Therapy & Theology: Why do I have trust issues?

hi I'm Lisa Turkish and I'm here with director of theology at proverbs 31 ministries joel luna male and the amazing counselor well my personal counselor Jim kress thank you guys so much for joining us and we're back therapy and theology and today we're talking about trust issues something that I think most of us have maybe all of us have some of us are more aware that we have it but let's talk today about trust issues where do they come from so maybe Jim from a counseling perspective when it becomes apparent that someone has trust issues how do you know and where does it come from and then Joe I'd love to hear your thoughts from a biblical perspective yeah I could throw the ball right back to you and not try to steal your thunder but when you talked about your grandson Dreiser I don't know that as a counselor I would come up with a better metaphor than that would you share that you hear that's a great foundation so the past three and half years I think you guys know if you've ever watched therapy in theology on YouTube or listened to the podcast then you know my family has been through a lot lots of downs but some ups to one of those ups is my daughter Ashley got married to David and then after only been married for a couple of years they found out that they were having a baby and so Ashley gave birth to her first grandson Reiser and I was smitten from the moment I laid eyes on this precious little boy so the nurse came in right before Ashley was to take riser home and I was in the room with her and she started talking about when a baby cries that there are several different things that that means you know maybe they need a diaper change maybe they're hungry maybe they're cold and she said it's very important that right from the beginning that riser know that he can trust you and one way you build trust with your baby is by recognizing they have a need and then meeting that need especially when they're small babies and they can't provide for themselves at all and then she said this trust is the emotional oxygen of the human relationship yeah and I think that helped me not just understand what Ashley could do to bond with her baby but I think it helped me understand why when trust issues emerge in human relationships how it really can feel like you're suffocating if you feel like you're not sure if you can trust that person or not or worse yet you know you can't trust them so for me I didn't grow up having too many trust issues although I think we all do too but I very much started to recognize them pretty profoundly in my world when art and I started to come back together and try to rebuild trust and Trust is very hard to rebuild so my trust issues came because I've experienced a pretty significant trauma in my marriage relationship and I wasn't sure if rebuilding trust was even possible but Jim what would you say that the case is for most people that are having trust issues where do they come from well following the story with Reiser your grandson we're wired for trust in safety we're wired for bonding were wired for attachment and a whole field of study and counseling on attachment so the idea of like if you look at some babies who were born for example in Romania and put in an orphanage and there was no face-to-face eye-to-eye contact babies are scanning I mean my word we have iPads now that scans my face and says yeah that's you and safety I can get into my iPad right so babies are wired and in utero obviously they're bonded attached to a placenta attached to an umbilical cord and very very very safe and then to be thrust into this world and to not have moments whether some and I do this with people with my intensives and counseling say where were you what were you born into what was the milieu someone says I was born with jaundice and I was in an incubator for the first several days maybe in a NICU and they were not able to have human touch or much interaction with mom they weren't able to nurse with mom so early early on they go from significant attachment in the womb safety typically to coming out and if that attachment is not built and then as they grow older through all the developmental stages and so we get to this famous topic of narcissism we'll talk about it at one level being a developmental disorder that there were there were needs that weren't met in childhood so the idea of the safety that is there the building of attachment in my case in my personal story fifth of six kids mom and dad wanted to what does that say to kid number five who was me and my mom would say your you know your sisters or your real mom let them raise you so it wasn't raised by wolves but I was raised for a part of it thankfully for an older brother my brother Eddie who really helped me and was a father figure from birth to about age five and then my three older sisters basically raised me so there was attachment there but notice it wasn't to the parent so I was wired for what's called an insecure attachment Jim was and to be kind of going through life like who is safe do you really like me do you really are you really safe that comes out of my childhood where there was not a lot of parental overt nurturing and bonding and caretaking other than a shelter roof over my head writing food there was a lot of bonding it was quite vacant in my growing up years and I know that the question am i safe yeah I think that's so hardwired into the DNA of every human and I don't know that we naturally revert to that question when we're talking about trust issues but it seems so logical that that's really what we're saying it's like can I trust you is really am i safe with you in most people we as we get to this thing on narcissism later it's not the begin it's not the first few dates or the first few times having coffee with the friends most people will appear safe most people are putting that best foot forward during that time it's kind of like a faux FA UX of faux safety that this seems okay right until you go further in and a person cannot they're kind of the seductive piece or putting on the window dressing of that so it's not that I think people most people if they see an overtly unsafe person and they're into fight flight and freeze something in their minds you say freak out they're going to have a tendency to back away but until they get deeper into relationship and all of a sudden wait a minute this is incongruent you say this but you're not doing this and right that's where the safety it's not usually the beginning of the relationship in my experience it takes a few times interacting with a person alright Joe I want to get to you in just a minute but let me ask Jim one more question what do we need for trust to be there we have said before haven't we that Trust is built over time which always moves on you have to worry about time plus this provable behavior its regular Gorbachev's whole thing of trust but verify so what I think we need for one is time you know we don't want to judge any relational fruit before its time so as time moves on and then I need an awareness for one Maya Angelou the great poet said when someone shows you who they are believe them so as I begin to see something inside just almost a twitch of my body that says that didn't feel cool that feels unsafe or just simply I don't like that I want to pay attention to that when often what I'll do is and that's probably just me or I'm just being obsessive or and I'm doubting watch I'm not trusting myself first right at that moment how am I going to trust someone else then how am I going to go vertical and trust God right right so I want to get back to you in just a minute and say what are we supposed to do in relationships where those things hit us like ooh that didn't sit with me right or wait they said this but they previously told me that or is this person really being honest so when we have those little cautions in our mind sometimes it's past trauma speaking that's right and sometimes it's a present day alert that's right that Arabia even an alarm so I want to come back to you in just a minute Jim and say how do we know the difference how do we know if it's our past trauma speaking or a very valid present reality in this relationship because I think we transfer trust issues from past experiences into present day and this is where I get tripped up how do I really know what is what here so I'll come back to you in just a minute Sheol from a biblical standpoint while humans seem to be almost hardwired for trust because of the way that God made us he made us in His image and so you know there's this principle that Jim referred to it a little bit ago that even when a baby is born mirroring to that baby is so very important and so I think about wow God even hardwired that into us like we are a reflection of who he is but that can get so complicated when we feel like we've been hurt by another person and so Trust isn't broken here but then trust can really almost get broken there because it's kind of like God you say you love me you know you've numbered the hairs on my head you know me most deeply so why in the world would you put me in a situation with a person that has hurt me so bad so now do i I don't really I don't even trust this person but now I'm wondering if I can even trust you yeah I think that's for so many of us live yeah yeah no absolutely and I think you both have hit on it about this idea of hardwiring and Lisa you're talking Genesis 1 right Genesis 1:26 and 27 and I just think it's so interesting a repetition typically results in Revelation right and so multiple times God says he looks at says we're gonna make Adam and Eve both man and woman in his likeness and in His image and as we talk about trust the reality of Eden is that God gives Adam and Eve both dignity and destiny so the dignity that they have is that they're made in the likeness and image of God and the destiny the Telos the end goal that they're pointed towards is to actually not stay in Eden build up fortifications and walls and just hunker down it's actually the spread the glory of God out to the ends of the earth and so there's almost a sense that God has this relationship with Adam and Eve of saying hey not only have I given you everything that you need now I'm gonna give you a sense of trust this is reciprocal I'm gonna give you a sense of trust that I need you to now go out and to do the things that I've destined for you to do and what the enemy does is actually present doubt right yes to both Adam and Eve I always want to comment on that Eve's not just by herself that the Hebrew that's that's right there it says actually Adam is with her could have at any time stepped in intervened gaslight then the enemy gaslight are there oh yes it is I love you position that doubt versus coming in and just overtly t-boning her with craziness is like just a little doubt like no not really and and if we got into that I mean that is the cumbersome times we read scripture and we just read it kind of cold but yeah if we're having a conversation right here that's how I anticipate that the conversation is gone well did God really right yeah and I first thing that is recorded at least when I read the NIV dude I have a running joke he he thinks that the real Bible is the ESV right because that the non inspired version of the NIV know what you're doing well yes we select standard version is we won't invite you into this trust issue their fight not money right what Bible do you have over there happens to be the ESV but I do like the other I don't even know what to say right now but isn't it isn't it fascinating the very the very thing that Eve had the most of mm-hmm that is confidence in God and and no shame 25 says Adam and Eve were read naked and they felt no shame that meant naked emotionally physically spiritually because they had no other opinion to contend with but the absolute assurance of God's love yes and then the enemy comes in and says did God really say right so making her not only question God's Word but even more than that question can you really trust God yeah and we're gonna get into this and you mentioned narcissism but I just want to Justin set up that appeal that's taking place for both Adam and Eve is an idea of self exaltation and self-glorification right there and this is going to prove to be disastrous not just for Adam and Eve but for all of humanity Genesis 3 happens fall happens and now we get into our hardwired conversation we are living in the result of a fallen humanity but it's so interesting that God does not send them out and then say forget it I'm just gonna restart all over again in fact and this is the idea of covenant right biblically covenant we think about it in marriage in terms of marriage the way that God's covenant relationship with his people is so different is that while the people are typically faithless and we include all of ourselves in that God's character and attribute is always faithful and so there is a journey through scripture that we have to identify how does God continually and and I would dare somebody to find me where he was faithless how does God continually prove himself faithful and I was just doing some study in the languages in the Old Testament there are two primary words for trust there's bata and there's a Mong but taw deals with security that comes through reliance on someone or something so keep Reliance in mind am on is the second most often used word and it deals with trust because of a confidence of that person's thing or reliability so at the core their security and security comes through reliance and reliability what happens at the fall is that the serpent questions security through is God actually reliant can we rely on God and it's got actually reliable and humanity from that point on our asking these very specific questions about God is he truly reliant is he truly reliable because our human experience is kind of point to well how could God be faithful when all these other experiences that we know we have in human relationships are faithless but that is actually a not fair way to consider the way the relationships go we should never consider things horizontally and then go vertically actually our vertical relationship with God and his proven track record of faithfulness actually should give us hope and anticipation for how he's gonna renew all things horizontally well I like that you added that word renew in because you said show me a place in the Bible where God is not faithful and I would imagine we could go to snapshots of instances where taken out of context it feels sure it does like how could this be a demonstration of God yes right but even the the equation that you gave us time plus believable behavior in the instance of a human but time plus the assurance of who God is will give us a bigger picture to hold in context what we're walking through yeah and so I think for me where I get in trouble is I look at individual circumstances out of context yes and then I try to say well how in the world is this situation proof that God is reliable right that God is being faithful that God is being good because this doesn't feel good yes this doesn't seem good I can't even imagine the good that will come from it and so if we pull a circumstance out of context in the Bible or a circumstance out of context in our life then and we don't add time to it yes then I think that's where we can in trouble and the story of Scripture is time that's what you're saying right we've got creation to consummation at the very end with revelation and it's an interesting thing because I was again studying in this I'm like okay we're just trust show up in the New Testament right because we have to think about this holistically we actually don't see the actual Greek word for trust show up often in the New Testament but what we see everywhere is faith what we see everywhere in the New Testament in this a Greek word pissed is it's faith and we're like well how do we define faith Hebrews 11 I think is gives the standard for what and used actress of the word Lisa now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen and so now the writer of Hebrews is pointing back to actually our reliability and the reliance of Jesus's faithfulness on the cross is actually how we maintain a sense of faith and so in the Old Testament Trust is almost like a seed it's planted and it's there and all throughout the narrative of Scripture that seed is being watered and actually Trust is just the beginning and the fruition of trust is faith and faith looks back on not just a trustworthy nature nature of God but also that he actually acts in so many different ways and I think for me it is important when I think about faith to remember that me having faith is an established trust with God that looks back and pulls from previous experiences with God the trustworthy nature of God that I eventually saw in this situation I pull that into my current situation so it can be reminder but then also as I look forward to the future or even as I dread the future so uncertain in my circumstances I say to myself God does his best work in the unseen yes so that I pull from his faithfulness in the past and as I look forward I hated myself I don't have to see how he's being faithful to declare he is faithful and I can't trust him and that I can pull into my current circumstance all right Jim so back to the question I asked you because even though I have great assurance with God mm-hmm sometimes I have a hard time connecting that trust that I haven't God that God is eventually going to work even all of these relationship issues that I have with people that God is gonna work good from them but when I'm in a moment where I'm having that thought can i really trust you or what you just said seems suspicious or I'm skeptical because of previous things that you've done in my human relationships I often find this struggle of trying to figure out is this a present-day alarm with this person that I need to pay attention to or is this my past trauma speaking that I'm now transferring a trust issue on to this person and it's hard it is very hard that's why time is important to borrow - for me from Genesis 1 2 and 3 I'm gonna say it this way that God did it there for he gave Adam and Eve the holy boot out of kicked him out of Eden but with God for every holy boot he has a holy reboot he has a way to come back and say I I will bring you back and I think that is a template we could borrow also if there's a holy boot like I'm setting myself back in boundaries from this relationship I see this is not safe then I need to have a holy reboot there in relationships I want to go back to Ground Zero doesn't mean all the past was fake and phony but I go back and say I'm going to have eyes wide open and like that no one can see right now but us 3 on this video there's a whole team of people assistants all the people who do all the videography sound there's a whole team of people back there they can't see we need were wounded in relationship say shall I say were wounded in community we act out doing healthy things in community we need to be healed in community so to start with is to look at its why God sent us in families and even in the body of Christ to look and say when I cannot trust myself all three of us have people in our lives that we could go to and say hey kind of a new day remember trust but verify so I know I've got some of my own trauma stuff so I don't hide it it could be post-traumatic stress we say if it's hysterical and in relationship I'm kind of you know wondering what's real if it's hysterical its historical of course my story comes into play I could get a team of people I guess in this room right now unseen but they're here and to say this is what's going on he said this she said that promised this this feels like old past behavior is that just something that's a momentary slip for the person I look forward as this person come back do they make amends and say look no excuses they don't want they want to inform not explain and say here's what I've done and I don't want to gym press in his own Toronto story I don't want to walk it alone I want to verify it and I have a team that I walk with good close friends and say this person said this or this got stirred up in me why do you hear me saying they mirror it back and says it sound like I'm crazy and the answer is a good person is gonna find out what is going on in me not if I'm counseling a person I try to go what's going on inside of you versus me telling you no that's not crazy I start with Lisa if you feel this what are you feeling yeah it seems like something's up well let's just not be obsessive but let's walk down the breadcrumb trail there and say yes yeah and they promised this the only nuance didn't varied in in one little bit of way breaking their word it wasn't the big epic thing ago it doesn't matter when Trust is broken the little things can have just as much impact as the big things I want a community around me to say you're not crazy it makes sense that you would be concerned about this so community for me is huge and that is like such a seriously deeply theological principle absolutely from it wasn't good for Adam to be by himself God creates Adam and Eve they go out and then you see the story of a family a family of God the Israelites it's not just ethnic Israel it's actually people from outside other ethnicities other people that come into God's family and I love in the Pauline epistles all Paul's writings it's lost a little bit but his favorite word usage is the second person plural and we read it as you and we live in such a highly individualistic culture that is easy for me to read that and say oh when he's talking about sanctification becoming more like Jesus or discipleship which is a part of sanctification even that it's a singular no he's actually saying you all he's saying y'all y'all good southern Cracker Barrell y'all yeah the South absolutely you know and isn't that interesting that it is actually intentional to what's your point of the family that God actually created the church to be a family because the only way for us to to see our own blind spots is when we have loving people who love Jesus even more so there than calling out these aspects of our lives that we're desperately in need of well let me wrap it up so this is what I think I hear both of you saying trust issues cannot be fixed in isolation well-put mm-hmm and so we are going to have to step out and have relationships of trust issues were created by relationships then I know in my life I I need to wisely choose relationships where then I can re-establish trust and I think one of the best ways to start reestablishing trust is in conversations and maybe even just directly with the person and here are some questions that I found really helpful a lot of times if I ask something because I'm triggered by a trust issue I will say wait you just said this but before you said this and now I'm wondering this that's not helpful that's often a reaction what we're learning in healing is to respond not react right because what what you're almost forcing the other person to do is to get defensive right and then defensiveness erodes trust even more yeah so I found just give myself a minute take a few deep breaths like recollect my chaos that may be happening up here and some more helpful questions that don't come across so personal or help me understand can you help me understand like when you said this but I'm remembering this can you help me understand the difference between those two or to say can we pause for just a second I need you to better define this brilliant or hey maybe you could help me consider what you really meant when you said this because I really care about what you say and I want to understand it on an even deeper level love it so some of those clarifying questions that are help me show me define for me those don't feel so accusatory and so personal and could open up the exact conversation that builds trust rather than erodes it and I would just add Lisa that those are all the same questions that you absolutely can and should ask of God in your prayer life Wow you can and God invites us right we see this everywhere in Scripture God does not dislike us He loves us and he's inviting us to ask those questions we just have to be open to the way in which he decides to reveal himself that's amazing thank you guys so much I hope you have enjoyed this session of therapy and theology trust issues I think we all have them what do we do about it I think we've tackled that question today and how can we move forward really good discussion thanks so much [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Official Proverbs 31 Ministries

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Length: 28min 47sec (1727 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 29 2019