#010: Restoring Your Broken Heart: A Christ-Centered Approach to Healing with De Yarrison

In this inspiring interview, De Yarrison, founder of You Are Made New Ministry, shares her powerful journey of healing from trauma and her mission to facilitate Christ-centered emotional and spiritual restoration. Discover practical tools, healing retreats, and spiritual insights to help you restore your broken heart and embrace your true identity as a beloved to Christ the Bridegroom.

From the show:

⬇️ De's ABC's Tool PDF (watch De explain it more in-depth here)

✨ Learn more about the Restore Retreat

📖 Online Courses with You are Made New

Website Links:

• You are Made New Website
• Hopes Garden Community & Men of Hope Community

Books:

📗 Consecration to Christ the Bridegroom Book

📚 The Abundant Catholic's Free Inner Healing Book List

Extras:

📩 Anthony & Melissa's marital healing testimony (eBook)

Follow You are Made New on social media:

• Facebook - https://facebook.com/youaremadenew
• Instagram - https://instagram.com/youaremadenew

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Transcript

Melissa (00:00)
So today we're going to be discussing the topic of restoring your broken heart, which is a broad topic, but I feel like you're going to really speak into this place with clarity. And I pray it will really speak to our listeners because we all are hurt in some way or another. So we're going to talk about how betrayal and traumatic experiences form us and keep us bound.

We also will be dipping into the recovery work that's necessary for true healing. And Dee is going to share with us about her ministry, You Are Made New, And her own healing journey and how she came to be where...

De Yarrison (00:27)
Mm-hmm

Melissa (00:31)
where she is today, running retreats, offering Catholic coaching. And we're gonna be talking about your Restore retreat, which I attended years back, and so really excited for our listeners to hear about the powerful tools that you guys have for participants. ⁓ So, so much here. So let's just get started,

Hello and welcome to the Abundant Catholic Podcast where we help the intentional Catholic reclaim and restore who God made you to be.

Today we're talking with Dee Yarrison founder and executive director of You Are Made New Ministry. Dee is a Catholic inner healing coach guiding individuals along the journey to spiritual and emotional freedom. At the heart of her work, she facilitates healing encounters with the Lord and with younger parts of ourselves that lead to resolution of early wounding.

past traumas and their adverse effects,

She offers Christ-centered trauma healing, Catholic parts work, and integrates somatic practices and deliverance prayers

with individuals seeking healing.

There's so much here and we're really blessed to have you, De Thank you so much for coming.

And ⁓ yeah, thank you. Yeah, you as well.

De Yarrison (02:34)
to be with you, Melissa. It's good to see you.

Melissa (02:38)
Before we get started here, I do have to mention you and I know each other pretty well. You walked with me in my own healing journey and you were my coach and I met your sister first with Hope's Garden and we'll talk about that later but you have been such a critical support in my journey and your open heart has just been such a gift.

De Yarrison (02:42)
Yes.

Yes.

Melissa (03:00)
So I'm really excited for our listeners to get a little... ⁓

a little bit of your heart today because I know you just have so many gifts to share. But if you could tell us about your story and how You Are Made New came about,

De Yarrison (03:05)
Aww.

Melissa (03:14)
I think we'd love to hear that.

De Yarrison (03:15)
Yeah, sure. Yeah,

share that. Yeah. Well, so I'm going to start all the way back at the beginning. So I grew up in a home with a lot of chaos, a lot of big emotions and discord. there was depression, was drug addiction, there was divorce. My parents really couldn't deal with or didn't know what to do with the emotions, the needs of their four young children.

Melissa (03:20)
Okay.

De Yarrison (03:38)
And so I learned at an early age that it was safer to just disconnect from my needs and my emotions because it was just painful to put them out there and have them be met with, you know, aggression or neglect or whatever was going on. So I became very ⁓ proficient at focusing on others needs, very proficient in co-dependency and in caretaking and needing for you to be okay so that way I could be okay, right? I'm not, I'm only okay when you're okay.

And so I got really busy about controlling and fixing and rescuing, which was

really just a way of, of ignoring what was going on in here and overly focusing on what was happening out there. And so I think today we're probably going to talk a fair amount about the inner world and about what's happening in here as we adapt to trauma and to the wounding we've experienced. So I just want to sort of tee that up by using this language as I describe what was happening in me as I share a bit of my story. So.

I'm going talk in parts language a little bit. There was a part of me that grew very strong in focusing out there, taking care of others and at the expense of myself, because as I mentioned, it was just too painful to focus on what was happening in here. And so I had this like really toxic relationship with myself. There was a lot of shame and feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness happening in here.

and it cultivated an interior environment that became pretty toxic, pretty inhospitable. Yeah, and to the point where my health started to suffer, became a detriment to my health, which actually, as we know, is a fairly common post-traumatic response, a common way that the body responds, is breakdowns.

Melissa (05:18)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, but that's hard.

Yeah, that's hard to get to that point because you really start to feel it a little bit differently, right?

De Yarrison (05:35)
For sure. Yeah,

and I I mean not that it's ever Pleasant but it is often the Lord's way of really getting our attention right because I can ignore my emotions forever ever right, but when my body starts crying out and things aren't working right and you know, I need to pay attention to what's going on in there and you mentioned in the introduction that this is what we mean you mentioned that we use somatic practices this is what we mean by that is the

Melissa (05:47)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (06:02)
learning the connection between the psycho and the soma, psychosomatic

Melissa (06:06)
so then what started to happen?

De Yarrison (06:09)
Right, well, so the reality of all the pain happening, but coupled with the pretending that there wasn't any pain just really kind of imploded. And it was, you know, I know probably many of your listeners have had this experience. It was just almost impossible to remain in my body. It was so painful. It was so awful. The anxiety, the physical pain. And so it led me to reaching out in plenty of unhealthy and unholy ways for self-soothing.

So I, know, whether that be through food, through alcohol, through drugs, through sexual acting out. I, for many years, I was living a rather sinful life as a, again, a post-traumatic response to just be able to make it through the day. So fast forward to adulthood, many bad choices and mistakes later, God finally won. Thanks. I attribute this a lot to my sister, Laura, and who you mentioned.

Melissa (07:02)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (07:03)
a couple years ahead of me on the journey and she had been returning to her faith and praying for me and had her kids praying for me and so yeah the Lord won and I began to learn what it really means to have a relationship with Jesus in sincerity you know and really put him in the right place in my life ⁓ and so that was really the first time in my life that I got to know the Lord and

You know how that unfolds in your relationship with him? It's like he

nudges us one thing leads to the next to the next and so as I began to heal I realized it became important to me like I didn't really know who I was So I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life And so I was you know, just kind of floundering in that area And so the the Lord apparently I know in hindsight now he wanted to lead me on this trajectory to psychology to healing and so

Melissa (07:36)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (08:00)
The way that that unfolded is kind of interesting. So my mom had been back to school to she was attending a Maculana University, which is out here by us in Pennsylvania, working on her psychology degree. And I was really attracted to that. I was

really attracted to the things that she was studying and learning. And so I decided also, you know, ultimately I enrolled and went back for my undergraduate degree as an adult.

And the interesting part of the story is my mom and I actually ended up graduating together. We walked in our cap and gown together. And I was, yeah, there's one more layer that makes it even cooler. I was eight months pregnant with my first child at the time, my daughter Abigail, who in 2020, she now 23 years old, but she graduated from Immaculati University. Yeah, so that was.

Melissa (08:31)
my gosh. Wow.

Yeah.

my gosh. Well, full circle

moment. Wow. ⁓

De Yarrison (08:51)
Exactly. So she was with me when I graduated and

then she also attended there. So let's like maybe fast forward to the founding of the ministry. Right.

Melissa (08:58)
Wow. Yeah, sure, but there's so much there Dee, my gosh.

Yes, but tell me, tell me about that, because that is so evident of the glory that can come from sitting in and coming to acceptance of your reality. So tell us about you are made new and how you got to that place.

De Yarrison (09:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So having the psychology degree and just beginning to understand relational dynamics ⁓ and really my mom went on to complete a master's degree in social work and she was getting involved ⁓ with different therapeutic organizations and whatnot. And so anyway, I also followed her in that path as well to gestalt therapy and I have a postgraduate certification.

Engelstalt therapy. I'm not a licensed therapist. The Lord made that clear that that wasn't the path for me. Yeah, which you know, again, we were talking before the show about how we we follow him, we're obedient. then years later, we're like, ⁓ that makes sense

we didn't do that. Or that we did. Right.

Melissa (09:54)
Yeah, true, but he qualifies

the called.

not by the world standards, right, but by Christ standards. And that's where the power is. Absolutely.

De Yarrison (09:58)
Absolutely.

I see

it as a blessing because he at one point made it really clear that our work is not in Pennsylvania or in Ohio where my sister is, but this is a global ministry. And so there was not to be that restriction on us or just even that mindset, you know? ⁓ So yeah, so I went on for postgraduate certifications in gestalt therapy and also in professional coaching. I did work in the corporate sector for a few years as a leadership coach and consultant and retreat leader there.

The Lord just continued to nudge and nudge and it was actually out of Steubenville conference where I accompanied our youth group So you know I'm there for them and I have this amazing moment in adoration Where the Lord just really placed on my heart hard that it was time to bring all the skills the tools that he had been teaching me just the understanding that I was having of

these dynamics between people within ourselves to his church, you know, to get out of the corporate sector and bring it home to the church, which led to the founding of You Are Made New ministry in 2017, which really began as a practice for women. think you know that it was, we started primarily just doing coaching and running healing retreats for Catholic women. And again, over the years, he's let us, you know, broadened that to, you I want all of my

I want my sons and my daughters in on this, you know? So I know.

Melissa (11:28)
Yeah, and you guys have made it happen. I see some of the work you're doing

with your communities, which is powerful. Wow.

De Yarrison (11:37)
It's really

amazing when we talk about the restore retreats. mean, I can talk about the including the men in that, but I remember how Laura and I for a couple of years, we had the sense that the Lord was inviting us to begin to work with men and we were both like, no, no way. Not doing that. ⁓ Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa (11:52)
Hmm. That's not my wheelhouse. Yeah. man. Well, but then that

also poses for us. It pokes at the places where maybe we have wounds from men in our life, right? And how he always takes us deeper when we're running. Sometimes

De Yarrison (12:04)
For sure, for sure.

Melissa (12:09)
we're like those little tantrum-ing toddlers. like, I don't know. No

Not that God. Right? I'll do that, but not that.

De Yarrison (12:12)
I don't want to do this Lord.

Melissa (12:15)
yeah.

De Yarrison (12:15)
Right. Yeah, it's not funny.

Right. Yeah.

Melissa (12:17)
I'm excited to hear though how that's going and we'll talk about that

too with some of your community resources. But wow, so where is URB new ministry? Where are you guys? You talk about global? I mean it's all online, right?

De Yarrison (12:23)
Right. Yeah.

Right. So I'm

in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I live in the Philadelphia area and we definitely have a particular sort of outreach here. Most of our healing retreats take place here. They are certainly attended by people from all over the country and even people coming from other countries at times. And then my sister Laura, she's in the diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. In 2020, Laura and I founded the community, is known as Hope's Garden, ⁓ which we

Melissa (12:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (12:56)
We'll be talking about that later, but it's currently a community of about 1200 women from all parts of the country and the world. And they come because they're seeking deeper relationship with the Lord, deeper healing and freedom from whatever's holding them back from that, know, untethering from the effects of past wounding. And so we offer support groups every day of the week.

lots of prayer gatherings, monthly workshops, scripture studies, book studies, just lots and lots going on in the community. really, it is virtual. Yeah, Yeah, we have about 18 ⁓ people on the team doing either inner healing coaching with a few of our spiritual directors and then a team of facilitators who lead the support groups and really just engage with the women in the community. There's a lot of women there that are

Melissa (13:27)
Yeah. And you have a whole team too, yeah? Wow.

De Yarrison (13:51)
healing from the effects of betrayal, trauma, emotional wounding, domestic abuse of some sort, sexual trauma of some sort. Yeah.

Melissa (14:02)
well, that's how I found you guys. I yeah, I had looked. I was looking for something particularly Catholic. And at the time I found a retreat because of the betrayal in my life I was healing from in my marriage. And some of our listeners know about that. I reference our testimony online as well. But yeah, I was searching and I found a non-denominational one and I just couldn't shake the fact that like Jesus and the Eucharist wouldn't be there.

De Yarrison (14:09)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Melissa (14:28)
And I

remember just like praying to the Lord and I think I had texted Laura about something. We were communicating and she said, oh my gosh, you need to come on one of our retreats. And I had no idea you were even doing them. I didn't even know you guys were partnered together. I think I just kind of like met Laura and I didn't really, I think that was, it was probably how the connection with you came about.

De Yarrison (14:38)
Mm.

Yeah.

Melissa (14:46)
⁓ Yeah, and so it was just one of those things where there's not a lot out there. I I feel like it's popping up now more and more, but specifically focused on these topics where you guys provide the space and the resources, which is really something special and unique. So you are a Maynoon ministry. Now tell me, is there a special verse that like...

Because I feel like when you go to your website you have the behold. ⁓ You make all things new. Can you speak into that a little bit? How did the Lord bring that name to you in the journey of forming this ministry?

De Yarrison (15:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

well behold I make all things new. Revelation 21 5 and even the whole verse says the one who sits on the throne says Behold I am making all things new. I love that translation best. You know am making Not made once in the past or I will someday make but I'm in making I am making all things new and that includes you and me

And you know in all of us right making our hearts new really truly he he really we've seen him do it a million times the way he really it's not like he just puts Band-aids on or hands us crutches, but he brings Healing so I'm excited to talk about that, but that's not what you asked me. So the name Yeah

Melissa (16:03)
Yeah.

Yes, no, it's good. Talk about it. Yeah, no, this is good. But I know that was really powerful to me and your ministry

really highlighted the scripture and which is why I think we should always have the word on our tongue because when we speak these truths over our lives, there's power, there's authority to that and living in intention, right? Like we receive the fruits of that. And that really I carried that with me from your ministry. Yeah, that making new and just like the way that when you respond to that and you come to really, truly deeply believe

De Yarrison (16:16)
Hmm... Mm-hmm.

All right.

Mmm.

Melissa (16:34)
that and proclaim that as your truth, like take hold of it, right?

De Yarrison (16:38)
Yeah.

Melissa (16:39)
I mean, Jesus is so marvelous.

Christ really does come into those little places and and remake them and restore them and so powerful really powerful verse for your ministry because it applies to everybody it's applicable to all of us

De Yarrison (16:46)
Yes.

cares about. Yeah.

you know, like I said, the whole verse, the one who sits on the throne says, right? And so our work is really about making our relationship with Jesus real, because he's real. He is extremely real. He abides in the heart of each one of our hearts. We have the King of Kings abiding right here. And to realize, like to figure out how do I...

tap into that, how do I make this relationship something that really does inform my daily life, the way I think about myself, you know? So when I think of that verse, and when I say that in that way, very purposefully and slowly, he's sitting on the throne of your heart. Can we enthrone him? He's the king of your heart. Right now with him sitting on the throne in my heart, he is making all things new right in there.

As you said, those little places, those little pings in our heart. I had a client once who kind of named this, she called it death by a thousand pin pricks. That was her story. You know, some of us it's like death by that one huge violation, right? That just, right? And then for many people it's death by a thousand pin pricks and all those little pin pricks in the heart. He has a very particular

remedy

for every particular prick.

every particular poke and pinch and squeeze and whatever he is the remedy I should say, but he has a very particular way that he wants to come and touch us there. And so often when people come to work with us, they're not thinking about that that time when someone looked at you with a look that just really cut you apart or whatever it is. They're they're thinking about, I'm just

Melissa (18:18)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

De Yarrison (18:40)
so anxious and I got to do something about this anxiety or I just can't take anymore of these migraines that I just know I'm keeping too much inside. It's just have so much anger in here, right? They're coming for the big things, which is beautiful. And often the Lord gets to that,

Melissa (18:55)
You

De Yarrison (18:56)
heals that by showing us those, you know, two or four or 10 little things and sometimes big things that he wants to just take us back into those moments when something went wrong.

when we experienced something that we were not made for or when we needed something that didn't happen. And, you know, he can provide it today. Like even literally those attachment needs. So many people were never held and looked at by a mother or a father with just a light on their faces, you know, just being sung to or spoken to and soothing tones. And it's that

Often that trauma of what's been missing for us is harder to overcome, right? There's just we don't know what we didn't have but there's just something in us. There's just dissonance, you know, and so he knows of

Melissa (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (19:51)
course so when we just open those places to him open our ourselves up to him through the the work that we do in inner healing he knows where to go. He knows those little places in us that are not even on our radar and

Melissa (19:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

De Yarrison (20:06)
You know, it's interesting, like just a quick example. I met with a client one day this week, and she started by telling me about something going on with her husband. And we prayed into that and we started just, you know, asking the Lord to guide us and just being getting quiet and prayerful. And all of a sudden she remembered picking apples with when she was a little girl with her mother and being on the other side of the fence from the apple tree where her mom was picking apples.

Anyway, it was this whole thing unfolded and she had such a beautiful moment of healing with her mother, but it was not on the radar. It was nowhere on the radar. And when we asked the Lord, where do you want to anchor with us today? Like, where should we go to spend this time with you? And he all of a sudden takes her back to this childhood memory that happens so often.

Melissa (20:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Yes.

And then

the fruits are right there. I mean, it's like instantaneous, right? Like it's a journey. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer for the symptoms to reside, but sometimes the symptoms completely go away. And Anthony and I have experienced this in the inner healing work we've welcomed into our lives in receiving inner healing and even journeying with you, but in a lot of the therapy I went through and a lot of the inner healing ministry when he's walking with individuals through prayer ministry, what the Holy Spirit reveals, I mean,

This is what our ministry is based on. John 10, 10, came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. Anyone who comes before me is a thief.

De Yarrison (21:24)
Right.

Yes, yes.

Melissa (21:31)
So like Jesus is the gate. He's the one. He has authority. So you talk about him sitting on the throne. He's the only one who can heal us of our ailments. And I think for many of our listeners, me included in years past even, I didn't know that. Like I was raised Catholic. I was raised in the church. I did not have a real relationship with Jesus. And so we're always encouraging ⁓ individuals listening to step into that intention and faith and not fear. And that if there is any place in which we feel like hesitant to enter into relationship with Jesus, like he knows.

De Yarrison (21:37)
you

Yeah.

Right.

Melissa (22:01)
that and he's never forceful. He's always gentle, you know, always tender. ⁓ So he comes with that authority but it's never a condemning, right? It's always an inviting. So I think, we should pray. We should really pray. ⁓

De Yarrison (22:02)
Mm-hmm.

you

No, he's such a gentleman.

Melissa (22:16)
and invite the Holy Spirit into the space just as we talk about this topic and unfold it a little bit more. So we're just going to pray for our listeners right now and just call upon the Holy Spirit. And

De Yarrison (22:21)
Okay.

Melissa (22:26)
Lord, we just welcome you into our hearts, into this space, Lord. Whatever promptings you give us, whether it be in an image in our minds or maybe a song comes to our hearts or ears, maybe somebody in our life, our children, our husbands say something to us later. And it's you speaking, Lord, whatever it may be. Lord, we just open ourselves to your prompting and your presence in this space as we uncover and talk about these topics that really affect

many of us, even if it's little cuts, little pokings, little pricks, or if it's something rather large that we've been holding for a really long time. And we just need a space to just release it and just to know that...

De Yarrison (23:05)
Yeah.

Melissa (23:10)
In your presence, Jesus, we can release it. It's so good. It's so holy. It's so beautiful, Lord. We just praise you. So, yeah, so safe. So thank you, Jesus. We thank you so much for

De Yarrison (23:15)
You're so safe Lord, yes.

Melissa (23:23)
coming into our hearts to abide with us so that we can truly learn to rest and receive and recover and be made new. Right. So.

De Yarrison (23:32)
Yes Lord.

Melissa (23:33)
Yeah, amen.

De Yarrison (23:33)
Thank you.

Melissa (23:34)
Amen, Lord. So thank you, Dee, for

with me. And yeah, can you tell our listeners, I'd be curious to hear, know, we talked a little bit about supporting men and women, but more particularly, you walk with people who are healing from trauma, abuse, both men and women, overcoming, like you said, anxiety, depression, people seeking greater emotional health.

people who are caught up in adverse relationships, can you just speak into the type of population you're serving? Just to, you know, even create more of an inviting space for our listeners.

De Yarrison (24:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure, yeah. It's a little broad and then the Lord has really narrowed it in some ways. So we really want to be, and we are, here for anyone who is healing from the effects of trauma and wounding in their life, which is all of us. But to what you said about the John 10, 10 verse, came that we might have life and have it abundantly. And if we are living under a spirit of death in any way, whether that be despair, hopelessness,

Melissa (24:15)
Mm.

De Yarrison (24:39)
Worthlessness anxiety depression, know, we're not living that abundant life. So so people experiencing these these types of symptoms is ⁓ Exactly who you know who we are here for to help figure out like what are the roots of that? How can we invite the Lord in there so you can experience the fullness of life that he came for us to have? So in that sense, it's a it's a broad population that we work with, know, the part of our mission statement says

Christ-centered healing for those who have suffered the effects of trauma, abuse, or

emotional wounding, which again, like is everybody. What's happened over time is the Lord has really kind of refined that in a way as we have witnessed the kinds of people who find us, you know, as the population grows, we definitely have a, Nietzsche I'll say, in working with women who are healing from the effects of betrayal trauma.

Melissa (25:13)
Is everybody, yeah.

De Yarrison (25:33)
that is discovering a spouse's pornography or sex addiction or infidelity. And also women healing from the effects of domestic abuse in their marriage. And that oftentimes is emotional, psychological and narcissistic abuse. it's also very often sexual, physical, financial, spiritual, it kind of covers all of it, unfortunately.

Melissa (25:54)
Yep, all encompassing. Yeah.

De Yarrison (25:58)
So in the community, the Hope's Garden community and our retreats, it's really, know, everyone

can benefit from being there and you will find, and again, you spoke about this being a population that the church has not really been great at meeting, that you will find within the Hope's Garden community, unfortunately, many sisters in Christ who are healing from, what I just mentioned, So we have facilitators who are trained in that and support groups specifically for

for those populations and we do usually have one retreat a year that's specific or every 18 months or whatever, that's specific for women only who are healing from betrayal trauma. So they can have a safe place to come and be with other women in that same situation.

Melissa (26:45)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm

excited to talk about that and hear more and have you share with our listeners about that in a little bit. We'll we'll talk about that more towards the end here, because I did receive from there.

it's really a place where I think a lot of us are affected and we're not really willing to admit it.

I know plenty of women since I began my healing journey just even welcoming people in my home with book studies or places where I was seeking and searching and the Lord is just kind of entering into this new way of living with like this awareness, right? Like you talked about, you didn't know who you were, like the places where Christ and God were really teaching me who I was, right? And like I was really learning to become who he made me to be. And I'm still on that journey. But in the early years, I mean, I had women open up to me that...

I mean, I would have never guessed there were things in their life that they were struggling with in their marriage or places where there were woundings. And I think in our culture, that is highly addictive, highly pornified, highly wounded, just disintegrated, right? We're seeing it everywhere we go. And it's just at this like peak, almost just this pinnacle.

De Yarrison (27:31)
Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Yeah. ⁓

Melissa (27:50)
I think a lot of us really are affected

and maybe not even from our own relationship with our spouse, maybe from our family, from when we were young, like you were talking about with your story. Yeah. Yeah.

De Yarrison (27:58)
Right, absolutely. It starts there. Yeah, I mean, it always

starts there. You know, the none of us had all of our needs met when we were little children and we really begin to form in the womb, obviously. And I don't mean just physically form, but you know, our nervous systems form and then our emotional life for our brain. We're born. only part of the brain that's online when a baby's born is the brain stem.

Melissa (28:19)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (28:26)
primal reptilian center of the brain, right? And all the rest of it forms over time up until we're 22, 24 years old. So our brain is forming environmentally. If I live in an environment that is safe and secure and I feel comfortable to take a risk as a little child and whatnot, then my prefrontal cortex is, those parts of my brain that support that kind of behavior are going to become.

Melissa (28:28)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (28:54)
well-formed and strong if I am in an environment where I am constantly unsure if my needs are going to be met and I'm fearful and Confused right that affects the way my brain develops. And so so anyway, so we're forming You know, we're being formed by environment and so that's really important and I just want to say to when we talk about this in retreats and whatnot I know all the parents in the room are like

Melissa (28:56)
Mm-hmm.

Confused, conflicted.

De Yarrison (29:23)
Destroyed my children forever. It's like no this is the whole point. Jesus is making us new right He can he can teach us to rewire the brain. He can this is the thing that's

Melissa (29:23)
I know. It's the hard. Yes. He's here. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

De Yarrison (29:36)
in my opinion the coolest He can give you the experience that you needed when you were one that you didn't know you needed But he does and when you are willing to open your heart your mind your being in this way

Melissa (29:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

De Yarrison (29:52)
to sit in a session and we pray into it and we're just letting him lead us. And there's a lot of vulnerability involved, he knows how to get in there and provide that look that you needed when no one was looking at you, that your cry for help that no one heard or no one came to pick you up or whatever. He can provide that experience for you. mean, really nothing will be impossible. He was there then. Yeah. And he's here now.

Melissa (30:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because he was there. Yeah. He was there. Yes.

De Yarrison (30:21)
And so it's just really, really powerful that truly nothing is impossible for him. I've seen him do things that we thought were not possible to have done. You know, for example, so many stories, just a snippet of what I mean by that. Like, you know, this comes to mind at one of our retreats, a 70 year old woman who was just totally neglected by her parents, not ever cherished. And she has become this.

Melissa (30:30)
my gosh, so many stories. Yeah, wow.

De Yarrison (30:47)
very independent, strong, I don't need anyone because I didn't have anyone when I did need them. So I'm just not going to, know, and just this real hard edged personality. And she was able to at a retreat just allow herself to experience being held by someone sitting in for Mother Mary, someone sitting in for St. Joseph or whoever the person needs. But just to experience that kinesthetically in my body, the body of

Christ is so powerful, right? When we can come and support each other and, you know, touch, holding, visceral, must be visceral because it's my body, my brain can say, yeah, I didn't have, you my mom didn't ever cuddle me don't remember my parents ever showing me any affection and that makes me really sad. And I might know that, but my body knows it in a different way. My body is missing it.

Melissa (31:22)
It's visceral, ⁓

Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (31:42)
And seeking it, right? This is what

Melissa (31:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

De Yarrison (31:44)
led me to, you know, sexual acting out drugs and alcohol, right? I needed things and none of that provided it, obviously.

Melissa (31:48)
Mm-hmm. Attachment. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

De Yarrison (31:54)
But in a setting like...

Melissa (31:54)
But you could have compassion

on yourself knowing like, that's why I did that, right? And that's where we heal too. Because you're seeing yourself through that lens of God like, this is actually a holy desire hidden underneath these unholy

behaviors. Yeah. Yeah.

De Yarrison (32:06)
Thank you for saying that so beautifully. Yes, yes.

One of the areas of healing that I'm most passionate about is the relationship with ourselves. You know, just how important that is that we can start to recognize and be that how I do have a relationship with me, first of all, because so many people don't, you know, don't all ask, you know, tell me about your relationship with yourself. Like what? But you are talking to you all day long.

What's the quality of that conversation? You know, are we supportive towards ourselves? And, you know, am I able, like you just said, to recognize, the reason why I'm doing these very unhelpful things and unholy things is not to make an excuse for it.

We need to stop. But the way we approach that isn't like, well, the way I approached it wrongly for so many years was self-criticism, shame, tearing down, know, ⁓ self-mutilation, like all the things that we can get into.

Melissa (32:50)
Right. Yeah, for sure.

⁓

Yeah. Yes. Unhealthy, unhealthy self-abuse or self-abuse is

De Yarrison (33:04)
That's not helping. Self support.

Melissa (33:10)
another one, too, that I think a lot of people struggle with where they struggle to break free from that until you can compassionately see, my gosh, I was just longing for a healthy touch. I was longing for something holy because we are such. Yes, you need it. We're such god. our sexuality is a gift. Right. And Satan just.

De Yarrison (33:13)
Yes.

Yes, and you're longing for that because you needed it.

Melissa (33:31)
pervert and we turn in on ourselves. Like this is just the way I think many people are coping in our society.

And so I'm glad you're speaking into this. I can very much relate to your story just personally, but you did, you helped me really understand that. I mean, I had a sense of self at the time I started meeting with you, but you really helped me slow down enough to just be present for myself and recognize that there is a visceral, like a primal, you talk about the reptilian, like a primal need.

De Yarrison (33:52)
Right.

Melissa (33:59)
that we're all made with. And this is why people experience grief or anxiety, because the body's speaking. It's speaking to us saying, I need you to see me. And if we weren't parented in a particular way, now that we're adults, we can reparent, but with the Lord. And that's where the real integration happens. It's powerful. Yeah.

De Yarrison (34:15)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's very powerful.

And in my opinion, it's essential, right?

Because if I am still not looking at me with compassion, if I'm still treating me as unworthy and I'm speaking shame over myself, you know, I'm really putting limits on our limitless God. He's right there wanting to just, you know, help me to see myself the way he sees me. But if I refuse to do that, I unknowingly limit our limitless God, because again, he's a gentleman and he will not

Forces away in somewhere where he's not welcome

so that it's really important that we understand the relationship I have with me And the relationship I have with him are very much connected. I want it. I speak into what you were just saying about ⁓ Recognizing what's happening in in my body

Melissa (35:47)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (35:54)
and learning to treat myself a little bit differently there we have a process that I call the ABCs So this is a process that is super simple and so helpful and

I'll use anxiety as an example, but it's a process that I encourage our clients to literally engage in all throughout the day. Every time that you're experiencing something adverse, whether that's a physical feeling in your body or an emotional response to something or just an emotion that feels uncomfortable. So if I notice myself feeling anxious, what do I tend to do? Well, I either want to ignore it and keep going or I

Melissa (36:21)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (36:31)
I want to make it go away, want to make it stop somehow, whether that be through,

Melissa (36:33)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (36:35)
maybe it's through a good coping strategy, right? And that is, we need to do that sometimes, distract ourselves or use a healthy coping tool. Other times I want the anxiety to go away, I try to make the anxiety go through unhelpful things like drinking or whatever it might be. Or sometimes we do the opposite, we like kind of indulge that feeling and now I'm just indulging the anxious thoughts and it's growing and growing and now I'm just...

Melissa (36:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (37:00)
know panicking and whatever so we avoid Make a go away or we indulge and this ABC process kind of takes us down the middle road here Which is just it's being in truth. This is where Jesus said the truth will make you free So it's just approaching it truthfully the a stands for acknowledge The I see you're feeling anxious See how your stomach's churning B. Let's take a breath B is also stands for before

I'm being my friend when I do what would I say to a friend if you came to me? was like De, I'm so anxious I wouldn't say I'll just here drink this or shut up or you know Or like you should be my gosh. This is terrible. I'm anxious too now, know, right? No, I would say to you Let's take a breath, right?

Melissa (37:34)
Be quiet. Or like, ⁓ here we go again. Yeah. Critical self-talk. Yeah.

De Yarrison (37:47)
So the a I can knowledge and I just name it what we if I name it I can tame it right the B is we breathe them befriend and then the C is that I'm gonna invite Christ

Melissa (37:50)
Yes, yep, I remember that tool, ⁓

De Yarrison (37:56)
And this all happens in like five seconds. Jesus, be with me in my stomach. That's just dying right now. Lord, be with me in this anxious place. I'm breathing and I can't even tell you how many people have said that literally changes everything because it gives us this much space between reactive behavior and responsive behavior, right? Between playing out that whole unhelpful process, the cycle, right? Or giving me just this much space

The breath is so powerful, you know, just to take that breath, which cools the nervous system. So anyway, so the ABCs, I just, ⁓ maybe we can put that in the, in the follow-up. We have a little PDF that, yeah.

Melissa (38:34)
Yes, I'm so glad you mentioned that.

Yes, good, we'll attach that to the show notes for listeners to be able to practice that and take it home. And you also have, you guys have a podcast? You and Laura? Yep. Okay, yeah, so there's resources there and I did see you were talking earlier.

De Yarrison (38:46)
We do. It's Laura's. It's Laura's. Yeah.

Melissa (38:52)
I did, it just brought me to a memory of a video I saw of you where you were saying something about like you're walking alone and who's with you all the time. You're with you all the time, right? Like we have, yeah, we have our own inner self with us all day long and that inner self is compiled of an internal family system. And yeah, there's so much that we could talk about. And so I know you specialize in that and I think we should talk about it if you're open to it unless you had anything else you wanted to discuss. But I think that from, yeah.

De Yarrison (39:01)
Yay!

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ wherever you want to go, it's

all good.

Melissa (39:22)
The

complex layers to self. mean, you even have the properties of a heart wound in there and what that looks like. I think it would be good to speak into, you know, like you were just talking about the parts of the self where we...

we have anxiety and then we have that part of us that's like, you know, the shaming, the self-criticism and how that's a learned part, right? And so when we can come to a place where we literally receive love and speak love into that place, it takes time and intention, but that's where we really start to begin to experience the fruits of healing. So can you talk about just like a little bit in like a... ⁓

De Yarrison (39:55)
Yeah.

Melissa (39:59)
easy terms here for our listeners, internal family systems. Yeah, just to kind of explain it in a way people can understand the complexity of self and how we are all made up of these parts. We're made up of all these experiences, right? We're not just suddenly, I'm not suddenly 35, I'm made up of 35 years. Right, right, yeah.

De Yarrison (40:01)
Okay, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Multiplicity yes Right No That's right. Yes

Yeah, yeah, so I think parts work is so exciting. It is like It is the when we add that in when we did add this in several years ago. We saw just the speed the rate of of just healing happening so anyway it wouldn't

So Romans chapter 7 St. Paul says he's got we all know these verses, you know I do the thing I don't want to do and I can't do the thing I do want to do because in my members there's this war in my members

Right that they keep me captive to the law of sin in my members But he goes on you know, what so what is he saying there, right? He's saying that I have these within me these members who are at war these conflicting parts of myself the part of me that wants to

Melissa (40:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

De Yarrison (41:07)
please my parents and do things right. And then the part of me that keeps messing up because she's just acting out, you know, or she's angry or whatever it is. So these parts that are in conflict. And so St. Paul talks about, then it keeps us captive to the law of sin, which dwells in my members. So when I'm caught in this conflict, I'll just take this as an example. The part of me that is angry because I was abused or I didn't have the things I needed as a child and the appropriate response to injustice.

Melissa (41:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (41:36)
is anger, is anger. Now what we do with that anger is a different story. here, so here, there's a part of me that is angry, but there's an even bigger, stronger part of me that says, no, no, no, we don't do anger. Do you remember dad's anger? That is not okay. Or remember what happened when we got angry? No, we don't do anger. So we get to this impasse inside. I've got this anger that needs to be expressed. We're stuck, right? And that keeps us in the sin that dwells in my members. So maybe now I'm

Melissa (41:37)
is anger. Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. We get stuck. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (42:05)
just an anxious mess and I'm drinking or I'm looking at porn or whatever I'm doing to cope with that. But St. Paul goes on to say, in my, there's this in most self within me, within my in most self, the law of God, I delight in the law of God. So not the law of sin that dwells in my members, but the law of God in my in most self. So we all have that. And I imagine it to be this place in my heart where the Holy spirit abides,

The Lord himself abides to the power of his Holy Spirit. And I want to learn to lead my internal system from this place, from my Christ-centered place, me and Jesus. I want to be able to look at the part of me that's angry and practice that. I see how angry you are. It makes sense. Let's breathe. Jesus, be with us here. I want to also be able to look at that part of me that's avoiding anger to say, I get it. It's scary, right? It's not been safe to feel that anger.

And so I need this part of me that's not a part, it's the self. It's the Christ centered self who can be the leader of my system. And what happens very often is just parts are leading, right? I'm anxious, I'm angry, I'm grieving, exactly, I'm dysregulated, all these things are happening. And that's okay, but just to understand that within that whole system, there is a place within us that we can learn to lead from this

Melissa (43:15)
Mm-hmm. Fight or flight, flight or freeze. Yep. Yep.

De Yarrison (43:31)
Where Christ abides and he's with us there. We have everything we need there And so we so part of the work that we do with people's helping them practice spending more and more time connecting with self Being in that con there's there's qualities that make up the stuff that tell us I know when I'm here because I feel calm connected courageous confident Compassionate there's clarity. There's all these C's taking place in there, right? And so if I that that's the energy of this place

Melissa (43:56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which reminds me of the core,

right? The core self is what I feel like secular society calls it, like your core being, Which is your inmost self with Christ because we are Christ-centered people as

De Yarrison (44:05)
Right.

Melissa (44:13)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (44:11)
And all those qualities belong to him and they are available

to us in spades, right? We don't have to try to manufacture compassion. We just have to connect with the Lord who is compassionate self and let it flow out of us. so as we do our healing work and we learn to relate with ourself more and more from this place, what happens is I stop reacting to the woundedness. You know, I stopped reacting badly every time I feel rejection. I, you know, I

had a lot of rejection wounds entering my marriage and every time the slightest little rejection, perceived rejection, I was ready to fight, you know? And so that's a reaction from woundedness.

Melissa (44:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

De Yarrison (44:52)
But as the Lord works with me to heal that rejection that came from someone who's not my husband, right? Put it in the right place, right? Bring healing there. Then I'm able to respond to His grace, which is flowing through. It's available to me at every moment. Now I can respond to His grace first.

Melissa (44:52)
learned. Yeah.

De Yarrison (45:10)
myself to say, ⁓ that felt like a little rejection. Let's take a breath and then from a calm nervous system respond to the person standing in front of me. know so anyway I don't know if that helps with...

Melissa (45:22)
And that takes time. No, no, yeah.

It takes so much time and courage to practice. It really takes practice. It takes the courage to practice the discipline of inner healing. I've been learning so much about this. There is a... We can understand it in the head and be all for it, but there is a discipline that's required in the practice of it and there is an intentional... ⁓

De Yarrison (45:35)
Yeah.

Melissa (45:42)
response that's required in Christ inviting us, we really have to accept his invitation, not just in our hearts, right, but also in our bodies. And we see that most beautifully with our lady, you know, who welcomed him into her heart.

De Yarrison (45:54)
Mmm.

Melissa (45:56)
but then in her body and look at the trajectory of her life and the church and the souls and all of humanity as she's the mother of the church. God's calling us to these same things. He's calling us to this super abundant, supernatural life with him where you said, he has all the grace, he has all the gifts, everything flows from him.

De Yarrison (45:59)
Wow.

Right?

Melissa (46:15)
people are just opening themselves up to all sorts of different deities and spirits that are not from the Lord and and oftentimes we're serving to master so I think for us we just have to really get our house in order.

De Yarrison (46:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa (46:27)
and be more aware of the spiritual realm. St. Paul talks a lot about that I just met with somebody and did a whole interview on the father wound and I thought it was so interesting. was saying, you know, Satan is the father of lies and how

He couldn't get back at God. You can't get back at God. God's highest authority, He's God, right? So he got back at God almost in a sense by trying to hurt us and harm us and devour us. And yeah. And so you could see how that's playing out and that we are all wounded in one sense or another

De Yarrison (46:50)
True.

through us, yeah.

Melissa (47:02)
But so much you're saying is just so beautiful. Man, I wish we could spend, we could probably spend a good while. I think you're just gonna, I think a lot of what you're speaking is gonna bring to light some things that our listeners are already dealing with. You know, that rejection wound.

De Yarrison (47:03)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Melissa (47:19)
even just like you said

in the way people look at us or maybe the way we perceive somebody's actions as well. how maybe to somebody else they didn't even know what they did. Right. Oftentimes when we're wounded people don't even know that they're doing it. And I think Christ speaks about that on the cross. Like they know not what they do. Right. Like we're in the same way. So I always like to say like I hope somebody comes to me and tells me how I've heard them because I probably didn't didn't know. so yeah.

De Yarrison (47:25)
Yes.

No.

Right.

intend it. No,

I'm sure of course. What you were just speaking about about the father of lies to me enemy I just want to comment on that briefly too. So we can't separate healing from deliverance, right? Like when we have Experienced a wound like rejection, right? I always imagine that wound as like an opening right and here comes the father of lies He is so opportunistic. He's going to you know, prey on us in our

Melissa (47:46)
Yeah, right? Yeah.

Yeah, please.

De Yarrison (48:10)
places where we are weak. so rejection wound, he's gonna, maybe my father rejected me, he's gonna tell me, yeah, you're not lovable.

Your father didn't love you. Nobody's gonna be able to love you, right? And so we kind of give our agreement over to that as kids because we think I'm not lovable and never be lovable. Nobody will love me. we've now got this inner vows that we've made that maybe I won't let someone get close enough

Melissa (48:22)
Nobody's gonna be, ⁓

De Yarrison (48:38)
to love me because I don't want them to see how awful I am. And then we make decisions about unconsciously, about how we need to then be in the world based on what we believe about ourselves. So if I believe that I am unworthy of love, everyone's going to reject me. And I just, just better if I stay closed off to others, how am I going to show up in my relationships? You know, so the patterns that we get into in our behavior,

This is the anatomy of the wound that you were talking about earlier. It's like, we have these wounds to our heart when we're little and then we pile on all these layers, the lies that we've been told by the fatherless, the ways we kind of latch onto them and make decisions that I need to just, you know, stay separate from people or not open up or whatever it might be. And then I enter into relationships and they're not full. They're not honest. They're not holding back.

parts of myself and that leads me to feel maybe depressed, you know, cause there's parts of me that are depressed, pressed down, suppressed, And so, so the healing part of it, I started out by saying, you can't really separate healing from deliverance because as part of the healing, as the Lord maybe takes me back to some of the early stuff with my dad and begins to heal those rejection wounds, it's like out of the

Melissa (49:42)
Yeah,

De Yarrison (49:57)
the wounding I can now see those things like they just were right there in front of me like, my gosh, there's that lie and there's that lie and there's this inner about and then the Lord gives us tools. We have the authority with him to say in the name of Jesus, no more. I reject that lie. I don't believe that anymore. And your name Jesus, I declare the truth that I am infinitely loved. You know, we start to just change our inner dialogue, which then, you know, changes our mind, right? Neuroplasticity rewiring the brain and

Melissa (50:12)
Yeah, powerful.

De Yarrison (50:27)
the new behaviors just become more and more natural. Because if I'm behaving in this set of ways out of the belief that I'm unlovable, when I begin to rewire my brain and really believe in my belovedness, there's a whole different set of behaviors that goes along with that, right? And so this is how we see real change happening. You know, the deliverance pieces is important.

Melissa (50:47)
Yeah.

100 % that is our apostolate. have the branch of accompaniment and then we have the branch of inner healing. And Anthony and I chose that because in our own healing journeys, that's how it was. I mean, we couldn't separate the two, the deliverance, because often trauma, any sort of trauma or wounding, there's a foothold to the enemy. Like you said, he's going to take that and use that.

De Yarrison (50:59)
Yeah.

Melissa (51:07)
That's a whole other level of understanding the spiritual realm we're a part of that many of us are asleep to. We really are. so...

we really need to bear the arm of God and speak these truths over us. And so we do help individuals as well with our inner healing apostle, and Diaz, whole team as well in their community. So let's talk about some of those tools and resources. We talked about the Restore Retreat, so I really wanna kind of delve into that before we get into some of the additional tools you do.

De Yarrison (51:27)
Okay.

yeah, the restore retreats are three and a half days and they are very experiential. The goal is not just to talk about healing, know, grow in our understanding of the traumas we've experienced.

Because no amount of understanding my trauma or talking about my trauma is going to heal my trauma. As we've already covered, the healing is in the encounter with Christ. It's in letting him into the places and having that visceral kinesthetic experience that I maybe never had in my life that I've always been needing. And when I feel that presence of a loving mother through the body of Christ, someone right there in the room.

Melissa (51:51)
you

De Yarrison (52:13)
I am receiving something at such a deep level, like you mentioned this very early in this conversation. I may be sitting in there in the room as a 35 year old adult, but in that moment I'm five and that and I'm looking at this woman who's not my mother and she might as well be the blessed mother because that's the experience that the Lord is giving me, right? He's giving me that very real encounter with his mother just trickling right into all my five year old parts and it

Melissa (52:40)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (52:41)
It like resets, I might have this old memory. Like something specific, an incident of sexual trauma or, you know, abandonment by a parent or whatever it might be. And so they might be working on something very specific and the Lord, you know, meets them in that very specific moment and they have this memory. This thing happened. He doesn't change.

that reality that this thing happened. But now I have this new memory where I now have my body, my being remembers has an experience of me being five, although I'm 35 or whatever I am. I'm not, unfortunately I'm not 35, but you know, my five year old, my five year old part is, here in the room. My five year old part is receiving. And so I have this new memory that kind of overlays with the old traumatic memory and creates a whole new experience. And so the brain,

Melissa (53:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hey now.

De Yarrison (53:33)
does not remember that old experience in the same way anymore. And so with these old memories that get triggered that we've been talking about, know, rejection when that gets activated by something my spouse does and my limbic area is on fire, you know, the fight or flight is happening as that memory that there's healing in that old place that, you know, something presses on that spot tomorrow and it just doesn't quite feel as tender. And I don't have that, ow, reaction. It's just like, oof, that kind of hurts.

Melissa (53:47)
Mm-hmm.

De Yarrison (54:02)
but I'm not reacting the same way. So these experiences, these encounters, we use the body of Christ in the room in such a unique and powerful way. And I'll just give one quick example. ⁓ This man did a whole piece of healing work around the father not believing him about sexual abuse. And so he needed to deal with his dad and deal with the perpetrator, which he did beautifully using people in the room.

But what he started with, the symptoms he was experiencing in his life were not wanting to live and just this deep shame and depression. And so as he did that work and the Lord, literally he was lying on the ground at one point, as the Lord helped him stand up, we have a priest present who is in persona Christi, who is just an amazing priest. So he helped this man up and they feel his feet and he did this healing work with the perpetrator.

Melissa (54:41)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beautiful.

De Yarrison (54:55)
And then I had him just walk, I asked father to walk him around the room and just look at people and say, I'm alive. I want to live. I'm here. I matter. You know, like just give, and in this like, ⁓ this purging, this

Melissa (55:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

De Yarrison (55:08)
cleansing.

And he told me later that he, that he felt like he had open heart surgery in a room full of like 40 people. And just the, as his heart was broken open, he could just.

Melissa (55:09)
it gives me the

De Yarrison (55:20)
The way people look at you, just the love you're receiving and the compassion, the grace, it's just really a unique experience and life-changing. It really changes people's lives.

Melissa (55:28)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I experienced that. I experienced that full on. Like was definitely a critical part in my healing journey going there. And it's just beautiful. You guys have this beautiful space. I mean, it's majestic. If I could put a word to it with the property and the land and where you guys are housing these individuals, and it's very intimate. And so what you're talking about, you call the hot seat work, right?

De Yarrison (55:43)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa (55:53)
where

it's sort of kind of in the hot seat with the Holy Spirit, where you're inviting, it's never something like we're forced to do on retreat, but you invite individuals to enter into this very, you call it kinesthetic, visceral experience, where like very integrative by having people literally enter into the place.

De Yarrison (55:55)
Yeah.

It's, yeah.

Melissa (56:11)
an area of need. like I remember watching somebody say something to somebody like that person maybe played their mother and their mother wounded them and they actually were able to experience their voice in a way they never could have before and out loud say to somebody who's playing the part of that person's mother so that person can experience the the healing required to release

De Yarrison (56:13)
Yeah.

Yes.

Melissa (56:35)
something we might not have the space to do otherwise at home, in our community, in our family, whatever it looks like, you're creating the space for individuals to literally release, reveal.

De Yarrison (56:42)
Yeah.

Right.

Melissa (56:49)
reveal things

that have been stored in the body and the spirit that need to come into the light. And this is scriptural, bring all things into the light. I mean, it's disinfecting. It's when the sun touches it. And I witnessed that. And I remember being invited into an experience where I was holding somebody. And even as the person participating as the body of Christ on the other side, where I'm not the participant receiving, I'm the one helping, I received. Holy mackerel.

De Yarrison (56:55)
Yeah.

That's so good. Yeah. Yeah, I love that example.

Mm-hmm. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I think you were the blessed mother for somebody, weren't you? Were you the blessed

Melissa (57:18)
It was profound, so it was good. It was so

good. Yes, when you talk about that, I wish I could put a visual to individuals. I am holding a grown woman on my heart as she's sobbing, receiving literal love. And the way in which you guys laid it out, Dee, it was just a grace. It was like the Holy Spirit was flowing.

I mean, so much grace in this space. There's something so special happening when you come and you invite Christ. Like, he's not going to leave us without. It's powerful. Wow.

De Yarrison (57:41)
Yeah, sure.

Yeah, it's true. It's so far. It's

just fascinating. I the Holy Spirit is amazing. I mean, there are times when I had a woman being held by a woman and a man, Mother Mary and St. Joseph, and I was standing in front of her just ministering to her. I was just I didn't even know I was doing this, but I must have just been stroking her hair. And afterwards, and she had her eyes closed and she's just sobbing. And afterwards, she said,

who was stroking my hair? And I was like, I didn't know if that was a good thing yet. So was like, she's like, she's like, my gosh, that was the thing I always wished my mother would have done. You know, and so like the Lord knew that and the Lord just started moving my hand. And so she received that experience that she never had before, you know, and what you talked about a person standing up and saying something to their mother, you you feel your body, you feel your strength and you, or sometimes they don't, right? I might invite them.

Melissa (58:18)
Bye!

De Yarrison (58:42)
It's a totally different experience to know that I'm angry with my mom, to talk about being angry with my mom, and then to look at my mom and say, mom, I am angry with you. And of course, it's not, it's a person standing in for your mom, but you're, you're nine and that might as well be your mom, because that's how your body feels. And so we always want to check in with that. As you're saying that, just check in with your body, what's happening. And a lot of times we'll see the leg is going, I'm scared. I feel like I want to run away. don't.

Melissa (58:51)
Yes, yes

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the shaking.

De Yarrison (59:07)
Okay, take a breath, just acknowledge that part of you. There's a part of me that's still going, isn't safe. I can't tell mom I'm angry, what's gonna happen? And so we create safety in the room. We've got our Jesus there. We've got whoever the person needs. And we just help her to integrate what's happening in her body at the same time, like the part of her that's saying this isn't safe. We don't just ignore that. We have to allow that voice to be heard and that fear to be acknowledged.

and shift gears as needed, we just kind of follow the Lord. And it's really incredible

Melissa (59:39)
I can't recommend it enough for anybody who's experienced any sort of rupture or wounding in their life where you know, I know you know, because I've lived in it. I know you know when you know something's going on inside. You're running, you're running a thousand miles or you're either stuck, right? Like you're stuck and you can't move and you're frozen. However that looks in your everyday life for our listeners, mean, this retreat is powerful and I know You have more coming up in the future. So you guys can go to their website

De Yarrison (1:00:03)
yeah.

Melissa (1:00:06)
You are made new ministry.com, is that

Dot com, okay.

De Yarrison (1:00:08)
Just just urmaidnew.com and there's a menu there

called HEAL and under the HEAL menu, retreats are the first. The next will be November 2026,

Melissa (1:00:16)
Okay.

De Yarrison (1:00:17)
middle November. And that's also for men and women. These are both for men and women.

Melissa (1:00:17)
Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, powerful. So, and I remember the last part of the retreat, there was this beautiful event that happened where we made these crowns and we became these brides of Christ and you guys were washing our hands.

almost like this bathing the shame away and entering into this new place. You don't leave the same. You don't leave the same. That's definitely something I hope you can remember. I didn't leave the same. I remember the dress I wore and the shawl I had on and the crown. I still have it because I became a bride of Christ. I think we don't talk about it enough, especially as married lay members in the church.

De Yarrison (1:00:37)
Right? Yeah.

I have chills when you just, yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

Melissa (1:00:59)
we can be a spouse to Christ. And Anthony and I really embrace that in our marriage in a very unique way where Christ now bridges the gaps where him and I are unable to love each other perfectly. We will never be each other's fulfillment. And so often I can get caught up because of my wounds, right? But where I demand from him, he do something for me because I'm, I need it, right? But Christ is really the one who will give it to me. And once we really begin to welcome Christ, our bridegroom, our beloved, right into, into our hearts, he will

De Yarrison (1:01:09)
Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Melissa (1:01:29)
rain and things get a little bit easier and life gets a little bit less complicated. ⁓ But it's a journey, it's a process and for many of us that can take years but I know that the restore retreat is pivotal. It was for me on the journey and for anyone listening I can just... ⁓

De Yarrison (1:01:33)
Yes.

Melissa (1:01:46)
tell you it will be life-changing, right? And so It's just wonderful. So check it out online. I will link it in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to talk about that you guys offer? You have the Christ program. Anything else? You have your online community in Hope's Garden. Men of Hope, is that

De Yarrison (1:01:58)
Yeah.

Melissa (1:02:02)
correct? Yeah.

De Yarrison (1:02:03)
Men of Hope is our men's

community, Hope's Garden is the women's community, and a lot more going on at Hope's Garden as well. ⁓ And we also have an online classroom where the Christ program, as you mentioned, a six-session video course teaching Christ-centered DBT skills. So skills for managing our emotions, engaging with ourself in healthy ways, no longer being controlled by emotions. DBT is dialectical behavioral therapy.

Melissa (1:02:09)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (1:02:31)
And this is a whole set of evidence-based therapeutic skills that have been used for decades, you know, by therapists working with people with eating disorders, suicidal ideation, whatever it might be. And we've, my sister Laura has created, taken some of the DBT skills, not all of them, and really made them Christ-centric. There's a lot of scripture woven into it. And then, you know, you can, anyone can go to the classroom and take the six session video course on your own at any time. But then we also throughout the year offer ⁓

Melissa (1:02:50)
Mmm.

Yeah.

De Yarrison (1:03:01)
coaching groups around that to work through the skills in small groups. Lots of classes in the classroom. We have one called Striking the Serpent, which is for men. It's with our other spiritual advisor, Father Michael Stala. And he is talking to men about just the reality of how the enemy wants to, you know, has a plan for their lives and how to follow the Lord's plan in the midst of this, these times that we're living in. So that's called Striking the Serpent.

My course, that recent course that I released is called Healing Our Relationship with Self and it covers some of the things that we've already talked about. And ⁓ we have one that will be released really soon with the priest that runs the retreats with us on spiritual healing and deliverance. So lots of things in the classroom. Yeah.

Melissa (1:03:35)
Hmm. Exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Well,

the resources are there, right? And I think we need to take advantage of them as the body of Christ, because this is clearly spirit led. you're also talking like neuroscience informed trauma care too. it's just very integrative. And so you guys bring the faith.

You bring Christ. mean, there's power to this. And so these resources, these tools are available for individuals. I will link them in the show notes ⁓ below. And we also have free digital downloads on our website. I mentioned that almost every episode because they're there. We have a free couple of book lists you can get regarding inner healing. We have our inner healing ministry with encounter ministry, certified prayer ministers, too. So you're welcome to check us out. then ⁓ Laura, your sister with Hope's Garden, has a beautiful book called Consecration to the Bridegroom.

De Yarrison (1:04:07)
Yeah.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Right.

Melissa (1:04:34)
Really, really pivotal for me. It's very simple. And just really, I think it kind of helps anchor us in him and just, it just reminds us who we are in him,

especially as his bride, you know, and his beloved. And I can't recommend that enough. So I'll link that as well. Just amazing work you guys are doing. Yeah.

De Yarrison (1:04:46)
Right. Yeah, that's a reality. That's a reality

that happens at our baptism. When we're baptized, all men and women alike, we become brides of Christ. It's the nuptial bath, the catechism says.

Melissa (1:04:56)
Yeah.

De Yarrison (1:05:03)
So this consecration is really just us declaring as an adult something that has always like making visible this relationship with Christ that has always existed since our baptism. Just an intentional

The thing like we would make a consecration to St. Joseph or the Blessed Mother. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Melissa (1:05:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,

but it's good. It's good to go through the process of...

again, that discipline, right, of sitting with the Lord. And ⁓ that's so beautiful that you said that it reminds me of my daughter. just celebrated her First Holy Communion and we were talking with her about the dress she was wearing. You know, it's white and she had on my veil, which was shortened for our daughters. ⁓ And so it is very, very nuptial what's happening. And we put on this big celebration because it is I mean, baptism and First Holy Communion are like big celebrations in our house. Some of the most important days because we have these.

De Yarrison (1:05:38)
Aww.

Wow. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, right.

Melissa (1:05:51)
these things infused in our souls that we don't see. Right. We don't really fully understand these virtues, the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. And ⁓ yeah, so the consecration of the bridegroom is just building from that. Right. And really helping us claim something that's already there. And Christ has been waiting. He just he waits. He waits. And I know Laura touches a lot on the song of songs as well in her work. So I can't recommend their podcasts enough. You guys have videos online. You are made new dot com and hope

De Yarrison (1:06:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. ⁓

Mm hmm. Yep.

Melissa (1:06:21)
for Men of Hope and Hope's Garden Women's Community. Is there anything else you can think of before we close our discussion? Dee, I feel like we could talked forever, forever, forever. And I hope to have you back because I think we could really niche down to particular areas here. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so if for anybody who is looking to restore their broken heart...

De Yarrison (1:06:29)
I don't know.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, like take one or two and like really dive deeply into that would be great. Yeah.

Melissa (1:06:47)
You know, we have tools here that the Church has given us through its lay apostles, people who will provide the space to walk with you. And Dee, we just want to thank you for coming on to today's episode and sharing your heart with us. And more importantly, for the work that you're doing in creating and holding this space for people who are hurting. There's not enough people who are willing and courageous enough to do that. And I understand now that we're beginning with the abundant Catholic. That's a lot to hold, right? It takes a village and it's almost, I envision, like Noah's

De Yarrison (1:06:58)
Thank you, Nessa.

Mm.

Melissa (1:07:17)
We're in this time in history with this great storm and the Lord is calling his children into safety and security and it's here. It's here for any of us who are just willing to step into the abundance that Christ is calling each and every one of us into. It's real, it's possible. My husband and I provide testimony. Dee's testimony today is really powerful. And testimony literally means to give witness to. So let this be your witness ⁓ that all things are possible with the Lord.

De Yarrison (1:07:19)
Well.

Wow, I love that.

Yes.

Melissa (1:07:47)
So yeah, thank you so much Dee and again, you can support You Are Made New. They take donations as well. So if you're feeling any call, they're a 5013C, any call, ⁓ all

De Yarrison (1:07:48)
Yes. Thank you for mentioning.

Melissa (1:07:57)
of your donations are tax deductible and go directly to support men and women who are on the road to recovery seeking Christ-centered healing and restoration. Yeah, thank you Dee. Yes,

De Yarrison (1:08:06)
Thank you, Melissa.

Melissa (1:08:08)
I pray this episode blessed you and we're holding you all in our hearts and praying for you. So until next time friends, God bless.