Is a Hyper-focus on Trauma Actually Hurting Us?  with Maria Baer

[Music] welcome to the Alisa Childers podcast where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with Clarity kindness and truth so have you ever heard something like this procrastination is a trauma response self-absorption is a trauma response being rude is a trauma response well I hope we're going to make sense of this for you today I know this is something that I've been seeing on social media for a while I haven't really had language for it and I just had a conversation with Maria bear and she's been thinking a lot about this she just wrote an amazing article entitled make resilience cool again a new study demonstrates why endless personal trauma mining is destructive not restorative now I want to just say from the beginning nobody is saying trauma doesn't exist or that shouldn't be something that's dealt with and talked about but what Maria's really put her finger on is how we've almost pathologized everything so I want to read just a paragraph from her article and then I'll take you into this conversation with her because I think you're going to recognize this she said if we were to follow this thinking to a logical conclusion I don't think we'd like where it leads I shudder to imagine what else might be a trauma response and therefore not our fault and therefore totally acceptable and therefore deserving of accommodation and therefore for helplessly chronic even many times people kind of taking these sort of um diagnoses and making them part of their personality and so she talks about this research that's been done lately on U people who have had childhood trauma and how they have fared throughout their lives I can't wait for you to hear all of this stuff I think it is um such an important conversation that we need to have about being resilient and the role of suffering we talked about that we talked biblically about the role of suffering in our lives as Christians and the good that can come of that we covered so many things we got deep so I hope you really love this conversation with Maria bear this episode is brought to you by Summit Ministries if you're anything like me you want to equip your kids to have an unshakable faith in a very very chaotic culture well Summit is here to help you out with that you can choose a two-e experience in Georgia or Colorado and you can go to summit.org Alisa lock in your early bird price by March 31st and you can also get $200 off by using my code Alisa 24 so that's summit.org Alisa use my code Alisa 24 well Maria welcome to the podcast so glad you're here for anyone unfamiliar with you tell us who you are and what you do and then we're going to get into this fire article that you wrote and just the implications because I think this is a super big topic that I suspect many of our listeners recognize but they don't have language for sure yeah well you calling it a fire article just gives me butterflies a little bit so I might be kind of nervous but I'm thank you for that um yes so I'm Maria bear so I um co-host the breakpoint this week podcast at the Coulson Center for Christian worldview um if if your listeners uh have heard from the Coulson center before chances are somewhere my hands were involved in that um but I also do some freelance writing and Reporting elsewhere so I um I write some commentary for world news um I also contribute occasional news stories to the world and everything in it which is world's Daily News podcast which I think is one of the best podcasts out there um I also am occasionally published doing some news writing at Christianity today uh I've done some work at the Gospel Coalition and then you know just some other like secular news Publications um I used to write for the City magazine in Phoenix where I used to live um so you know went to school for journalism and I kind of have uh a heart for both kinds of writing you know sort of Christian thought and philosophy but also news as well and storytelling um and I'm I feel really blessed that I get to kind of do both in my uh professional life and then personally I have two young daughters and my husband and we live here in Ohio and are just having lots of fun that's awesome well it's I'm so glad that you are coming on the podcast today because we're going to be talking about resilience and Trauma in fact the title of your article and I just want to tell everybody listening to us and watching us please go read this article it's called make resilience cool again a new study demonstrates why endless personal trauma mining is destructive not restorative and so I think this article makes so much sense of a lot of what I'm seeing even in the deconstruction movement because I mean I believe trauma is a real thing but trauma has almost come to mean almost anything like any kind of difficulty you might encounter in your life and you have put your finger on something so important so what I'd love to start with is tell us about the study that you cite in this article because I I was so fascinated reading about this study because I think it really shines a light on how we can approach this topic totally I was fascinated by this as well and I I love that um people had the idea you know to to build a study like this I thought it was so clever the way they put it together because they were uh really looking at a problem that I'd been kind of thinking about for a long time I'm sure you have too like you said kind of observing the deconstruction movement and also just larger cultural movements around mental health um all all these questions were kind of swirling and they kind of hit exactly um what I was wondering which is um how do people who have endured trauma farare into adulthood and is there anything that we can glean from you know who seemed to do better and who seemed to struggle more um that could help us in our approach to trauma when it happens and so what they did was they this was the out of Kings College London and then I think so researchers in New York as well they found somewhere around I want to say 1,200 um survey respondents and they looked over like a 15-year period and uh a handful of these respond had court records of having suffered what's usually called in the psychological Community an adverse childhood experience so some kind of childhood trauma that had was substantiated by court records right so this is neglect or abuse or sexual violence um it could have been maybe the death of a parent being in the Foster system something that we know tends to cause trauma that reverberates um as a child grows up and so this was a a a subset of the survey respondents were chosen because those court records existed uh the rest of the respondents did not have any um official record of having suffered childhood trauma now that of course doesn't mean that they didn't um there just wasn't a record either in both cases the researchers did not tell the respondents that they were aware of these court records they essentially sat these folks down and said tell me about your childhood and then tell me about your mental health now as an adult and they found some really interesting things not everyone who had you know Court documented instances of adverse childhood experiences shared what those experiences were so you know they they weren't aware that the researchers knew and so some people chose to share those things and some people didn't um some people who didn't have court records or documentation suggesting their trauma as a child shared stories of trauma what they found was the people who did share stories of their trauma whether these were substantiated or not in their adulthood seemed to be struggling more than the others so more anxiety and more depression um the most interesting result I think for me from this study was that there were 170 some people uh who had record of trauma as children who did not bring it up to the researchers and those 170 some respondents were no more likely to be dealing with mental health issues in their adulthood like anxiety and depression as the general population and the conclusion um was something that I had been you know like suspicious of for a while and you you wonder um their conclusion was that it's not necessarily the trauma itself that determines how you Fair into adulthood or how you how your mental health um develops over time it's more about the meaning that you ascribe to it now there's a ton of caveats here right because there there trauma is a a wide spectrum um in my opinion I think it's actually gotten wider than it even needs to be we we call too many things trauma yeah but in the real definition of trauma there is still a spectrum you know there there's levels of violence and and Trauma and there's trauma that ongoing and lasts over years and there's one traumatic event so there there can be all kinds of different ways that people's minds cope and deal with it and there's also people have different temperaments people have different genetics all sorts of things also contribute to our mental health as adults but what I think is really helpful in a general way that we can take from this is that dwelling purposely dwelling on pain um not with the AIM of you know getting past it learning to accept it and learning to cope and live with it but dwelling on it in the sense of thinking about it all the time um sort of incorporating it into your sense of self or your identity making sure that everyone around you knows about it and you know can accommodate you in the way that you think you need um it's actually not good for us it does not it does the opposite of what we're hoping it will do which is give us relief and help us to feel better um the opposite is actually true now I there is also um a lot of research that suggests when you have suffered trauma or when you have you know uh any other sort of like mental clinical mental disorder typically fa you know confronting your fear and anxiety is um empirically Far and Away the best way to deal with it so the my the argument I'm making here is not like pretend this didn't happen and stuff it down and never talk about it the question is the motivation behind it and the the time that you spend doing it I guess yeah you know there there's if you're talking about your pain and your trauma with the goal like I said of of coping with it accepting it and moving forward that's healthy um but unfortunately I think too many of us um in the wider culture as well even outside of the psychological Community we're sort of em bibing this cultural Waters which suggest you should just kind of dwell on it and and that's and you you well that was very well explained and you as you also said almost make it your identity it's almost become the new pronouns to put your mental health issue you know in your in your introduction of yourself right and I think we see this I see this a lot among gen Z in particular and I think there you know there have been some Studies by I believe it was Bara in Impact 360 that discovered that on one hand gen Z is more more aware of mental health issues than Generations previous but I and you know this wasn't really discussed in the research but I wonder if maybe that can also have a NE a negative side as we're seeing this kind of fragility among people and in a perfect example of This was um a friend of mine was doing a Q&A at a secular college campus and a student got up to the mic this is obviously somebody who was struggling with a lot of things and they were very angry because this was an apologist that was giv a a presentation and it got so heated that um my friend just basically said if if I send you a if I give you a book will you read it and this student basically said oh I can't read books because I have ADHD do you have a audible that I could read and my friend was like well I just I don't have an auto I have a physical book I can give you well will you read it if I give it to you and he's like well is there text to speech I can't read books because I have eight this is a college student this is a student that's in college that and it's it's like of course I'm not denying that ADHD exists or that it can be difficult to read books but is the answer to just say I can't read books or is the answer to try to overcome that and push through and so I I I think that to me that was so stunning that that was such an example of just this it's like this fragility about and I'm not just BL you know harping on gen Z I think we see it everywhere but are you seeing things like that and what how would you think through that I mean I know you posted a couple of Instagram posts that you'd seen that reflect this mentality yeah I this has been a growing concern I think yeah among jenzi in particular but I I've I've seen it in my own life and my in my personal life and relationships as well um and I think I understand the impulse behind it which is if you're if you're feeling bad right if if you're suffering you're feeling anxious you're feeling sad or you know some expectation of yours is not being Met Life just isn't what you thought it was going to be um you want to find an explanation for that that's a total totally human impulse right I share that impulse and um the more you know academic we get about mental health struggles um there are positive uh results of that um people are getting help that maybe wouldn't have gotten help 20 or 30 years ago but I think the negative parts of it are that we start to pathologize um just human problems or normal you know maladaptive behaviors or honestly sin struggles um and the we we do that I think the aim is to empower ourselves you know to sort of to get away from the whole like well if if you're sad or feeling depressed you know just get up and go you know feel better I guess pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of thing and we find that really offensive and hard and so the pendulum has now swung so far the other direction that we're saying everything that causes you discomfort or pain is probably explainable and it's very important that we are able to explain it and then I guess I don't know we shrug our shoulders and we make sure everybody around us knows so we can be accommodated but the Paradox is I think that example you shared about the the college student is perfect and really sad because the Paradox is that's the the least empowering thing you can possibly do because now the implication is um it's not changeable you know I mean I I wish you want to ask that student like why would you accept um you know sort of that pronouncement you know over you that you books are no longer available to you anymore well couldn't you try right you know and if you can't and you know obviously you navigate one situation at a time but to but to just make a a pronouncement um is really limiting and unfortunately that's the the downside of this pendulum swing all the way to the other side where everything is pathologized I think I shared in the story about this goofy meme I see all the time that's like procrastination is a trauma response right and I I'm thinking like so what's the implication behind saying that and the I'm guessing you know I'm just imagining like a hoorde of college students emailing their professors and saying like I've just discovered that because I didn't turn my paper in on time it's because I have trauma somewhere and I need to find out where it is and deal with it and also you need to accommodate my lateness and all this kind of thing right and all that happens is um you don't learn that let's say you do have really significant trauma and it makes it difficult for you to meet deadlines presumably you still want to get along in the world and do well and Excel probably um the route you want to go is to find how best you can cope with this and move forward as opposed to using it as an excuse and I just find that really disempowering I don't know how many of you caught the State of the Union Address but I was sickened by our president's words about the pro-life cause and his absolute insistence to stamp out our voices well we can vote with our dollars we can give our money to companies that are going to promote pro-choice causes but we also have the opportunity to place our money with companies that are going to advocate for the pro-life cause and this is why I love s weeks coffee so first of all I love it because it's really really good coffee and I really like their business ethics so they are pesticide free mold free shade grown and they are direct trade which means they pay their Farmers 300% more than the standards that are required for fair trade and I also think it's just the best tasting coffee I've ever had I get my espresso beans from se s weeks coffee every month but here's the thing I really really love about seven weeks especially in light of recent comments and that is that they give 10% of all their proceeds to pro-life resource pregnancy centers all across the nation to date they've given over $300,000 to the pro-life cause they are dedicated Christians they are unapologetically pro-life and when you buy their coffee not only are you supporting this podcast but you're also supporting the pro-life cause and you're getting amazing coffee in return so go to 7weeks coffee.com you can use my code Alisa for 10% off your purchase again go to 7 weeks coffee.com use my code [Music] Alisa is this primarily a western thing do you think that there's more mental health in the west than ever is that you know real is that imagined and no get it's Western yeah okay talk about that it's Western and I've I've looked at this because this is the other part of this that fascinates me because if you look at objective measures like human well-being um westerners are doing the best right we have the least poverty um we have the in most cases I think we have the longest life expectancy um we have the best you know birth outcomes and Childhood Health outcomes we have the most advanced Health technology by all of those kind of metrics like materialist metrics we're doing the best but we absolutely have um the most mental health diag nooses I think in the west compared with anywhere else in the world now you could look at that and say well we just know how to diagnose it right we just have the the knowledge that allows us and um and certainly there's some truth to the there's some truth to that because obviously there are very real and um very difficult mental disorders I mean things like schizophrenia um obsessive compulsive disorder depression as well anxiety disorders these things are real and are we do see manifest of them all over the world there's a lot of research about that but there is definitely an increase in sort of the lower level diagnosing of you know general anxiety disorder um attention deficit I think you mentioned even things like OCD there's way more of that in the west I think now I'm not a psychologist so I'm armchair psychologizing this a little bit um but but from a philosophical point of view I think the the real driver of this is our expectations I think when you become really comfortable and you're you're living in a time and place that's really Advanced technologically like ours is and that has is not only Advanced but has advanced very quickly which then gives us the impression that it's going to keep advancing as quickly as it is um we have an expectation that life is going to be less and less difficult for us and that it's going to be less and less painful and that's both um materially but also emotionally you know you see this in particularly left politics that you know we're always progressing towards doing better culturally we're going to be more equal we're going to be kinder we're going to be more inclusive no one's going to feel bad ever and I think the impact of our expectations on our life experience is probably I think our expectations are the biggest um how do I want to put this they are like the single most powerful tool in the way we experience Our Lives because yeah and and I think that explains the cultural differences so in the west if you expect your life to be wonderful and then you encounter pain um now you you not only have to deal with the pain itself you have to deal with the shock and the sort of disillusionment of it if you're growing up in a culture um that very very poor that has always had to work very hard that usually you know maybe kids even have to work to support the family and you um those things seem natural to you and are expected then I think we have an easier time um getting along mentally and I think that's demonstrated yeah and even for Christians too if you think about it if you look at world if at church history most Christians throughout church history have had to really suffer for what they believed and I think here in the West especially in America where you know people debate over the exact faith of the founding fathers that's fine you can debate that but it's un you can't debate that this is a the these are theistic documents that presume that humans are sinful that's why there's separation of powers they assume that there's these unalienable rights that are coming from a higher source right and so I think we've been able to Coast because our expectation is that a a Biblical worldview is not that controversial until now when it's like becoming rapidly more controversial and we're not strong we're fragile about it we're like well well if I say the truth I'll lose my job or if I if I speak truth I might lose a few friends or I might get kicked out of this group or something and I'm just thinking like most Christians throughout history would would be like what what are you even talking about of course you're going to lose your job of course you're going to lose your family and your friends and all this and um which is one of the reasons the first century church was so kind of uh communal in their experience it's like if somebody became a Christian they might be rejected from their entire community and then the Christians had to then take care of them so uh as far as the Western uh idea goes I want to read you something I wrote in my second book this is my book Live Your Truth and other lies in the suffering SE section because I think how we as Christians deal with suffering is so so important and I want to see what you think about this but then I'm going to read you a different quote from a progressive Christian about suffering and get your thoughts wait so here's what I wrote it says it um I told the story of my friend maen who was a refugee in Congo for 18 months and it was this harrowing odal ordeal then right after that I say it may seem shocking to those of us who eat three meals a day and have access to clean water clothes shoes shelter and bug spray but until more modern times and the rise of Western Civilization life was pretty hard for everyone um Christians expected hardships they assumed that even though this life was fraught with suffering they had a God who walked with them in this world offering a future um hope of bliss sorry wait yes a a future hope of Eternal Bliss in the next but something happened in recent history that tossed The Narrative upside down we got rich we became affluent and confident we no longer needed to depend on God every single second of every day because we had coats to keep us warm and cars to drive us to the jobs that earned US money to spend on groceries clothes and modern medicine these are all good things I'm thankful for them especially modern medicine and the invention of anesthesia can we all just take a moment and thank the good Lord for anthia but amen amen but there is a certain poverty that arises out of prosperity we tend to forget the real purpose of life which is to enjoy uh to worship God and enjoy him forever and so you know the highest goal is not to make us super happy and comfy on Earth but I think because of our cultural moment we've almost bought into the idea that that is what it is so now I want to read this quote from a progressive Christian now this is interesting this was on Pathos and the article was entitled how to stop talking nonsense the myth of Redemptive suffering so the myth of Redemptive suffering oh my there's a lot even just in the title but here's a quote uh he says to say we can learn something from suffering is to give suffering too much value and meaning suffering does not transform suffering dehumanizes suffering is evil oh my yeah what do you think about all that okay one of my absolute favorite companies is good ranchers I love them for so many different reasons one of the reasons I love good ranchers it is that it is the absolute highest quality meat you can buy we're talking Beef Pork wild caught Seafood better than organic chicken no hormones no antibiotics another thing I really love about good 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subscribe to good ranchers if you've been on the fence and you've been kind of thinking about it but you weren't sure this is a great month to subscribe because if you subscribe in the month of May you're going to get a free 10 lb Easter ham guys that is a $119 value if you were to add that on to an existing box it would cost you $119 and again this is Heritage breed humanely raised Prime pork so go to goodranchers.com use my code Alisa to get that free Easter ham plus $25 off your first box again that's goodranchers.com use my code [Music] Alisa oh man I have so many thoughts um suffering is evil is interesting I I have I'd have to think about that for a little bit because um my my gut response is it is because I know that that's not the way that God intended the world to be he didn't intend for there to be be suffering at the same time result of the Fall yeah yeah yeah at the same time I know um you know I'm thinking of God telling Moses um or or telling the Israelites you know talking about Joseph's story and saying god um you know men meant it for evil and God meant it for good and uh my pastor was talking about that story actually last week and he said it's not just like God redeemed it for good God meant it for good so God meant for that you know horrible thing to happen to Joseph so I'm not sure I'm quite ready to say suffering is evil I I guess maybe it's unnatural in in the in terms of natural law that you know it's not the way God designed things um you know what's really interesting is I would say I loved what you wrote and you said in there um you know that we expect when you get rich you start to expect things and this is a testament to how adaptable people are to their circumstances and how quickly we adapt to things um I'm I'm really thankful for Victor frankl's work I'm not sure if you've read him but he so he was a survivor of aitz and afterwards uh he wrote um Man's Search for meaning he was not a theological believer but he he kind of viewed his time in alwiz as a he viewed it from like a sociological researcher almost lens and I I I mean I don't think he had that posture when he was there he was in incredible suffering but when he got out he kind of he had been a psychologist by training and kind of observed how different men in his case dealt with their circumstances and he talked about you know when when you are deprived like that even after coming from a relatively um wealthy um or well-off situation you know with three Square meals when you're suddenly deprived like that after a while he was fascinated to see people adapt to where even the tiniest thing was would give them so much hope right so if they knew that you know in two nights they're going to let everybody in these Barracks gather and they're going to let one of the guys tell some jokes it's like that that that would Keep Us Alive for two days that that speaks to what um both you and I are talking about when it comes to expectations and adaptation because I I do want to say too you know when we were talking earlier about mental health um diagnoses being higher in the west I take them seriously I'm not at all suggesting that the diagnoses are incorrect right and part of that is because our suicide rate is truly alarmingly High so people are serious they're not making up their suffering I think I'm sure some people are because you know putting it in your bio online and all that is trendy and so some people surely are but a lot of people aren't so the issue isn't that we're faking the diagnosis or that we're over diagnosing it's that we are struggling to cope um and I think it's because of our expectations like you said yeah that's the well I was I'm thinking about covid so now the commentary I'm about to make does not apply to anyone who maybe lost a love when I'm not talking about people who truly suffered during Co but but for many of us everybody's freaking out about toilet paper and groceries and first of all I mean yeah I want toilet paper I'm not going to die with you know you're not going to die without toilet paper and yet everyone acted like it's just so it's what are we going to do and and even I'm just thinking all through Co most of us could just open our computers and have food and groceries dropped off on our door doorstep and and I I just struggled the whole time to understand I mean of course there were other stressors like people maybe losing work and having financial difficulties all of that of course but I mean to consider that you know you have Amazon drop off your groceries as suffering I don't know I just like it was such a disconnect for me even the toilet paper thing like and when everybody was panicking like we were low on toilet paper but I just started thinking well I've got some trees out back you know we got some leaves like I'll I'll figure this out it'll be okay I mean we're not you won't die without toilet paper but it was just like this this kind of deep almost like people were using the word trauma and all this I'm just like this is so hard for me to wrap my head around but I wonder how much of this is because the church is not well I I shouldn't say make such a broad statement but I think Studies have borne out that much of the church does not have a Biblical world viiew even many pastors which means we probably don't have a robust Theology of suffering so what does what does the Bible have to say about these topics about suffering and how we should go about that as Christians yeah I think from you know Genesis 3 on the Bible treats suffering like an absolute given it is not a shock at all that's not to say that God doesn't have compassion for it I I think you know the Psalms are some of my favorite um parts of the Bible in part because David is so dramatic and he and he's dramatic because I he's feeling what he's feeling he is in his feelings Alisa he is in in the Psalms and I appreciate it's honest at the same time um and and he's even honest I think sometimes he and job and others in the Bible are very honest about saying like what but why did why did it have to be this way and why did it have to be me that is dealing with it like this and I think those are perfectly honest and normal and fair questions to ask God because I'm sitting here with you right now talking about the reality of suffering but if you know something unimaginable happened to me or my family tomorrow I'm going to be devastated and angry and you know I'm gonna deal with all all of that spectrum of of emotion so that's all legitimate I just think that the Bible um the overall Narrative of scripture and of the story of God creating people to be with him and enjoy him um people giving up that privilege through sin and then God making a way uh for us to come back to him through that whole story um what becomes obvious is that human suffering in the world before Christ's return or before we die and go to be with him is not an emergency and human comfort and happiness and the the absence of suffering is not the highest good it's probably not even in the top five list of things that we should aim for mhm um I think the Bible is also clear that Jesus cares deeply about human suffering and understands it so every lent I read through all four gospels um and I love reading through them quickly because it it's just a cool way to get the whole story um you know kind of from a bird's eye view not obsessive over each little Parable or verse but just to read the story as it is and one of the things that stands out is Jesus encountering people who are sick and he know he know knows that even the people he heals physically are still going to die that was you know during Co I kept thinking I just want to write something that doesn't really even have um any words in it other than a title and the title is you realize you're going to die at some point right right it's most alarming like people are talking like they don't think they're ever going to die now you know there's a lot of caveats there I understand not wanting to die prematurely and not wanting to to die of Co but anyway um when Jesus encounters people who are suffering he cares about that but it is not his um it's not his main prerogative and we know that because there are some people he encounters who have physical ailments I'm thinking of the man who's lowered on the mat into his friend's house and what's the first thing he says to him your sins are forgiven and they're like paron me he can't walk and he's like okay I want you to you know believe and see that I'm the Messiah and you know God knew what was best for him to do in each individual situation but then he healed him physically and so like I was saying God knew that each person he encountered here was eventually going to die so him providing physical healing was not so much um a fix of the Fall as it was compassion which I think suggests when we are suffering whether it's physical or emotional or mental um God feels bad for us and I I don't mean that to sound trite because I think when we're suffering we want people to feel bad for us we want to feel like someone sees us and is also sad that we're feeling the way we're feeling compassion yeah as compassion exactly but it also is very clear both from Jesus ministry and Paul's letters and everything that goes on in Acts and Revelation that um physical and temporal suffering in the world is is really not um an emergency it's not it's not something we need to obsess over eliminating at scale yeah it's like it's like in uh I believe it's James you know consider it uh pure joy pure joy when you encounter Trials of various kinds and it's hard to understand that uh as you know people who try to minimize suffering and this is the thing I I've been thinking a lot about too cuz sometimes even in my own parenting I realize I'm a lot more protective than my parents were and I don't know what to do about it I mean I I see how I try to minimize my children's suffering and I shouldn't but I still do it and I do see the results of it like how did we get here cuz cuz I don't want to be that way but but it's almost like Maria you it's difficult to break out of that if you want to because when I was a kid we would go out and play and we had to come home when the street lights came on that's a lot of people that was kind of the the universe signal it's time to go home as the street lights come on and yet today if I were to tell my kids to go outside and play then people might call Child Services if they see a kid playing all by themselves out on the street so I know that there's a little bit of social pressure involved but I also know that there are things that I'm doing it's like why why am I doing this so Maria why am I doing this I think this all the time but let me ask you first do you find that your parents are more safety conscious about your kids than they were about you yes interesting I do think so me that drives me crazy because I've noticed the same thing about myself that I I feel much more um helicopter than I think my parents were but then I get frustrated because my parents are even more helicopter about my own children so their grandkids and I'm like I need you to help me relax here and you're doing the opposite yes that's I don't know what that is if that's a grandparent thing or if that's a um you know the Changing Times kind of thing but I I don't know I think I have I'm just going to speak personally I've really tried to be honest with myself about the fact that when I'm trying to avoid or eliminate my kids suffering um a lot of the times I can't separate out my own self- protection in that because you're a mom there's I can't imagine a deeper pain than my kids suffering and me having to watch it right so I recognize that part of this is my own um defense mechanism and I I try to offer that up to the Lord and ask him to help me determine when I am trying to protect myself in a way that is going to um preclude my kids from learning lessons they need to learn and when I'm being a parent that is being responsible and um careful you know and I in my own life this is where I'm really grateful for my husband because we're we I need a partner to deal with that with me because we tend to have different ideas about what's safe and what's not safe and in what environment and we tend to balance each other out a little bit yeah um but I I'm really wrestling with this myself because so about two years ago um I was diagnosed myself with obsessive compulsive disorder and I it is now extremely obvious to me that I've dealt with this my whole life I just didn't have language for it and um the the treatment for OCD now I don't there's a couple different kinds of OCD and it there's a wide spectrum of it um I think a lot of people think of like the handwashing one um that's that's not the kind that I have but they're all related the the core of OCD suffering is basically like an inability to cope with feelings of uncertainty so if you think of a person who has a germ phobia they're trying to get as certain as they possibly can that their hands are clean you know that kind of thing the um the therapy for OCD is exposure and response prevention therapy and this is used for PTSD as well as some anxiety disorders but essentially it's like the worst form of therapy you can picture it's like list all the things you're really scared of and then go do them go do them or go go risk them and this has this has been like a personal Epiphany for me it especially the way I parent for this reason so when when my kids um when it seems like they are demonstrating anxiety about something or they're worried about something if it's something um healthy to be worried about then yeah let's have a conversation about it um in an age appropriate way if it's something that you know my daughter went on a field trip in first grade to the fire station and learned about fire safety and then she came home and for a few nights you know couldn't fall asleep because she was scared we were going to have a fire because that's what they talked about there and uh my OCD self would have said something like um that we're not going to have a fire like that's so unlikely it's just not going to you know giving her certainty right yeah now that I'm in this therapy and I feel so bad for my kids because they're having to deal with this as well I'm like you know if there's a fire we will do the best we can I I don't think there will be but there might be just because I I think even that subtle difference is um will hopefully help her cope better than I have in my life with that kind of uncertain and fear but I think it's just normal as a parent because like I said it I don't want my I don't ever want anything bad ever to happen to my kids because it will be so painful to see that yeah learned I learned that lesson the hard way when I was a kid I had a lot of fears and we were in Australia and my mom always made it very very clear that well my mom was very safety oriented so she would train us like how to handle every different situation to the point that I literally knew what to do if I fell into a lake with roller skates on like this is how prepared my mother what wait what would you do what do you do you calmly and slowly untie your laces don't panic and don't try to kick up to the top just slowly untie oh my word take the skates off leave them in the lake and swim up to the top see I know what to do okay do a hammer everything a nail but I'm pretty sure your mom had OCD like that's so I think that may be well that's interesting the fire thing though because I did learn this the hard way because we were in Australia we were staying in a hotel and my mom had always prepared us you never want to stay above the second floor in a hotel because if there's a fire you know the elevators may not work and then the the stairs will be difficult so we were in this hotel but we were on like the 23rd or fourth floor because that was the only room they had and I was like but Mom what if there's a fire what if there's a fire she goes there's not going to be a fire I'm like but what if there is what are we going to do she's like look I promise there will not be a fire and then at 2:00 in the morning the fire alarms start going off they're evacuating everybody now it turns out it was fine it was just like a little kitchen thing it didn't spread anywhere but I was so distressed I broke out in full body hives so I always oh Al so sad how did your mom react oh she was she felt so bad of course and we joke about it now but but she told me though and this is what I love about my parents as they always admitted when they were wrong and they would course correct and do that in front of us and to us so my mom even told me she goes you know what I should not have made that promise what I should have said is that anything is possible it is very unlikely that that would happen but if it did we would it's kind of like what you said we will deal with it and I I vividly remember her being sorry that she had said that and I I thought that was a great um you know parenting call on her part but because of that I always as a parent would tell my kids like well is this going to happen I mean probably not but if it is we'll be fine we'll figure it out and if we're not fine then we'll figure that out too and I've tried to try to do that but that's so funny that you would bring up that fire example fire thing well of course you know like I and she came home and was saying I can't sleep because I keep picturing a fire and I'm telling my husband eron she has OCD what are we gonna do and he's like no I'm pretty sure this is just common being a kid stuff you know and yeah and um but but what a sweet what a sweet way for your mom to kind of use that for you yeah you know Lear right I I think the problem is you know like um I was thinking about this for some reason recently when we were talking about do you remember a couple years ago like Dr Seuss became you weren't allowed to read Dr Seuss for a few canel for a minute he was racist yeah because I my first thought with that was because they're talking about you know I was reading Dr Seuss to my kids then this these are you know kindergarten age kids you have to teach a kid that young to be that fragile about stuff like that and what a cruel thing to do to a person because you know if you if you told if we you know extended the analogy and we said something like you know there will never be a fire don't worry about it and don't ask me about it you know the implication behind what you're saying is if there is one I have no idea what to do and neither do you and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't survive it but if you have the confidence to be like hey you um something difficult might happen you might come across something in a book or you might read something about an author later in your life that that makes you sad or it is not good and um but you can absolutely handle that I mean I'm not worried at all for you about that it's when the grown-ups in your life start to act like they're scared for you about something that doesn't warrant that fear you start to believe it you can't help but catch that fear that's where that adaptation piece comes in um and it's sort of becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy if you teach yourself that you can never hear things that um you know don't J with what you believe you can never see things that might trouble you you can't hear opposing views then you're essentially teaching yourself that you are extraordinarily fragile and the end result is you are going to actually become that fragile and that's unfortunate wow so how can we teach ourselves and our kids to Suffer Well I mean you've touched on it by just acknowledging that something bad could happen talk a little more about that I think um one of the things I one of the other parts of this that I see happening across culture but in a lot of the younger Generations but also in my generation is I think we do a little bit too much um like internal interrogation this is again the pendulum swinging like you know it's very trendy now the whole mindfulness um meditation kind of space and I think part of that is like I said this the pendulum switching my parents were not of a generation that talked about how they were feeling emotionally and I think some of that was very unhealthy um but I think we've taken it a little too far in the other direction because the more time you spend interrogating how you feel from moment to moment um I think this the study that we mentioned at the top of our conversation is evidence that that can Veer into a really unhealthy place so I think knowing yourself is good there's a Biblical instruction for knowing yourself for taking thoughts captive for you know um orienting yourself towards walking in the ways of the Lord you know I was just reading Psalm 25 teach me your ways show me your path so that I can walk in truth I mean that so we're supposed to be intentional about where our minds are and where our feet are going at the same time um how you're feeling from moment to moment is not as important as we act like it is I think sometimes and so um I think just getting out of your own head which is easier said than done yeah but and doing the same with our kids you know not constantly interrogating how they're feeling and also not allowing their feeling to dictate how we respond to them I read this really fascinating book a couple months ago uh by this Dutch um sociologist and it was called between us and she was studying how emotions differ across cultures and I didn't agree with all of her conclusions but one of the fascinating things she found was that there are there the conventional wisdom in this kind of research has been that there are a handful of innate human emotions that everyone across time and culture have experienced but maybe we just um Express them differently or talk about them differently but she actually found that your circumstances can also influence your inner experiences and she gave this example of let's say you have a a child who is in the grocery store with his mom he asks for a treat she says no and he throws a fit and uh if the mom you know says oh my gosh here's your treat or if the mom says okay we have to leave because you're being so loud those are two options the third option is the for the mom to say stop it it right now and to you know do that now the first time she says that as any mom knows that's probably not going to work and it might not work for several times yeah but eventually children learn children tend most children grow out of throwing tantrums and what she what researchers have found when it comes to emotions is that not only are kids in this example and then you can extrapolate this not only are they um learning to modulate their behavior but they actually get less angry that's the insight there which is that you we actually have more control over our inner experiences and our Behavior than we are taught and you know Alisa I think about this all of the time when we talk about transgenderism because you'll hear people say um if we don't allow you know kids or people to do this to their bodies to have these Sur IES to take these hormones they will kill themselves they will commit suicide they will self harm um and that is a a kind of devastating like white flag that we have no business waving because you can you can tell someone who is deeply profoundly struggling mentally and emotionally don't hurt yourself and you can help that person get to a place where they won't nothing is inevitable behaviors are not inevitable you get to decide what you want to do I mean there's one of the the core tenants of this OCD therapy is living according to your values by which they mean okay let's say You're really really afraid of germs you don't want to go out and public because you're afraid you'll touch germs do you still want to work do you want to function do you want to go outside then you're just G to have to do it yeah and the blessing of it is the more you do it it teaches that lizard part of your brain that panics that it doesn't need to panic anymore and it stops I mean this is there's data like this happens yeah that's really cool so as we kind of come to a close here um obviously you mentioned transgenderism we're in a really chaotic time in our culture how do you think developing resilience for ourselves and our kids um can maybe help solve some of this chaos well I think if we can get behind the root of the problem and help with our kids and our own expectations of life this is where reading the scriptures reading the stories of the Saints like you brought up you know the early church and the way even the way modern Christians in countries like China and India and Myanmar and you know the these places under really strict persecution the way that that they are bearing up underneath it um if we can change expectations and we can make it seem like less of an emergency when we encounter disappointment discouragement you know moderate danger pain if if we can sort of as parents if we can grit our teeth and let our kids experience those things you know within obviously certain limits um and help them through them but not try to protect them from all of those um then I think you know the psychologic Community hopefully can get back to its roots of treating the mind as opposed to treating the body in service to the mind that's that's not how reality works and it's it's not going to help anybody um but I I think it's just it's going to require more and more of that because unfortunately you know when it comes to things like sexuality in particular and gender the more we go down this path we're just going to have more and more um victims of this and eventually it's going to turn back over and we're going to realize that this never helped anybody and telling people that you know this sort of safetyism and um never encountering or learning how to cope with difficult Sensations or feelings or ideas uh is what you need the more we can you know squash that message um the healthier we'll get and I think we'll have to otherwise you know I don't see the lawsuits are already starting when it comes to that sort of thing oh yeah we're seeing all the de stories and yeah yeah yeah yeah so and and I think the church has a this is where the church can shine because we're not afraid of suffering we're not a we shouldn't be afraid of dying no I I'm afraid of um I'm not afraid of death I'm afraid of dying because I don't like to be uncomfortable and encounter pain I I feel totally comfortable saying that at the same time um I know that our future Glory will not compare with whatever suffering we encounter here know that Jesus encountered more suffering than I will and and he would he remained faithful to the gospel and to his father and that's really all I need to know you know I still you know struggle and feel sad and anxious sometimes and I think that's going to be a part of life until uh we get to be with him but um but it's not an emergency and we can we were made with the ability to to cope with it alongside him very good where can people connect with you online I know you mentioned a few places you've written but you've got the podcast over there at the Coulson Center so give give us all that info yes so if you go if you search the word breakpoint wherever you get your podcast then you'll find the breakpoint podcast the way it works as um five days a week John my boss shares a little like five minute cultural commentary and then every Friday evening he and I put out an hourong kind of conversation about news and Christian thought um so can find me there uh you can also find that at breakpoint.org um you can also I have a website it's mariae bear.com so bear is spelled B- AER mariae bear.com and you can find links there to wherever I've been published recently um I'm on Twitter but I'm actually off Twitter for Lent so you can find me there um it's Maria bear writes so maybe this will be airing after Easter and I'll be back on there but um even if it's before then you can find me there and I'll I'll find you after Easter so Maria bear writes w r i Tes is my handle over there all right well I want to thank my guest Maria bear what a fascinating conversation I hope this has H helped you give language to maybe some of the things you've been seeing online I want to invite you to like And subscribe if you're watching on YouTube click that Bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video and it always helps for you to share this out on various social media platforms and get that algorithm working in our favor and as always as we pursue Christ let's remember to keep a sharp mind a soft heart and a thick skin we'll see you next time [Music] and no turning right or left will make it through the road that's narrow and the gate that's small don't give up it's going to be worth it [Applause] [Music] all

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 21,323

Keywords: apologetics, progressive christianity, deconstruction, live your truth, another gospel, historic christianity, alisa childers, podcast, philosophy, christianity, truth, gospel

Id: n0Lr53R1vAU

Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2024