Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / The Rooted Woman: Episode 5: The Problem Isn’t Really the Problem
Transcript
- Courtney: Good. Hey you, welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I am Courtney, the host Hello and welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I'm your host, Courtney, the face behind her mind on Mission on social media, and we are in episode Five today of the Rooted Woman audio series. Yes, this is a series, so if you want to catch back up, you can go back to the beginning. There's an intro episode, and then we've got four episodes leading up to today. We are going to be talking about healing from the inside out. Something that we often don't want to discuss, something that we often try to shy away from, but also something that is really, really, really important. Because if you just put a band-aid on a wound and the wound is infected inside, it's not going to be good for you in the long run. ⁓ And so we're gonna be talking about how to truly heal from the inside out today to walk forward as rooted women. When my husband and I found the church that we're currently at, we got plugged in right away to marriage class. There's a marriage ministry. Marriage class was every single Sunday. And it was a ministry and still is a ministry that just poured so much into our marriage and really helped us to grow out of the things that we thought we should do into the biblical truth of what we should truly be doing in our marriage, how to support our marriage, how to grow in our marriage, how to honor God in our marriage. And why am I talking about marriage right now and when I'm talking about healing on from the inside out is because Because there was an episode that they played and a little clip sharing, you know, the woman talking and the man is trying to pick up on what the woman is saying and she's like, no, the problem is not really the problem. Like there we often go into. So a while back, my husband and I had found the church that we're at now. This was like wow, s more than six years ago. and we immediately got planted into the marriage ministry and just had so much poured into our marriage. It was so good for us to really take what we thought we knew we should do, which wasn't working, and move into what God designed for us to do as husband and wife and as a team together in unity under Him and His covering, and to just really honor the Lord and all that we did within our marriage. And so we Watched a clip one day. This is why I'm talking about it. It's because of the clip. And there, I can't remember the exact details of the clip, but the woman is talking, and the man is trying to like hear what the woman is saying, and they're completely misinterpreting one another. And she's like, No, the problem is not really the problem. Like, the thing that I'm saying is not actually the thing that I'm dealing with. And I think often we do this with the Lord with ourselves in relationship. We talk about something like, okay, for example, you are. Really sad because you saw a Facebook post and everybody got together and you were not invited. And those people you really, really love, and you feel like they really really love you, and you normally do everything together. And for some reason, they all got together and they did this fun activity, and you were not included. You were not invited, you didn't know about it, and so that's been sitting in your head all day. And now everything is out on the floor, all your kids' toys are out on the floor, and you're overwhelmed by the mess, and you look and you see the laundry pile is behind. And now you're starting to get overwhelmed and you're feeling like I can't take note of my feelings right now because I have all this other stuff to worry about. And then your husband walks in the door and you snap at him. And he's like, Whoa, what's going on? And you're like, everything is just a mess in here and the laundry is piling up and I don't know how to do this and I'm so completely overwhelmed. You are talking about things that truly may be like an issue for you at that time, but really the problem is not the problem. The problem is your heart is hurting and there's this underlying thing that you don't know how to process and you don't know how to deal with right now and you're feeling left out and you're feeling rejected and then all these other things are piling up on top of it. And so you feel like in the moment laundry or the kids mess is the problem, but that's not really the problem. And so what if the thing that you're trying to fix in this season or today or this week isn't actually the real Problem? What if, let's just take this into like our habits and stuff too? What if you struggle with consistency and it's Not really actually because you're lazy. You're saying it's because you're lazy, you just can't figure it out, you're not organized. Well, maybe it's not that at all. Maybe there's an underlying root to it. What if your i irritability, kind of like the example that I shared, isn't because you lack patience, it's because something underneath the surface is causing these emotions to rise up and you're feeling irritable. ⁓ what if your inability to rest, let's say that, that's something I struggled with for so long, isn't because you're necessarily bad at slowing down, but because you're stuck in a perfectionist and performance mentality. You know, what if the fruit like you want to grow this this really great fruit in your life and you're like, why am I not seeing it? I feel like I'm doing all these things, but it's because we're not healing the root. And we've talked about this kind of in l episodes leading up. Like I said, these episodes will really build on each other and play off of one another. ⁓ and I think so much we focus on what other people see. Like I said, you can put a band aid on a wound, but if that wound is infected, it does us no good to put the band aid on. And we focus on the cluttered house or, you know, even like extra weight if you're on a weight loss journey. ⁓ Emotional reactions, ⁓ the kids acting a certain way, anything that we can like see on the outside, but often these things are stemming from something going on deep inside of us. There's a class also at our church that I went through that was just so good on like the emotional recognition and emotional healing and really just going to the root of why we react a certain way. We learn things throughout our lives. There are patterns that we see throughout our lives, and there are responses that we form because of the patterns or the lies that we hear or the words that are spoken over us or the way that other people act towards us and it creates the way that we respond and it shapes the way that we perceive things and how we handle things. And I think we don't often talk about that enough. And I think when you are a Christian, it's even harder to talk about because We want to be this perfect Christian. ⁓ I'm a Christian. I surrendered my life to Christ. Everything should just be good now. But how come you still have those thoughts when this person does this thing? How come you still respond this way when this thing happens? Or when you see this, you know, Facebook post, right? Like I mentioned? ⁓ how come you still have a tendency to slander or gossip? How come when you feel a little bit hurt, like your response to your husband changes even though he's not the one that hurt you? ⁓ or maybe how come your husband does something and then all Of a sudden you respond in a certain way because of something that your father did. And it actually has nothing to do with your husband. Maybe his response wasn't the best, but because of his like one little mile marker off from normal, ⁓ triggered something in you, you respond and react to him, right? So just think about that for a moment. Let that sit in and sink in because I think when we recognize that these things are popping up in our lives, it's easier to say, Well, I really do need to go deeper and heal. Otherwise, we'll just sit on the the surface and be like, yeah, I get overwhelmed easily. Yeah, I'm impatient. Yeah, I've been, you know, stressed out lately. And we put these like cover words over these things when really we need to go to the deeper root of it all. Jesus said, and I think I mentioned this in another episode too, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. The fruit will always reveal the condition of the root. I'm gonna say that again. The fruit will always reveal the condition of the root. Okay. You are going to get, like I know there are times where you pass by pear trees and they're not taken care of and they're rotting. And every single pear that comes out of it is just like absolutely gross. The smell is gross. There's bugs all over it. Like it is not producing any good fruit. Right, it needs to be tended to, it needs to be healed. ⁓ but then there are trees that you go by and you're like, ⁓ my goodness, it seems like every single one is so good. And as I mentioned in another episode, you cannot just staple good fruit onto an unhealthy tree. You can't just like pretend that this fruit came from this tree, right? ⁓ and it's gonna be very obvious when you do that because it's not going to continue to produce the good fruit. And we think that, okay, I can just start a strict routine, I can buy another planner, I can start another diet, I can promise myself I'll do better tomorrow. But if the root remains wounded, if Eventually the fruit is going to reflect it, okay? Behavior is often revealing of something going on deeper within us. It doesn't just start as one response. It starts as a stirring in our heart, a sadness that takes place, a feeling of rejection, ⁓ anger that starts to rise up, which is a secondary emotion and may stem from three things going on at once because you're trying to process and heal from all these events that have been piling up on each other that validated this negative feeling that you have or this wound that was ever growing in your life, maybe even from childhood. Maybe you look at like a season of your life and you think like, Man, I I was so X, Y, and Z there, right? So I think to myself, go back to when I was a grad student, I was ⁓ climbing the corporate ladder, you know, I'm I'm working my way up. I meal prepped everything. I had a a Cooler in my car because I worked so much and I was driving so much. I would eat most of my meals in my car. ⁓ I would go to the gym at like 4 30 or 5 in the morning. I would work all day long, come home, study for my exam. And I remember looking back and being like, man, I was so disciplined. No, I just had no other option. I literally had no other option. I was actually in survival mode. I was working way too much. I was super stressed out. Working out and and eating like healthy, those were the things that I could control in my life. Studying for my exam, I couldn't could control that thing in my life. And so I tried really hard to control those things because everything else kind of felt a little wild, you know, finishing grad school, trying to move forward in the corporate ladder, trying to figure out where I was going to live, ⁓ if I wanted to like buy a townhouse, if I wanted to live at home for a little longer. Like I had all these major decisions. I started dating my husband in my life. And so it seemed like I was so disciplined, but really I was just trying to over control. And it wasn't a discipline that I had had in my life. It was honestly just an obsession with these things to try and create some sort of routine or rhythm or normalcy in my life that was ever changing in that season. I think you can look back on any time of your life and be like, well, I was so good at doing X, Y, and Z then. But really ask yourself, okay, if you were so good at doing it then, what changed now? What are the circumstances that and maybe you were really good? I think that I was really good at getting to the gym early in the morning. I was really good at meal prepping. And it's not that I'm not good at that thing now, but if my kids are up, sometimes I have some of my older kids, they're up a little bit later and they're having bigger conversations and bigger thoughts before bed and I want to sit and I want to process with them. And then I've got the younger ones that either wake up in the middle of the night or are up early in the morning and my sleep is lacking. It's very difficult for me to get up and want to work out and do like an actual like heavy workout. In the morning the way that I used to do in that season, right? I can meal prep, but sometimes I meal prep things and all of a sudden I go to the fridge and that thing is gone because now I have four kids and a husband who live with me and I'm not living alone. I also have more food in the house and sometimes I don't want the meal prepped thing and I make something different because I'm like, I am over this or it doesn't look good anymore. Versus when I was living alone, I only grocery shopped once a week. I only bought what I needed. I had nothing extra because your girl was on a budget. ⁓ and so it's just different circumstances. So it doesn't necessarily mean that I lost the skills to do these things, but our life is a bunch of circumstances that build these seasons around us, right? And so think about that. What were the circumstances then and what are your circumstances now and how have they changed? That might be a reason why some things around you changed. But in the mix of it all, we will respond very similarly in one season to the next season, based on the wounding that we have carried so long inside of us that is unhealed still to this day. And you have to think about what is the root of the response. What is the root of the response? I just came up with that in the middle of talking. That was great. What is the root of the response? So maybe the root is rejection. Maybe it's shame. Maybe it's perfectionism. Maybe it's performance. Maybe it's insecurity. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's striving or disappointment. ⁓ some of these things, like I said, could stem from childhood. Some could just be some painful experiences you recently went through. ⁓ some maybe came through words that were spoken over you and things that you began to believe about yourself because you heard it enough. So it It must be true. ⁓ some came through expectations that you took on without even realizing it. And because roots are underground, sometimes we forget that they're there. So it's just like, ⁓ yeah, I'm not seeing it. I I don't need to talk about it. I maybe I'm shoving it back under the ground, right? And we don't ever tend to it. And then all of a sudden those things happen where we see the bad fruit in our lives or we see that unhealed response that comes out of us and we recognize, man, those roots really still need tending to. But will we do it will we pause, will we pray? Will we surrender? Will we go through the painful moments that will bring us to a deeper healing to be able to get there? That is the question you have to ask yourself because I can't answer it for you. Maybe you keep losing your temper or you keep ⁓ starting over with like healthy eating habits and workouts. Maybe you are constantly feeling like emotionally exhausted, like you can't fully be present in conversation with people. ⁓ maybe you feel super guilty when you try to rest. Like these things you have to think about what am I feeling? Where does this stem from? Is it because of blank blank blank rejection, shame, you know, all these things? And really start piecing it together. That's why I think journaling is really hard for me, but brain dumping is something I can easily. easily do. I often will make lists when I'm journaling or I will have a highlighted idea and then I will bullet point underneath of it or I will have all these circles and maps of things that are going on in my brain because it's easier for me to connect the dots that way than to try to process in real time as I'm writing. And so if you need to do that, feel free to do that too. You don't have to journal this perfect picture of what's going on in your life. You can just kind of map things out as they come to you and let the Lord reveal the rest. He will connect the dots for you. Okay, so we ask these big questions. We're looking at the root of the response. And now you need to ask yourself, what wound is this behavior trying to protect? Because that response that we have is usually protection over the thing that we are are trying to hide, that unhealed spot. Many of our unhealthy patterns started really as survival strategies when we were in survival mode. ⁓ maybe like people pleasing could protect you from rejection, right? I don't want to be rejection, so I'll just be the yes person rejected. I don't want be rejected, so I'll just be the yes person. ⁓ maybe you felt unworthy because people would just always look over you or talk about the people that were around you, but like you never got any of the validation, the encouragement, the pat on the back. And so you overwork to try and prove your worth, and that protects you from feeling unworthy. Or maybe you received a lot of criticism. Nothing that you did that was good was ever celebrated, but there was always something that you needed to do better. And so you move into perfection to try to protect you from receiving. Criticism from anybody. ⁓ Maybe your life was super uncertain. ⁓ Maybe uncertain with you know your parents, or uncertain you moved around a lot, uncertain friend groups, uncertain circumstances. And so you moved into trying to control things around you because everything around you felt uncertain and you needed that one thing to feel certainty in your life. And so control was your protection. Or maybe if you were alone, ⁓ your your thoughts got really, really loud and really, really deep. Really, really sad. And so you kept busy because you did not want to have to think those thoughts, you didn't want to have to recognize what was going on. And so busyness became your protection, right? It is a strategy that helps you through a survival season. And we don't ever unlearn that unless we work through it. You have to work through it, you have to heal to be able to unlearn those things. Otherwise, those responses will still come up because that root is still there. And here's what I love about Jesus. I recently posted on social media. You know, I like to do these little dropping hints for the episodes. So I shared a real just asking, like, what do you love about Jesus? What do you love about Jesus? I love Jesus' patience with me. I love his patience with me. I love that Jesus does not demand that I just be better and do better. And that all of a sudden tomorrow I bear good fruit, right? In Psalm 1 147, it says he heals the brokenhearted and binds. Up their wounds. It does not say that he shames us or rushes us or condemns us. He heals. He gently convicts, right? God allows us to process with him and then he tends to the things that hurt us. And then he will gently remove those things that we need to uproot. And it is the most beautiful process. And when I think about what the Lord has done for me, I see Jesus up there on that cross dying for my sins, my sins being washed away, and me moving forward with Holy Spirit can. Conviction in the most gentle, loving way that was a process. I have told you so long, like I had dreams in my heart for a long time, but the Lord needed to heal things in me to get me to where I am today. And I still have healing to do. I still am not perfect and I will never have arrived. But what I love is that He has been so kind to me and so gracious and so patient. And he never demanded for me to be able to understand it in the next moment. He just waited and then he would reveal the next thing, and then he waited. Then I healed and he revealed the next thing and then he waited. And I love that about the Lord. And so just think about that it when you're going through your journey that He's not demanding for you to be better tomorrow. So just because you walked through this thing or you went up for prayer or you journaled doesn't mean tomorrow you're not going to have that response. You need to remember that. We have to retrain our brains in our patterns of thinking in our responses to be able to be in that place where I'm like, okay, I no longer need. To respond from here because I'm not feeling rejected anymore. I unhealed or uncovered that and the Lord healed it. And now I can move forward in a healed response pattern. But it's gonna take me a while to learn what that looks like in different circumstances and be okay with it. And sometimes it does happen overnight. There have been seasons where I'm like, whoa, like how did I even get that response? How did I even get here? And I just know it is the Lord. And there are other times where we need to practice it, and the Lord allows us to practice it because it's like a muscle and he wants that. thing to grow in us because it's going to produce the good fruit. And really, really thin new roots are not going to produce the good fruit. So he allows us to strengthen over time so that that fruit is good. I think one of the hardest prayers that we can pray is God, show me what's underneath. Show me where this is coming from. Reveal to me, Lord, and then help me uproot it. Because like I said, it can be painful to go back to those places, but it is so important to be able to do so. Because if you don't understand why you're reacting or responding a certain way, you're not going to be able to fully move past that and to understand the right way to do things, right? And so that's what the Lord did for me. He showed me what was underneath, like I said, and then he was patient and he waited and trust that the Lord is going. To be there with you in the processing, that he's going to wait for you to finish the processing, and he's going to have what's next for you as soon as you're ready to open the next door. And that there's no rushing this process. That's okay to take months or years to kind of walk through the things that the Lord is walking you through, and you don't need to rush it either. Holy Spirit never rushes, and you never want to go before Holy Spirit. So don't try to sit there and be like, okay, come on, God, reveal it to me. Reveal it. He will reveal in due time and it's right season for you to be able to fully understand what is going. on and how you need to move forward and how that those gentle convictions will change your heart so that you become more aware of your response and then you move out of that response pattern and trust that he will do that and trust that he will connect the pieces and you will look back and things will be different. But really ask him, God, I want to be healed from the inside out. Will you reveal to me the next best step? As we kind of wrap up today, I want you to stop asking yourself, how do I fix this? How can I change? What do I need to do to like do A, B, and C? And just ask, okay, God, what's next? Show me where I need to heal. God, give me gentle conviction. If you're at a turning point in your life, pray my favorite prayer. God, whatever is for me, make it sweet like honey and let me desire it. And what is not for me, let it be like ravel in my mouth. If it's a friend group that you know is like constantly over and over and over again, the rejection keeps coming up because they're not actually loving you. You unconditionally. They're not actually reciprocating the things that you are doing for them in your life. And that's not how our friendships have to be. They don't need to be this like transactional bid for bid, you know, tit for tat type of thing. But we want people in our lives that are going to see when we're feeling like, hey, I'm feeling like left out here, or I would like to be included in it and really love us well in that season, right? And so asking yourself, okay, God. So asking Jesus, what are you trying to heal? And instead of asking, like, why can't I get it together? That's such a shameful response. Like, why can't I just do this? Why can't I just do that? Ask what root. needs God's truth today. Like in where do I need to really dig deeper into the word so that I can understand how God is asking me to respond in these situations. That's going to help you heal too. Because as we uproot, we want to fill it with the good thing. We want to fill it with God. We want to fill it ⁓ with his truth. We want to fill it with the right responses. We want to fill it with good and godly expectations and and responses that are going to bring him glory at the end of the day. Healing begins when we stop performing and we Actually, start surrendering in every single response situation, all of it. I had a response pop up recently, and I was talking to my husband, and I'm like, here's how I want to respond in this moment because this is triggering me from this thing. And I won't go into detail with it, but you know, I processed with him and I'm like, I don't know why I feel this way, and just kind of talked about it. And he's like, Hey, like, you know, kind of check your heart here, and just walked through it and surrendered it to the Lord. And I'm like, I don't need to feel that way. I don't need to. And then I Started talking with my husband about it. I'm so grateful that blink blink blank. And I don't need to feel this way anymore. And I have moved past this and really starting to refill that void with truth. And sometimes we need to tend to those roots again, right? It doesn't mean that we haven't healed from those places that the Lord has walked us through, but situations will come up where we're like, whoa, this response is old and kind of familiar. Why did I go back here? And then let the Lord walk you through it again. It's okay to go back there too. I think the biggest nugget that I can give you today is that you do not have to heal yourself and you do not have to carry your wounds alone. You do not have to become a different person before God shows his love to you. The great physician, that is the Lord, if you were wondering, is not intimidated by any broken places or any roots that need uprooted. ⁓ he knows where they are, he knows who you are, he knows what has happened, and he is far more committed to your healing than you even are in this moment. And so just trust that as you surrender to him, he's gonna do something with it. The rooted woman. is not the woman who has it all together. She's the woman who continually invites God in to go deeper, to heal further, and to move forward in all that he is calling her to do. So let's pray. Father God, I just thank you for the woman who is listening to this today, Lord. And I know that each of us has something that we can go deeper in as far as our healing journey and as far as growing deeper with you and trusting your word in a new and a a deeper way, Father. And so I just pray right now, whatever has popped up into her mind during this episode, Lord, that you will walk her through it. I know that you have planted some things in her heart, in her in her mind, Lord, like, hey, we need to go back through this. Hey, we need to uproot this thing. Hey, that response is not the way that I want you to respond any. So let's go there. Let's do this. Let's uproot it. And so, Father, I just ask that she not be intimidated or afraid to go to those deep places. God, that even if it is painful, your gentleness will surround her in the pain and that you will help her to process through it to come out greater, to come out with more joy, to come out with more peace, to come out with less striving and perfection, and to really sit in her identity as your daughter, Father. And I just pray, God, that you're just holding her hand through the whole process, Lord, that her tree will produce good fruit, that other people will see that fruit in her life and will ask what Has been going on and she can speak of the healing that you've been doing and that her testimony will encourage the testimony in somebody else that is being brewed up right now in the mighty name of Jesus. And God, we just ask, Lord, that you will continue to lead and guide and convict us where we need convicting. And God, that your truth will help us to set better expectations for ourselves and our responses, but that we don't have to carve the path to get there. Lord, that you will show us and that you will give us opportunities to practice and that we will be able to give you glory and celebrate the victory when we see those changes in our responses. in our tone, in our perception, in our thoughts when those situations continue to pop up. So God, I just pray a blessing on the woman who is listening today and just ask God that you would continue to walk deeper with her as she walks deeper with you. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Mission for More podcast. I have so many great things that are coming down the pipeline. So stay tuned. I literally cannot wait. I've been working on the back end and it's been so cool because I will feel like, okay, God, how am I supposed to do this? And then he will reveal the how to me. And so I know that he is carving out something so special. Not for me. It is so much for you. It is so much for ⁓ his people, for our community. And I'm just grateful to be a vessel in the process. So stick with me. We've got a few more episodes to go. Well, more than a few, seven. ⁓ before we get to the last episode before the big reveal. And so I just ⁓ pray that these are are blessing you, that you will share them with people that you think will be bl blessed by the episodes too. And yeah, just come back next week as we continue through our Rooted Women audio series.