

SPEAKER_03: 0:22

Hi, welcome to the Redeem Backslider. I'm your host, Kathy Chastain, and with me today is my friend and colleague, uh Danielle Cisneros. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she also teaches at Christian Life College in Stockton. So I'm super happy to have her as my guest. I have listened to several other podcasts she's been on. And so hopefully we'll have a little different conversation today, but some of it might be similar conversation to what you guys have heard already. Um, but she's such a wonderful, wonderful person and she has really good insight to um, you know, to the apostolic faith overall and and what we talk about when we talk about backsliders coming home and um just you know just being Pentecostal overall. So uh I'm excited to have her with me today. And um, so Danielle, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

Well, thank you, Kathy. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. I adore your ministry. I think you are doing something so wonderful and needed, and I support you and I I'm interested in everything you're doing, and I appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39

Oh, thank you. That means a lot. Means a ton. Um, so I I think we'll jump in. Um I I wanted to hear, I wanted you to tell your story a little bit about childhood because um what you have seen probably what I have seen is um, and you can speak to this as well, is that a lot of backsliders um that do backslide, backslide because often they come from some sort of trauma background. Um and so there's not always um they're already sort of wounded, and that can really affect our walk with God. Um especially when we're kiddos and you know, and the Lord is presented to us as who he is, which is he can do anything and he he answers our prayers and he can do the impossible. And so there comes to be some disillusionment. Um and I think I don't know if that hits everybody. I think somewhere along our Christian journey it might, but particularly the back the backsliders, there does seem to be some common threads. Um and so you are someone who grew up um with trauma in your home. Um I don't think you have backslid. I don't know if you would have ever considered yourself, you know, backslidden in your spirituality. I know you probably didn't to the way some of us did it. So I just I just thought maybe you could share a little bit on that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Yes, absolutely. So my parents were first generation Pentecostal. My mom grew up assembly of God, and um, so she had familiarity with baptism in the spirit, but my dad grew up Catholic. And before I was born, um, my brother, their first child passed away at about, I think, 18 months. I wasn't around at the time, so I don't may not have that age totally correct, but it shook their world. Um, it caused my mom to have what they called at the time a nervous breakdown about a year later. Um, a little background on my mom, and as a teenager, she started to exhibit psychotic symptoms and manic episodes. So her family, of course, did not know what to do with she was born in 1948.

SPEAKER_03: 4:01

So um they didn't talk about that stuff back then, right?

SPEAKER_01: 4:05

Right, absolutely. They acted like it never happened.

SPEAKER_03: 4:09

What kind of like for people that don't know what a psychotic episode looks like, can you describe what you learned about your mom when she was a teenager?

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Sure. She had what is called bipolar one, severe with psych psychotic symptoms. So she would have deep depressions and then she would come out of those. It was like a slow progress into manic episodes where she would stop sleeping, stop eating. And what I've what I understand is that uh the psychosis comes because there's been a lack of sleep for several weeks, maybe an hour a night to three hours a night, sometimes no sleep at all. And so the mania starts.

SPEAKER_03: 4:48

Can you define psychosis for people?

SPEAKER_01: 4:50

Yeah, I'm gonna get there. What happens is the mania, it's okay. The mania ramps up, and as the mania wraps up, you see people basically seeing things that aren't there, hearing things that aren't there, or having delusions that aren't true. For her, her psychosis was just delusions that I remember. So her saying things like she was God, she wrote the Bible, having beliefs that were obviously not true, and and expressing those and as if they were true because to her at the time they were very true. Um, and so that would usually end up in some type of it was it was very interesting. I don't understand it totally, but she would end up usually at the end of that when she went into full delusion, um, was when we would usually have her hospitalized by calling, you know, an ambulance and her being taken to the hospital. She would be in the hospital for from what I remember, about a week. She would come out of the hospital and be doing what we call the Thorsine shuffle, where she would be very lethargic, slow, uh motor skills, uh, not her brain moving very, very slow. And then she it would taper off, and then we would just act like nothing happened and go back to our everyday life. As a child, living with somebody who had depression, not getting out of bed, not not being able to engage in life at all. And then obviously the the crescendo of mania that happens. And when police are usually called or ambulance are usually called, usually there's some crisis that's ensued to have that call be made. And so that was very those nights, those times were very traumatic. Um, of course, as a young child, I didn't know what was happening. I was very scared for her that something, you know, that she might die. Looking back, she wasn't in a life-threatening situation, but I didn't understand that at five or ten years old. I didn't know that she wouldn't die. Um, and so, and then when she was out of the hospital and she would come back, I knew she wasn't herself. Um, she wasn't obviously present emotionally even before, but even more so now. And um, it was just something it wasn't processed, it wasn't talked about. Nobody asked me how I felt about it, probably because nobody knew how to ask me that. They nobody asked them, probably.

SPEAKER_04: 7:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

Um, my dad was in the military, he was Navy in the Navy. So sometimes they happen when he was, you know, overseas. Um, and thank God for the church, because people in the church would step in and take my sister, my older sister and I and try to help us in any way they could until my dad got back home. But that was kind of it wasn't like that all the time from what I counted. And I could be wrong because she started having these episodes before I was born. She had me at 32. But when I remember in in my lifetime that she had about four. So it wasn't every year or every six months, but when it happened, it was very scary.

SPEAKER_03: 7:51

Yeah. So when you look back at your childhood and now that you're a therapist, what what have you understood about your own trauma experience and what that did to you mentally, emotionally, psychologically? Um spiritually, you clung to your faith, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 8:12

Yeah. So the first psychotic episode that she had, I actually learned Acts 238 for the first time I was five years old. And I was very excited about that because we could earn a Bible if we were learning memory verses in our Sunday school class. And so I went to her, my dad was working in the garage, and I went to her, she was in her room, and I said, Mom, I I memorized this Bible verse, and I said it to her. And she said, That's wonderful because I'm God. And I wrote the Bible, and that's so wonderful. And in my five-year-old mind, I thought, okay, but I'm just I'm thankful that I thought at that moment, like that's not true. I know that's not true. So I just went and got my dad, right? I was scared, and so I'm thankful looking back. I wasn't necessarily confused by those statements. They were just, I didn't know why she was saying that. Right. And so, um but it really, I think the more if you could say the worst part of it was the fact that, you know, as younger, I would have said the worst part of it is the event happening. But as I'm older, I think the worst part of it was that we just didn't talk about it afterwards. We acted like it never happened.

SPEAKER_04: 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

And I won't, as I grew up, I feel like oftentimes in living with somebody who is mentally ill who was my primary caregiver. I was often what I call, I tell clients is a parallel reality where you know, you and I are in the same room, but we're not joining emotionally. We don't feel the same thing. And often you can have that in many intimate relationships in your life where you're existing with somebody, but you emotionally or mentally, maybe you're not on the same page. And so uh that cognitive dissonance, meaning one foot on the shore, you know, on the dock, one foot on the boat, and you're going like this, or you have to hold two truths in your head at the same time, it's very disjointing and it's very disconcerting. It's very um, it's very lonely in any relationship. So that parallel reality, I think was, I'm now looking back, I believe was probably the worst part of it. Um, and then growing up, I I felt like my times with God alone in my room were some of the I was just like that with my dad working so much. And when he was home, he was working two jobs often. He was an electrician, he would work on the weekends. Um, so being there with her so much alone, or I I felt like my times with the Lord were so sacred and precious. I I fell in love with the word of God at a very young age. It felt like I clinged to it. It's it felt like it was everything to me. Um I never felt like I fit in with any social group, uh church. I felt like I had a deep sense of um, I just a deeper thinker. I'm not saying I'm highly intelligent in any way, but I just feel like I was a deeper thinker. I would probably because I learned to be cautious and read people and that kind of thing to survive in my environment. Um and as I grew up, when I got into high school, I kind of got to the point where I was just tired of being alone all the time. And so um I started to dabble in things that, you know, weren't godly as far as being in high school, um, you know, going to school, dressing the way I wanted. Um, my parents really didn't have any idea what was going on because I'd always been very I think I was kind of like, oh, I don't have to we don't have to worry about you. You're you know, and in my independent dutiful, thank you. Yeah, exactly. And they saw the way I did respond to God. I would go to youth camps or uh youth conventions, and I didn't I didn't necessarily know anybody. I just wanted to be there um and get drunk in the spirit or just experience God in some way that I don't normally get to experience God. And so when I got to high school and I started to um do things that weren't dutiful, and my parents, I think that really scared them and they didn't come down on me like a ton of bricks, they didn't know how to respond necessarily, but I didn't, I wasn't, I can't I really attribute my dad that he maybe he saw how lonely I was, maybe he saw, I don't know why he did it this way, but he was very gentle in his parenting. Uh, if I did something, if I snuck out or he caught it's not that it was okay, or he would uh, but he just didn't punish me. He tried to spend more time with me and talk to me. Wow, that's um and come alongside of me. I think to him it was like, I think my kid needs me right now.

SPEAKER_04: 12:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:49

Um, and so he would just make sure that I was with him more, that I was he was with me more, that we were talking about things, that um he asked me to write an essay about drinking more than and tell me stories about people he knew or my own other family members for generations past and things alcohol did to them. Um I just didn't feel he would say we need to go talk to the pastor and we would meet with our pastor, which was fine. Um, I don't remember that being a traumatic experience or anything. I don't really remember what happened, but I don't remember feeling like I wish that we wouldn't have done that. Um he was so his he became dutiful when I was in a type of crisis, and that really bonded us emotionally to where it really helped me say, I don't really want to do those things. And I think at the time I just didn't want to disappoint him. It was my motive at the time, honestly. And I knew I did love the Lord. I wasn't like I but when I went to Bible college, to be honest with you, A, I was trying to get out of the house and get on my own, get away from it. I wanted to turn away from all my pain. I wanted to pretend that it didn't happen. I wanted to push it under the rug as much as I could. Yet at some point, a part of me wanted to talk to someone about it, but I'd never been modeled, so I didn't really know. We didn't talk about my mom stuff and all that. We talked more about my behavior, right? And so when I went to Bible college, I really felt like after four years, if I leave Bible college Catholic, that's fine. I just wanted to go somewhere parent approved that I could get away and try to live for God and learn about Him. And that was it. It wasn't, I didn't really have any future goals or anything like that. I did think I might be in full-time ministry one day, possibly, but I um I felt like God had a call on my life, but I didn't know what that meant. I think often that's hard for girls, especially because if you're not a boy, then you're if you're a boy, you're kind of a preacher. I'm not saying that that's necessarily what God calls every boy to, but I think you think that way when you go to youth camps, youth conventions. So, you know, you're like, I'm gonna be in the ministry and I'm gonna, you know, so I didn't really know what that meant, but I when I went there, I lived for God. I really did. I mean, there was opportunity, obviously not to, but I had a decent experience. You know, I I really tried to pour myself into prayer meetings and landmark, and uh, I tried to put give it everything that I could so I could get out of it everything I didn't have growing up. I grew up in homissions churches my whole life. My dad felt it was his personal ministry to help a pastor, and he did. And we were there when the church doors were open and we were always there, and we were supportive of the ministry all the time in our pastor, and we never spoke against a pastor in our home. I mean, that's the kind of home I I was raised in. And so I really just wanted to be at a place where there was more than seven or ten people, and you know, I could have these experiences on a more consistent basis, right? Instead of being isolated. And then that's where I met my husband after my second year of Bible college. Um, yeah, so that's but I was still again turning away. I told someone yesterday I was always going trying to do the next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. I did not want to look at my past. I didn't want to look at the failures, I didn't want to look at um, I didn't want anybody to know that I had, you know, smoked weed or drank or did or been arrested. I didn't want anyone to know that, you know, because I wanted to make sure that I it's not I wanted to impress anybody, but I just didn't want to, I just wanted to act like it didn't happen, but I definitely feel like God used that for me with um kids and teenagers, pastors' kids, even um Bible college students that are struggling because I get it. I'm not perfect, I've never been perfect, I never will be perfect, and those aren't my struggles, you know, the uh the ones I mentioned, but I've got other struggles, and I when I'm 80, I'll have other struggles, and um I get that part I get, and I think that's really helped me to help people that I had that experience. Maybe humbled me. Yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_03: 17:09

Um yes, you said so many things. I was trying to take note as you were talking, so I didn't interrupt. But um, you know, I think loneliness is something that a lot of I I haven't really talked to very many people that ever grew up feeling like they fit in, you know. Um I I think having secure attachment helps, you know, and I try to evaluate. Um, like I think about my cousin um who strayed a little bit, but he always was able to kind of stay the path. You sort of stayed the path. And I I think about the people that was able to stay on the road, even though they struggled, it just didn't seem to be to the degree some of the rest of us did, you know. And I always wonder what the difference is. And I I wonder if it's because there was really a secure base where there was that parent like you had that was just gentle and loving and can draw you closer instead of using the Bible or using the church, you know, as a way to I agree a hundred a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01: 18:22

I I when I was in college at one point I called my dad and said, Dad, I'm sorry that I got arrested. I'm sorry I did all this stuff. And he's like, Okay. He said, Are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. Well, you're fine now, so it's okay. You know, keep going, you know, kind of thing. It was it's and now my mom, I get it. It's a blip on the screen. Just just don't give up, just keep going. But I I do feel like my drive for many years was to to honor him. Like you loved me when I was in love. Well, I definitely had that attachment with my dad. I and when I was in Bible college, I would pray like God, I sorry. It's good, it's good.

SPEAKER_03: 19:07

Yeah. He is so good, right? When we look back and see his hand on all of it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:17

But you know, I would pray, God, send me a mentor, send me a female, right? We needed a female.

SPEAKER_02: 19:26

Somebody that would love me where I'm at. And he did. And that's why I'm crying, you know, because it wasn't at that time.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

He sent me friend that is still my friend today. You know, a good, good, good friend. That was ahead of me in a lot of ways and showed me how to be in the ministry and showed me how to be a female in the ministry and set me up. But once I came back home to my husband and I got married, we're married for a couple of years. I didn't even feel I got my associates, I wasn't gonna go back to Bible college. And my husband was from the church, not from the Bible college. But uh I felt that summer in between that God called me. We were helping with the youth camp, the CLC youth camp, and I felt God call me directly, you need to go back. And I didn't plan on doing that. So back two years, the day I graduated, we moved to SoCal, where we are now at my home church. And the pastor's wife that I still have is she was my I call her the mom of my heart. God sent somebody to me to meet me where I was at. And I just feel like that's so important. I can't emphasize it enough. Um, how important that is. You know, I've been studying lately about complex trauma and trauma. I know I'm going on a little bit of a rabbit trail. I'm sorry, but it does have to do with what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03: 20:51

Oh, yeah, good, you're good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:52

Um, talking about dealing with clients that have complex layers and layers of traumatic experiences and how important it is for them to have adaptive information. And I can talk about what that is, but this is in your brain having safe places you've been.

unknown: 21:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

Adaptive information is when something bad happens to you and you're able to adapt and learn from it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

And you're able to say, um, I'm wiser, I'm stronger, um, I now I know what not to do. That kind of you're learning, you're healthy in a healthy way adapting.

SPEAKER_04: 21:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 21:26

Um if you don't already have that basis in your brain because you haven't had anybody to meet you where you are and be safe with your gut and your stuff, you don't have anything to attach good information to, or even bad things that happen to that. So having therapy is great and it's needed, it's a piece of the puzzle of many pieces. Um, but having experiences outside of session that where your brain can learn that there are safe people that can love you no matter what, and even if is so imperative to healing.

SPEAKER_02: 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:05

And and you know, Titus we talks about the older women teaching the younger women. Um, and if more women were willing to mother and love other women, we would just be further along, you know, than we are. And um, and there is a lot of women that do that. I'm not saying um, you know, we there's this huge, huge shortage or something, but um, it's definitely some the reason the Bible talks about that. So that's part of my healing. That's all part of the journey.

SPEAKER_03: 22:33

Yeah. And I think um, I think busyness is in the way of us really being able to connect with others. I feel like life in general has become so busy that everybody's focused in their own world, their own life, their own, you know, and um, so we don't always take the time to connect with others. But um I want to just kind of elaborate on something you said for the audience who may not know, like you said your brain being adaptive, but I want to interpret that and if I'm wrong, correct me. But our emotions is what responds first. And you're when you're talking about the brain being adaptive, I think what you're talking about is how it registers and it gets kind of stuck either in a positive loop or a negative loop, right? So you're saying when we have positive emotions and experiences, that what's that's doing to our brain is training it um to be able to regulate itself so it doesn't spin us out of control.

SPEAKER_01: 23:42

Yes, and also take information and apply it.

SPEAKER_03: 23:45

So when you're you have that basically a cognitive belief system, right?

SPEAKER_01: 23:50

So when someone bullies you, you know, well, that wasn't me, that was them. You're able to adapt. You don't think, oh, no one's nice, I can't make friends, I'll never make friends, I'll never have anybody. You don't do that, you adapt. You say, Well, I'll go make friends with someone else.

SPEAKER_03: 24:07

Right, right. Yeah. Our responses to things are so important, and we just um when we're only stuck in a way like I I pray, I've been praying about one topic for a while with the Lord, and and I've really been asking him to teach me because we don't know what we don't know until we learn. And so some people don't even know how to get outside of their own thought processes or experiences because they haven't been exposed to other ways of thinking and other ideas that might work for them, you know, um until you have an experience. And so could you talk a little bit about being mindful of themselves or being curious about their own introspection that could maybe help them? Because I think that's another thing when people have rejection issues, loneliness, loneliness, I think, lends itself to rejection and probably abandonment. Um you talk a little bit about um I forgot what I just said.

SPEAKER_01: 25:15

Um about interest people being introspective about introspective, right?

SPEAKER_03: 25:19

Because it they they only look at how other people are treating them and what that means for them.

SPEAKER_01: 25:28

Yes, that's gonna make it, you know, one saying that I've said before is that it it's painful to look in the mirror. And when the less that someone can look in the mirror, usually the more the less acceptance there's been at younger ages. So you know, so when looking in the mirror with self-reflection, right, saying this is who I really am, seeing yourself or who you really are, the more tolerance you have for that, the better your attachment system, probably. The less tolerance you have for that, put the mirror up and you have to look away because it's very painful. You don't want to see that.

SPEAKER_03: 26:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 26:06

The probably there wasn't a secure attachment system. I don't you said someone that doesn't feel comfortable in their own skin. It's hard for them to look at them. That comes from many places, and that's not what you're asking me exactly. Is it come from many places? But it's something that you can work on over time. Obviously, therapy is supposed to be a safe place where you're not judged, that somebody sees you for who you are, where you're at, and can tolerate you, can tolerate your feelings and what you say. And some of the most therapeutic moments is when a client reacts negatively to their therapist, and the therapist is be able to handle that and able to show them unconditional positive regard. And that's really what the ministry is supposed to do as well. And you've ever had a good pastor in your life, that's what your pastor does. When you get frustrated at your pastor or you feel you're dealing with the same thing over and over, hopefully they have patience for you and they operate in the fruits of the spirit, right? And they have long suffering and they have patience. And that relationship with a healthy pastoral relationship can be very therapeutic and very healing. And it's a relationship that lasts over the years in many contexts. And so it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So, but at the same time, when you haven't had those safe relationships in your life, it's also going to be hard to look at yourself. Because when someone that's supposed to be safe for you says, without saying it, you are overwhelming. I don't like to look at your feelings, it's really difficult for you to look at your own feelings. It's almost like somebody has to look at them with you first before you can tolerate looking at them.

SPEAKER_03: 27:42

Because there's such a fear factor. You know, people, I I I've just observed over over the course of work that um people are afraid to look at themselves because they think that what they have felt and what others have how others have treated them might be true about who they are. That's shame, right? And so they feel like maybe I am this, maybe this is true about me. And you really don't tweeze that out until you begin to look and ask and be willing to ask yourself, well, am I really dumb? I was a high school dropout, you know. I don't I don't think I ever got an A ever in school because I never applied myself, but I didn't know that. You know, it wasn't until I went to college and I got my first A that I started thinking maybe there could be something different here. And so not looking if you just believe everything we feel. Um we will be afraid to be curious about what else might be true about ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 28:54

Absolutely. And that's right with the church, you know, ideally, right? We're supposed to be that different experience that people have, right? And we're that different experience in Jesus' name, hopefully, you know. Um, but when you don't get that, even in that place that you're supposed to be safe, which happens, you know, um, I've said before, when one of the things when I go to heaven and after I ask God, you know, I I may I'm being facetious a little bit when I say this, right? But it's like we all have questions, right? Why why do children get leukemia? I don't know. You know, there's certain things that just don't make sense. And right one of the things I would love to ask God is why did you pick people to lead broken people to lead broken people? It's very, it's been one of the biggest hiccups we've had in human in the church, right? Or in the human race. It's it's been one of the biggest stumbling blocks, but God did, but He did. That's what He did. It says it in the Bible that's what He did. And so we can't ignore that because it doesn't feel safe. We have to live by the word of God and believe and believe and pray. And so I think that the it all makes sense and it's hard to push people back, try to encourage people to go back to the place where they were hurt and say you're not going to get hurt again. Because the Bible's still true. People are still broken and people still lead people. And so getting to the root cause of why what backing up to when you so when you do get hurt by someone in church or someone that's supposed to be safe to you like a you know could be a parent or anybody that's supposed to be safe backing up to your original base, your original attachment system is going to uh be it's going to be the root cause of the why that affected you to the degree it affected you.

SPEAKER_03: 30:47

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 30:48

So when we're born, we have genetics obviously if you have more than one child, you know that your kids are so different. You know, and so I think as we're learning more and more how genetics play into things um we just came through 80 plus years of like it's all parenting which parenting greatly influences obviously but there's also a big genetic component that you're born into a family with. And so there's the genetic component but when we're young and our needs are attended to it builds like a buffer around our brain against damage. And so when people have a secure attachment system and at home which a lot of people don't obviously but there are people out there that for just means people show up yeah no I'm sorry. That you're like you feel love. Like when you're a baby that someone feeds you they don't leave you crying in your crib they change your diaper they you don't shake you when you're a baby when you're a toddler you're not you know uh dismissed or neglected dismissed neglected yes exactly um so and or you don't have uh sibling bullying that's gone on for years and nobody did anything about it and you just got bullied every single day you know things like that you're protected yeah it is very common so you were attuned to you know attuned to seen and known you were protected you were supported to explore somebody wasn't anxious all the time that you might hurt yourself at you were supported to explore you're delighted and valued you were looked at as a sense of joy in your parents' life not a burden and overwhelming thorn in their side um there's these when these things are in place even when someone doesn't acknowledge God their attachment system has a buffer around it way they attach or don't attach to other people how much they feel things or don't feel things what when it relates to the outside world affecting them so with a secure buffer when even when people don't acknowledge God when bad things happen to them they are adapt they adapt they become wiser they come become smarter they don't win and lose they win and learn that's right right and so those people I'm not saying that when judgment day comes they're gonna go to heaven or anything but I am saying that this is something this is a principle in my opinion that God has put into place from the beginning of time just like finances people can not acknowledge God. They can even obtain finances in an illegal or an immoral way right but if they follow the principles of Proverbs they will become wealthy. Right well these are the attachment principles that are found in the Bible everything research has found is biblical that works. Yes it is so God protects us we're supported to explore right he walks through fire with us he doesn't just protect us from fire and hurt he's always with us he delights in us and he values us he attunes to us he sees us for who we are and where we're at no matter what so God does all these things and that's all through the old testament it's all through the old testament and so God does these things and so when people on earth practice these things with their kids their kids do better overall right even when they are bullied or rejected or bad things happen to them they do better. They they bounce back better.

SPEAKER_04: 34:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 34:12

They learn more they're less damaged when bad things happen to them. So that is the all of that builds a foundation right for whether you're in the church or you're you have another um person in your life that you trust that hurts you um how you're gonna react or bounce back from that. But use but a lot of times I have found a lot a majority of people that come to God in the first place are coming for a reason. Usually it's not just a theological pool or um there are people in history right that talk about you know they're we just felt a need to go to church or whatever. And that's not who I meet. That's not who I talk to that's not the people that I know personally or professionally. Usually people come to church because they have a deep need and they're desperate for a change in their life. Why are they desperate for a change in their life? Usually it goes back to not just something bad has happened but the way they're responding to what's bad has happened is not healthy and it's making our life harder. Right. If if what I'm saying, I hope that's making sense. And so this all contributes to when things happen in the church to any of us and we're hurt in the church why we're it's very hard to bounce back right from those hurts and to trust again and believe again.

SPEAKER_03: 35:35

And the expectation I think when you're young is that I mean in my generation growing up that was always taught that you know it's the man of God don't ever question the man of God and then the man of God is sexually abusing kids in the church, you know all those kinds of things. And so there is there also that dichotomy like you said holding two realities that we have to not esteem people. And I think there's a whole generation that was taught that but you know if I'm hearing you right um you learn to keep your eyes on God and not pee and not people. And then people just came and was an added benefit to you. And I think that is um at least for me as a backslider coming home God taught me to keep my eyes on him so I can allow broken people to lead me you know or like you were saying broken God set up broken people to lead broken people. I think it teaches us how to have grace and forgiveness and compassion you know when when we're not ex our all our eggs are not in one basket. All our eggs are in God's basket because he's the he's the only one that's infallible everybody no matter how wonderful they are is going to be fallible and often not because they're trying to be or want to be but just because they're human.

SPEAKER_01: 37:13

That's right. And I I think it has to do with obviously too the way you are raised this is where parenting is influenced. My dad told me many years ago even though we didn't talk negative about our pastor I was still allowed to go to my dad and say dad I don't understand why this is happening. I don't this doesn't make sense to me it wasn't like we couldn't talk about that. So that's great. And my dad would tell me sometimes Danielle you have to trust God with the man of God. And that was one of the things that really stuck with me in my mind. So that's one thing that I think um dealing with people that are trying or struggling with possibly leaving the church or are coming back to the church um I make sure and I know you do too that we tell people it's never okay to be abused spiritually it's never okay to God doesn't want you to be abused spiritually that's just not okay. You need to be safe you need to be emotionally safe and not be taken advantage of right at the same time with a lot of what happens in church and what I've seen happen in church is that when there is shame based parenting there can be a a trigger of shame and meaning shame based parenting what I mean by that is shaming and guilting is used as a primary mode of operation to get kids to obey and do things.

SPEAKER_03: 38:40

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 38:42

And so I'm not saying that it's never okay for your kid to feel a sense of shame. I mean if my kid hits his sister or vice versa yeah you should not do that. It's not okay. I'm not okay with that. And if you feel shamed about that that's probably pretty that's okay with me. Right? I'm not gonna not speak to you for three days or two days or any you know I'm not gonna shun you I'm not gonna berate you about it. But a sense of shame and doses at times is appropriate to keep kids socially connected to their subgroup. But if that's the only thing you use to get your kid to empty the dishwasher to get your kid to make the bed every single thing is, you know, do you see all the things I do for you and you can't even make your bed I've said that before I'm not saying that I never dabble in this all I'm saying is so I'm aware like don't do that. You know or you know she has said that. So but when it's that's used primarily when you become an adult and being involved in a subculture that is um very structured highly structured at times when somebody it when you're overlooked not recognized not communicated with all these things that can happen that make you feel make you feel a sense of shame when that comes up if you do not trust the Lord you will not make it because people are going to they're not superhuman they're not going to remember to text or call you sometimes they're not computers they're not robots they are not angelic they are just people and so um one thing that I work on constantly is making my trust be the Lord meaning I don't have any trust outside of God. When my trust is fully the Lord I can trust God with you because I don't I know that you can't you can hurt me but you can't damage me. Right right I and I've I I'm of course I'm and like everybody else in your podcast not sharing everything I've ever been through right I have been hurt I have been uh for a time when God was trying to teach me I felt very damaged um but I have come to the to a place in my life where I understand that that maintenance has to be kept up for the rest of my life. Yes yes I'm always going to have to be submitting my will to God and turning to him and diving in his word every single day and eating of it to stay on the straight and narrow path. There's going to be hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_03: 41:10

And so a lot of times in our first world problem yes right first world problems oh go ahead yes go ahead I was just gonna say um the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force you've got to we've got to fight and it's you know it is gonna be hardship we're just not gonna skate in there easy because we love the Lord we have to fight to not be offended you know and and um dying to ourself all the time in order to have grace and forgive and to you know live in the fruit of the spirit it's not I think it's a bloody war within ourself.

SPEAKER_01: 41:57

Yes that's right amen and it's a fight every single day yes yes it's a fight every it's so I think that over time I have different I've gotten to know myself spiritually when I'm not trusting in God the way that I should and that is definitely a litmus test for me is other people and how I'm dealing with other people my frustrations my letdowns my uh whatever with others is how is a litmus test for me personally of how my trust is with God. Because when your trust is the Lord like you don't have any trust outside of God you can trust God with other people. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 42:39

Yep and that's that's yeah that's so good Danielle and um I really I mean I'm sure other people know that principle but I don't hear it said often enough but I think I I think like with marriage right if I'm trusting God and not my spouse like I can trust my spouse to a degree but they're gonna be human right if my trust is God then I can safely trust that God's going to speak to the spouse and guide that spouse especially if I'm praying for them. Yes absolutely and and I I mean the Lord taught me that I'm not married or anything but I can I can look back and see because I have to do that with everything in my life how did you learn that and what how did you learn that in yourself in your walk with God how to put your trust fully in him I feel like for me personally that came through having kids because you know it's one thing to be like me Shack, Rishak and Abendigo I say her name right Shadrach Meshach and Abendago Shad Shak, sorry I'm sorry you knew what it was I'm my point is my mind is on my point what I'm saying I guess but um I'm not saying it's easy to walk through fire but man to watch your child in the fire I think that's another level yeah you know you think you know how to trust God you know and until you've had to trust God with your kid I just don't know if you really trusted God.

SPEAKER_01: 44:20

I'm not saying everybody can have children or whatever, but I'm just saying that you know that for me that was my sanctification process was and still and probably always will be right because we're gonna worry about our kids and pray for our kids until we pass away. So um I think that humbled me to the point of surrender and literally I have no control over the situation. You have to move in this situation because when God relinqu when not relinquish I mean when God you know I I heard this saying recently in this past week it says um if we don't put on sackcloth and ashes God will dress us in sack cloth sackcloth and ashes and uh God knows what it takes to get you to the point where you're you literally have no control but you're desperate. But you're desperate because a lot of times we don't have control but we can say but I'll take control right I'll figure this out. I'll do it my way.

SPEAKER_03: 45:23

I want to address that really quick because um there is a tendency I think especially for backsliders and a lot of Christians to see God as punitive as if he's up there punishing us and so um which is not who he is at all and if and anybody that reads you know the Bible will understand that's not who he is but because you brought up sackcloth and ashes I just want to I I want to talk about the beautiful gift that that it is when God humbles us and does dress us in sackcloth and ashes um because it wakes us up to the realization of how powerless we are and how powerful he is because he doesn't leave us in sackcloth and ashes. He doesn't leave us there. What he's wanting us to do is learn that we can trust him with everything. And it's right we don't really know how to trust until we're put in a position to have to trust. And that I think that's the definitive defining fork in the road when we do take matters into our own hands because we're so afraid to let go and trust but but God is bringing us to that point so that we can learn how to trust him and and it does feel like that is my edge of the cliff moment when I I literally felt like I was on the edge of the cliff gonna fall to my death and my only option was to trust God. And when we get to that place emotionally and mentally uh it is perhaps the most scariest of all because we are getting faced with fear on every side and so the sackcloth and ashes is a gift of God because now for you Danielle I'm sure you would say this and and I know I feel this way um I never have to I never have to learn that again I've learned it I can totally trust God with everything and if my world falls apart everything is still going to be okay. That's right right because we already crossed that bridge.

SPEAKER_01: 47:57

And I believe that why God wants us just trust him is so that we can really enjoy his love. Yes so good yes you know I think that you can't enjoy meaning you can't get a true sense of contentment satisfaction and elation in life and no life to that degree until the love of God is all you have.

SPEAKER_03: 48:23

Right and it we don't strive anymore I think until because it's rest you know but yes it is joy elation I love that word that you said that word because that um it's beautiful to be in that place. And I I think yeah for you it was your children um and I think for every back I think for any Christian there will be the one thing that God is going to ask us to surrender to him. Because that that one thing and for some it could be finance for some it could be um health issues it could be medical issues it could be a spouse it could be loneliness.

SPEAKER_01: 49:11

It could yes or identity right your sense of identity to surrender it to him because you've found you a lot of times I think a lot of people make identity an idol um and that obviously is not God's plan for us or his way so we have to I think he wants us to identify with Christ and right everything else be second to that.

SPEAKER_03: 49:35

Yeah. I think it's it's normal to want to know where you fit because when you grow up as a child and you recognize you don't fit um that I feel like that's a God given desire he places in us but the labels that give us identity are not you know I feel like identity can be um fluid. Yes right because God is constantly changing and growing us so it's gonna change over time.

SPEAKER_01: 50:07

Yes and he has that right to do it.

SPEAKER_03: 50:09

Yeah yeah um so I I want to go back to something you said when you were going to Bible college you felt like um you would be in ministry and you said also that in Bible college ministry is typically either a music ministry or a preacher. What have you learned now about ministry and your own feeling about how you view ministry today um as a woman and what you do for a living I view ministry as meeting a need.

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

I don't view it as a title or a position even though that can be what God uses for sure um to use someone but he doesn't need it. I feel like God needs more people that want to meet needs than ever before. And um I definitely respect people that have full-time ministries I'm not I don't but I respect people for absolute sure and the weight that they carry is immense and um something that is somebody like me can't even imagine. But I definitely don't find that it's more significant than anything else that God calls somebody to and that's just the truth. And I don't want anybody that I work with to think that that's if that's what God's calling you to then you better do it. You better do it. But if God doesn't call you to that then you know I heard somebody say before if you and we're talking as a not being a pastor but if you can't if if you can not be a pastor and still sleep at night then you should probably not be one you know but if you feel like you cannot sleep at night unless you're in that role then that's what God's called you to and so anything less is you may not have what it takes and it may not be your calling because it's such a hard job. So that being said um yeah I think that ministry is just meeting a need. Whether that's picking someone up for church or maybe they visiting someone who's lonely um cleaning the church or whatever. Turning around in your pew and smiling at the person behind you.

SPEAKER_03: 52:32

Maybe they needed that yeah because you know it's gonna be at the end of the day about souls are we are we helping someone get to heaven are we are we loving like Jesus does and that's right and and we do grow up with that construct that um to be in ministry means X, Y, and Z. But there's you know there's a a lot a big movement now for marketplace ministry and um and being a minister in whatever role you do have whatever vocation that someone is called to you can still be a minister there you know because you're gonna be working with people and that's the soul God sees everyone as a soul. I want to just say for the record for anyone watching um you know in this podcast never ever ever ever ever would it be our intention or heart to say anything negative about ministry um and pastors as as we talk about backsliders and church hurt um the reality of what people felt and what they experienced and how they perceived something um is real for them. And yet at the same time I look back and I don't fault anybody anywhere for my own church hurt. And in fact I'm so grateful for how I grew up and the experiences that I had um I think we're just trying to illustrate the fact that we do get hurt in any environment someone is in. If my only environment was a teacher at a school I would be hurt by the people that I do I'm in community with and so when we grow up in church we're in community with those people and leadership does seem to get a spotlight placed on them for that reason. But for me and the podcast it is never ever meant to cast stones um because I I know and I believe as you were saying Danielle we trust we trust God with the people that are in the place of ministry. He has even with with Saul you know David killed the Amalekite who killed Saul and said you know we don't touch God's anointed if they are behind the pulpit um preaching the word of God no matter what else is happening in their lives they will answer to the Lord and God is in charge of them. That's right. Amen 100% and so we have to take our hands off of it and we have to honor with them and to the Lord until God exposes and if if something is going on I think God will deal with it and expose it. But even then they are a soul as well that's right that God loves that God wants to restore and heal and bring them to a place of repentance. That's right amen so um I have a couple of questions on my list. I've I was taught that there are four motivations to behavior attention the need for attention the need to be accepted um avoidance some behavior can be very avoidant in nature and sensory you know um behavior functioning from a place of a sensory need or um their senses being overstimulated um so can you talk about what that could look like in relation to woundedness and um the effects of trauma particularly how a backslider uh would feel um and maybe experience the some of the reasons they had some of the behaviors that they had um yeah I think that when we have uh trauma when we're younger and that could be just our again could be something physically significant all the way down to emotional uh trauma meaning somebody right not listening to us attuning to us and us not being uh seen and to seen and protected um we our brain becomes overwhelmed and that's what trauma is is something that's too much for the brain to handle and God has made our brain to uh split off and and to survive and so things that work for us sometimes when we're younger that get our needs met they don't work in the adult world and that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01: 57:32

So for example for example for example being like like if you had parents that were un either unavailable for you know working reasons all the way to being addicts or some type either mental illness or addiction or uh workaholic it as a as a thing too you know so your parents not being available to you might have been the oldest of several kids and you taking charge stepping in um making sure that things were kept in line worked it kept maybe it kept your parents from being angry when they got home maybe it made your parent feel less exacerbated having your help but then when you get older and you get relationships outside of the home you won't very often meet you won't meet a healthy person that wants to be a relationship with somebody who operates in a way of taking charge constantly and telling you know not asking but telling people what they need to do um throwing fits and temper tantrums when things aren't in their control or in their charge things like that that just won't work. It won't function on the outside. So um those needs getting met operating in different contexts that's part of being in reality is what mental health really is is being able to accept reality. For example um if somebody is having flashbacks um they're maybe they're in the war and they're at a July 4th um thing and there's some fireworks going off and their body their subconscious is telling them that there's bombs going off but rationally they know that's not what's happening but they're it's like they have two things happening at the same time they're not in unity like I know I'm safe this is okay I feel safe right that'd be unity but saying I don't know why but I'm feeling this feeling when this happens it doesn't make sense to me I hear that all the time in therapy constantly um also just think about um when someone passes away bereavement is normal to have bereavement but grief is when it's been an exterior period of time and the emotional response and the behaviors are just like it happened yesterday. It's not someone is not accepting subconsciously right in their back of their mind they're not accepting reality even though they know their loved one passed away five years ago they know that rationally but something about them cannot accept it. So this lack of when we're younger Usually what happens is our we something when something's not met, we kind of split off and we don't learn to accept reality because reality was too scary to accept or it was unsafe to accept. Back to my analogy with the oldest child having to be parentified. I'm the mom basically, or the, you know, I'm the one to take care of everybody all the time. Um, that can be that that splitting off was happening at that time because accepting that mom and dad weren't there to feed us, mom and dad weren't there to um meet our needs, that that type of to accept that meant that we wouldn't eat. Right? How could you accept that? You know, that acceptance, I mean we would never go to school. Like, how could you accept that? So that worked, not accepting reality worked. But now we're older, we've never really learned to accept reality, and then it demolishes our relationships later. Realizing that, unpacking that, realizing that maybe you are stuck emotionally at a younger age, some part of you comes out that isn't uh isn't your chronological age, where people around you say, Why did that make you so upset? And you might even say, I don't know why I acted that way. Right? A lot of people say that. They'll say part of me knows that this isn't rational, and part of me knows that part of me wants to fix this, and the other part of me says, I know I can't fix this, but this part of me just wants to fix this, right? That kind of thing. That's where usually younger, that kind of have holding to truths is actually what made the family function. And so now it's not working in your adult life, but you're still holding to truth. You're not able to come to acceptance and say, you know what? I can't change other people. It's their right to have that feeling. There's nothing I can do about that. So I I that's okay with me. I have to accept that. They can't do that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:54

I hope that answers your question. But that all comes from unmet needs. Uh the all those behaviors when you're younger that they work for you at that time. It's exactly what you needed at that time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:04

Right. And I I I want to just say that when those kind of situations are at play, the emotional need of the child was neglected. So there's there's a real emotional need to have a parent to be taken care of, to be cared for. And and so we make so many excuses as kids, oh, well, they're just this or they're this or they can't or they can't. And so I think that also convolutes the identity piece and shame because shame internalizes so many things as there's something wrong with me. If my parent loved me, then they would not have done X, right? They wouldn't have yelled at me, they would have been home, they would have wanted to make dinner. There must be something wrong with me. And I think just objectifying it a little bit and understanding that as a child, you know, um you you needed those things. There was a form of neglect there. Not that it was ever intentional, not that it was ever um motivated by a a terrible need. Sometimes it was just people don't know what they don't know, you know. But so when you when you grow up and you become the fixer or the people pleaser, you know, the need for acceptance or the need for attention, or in some cases a need for avoidance, we begin to function out of those needs. I when people grow up not fitting in, you know, thank goodness for you, Daniel, that you knew at an early age to turn to God and and you never felt disappointed by God. I I felt very disappointed by God, which ultimately caused me to go away. And now I understand that would have been an invitation for me to trust him. I just didn't know how. Um, but I think looking for acceptance in a peer group and finding it in the world, whether it's I've you know, I found my group because I'm a drug addict or now I'm part of a gang or because I, you know became something else in the world, we you know, the titles again. I think everybody looks for that kind of acceptance when they don't fit in growing up in the church. And so um so coming back to identity and self-reflection and being curious about who else God might have made them to be. You know, there it there is a purpose for somebody's life, even if they didn't fit here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:53

Well, I think one part of my story that is I didn't mention is I what I one of the biggest things I struggled with was feeling disappointed. That was one of my biggest burdens because I always prayed for God to heal my mom. And she was never healed since I know this sounds negative, but she just didn't get that healing while she was alive. And I see that God used it. I have another story about that, um, how God used it. I can see that now, but I still never learned for a long time how to handle other disappointments. Expectations are everything.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:28

Yes, they are everything.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:29

And so I think when it comes to if someone uh backslides or not, um, I don't know. I feel like my dad and having that attachment and that kind of like when I was bad, I wasn't shamed. I really think that helped a lot. But again, and if I had a different, you know, per if I'm a different person that may not have I know there's a lot of people that say I have a my mom was great, my dad was great, you know, and they slipped over here. I don't know what the right what happened there. I can just say what happened to me. Yeah. Right. Yeah, right. And so I can just say what happened to me, you know. Um, but I think when it comes to people that backslide, I just feel like that's just a common thread is sometimes um I there's been other things since I've been a teenager that I've done that I shouldn't have done and I think, oh, I shouldn't have thought that, I shouldn't have said that, right? I I should have had a better attitude, I should have, I should have, I should have. And I I feel like I never felt that intrinsic sense of shame for not being perfect because I feel like somebody was there for me when I wasn't perfect and continues. I I have another attachment, right? As an adult, that someone is also there for me when I'm not perfect. And my husband, he definitely doesn't expect perfection. I'm thankful I met somebody like that. So um marriage can be a place where God helps you. Um uh God can use your spouse uh to be in relationship with you while he heals you, but not your spouse to heal you, but to be a safe place for you while he works on and he heals you. Um but back to what you were saying with unmet needs and uh basically us as children into adulthood acting out to get unmet needs met and acting out in maladaptive ways, right? The ways that don't actually benefit us to get needs met is something that is really um a telltale of adolescence, right? It's something that we do when we're younger and because we don't think it through. Um, and so, you know, um I stole that because I needed money, you know. It's like, well, yeah, at the same time, that's probably not a good plan because you're not gonna you're gonna get in trouble and you have more consequences. I think not throwing in the towel completely, and that's something that I try to encourage people with all the time, that no matter what they've done, how far they feel they've gone, don't give up all the way because the collateral damage is a lot less when you stick with it even if it's hard. Um and so yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:56

Yeah. I love that you said collateral damage because I think there's so many good Christians that struggle. They sit on the pew, they come to church, but they have affairs, they have little drug addictions, they have pornography issues. Um, but they still come to church. And some people might call that being hypocritical, but personally I'm glad that they still come to church because, like you said, at least they're coming, at least they're hearing a message that the they haven't given up all the way. And I think that that is an amazing, wonderful thing because you know, I think about some of the guests that I've interviewed in my own life, the collateral damage has been great, and we can't change that, you know, versus people that that make mistakes but stay in church. I I honor them so much. You know, I I would never want someone to think, oh, I've got to go sin to have a testimony so that God can use me. Because I I think the greatest testimony is the one who kept believing God when when they were disappointed and they don't have all the scars because scars heal, but they never go away. You see them, they're always visible. That's right. And and I think that um if there are people in the church that listen to this that have not done the terrible things to get the great testimony, please don't do the terrible things because even though God redeems our story and even though God will create a ministry for the backslider to share their experience. Um I think about the brother of the prodigal, you know. I I wonder what the prodigal son would have said to his older brother who never left the house. And I think he would have said, I wish I could have done it the way you did it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:02

Right, right. I've heard people over the years. I I've heard people over the years say this, and I don't know what you think about this, but you know, I'm talking, I understand when people in the world say this. When time at church people say, I don't regret anything. And when they look over their life and I think, how could we never regret any being a Christian? Right? I mean, there's gotta be some sense of I don't want to hurt my father, Heavenly Father, I don't want to grieve the Holy Ghost. I don't want to hurt the people that have poured into me and mentored me and loved me, even though and I of course I regret that. But there's a difference between right feeling a sense of guilt and then feeling a sense of shame. That's right. A sh sense of shame that doesn't go away, a sense of shame that is visceral and deep and is not a surface level sense of shame that's actually helpful to get you back on the straight and narrow path. And I do think that it's the way a lot of times it's the way that your misbehavior was responded to will um will shape that or make it intensify it or not. And so um I've tried my best I can to repeat what I felt like my dad did for me when my kids don't do what I think they should do. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I've tried to aim for that side of I don't want my child to ever identify with being bad or feel like this is who I am, you know, because I've drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled into them because they will cling to that identity later and say, Well, I might as well, right? Because I this is who I am. And so um, yeah, I think that was part of the tethering that I had that even though I was kind of drifting, I didn't completely that you know, the scissors didn't cut me off and I just went, um, is because I knew there's always restoration. I know there's a way back, I knew confessing to people over me were there to help me and assist me, not just make me feel bad about what I did. I already felt bad for what I did. I didn't need that, and I didn't get that from them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:04

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. So, Danielle, now you know, teaching at Christian Life College, um, you're teaching a ton of people that are gonna be in the ministry, some preachers, some evangelists, some missionaries, some music ministries, and some pastors' wives, and probably some therapists, and I mean who who knows where God will send them into the world to be used. But what are you seeing in this next generation and and what do you think the tolerance level is for people that are kind of just starting out their ministry to be able to understand or love or um see backsliders or anybody, I guess, anyone that's coming in, you know, how how do you where how do you see that? I know you and I have talked a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:02

I'm very encouraged. I I think that uh since 2020, um, in not just in the church, but in the world, you know, there's people that TikTok their way through things, you know, but I'm not saying that's the best method, but the benefit of that is kind of uh social media craze about mental health is people are just more aware. It's when I teach class and I ask questions, uh hey, does anybody have a story? Every I've always had a couple of students raising their hands, sharing their personal situation, sharing what they struggle with, asking for a prayer request. It's not the kind of close to the best, we're good, we're perfect.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:42

Good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:42

This is for other people. It's not like that with them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:46

So they're a lot more authentic.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:49

Yes, of course, not everybody, but most of the them are a lot more transparent. You could see it in the papers they write when they write about things, they may not raise their hand. I teach virtually, I'm an adjunct professor, um, but what they may not raise their hand in class and share in front of everybody. But when they write a paper, you can see the transparency. And I ask them always to connect to every single thing they write, whether they knew somebody with that, whether they it scares them personally to think of that, some type of self-reflection. And I do try to emphasize with them. Self-reflection is to me the most important part of being a leader. And I emphasize to them about them having self-awareness is the most important part of being a leader. It's it gives you a better chance of not hurting other people. Doesn't mean you won't, but it gives you a better chance, a better shot of not hurting people. That's because you can be honest about how you feel. You need to find someone. So I've had several students over the past four years reach out to me, want to meet with me one-on-one and talk about what's going on with them. There's not that sense of nobody. I I mean, I appreciate that so much. I I can't be their therapist, I'm their teacher, but I can give them guidance and I praise them all, you know, for speaking up and talking to somebody. I tell them in my class if something I say triggers you or makes you feel any kind of way and you need to talk about it. I'm here. I'm not here to just open up a can of worms and walk away, you know. Yeah. So yeah, I'm I really enjoy it. I think it gives me a lot of hope. A lot of hope.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:20

Yeah. Yeah. I think social media has sort of people just want the truth now. This generation just seems to want to live in the truth, whatever that truth is. And I think that in some ways that's great, in other ways, you know, needs to be monitored a little bit. But I th I'm that's exciting to know. You know, um I was gonna ask you something else. I I had a list of questions, but I think we've touched on most of them. Um what do you as someone that has stayed in the church and um been part of the church? A lot of times backsliders when they think about coming home, they're they're afraid of going back to uh UPC Apostolic Church um because they're worried about being judged. And you know, and I know they're not going to be, but they fear that, right? So um what would you want to say to the backslider who might be afraid to come back? You know, they they may love God, but they're afraid to come back. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:37

That one thing I've noticed in your podcast that I I want to bring up now because I think it applies to this, is often when you you talk to someone that's shared about their testimony, you do point out that you never left loving God. You never left your walk with God. It didn't look great, it didn't look the way you thought it would look, but it it doesn't mean you don't love God. The fact that you want to go to church, the fact you're thinking about going to church is the grace of God on your life.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:06

The devil is not gonna whisper that in your ear that you should go to church or that you should should and there's somebody in that church that God has sent to love you and to be there for you. And um, I was listening to your podcast yesterday, and uh you guys were talking about you know the church being the body and the life is in the blood, and I really believe that I've always felt every time I do speak or at a public place at a church, I always talk about do not get disconnected from the church. There's all when someone's up, when someone's down, someone's always up. And that's the thing about being in a spirit-filled church. People are looking to meet needs of other people. It's very different. It's like being in a you know, it's being in a trauma care center versus being at a your general practitioner and sitting in the office and waiting for your appointment or whatever.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:57

There's a higher level of awareness, because sensitivity and intentionality, yes. So that's really, really good, Danielle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:06

So um just remember that's not you didn't just think that, that didn't just cross your mind. God is working on you, he's calling you and respond. Respond.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:19

How do you if someone says, someone out there that's listening says, I would really like to get better at self-reflecting, but I don't know where to begin? How do I look at the mirror? What questions do I even ask myself? Like, what does that even mean? Um, what advice, what what would you tell them to to do for first steps to begin to self-examine? And also in the self-examining, find the good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:47

You know, what would you tell them to do?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:50

Sometimes I feel like it's almost like a desensitization process, and how a good way to desensitize this is an old technique, uh, but is to journal, to write down. And I've met clients that say I don't like to journal. I think sometimes they're ashamed of what they really think. But even if you start doing just a little bit a day, don't have to say, dear diary, this today I woke up, I drank orange juice, I had a waffle. No, you don't have to do that. If you want to, you can, but that's not you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking your thoughts, putting them on paper, kind of vomiting, you know, whatever happens, happens. Whatever comes out, comes out. Doesn't even have to make sense. That's not the point. The point is that you're acknowledging yourself every day, even for three or four minutes. And another piece of advice I would give you is to read the Psalms because the Psalms is all about self-reflection. And you know, it's like if you're if you have a friend that's good at talking about themselves, that's good for you if that's a struggle you have, right? Not talking about themselves like bragging. I'm talking about being honest and being self-reflective, right? That's good. It's you know, birds of a feather flock together, right? It's bad morals, you know, corrupt, you know, good judgment or what good morals. I mean, you know, bad company corrupts good morals, but being with people that are stronger than you in some areas, great. But if you don't have that, reading about people that are strong in that area. David was very strong in that area. He was good at self-reflection. That was a strength of his. So you reading the Psalms every single day would not hurt you in any way. Both things can desensitize you to start to acknowledge you, to start to look at you a little bit.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:31

I want to say two things. There's a great book out there, it's a little tiny book called And David Perceived That He Was King by Dale Mast. It's a really great short, quick read. But um, but David was king. He was anointed as king, but his thought process and and uh coming together in his cognitive distance, you know, who he was versus who God says he was, had to come together and he had to begin to embrace um what God said. But I love that you said acknowledging the thoughts that we have through journaling because our mind is the devil's playground. And if we do not even know what we think because we have so many things that's going through our head all the time, we're not always gonna catch the lie of the enemy either. Um, and the Bible says that we are to take every thought captive and to the obedience of God, to the obedience of the word of God. And so when we have a shaming thought, an intrusive thought, oh see, you screwed up again, or see, they don't like you, you really don't fit in, all of those things, um, all of those things are some of them very contrary to what the Bible says who we are in in him. But if we don't even self-reflect enough to know what it is we're thinking about, what it is we're feeling, and where did these feelings come from? Why all of a sudden am I kind of anxious? People can feel anxiousness, but never really identify what caused it in a in a moment, you know. And I I I don't know, I've never asked you this, but I can tell how some of my clients will affect me because all of a sudden I'll feel like I just need to take a deep breath. And it's because I'm hearing stuff that I need to catch, filter, and give back to them or give to God. But it it will begin to have an effect on me if I'm not self-aware. That's right. And so I love that you said being able to acknowledge our own thoughts and and and realizing that if the if we have negative thoughts about ourselves, God has positive thoughts about us, but we've got to begin to start looking at them, reconciling them and sorting through them to get to the right place.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:13

That's right. Absolutely. And I one thing I wanted to share too. I had read this in Dan Siegel's book. Um and I can't remember which book it was. It was many years ago, but he talked about when he would um have a moment um of you know yelling at his child. He was talking about that. He said he would go journal right away. And about the third time after he journaled, he had a realization through the journaling of the why. And so I've always taken that little piece of advice for my clients. If you journal and you're going, what am I doing this for? Don't stop. At some point, you're gonna find something out that you didn't realize was true, that is really true. It's gonna resonate with you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:56

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, every year um December 31st, I read through my whole journal. And I I will sit and read it in one sitting, and I can see, I can see where God answered something I was having questions about. I can see where he gave me understanding about something. I can see where the, you know, answered prayers and, you know, it's it's so good at the end of the year to be able to reflect back on all the things that I wrote and felt and and wrestled with and because we can have a tangible evidence of how God is answering. You know, I may not be a millionaire yet, and that's I say that facetiously, but also I say that because, you know, I believe that the wealth of the wicked will be laid up for the righteous to build the kingdom of God, right? And so, you know, kind of as a as a joke, but also serious, um, you can still have very tangible proof of where God is working in in our lives and then the lives of those that we love.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:08

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:09

When you when you journal and so when you document it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I love journaling. I'm glad you said that. Um, so Danielle, how do you think we should end? I always end with the questions, you know, usually I'm interviewing backsliders and um to the backslider that hasn't come home and to the parent, but what what would you say to the kid that is or the adult in church or not in church um uh uh about God, uh about getting their own needs met, about whatever. What do you think is important to say to someone that could be listening from your perspective, both as a Christian and as therapist and as someone who grew up with a parent with mental illness?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:57

I think that looking back over your life and even documenting, maybe through journaling, the times that God has been there for you, even though you know what the devil will do is he will try to minimize those times that maybe it was either you'll forget about them altogether or you will uh forget details, or you'll uh he'll lie to you and say, you know, well, good things happen to a lot of people. A lot of people say stuff like, you know, minimize, right? The goodness of God. And so focusing on the goodness of God and fasting. I know fasting is hard to do. Obviously, some people would never do that at all, right? But I'm saying maybe if someone's still in church but they're kind of dabbling with what to do next or what, you know, um, doing that in a way that is sacrificial to you, but not necessarily based on the things that challenging your uh stigma or your belief or your um, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but challenging the way that you think it has to be and withdrawing from something to focus more on God when you want to pull up your YouTube or when you want to pull up your social media, pull up a scripture, start eating things that are good for your spirit, little by little, by little by little, very, very little, but just every step, every effort you make, God sees you, He will bless you, He will acknowledge you. Um, and then you know, one thing I thought about before when we were talking about someone coming back to church, and you hear this often, and thankfully with um YouTube now, especially we have a lot of people who watch church online, and I know that is not overall some of the goal, but a lot of times people will say when they come, I watch church your church online for a while and then I came, right? It helps people, it helps them desensitize, it helps them feel a little safer to see how things go, know what to expect. Um and it really seems to work for a lot of people. And that's just something that even doing that, um, in doing that, if you're thinking about coming back and you just decide to watch a service online or you decide to do that, that's just one positive, it's a one little dose of a vitamin, it's one thing, it's not not enough. This the way back to God, right? Start is just one step. That's it. Yes. And so doing those, those things, opening your mind and understanding that God is talking to you. If you're watching this, God's talking to you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:24

Yeah, I think that is so good. It's you know uh uh breaking down that uncertainty and just being, like you said, being open to taking the step because fear is what paralyzes. We just shut down at the thought of it instead of continuing forward and thinking, but y you're right too about fasting and feeding yourself something different. You know, a fast doesn't always have to be about food, but food represents the nourishment we're getting into the body. So changing your music and you know, um changing what you watch, even if it's you spend one hour watching a message or something motivational, it's still feeding your spirit in a way that something can grow, right? Right. So that that's really good. That's that's great advice. I love that. I had a friend who comes to our church now, um, anyways, didn't know her very well, but um she started watching our church online and then she found out um that our pastor was her high school friend and had no idea that he was pastoring. And so she watched for a few weeks online and then ended up coming to a Wednesday night service. And um it's just such a small world, you just never, never know who is actually watching out there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:55

Online watching is a great segue for people.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:58

Yeah, that's that's a really good idea. idea. Yeah. Okay, Danielle, I love you and appreciate you so much. As a colleague and as a a Christian and as a friend, I um I really appreciate your insight. I learn a lot from you and um I appreciate the work you're doing and and um you know it's just so nice to have it's just so nice to have friends in the church these days. And I never had that growing up.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:29

Maybe maybe I did and I didn't ri realize it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:32

So yeah I'm thankful for you as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:36

Thank you for being here. God bless you and your ministry and your business and your practice and your marriage and your children and um thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:46

Yeah okay love you have a great day love you too bye bye bye thank you for being here everybody bye we are so glad you joined us if you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider we would love to hear from you. If you'd like to support our ministry your donation will be tax deductible visit our website at the redeemed backslider dot org. We hope you will tune in for our next episode