The Messy Middle of Healing

In this episode, Dr. Jo and Dr. Mo reflect on their recent conversation with Charaia Rush and continue unpacking what resilience really looks like.

So often, we're taught to admire the comeback story, but what about the space in between? The messy middle. The setbacks. The moments when healing feels slow and progress isn't obvious.

Join the conversation as they explore why resilience isn't about avoiding hard seasons, but learning how to move through them. They discuss the danger of comparing our journey to someone else's highlight reel, the importance of giving ourselves grace during difficult moments, and why our worst days don't define who we are.

Healing is rarely a straight line. There will be moments when you fall flat on your face, moments when you feel stuck, and moments when you're tempted to believe everyone else has it figured out. But behind every success story is a journey filled with struggles that most people never see.

If you've ever felt discouraged in your healing journey, this episode is a reminder that you don't have to skip the messy middle to reach wholeness.

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Follow Charaia
http://instagram.com/charaiarush/
https://charaia.substack.com/

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https://linktr.ee/skillsandpillspodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's all of this development that happens and a lot of us want to skip it because it's uncomfortable, it feels weird. If I'm being honest, a lot of times it's it's messy. We don't get to see when people are on their knees weeping before God. We don't get to see those moments when they're in their car, in their shower, begging for another moment. We don't get to see that. So because we don't get to see it, we feel guilty for having it, or we feel shame for having it. When really we all have that.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

That would be the conversation we just had with Sherea Rush. We're excited to bring you this new episode about just uh how we view resilience. How do you view resilience? I guarantee you that this will give you another way to consider it. I'm excited about this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Okay, so my brain is literally turning. It's just turning and turning because I'm like, oh, I wish I could have talked for another hour. Um, and you know, in full disclosure, that's how we always envisioned this podcast, is not as this like formal thing, but when we first envisioned it, we wanted to envision it, like, hey, bring your teacup, bring your coffee, sit down with us and just have a chat about mental health and faith. And I feel like the conversation that we had with her was so real and so honest. If you haven't checked out the episode, go back to last week. Check out the episode where we talk with Shrea Rush about her new book, The Myth of Bouncing Back. Um, it's a wonderful book. Um, and we are excited not only to read it, but we're excited to be able to talk about some of its core features today.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah. Um not just excited about it, but we're um, it is just uh, what's the word I want to use? It is just refreshing. It is refreshing to get another take on resilience that can just free you from the load of having to be superwoman. Free you from the load. And she was sitting there, and I was thinking about, and I coined what I do. I was like, how do I look at resilience? Like, I want to be like from point A to point B. Right. And I sat there and I had this real revelation that I view resilience as like what I call the shower syndrome, meaning I expect to get in the shower and get out and be all whole, not a thing. And so I sat there with her with that. I was like, Lord, thank you. That and you have a thing you call, you keep saying it. You keep saying the messy middle. And every time you say it, we're like like presenting to a group overdue. So I don't have the opportunity to turn to you and say, What does a messy middle look like for you? What do you mean when you say messy middle? Because I love it. It's just when it's when you say it, I'm like, it is almost like it screams to me and my humanity that it is okay to be okay between fall and full.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Does that make sense? No, that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Where I fall, we say fell forward, but I fall. But there's um there, I don't know. There's this other extreme over here where I envision myself, because I'm that person, I envision our future casting just being full of joy, full of hope. Right. But how do I sit in the messy middle? But what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I think for me, it's not something I coined. I probably heard it online or something. Oh mad. Um, but I love it. Um, I think for me, kind of like Sherea was saying, from the time that we kind of have that fall that we're in the ashes, we we want to go from glory to glory without there being any development in between. Right. So, and like she said, we try to even dictate how long that fall lasts. Like I want to pray, be on my knees, and I want God to fix it by tomorrow. You got three business days, God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And that's just not how it works. Right. Like she said, for her five years for me, it was a decade, 10 years from the time I called out to the Lord and He said, Mo, I want you to do this thing, right? To now I'm finally starting to walk in that. But in between that was a lot of lament, a lot of tears, a lot of joy, some grieving, some laughing, some there's there's all this. We focus on the call heavy in our culture. I like how she brought up American church culture. We focus a lot on the call and we focus a lot on the arrival.

unknown 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

But in between the call and the arrival, there's that, David, I'm a shepherd boy in the field just doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm on the booth to carry. There's all of this development that happens. And a lot of us want to skip it because it's uncomfortable, it feels weird. If I'm being honest, a lot of times it's it's messy. Right. It's not that I'm showing up perfect today. It is the imperfection and allowing the Lord to work out our soul salvation.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Day after day after day after day, to the point where it sometimes can feel a little mundane to be like, God, I keep showing up now.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Remember, you have said, I keep showing up. I keep showing up. I feel like the messy middle is like everyday life. Like people try to take the, like, especially now with social media and stuff like that. This is my personal opinion, but with social media, like she said, we see these bounce back stories where people were like, I was broken, now I'm healed. I was so you see their beginning and you see their end, which hallelujah. The testimony part of that is amazing. But a lot of what you miss in a three-second to six-second clip or a one less than one-minute clip is the messy middle, what it took for them to go from here to there.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

From that place to that place. Right. And I believe too, I I it really resonated with me for people that are leaders, right? Right. Because leaders don't get not to show up. If you're a leader, part of your call, a part of your purpose is to show up. So I appreciate the fact that she took away the uh stigma of showing up, not like arrived.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

If you're a leader, your show up may not always be in an arrived place. Right. It might be while you're working through the messy middle.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, no, and like literally, I I remember having a conversation with her, um, a previous conversation where we had talked about how, um, especially with influencer culture and things like that, which is an amazing thing. Um, we're getting to use these platforms to showcase the Lord and things like that. But in a lot of ways, we really only see the highlights. That's true. And because of that, we don't get to see when people are on their knees weeping before God. We don't get to see those moments when they're in their car in their shower, begging for another moment. We don't get to see that. And so because we don't get to see it, we feel guilty for having it or we feel shame for having it. When really we all have that. Exactly. That space in between who we are and who we're becoming, right? And so for me, I love how she brought up how Job brought everything to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

He brought the happiness, he brought the sadness, he brought the grief, and he spoke with the Lord. Um, and so he starts off with the Lord give it, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord, and then he still ends blessing the Lord. Like there was never a moment where he stopped blessing the Lord, whether he had what he had initially, whether it was all take it away, or whether he had a double portion. Yeah. His worship looked exactly the same throughout. And so I feel like um a lot of us, if we're being honest, our worship and our relationship with the Lord can be challenged in those low places. Absolutely. In that messy middle space. And so, what does it look like to say, God, I don't get it, I don't understand it, I don't, um, I don't know how it's gonna work out, but I lean not out of my own understanding, like Proverbs 3, 5 through 6 says. And I trust in you with all my heart, soul, and mind. And if this is being taken from me, if I'm being pruned, if I'm in the process and it doesn't look how I expect it to look, that is okay. Yeah. Um, and while I'm walking through that, God take away from me what is not gonna serve me where I'm going. It's a dangerous prayer now. And give to me what will feed me to allow me to keep going. And um, she talks in the book about the weight of again. And when I tell you, hit me like a ton of bricks when I read it because I was like, I never considered the amount of unseen weight we carry when we get back up. And for many of us, a get up can be happening daily, depending on the season we're in.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Absolutely. If it says this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice. That's your reminder that every day, every day, this is the day. So every day is a new day. But I even thought about we're uh been talking lately about the Garden of Gethsemane and the weight for people because social media is becoming a platform in different platforms or different formats for leaders to be able to um get out messages of hope, right? Get out messages of redemption, to be able to gather in a way that's unconventional, because you bring all of these people around the six um second clip, or you bring all people around this particular live, if you will, and things like that. And so I had to sit with it and uh I'm like, well, will someone know that I'm having a Garden of Gethsemane moment? Right and because I have to show up for this every day. Does that make sense? So there's no way to be perfect every day, and as we begin to piece out that um piece of Garden of Gethsemane, because I've been in the Garden of Gethsemane, it is open. Anyone can walk by, anyone can grow up, go there, and I just had this visual when I was reading the passage of Jesus being there and one of his heaviest laments in such an open and public space, and that released me as a live host or a social media influencer to be concerned about the eyes that are on me as though I'm not have while I'm not having my most perfect moment or why I'm not, you know. He's like, if you could just let this cup pass. So if I turn on that camera, if I put in this microphone in my face and I am having an imperfect moment, I get to do that. I get to say, this is hard. You get to say, as a leader, as a social media influencer, as a live host or whatever platform that the Lord has given you to spread love, light, and hope, you uh I release you. You get to have a bad day. You get to have you get to be human, release you from release you from perfection. It is not yours to carry. You get to do it. If the Lord can ask for a cup to be passed, surely your eyebrow can go the wrong way while you're recording.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

No, I I definitely think that um there's a huge weight to perfectionism. Um and I do think I I do think that social media does put pressure on people. Pressure on the people. Everyday. That's sure. Not even just I'm sure there's more weight on pastors, influencers, people that have some type of leadership role where people are looking up to them, you know. But then I think the everyday people too, because they look up to them. So they try to do those things, especially our kids, the weight that it puts on our kids. And I'm not saying it's all bad, it's a tool. Um, but I definitely think that like in our everyday lives, I think we're we're losing the plot a little bit. Like, you know, like back in the day when there were no cameras, when you didn't have cameras all the time, cameras on your phone and stuff like that. I remember the day of Polaroids, and it's like you could have bad moments in between, and then everybody would be like, snap, you know, or you get the candle shot and you the candle shot was a candy shot. But I think the accessibility now, um, we catch people in their worst moments. Yeah. And then oftentimes we do crucify them. And make it the sum up fool day for what we catch. And so, you know, it doesn't allow for people to have that same humanity to be walking out a healing journey. Like the healing journey is not all rainbows and butterflies. And um, actually, I feel like the healing journey is more messy initially and uncomfortable and stretching you uh before it becomes a beautiful thing. Yeah. Um, because you're really working it out. And so when you're on your healing journey, it's not the time for a lot of judgment, especially of yourself. Right. I feel like a lot of us do a good job of telling other people to mind a business, but sometimes we don't mind ours in a positive way either. And so we will judge our own business as if I like that. I don't want to judge myself harshly for things that both the Lord releases me for and people with good sense and grace will release me from. Right. So I feel like sometimes for us, while we're walking out that healing, to be able to say, I am gonna sit with my emotions, be mindful, mindfulness, right? I'm gonna sit with this emotion and I'm not gonna judge it. I'm I'm gonna rest with this emotion, I'm not gonna judge it, and I'm gonna process it. Um, and I'm not going to try to um even own it, right? I'm not gonna own every emotion I have. Um, I'm gonna allow myself to have these natural ebbs and flows. And as I'm mindful of it, I think that's the self-compassion kind of um network. There's a there's a concept of self-compassion in mental health where we can acknowledge the thing that we're going through, acknowledge the emotions so that we're able to process it and release it and be mindful versus saying, okay, every bad emotion I have, or bad is relative. Why did I even call the emotion bad? Right. Like, really think about that. Like, if I'm lamenting to the Lord and I'm saying, God, this is hard. If I'm grieving, what's bad about that?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

It's natural and human.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I'm gonna hold on to that Garden of Gethsemane moment because that's what's gonna get me through this um this next phase in life where you know, I come from a generation we didn't even have internet. And so I'm trying to wrap my head around that there could be somebody in Dubai, yeah, like looking, right? So I even have to wrap my head around that. But I am gonna hold on to that because even the savior of humanity had a human moment, right? And so, and he was touched by his human um desire to not carry what was given to him and the pain of having the carry and the surrender of that. So daily, that's just what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sit in it and I'm gonna look it, I'm gonna surrender. And I'm gonna, and so and I had a um thing for myself that I was like, oh man, why am I crying? I've been through the weepiest season and the last little bit. And of course, as I used to have a running joke as counselors, we don't cry untruth, right? We don't cry. But that's because we have to compartmentalize and house the lived experiences of other people. And I think as I transition, and as we transition into these new roles, I just have this shock that I can feel feelings in real life. Right. Like I can I can feel them, um, but then there can be heaped on some sh to shame onto the fact that I'm publicly expressing them. But again, I'm gonna go back to that Garden of Gethsemane moment. If the Lord and the savior of the world had a human moment where he expressed publicly in a garden, in an open garden, his tears and his lament, then we get to have emotions and we get to express them as leaders, as social media influencers, as podcasts, owls, whatever puts you on the stage of public review review, you get to have emotions.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Or even just in your home, like with my kids. I stop trying to be like, you know, mommy's always having a perfect moment all the time. Yeah. And rather in front of my kids having a very real emotion, naming it, explaining it, giving them room to do the same. It doesn't have to be on a public stage. You're in your house, you're modeling for your kids. Yeah. How to have healthy ebbs and flows of your emotions. You're modeling it at work. You're, you know, so no matter where you find yourself and what positions you find yourself in, it I I want to say, hopefully, it's my prayer that we can get to a culture within the church and also um just in the world in general, where people can have room to experience hard emotions and get grace for it. Um, you know, and and and even rather than pulling out our cameras to record a vulnerable moment, we can come in with some compassion.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Or dicing out that vulnerable moment. Or I and I I have something that I feel like we're gonna go into in some uh future episodes. How do you use those moments in order to, but when you we say, well, just be vulnerable, just be vulnerable, and then when someone's vulnerable, that then becomes weaponized. The social media is a can be a harsh place. So now here's your vulnerable moment, but I'm gonna hold it up and explain how you're undeservant because you had it. Does that make sense? And so I just want to encourage you if your whole move or if your drive or your platform or your moment is built on a vulnerable moment of another human, that's kind of dicey and that's kind of hard. And so I try for as much as I can to uh allow my conversation about a vulnerable. Remember, we say do it for the people. So I try to let uh my vulnerable moments center around my vulnerable moment, what it taught me, what it showed me, uh what it brought to bear.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And we gotta be honest. I mean, I think as mental health professionals and as Christians too, we understand that if we don't have these ebbs and flows in our emotions, then we're practicing suppression, right? Which can lead to a lot of mental and physical anxiousness, increases of anxiety, increases of depression, high blood pressure, chronic stress, like it can lead to so many negative impacts for us. We've got to feel, right? We were built to feel, we were created to feel. Yeah. I mean, our feelings in and of themselves are not all wrong, but not all of our feelings are true, and not all perception is true, right? So we don't have to necessarily own every feeling, but and we like to say we like to catch and release. Yeah. And so to be able to say, okay, God, today this this one was a hard one. This one hit me, right? And God, I'm taking like she said with Job, I'm communicating with you, God. This one is hard, and I'm communicating with my support network. This was hard. And my friends can support me, the Lord can support me, right? And in that, I walk through the hard thing and I build resilience through it. And so when I see that hard thing again, right, resilience is that, like we said, is being built in the get up. And so as I get up, it's okay for me to both, I can hold both worship and grief at the same time. And I think Job and both Jesus and the Garden of Gethsemane show us that.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I am Jesus says, I'm sorrowful unto death. He cried tears on like almost to blood, but said, But God, I still will do. Well, you asked me, Do you I'll still be obedient? I still worship you, you're still purely good. Job does the same thing. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Like, but God, I blessed be your name. Like, I still the the the sorrow doesn't change the truth that he's worthy of worship and praise and glory. And so I think those two things can be held at the same time. Actually, my sorrow is an act of worship because now I'm coming to the Father authentically where I am. And he already knows where I am anyway. I don't know why we sit in up 10, right? He already knows he been new, he knew Musk go. He knew where you were gonna be at, right? And you know, he says that you know, weeping comes in the night, but joy comes in the morning. His mercies are new every morning. He covered it, he's covered, he's gonna cover it. And so I think for us, it's having that trust in the Lord to say, wow, I can be vulnerable with him. And in that walk in healing.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

I just had a thought too when you said that, because you said, uh, weeping may drew it for a night, joy in the morning, new mercies in the morning. And I just sat there as soon as you said that and said and asked myself, how am I managing the morning? That's a whole nother conversation. Yeah, that's it. That's a whole nother conversation. But it was wonderful to have her.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Like I look forward um to that continual conversation, right? Even down the road with many of the guests that we're having, and just seeing how the Lord is evolving their work and seeing how the Lord is um just giving permission for humanity.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah, I mean, I I love it. And I I think um the book, if you guys want to check it out, you can buy it anywhere, um, any bookstore. Um, she's a huge fan. She told us of any bookstores. So you can go out and get the book, or you can also order it online. Make sure that you give it a good read because it's life-changing, especially if you're in a season where you don't know what the other side looks like. You're going through some trouble, some trials, some tribulations, some stress, and you want to see your life transformed, check out her book. And we also, of course, want to encourage you encourage you today that no matter what you go through, the Lord is with you. And so if you're on your healing journey, keep walking, keep moving, keep trusting in him, and he will make your path straight. So we choose to trust him today. We appreciate you all for listening. Um, as usual, if you're having a mental health crisis, we want you to text your down 988 for mental health crisis because we wanted you to be able to have access to the care that you need. But otherwise, give us a comment, give us something in the um in the in the chat or a comment on this video so that we can interact with you and continue our dialogue on what it looks like to bounce back and build resilience with the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

We look forward to talking to you in the comments about what resilience looks like to you, what you feel like our content is speaking to you, and how we can engage you in a more optimal way. We'll see you in the chat and in the comments.