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Why you keep self-sabotaging: a conversation about trauma, healing and freedom with Carrie Watts · SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions

0:39
Welcome back, y'all. I am so excited to have today's guest for you guys today.
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I've got Keri Watts, who is a local friend.
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She is an author, a speaker, and a writing coach.
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Keri is the host of Saved and Strong podcast, and she wrote a book called Crisis of Faith.
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She is here to talk with us today
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about all the things, a little bit of writing, a little bit of trauma.
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And I am so excited to have you. Welcome, Keri.
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Thank you so much, Constance, for having me. I'm excited to be here.
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Okay, so tell us a little bit about yourself.
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Y'all, Keri and I kind of just met on a whim.
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I reached out to her randomly on Facebook. book, I just felt called to know
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her, seeing the things that she's doing locally and really not so locally.
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I've listened to some of your podcasts.
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You've got people from everywhere, you know what I mean?
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But I just felt so led to like get to know her. And so we have gotten to know
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each other a little bit. We still are very much getting to know each other.
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But after meeting with her in.
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For you guys. And so you will catch on to why here shortly.
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But Carrie, tell us a little bit about yourself.
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Sure. Well, I do live locally, very close to Constance, which was really fun
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that we found that out when Constance reached out to me.
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But I'm from Jackson, Mississippi. I grew up in Jackson, met and married my
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husband at Belhaven College. We've been married for 32 years this year.
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We have three sons, TJ, Sam, and Foster.
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They're 23, 21, and 16.
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And in my second half of life, I'm over 50 now, I started writing.
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And my writing journey really started through healing. And I started my healing journey in my 20s.
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But writing was therapy for me for many years.
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And of course, in my quiet time, I wrote a lot journaling, prayers,
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just what was going on in my life.
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I've always journaled what I did every day at the end of the day.
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It helps me kind of process.
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And so I felt the Lord waking me up really early in the middle of the night
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and early in the morning and asking me to write.
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And so I made a book deal with God. I told God, I was like, you know what,
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I'll write my memoir for me and you.
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And it was very cathartic, therapeutic.
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I mean, I laughed and I cried and I remembered everything that the Lord had brought me through.
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And through feeling like God was calling me to write, I joined a writing group
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online and met a lot of writers all over the nation, some around the world,
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actually. And through that, I,
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came a book because I learned that my ideal reader who I really am passionate
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about helping is young girls heal from childhood trauma.
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And so I had to learn how to write fiction because these young girls are not
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walking around with a 50-year-old's memoir in their hands. They're not.
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And so I've had to reach them. And the beauty of it all is that I have found
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that it's a second generation of women who are reading my book and appreciating
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the healing that's in the book because it gives them a voice to their trauma
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that they were never allowed to talk about.
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And because in our generation, in my generation and earlier,
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we were not allowed to talk about our problems, whereas now in this generation, we are.
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And so I feel like I have two generations that I'm talking to.
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I'm talking to that older generation who now has a desire to mentor this younger generation.
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And so that's next on my list is I would love to begin a two-generation,
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an early generation and a later generation mentoring program where these older
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women can say, hey, I've been where you are. Let's walk this out together.
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And so I don't know. That's kind of where the Lord is leading me to next.
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I love that. And that is so true about just your generation versus really even
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like my generation, but not quite, you know, because we were,
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I was taught by, you know.
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The generation before you really,
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and it's like, they definitely weren't talking about their problems.
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And so growing up, it was like, we dust everything under the rug.
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We don't talk about that. You know, there was no true navigation around feelings
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and how to talk about feelings.
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And it's really funny because like I have done so much self-work to really,
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more comfortable talking about my feelings and even just feeling my feelings
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without feeling guilt or shame, right?
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But I'm still, as a mom to, you know, a 10-year-old, she's getting the hormones
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and getting the emotions and getting all the things.
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I am still just trying to navigate like now, okay, how do I parent her when,
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you know, I just, I grew up in a time where it was just like,
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you know, we don't, we don't talk about that.
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We don't worry about that. And so How do I not repeat that type of behavior?
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And it really is a hard thing. And so I know a lot of mamas my age with kids
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my age, my kids ages are really in that, like what you're talking about.
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And so we would definitely bring us all the children's fiction books, you know what I mean?
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Because I don't think we can get enough of that kind of stuff to help us change
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how we move forward as parents to, you know, the newer generations.
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Yeah, it just keep the lines of communication open.
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Let them know there's nothing that they would tell you that would surprise you,
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you know, and I think that's the best thing.
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I remember telling my high school child that was going through a hard time.
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I was like, honey, there is nothing that you're going to do that I didn't do.
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And then I would find out some things he did. And I would be like,
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in my heart, I'd be like, no, I never did that, you know, but.
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You knew better, though. You
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had boys. There was going to be some things they were going to do. Yeah.
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So, yeah, you just have to let them know the lines of communication are open.
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There's resources. There's help for whatever you're going through.
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And just let them know you love them no matter what. That unconditional love,
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you're just showing them how God loves you. Right.
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Okay, so I know you're working on a new book, right?
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I am. But can we talk a little bit about Crisis of Faith?
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Yes, we can. I would love to. Okay. Tell us just a little bit about it. How did it come about?
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I know you were so brave to write it.
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And then I think we talked about how like writing it and then actually publishing
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it were two different beasts, you know what I mean?
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But tell us a little bit about it and how it came about.
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Sure. Okay. So Crisis of Faith, the title Crisis of Faith is a Crisis of Faith
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v. main character. So Faith is the main character.
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And the book begins with her in a safe house, the bright light safe house.
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And she brings in Hope, who is escaping her trafficker.
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And so as they're bringing in Hope from this.
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Escape, then Faith and Grace, Grace is the counselor, Faith is in school to
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be a counselor, she's just working at the safe house in the crisis line.
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And so they both bring her in, and eventually Faith shares her own story of
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healing from childhood sex abuse.
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And then she just helps her find just hope.
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And so Hope's name comes out of the hope that she is going to have eventually.
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And she is eventually going to heal.
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But so Faith and her best friend Desi, they sort of grow up together and they
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have a tree house and their tree house is called the Bright Light Tree House.
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Thus, when they grow up, they have the Bright Light Safe House.
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And so there is a character, his name is Old Solomon. He's the wise ancient
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old oak tree that holds their treehouse in his branches.
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He appears in Faith's dreams when she's younger, and he gives her wisdom and
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tells her how a tree heals itself from the roots up. And,
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Faith doesn't understand why is he telling me how to heal from something like life is good.
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And so when when her childlike faith is taken from someone who abuses her.
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Then she realizes, oh, old Solomon was trying to help me.
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And so in the book, it is written for a 13 to 15 year old girl in the chapter
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where she is abused. There's nothing graphic, but you know what's going on because
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she's sharing her feelings about what's going on.
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And so for me, it was that childlike faith. When we go from assuming that everybody
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has our best interests at heart and realizing that they don't and there is sin in the world,
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our sin comes in and takes that childlike faith away.
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One of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 18, when the disciples ask Jesus,
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who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
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And Jesus pulls over a child and says.
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When you have the faith like this child, those are the ones who are going to
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have, you know, the greatest places in my kingdom.
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And so I feel like if we can get back to that faith and trust in Jesus like
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we did as a child, then that is healing.
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And so many times in our world when we've experienced something traumatic or
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hard and we don't heal from it, we are in a vicious cycle that never allows
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us to truly trust Jesus fully.
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And so that is my heart for young women is to step into healing earlier rather
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than later so that we can step into God's plan and purpose for our life.
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And there's such bondage when we don't heal that when we do heal,
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it kind of breaks those chains and frees us from living in the past and allows
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us to move forward in our future.
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I love that. And I feel like I know your book, I know your focus with that book is.
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Sexual trauma, right? But like, I think we all have different traumas.
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Like, you know, they say like little T traumas and big T traumas,
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but there are so many things that again, through childhood or adulthood.
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Like there just wasn't space for healing for one reason or another.
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And so I have just, this is something that is so near and dear to me,
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especially lately, because I just feel like I'm seeing this come up so much
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in women my age and even women younger than me and older than me too, right?
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But it really does impact and affect how you live out your days.
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Like if you, if you feel like you have not, and a lot of people don't even recognize it, right, Carrie?
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Like they don't say like, I walk around with a low buzz anxiety 24-7 because
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I haven't healed from whatever happened to me when I was 13.
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You know, nobody is connecting those dots.
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But for me as an outsider, because I do get to know women so well,
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it's like, oh, my gosh, what is underneath there, you know, that needs that healing?
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And so I love this idea, not only of healing early, right, for young girls,
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but also just like healing now.
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Like there's no better time than now, right?
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And so I do, I have a question, though, for you.
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I feel like because of this, because of their lack of healing,
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you know, I work with a lot of women who feel pretty stuck in the same cycles, right?
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They're either telling themselves the same thing over and over again until it becomes true.
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Their behaviors are, you know, are the same repetitive behaviors,
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even though they don't like them.
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You know, they feel inconsistent in whatever they set out to do.
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And so I'm just curious what your thoughts are. Like, what is really going on
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beneath that surface when women are feeling stuck? In my realm,
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it's obviously weight loss, right?
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Like they come to me and they're desperate for weight loss and they say they've
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tried everything and they do try everything and it's just like a nasty cycle.
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I mean, I'd be curious to just hear your thoughts on that.
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Sure. Well, healing, I want your listeners to hear, is not a one and done experience.
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Healing is a process. And when I stepped into my healing, I was in nursing school
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and our nursing professor at Mississippi College encouraged us to pray with our patients.
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And I felt a lightning in my soul when she said that. I don't know if anybody
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else in the room heard it, but I thought, I don't know if I could ever pray
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with anybody, especially in that vulnerable state.
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Like they're either a stranger, they're sick, you know, they don't feel good.
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And then somebody comes in their room and says, can I pray with you?
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And so I just knew that I needed to, I needed to do some spiritual healing to get to that point.
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And I had grown up in a church where I grew up in a Presbyterian church,
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and we had, I guess, visiting pastors that came from Reformed Theological Seminary,
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and I used to babysit for them.
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So I knew that Reformed Theological Seminary was in Jackson,
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the Clinton area, and I knew they had a counseling center. And so.
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It was before GPS. It was before cell phone.
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I don't know how I ended up in that counseling center, but I got in my car and
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I went to the counseling center and I remember her saying, how can I help you?
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And I was like, that is a loaded question.
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And so she's like, would you like an appointment? I was like,
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yes, I can answer that one.
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And I ended up in the counselor's office and this poor young girl,
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she must have been a student.
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She, all she said was, tell me what brought you in today. and I cried for a
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whole hour. Like I just boogled.
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And I had become so hard-hearted. I had stuffed all those feelings down,
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down, down, down so far that when she asked that question, it was like just
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lifting the floodgates.
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And she said, I'll be right back. And she went and got like one of her professors who came in.
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She was like, I need help. She had to bring in the big guy.
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Yeah. And so it was like the first time I had ever told anybody what happened to me.
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And she gave me a book to read. And that book was life changing for me because
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I thought I was the only person who had ever been abused within my home by somebody that knew me or loved.
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But what we know is those who those children who are abused,
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90% of the time, it's by a family member or somebody they know.
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But I didn't know that at the time. I just thought I knew it was not right.
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And I thought that I was the only one.
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And when I figured out that this happens a lot, it saddened me,
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but then I didn't feel so alone.
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And so I read this book and I got to the end and it talked about forgiveness.
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And I closed the book and I was like, no, it wasn't my fault.
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I didn't ask for this to happen.
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Like, I can forgive a lot of things, but I just don't know if I can forgive that.
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And so I really prayed about it, continued to go to counseling and just listen
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to songs. I don't know if your listeners know who Kathy Tricoli was.
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I was a big Kathy Tricoli fan at the time.
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She's a praise and worship leader, singer. and just one of her songs came on
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the radio and she talked about forgiveness.
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And it was like the Lord was telling me, today's your day, you're gonna forgive.
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You're gonna forgive. So I stepped into forgiveness. And to me,
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when you talk about your clients who are stuck in a cycle, a lot of times when
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we haven't gotten to that part of our healing process of actually forgiveness,
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no matter what's been done to you.
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That that's necessary for the
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full healing process and I was
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in nursing school I went home to wash
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some clothes and someone in
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my family who had abused me came in and we just talked he and he just asked
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what's been going on in your life and I'm like well I'm going to counseling
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and I need to let you know that Jesus forgives you and I forgive you and he
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really said he is like Kiri I never thought that would affect you because people who hurt us,
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they move on with their lives, you know, and we we don't, you know,
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and our unforgiveness, our anger,
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our bitterness, it only hurts us. It doesn't hurt them.
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But we carry it around like.
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It's really baggage, but we carry it around like it's the one thing we have
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to protect ourselves when in reality, it's the one thing that hurts us.
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Because even though I went to counseling early in life, it wasn't until I became
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a parent when my children disobeyed me that I call it the mommy monster.
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It's whatever you want to call it.
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I never hurt my children, But I would get loud. Yeah.
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And I mean, my kids would kind of back up. And I was like, you know what?
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I think I need to go back to counseling because there's something else in there
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that hasn't been completely healed yet.
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And I don't want to be the reason my kids end up in counseling, you know? Right.
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And so I would tell my children, like, this is not you.
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This is something that mommy needs to deal with. And I want you to pray for me. I want you to help me.
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You know, I don't want to yell at you, you know. but there is a anger is like any other addiction.
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There is a hormone. There is something that is released that makes you feel
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better and everybody else doesn't, you know?
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And so I just, I really had to work through that.
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And my middle son said a few years ago, he just out of the blue,
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he was like, mom, I'm so proud of you.
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You haven't yelled at us in years. And I was like,
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oh, that's Jesus, honey that's a miracle I don't know where that came from you
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know yeah I love that you're it that is so that is so true like it and I think to your statement like.
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If you have not addressed it, if you have not acknowledged it,
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you have not worked on your healing for whatever it is, right?
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I mean, it could be multiple layers like you're talking about.
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It is going to come out. You know, like it is going to, because if you're holding
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it so tightly and you're pressing it down and down and down and, you know,
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wanting to, I know the purpose, right, is we want to pretend like it didn't happen.
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We want to make it go away. We don't want to look at that, but like it's there.
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And if it was traumatic enough, it is going to continue to stay there.
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It's in your body, you know, and it is, it's going to, it's going to reveal
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itself in crazy ways, whether that be yelling at your kids, whether that be
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like a disconnection from your husband,
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you know, whether that be a self-sabotage like of yourself and your weight loss
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and any goals or desires or dreams you have for yourself, like it is going to show up.
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And so from what I hear you saying, the best thing you could have done,
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the very first step you could have done right, is acknowledge it.
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Like you went and you just said, okay, here's what I've got going on.
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Help me. You know what I mean? And somebody did.
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And then I have been through several situations in my life where I've had to
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forgive the person that, like, I—.
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Was the last person on the planet that I wanted to forgive.
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And they did not deserve it, right? Like there was no, like the person you're
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talking about, it's not like he came to you begging hands and knees, please forgive me.
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You know, it's not like you were even justified in, you know,
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in a world's view in that forgiveness, right?
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And to this day, he may not see or know how important that was for you or how hard that was for you.
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But like the beautiful thing is that you became a whole new person, like a better person.
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You grew, you improved, right? You were able to be more comfortable in your
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skin and live a life that you enjoy a lot more now because you did that.
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You know, they, he didn't ask you to, you just, you chose to for yourself,
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not for him. Right? Right.
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I just think that's super powerful. But you're right. Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do.
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But it is so incredible how it changes you.
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Yeah. Yeah. You don't think that it will free you, but it does. It really does.
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Yeah. And one thing that you and I spoke about when we had lunch was reading through the Bible.
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And, you know, I've been in church my whole life. But until I started reading
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through the Bible, that's when I feel like the Lord, I really heard the Lord speaking to me.
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And I feel like He rewards us for spending time in His Word.
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Like He put that Holy Word in a book bound for us for a reason.
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And when we open it up, it's almost like the floodgates of heaven come to us,
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you know, And the Lord will speak to you if you ask Him to.
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If you don't understand the Bible, then ask the Lord to reveal things to you.
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And it was in those early morning moments as a young mom when I would dedicate
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that early morning time to reading His Word, that's when I felt like He was
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like, okay, let's go to the next step.
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You can do this. And it took me a lot of, like you say, courage to go back to
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counseling or to go to counseling the first time.
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But I knew in my heart of hearts, I did not want to carry that childhood trauma
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into my adulthood, into marriage or parenting.
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It's going to be there anyway. But if there was anything that I could do,
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you know, I'll tell you one thing is, you know, I could sit back.
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I had a step-grandmother that...
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Was not it wasn't that she
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wasn't nice but I could tell she had some bitterness does that make sense oh
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yeah I mean I would have nightmares about her I mean it it just was like she
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was all about the southern belle the manners the wear the right thing set the table the right way.
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Learn how to pray play bridge I mean if you've ever seen the help oh my gosh
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she was hilly I I mean, I'm just telling you.
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And I remember thinking, I don't want to grow up to be a bitter old woman.
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Like, I want to be that sweet grandma that everybody wants to hang out with, you know.
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And I thought, well, I'm already starting to be that bitter old woman.
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Like, if I'm that bitter old woman at 20, I'm surely going to be that bitter old woman at 80.
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I've got work to do. And honestly, I think, I mean, whatever it takes to get you healed.
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But that is what really prompted me, other than the Holy Spirit, to go, you know what?
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I'm looking into my future and it's not looking good.
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You know, I've got to do something now to make a difference.
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It really, that is so true. Like as you age, right?
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Like people expect an aging man or woman to just have less patience and be more
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bitter and be more grumpy or whatever.
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But like what I have noticed, there is a distinct, I think we talked about this
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at lunch, but there's a distinct difference between, you know,
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the happy grandmas and the bitter grandmas.
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And it truly is one of, if you talk to either of them long enough,
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you know, the happy one is going to tell you how blessed she is,
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even though she's had a hard life, right?
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Or the bitter one is going to tell you like how her family never comes to see her.
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And she had this, that, and the other happen to her, you know,
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like, and so it's a perspective shift.
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And I think the only way that we can make this true perspective shift that is
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lasting is to do the work that you're talking about.
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And obviously getting in the word every day and being reminded,
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you know, of our purpose here and, you know, what Jesus has done for us and
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all the wonderful things that we do read in the Bible.
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But alongside that, it's like, okay, we can't just carry everything.
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Think about being 80 years old if you were still carrying all the things from your childhood.
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Plus, I'm sure your marriage has, I know your marriage has been wonderful,
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but I'm sure it hasn't been perfect, you know, like just carrying all those
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things all the way until we're 80.
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Yeah, I'd be better too if we didn't figure out how to work through that, you know? Right. Yeah.
26:51
Okay. So I would love to know in your expertise, what are some signs that a
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woman is operating from an unhealed place?
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Because I don't know that a lot of people are going to be listening to this
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and say, yeah you know I'm not healed I need to you know whatever a lot of people
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want to tell themselves that they've got it under control yeah.
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Well, I am not an expert at spiritual healing, but I do have a nursing degree.
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And you know, if you're going to heal physically, then you're going to go to
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the doctor. You're going to take the medicine.
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You're going to do what the doctor tells you to do. And I feel like in spiritual
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healing, the Lord is our doctor.
27:41
And so we have to know what he's prescribing.
27:45
And for God, I mean, I would say, you know, just like I've already said, but just read the Bible.
27:52
He is going to tell you what to do. Okay. So the Lord really spoke to me through
27:57
Colossians 3, as I was reading through the Bible.
28:00
And at first I didn't like what he said. Okay. So God has a personnel and he
28:06
knows that there are two things I don't like.
28:08
I don't like drugs because the person that abused me, when he abused me, he was on drugs.
28:14
So I was like, drugs make people do awful things. I don't like drugs.
28:17
I've never done drugs. I don't want to have anything to do with drugs.
28:20
And so I would just tell God all the time, like, God, you've got to get drugs
28:24
off this earth, like whatever it takes, get drugs off this earth. Right.
28:29
And so I was reading Colossians 3 and hit the first few verses say,
28:34
you know, if you've been crucified with Christ, keep your heart and your mind
28:39
on things above, not on things below.
28:42
And I heard him say in my spirit, Carrie, stay high.
28:46
And I was like, that's not even funny.
28:48
I can't believe you just said that to me.
28:53
And he was like, no, I'm serious, Carrie. Like you've got to, you got to lighten up.
28:58
Like really, like inhale me.
29:02
And I was like, I kind of, okay. I'm, I'm kind of tracking with that.
29:06
Well, at the time we owned some commercial property in South Jackson and our
29:10
bill, our building had a barbershop.
29:13
And one of the ladies that worked in the barbershop, I just went to visit her,
29:16
and she's just a godly woman.
29:18
And she said, I know what the Lord said to you today.
29:23
And I said, really? Go ahead. Tell me.
29:26
And she said, he told you to stay high on him. And I was like, Carrie, oh, my gosh.
29:33
I know. And she said, when I teach Sunday school at my church,
29:37
she was African-American.
29:38
She said, I take old Bibles, and I rip out the pages, and I roll them up,
29:42
and we smoke the scriptures. And I said, stop it.
29:47
And we just had the best conversation right there in the hallway.
29:52
And I just thought that is a gift. That is such a gift.
29:57
Like, had I not opened my Bible that day, I would not have heard from the Lord
30:00
and I would not have had that conversation with her.
30:03
And I have carried that with me so, so, so seriously that I even named my blog.
30:12
So I was not writing books at the time. I was just journaling.
30:15
But I was like, you know, the Lord is teaching me some things.
30:19
Maybe I should share these. So I did start a blog and I called it Stay High Blog.
30:24
It's on WordPress. And I have about 100 blogs. And I'm like.
30:28
As my family and friends were reading my blog, they were like,
30:32
Carrie, you should put all those blogs in a book.
30:35
They gave me a lot of positive affirmation that that was the right thing for
30:41
me to be doing at the time.
30:42
It was wind beneath my wings to go, you know what, this is serious.
30:47
The Lord has a plan for this writing thing that he's put me in.
30:51
So some of that negative self-talk, like I don't have a writing degree.
30:55
I don't have a creative writing degree.
30:57
I've never written anything that's published even in a magazine.
31:00
Maybe I should start small, right?
31:02
Why did I think I could go from a blog to a book? I don't know.
31:05
But I felt like that was what the Lord was telling me to do.
31:09
You were staying high, girl. You were high. I'm just staying high. That's right.
31:16
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I always wanted to be that woman that could just
31:22
laugh. And I always took myself way too seriously. And I felt like the Lord
31:27
was saying, it's okay, just laugh, like, lighten up.
31:31
Yeah, I love that. I feel like just as I have started through this healing journey
31:37
over the past few years, that has been one of the things that my husband has
31:41
brought to my attention the most is like, you are just,
31:46
I mean, like, you know, we still have all kinds of things going on.
31:49
We got two girls, pregnancy, you know, all the things. And, but he's like,
31:53
you are just so much like happier.
31:57
You are so much lighter in the day to day, not even in like big things or whatever.
32:02
It's just like in the day to day, you just seem a little more free and a little more easy stepping.
32:08
Whereas I think before I really lived in that state of, oh, everybody needs
32:15
me and I have so much to do. And, you know, it was like a negative thing.
32:19
Mindset, a victim mindset, honestly, you know, and that is something that I
32:23
notice a lot with a lot of the women that I work with.
32:27
It's like they come to me in a victim mindset and want me to tell them something
32:33
magical that's going to, you know,
32:36
improve their life because then they think they're going to come out of the
32:39
victim mindset when in reality it's reverse, right?
32:43
Like you have to change your mind. You have to change your heart.
32:46
You have to have that discipline, like you said, to get quiet with the Lord
32:50
every morning and be reminded why you're not a victim.
32:54
Be reminded that your purpose on this earth is for more than just making lunches and being grumpy.
33:04
And it's such a conversation with a lot of women that's like,
33:10
I know you want me to tell you that if you drink your water for 30 days and
33:15
you track your food for 30 days and you exercise for 30 days,
33:18
you're going to, you know, have a changed mind about yourself. But that's not true.
33:23
You can hate yourself all the way through weight loss.
33:26
You can lose 100 pounds and hate yourself and hate your life the whole way through.
33:32
And so it's really about changing that perspective and that outlook on the day.
33:40
And that's the deep work. That's the inner work, right?
33:44
That's so true. Yeah. And you have to figure out.
33:50
You have to convince yourself that doing the hard things have positive consequences.
33:57
Spiritually, mentally, physically. For me, running was my therapy for years.
34:03
I ran marathons. I didn't like working out.
34:06
But then when, you know, and here's one reason why you should heal from the
34:11
early stuff, because life comes at you with more.
34:15
And if you haven't healed from the early stuff, then like when my mom was diagnosed
34:20
with Alzheimer's and I was taking care of parents and kids, I thought that taking
34:25
care of kids was more than I could handle.
34:28
And then we had parents on top of that. And I just remember thinking,
34:32
thank goodness I don't have bitterness or resentment on top of all of this. Right.
34:38
And so you do have to do the hard work, no matter what it is,
34:44
whether it's, you know, not eating sugar, like you said, drinking your water,
34:48
getting your workout in.
34:49
All that has always been appealing to me.
34:52
I've always enjoyed, I guess, as a nurse, just preventing disease altogether.
34:56
I've been more of the, hey, I'm going to work out and I'm going to eat right
34:59
because I don't want diabetes and high blood pressure.
35:01
You know, I want to live a long, healthy life. But yeah.
35:05
Aside from that is the spiritual. It's just like the mental and the physical.
35:11
There's hard work to be done there, you know.
35:15
But in the end, the positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences. And it's a ROI.
35:23
It's a return on your investment. You're investing in yourself when you do that hard work.
35:27
That's right. That's right. And I feel like that is something the Lord has really
35:32
been calling me towards.
35:33
Like the name the name of this podcast is say grace podcast and like I believe
35:39
in that I'm so rooted in that right like without grace Lord have mercy where
35:43
would we all be you know what I mean.
35:46
But somewhere along the way I feel like not all but but I've got some people
35:56
in my program I've got some listeners here that are using Grace more as a,
36:03
excuse instead of, you know, a free gift, right?
36:10
And so it's like the discipline has got to be there regardless whatever it is,
36:18
whether you're trying to, you know, prevent diabetes or whether you're trying to heal.
36:23
I'm sure there are times when you, all your therapy, you know.
36:28
Times, I'm sure there were times you did not want to go, right?
36:31
There were times you did not want to open up.
36:34
There were times you did not want to do the things that, you know,
36:37
your counselor or therapist was asking of you.
36:41
It's the same with every single thing in life, right, is the discipline aspect behind it.
36:48
Because the discipline is what gets you to the other side.
36:51
If you say, oh, well, I'll just start over tomorrow or I'll worry about that
36:57
tomorrow or I'm not going to face my,
37:00
you know, whatever's bubbling up inside me today when I talked to this person
37:05
I haven't talked to in a long time who may have impacted me in a negative way
37:08
in the past or whatnot, you know, you're avoiding.
37:13
You're avoiding. And avoidance does not bring growth.
37:18
And so that's just really, I don't know where we're going with that yet, Carrie.
37:22
Let me have this baby. We're going to figure it out.
37:27
But the discipline aspect, not from a militant way, right?
37:33
But like all throughout the Bible, there is talk of discipline and rightfully so, right?
37:38
You know, I mean, if Jesus didn't have discipline, right?
37:43
We probably would just, you know, we wouldn't have a Savior,
37:47
right? And so, I don't know, that's just really been on my heart here lately.
37:52
Yeah. No, that's good. We have to.
37:55
And, you know, as you were talking, I thought about triggers.
38:00
You know, one thing, if you don't know if you're completely healed yet,
38:04
is what's triggering you?
38:05
You know, is it your kid's discipline? Is it your husband's coming home from
38:10
work late? You know, is it whatever it is, you know, your mom or dad, something on the news.
38:17
You know, if you still feel like you're being triggered, then that's a good
38:21
indicator that you still have some healing to do.
38:24
Because the things that used to bother me don't bother me anymore.
38:28
And that's like, oh, that's. Trigger is such a buzzword right now.
38:33
It's such a. So like when you say trigger, what do you what do you define that as? Yeah.
38:39
Well, it's something that you hear or see that causes you anxiety immediately.
38:46
I once heard Lisa Turker speak live, and she was talking about going through her divorce.
38:53
Yes. And how she thought she was having a good day. She went to the store.
38:58
She said because it was hard to go out into public because she's known.
39:03
And she was going through a hard time, and she felt like people were judging her.
39:07
And she just remembers one day at the grocery store, all the guys said in the
39:13
produce was, hey, are you having a good day? Is there anything I could do to help you?
39:17
And she said it was just so nice to have somebody who didn't know her to be
39:23
kind that she said, I literally lost it on the bananas.
39:30
She said, I just laid over the bananas. And she said that poor guy,
39:34
she was like, he had no clue what he had just done for me.
39:39
And so whether it's somebody being nice to you because you don't think you've
39:43
earned that or, you know, or you just don't expect it. And you should.
39:49
You should expect people to be nice to you, to be kind to you.
39:52
And we don't give ourselves the courtesy of seeing ourselves like God sees us.
40:00
Like one thing I used to tell my children is you're royalty in God's eyes and
40:06
don't let anybody let you think you're less than a prince or in your case, a princess,
40:11
you know, and I read them, you know, the whole series of The Lion,
40:16
the Witch and the Wardrobe,
40:17
you know, and we went through all of that. And I love C.S. Lewis, love him.
40:21
And I loved reading fiction with my children because there's always a life lesson
40:26
in there, or whether it's Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows.
40:29
I just feel like boys have sports books and all kinds of things.
40:34
And so, but my heart is for these young girls to heal. And I remember when I
40:38
signed my book contract, I wasn't going to tell anybody. I was just going to
40:41
kind of keep it to myself.
40:43
And I went to get one of those permanent bracelets to sort of like set that
40:47
memory. Like, I'm writing. Every time I look at my wrist, I'm writing.
40:50
And I knew the girls in the boutique and they were like, oh,
40:54
what are you getting your permanent
40:54
bracelet for? Are you celebrating something? Is it your birthday?
40:56
And I just was like, no, no, no, just a little something for myself,
41:00
you know, blah, blah, blah.
41:01
And finally, they got it out of me. And they're like, Carrie, what are you doing?
41:04
And so when I told them I wanted to write a young adult fiction book for girls
41:09
to heal, I mean, I had one mom of girls just break down.
41:15
She was like, they need that so bad. And that was just confirmation for me that,
41:20
OK, I'm on the right track.
41:22
But just whatever the Lord is asking you to do, just step into it,
41:27
even whether you feel qualified or not, whether you feel stuck or not,
41:34
do the hard work because you.
41:37
In hindsight, there is somebody out there that needs you to be the best person
41:43
you can be. That's right.
41:45
Because it's not about us. It's about somebody else.
41:50
And we don't know who that somebody else is until we step into obedience.
41:54
And there's so much blessing in obedience. If there's one thing I've learned
41:59
reading through the Bible, cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation is there's blessing in obedience.
42:05
Yes. God loves his obedient children.
42:08
And I think that's such a good point because I think, to me,
42:13
the obedience to me is kingdom work, right?
42:17
And so if we're not being obedient, we are constantly going against the kingdom work.
42:25
And so, yeah, we're going to have more discomfort in our days.
42:32
Yeah, we're going to notice the
42:33
triggers more. Yeah, we're going to feel like, oh, my gosh, is this it?
42:37
Is this all life has to offer? Like, because we are not in alignment, right?
42:43
And so while obedience, golly, it's so hard.
42:47
I'm sitting here 35 weeks carrying some obedience, you know what I mean?
42:51
Right now, it's also just so cool to be able to, like, breathe so much more
42:58
freely in your day, right? And so I think without...
43:04
Healing from the things that maybe we're feeling led to heal from or even just
43:09
explore a little bit more, right?
43:12
Without doing that, then you are essentially hindering the next step of your
43:18
calling, you know, if you just choose to stay stuck instead.
43:23
And so I just, that's heartbreaking.
43:26
That's heartbreaking for your life right now. And it's also heartbreaking for,
43:31
you know, for God's plan for us, you know?
43:35
Yeah. So, okay. How many people do we know don't heal and they're stuck in addiction
43:41
and destructive relationship? That is heartbreaking.
43:44
Yes. Or like, back to the triggers conversation, I really, I mean,
43:49
I feel like a trigger is felt in our body, right?
43:54
Like, you know, when, even when you were talking about your sons before you
43:58
went back to therapy and like just that anger that would come up and you would
44:01
yell or whatever, clearly you were being triggered, right?
44:06
And that's felt in our body. And so it's like, that is not something to be ignored, right?
44:12
That is a sign. Our body is like telling us, giving us a sign that something
44:19
needs to be examined so that we can get, you know, that much closer to,
44:27
you know, whatever the next step as the Lord has for us, something has to be examined first.
44:32
But man, it is scary. You know what I mean?
44:35
Nobody wants to go to therapy and say, I think I have some anger issues with my kids.
44:42
You know, that sucks. Yeah.
44:47
That's incredible that you have done that. And I know a lot of women my age
44:51
with younger kids experience that same thing.
44:54
You know, they just fly off the handle And it's like they don't even,
44:58
they can't even explain where it came from, you know.
45:02
So I hope they hear this episode today, you know.
45:08
Okay, this has been really good. Do you have anything else you want to kind of say?
45:14
Well, I just don't want people to be too hard on themselves.
45:17
It's never too late to start healing.
45:20
And that's what I hear the most when I share my story behind the story with
45:24
small groups or even on stages is I have women come to me and go,
45:27
you know, that happened to me. Is it too late for me to heal?
45:31
And some of them are in their 60s and 70s. And I'm like, absolutely not.
45:35
It is never too late. Absolutely not.
45:38
And so that's what I want your listener to hear is they can heal no matter where
45:44
they are, no matter what stage of life they're in.
45:48
It's a beautiful thing. So I say step into it, whatever it takes.
45:54
I love that. And so if they were going to take that first step to healing...
46:01
What would you recommend? Well, I would say go to a Christian counselor.
46:06
And the reason I say a Christian counselor is because they are going to walk
46:10
you through why God wants you to heal and not just to heal for the purpose of healing.
46:16
If you can't afford to go to a counselor, then get books on healing.
46:21
There are so many good books on whatever you've experienced.
46:25
And there is somebody that felt led by God to write that book for you.
46:33
And you just got to find it.
46:35
And, you know, we have so many resources these days, even if it's just a pastor.
46:41
If you're not in a small group, oh my goodness, we have seen answered prayer
46:45
galore in our small group.
46:48
And women who have had to heal, you know, there is rich blessing in a community of like-minded women.
47:00
Is just rich. And I've seen a lot of healing in our small group.
47:04
And if you're not in a small group and you live in our area,
47:07
I meet on Thursday mornings at 930 at my house. You can come.
47:12
If you are a local, yes. I believe that too. I believe you'd let anybody come in that door.
47:18
That's right. Yeah. I think the resounding theme really is though, to just like,
47:24
We spend so much of our lives trying to walk away from things,
47:28
trying to like keep our back turned to the pain or to the triggers or to the hurt.
47:33
And so like you're saying, just turn around, you know, like turn around,
47:38
find a Christian counselor to help you walk through or find a community to help
47:42
you walk through or literally hold your hands open and say,
47:46
OK, God, I'm tired of holding this.
47:49
Show me what's next. And like, he's so good, he's going to, you know,
47:55
he is going to show you what to do next.
47:59
Especially, I believe this in my soul, especially with something that,
48:03
you know, is so vulnerable and that you've been running from for so long.
48:07
You know what I mean? For you to turn around and just surrender it, man.
48:11
You will find, you know, what you need to find in this season.
48:16
Okay, so I would love for you to let our listeners know where they can find
48:22
you, where they can get more info about you.
48:24
I'm on Instagram at Carrie Watts Writes. I'm on Facebook at my name,
48:29
Carrie Watts. That's more like my family stuff.
48:31
But my writer life is Instagram at Carrie Watts Writes and Facebook at Carrie On.
48:36
I am on TikTok. I'm on Substack at Carrie Watts Writes. and I just joined LinkedIn.
48:44
And none of this has happened in a day, y'all. This has been years of little
48:49
by little, but the Saved and Strong podcast is on all your favorite channels and on YouTube.
48:54
And that's about it. If you think that the Lord is leading you to write.
48:59
Email me at kerry at kerrywatz.com.
49:01
I'll send you my free resource called Start Writing Workbook.
49:05
And it just kind of starts with writing your story.
49:10
It's so important to know your own testimony, even if, you know,
49:15
it may not be your whole life story, but something that the Lord has brought
49:19
you through, you've got to see that He is faithful in your life.
49:23
And we tend to, as women, we tend to focus on the negative, and we've got to
49:28
start focusing on the positive and be thankful for what the Lord has done,
49:33
even in the littlest things.
49:35
Even that, I imagine, is such healing, you know, like a healing process. So just write it out.
49:40
And that's, y'all, that's Keri at C-A-R-R-E, W-A-T-T-S.
49:48
All right, Keri, it has been such a joy to have you. We are so blessed to have had you with us today.
49:54
Thank you so much for being with me on Say Grace. Thank you.
50:00
Thank you for listening.