Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / The Rooted Woman: Healing the Hidden Places
Transcript
- Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Hello and welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I'm your host, Courtney. I'm the face behind her mind on Mission on social media. And right now we are in the Rooted Woman audio series. This is going to be episode two after the introduction. So if you need to go back and listen to the intro and listen to episode one, go ahead and do that. But we are in episode two today. We're going to be talking about healing the hidden places. I'm going to keep sharing a little bit Courtney Her Mind on Mission: Thank you so much for tuning in to the Mission for More podcast. I am so grateful that we are breaking these things down, that we are going deeper, and that we are growing rooted together. Be sure to tune in next week for the next episode as we continue in this 12-week series. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: a more about my own testimony and where I have struggled and the victories that I have seen, leaving you with some encouragement and hopefully some questions to think about and ponder. I just hope that you will listen with an open heart and an open mind to receive whatever the Lord has for you as we continue through this series. So I posted something on social media for June first, by the time you've listened to this, and it just talks about building habits in June and not really continuing to start over. You know, it's a Monday on the first of the month. And I feel like that is like the perfect setup for people who constantly start over. It's like, okay, it's a new month, it's a new week, it's the first, like, why not start now? And then we get like six days in and we feel like we failed once again because we're not checking all 10 boxes. And if you go back and listen to other episodes, I talk about that, how we cannot do all things with excellence. And so we can do some things with greater excellence if we focus on smaller 1% changes. And ⁓ I I just kept thinking about that thought like, what if the issue is not that you are failing? What if that you are just you know carrying things from wounded places and performing out of a place of expectation that maybe other people have put on you or you've put on yourself in a season where you were really going through the ringer, right? And I was just talking with my husband about this, like ⁓ coming out of that season of performance and perfectionism. Like, I do not want to go back into it. I do not want to fall back into that season. And so I was talking about precautions for myself to not move back into a place of perfectionism and to continue to go on this route that I've been on of just you know, it's it's kind of like you take one step off the path and I just have to kind of like tap my leg and be like, Hey, back over here, you know? And I think that's what the Lord does with us too, but we call it failing. And we put this immense pressure on ourselves to yeah, just to to carry these things and and meet these expectations and perform in a way that we think we need to. ⁓ and I think sometimes that can put even more opportunities for us to fail on our shoulders because we are doing this out of a a place of hurt instead of a place of healing. And so I just wonder, have you ever looked at your life and and thought why certain struggles keep resurfacing? Sometimes we say like I'm going around this mountain again or why am I revisiting this again? why you keep reacting the same way? W why you have the same fears and you can't get over them. Why ⁓ know the truth in your head. ⁓ But you still feel stuck in like these emotional responses and emotional cycles that you have. And maybe like you've prayed about it and you've surrendered, and maybe even read some books about it, or you know, started over time and time again to try and kind of like fix this thing in your life. But somehow the anxious feeling returns or overwhelm comes back, or you feel frustrated again, or you recognize that response that you really didn't want to have come out of you once again. Here it is. and for me. ⁓ For so many years, I thought the answer was like I had to try harder. Be more organized, be more disciplined, be more productive, be more consistent. And as I'm saying all those, ⁓ my goodness, like my heart rate starts going because I know the pressure that comes with trying to do all those things. And it is a pressure that is not sustainable. And that's why it's a pressure that often crushes women. And we wonder, like, why am I here again? It's like, well, I keep doing these same routines that lead to the same outcome. I'm not changing the input at all to get a different outcome. And for me, the Lord was showing me over time like, hey, the fruit of my life, like that outcome wasn't the issue. It was that my roots were the issue and the input was the issue and these these band aids that I kept putting over the hurts that I had in my life or things that I didn't want to talk about because like I said last episode, sometimes those things are really painful. ⁓ the things that I didn't want people to know about me or see, that is where the Lord wanted to touch the most. Like he was just waiting. It's like, you know, when you're like really excited for your child to walk and you're like, ⁓ my goodness, like he's standing, he's standing. ⁓ he fell down again. And you're not like mad at them for falling down again. You're just like, I thought that was the moment when he was gonna take his first steps. And you are waiting with such eager anticipation for them to take their first steps. And the Lord is doing that with us with those unhealed places in our hearts. He's like, I just can't wait for you to take that first step and open up to me because there's so much healing that I have for you. But you have to be willing and able to receive it. And many times when we are ⁓ going to receive it, it it often requires it's like a splinter. Like he has to remove that first. And letting somebody in, even the Lord, into those places, can be really, really, really challenging. I know because I pushed it off for many, many years when I shouldn't have. So I want to start there, just talking about life beneath beneath the surface. And I think one of the biggest mistakes that I made for so many years was focusing ⁓ almost like entirely on what was visible, like the visible things that I could produce for other people that I could produce for myself. I wanted visible progress and visible results. ⁓ and I wanted to be more patient and to be more peaceful and to be more disciplined, to be emotionally steady, to not have too big of emotions for off you know, for so long I was told that I was like over dramatic, but I just had big emotions because no one knew what was going on on the inside. And I kept it on the inside and I tried to focus on it on the inside and I tried to take care of it myself because I felt like I couldn't open up to anybody because I was just too much for the people around me. And once I started to be able to have those relationships in my life with people who could hear it and not shame me for it and who could hear it and who could walk with me through it and point me back to the foot of the cross in it. I I couldn't get to that place because I was just trying to to stuff it down because I was like, Well, I'm good with what you see outside, but internally we're we're not going there. Okay. We're we're just not We're not going there. ⁓ and so and I wanna say this too: like none of those desires are wrong. It's not wrong to want to be more patient or to want to appear to respond better or to appear to be emotionally steady. Like those things are not inherently wrong. The the thing that is wrong about it is going about it from the wrong heart posture, right? So if my heart posture is I care so much more about what people think. Than what I'm allowing God to touch in my heart because I I don't want to go there. That is not the best heart posture for walking into a place of healing. And so just like think about that for a moment. Do you stuff your emotions? Do you focus only on the visible outcomes in your life? And are you doing it because of fear of man or performance for other people? Or are you doing that because that's all you know? And maybe you don't know how to. go deeper otherwise because of past hurts, really think about that and sit with it because i if we don't recognize it and I say this often, if we don't recognize it and we we don't acknowledge it, then we're not going to be able to move past it. We have to call it what it is, right? So I keep trying to relate all these things to like trees because we're talking about the rooted woman. And it's so funny because in church recently they were talking about the redwood trees and how there's like this intertangling of the root system, and sometimes even new trees grow from that intertwined root system and just talking about how how amazing that whole creation is of the redwood trees. And I think sometimes we have to look at things that the Lord has created to really understand ourselves and our lives and what h we ought to do what he created us to do. And if you think about a tree, if we see that leaves are are dying, we don't just like go and tape new leaves on the tree, right? It would that would be funny. If you like went past somebody's house and you're like, is he taping like fake trees or leaves on the tree? You would be like that That's not gonna last, buddy. You know, that's not gonna withstand the storms and things like that. Those are not going to, ⁓ the tape is not gonna stick up there forever. And so when we're looking at trees that are are sick, you often look at their root system and the soil. You're you have to look beneath the surface to try and figure out how we can help that tree to continue to grow, right? But many of us, instead of looking beneath the ⁓ system our our lives and looking beneath the the soil ⁓ and going into the roots that we have. We look at the surface. We only look at the surface, right? The visible things, the outward things. Many of us spend years trying to fix our lives and we avoid what's actually going on internally so that we're only managing symptoms. We're only putting band-aids on old hurts. We're hiding things that we're struggling with. And underneath when we do that, I know for a fact that in this season when I was struggling the most with like depression and anxiety, it's because I was like, I can't let anyone know. what's going on with me. And this was in my postpartum season when everything really like came to the surface. And I was trying so hard. Like nobody can know how bad I'm struggling because that would make me like no longer would it just make me fail as a woman. Right. I now I'm a mother and I don't want to be looked at like I'm failing myself and I'm failing my child. So I have to hide it now more than ever. And that thought, I couldn't function past it. Honestly, it was so crippling. And the anxiety only grew, and resentment only grew, and bitterness only grew, and fear only grew, and exhaustion only grew until I was at this place where I was like, I cannot handle this anymore. And I just broke. I completely broke because I was not tending to what was underneath the soil. And that's going to affect every area of our lives if we continue in that direction. So I want talk about the exhaustion that we often don't name and we often don't talk about as Christian women. Because I think even as as mothers, too, if you're listening to this as a mom or even as a friend or as a wife, we often, when there's other people involved in our lives, more so than ever, like I, you know, gave in the example of me postpartum, we don't want to fail because not only would we be failing ourselves, but we'd be failing other people. And then you add the Christian label on it, and we don't want to fail God. We don't want to fail God. But God already knows what we struggle with. God already knows what's beneath the surface. And we still, yeah, we still try to hide it. It's so funny. It's like he knew where Adam and Eve were, but they were running and hiding because they were ashamed. And we do the same thing. It started in the garden and it still happens today. We carry all these things emotionally and we have too much responsibility, too much pressure, too much expectations, too many shoulds in our lives. And we're trying to be everything for everyone. And in my season of doing that, I looked at it and was like, Wow, I am trying to play God in my life because the only person who could be everything for everyone is the Lord. And yet I'm still here trying to do it myself. What am I doing? Like I was trying to be a good wife and a good mom and a good employee and a good friend and a good daughter and a good Christian. And somewhere along the way, I was believing that my worth was attached to how I perform. And do you do that in your life? Do you believe that your worth is attached to how you're performing in this season? And it's okay if you say yes. I know I've been there. There are seasons where I looked super capable, super functional on the outside. Responsibilities were getting done, boxes were getting checked, but internally I was literally running on fumes. I was so stretched. I was so depleted. I was so exhausted. And when we get to that point, it can be very difficult as Christian women to remain rooted in the word and rooted in Christ. In those seasons, I think it feels like we're far from Christ, but really we're just distracting ourselves with all of these things that we think that we need to do, that we are the ones creating that distance, but we don't want to call it that because we still want to be a good Christian, a good daughter, right? And so we're adding even more pressure on top of it. And it's like, ⁓ my goodness. Like I look at myself in that season and I'm like, I just want to wrap my arms around that version of me and be like, girl, let it all go. Let it all go. It's it's okay if people look at you and think, What is she doing? And people did in that season when I left work. And I was, you know, freshly postpartum and I had my maternity leave. I came back and I could not do it. I I could not do it. I needed a season of healing. I needed to figure out how to be a mom with a colicky baby with with reflux. Like I I needed to be able to learn all these things and I did not have the time to do it. And more than anything, I needed to learn how to walk with the Lord, how I mentioned in the last episode, how to truly actually trust him, then how to make him Lord of my life over every single area. And I could not do that with all of those plates spinning. And people People said, What was the point of going to college? I can't believe she's just giving up. ⁓ people even at work were making remarks. You know, we had like a grand opening ⁓ in that season of the things that I was doing was helping out opening up one of their places in ⁓ closer to my hometown and there were people there from work and I heard them whispering because they all knew that I was leaving at that point. But I wanted to see it through because I'm like, I'm a finisher. I'm not just gonna like up and quit and leave people to my responsibilities and not make sure that I'm fulfilling the duties that I said that I would do. And so I'm gonna run the race and I'm gonna reach the finish line. But after that I need to take a step back. And it was for my own mental health, but nobody Could see that because they didn't see fully what was going on internally, because I wasn't letting people into that. I think some people knew what was going on, but most people had absolutely no idea. So it was confusing to them. But I had to get to a place where I was like, I don't care if people are rejecting me, I don't care if people are talking about me. I don't care what other people think I care about me being the best version of me, because now I'm extending this to a daughter that's watching me. be who I am. And if she's watching me crumble, I don't want her to learn from that. I want her to learn from something else. But more importantly, I want to be able to say, no, this is for me. This is my relationship with the Lord. If I can't set that example because it's for me and I'm only ever doing it for my daughter or for my children, for my husband, for other people. How can they replicate that and make it their own in their lives? And so I knew that this was something that I really needed to do. And I want to give you permission. If you are in a season where you know you need to pull back and walk into things a little bit differently, do it. Do it. And don't be afraid of what other people are going to think of you. If you know that you're being obedient to the Lord and you are surrendering to him in a deeper way that he's calling you into, just do it. Just do it. I want to talk about when we open that door now to the Lord and God begins to dig deeper, right? The difficult thing about healing is that God normally starts the in the places that we don't want him to start at. We're like, hey, this is cool. You can touch this area, but this is like untouchable. And usually he's like, ⁓ no, no, no. Like we're gonna go back to this thing that you don't want to because I can't fully fix these other areas until this thing is addressed. And you know, we want him to like fix our what I talked about earlier, our reactions, our responses, ⁓ help us to be more disciplined. But he wants to first address our identity. He wants to address our identity as his daughters. He wants us to know that we are his, right? And so often the attack of the enemy is on our identity. Whether it comes in the form of pride or it comes in the form of shame, maybe it's our own sin. But when we our identity is lost, that's when we're wandering and we don't have anything to cling to. A tree knows it's a tree, okay? And its its roots know they are roots, and they know exactly what to do. A tree just it lives. It does what it's supposed to do because its identity is a tree. It's not trying to be a flower, it's not trying to be a butterfly, it's not trying to be a bird, it is a tree. And so will we just be Daughters of the Most High King, first and foremost, before anything else. Because God wants to come in and heal our fears. He wants to come in and address that identity. He wants to expose the pressure that we're carrying that we are not telling anybody about. And we're just trying to secretly carry it all. And he already sees it and he already knows and he wants to help us with it. God never, you know, wanted us to just have like temporary system or symptom or Pain management. You know, he wants us to be fully free, free indeed. He's so interested and invested in our freedom in him that he would give his son to die for our sins, that he would say that we could be free, free indeed in Christ Jesus, that he would tell us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And he would trust that we would want to cling to those things. And he knew that we would struggle with it in the process. He wants all those things for us. Will we allow him in? Will we be honest with him about the way that we're thinking? Will we be honest with him about the wounds that we're carrying? Will we be honest with him about the things that we fear and the lies that we have believed? Will you be honest with the Lord? For me, the lies was, you know, or were, you know, believing that I could just get everything under control, like then I would feel peaceful if I could just like. control everything in my life, like that somehow I would be able to do the things that I needed to do in greater measure. But it w control was not going to create peace in my life in all reality. It was actually stealing it. And I needed to realize that and move into a place of surrender. And once I did that, the Lord started poking at different areas of my life and in such a gentle way, because he's such a good father and he cares so deeply. And I can't even imagine if he was like, hey, we're gonna work on everything at once. Like we're just gonna like go super deep in these areas. I was not ready for it. And he knew that. And so one by one I felt like things would be highlighted or I would recognize a response in a different way and be so convicted about it. And then sit with him through it and and really ⁓ try to process why those things were there. And then when I felt, you know, that that prompting in my heart like you need to to discover this. You need to go back to this thing. You need to talk about this. You need to forgive this person. I would sit with him until I was able to do it because I wanted my healing so badly. And I think healing first for me started in my thought life. And maybe that's not what it looks like for you, but I think for many of us it will. One of the hidden places that ⁓ God wants to address is our thought life. That's why he says take every thought captive. ⁓ not every single thought deserves us to be in agreement with it. We don't have to believe the lie that we will never measure up, that we're failing, that we're falling behind. We don't have to agree with that. You can recognize it and then say I'm right where God wants me to be. And maybe I'm I'm dragging my feet. Lord, reveal to me where I'm I have hesitation or I'm not confident and I need to move forward with you in a deeper way. And you just pray that prayer and you trust that He's going to walk you through it. Not every fear in our lives deserves authority over our lives. Not every anxious thought deserves to be believed. Yet we sit there and we ponder on it and we stew on it. And then that one thought becomes 10. And now we feel like we're trapped again. And we have to know how to surrender it. to the Lord. I love the book ⁓ Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Rochelle. It's just very, very simple, practical testimony and like here are the steps. To kind of going through the thought life and understanding how to truly win the war in your mind. I read that as I was coming out of that season of really struggling with my thought life. And so I highly recommend that for anybody who's like, Man, I really don't know how to overcome some of these thoughts. I think it's a great read just to go through. And like I said, there's it's biblical truth, practical application, met with testimony, and you just feel seen and heard, but it's ⁓ just enough. To be like, okay, I can do this next step without feeling like this is way too much for me. ⁓ so I I recommend grabbing that if you don't have it already. Feelings are are real, but I want to say feelings are not reliable. So it's okay if you feel a certain way because of a thought that you've had. And we need to learn how to pause. That's what God taught me in that season was pausing and sitting in it for a moment and not to stew in it, not to dwell in it, but to sit in it long enough to recognize, okay, where did that come from? Why did I have that? what's going on here and to start asking questions and processing it with him so that I could understand a little bit more about what I needed to change, which direction I needed to move in and why these things were looking the way that they did. Cause I I think I say this often, understanding the why, why we do things from our past, but why we're supposed to do things differently in our future too is so important. I when we talk to our kids about the rules that we have in our house, I like to give them the why. It's not just Because I said so. I'm going to talk about the why because I want them to have character building, not just this behavior management while they're under my roof. I want it to extend far past them living in my home. I want it to be who they say that they are, right? And so in order to do that, I think understanding the why is so important because it points directly back to your character, your identity, your morals, your beliefs. And if we don't understand the why that we we do something, we can't kind of deconstruct that area. Okay, I do this because I always saw. My mom do this or I saw my dad do this or this is what my grandma said or this teacher that I had, you know, you go back and you recognize the why so that you can uproot it and change it. Like I said in the last episode, sometimes we need different soil and a bigger pot so that we can be able to grow in that area. Once you recognize how to pause and notice your thoughts. You have to be able to question them. You can't notice them and agree with them. You have to be able to question them. A great way to start doing this if you struggle is to journal. Write down the lie or the thought that you have that feels very real, that you know is not in accordance to the word of God. And then go into the word of God and write down the truth that directly combats that lie. I mean, the example always always is ⁓ the verse in Philippians ⁓ that tells us not to worry, right? People use that all the time to combat their anxious thoughts. If the truth is that we should not worry, then I know that my anxiety cannot take authority in my mind. I need to take authority over it because I want to align with the word of God, right? And so that's just one example. But I love ⁓ the book again. We'll go through other examples if you want to grab that and read it. I think some of the greatest healing begins when we stop automatically just believing every single thought, every single lie, and we allow it to pass through our minds. So it it's coming in. We pause, we recognize it, and now it's passing through so that I make room for the truth. And you can visualize this, you can write it down, you can pray a prayer, whatever it is for you that makes it real and tangible so that you can move past it. Do that thing. Two more points in today's episode, and this is one of the most important ones that healing is not becoming somebody else. It's becoming a better version of you. And I think we need to recognize that. One of the most freeing realizations in my own healing journey was that healing is not like me becoming somebody else that I look up to. It doesn't mean that I have to be like this perfectly disciplined person or perfectly at peace. Because I look at some people like I look at moms that are are very carefree and just like, ⁓ they'll be fine. Like And I I have gotten a little bit more flexible in certain things with my own children over time, but I will say, like, that is just not my innate personality as a mother, right? And so I'm not going to just suddenly shift into being a mom that somebody else is with their children. I'm the mom that my children need, and I am the mom that the Lord created to me to me to be. And there are certain things of motherhood that I'll continue to surrender, but I can't just be a different mom. I'm going to be a better version of me as a mom. And I need to recognize that God's going to remove whatever in me does not need to be carried. He's going to continue to highlight things for me in my walk with him, my personal story of sanctification, the things that I'm convicted about. But he is not going to call me to be this version of somebody else. Right. And the more that we recognize that, I think it removes the fear and the shame and the striving and the pressure and false beliefs and teaches us how to just live from a different heart posture and to be rooted in him so that we can recognize where he wants us to go. Right. If I am only ever looking at what somebody else is doing, remember as I've been saying blinders on. If I'm looking at what somebody else is doing, I'm going to be missing the things that the Lord is calling me to do. So blinders on, recognize what is he asking me to do. And again, the way that we pause when we have those thoughts, pause when you have that conviction. Pause when you're like, okay, I need to recognize in my own heart, in my own life, what is going on here so that I can move in in greater measure towards the person that God is calling me to be. And I don't want to strive to get there. I want to move in that direction as a healed version of myself. Because I know if I just strive to get there and I'm just doing the again. the things that are visible, the change outwardly, it is not going to heal me inwardly. And that's the purpose of going through this and giving enough ⁓ space for the Lord to move in that direction, if that makes sense. And then the last point I wanted to make was just recognizing small signs of healing and celebrating it. I'm really, really big on small changes because the big changes are not typical and not the the norm for most people. ⁓ for most people, change happens slowly over time. These little things start shifting, things start becoming easier, our capacity increases as we, you know, implement some habits or change our routines a bit. And healing might look like, okay, we recovered, you know, from this fight in our marriage faster than we used to. Or I was able to pause before I reacted to this situation. Or I recognized the lie and I didn't agree with it and I was able to journal it. Or I rested and I didn't feel guilty for resting. That was a huge one for me. I asked for help. That was also a big one for me. I used to never ask for help. ⁓ I set a healthy boundary. I was able to pray instead of starting to spiral through my thoughts. I know that those things seem really small when you're like, well, I'm still not where I want to be, but those things are really big in becoming who God is calling you to be. So recognize the small shifts and celebrate them. Every single step forward matters. And even if you have a couple of steps backward, it does not erase the progress that you're making with the Lord. As we close today, I just want to tell you if you're listening and you feel frustrated with your progress or you recognize areas because sometimes we talk about healing and it just highlights the areas where we're not healed. And it's okay to feel that way right now, but I do not want you to judge your growth by only what is visible or only what is highlighted to you in this moment. I want you to allow God to do some of his deepest under the soil work in this season. Your roots matter. The hidden places matter. Those old hurts and pain, they they actually do matter. And it's okay if it doesn't feel comfortable as you're walking through it. Healing does not have to have like a round of applause from other people in your life. It should have an audience of one and you recognizing the changes in yourself before anybody else is ever going to recognize that something is going on in you. And that's okay. I I want to tell you that it's okay if healing feels slow or if you feel overwhelmed by any of this. It doesn't mean that God is not working. It actually is a good sign. It means that you you have eyes to see the things that need to be changed or the areas where you need him in a deeper way. And that's a good thing. That's good thing. ⁓ so I just wanted to close with that because I always try to ⁓ remove the lies that the enemy could be whispering when we're talking about truth, because of course you hear it and you're like, Yeah, I want that, I want that, and I feel like God is moving me in this direction. And the first thing that happens is the enemy's gonna be like, I don't want to see her grow. And of course, he's gonna come after it. So remind yourself the things that you've heard, give yourself permission to walk through it at the pace that you have the grace for. And when the enemy tries to come in with his lies, shut him down with prayer, with worship, with the truth every single time. Let's pray. Father God, I thank you for caring about the the hidden and deep places in our heart. ⁓ our hearts, Lord, thank you, God, that you are not intimidated by our wounds or our fears or maybe anxiety that we feel or even just being physically exhausted and feeling lazy in this season. ⁓ you God, you're there to help us and you're there to carry the weight and the burden of it, and you're you're there to ⁓ support us and lead us and guide us into a deeper place of healing. So would you help us? Lord, to stop managing symptoms and to stop just putting band-aids on things and to start inviting you into the places that do need healing. Teach us, Lord, how to be honest with you. Teach us how to surrender to you. Teach us how to trust you, Father, and trust that you are working even when things feel like we can barely see the progress. And help us, God, highlight the areas where progress is being seen so that we can celebrate it, Lord. Teach us how ⁓ to just grow deeper roots with you, heal what has already been buried and uproot it, Lord. Put us in new pots and place us in new soils. If that is what is needed, restore what has been tried, ⁓ what the enemy has tried to steal from us in the past, Lord, ⁓ what has been wounded, Lord, and just show us ⁓ exactly where you want us to go and how you want us to return to you again and again and again and what that looks like, and that there's no shame in it, Lord, but that there's growth in it and that it's worth ⁓ celebrating and that it's worth recognizing, and that it's worth all the fruit that is to come. Help us, God, to become women whose lives are sustained by your presence. And not by striving, Lord. I just pray, God, that every single woman listening just has an open mind to hear from you, Lord, and an open heart to receive from you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.