New Life LIVE

Brian Perez: Welcome to the New Life LIVE podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

I can't think of any place I'd rather be right now than here with you on New Life LIVE. I'm your host, Brian Perez, and we've got author Marc Cameron, who's a licensed marriage and family therapist. Dr. Alice Benton is a clinical psychologist and she's an author too, but I don't have her book with me because it's always off the shelf. Somebody's always borrowing it here on staff, I guess they're using it. It's called Understanding and Loving Your Child in a Screen-Saturated World. That's it. It's great to be on with you guys again. Marc, what's on your mind to begin?

Marc Cameron: Today, I want to talk about dismissing the impact of our past experiences. Maybe you've heard someone say one of these phrases or you've said them yourself: "That experience made me who I am today," or "Anyway, I forgave my parents for what they did," or "It happened, I can't change it, so I've moved on."

While these statements can reflect resilience, because growth can come from adversity, I find that in many cases when people make these statements, they're thinking that if I just don't cognitively think about my experiences, then they won't continue to affect me. While we might rationalize that I've let go of my past, has your past actually let go of you? Offering forgiveness or just surviving and making it through a difficult time, even though we can draw strength from that experience, doesn't negate negative consequences.

Spiritualizing, rationalizing, or dismissing the emotional impact of our trauma doesn't actually remove it. What many people are unaware of is that we have two types of memory. We have explicit memory, which is the narrative event that we can recall. But we also have something called implicit memory.

Implicit memory is often stored in our subconscious. It's a bodily feeling and an emotion-based memory. It's those uncomfortable emotions that come up for us that we quickly tend to pull away from. When that's happening, we're actually experiencing a memory, maybe without even thinking about it. Our past is actually affecting us.

World-renowned psychiatrist and attachment expert Dan Siegel says we have to name it to tame it, and we have to feel it to heal it. Just because we went through adverse childhood experiences, those are not necessary to build strength for a person. We can actually build strength, research shows, through developing secure attachment. That actually has less negative effects on a person.

Attachment research shows us that it's not actually the severity of what happens to us that determines how emotionally secure and resilient we are or can be, but it's how we've learned to make sense of our experiences. True emotional resilience doesn't mean something doesn't bother us at all. It's our ability to be able to feel and manage our emotions, maintain a balanced perspective, and then bounce back.

If we had an emotionally mature caregiver who helped us tell the story of our experiences with comfort and reflected our feelings back towards us, we're more likely to be able to recognize these implicit feelings coming up and be able to acknowledge them and manage them. But if we didn't, we're more likely to be unaware of them, and they'll continue to play out in our subconscious.

But here's the good news. We can heal. We can have a new experience. Therapy actually provides us with that transformative experience to be able to tell our story, to be able to put language to it in a safe place and supportive place so that our brain can start to integrate those implicit feelings with those explicit feelings and we can make sense of it.

When that happens, we actually process the memory and it moves to long-term storage and it removes that strong emotional charge. Here's my challenge to listeners. If you say this or when other people say, "That made me who I am today," I want you to question in what way did it make you who you are today? In what way did it shape you? Did it make you more secure or has it made you more guarded? God's not intimidated by our wounds. The Bible says He's actually close to the brokenhearted.

The good news is we have a network of counselors at New Life that we can connect you with. If you're struggling today and need someone to talk to, give us a call and let us connect you with someone. We'll be right back after this short break. Jane, you're next.

Becky Brown: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

Brian Perez: Let's go to Philadelphia and find out what Jane says. She's listening on WBYN. Welcome to New Life LIVE, Jane.

Jane: Thank you so much. I'm glad I was able to connect with you.

Brian Perez: So are we. Thanks for calling.

Jane: My story is a little bit like Steven's story, so I'll just layer on a little bit of what he has said from my own perspective.

Brian Perez: For anyone who's listening right now, Steven was a previous caller to New Life LIVE. We're not talking about the Stephen in Acts chapter seven. Go ahead and tell your story.

Jane: I know my attachment style is avoidance and people-pleasing. Over the years in my almost 15 years of marriage, whenever there was a shortage in finances, my husband would come, we'd talk about it, and because he's someone who goes over and over just talking about the same issues, I would just pull from my savings and just make it up. At the end of the day, he feels pleased.

In two years, I've been unemployed back-to-back twice now, unfortunately, and I've depleted my savings. The reason I had to do that is because he will not want to carry all the burdens. I understand that, but in a case where I'm literally adding finances as though I was working, that is the case.

What that did was it then made him so dependent on that. Now that I'm telling him I really am struggling and I really don't have this anymore, he's blowing up. He's saying he can't continue putting money, he's not saving anything, he's not doing this and that. It's to the point where we don't even have food and I'm literally racking up my credit so badly right now just to make sure there's food in the house.

He will go to restaurants, eat and come back home, or go to the store, buy whatever thing he wants to eat and then come back home. That has been the trend for the last couple of years. Recently, I served him a letter of separation because I've just had it. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I don't feel cared for. I don't even feel loved.

Whenever there's a program or a show on the TV and they talk about a bad spouse, he literally will come up and start saying, "Yeah, bad wife," and all those kind of things. I've served him a letter of separation and now he's saying I have to tell my family members and I have to tell this person. I'm like, "Do you. Don't stress me over what I need to do or what I don't want to do." It's obvious he's not even sorry. He's not even thinking through everything. I've received four emails from him after that letter and I haven't read them, but I just don't know what else to do.

Marc Cameron: Jane, are you still living with your husband?

Jane: Yes, I am.

Marc Cameron: But you're not talking to one another. Is that why he's sending you emails?

Jane: He's sending emails for documentation because I sent the letter of separation via email.

Marc Cameron: So it wasn't an official legal separation. It was just you saying to him, "I want to be separated from you." Is that correct?

Jane: I want a legal separation at this point.

Marc Cameron: But you haven't served him with legal separation. You just sent him a letter of intent saying that you want to. Correct?

Jane: Exactly.

Marc Cameron: What do you want to change? Has that been clear?

Jane: What I really want to change is for us to go to counseling. We've gone through different people counseling us, but I feel that there are deep-seated issues he's having with me and he just goes to counseling and lies. He just cooks up everything and makes it look beautiful. I'm like, there are core issues that are not being addressed. He won't go back to counseling if I said let's register for some more. He's going to say, "Well, who's going to pay for that?"

This has been over and over and I'm just exhausted. One of the things I was trying to get assistance to pay some of the bills and he won't even release his pay stubs to me. I can't get assistance for anything. Whenever I put a hypothetical amount because we were earning about the same range at some point, they tell me I'm overqualified and I can't get assistance because my income is above.

I feel that when I do this separation, I'm going to probably reach out to Human Services. I just need to get my bills paid and at least some support from someone who's been working, collecting everything, and getting the promotions and it's not showing.

Alice Benton: Jane, it actually sounds like he financially mistreats you and maybe even financially abuses you. He'll allow the kitchen cupboards to go empty while he's off at a restaurant eating? Did I understand that correctly?

Jane: Correct.

Alice Benton: Do you have minor children in the house?

Jane: I do. Two, age 12 and 10.

Alice Benton: With that information, I think this is becoming a much more dire situation in my understanding of it than I first believed. He is letting your children go hungry and he has savings but he is not willing to use them, but he's willing to let you empty your savings. I'm thinking that this is a dangerous situation. I think you were right to write that letter of separation. Because his response to you has just been more anger, he has not become humble, he's not been remorseful, and he's not doing deep work in therapy. He's doing surface compliance in therapy from what you're saying.

Then I think you need to talk with a lawyer. You need to find out what your rights are so that your children can have enough food on the table for them.

Marc Cameron: It makes sense why you feel unsafe in this situation. The positive benefit I should say about a legal separation is actually from that point on it separates your finances from the other person so that whatever financial decisions they make, you are not responsible for. Then as you said, then you'll get to be able to give a more accurate reflection of what your finances really are and you may qualify for some other benefits.

That may be a good course of action for you in this situation because it does sound financially unsafe. Then I think what I would guide you to here is to specifically say what it is going to take for you guys to be able to resolve and heal your relationship. I need us to be able to go to therapy and talk about the core issues. I need you to be open to be able to do that. I need you to be willing to listen to me in therapy as I will try and listen to you or to allow the counselor to guide and direct us. Then there may also be, which would make sense, parameters around him being able to tap into his finances so that the finances are shared if you guys are going to be in a marital union together because that's how it should be, both people supporting one another in that.

Jane: Absolutely.

Alice Benton: Jane, I want your next calls to be to an attorney, and I might even go through a domestic violence shelter to get a list of attorneys who are skilled in financial abuse. I'd have you call your pastor, and hopefully your pastor might have some influence with your husband because what we want is healthy reconciliation. We don't want divorce for you. God doesn't want that for you, but this is not a safe situation.

I'm going to disagree with Marc on something. I think your husband has shown himself to be already so untrustworthy in couples therapy. Marc, I think individual therapy for the husband should be the next step where you would ask him to have his individual counselor call you when he's able to talk about these true problems that are happening in our marriage and his part in them. Otherwise, he's playing with a couples therapist and he's misusing couples therapy.

Once I got the feedback from an individual therapist that yes, he's really talking about his anger, he's talking about how he won't share his savings with you and why he's doing that, then there's some evidence that he might be more trustworthy to come back into couples therapy.

Lastly, I think you all need a financial coach. Maybe your husband is acting out of fear. Maybe he grew up in poverty, so maybe he thinks this is the best way to safeguard the future of the family. But we know he's making some huge mistakes here that are detrimental to your children.

Jane: Absolutely.

Brian Perez: All right, Jane. Thanks for calling in today to New Life LIVE. What do you think of the advice given to you by Marc and Alice?

Jane: I think that's really helpful. I spoke with my brother today and he was upset. My husband is going to be calling him and just trying to save face. I'm just stressed. I'm very tired.

Alice Benton: When a person is that deceptive like your husband is, he is saving face whether that's in the couples counseling or with your brother. Then further separation is what is needed. He's got to lose more. He has not yet hit his bottom in his willingness to say, "Okay, I'm wrong. I'm imperfect. There are some things I can change about myself." He's not there. Unfortunately, we have to take away more privileges. We have to take away the access that he has to you. He may even need to be separated from his children for a time to come to value who you all are and to be willing to learn how to treat you well. It's so sad, but that's what his behavior is telling me right now.

Brian Perez: Why do people lie in counseling sessions? I mean, don't they go to the sessions to try to become better people? Instead, they lie about themselves, they lie about the situation, they make the other person look bad. Why do you think they do? Do they not want to improve?

Marc Cameron: Not everybody goes to couples therapy voluntarily. Sometimes they go because their spouse is the one who's really the driver of improvement. Sometimes they go to appease their spouse because they're not really looking to change, but they're going so that they can continue the cycle that is benefiting them.

I agree with Alice in the sense of if couples therapy isn't working, then don't continue to spin your wheels in that. I think what a challenge could be, though, is when you do go to individual therapy, that therapist aligns with you. So if they don't get to meet your spouse and all they hear is the story that you're telling them, if somebody is not truthful and is very good at spinning a situation, that therapist may guide them to hold boundaries rather than to learn how do they lean into areas of growth.

When a therapist is able to see two people, it's easier to assess what the dynamic is between both parties. There's different benefits of both going separately and then both going to the same counselor, but ultimately if you're going to move back into relationship with him, you are both going to be able to need to be in a room where he can be open, where he can be honest, where he can be somebody who does have a mindset that he's wanting to seek to improve and help you feel safe.

Alice Benton: I think we lie in therapy because we're afraid and we're ashamed. Probably telling the truth brought us more harm than good in the past. I've had clients who have worked with me sometimes even for years, and it's not till year three that they say, "Okay, now I'm ready to tell you. Now I'm ready to tell you my story of pain that before I couldn't tell you."

It can take that long to build sufficient trust in your therapist in the environment, especially if you grew up in a very unsafe environment where truth-telling was not rewarded, it was punished. I think it's the human condition to hide. Adam and Eve, they went and they hid because they were ashamed because they knew they had done wrong. They were afraid of what God would do to them. We hide. It takes so much courage and safety to come out of hiding and say, "This is the heavy thing I did or the heavy thing I'm carrying with me."

Brian Perez: When you guys are doing a couples session, can you tell when one of the parties might be trying to pull the wool over your eyes?

Marc Cameron: Yeah, I think if you've had enough sessions with them or it depends on how a person presents themselves and the language that they use. People who are really truly wanting to grow are vulnerable and they're humble. When you see a lack of that, then it creates this resistance.

Brian Perez: Jane, thanks so much for your phone call today here on New Life LIVE. It is time for us to take our break, but Susan, you're going to be next. Are you there, Susan? Don't hang up because we're going to get to you.

Becky Brown: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

Brian Perez: Susan is in Phoenix, Arizona, listening on SiriusXM Channel 131. Thank you, Susan, for calling in to New Life LIVE. How can we help you?

Susan: I am in a women's Bible study and have been for many years, although this one is in its second year with the people in it. My husband and I are both actually professionals, but he sold our practice and anyway, he does handyman and building construction type work. He remodeled a bathroom for one of the women in my group.

Then things got messy. She spun the story about how all that went and that they had two phases of their project and had other people come in knowingly that she had another phase of it to go, saying, "I don't know what he's doing." She's a widow. No one asked my husband about it. She's lying about my husband. She withheld the final payment from him.

I just don't know how to address it. I went to the leader of the Bible study, who I'm better friends with than the one he did the work for. Pretty good friends. Anyway, and she just wasn't having it. She was like, "No, I saw her, she was crying, she was very upset about this." She's like completely been played. I tried to tell her and she's like, "Of course you're his wife, you have to stick up for him."

I was like, "Listen, we've worked together in a professional capacity for almost 30 years. I don't just take his side. I know this is not who he would be or what he would do and I also know because I was involved with some of the project helping her pick out the tile, that there were two phases and that you're not getting the whole story."

I'm wondering how to proceed because my conversation with the leader of the Bible study didn't go so well. I know people know about it, at least a core group of three to five, and there's maybe 12 in the Bible study. We live in a small retirement community, a lot of us are snowbirds, so everyone kind of gets to know everyone. It's kind of a micro-community.

Alice Benton: Susan, did she complain directly to you or you heard about her complaint secondhand?

Susan: I heard about her complaint through my husband when he came home and told me she wasn't going to pay him and that she was acting strange and all this kind of stuff. Then I chose to speak to my friend that runs the Bible study because I knew she would know about it.

Marc Cameron: With whatever it is that she's unhappy about, is she willing to work with your husband to resolve it or is she saying no, I'm going just to hire someone else and I'm not going to pay you the last final payment?

Susan: She's going to just hire someone else and she is acting like he threatened her or he made her feel intimidated or something like that. It just bothers me because my husband is a big strong man and he does have a past and things like that, but I've also worked with him in a professional setting. He knows this is a small community. I just know he wouldn't speak like that to her. It's just a hard thing because it's an easy accusation to make to deflect from "I don't want to pay my bill" onto "is he safe?"

Alice Benton: This is so uncomfortable in a place you're going to a Bible study trying to get closer to God and sisters and this rumor, this lie, is swirling in the group. What did you mean when you said your husband has a past, even though he didn't do what this lady said?

Susan: I mean, he had a hard upbringing and he's done a lot of work to work through things. The friend that runs the Bible study doesn't know my husband well, but she knows even he and I have had our issues in the past. I'm just not one of those women who is not going to see his fault in it. I don't think he's blameless. I think he said a few things that weren't optimal, but I don't think he threatened her.

Marc Cameron: He may not have threatened her for her to feel threatened. Does that make sense?

Susan: Yes, I get that. But that takes it down a whole lane. In my opinion, she's trying to get out of the payment and she's willing to ruin someone's reputation about it. Then she's saying to the Bible study leader, "Oh, he talks to me like that. I can't even imagine how he talks to her." That is just not what's happening in my marriage. So she's kind of blending some things here. She's projecting some things here. Is she wanting to pay someone else to fix whatever she thinks is wrong or not done to her liking?

Susan: She wants to just pay someone to complete the project, which she would have had to pay him anyway, but she withheld some payment.

Marc Cameron: Either way, this is the challenge when there's these dual relationships going on. I guess I'm just trying to lead you to see that she may not see it as a lie and she may see and she may see it as that she did feel threatened. In this situation, it's hard because you have this other relationship where you do spiritual life together.

I would guide to try and find resolution. The Bible tells us to do that, to try and get someone else involved to see how we can find resolution. Because I think what I would say to you is to be open to. Sometimes these situations don't work out fairly, by the way. They just don't. Sometimes that's part of what we need to accept, even though it's unfair.

Susan: That's what I'm asking the Lord. Is this just one of those? I'll just have to take my lumps and pray. But I'm trying to decide how do I move forward in this Bible study. Do I act like nothing happened? Do I try for more understanding?

Marc Cameron: What can you learn from the situation? If the Bible study leader is seeing something legitimate in what this other person is communicating, I would just be open to hearing what she has to say. Susan, when I'm trying to talk to you, you're very quick to shut it down. So my guidance to you is just to be open to hear what somebody has to say and recognize when you might be having a pattern like that happening with you. I know it's a difficult situation. But what you need to do is to learn how do I go into this situation and try and see if I can find resolution with another person and be open to listening and hearing what they have to say to you.

Alice Benton: Susan, can you receive that from Marc, that you're quick to respond to him and kind of say, "No, or I already did"?

Susan: Yeah, and I think probably partly is it something I need to work on, but also partly I'm feeling like I have a time limit and I want to be clearly understood.

Alice Benton: It's hard to get the whole story out in this brief amount of time. I think it's important for you and your husband to decide what you value most. If you value the justice of the business situation, then maybe you go to small claims court and it gets figured out there and she's perhaps forced to pay your husband. If you value the relationships in the community, then maybe you do let that money go and you let the righteousness of what truly happened, you let it go.

Instead, you say to the woman complaining, "Can we have a coffee date?" and you work to build a bridge with her, even though you'll never agree on what happened with your husband. But maybe you hear her out in a different way. You've heard us talk about the comfort circle on New Life and that helps to slow us down from the quick responses that you're giving to Marc.

Even if we fully disagree and actually know that she's incorrect, she's lying in fact, but you want relationship with her, then the goal of this kind of coffee date would be not who's right and who's wrong, but I just want to understand you. When people lie or misrepresent, I usually suspect that she might be projecting something onto your husband that has little to nothing to do with him, but there was a big angry man in her past. That man lied to her, and your husband is just in the splash zone of what that man did to her.

Or maybe she's a liar. I struggle with lying myself. I'm in recovery with lying. A liar might say to other people are lying, but it's to protect ourselves, but really we're the one that's lying. There could be all kinds of complicated psychological things going on with this woman, and there probably are.

What do you value most? Where are you willing to lay down your right and maybe take a sacrificial position to have a healing conversation with this lady? But you get to decide what to do with that and what not to do. When I've been falsely accused by someone, if I take this comfort circle approach I'm suggesting to you and I'm not out there to tell them how wrong they are, I'm out there to understand. Why did you experience me in that way? Tell me more. Tell me stories. Tell me who in your past acted like you felt like I acted towards you.

Susan, I almost always come to the end of that with compassion and understanding of maybe I wasn't in the wrong, but I usually have a little bit of wrong in me. But definitely there was pain in their life that spilled over onto me because I reminded them of somebody.

The last thing I'm going to do is just give you a gentle challenge. I think you're a little hesitant to acknowledge, although you did, and I give you credit for that, but you're a little hesitant to acknowledge that your husband can say things he shouldn't, he can be unprofessional, and he has a past, whatever that means. You didn't tell us much about that. That might come out and leak out more than he's aware of and maybe more than you want to acknowledge. That's a tough thing to hear about a husband who's come so far from where he used to be.

Marc Cameron: I truly empathize with your situation. I've been in situations where it's been very unfair and it's been unjust. What I'm trying to guide you to is when we can't change a situation, we're challenged to see what is it about ourselves that we can change.

I'm wanting you to see what might this be triggering in you and how can you use this as an opportunity to recondition a part of you that needs growth. I was like you. I had a vacillator attachment style that I came out of childhood with. One of the vacillator's triggers is feeling misunderstood. I would explain and I would overexplain and I would really take up more of the air in the room than really wanting to listen and hear the other person out. That was a growth area for me, was to learn how do I do that, how do I find balance and to recognize it was my feelings of being misunderstood that were leaking out and causing me to shut the other person down so that they didn't feel heard.

What do you think of all this?

Susan: I think that those are good things to think about. I think possibly what's being triggered in me a little more is more abandonment. Fear of losing all those friendships.

Marc Cameron: That is a real pain point for you and I truly empathize with that.

Alice Benton: Susan, when you said that, you got real soft. Before you had a fighter stance with your fists up. When you're in the fighter stance, sometimes you have to be and you defend yourself, but that keeps people at more of a distance. When you got vulnerable and said, "I'm afraid of losing friends," I lean in. I want to know more. I want to come close to you.

Susan, one more thing and then I'll hear what you have to say. I hope you'll go back to your Bible study and say, "Girls, sometimes I'm worried about losing friendships because you all mean so much to me." So I just want to lay that fear out there without even explaining why, but share what you just shared with us because that will draw them in closer to you.

Marc Cameron: That's where the healing will occur when they can affirm you and they can give you acceptance and you can be vulnerable. That's what will reduce that trigger. Even if this situation ends up unfair, you can find some healing in this.

Susan: I think it will end up unfair is my gut and just the discernment that I am sensing. I think my husband is even like, "Whatever," but for me it's just a little harder with all the relational aspect. Anyway, and then in terms of addressing it with people who I'm fairly certain it's been addressed with. I know this is a call-in radio show and the whole world needs to be paying attention if big strong men are abusing their power. I think it's an easy thing to say. I have only sons. I maybe have some seeing things from a man's point of view as a mother because I don't have any daughters and obviously I'm a woman. I have women friends and female relatives and things, but that's just the hard part for me.

Marc Cameron: Let me give you a last bit of encouragement and I don't mean this in a way to try to put a positive spin on it by the way, but just something that helps me out is when I've had these situations, I've had to think about the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair. If I got what I deserve, it wouldn't be the grace and the healing that Jesus gives to me. I've had to hold on to that and keep reminding of myself of that when life has been unfair to me. So I hope that offers a little bit of encouragement to you.

Alice Benton: I'm going to tell that to my kids tonight, Marc, because they complain about life not being fair. That's a great way to put it.

Brian Perez: Susan, it was so great talking to you today here on New Life LIVE. We appreciate your phone call. We're going to take a break. Check out our website, newlife.com.

Becky Brown: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

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Brian Perez: Let's talk to Carol in Detroit who's watching us rather on DirectTV Channel 378, NRBTV. Welcome, Carol, to New Life LIVE.

Carol: Thank you for taking my call. I've got so many questions, I think, but to start out, in the Bible it says how we have a sound mind. I'm really emotional today. I've got health problems, things going on. Anyway, the Bible says that we have a sound mind in one verse.

Marc Cameron: Where does it say that, Carol?

Carol: I'm not sure, but I know God has given us a sound mind. So why are there so many depressions going on with people?

Brian Perez: If God has given us a sound mind, why are there so many depressed Christians? Carol, are you experiencing depression and is it hard to see where God is in this and why He's letting you go through it?

Carol: Yes.

Brian Perez: And I bet you've been a pretty faithful Christian and you're not reaping what you've been sowing all these years.

Carol: I've been a Christian for a long time and then going through a battle with IBS and I didn't get to church for a year. I had a lot of things. My husband was hard on me, but he was just trying to get me to go to church. Now it's hard to go back.

Brian Perez: Does it scare you how God might be reacting to you not being in church for a year?

Carol: Not since I talked to my pastor. He said God knows what's going on with you.

Brian Perez: Before that reassurance, you were worried about God punishing you for not attending church.

Carol: Yes.

Brian Perez: And your husband has been hard on you. Would you say it's even perhaps been to the point of being verbally mistreated?

Carol: A little bit, yeah. But he doesn't want to be that way. I mean, he's got a lot of positive affirmations for me sometimes.

Brian Perez: He says good things as well. Carol, did you grow up in a harsh family?

Carol: No, but my dad died when I was 11.

Brian Perez: Oh, my goodness. Even without knowing more of your story, you are embattled. You just have gone through some very difficult things. Why does God allow it? Why don't you have the sound mind you think the Bible says that we have? I found that passage, by the way. It's 2 Timothy 1:7 in the New King James. It says, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

Marc Cameron: So that's talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, those are the attributes of the Holy Spirit. But we need to, it sounds like you feel bad because you don't have that sound mind and you are depressed. Depression is real, Carol. Life takes a toll on us. It sounds like you've had a lot that has happened in your past that would cause a person to feel sad, that would cause a person to have great grief that they need to process and go through.

Sometimes we look at Bible verses and we just take them singularly out of context and we think, "Okay, but I shouldn't feel like this. I shouldn't be like this." It's those "shoulds" or those "shouldn'ts" that keep us stuck, instead of acknowledging that God created this body, God created me with emotions. God feels grieved and God feels sad. The Bible says that God is jealous at times.

God experiences these emotions and He's created us in His image. Our emotional self is not to, at least in our human bodies here and probably in our heavenly bodies if God experiences these emotions, they're not to be separated from us. They're not to be dismissed from us. This is a real lived experience that you're going through. Oftentimes the path to healing is learning how do we process our grief, how do we learn how to feel our feelings and manage them and receive comfort and process them in a safe place. That's oftentimes where the healing comes.

Alice Benton: I would say, Carol, that that sound mind is an ideal for us to strive for, to be so fully filled with the Holy Spirit that we share that sound mind that the Holy Spirit has. But I think the Bible also displays that we have sickened minds and sick hearts that are not trustworthy and that we have to renew our mind to not be conformed to the pattern of the world. It's a fight, it's a battle that we're in towards sanctification, and it's lifelong.

It helps me, Carol, to be able to see that somebody like Elijah, as he was a man of God, he had miraculous power from God, but right after one of his greatest triumphs of defeating the prophets of Baal, he was so depressed he wanted to die. He was suicidal. If that man of God could fall that low emotionally and God still loved him through it and He sent him help and rest and food from the birds, he got depressed.

If Jesus sorrowed to the point of death, He was sweating blood, He was in such anguish, if that happened to our God, then we can be both comforted in knowing I'm not the only one. If He could love suicidal Elijah, then He can still love me no matter how dark my thoughts have been and how little I've been able to show up at church because of IBS. Oh, my goodness. He loves you and He understands you, Carol. But I think you haven't experienced enough human love. You lost your dad young. Your husband can be a harsh guy at times.

You're afraid to go back to church and I get that because when you fall out of a pattern and a habit, it's so hard to go back and you don't trust your body, I don't think. But you know, Carol, God's answer to depression in part is people. It's getting loved on. If you haven't seen your doctor lately, if you haven't talked about a psychiatrist and getting on medication, an antidepressant, medications are so good today, they're so effective. That may also be a challenging course, but a good psychiatrist can help you get there.

Marc Cameron: Carol, your feelings are real and they matter and you can't think your way out of depression. Get in with your doctor, get in with a therapist, and allow that person to be able to be compassionate and kind to you and guide you in some next steps.

Brian Perez: Stay on the phone. We want to send you a tip sheet called Eight Things to Do on a Bad Day. We'll also put that in the show notes there so that you can order it. Thank you so much for calling in today, Carol, to New Life LIVE.

If you're feeling stuck in addiction, grief, anxiety, or broken relationships, you are not alone. Connecting with a life recovery group from New Life allows you to discover practical tools and biblical truth from the 12 steps of life recovery designed to help you heal, grow, and thrive. You can find out more at newlife.com. That's all the time we have on today's episode. For Marc Cameron and Dr. Alice Benton, I'm Brian Perez, and we'll talk to you next time.

Thanks so much for listening. We hope something you heard will help you live in freedom today. If this content was helpful for you, we would love it if you would take a minute, leave a review, post about it, and rate it. Remember, we have resources and workshops online for you as you continue your journey. Go to newlife.com to find out more information. And thank you for being part of the New Life community. We know that God desires all of us to live a life of wholeness and healing, and we're so glad that you're here.