Pain Into Power: How To Build Resilience

Pain turned into purpose produces power. There isn’t necessarily meaning in pain in and of itself—that’s not what we’re saying. But what we are saying is that when we look for meaning, when we look for purpose after we’ve experienced suffering and life’s pain, it can produce power in our lives.

That power may show up as joy. It may be hope. It may be greater resilience.

It could even lead to growth in compassion—empathy for others, and maybe even grace or mercy.

So today, we’re going to spend some time talking about how the pain we experience can inform our future. In the last episode, we discussed how many people stop when they feel pain and pressure.

Today, we’re talking about what it looks like to build resilience, to keep going, to derive meaning, and to find purpose and power in our lives.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Pain turned to purpose produces power. There's not necessarily meaning in pain and of itself. That's not what we're saying. But what we're saying is when we look for meaning, when we look for purpose, after we've experienced suffering and life pain, it can produce power in our lives. That power may be joy, it may be hope, it may be more resilience, it could even be a growth in compassion, empathy, empathy for others, and maybe even grace or mercy. So today we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about how the pain that we experience can then inform our future. In the last episode, we talked about how so many people stop when they feel pain and when they feel pressure. And so today we're gonna talk about what it looks like to build up the resilience to keep going, to derive meaning, and to find purpose and power in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

That was off the dome. That was, yeah, you can tell. I was sitting here thinking as you were saying that too. Um, why can we why can we speak to resilience? You would think it's because we've arrived, right? No, it's because we have persevered and persisted. There is something about getting on the other side of a thing that gives you greater insight. You just certain words you're gonna hear as we talk about a healing journey here. You're gonna hear the word uh insight, you're gonna hear the word uh self-awareness until you know when yours is decreased, increase, until we know when ours, you know, needs a little bit more opening. So I guess a best the best or a more optimal place to start is defining resilience, right? Resilience is the uh psychological and behavioral ability to adapt, recover, and grow in the face of adversity. And uh we say here that we're not gurus over here. There's no sensei things going on, no yoda. We're not a sage from the stage, we're a guide from the side that was spoken into my life decades ago, and I'm so grateful because it allowed me the opportunity to really honor the path of other people. In other words, you may be sitting with me, and just because you're sitting with me and you need support, that is not the sum of you. That support, need for support. There's so many other things in your life that work, and so as bringing forward the conversation in the backdrop, always where are you on your eight domains of wellness? Take a take a pause. Where are you? And what do you need to reflect on that happen constantly? You gave us and brought forth mindfulness in the last episode. Where are you resetting your plate? Right, and where are you retooling? And if it's new, just go back one episode, right? Right? I've gotta start doing that because I think sometimes I want so desperately to keep everybody caught to pace and I forget this is a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

This might be your first time here.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Welcome, welcome with us, right? And if it but it's if you're a first time, you're like, what in the world are you talking about? It's probably just a podcast episode back or two. But in talking about resilience, the thing that I appreciate about this conversation, I don't just appreciate our professional competencies, spiritual mantle and anointing, if you will, right? Those are places for birthday, they're there. My grandmother told me that, and I was so I am so internally glad and happy and joyful that she taught me that. And she said, Well, I am gonna put I'm gonna say what she called me. Let's do it for the people. She said, Drala. See, I wasn't Dr. Um Joseph to her, Dr. Joe. I was Drala. And she said, Drala, you're born with your your anointing. You're born with your mantle. She said, other people just acknowledge it. Or other people just confirm it. Why is that important to me as someone who trains other counselors and leaders that are going to do faith-based therapy? It's important because we're not there to fix anybody, right? Some plant, some uh water, God reaps the harvest. So I learned early on that I just have to figure out what I'm there to do. Because there is something in that person. We often uh in our work talk about high-hanging fruit, low-hanging fruit. They have some that it's something that is fruitful in them that either needs a little seed drop there or water. But when it comes to the um the fulfillment of the floor flourishing, if you will, or the coming blooming, I like that, or blossoming of that thing, I may not even be there for that. Right? Right. And so I just am so grateful that in professional world, yeah, resilience is something that we teach. Now, this makes me, we have something we say, like get the onions out of here. That means we're gonna cry and don't want to cry, so we blame it on some onions. But this really makes me feel deeply we talk about it because we are it. I said, We didn't go. Yeah, we talk about resilience because we are resilience. Sometimes you talk about a thing because you've been through it, right? Right when you get on the other side of it, right, and to be totally grounded and faith-based, you know, and to really have an anchoring point in the faith-based therapy that I teach. Like for 25 years, faith-based therapy is what I did.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I was a therapist. I'm still still care a couple hours, still see a few people, but the my I've made that shift in my counselor, at uh counselor identity. Well, now I train leaders within the profession. And so I can just remember having that feeling when I was um doing primarily therapy. When you first come out, you literally, like, I asked the question in a couple of my classes, like who's here because they wanted to fix themselves or somebody like three, three real self-aware. Honest people. I ain't won't say honest. I won't just let everybody off the hook and say three self-aware people would raise their hand. And so I would say, okay, for the rest of us who came into a space because you do the work to do the work. Right, right? And because we say that all the time. We do the work to do the work. So resilience is so such a clarion call for what we do because we've had to be that in order to just get to this space. It reminds me of a time I was sitting in the office with somebody, and you know, accolades, remember to Caesars, what is Caesars?

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

One thing, this is a little hard conversation or hard fact that I'm gonna lean into. I have never met anybody with a degree, downplay, a degree.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Ever. So I want to say that before I say this. It's not about the accolades, it is about rendering to Caesars, if you will, what is Caesar's? What I mean, what do I mean by that? You get the competencies within the system in order to be able to infiltrate the system. So when I walk in the room, uh, guess who walk in with me? Don't nobody leave after I say this. The Holy Spirit. Right. But I cannot walk in the room, and there's certain ways he cannot enter. I'm a vessel, I'm a conduit. Right. So he in the uh span of humanity or in the space of the humanity enters spaces through us as conduits, be salt and light, right? And so there's certain uh people and certain broken areas that I want to deal with that I have to have the competency to walk through the door. You have to have the competency to walk through the door. So let's be clear about that before I say it. I there was a time, and we lean into hard conversations here. That's what we do. So we love you in the comments. Whether you agree or disagree, we can come and reason about it, right? But I've never been in a room of people that um honored rent that rendering of competency that really would dog it. I can always tell where I am when people dog intellectual acuity. Some people were made that way. There is a whole, there's um these different mountains of influence that you have. Education is one of them.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Right. And I think it's really easy to judge people when you see where they are without understanding their journey. Like not understanding their healing journey. Yes. Like I didn't wake up one day, Dr. Mo. Right. Right. At one point, I was a little girl who was experiencing domestic violence.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Come on, can we go do it for the people?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

You know what I'm saying? Now I grow up and I get the help of other people that experience that. But that is not, I didn't wake up one day, right? So I give a lot of space and grace to people that don't understand it or kind of have difficulty with accepting how we present now because they don't know what it took to sit in the seat. Right. And when you talk about the resilience um being learned over time or something that like we've learned and something that we are. Um, what I started this episode with pain turned to purpose produces power. The Lord had to tell me that in one of the darkest seasons of my life. Like I was out here, like I was out here, head barely above the water, just trying to make it, just trying a little bit after COVID. My mama had cancer. I had a premature baby. He's in the hospital in the NICU. I was fighting. When I tell you fighting for my life, I was fighting for my life. And I sat to do a devotion. And in that season, some seasons you have long times to spend with Jesus. In that season, it was emergency SOS calls on Jesus. It was on Jesus. Help, help me, you know? And so I was sitting down for one of my help me sessions, and I was like, Lord, what does help me session? So, Lord, what do I do? And he gently kind of eased me over into Romans 5. Come on. Romans, uh, or no, is it Romans 5? Romans 5, 3 and 5. Correct me if I'm wrong, y'all.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

You will.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Um, and you you will anyway. Yep, Romans 5, 3 and 5. Can't correct me, I correct myself.

unknown 11:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Um, Romans 5, 3 and 5, um, where it talks about how we rejoice in our sufferings. Yeah. Because suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. You better. And the hope cannot put us to shame in Christ Jesus. And I was sitting there with all of my life falling apart. My whole life, I had a business that failed. I I I was no longer in a church home that I loved and was planted. But like I said, mama and son in the hospital. And I was sitting there like, rejoice.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I said, help me, and you said rejoice. Rejoice. That was this your answer. I said, What?

unknown 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

But I feel like he spoke that to me in that moment. He said, take that pain, put it to some purpose. And when you put it to some purpose, it'll produce power, not just in your life, but it'll produce power in other people.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And talking about when you pay if somebody else's.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And so that that wasn't an overnight thing. I heard the Lord say that. I said, okay, great, Jesus, you know. And then from that point on, I began my healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Healing.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I began to walk it out. I began to get some supports around me. I went to therapy. I went and found a church, another church home. Don't stop going to church because people hurt you. Ooh. Please don't. We all have the capacity to hurt someone. Now, is there very real church hurt? Is there very real church trauma? We don't want to say it. We don't want to say it.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

We don't want to say it.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Sometimes it's not hurt, it's trauma, right? Is it very real? Yes. But the body of Christ is always necessary for our healing, growth, and development. So don't quit church, right? Just like I say, don't stop therapy. Dr. Joe says that all the time. Don't stop therapy because you didn't get on with your therapist. Find a new one.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Find a new therapist. Or have very difficult conversations within the body that you're in and do your work with the people that you're called to co-labor with in your congregation. That's a sidebar.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

That's a sidebar. Now, no, that's that is the bar. Come on, this is the bars. See, I ain't around y'all too much. That is the bar. That is the thing to be saying. Because I heard you say that.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

And this is how you because I got into pain and I started to draw away. So many of us draw away from community. So I left church. I left my friend group. They calling me. I'm like, I don't got time. I'm suffering. All of these things when really when I was experiencing that pain and suffering was time to lean in.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Not isolate.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Not isolate.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

And that's a whole nother death. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I will chase that squirrel. But when you were saying that I'm gonna come back to that, but I think the whole point came in I was sitting with this individual. Yes, I caught that neurospicy squirrel and brought it back. I was sitting with this individual and they looked around my office, and I some of those things you display because you have to, your license, your this, your certifications, and that. Certain things you do that because they need to be there. They add weight, they add weight in the moment, and you're supposed to.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Like I'm I'm not supposed to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

I'm not just out here to right.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

They sent you over here because I jumped through the hip surrender to Caesars. What is Caesar? And that person said, I asked the question, I said, Where do you want to get? Like, what is it that you want to accomplish? And they looked at me and they said, I want to be you. Ooh. And from a guttural place, before I could pause myself and be demire, cute and demure. I said, baby, no, you don't. You don't want it that way. I was me. I had to be persistent, I had to pervert, persevere, and be resilient, so you don't have to do a lot of the things.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

It's all pain. And now it's a power in their lives. That's the part.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

That is the bar, right? So you said a little um while ago, go back into that Romans piece because it's something that you said when you said produces those spaces.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

I had to memorized them because I died with the Lord in them.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I can never remember if it's Romans 5 or Romans 8, but I remember. Listen, I'm the message Bible girl. I'm like thug life and paraphrasing it, right? But you you kind of hit it, hit it. So give it to me again.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Right. And it says that the suffering when I heard what I heard. Okay, so our suffering, yeah, it produces character. Gotcha. Our character produces endurance. With it. Our endurance produces a hope that cannot be put to shame in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

So it's that hoped piece, right? And it says produces. Like when you produce something, it doesn't happen instantaneously. If there's a production or a producing of something, it happens in it's phasic.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

First of all, endurance to endure something. Why happened to me? I don't know. But you know what? I didn't plan to say this, but to endure something means it's not happening right now. It is not. We want it to be immediate. And I didn't get to just say Jesus. I was in my help me prayer. I said, help me, Jesus. And he said, sit in it.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

That's what he said.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

But pregnant pause.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

And I endured and built resilience over time. Less which then built hope. Now when I see the same thing, I'd be like, whatever. Like, whatever. That happened.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Because why? Because you built resilience. What is resilience? It's a psychological ability and a behavioral ability, right? Right. To be able to grow as well. So that it that is part of it. Right. So we want to look at it from a strength perspective. I gotta go back here. I was trying to kind of skirt it in my head, my head, like, girl, why are you scared? Really, when you think about it, let's be clear how we anchor, and we respect where everybody anchors, right? It's just so this is who we are and this is where we are. But where we anchor, there is a space for deliverance. Absolutely. Right? We're not so gone, get out of them. Sometimes it's just beginning. Get out of there. Get out of there talking about because you can't, but here is where I have spiritual dissidence. I have spiritual dissidence because after the space of deliverance, there's the go your way and right. And so if you go your way and not do something anymore, there has to be a process.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

And you know, I do want to challenge that. You said the immediacy. There's some stories in the word that I love. Like I love the woman with the issue of blood.

unknown 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

She's she just touches the hem. But look how Jesus. But 12 years that lady probably was praying. And I'd be and I cannot we focus so much on the immediate healing of that moment, but she suffered for 12 years waiting on the immediate deliverance. And I'm up here in this. And immediate deliverance did happen, but 12 years. Yeah. How long did that man sit on that mat? These Jesus came and did these immediate healing moments. But then sometimes we skip over the fact that it'd be like, by the way, that man sat there for like with people walking by and like after years. Not not calling out. And we got to be careful not to introduce spiritual failing into the chat. Well, he didn't, he didn't ask for help. He was just sitting there. He was just begging. He wasn't ready.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Who ain't who's never not ready to be healthy enough to do it? Come on. That is um um research-based, though, that we all as humans have this desire, inner desire to have what we call homeostasis, which is to be balanced on the inside. Right. And again, like don't leave, don't leave the podcast, don't leave because this is where we anchor. But we are competent, right? We're competent enough to know that everybody anchors somewhere different.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

And to allow the freedom to wherever you anchor. You know, there's been times that uh I anchored in my family, right? In my immediate family, like I couldn't have done it, you know, without them. Without that particular sport uh supporter, without that happening. But clinically, looking at all the things that are produced, it just gives credence to faith-based therapy. Yeah, it just does. And so, where do those uh degrees and accolades account? Why are they important? They're important because I swing open the door to say I had to do it this way, but you don't. Yeah, I have the competency to go into that courtroom and as being a domestic violence, do it for the people. Yeah, as being a domestic violence um survivor, I have the capacity to say, listen, most uh uh people who experience domestic violence cycle seven times. Seven times someone is being abused every nine seconds. Like sit with that. Wow, and so we can look and say, Well, why don't you just get up? You're not in that position. So resilience is just not about knowing, so resilience is about being, that's where that growth comes from. So if you're experiencing something and you're like, I can't because I'm experiencing, or if you're in a situation and you're like, I can't because I'm experiencing this not so, right? You may not be able to pour out of it right now, but if you can build resilience, if you can just sit and move, right? And we just gonna do the thing, right? Um, Hebekah 319 in the Amplified version says um uh he is my uh person invincible army, my personal bravery, bracket. He causes me to walk, not stand in terror, right? But walk and make progress, like you're talking about, on my high places, bracket, they amplify love's good bracket, on my high places of suffering, trouble, and responsibility. And what I had to come to realize as part of resilience, I used to think I cannot wait for this to be over because I trusted that I'm gonna get on the other side of it. Right. So I'm like, I can't wait for this to be over because I'm gonna be able to testify and be up here in the high place. And I had to learn that is not the high, that ain't even about you. So by the time, Andrea, you get up there, Dr. Joe, whoever you are, battered woman. What is it? We go from glory to glory, and what? By the time you get up there, it says if I be lifted up from the world, I'll draw all my so by the time I get up there, it ain't about me anyway. What's about me is that valley and that traverse up that mountain. So it's about how I engage and how I'm resilient through the trouble suffering and responsibility. That is the high place. Wrap your head around that, sit with it a minute. I promise you it sounds like an oxymoron, but how I traverse my trouble suffering responsibility really is what resilience is. The high place is not for me.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Right. And I think about that all the time, and we're gonna get ready to segue here in a second. But I think about that all the time, about how there's so much that's like it's almost like the opposite in our faith. When we think about Christian uh mental health, Christian-based or faith-based therapy, like when we think about those things, I'm often telling people the opposite of what they want to hear. If you want to go high, you need to get low. Right. If you like, if you want to experience height, you've got to traverse the suffering, the responsibility, the trials and rejoice there. And he brings you higher. And I think that that is something that is so like it's it's confounding to the mind. It is to say, okay, you're telling me, I pray, Lord, I need deliverance and freedom. And you say, Okay, now sit in this trial. What? Wouldn't you think that you'd just take it away? Yeah. Does that make sense? I would experience freedom if it wasn't here. But one thing you were saying when you were talking, if I know I know y'all have heard this phrase when people say, Life be life and be life. One thing you can guarantee about this here life is as soon as you get, you said, I was just waiting for it to be done or it would be over. Once that's done, it's gonna be something else. Yeah. That's life, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

I remember sitting in a book club. There was this book, then they pulled together a book club, the author did, and um, she she just wanted us to drop our ideas and what do you think? And the book concept was on the table, and I thought about everything that I heard or read, and this is what came to my spirit. We are either going into in or coming out of a storm. We either going into what does that mean? That means you may be in the season in life or you're just chilling. I'm just chilling, and I've had them. I'm like, I'm just chilling, it's quiet, everything, you know? Yeah, so it it is not if you will meet adversity in life, it is when. So, because of that, having conversations surrounding resilience, yes, right? Absolutely is really important. And I love the growth part, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

And I think that's what a resilience is all about. It's not necessarily that I see the same thing again, but when I see something else, the things, the the purpose and the all of the tools that I picked up the last time I experienced hardship, it they are readily accessible to me the next time. And I continually I talk with my clients all the time about that. We're adding tools to our toolbox, right? So we have our like when you go out to your garage, you've got your toolbox. You don't go and get a wrench when you need a hammer. Right. You just don't, right? If I'm trying to hang a picture on the wall, what's that wrench gonna do for me? Is the wrench still a good tool? Absolutely. It's necessary, it's just not for this particular job. And so I think you have all these different tools. We talk about deep breathing, we talk about meditation, we talked about reflection last episode. We've talked about, you know, support networks and all these things, all of these medications, different types of therapy. There's so your Bible, what better tool is there than that? Right, right. So we have all these tools, your journal, your Bible, your devotion, right? When do you need to grab what? And you learn over time when you build that resilience, or as Romans 3, 5 kind of explains it, is that endurance, right? Right. When I'm building this endurance along the way, I can better know it when I open my toolkit. Last time I tried to use that wrench, that wrench didn't work, I need a hammer. And so you know, or you have other people that have like us, we've lived the work. We went and got the degrees to now do the work. And so we can say, hey, listen, baby, you're using a wrench, and you probably should be using a hammer.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

You want to you can continue now. We know you can keep using it. You can keep it. Have you considered?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Have you considered that therapy? Is have you considered the hammer?

SPEAKER_00 27:42

It is have you considered world. Because I think the other misconception that people get about therapy or therapist is that we give advice.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Right. They're like, I could talk to my friend. We don't know, I'm not your little friend. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

We absolutely don't. We just open up a space for you to heavily consider. Consider. Because why? Because you are the expert on your life. You are the expert. I know, and I say that to people, I've said people over the years, and they look at me like, well, what you doing here for? What I'm here with you for, lady. If I'm I am the expert of the tool and the maybe the the how. I am not the expert on the you have to give me the why. You have to give me the why you want to engage it. You have to give me, I'm looking for all I'm looking for is a little bit of hope. Right. Teeniest, tiniest bit. Right. Something always works. 100%. I I mean, if you want to, you know, compare it and let's talk about it. Now that's it work. I said something at 60.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

With 26 years of experience in this profession, why is it important? It is important because you see human nature. You see when I tell you there is gold, and so let me just go and put a pen in and shut it down. There is treasure and broken vessels, period. What does that mean? That means the outside housing, which is my body, my person, my mother, can look I can't even do it. It can look broken, it can literally be shattered. But in that I may have been shattered, right? But I am a mosaic. Am I gonna be that's how you have to think about trauma? That's one solid way I had to think about trauma, I had to think about brokenness, I had to think about because I was not gonna look beautiful to myself till I realized, and just because she hasn't been broken, is she more beautiful? Absolutely not. I had to come to realize that I am beautiful too. I just need to find the space and the place that houses mosaics, right? That honors and loves mosaics because that is what I am after certain situations, after certain life events, you'll you won't be the same, right? You won't be the same, but you can still be beautiful, right? And life can still be beautiful. Those are the conversations that we're gonna want to lean into. You are treasure, you're cold, you're beautiful, you may be a porcelain china cup that has never been shattered, that's beautiful. If you are a mosaic that has been shattered and touched by life, when life is laughing, you're equally as beautiful. These are the conversations we want to continue to lean into. Thank you for making space and grace to allow us to do what we do and to be who we are unapologetically.