Welcome back! It has been a while! I know! Many of you have asked about my podcast and encouraged me to continue the journey, so here we are. In the last episode, along with a few others, I shared a quote from Danu Morrigan, who is the author of the book that changed my life. This quote is, “You are not broken in need of fixing. You are wounded in need of healing.”
Through my podcast, I want to encourage you on your own journey by sharing parts of mine. I have come a long way in my healing process. Some say that they cannot believe that I have the story that I have. They say that they’re amazed that I seem as normal as I am. I give all my healing to God and God alone. He is the answer and healer of my journey. He is the one who has put me back together. I have come a long way, baby, and I know for a fact that God wants to do the same for you too!
The freedom that I feel from my previous entanglement of what we always describe as brokenness is unexplainable. But during this process of healing the wounds, the love for myself and others around me has grown significantly. The confidence that I have gained from knowing that I am free and healed is astonishing, and I want nothing but the exact same for you!
Today, I want to address brokenness. Even though the words I quoted earlier say that we are not broken but wounded, it’s still hard to not call it broken. Maybe you’re here because you are feeling broken. Maybe you’re intrigued by my story and want to stick around to hear more of it. Maybe you already feel that you can identify with it, or maybe this title just caught your attention. For any reason, welcome. I’m so glad that you are here.
My healing began back in 2016, when I started having a lot of negative thoughts and feelings that I knew were not healthy nor right. They grew to the point of me feeling like I was having a nervous breakdown. I was feeling unidentifiable brokenness. Darkness surrounded me, and I began to wonder who would miss me if I were gone.
In the beginning, I was not able to identify what was contributing to my feelings of brokenness, but then, after a series of events, I was able to identify the source through a book that my neighbor shared with me as a laugh.The name of that particular book is listed on my website, teaoflifepodcast.com, under My Favorite Things.
We wanna know what God can do with our woundedness, that we identify as brokenness. We always wanna know how to get to a better, more secure place. Sometimes we may feel like we need a counselor in order to figure this out, but we can all learn how to ask ourselves what we’re feeling, and we can all learn how to hold ourselves accountable for what we’re feeling. Our feelings aren’t bad. It’s not bad to feel things. It’s not bad to feel anger, bitterness, resentment, abandonment, or any other feeling. It’s what we do with those feelings that really matters. It’s how we feed them and how long we allow them to take up residence. It’s really important how long we allow these feelings to stick around and the habits that we allow them to create. Ephesians 4:26 says, “In your anger, do not sin.” It doesn’t tell us to not be angry. It tells us to continue living righteously, even when we become angry. It tells us to not lose control and allow our actions to overcome us, while feeling that emotion.
When we are overwhelmed in an emotional crisis and feeling all the negative feelings, we also may feel like we can’t possibly add something else to our headspace. I know that in every area of my life, I wanted to check out. I remember my exact words being, “I’m done!” There were times that I didn’t even know what I was done with or even referring to, but nevertheless, I was DONE, so the thought of actually adding something else for me to think about or learning something new seemed unachievable and absolutely exhausting – even though it could be very constructive and life-giving. It didn’t matter to me at the time.
Growth is good and change can be necessary and rewarding, but I’m sure you already know that the thought of obtaining that reward doesn’t always make it easy. It’s during this time that we may need to think about forming a few new habits. Even though new habits take time and space to develop, it’s forming these new habits that can possibly become the catapult of healing and emotional renewal.
I’ve heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit, but I’ve also heard that it can take up to 3 months. The key, in either case, is consistency. But, you’re probably thinking, how do we develop a habit in the midst of our hurt and pain? How do we step out of our own negative headspace, in order to develop a new habit? These thoughts and feelings are not foreign to me either. I have had them all. I have fought through them all. It definitely took time and energy to trudge through the mud and sludge of everything going on in my head and emotions. My body also wanted to respond to the negativity that I was feeling, and all I wanted to do was sleep and be alone, but I knew that wasn’t healthy either. I had to find help, and I needed it to be with someone who would push me and hold me accountable to the new habits.
Accountability can be hard, especially when we want to continue in our own ways. But, don’t be fooled. Proper accountability doesn’t mean finding someone who agrees with our every move. It means taking ownership. Accountability is honesty. Being accountable means that we have to answer to our actions. We have to provide explanations. If we become accountable, some things will have to change. This would mean that we also have to be intentional about our time and who we spend it with. We need to make sure that the person we spend our time with is also someone who is accountable. We need to make sure they will hold us to the new habit we are trying to form. This habit could be a whole-new thought process about ourselves and totally reprogramming our brain to think different thoughts.
This habit took me a while. Reprogramming my brain was very difficult. I always had a hard time with quiet. Whenever it was quiet, the enemy would begin to speak thoughts into my head as if I were hearing all the things that were spoken to me as a child and even into my recent adulthood. I always had to have music or some kind of sound in the room or wherever I was. I couldn’t just sit quietly. However, I am happy to report that I am now able to sit quietly with my own thoughts. I no longer deal with the negativity and terrible words that were spoken to and over me. I have defeated the enemy in this area of my life, and it feels good! I love sitting quietly now. I love just listening to the silence, with the occasional bird chirping outside my window, the wind rustling through the leaves, or just nothing – complete silence. The silence is no longer deafening. It is welcomed and overwhelmingly satisfying.
Habits can also develop resiliency. During my healing, I did form a few new habits, along with renewing a few old habits that I had lost along the way. One of these most important habits was learning to lay it all down at Jesus’ feet. I had to do this daily, even before getting out of bed in the morning. I would wake up and make sure to have a conversation with Him about all my fears and anxieties for that day, and there were many. I began to repeat all the truths that Jesus says about me in His Word and push out all the unwanted words and lies that the enemy tried to instill. Sometimes, I would feel like I couldn’t even get out of bed, but after handing it all over to Jesus, I would suddenly feel the strength that I needed to at least make it to the next step – which would basically be sitting up and putting my feet on the floor. From there, I would just do the next right thing – get up, wash my face, get dressed, and so on. You get the picture. All throughout my day, I would just try to do the next right thing. Just doing the next right thing helped me refocus my thoughts and actions to only what needed to be done for that day – either for my children, my husband, or myself.
Another thing I did was close my circle. I had to step away from a few others – especially those who were always stealing parts of me in order to accomplish their own goals. One of my favorite quotes is from one of The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Milbourne. He says, “You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.” Meaning – you can’t change other people, but you can change what people you allow in your circle. I had to step away from those who were always taking and not replenishing. I also stepped away from those who were always creating drama – especially those who seemed to thrive on it and refused to seek solutions. I stepped away from those who seemed to drain my emotions. I stepped away from those who made me feel like a worse person when I left them, than I did when I had arrived.
I wanna take a second and say that there’s a good chance that someone just popped into your mind just now when I said all of those things. If so, it may be a very good idea to analyze and check that relationship. There’s a good chance that person could be sucking you dry as well, and you don’t even know it.
I’m going to leave this episode here and end for today. I am going to pick this back up in the next episode and talk more about separating from toxic relationships – even if those toxic relationships happen to be family members.
I really appreciate all of the positive comments and feedback that I have received from this podcast. I appreciate you all cheering me on and motivating me to pick it back up, even when I let it get behind. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. I do hope that you found some valuable information and the motivation needed in order to help you Transform Every Area of Life. Thanks so much for listening.