S13 E3 | Their Chaos Doesn't Have to be Your Chaos

0:00Every week, women come to therapy and theology, caring, anxiety, grief, relationship struggles, and questions they don't know where else to ask. Because of faithful friends who make this ministry possible, they find conversations rooted in biblical truth instead of just empty answers. Today, we're asking you to help us reach the next woman. Before September 30th, please help close our financial year-in funding gap. Go to Proverbs31.org-therapy where you'll find our page with all therapy and theology links and resources, including the opportunity to give today. Welcome to today's episode of Therapy and Theology, where we help you work through what you walk through. I'm your host, Shay Hill, and I'm so excited for our final episode in season 13, where we've been journeying through the topic of control. In today's episode, Lisa, Jim, and Dr. Joel will help us stop co-signing onto others chaos, and instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, choose to live self-controlled.

1:00Like I said earlier, this podcast has a clear mission to help you work through what you've walked through. While we often want to quickly get over things, sometimes we simply just have to walk through it. Going through is what will help us get to the other side with a greater understanding that God has always been and will always be with us. We may experience heartbreak, rejection, crippling anxiety, and relational hardships on this side of eternity, but with the Lord's help, we will survive it, and help others believe the same as possible for them. That's why I'm so grateful for the trauma-informed coaching certification from our friends at the American Association of Christian Counselors and Light University. Not by leading experts in mental health, trauma, and ministry, it equips you with practical, biblically grounded tools to walk alongside hurting people with wisdom, compassion, and maybe most importantly, hope. Right now, you can apply for a full tuition scholarship to this $1,600 program, and if you're

2:04approved, you can get started for just $99. Visit lightuniversity.com backslashleesa to apply today, or you can find the link below. Friend, wherever you're listening from today, we'd love to hear what's resonating with you and also what questions you still have. So leave us a comment as you watch or listen to this episode. Okay, now let's hear from Lisa, Jim, and Dr. Joel. Here's what we cannot control. Other people. We cannot control their actions. We cannot control their reactions. We cannot control the narrative. We cannot control what other people do or what they don't do. But here's where the Bible is crystal clear. There is a type of control that we are to exercise, and that, my friends, is self-control. Have you ever been in a situation where there's someone who brings a lot of chaos into whatever

3:04environment they walk into? I don't know if you have this situation in your family or in your friend group or at your work, but I do. I have people in my life that I know that they almost get some kind of joy or thrill by stirring up chaos on the outside, and here's why, because they have chaos on the inside. And they're reaching a state of equilibrium, and they want to invite you to participate in the chaos, because that intensity helps them feel something that they want to feel. I'm joined today with, of course, Jim Cress and Dr. Joel Muno-Mali for this episode three in this whole series on control. So I have a little story from when I was a little girl that I walked out into my front yard, and I noticed an ant hill. I became fascinated with this ant hill. They were chaotic, and you know, just lots of life inside of this, and I thought, hmm,

4:11I want to kick that ant hill. So I kicked it and stepped back, and boy, the ants emerged, and they just became like really, really active. And I can't really explain why I did this, but I thought that it would be kind of fun to stand in the ant hill. For real? I did. Were they right? So I don't know what kind of ants they were, but they stung for sure. Fire ants. And that's me, how I know, because I stood in that looking down and watching them crawling my shoes, but the thing is they didn't just stay with my shoes. They started crawling at my legs. And the sting and the chaos that ensued, it was terrible. And I... I'm doing anaphyl. I think shocked. Just listening to this. Okay, well thankfully that was not part of the story. But I just remember, as I look back on that situation, I remember this desire to participate in a chaos that I was never supposed to ever participate in.

5:12And here's the thing, there's really no mystery about what will happen if you mess with an ant hill and decide to stand right in the middle of it. No matter how much you hope, this time will be different. Ants are going to do what ants do. Lisa, you do realize you not only participated in the chaos, but you set the chaos off. Like you... Okay, they were underneath. There was already chaos underneath, but then the chaos became part of my environment when I messed up into the chaos. I messed with it. And not only did I mess with it, they messed with me. Yeah, sure they. So, you know what the ants do? The ants do what ants are going to do. They bite when they feel threatened. Yeah. And it's much wiser to acknowledge that the ant hill is there, but not jump into it. Obviously, that's such a good word picture, honestly, for self-control. Our job is not to fix the ants or to try to convince them to stop biting.

6:15Our job is to recognize the reality of the ant hill and then make wise choices in how we respond when we encounter an ant hill. You know, Lisa in our household, we have a saying for what happened there. You know what it's called? Self-wooping. Self-wooping. I just can't cut a little Lisa in my mind being a low-income. I love the picture. Inquisitive. I'm going to step in the ant hill. I know, Joel. It wasn't like I was having a lot of logical thoughts. Right. Up, yeah. I saw something and I was like, yeah, I need to jump right in that. You know? How do you know you were being very spiritual when the Bible says, consider the ant. It's in providence. I was doing something. Maybe because I have three days, one day, a logical correction to that. I cannot let that stand. But I do think you point out something that's really, really important to me. Everything in a lot of other as well is that chaos seems to have its own gravitational pull. It does. It's something about watching the chaos that almost like it's like a black hole and

7:17starts to draw you in until you're like, why did, like, what could have possessed me to do something like that? And then all of a sudden you're living in the context of that chaos. That's so good, Joel. And when we participate in the chaos, we will ourselves become more chaotic. True. So it is officially time for another confession. I don't know if you're in a game show the last three of us. It's like three out of three over here. Like what is going on? Okay. So today I want to talk about how sometimes when we get drawn into the chaos of another person or the chaos of the situation, we will start adding to the chaos. And here's how we start adding to the chaos. We do things that are on the list. I'm about to reveal. I wrote about this in making peace with what I can't control. But today I want us to acknowledge how we can sometimes not only find ourselves in the midst of chaos, but participating in it and trying to control the play, control the

8:21narrative, control what another person's perception of something is. When we're doing that, we are running a high risk of participating in the chaos, but also adding to it. So let's get right to the list. Let me guess you're about to kick another ant hill with us right here, right? Something like that. Absolutely come on. I think she's a standard in the middle. Yeah. All of the habits die hard. All right. Here we go. Okay. The first one is personalizing, taking someone's negative statements as a personal attack against us. We're supposed to raise hands, Jim here. Jim, yeah. Joel, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing about the personalizing for me is I think about, I think Jim you said before just because somebody lays something down, doesn't mean that you have to pick that thing up, right? But the personalizing is taking someone's negative statements as a personal attack against us because the part of for me that's the control is, like I can't believe they could think that about me. I've got to figure out how to change the perception of me because of something congruent

9:22to who I am. Or for me, sometimes it's when my oldest daughter Hope is very, very, very wise. And she'll be talking about something and she never mentions that it's about me, but I start personalizing it and it suddenly feels like attack against me. And so I will get defensive, which we're going to go to next. I'll get defensive and she'll say, Mom, don't personalize this. We're just having a discussion about, you know, an obstacle or about a tension point or whatever, but don't take this so personally because what will happen is it's not just something that she's pointing out that maybe we need to do better at or that I need to get better. Suddenly, I personalize it and I think, oh, she thinks I'm a bad mom. She never said that I'm a bad mom. She doesn't think I'm a bad mom. I mean, she really, really loves me as her mom, but I can personalize it and make it almost like a personal attack against me.

10:23What drives that for me, by the way, Hope is so such an amazing person and her Michael, what they do and leading us at Haven Place. I mean, lives are being, they're being changed there. Let's be honest about it. I sense though with the personalization of my part, we said if it's hysterical and it's historical, we'll just get past that, but mine goes to the shame part of me. S H A M E self hatred, as I've said, at my expense that I'll feel like you're saying what you've alluded to, they're not saying that at all, but I feel like they're saying you don't really know me or that I'm a bad person. And it'll come on me that quickly, back based into my life story. So I'm aware that it'll come into and I'll feel it in self-regulation. Let's be, get back with the brain back online and go, that's not what they're saying. To be curious, not furious, right? Be curious is okay, hang on there. But it'll come on me pretty quick, this one. Yeah. And we have to remember too that trauma is not just the facts of what happened.

11:24trauma is often perpetuated in our life, the effects of it. Because we then develop a story, we tell ourselves because of that trauma. And if the story we tell ourselves is kind of someone else kicks that ant hill, if you will, you know, and gets a little close to something we already fear is true about ourselves and it's only natural to personalize it. But when we do, we're going to add to the chaos of that situation. Okay, the second one is getting defensive. Two hands up. Yep. And that one is feeling the need to quickly justify our actions and maybe even sometimes using a mean-spirited tone or resorting to yelling, which inadvertently legitimizes their actions or their accusations of our bad intentions. And I have seen this play out before. I will think I'm going to go into this situation with this person. I already know there's going to be chaos and I will stay calm.

12:27I will stay calm. I will stay calm. But the minute that they hit at misunderstanding or accusing me of having bad intentions, when I know for sure I did not have bad intentions, it just happens so quickly. Suddenly I'm participating and adding to the chaos because I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're misunderstanding me. And then if they escalate, then I can escalate. Like, no, that's not true. You know? Right. And you can see how that chaos just grows and grows and grows in the dynamic. Here's the recent one that happened with me and with Jessica, my wife. I'm just working on wanting to be very attuned to her in my life. Whether that comes out in a piercester or not, I'm working on it really behind the scenes. We were in a conversation literally about her, scheduling like a doctor's appointment. And she had a date set. She's on the phone with the person and scheduling and she turned and said, hey, they could do it earlier. It would be better in September. My September is crazy right now with travel, other things.

13:30There's two days I had it off in August. I said, can we leave it there? And she said, well, the September win might work. And I just had my face was like, you don't know this. I couldn't say it to her. She's on the phone. I can't do that. Get off the phone, all like that. And I was actually almost in the next room, but within I shot a near shot. And she said, no, this is, I just, I'm not okay with you making that face at me. That looks like you're disgusted with me. It came on me so fast and I thought, I've been praying. I just gotten back literally two hours before from a trip out of town. I want to reconnect with you. I'm a lot of good stuff we've got going. And in a moment, and I got defensive so quickly, could even stop myself. And she said, with her voice, a little bit raised. You're right now not listening to me. And I'm like, I, I, you, I mean, it's almost that nonverbal stuttering. We talked and worked through it. It got messy. And then I said, you know, really doesn't matter what was going on in my internal world. I want to stop. I don't want to give you a face that looks like, what are you doing?

14:33Yeah, it was just crazy. And I said, at least I've made, said I'm sorry, made the amends. So I get permission to still be human and messy. And inside when I realized was underlying me was, I really want to reconnect coming off this trip. Right. Then it was, my face was all, my calendar in September. I can't tell the lady on the phone right now. Yeah, we can schedule this procedure. I can't, I literally can't, I do it. When I made my amends, I said, I wish I would have just said, honey, I can't do September. But my face before I knew was like, I mean, I can't and all like that. So I want to say for all these, because I relate to, especially that one getting defensive, I always say, interview the defense of this for me. I'll do it later off and I'll say, what was I defending versus you're being defensive? What was I defending? And inside was a perceived inadequacy and a sense that she doesn't think I'm caring primarily for her. And so inside when we were able to circle back as we talked for every rip, there's a repair.

15:35So on all these is to recognize them and then to give myself grace and to take ownership. See my motive there, I do not believe was bad. I've got, I can't, but the modus operandi was, it looked like I was just like, get a grip, fix this thing. Don't ask me to do this. So whether it's my intentionality to do something wrong or unhealthy, I just want to keep circling back and saying, I wish I would handle that differently. The vulnerability hangover, remember after that, and Bessel van der Kalk, Lee Trommel researcher finds this, when you have a moment of being trauma triggered even a little bit, the number one thing in his research he found was shame. When you finally, the brain starts coming back online like, what just happened here? It's like emotional vertigo. Well, what just happened here, you'll feel shame like I blew it again or I did something else. One thing that's really helped me is to understand what I'm doing when I get defensive. And part of the driving force for me is I want to control the narrative.

16:37So it does really come back to controlling. I think if they make a statement that's not true and I don't immediately correct that statement, then my silence in those seconds is an affirmation that what they're saying is actually true. And that's not an excuse to get defensive. But one thing that I'm doing that is helping me is recognizing I don't have to correct it in the second that they say. That is so good. After they finish, I can take a pause, take a breath and then respond with a very logical statement without getting defensive, elevated and adding to the chaos. Again, our goal here is self control. We cannot control the chaos of another person, but we can control how much we put ourselves in that kind of environment. We can control the boundaries, the healthy boundaries we've had in place. And we can control what we do, what we don't do, what we say and what we don't say. Okay, let's go to the next one. So we've covered personalizing, getting defensive.

17:39The next is disconnecting. This season we're talking all about what it means to make peace with what we can't control. Unexpected pain, trauma and disappointment can leave us questioning God's plan. But I'm learning that peace isn't found by trying to control our circumstances. It's found by trusting God one faithful step at a time. And often the places where he's brought healing to our own hearts become the very places he uses us to bring hope to someone else. That's why I'm so grateful for the trauma-informed coaching certification for my friends at the American Association of Christian Counselors and Light University. Taught by leading experts in mental health, trauma and ministry, it equips you with practical, live-liquely grounded tools to walk alongside hurting people with wisdom, compassion and hope. When you apply, you'll receive a quick reference guide to help you know what to say to others

18:41when they can fight in you and you don't know what to say. Then when you enroll in the coaching program, you'll be invited to attend a live masterclass with Dr. Shane Anderson, where you'll learn how the very trauma you've walked through can become the thing that helps someone else find freedom. Find more details and apply today for a full tuition scholarship at lightuniversity.com forward slash Lisa. Giving the other person the silent treatment to detach, avoid or punish them with our disengagement. I don't want to acknowledge that I do this. But sometimes, and I'll jump from extremes, I'll go from being defensive to suddenly just saying, it's just not worth it. They're not listening to what I'm saying and I'm just going to go quiet because getting quiet is saying something without saying something. Okay, Vulcan Mindmeld here, that's from Star Trek.

19:44You are getting quiet externally and I relate to and I know you do too because you talked about earlier. Quiet externally, but I bet it's not quite internally. Oh, deafness. What's going on internally? Stanley, anger, frustration. Oh, okay. So you're going to treat me that way after I know my intentions were good. This is what's happening in the script in my head. Fine. Then I won't talk to you. Quib Pro Quo. Because the more I talk, the more I feel like you're using my words against me. And so I'm not going to give you that kind of power. Right. Very logical, isn't it though, if you think about it, there's a real logic to that. But it's not always healthy and it is sometimes this lack of self-control. Instead of calmly responding or calmly exiting the situation, just to go radio silent. It is, if I'm super honest, it is a little bit of a way to make a point without saying words.

20:47One of the things for me I try to apply, did you notice I said try, is when you're in this situation, we're all in them. Been very vulnerable on this season, my goodness. Truly, if you want calm, be calm. What, if you want calm, bring calm. And I think even Aristotle saying we are what we repeatedly do, there is a new with neuroplasticity wiring that goes on that I want to be able to bring calm. Many of us need to shift from being peace keepers, not good, to being peace makers. And I found in my own life, I do not always succeed at this. But there are some days I'm proud of myself. I went, I want to calm here so I brought calm and I learned to self-regulate to calm myself down in one of our great themes there, but there are putically is to co-regulate, which means I have a good friend, phone somewhere, or just sitting as we've done with each other, and I co, which means with co-regulate, that you help me get regulated without shaming me or I help you.

21:52That's the co-regulation, that's why we need each other. And this is something we got to practice too. Totally. It's not something that we hope is just going to happen by natural people, a whole process. It really is something that we have to make an intentional choice to practice, not getting personal, like personalizing things, not getting defensive, not disconnecting. And I've heard you say this before, Joel, what we practice we get better at. So if we want to get better at personalizing, getting defensive, disconnecting, then we practice that. But if we want to exercise self-control, then we have to practice self-control. Okay, let's go to the next one, powdering. Yep, that's me, 100%. Say more. Hello, Joel. So powdering bringing a doom and gloom attitude into the situation, sometimes without realizing we're putting an immature version of ourselves on display. Confession, I realize exactly what I'm doing. So why? That's a soft sell. Yeah, that's a soft sell.

22:53Thank you for the soft sell. I'll just, you know, the sake of transparency, continue to be transparent. The powdering and the disconnecting, to me, are kind of connected. Yeah, that way they're flowing from each other. The thing that I think about as well, this happened recently, actually, just in our own family. And the dynamics that are kind of happening, my daughter MJ6, and she's like the most perceptive little girl ever, you know. And something happened, I think I got upset. And I just went into my powdering routine, you know. And so it's like, am I going to talk to anybody? And I'm just going to grab my book and go sit up on myself. And I'm going to sit down, but I'm going to plop down a little bit. I'm going to have beer then I normally would. And I'll just shut the cabinet harder. Yeah. Slide the door a little more. That's a real productive reading. Yeah, yeah. And I got to do the hard exhale as a couple of times. Just so anybody who passes by, they know. And then, you know, and you ran over to me. And just, just, data. You know when you do this, it makes life hard for all of us, right? He did not. Six years old. Out of the mouths of Bane. Six years old. Wow.

23:53Just like confronted me like right there. And I was like, oh, and to that idea of chaos is, there are things that we do that brings chaos that stirs up an environment that you think you're doing it for yourself to get what you want. But in the process, they're actually like, dysregulating everybody else that's in your environment. And so when you're participating in things like that, it might make you feel better in the moment. But we also have to think like, I keep thinking about like, personalizing and getting defensive, disconnecting, pounding. And then I think the phrase for all these. So we go through is like, okay, but at what cost? What cost is it going to have on yourself and on others? Such a good question at what cost? Okay, the next one is getting critical or judgmental. And that's when we start fighting fire with fire, saying critical things about someone who has criticized us, accusing them of equal or worse things. The next one is long. Yes. I'm sorry. That one because it ties into being defense when you said that I'm like, have we done that one before? That's your about to do lying.

24:54No. That's what I thought to you. I said what? I'm saving that one for you. Now I'm kidding. See critical or judgmental? No, that one is that's that quid pro quo that tit for tat thing that I'll feel it and it'll be on me before I know I go, if you're going to go there right, you want to go that? You can handle the truth. So I just wanted to I thought we were raising our hands on which one we are. Oh, we are. Yeah, like all that one. Yeah. All right. So then the next one is lying. Yeah. And this one is trying to make ourselves look better by inserting statements or pieces of evidence that are not fully true. Yeah. You know, what's interesting, I don't know if you remember the episode that we did where we talked about how many lies the average person. Oh, yeah. We okay. Yeah. And how we're like, no, we don't lie. We don't lie. We don't lie. And then when we dug underneath the surface and we did a confession moment and I listed out all these things we could potentially be either lying by like, like not quite telling the whole truth or buying a omission, you know, or saying something just avoid a hard

26:00conversation, which you know, could be lying. But um, yeah, a lot of omission, commission, uh-huh. Oh, just leaving the omission was such a big one for me. That's why I was kidding me about it. It's overused to talk about stuff. But we were we all we all failed that day. And yet we succeeded in the podcast, I guess, because to look at the idiosyncratic ways that were like, uh, and my big one will be omitting. I'm not telling you exactly ask that so I could leave that thing out. And I'm like, okay, that's part of it. Yeah. All right. Then the next one is prideful thinking, touting that we would never act like them or that we are more mature or more healed than they are. Yeah. You know, sometimes I see this one emerge when people have done a lot of counseling and then they sometimes will get an attitude, well, I've done more counseling than you have. I'm more healed than you are. And so they almost weaponize the phrases they pick up in counseling against

27:03someone else. Wonderful. A little Pharisee there in there. They, um, that's a little Pharisee. Yep. The next one is acting self-righteous, getting puffed up in our spiritual maturity because we believe we have special access to God's thoughts that may override anything others say. And in other words, we, this one is like playing the God card. Yeah. You know, it's like, okay, we talk about it, we talk about it, we escalate, escalate. Now it's chaos, chaos, chaos. And then, well, God told me. Yeah. And I mean, the ultimate Trump card. It is. What are you going to do with that? God told me this, I'm like, well, yeah. And so again, all of these things are areas that we all need to practice self-control in, so that we don't add to the chaos and try to control the play. Again, we're not supposed to control other people, we're supposed to control ourselves. The next one is making assumptions. And that is unfairly assigning to this person motives and agendas that have become part

28:03of our narrative from past hurtful experiences with them or with people. At least I see your name right next to this one. I know. It just was curious about that. Yeah, you can do the finger. Point at me. That's fine. Yes, exactly. I think, Kear and I won't make an excuse for it. But I think what happens to me is I will pull from other conversations I have had in the past or other events that I've experienced in the past. And if it feels similar to a time where I was betrayed, if it feels similar to a time where I was lied to, if it feels similar to a time where someone was setting me up for failure in some way, then I start making assumptions. Oh, I see what's happening here. Right. I see. And I signed to this person conversations we've never had, events that have never happened. And so I have to exercise control and really have to stop those things in my mind. Like don't make assumptions. Have the conversation that needs to be had, but don't interject all these past experiences with

29:08other people onto this person because that's really unfair. And again, it will add to the chaos of a situation. Yeah. So when we talk about all of these things, I want to make sure that I'm giving space for you as the listener to participate in the conversation. So if you relate to any of these, we've got two more to go. But I'd love for you to jump into the comments and admit how much ever you want to admit or acknowledge that you relate to something because we don't want to leave you out of the conversation. Okay. Here's the next one. Jumping to conclusions. My name is also beside that one because I sometimes want to take something all the way. I play it out and almost happens instantaneously in my brain. It's a gift until it is not a gift. That's good. And so me trying to play something out often, I'll go to a worst case scenario so that can brace myself in case that's where something is going. And the definition I put for this one is mentally going to worst case scenarios before hearing

30:13this person out or giving them a chance to make it right. There's a big difference between someone making a mistake and someone having a detrimental worst case scenario pattern in their life. The short, dude, detrimental worst case scenario patterns happen. Yes, they do, but not every time. Well, not every time. I'd like just to put a bark by hearing them out. That's when I really relate to because I will jump to a conclusion. And one of the things Jessica and my wife's really tried to help me with faithfully is you're not listening and to sit there at that moment. Remember, listen and silent have the exact same letters just scrambled. So the idea of a thank you for reminding, I don't feel that in the moment, but later I'll circle back and go, thank you for reminding me that I'm jumping to conclusion. And often, I'm, even if my brain's taken off autonomically, I'm not listening. Sometimes I have to choose like Jimbo. Don't say that. Breathe literally. Self-regulation. Just listen. One of the little keys that will help you with that help all of us with that is to mirror. Take a breath.

31:14Make sure there's a pause. A rest and then say, is this what I hear you saying? That is an effective tool that can slow us down to have us respond and not react. So good. Yeah. And I think that will help us to not think, be thinking of our response so much so that we stop listening. They say one trigger word and we start thinking, come back. And we haven't listened to everything else because our brain is so focused on. This is what I'm going to say. This is what will prove my point. This is how I will cut to the real issue here, you know? And so I think that's really important. We are so excited to welcome a brand new sponsor to the show, Capstone Wellness, a family-owned organization that believes clinical excellence and faith-reuded purpose can work together to change lives. One of the ways they live that out is through Vine and Rue counseling. Their Vine and Rue intensive program offers something truly unique, a custom individual or marital intensive designed to cover months of therapy in just a few days.

32:19If weekly therapy just hasn't been enough, a multi-day intensive gives you focused immersive time to do the healing work that can change everything. Whether you're walking through something personal or working on your marriage, this experience is rooted in faith, led by experience clinicians, and personalized to meet your goals. You can visit capstonewellness.com-proverbs31 to learn more and take the next step toward the healing you've been looking for. The last one is reacting before thinking. Mm-hmm, that's me. Allowing the rush of emotions to take over and dictate what we do and say in that rush of emotions before allowing ourselves a chance to calm down and logically respond. And I'm so thankful that you admitted this because that's a hard one to admit. It really is reacting before thinking. And honestly, I think all of us do that. I think there are, they're reacting before thinking. I think there are hints of it in every single one of these things.

33:21So you were the only one brave enough to raise your hand with this one. So I applaud you for that. Yeah, honestly, we're all guilty of it. Yeah, I think for me, they're reacting before thinking. Also, it's like there are these little certain pet peeves, almost certain things that they will just take, like send me a wall. You know, it's not everything because most of the time, I'm actually a detacher or a void or you know. But certain things that will just almost automatically get me in it. It's also an out-of-body experience. I don't know if you guys have ever had that where you're like almost watching yourself. Zero doubt. Like, you have to lose it. And like you're reacting or doing something. You're like, what is wrong with you? Why do you do that? You don't need to do that. And yet, that is the automated system of my body. And so it's frustrating. But what's really important for me is to assess what are those triggers that cause that. And then before those things happen, almost pre-trained myself to say, if this happens, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to train myself to do this, you know.

34:23And that's that act of self-control that we're talking about. Instead of focusing so much on controlling others, is to really work on controlling ourselves. Jim, I've heard you say before and I found this so fascinating that sometimes we react in ways that it is very much not in keeping with the age that we are right now. And I remember one time you said to me, often, we can chase it down. And there we become the age of some unhealed trauma that we experience. So, you know, we become like a four-year-old. We become like a six-year-old or like a teenager again, because there's some unhealed trauma. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, we've used the words biblically, of course, self-control. And I just believe that if we're going to really practice self-control, self-awareness has to precede that. So what can go on? You think of human growth and development. Now, if you're really bored or chat GPT,

35:23PHA, Colberg, Ericsson, the theorist who studied human growth and development, anyone took psychology course in college, you know these, you went through those names. So developmentally, there are stages to complete. I won't take you through them from birth to adulthood. Reminding us the prefrontal cortex of our brain doesn't even fully form to about age 25. Now, we have a thing called adult o-lessence that now getting probably to about age 30 with a lot of the kids out there today. They're literally very developmentally delayed. So in that, I'll say to a person as they're doing some event, they've talked about something that went on like a reaction, how old, just just pause for a second, how old did you feel when this event happened to fight with your spouse, something that worked, something anywhere, even in traffic, anything? And often they'll say, let me think about it, you know, I'll, for seven and I'll say, what might have happened to you that was impactful at age four or seven?

36:24And almost every time they'll say, well, now that you've mentioned it, they'll go back and what can be a developmental, you're not trapped there. A developmental delay and a stuckness there is to take that part of us and to continue to grow that part of us up. But you have to have the self-awareness because it's like most of us here, children, children and grandchildren, when I have seven grandchildren, if one of them, which happens a lot, if they react or do something, you get pens, they pens someone back or they're doing whatever else, I didn't need to go to Dallas, the Eloscal Seminary, which I did to study, hermardiology, the doctorate of sin, nantopology, literally the doctorate of mankind, and how men operate and women operate. I'll look in those children and grandchildren, and give me a lot of information. I'll go, but I expect at one level them to do that. When I'm the adult person, I'll just ponder what age might you be developing, and almost every time they can find it out. Now, quickly, the importance of that is it's information to say,

37:27I have to continue to grow up, and we know the end, nearing the end or middle of first Corinthians 13. And brother, I know there's a context here, some say about prophecy and the gifts, but I love after Paul said everything he could about love, and even agape love, and love, it's used in weddings, verse 11. See, when I was a child, of course, of course, I thought like I reasons like I acted like a child, but when I became an adult, not the therapist, not the pastor, not the friend I put away, child or things, I borrowed the context there and realized a lot of the growing up, the number one thing people say, what do you do in therapy? Helping people grow up. I mean, I guarantee that's the number one thing. I'm not making them grow up, but I'm help I can watch them develop mentally and I'll go, they literally are getting older and older. And is that, I mean, that's essentially what sanctification is. Of totally. Like the launch of that's exactly what sanctification is. And then, you know, you have that there's a famous saying, I don't even know who said it anymore, but you could get the people out of Egypt much harder to get Egypt out of

38:30the temple. Yeah. You know, and so you've got the wilderness wandering and you've got all the ten commandments about all this, which was to remind the people of who they were, you know, in God. And so like the stories that you tell are the place that you get stuck in, whether it's for teenager, whatever was that kind of traumatic event that has you living in almost a chaos of your own making that has to be walked through and addressed and assessed that you can get into the beauty that God has for you in the future. Thank you so much. Well, guys, this has been a fascinating and very personal once again, episode three out of three. Here are some thoughts that I want to leave you with. I know that all we've been talking about in these three episodes on control. I know it's deeply personal. I know that there are complications and nuances in the situations that you're facing right now. Give yourself a lot of grace. And when we're giving this information, it is not at all because we have perfected it. It's because we're on this journey with you.

39:30So my prayer for you today is that there's something that will help you, like Jim said, become a little more self-aware and continue in your maturing process. And that's my hope for Jim. That's my hope for Joel. That's my hope for me as well. I love Joel. How you tied it to the sanctification process. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is found. I think it's in Hebrews 5 where it says Jesus through his suffering learned obedience. And so Jesus in his perfect divinity was also had the need to mature in his humanity. He was sinless, but he certainly faced a lot of obstacles in his life that he too had to grow and mature. And so I know some of these situations, especially this one where we're talking about someone in your life who creates a lot of chaos. I know they're suffering that you have gone through. And just recognize that that suffering is not a stopgate to you being able to grow through this and walk through this. When one

40:34go around it, we don't want to avoid it, but we do need to go through it. And part of that is that we learn when someone else is out of control how we can exercise self-control in the midst. I hope this episode has been helpful. Thanks for joining us. And now it's time for listener mail where we respond to your questions. Today's listener mail is brought to you by Compassion International, which I'm so excited to tell you more about. Compassion is fighting child poverty in powerful, practical ways through the work of local churches and the generosity of sponsors like you and me. Compassion is releasing children from poverty in Jesus name. We've seen the impact of sponsorship firsthand through education, medical care, healthy food, clean water, and the love and hope of the gospel. And now we want to invite you to join us in sponsoring a child. When you sponsor, you'll receive a copy of the Proverbs 31 Ministry's study guide titled Keep Holding On as our thank you for investing in the life of a child.

41:38Go to compassion.com backslashleesa to choose a child to sponsor today. Okay friends, let's hear today's question. This listener says, how do you know if something bothering you warrants a conversation to have with another person? When is it okay to internally process and when do I need to talk it out? I'm going to pass it off to Lisa Terkers to answer this question. There's some wisdom in both of these options talking it out or internally processing it on our own. Talking it out can be really, really wise sometimes because what we don't want to have happen is contempt to be developed between us and the other person we're in the relationship with. Summary resentments. If you think that there's a chance that you could have some of those simmering resentments, that's a relationship killer. And so we really, really do want to make sure that we're processing things with the other person so that we can keep a clean slate in the relationship. But there's also wisdom sometimes in internally processing it and then learning to let go.

42:46The wisdom there is that we don't want to make a deal out of everything and sometimes it's kind of like kicking an ant hill. If you kick an ant hill and stand in the middle of it, the ants are going to sting because that's what ants do. So what you really have to do is count the cost on both sides. You have to count the cost and figure out how can you best fight for this relationship, not fight in the relationship. But what I mean by fighting for the relationship is is this the kind of relationship and is this the kind of person that is willing to have a healthy productive conversation or is this the person where you're just going to need to draw some healthy boundaries and learn to internally process it. And only you can count that cost. So and then even in healthy relationships, you know, there's a time to talk it out and then there's a time to process it on our end. So I don't think there's any hard and fast rule of when you should do either of these, I think exercise wisdom, count the cost, know who you're relating with, who is

43:51this person? Are they open? Are they willing? Or are they tough and kind of hard-headed? But once you've kind of figured that out and figured out what the very best is, pray to the Lord, ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment. Use that discernment and practice wisdom. Maybe today's conversation helped you make sense of something you've been caring. Now, imagine another woman who hasn't found this podcast yet. She's still searching. She's still hurting. She's still wondering where to turn and your generosity helps put biblical truth within her reach. Before September 30th, please help us close our financial year-end funding gap so more women can know God's truth, live God's truth, and experience the hope only found in Jesus.

44:51To give your best gift today, go to proverb31.org, backslashtherapy, where you'll find our page with all therapy and theology links and resources, including the opportunity to give. God bless you, friend.