Alex (00:04.191)
Brenda, we're back with our season on trauma. And today we're going to talk about walking with others in trauma recovery. And what we thought we'd do today is share our failures because our failures are really what brought us here and probably motivate us more than anything to go deeper into this topic. And I would say for me, it's not really one specific failure so much as just a vague sense for many years in counseling that I
Brenda (00:16.6)
Our big fail stories.
Brenda (00:21.526)
Yep.
Alex (00:33.798)
didn't really know what to do when we got to a certain place, had a certain amount of anxiety or nervousness. And also, I think the way I, the best way I could say it is I felt like I didn't have a right to enter into people's trauma stories and suffering stories.
Brenda (00:51.95)
.
Alex (00:54.138)
Particularly, I felt like I didn't have a right if I hadn't experienced the same types of trauma that they had experienced, almost like the only person who could talk to them was someone who had experienced the exact same thing. And I think working with the Allender Center has given me the most confidence in recognizing that when I do that and I pull back because I don't think I have a right to be there and I'm first of all making it about me, which is really the worst thing I can do.
when I'm trying to minister to someone, but also it's actually re -traumatizing someone, which we're going to talk more about. It's re -traumatizing them in that they feel abandoned in their trauma and I'm abandoning them again by not being willing to go in there, so to speak, with them and feel the messiness of it. So mine is more just a big overall sense of failure. How about you?
Brenda (01:31.343)
you
Brenda (01:50.883)
Well, I might be on the opposite spectrum because being the, you know, cheerleader that I am, I think I had a lot of zeal to help people. I can do this. I can cheer people out of their misery and very little knowledge to match that zeal, right? I do want to say a disclaimer right here from the outset and that is that I do not consider myself an expert in trauma or trauma care, trauma counseling, but I have a ton of experience.
Alex (02:05.053)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Alex (02:15.944)
Hmm.
Brenda (02:20.877)
meeting with people who are coming out of or have experienced significant trauma. And as I look back at my history, I think about the years that I was in Montgomery, the early years I was counseling, I have two very distinct memories. One was a woman who came and I was, had never met anybody with that much of a suffering story. But my counseling mindset at that time was very much sin oriented. And so I can really remember doing two things
Alex (02:46.728)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (02:50.772)
with her, talking a lot about her her sin struggle, her sin struggle because of her trauma, and then a lot of cheerleading her to get past her trauma and to move on to have faith in God. And I think I met with her for about a year and then to be honest with you, when she wasn't making progress, I just really didn't know what to do and so I kind of threw my hands up, not to her, but in my mind and I kind of, you know, that's what I'm looking for. I say I uninvited her back. I just, I kind of just gave up.
Alex (03:03.89)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (03:20.595)
I just I didn't know what to do. Now thankfully I began to learn because I remember a few years later when a mother came to me who had adopted two or three children from out of the country who had been very traumatized and it took me about two sessions to realize I had no idea how to help her with her children. Like it was the kind of thing where they thought that the children some of the children might get up and kill the whole family. Like we're talking major trauma and major impact and all I knew was like I I don't even think I need to
Alex (03:21.116)
Yeah, yeah.
Alex (03:34.184)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (03:39.336)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (03:44.178)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (03:50.479)
be a part of this, I am clueless. So at least at some point I went from zeal without knowledge to maybe I don't really know what I'm doing and I need to admit that I don't know what I'm doing. And I would say, you know, up until about five years ago, of course I was dealing with people who had been in trauma, but the context that I was counseling in and the amount of counseling I was doing, I might have a few people a month. And so was kind of on a gradual learning curve. But in the last five years, the church that I'm affiliated with
Alex (03:52.477)
Right.
Alex (04:14.567)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (04:20.365)
we just have so many people who are struggling with current and past trauma. We really are at pretty much, I feel like a triage for people that are in trauma or coming out of trauma. And so I remember the first year that I was in my current position. And after that year, and you might remember this, after the first year, I almost quit my job because I physically would, like I was crashing. I could, I didn't know how to handle all the traumatic
Alex (04:42.856)
Hmm.
Alex (04:46.525)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (04:50.529)
situations I was encountering. And I was kind of doing it a little bit more in a vacuum because I was the main counselor at the time. And I can just remember coming down, coming home at night and putting my head in Paul's lap and just being all I want to do is go to sleep. All I want to do is check out. And so I think it's just really an example of what can happen if we're not prepared and equipped. Then we begin to absorb that and we will crash under the weight of it. So almost at an assessment,
Alex (05:05.351)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (05:11.612)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (05:18.181)
Right.
Brenda (05:20.189)
I feel like the last five years I would say it's been a crash course for me in really beginning to understand how can I walk well with others where my experience because I say I have a lot of experience but I wouldn't say all of it's been good for me and all of it's been good for other people but to begin to not to not have to be an expert but to have enough knowledge and skill and understanding that the experience is not traumatizing to me as a person and
Alex (05:24.134)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (05:37.543)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (05:49.18)
Hmm.
Brenda (05:50.069)
and it's not re -traumatizing someone else.
Alex (05:52.058)
Right? That's good. Yeah.
Brenda (05:57.199)
Okay, so we want to talk about.
first of all, who should walk with others in trauma recovery? And I love it again because we talk about all these tensions and we've been having kind of these robust discoveries between these conversations between lay people and those who are professional, maybe more skilled. you know, the first thing, I mean, our podcast, the heart of our podcast is to equip the everyday Christian and then also to help people who might be counseling but maybe not so much from a biblical worldview. Maybe their training has not
given them as much of a robust understanding of problems in people in scripture. And so we want to do the same thing with trauma. I think we really have to demystify it in a way in that it's not something that only professionals can do. Because we said, I think in episode one, Diane Langberg says that, trauma is the new mission field of this generation. And so quite frankly, there's just not enough professionals to go around for everybody who's going to experience trauma and not every
Alex (06:41.01)
Hmm.
Alex (06:52.371)
Mm -hmm
Brenda (07:00.609)
who experiences trauma or the aftermath of trauma is going to seek out professional care. So here's just a few things we want to say. One thing is that all Christians are called to one another. And what we mean by that is that there are all these one another commands. Encourage one another, admonish one another, comfort one another, serve one another, love one another, give to one another, and on and on and on. And it doesn't just say only do these things if you have a certification, a degree, this much experience or whatever. Now we're going to talk
Alex (07:11.421)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (07:22.354)
Hmm.
Brenda (07:30.399)
about the value of those things. And then all Christians can have a robust theology of suffering and oppression. You know, I think we have to understand if we're, if we are going to enter into walking with people who've been through trauma, we're going to have to, we're going to have to realize we're going to encounter some of the worst kinds of human suffering. Things that we ourselves can't even imagine. I mean, I know you have too. We've sat with people and I've just been like, I don't even, I
Alex (07:31.741)
Right.
Alex (07:37.103)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (08:00.296)
have a category. I don't have a category for what this person is saying in front of me. And then all Christians can learn the particulars about trauma and trauma responses so they can better walk with those who have trauma. And you know if we don't there's also an incredible amount of harm that we can do.
Alex (08:04.4)
Right.
Alex (08:14.397)
Hmm.
Alex (08:21.704)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and I think that's the scary part of walk -in with people in trauma. And so one of the things we also want to remind people is that we all Christians can use the comfort that God has given in our own lives, in our own traumas to comfort others, which means you're going to have to know your own story. You're going to have to be able to learn how to apply the comfort you've been given, not assuming there's a one size fits all, but knowing there's a good time and a good way to share the comfort that you've been given.
Brenda (08:47.968)
Right?
Brenda (08:53.046)
Yep.
Alex (08:53.3)
And that does help to take a little bit of the scariness of entering into someone's story. And then all Christians can be a support system to someone who is an intense counseling for trauma recovery. And this is one of my favorite ways to utilize people in the church is to develop a team for someone who is doing some focused trauma recovery counseling and encouraging them to surround themselves with people.
Brenda (09:05.73)
You
Alex (09:22.92)
who don't necessarily have to know the particulars of the trauma that they're working through, but...
need to be willing to walk with them, need to be willing to sometimes even be on call at times to pray or to send an encouraging text so that the person who is doing the hard work of counseling when they begin to feel particularly discouraged, when they are in feeling intense emotions, they can reach out and ask for encouragement from others. And I think that team approach is
the best way for someone to enter into intense counseling. And then finally, we just want to say that all Christians who desire to really get into more intense trauma counseling can educate themselves and gain skills in this area. Neither of us believe that this is a place where you have to, where it's imperative that you go get a very specific degree or licensing, but there is some specific skill and some specific knowledge that
that will kind of one, help you to feel equipped and two, help others heal if you're going to enter into intense trauma counseling.
Brenda (10:37.336)
Yeah. And so we felt like we needed, we do need to like.
flash the warning sign right here. Like, warning, warning, warning, warning. It's not about whether you're really professional or non -professional so much. It's really about, you educated and do you have the skills and are you teachable to growth? Are you willing to learn from other people? Can you partner with maybe some people who have more case wisdom and more understanding if you're gonna enter into this kind of work? And so our warning is just that if we're not equipped to enter into someone's work, we run the risk of being like,
Alex (10:56.488)
Hmm.
Brenda (11:10.912)
Job's friends who God describes, God describes as miserable counselors, right? And we say miserable is a complete oxymoron that we label we don't want to wear when it comes to counseling somebody in trauma. You know, we have the potential to actually hurt somebody more and make their life worse. And I think you and I have experienced that people have come to us and they've actually come out
Alex (11:12.093)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (11:17.853)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (11:23.816)
All right.
Alex (11:34.756)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (11:40.779)
of that position. That they have met with somebody who has hurt them and made things worse. And thank God they end up showing up into our office because a lot of people will never take that second chance. Like once they've been rewounded like that they're like gonna be done. People can't help me, God can't help me. So you know think about Job's evaluation of his counselors. We have God's evaluation, miserable counselors. Job says, I've heard many things like these. You are miserable counselors.
Alex (11:41.98)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (11:46.279)
Yes.
Alex (11:51.27)
Right. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Alex (12:03.815)
Hmm.
Brenda (12:10.782)
all of you with your long winded never end. I'm sorry, well your long winded speeches never end. What else you that you keep on arguing? I also could speak like you if you were in my place, right? If my life was as cushy as yours, if I had never been through this trauma, I could talk that way too. I can make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you, but my mouth would encourage you. Comfort from my lips.
Alex (12:23.729)
Hmm
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (12:37.084)
would bring you relief. So, and then this is what the Lord says about the bad counselors. After the Lord had said these things to he said to his two buddies, I'm angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me as my servant Job has. What a warning. Because if there's anybody that has a story of trauma in the Bible besides Jesus, it would be Job.
Alex (12:55.454)
Mm -hmm.
It is.
Alex (13:05.303)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this brings up the whole topic of retraumatization.
Brenda (13:07.298)
Ahem.
Alex (13:14.002)
And we hear that word a lot and I think we're going to keep hearing it. And one of the saddest things, of course, the first to be re -traumatized is that someone experiences their initial trauma. And then as they seek to tell their story and find healing from that trauma, then the response of the people that they disclose their trauma to actually causes more of the powerlessness, abandonment, and therefore the shame and the fragmentation that we've been talking about.
And unfortunately, where we hear a lot of stories of re -traumatization is in the church. We hear of a lot of people going to either leadership of the church, counselors in the church, or friends in the church, sharing their trauma stories and then being re -traumatized, feeling abandoned, feeling powerless, feeling a lot of shame because of what they've shared. And so what we're hoping is that even just these discussions are a small part of awareness growing in the church.
We're not what Bob Kellerman says. says, Job's counselors were wrong about God and wrong about Job. Throughout their speeches, they victim blame and victim shame Job. And that's what happens. that victim blaming and victim shaming is a re -traumatization. And that's what happens if we haven't thought deeply about trauma and equipped ourselves to minister to someone who is sharing their trauma.
Brenda (14:16.551)
Ahem.
Brenda (14:40.414)
So there is a part of me that hopes we've placed, we've put a little fear of God in people. You know what saying? Like there needs to again, to be this little bit of tension that we don't trifle with people's trauma. That we're not like you, how you were early on, like, I don't have anything to offer here. I don't need to step in. But we're certainly not like I was like, hey, I got the word of God and I'm a cheerleader and we can do this. And you know, let's get after it. So.
Alex (14:50.163)
Bye.
Brenda (15:06.325)
But I think, you know, it does kind of beg the question of with so much at stake, is this a job we should be leaving for two professionals, right? Like, should we really be stepping into this space? And we're gonna argue that it's not an either or, it's a both and. That there's a place for both. And so one of the kind of buzzwords Alex is going around right now or statements is what it means to be trauma informed.
Alex (15:23.058)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Alex (15:34.887)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (15:35.724)
And I think that we would say that somebody in the professional world who does a lot of trauma counseling, we would call them trauma -informed. That's why they are a trauma counselor. But that's not to say that lay people, that the everyday Christian in the pew, your friend, your neighbor, whoever you are, that you can't also be trauma -informed. So can we talk a little bit about what it means to be trauma -informed?
Alex (15:43.993)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (16:00.711)
Mm.
Yeah, so I think we're just introducing this. think we could go really, really deep into all the different ways someone could equip themselves to be trauma -informed, but we want to give kind of some big principles of what it would mean to be trauma -informed. First, I would say a trauma -informed counselor is going to shift the focus from what's wrong with you to what happened to you. And we've talked openly about our own shift from what's wrong with you, more a sin orientation, to what's
Brenda (16:26.859)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (16:31.366)
to you, but even in secular counseling, there's been a shift in some ways from what's wrong with you to what's happened to you. And then being a trauma informed counselor means understanding and integrating knowledge about trauma and its widespread impact into all aspects of counseling practice. And so I think what that means is that we're not just waiting for someone to come in and say, I want trauma counseling and here's my trauma. And they give us this
this story or this event, but we're actually listening for and guiding people into an understanding of how sometimes what they experienced is trauma and fits the definitions of trauma and also recognizing when someone is sharing things about their current lives and relationships, recognizing when that those things are the effects of previous trauma.
Brenda (17:29.814)
Yeah, that's good
Okay, so when we talk about being trauma informed, we're also talking about understanding the effects of trauma on the body and the soul. And we know how to help a person regulate their body as they work through their trauma story. And we're going to give some actual ideas and tools of how you will do that. But that is really important because we are embodied souls. And so we minister holistically to people, body and soul. that's, that's, I mean, to me, that's kind of in a nutshell almost what
what it means to me to be trauma informed. It's really understanding that I gotta speak to the outer man and I gotta speak to the inner man and I need to know how to interpret things and I need to know what kind of skills and things that are helpful for both of those when I'm sitting with someone.
Alex (18:18.236)
Yeah, and I want to say here that there's a whole new field that's really opening up, which is this area of somatic counseling or somatic therapy. And I think it's fantastic. I love to be able to connect people to people who are somatically trained. But I do think a trauma informed counselor is going to have to have some somatic knowledge and some somatic tools to pass on. And then if someone wants to go deeper into somatic therapy, I personally have referred people when
Brenda (18:27.085)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (18:48.17)
someone said, I want to understand my body's experiences of this more and I've taken them as far as I can take them in that. But I think if you're going to be truly trauma informed, you are going to have to give people some equipping to help them to be able to regulate not just spiritually, but also physically.
Brenda (19:07.098)
Yeah, right. All right, and a trauma -informed counselor makes sure that the way we engage doesn't leave a person feeling powerless or abandoned, which is going to make them feel re -traumatized.
Alex (19:19.952)
Yeah, I think this is another big one. It's it's there. There is a lot of case wisdom gained here to be able to recognize places where that's happening in the conversation. And if there's also, you know, I guess you would say some skill that's being developed, particularly for me, that skill is developed around my language is learning that there are appropriate words and phrases and they're inappropriate ones.
So for instance, one of the big ones is
that I've recently learned in the area of clergy abuse is that when somebody comes forward with a story of clergy abuse, I was using a word of will they confess? But when we're talking about stories of abuse, we're really talking about their disclosing because they have been victimized. So they're not confessing, they are disclosing what has been perpetrated against them. And just that subtle difference in length.
Brenda (20:18.64)
Hmm.
Brenda (20:22.608)
Hmm.
Alex (20:27.417)
language. Number one can be re -traumatizing if we're using it incorrectly and number two is communicating something very important about what we believe about abuse and powerlessness.
Brenda (20:37.853)
Hmm.
Well, I feel like that could almost be a whole episode in and of itself. I do want to say one other thing as we kind of leave this, maybe, yeah, as we continue building on this thought, and that just goes back to the Holy Spirit. And, you know, when we're engaging with people, we have skill, we have knowledge, we have case wisdom, which means how many times have we sat with people and actually seen examples of abuse and experience?
Alex (21:04.576)
Hmm.
Brenda (21:08.914)
and effects. But then we, you know, to look at also the inner person of the Holy Spirit. When I'm counseling somebody, I have the Holy Spirit, they have the Holy Spirit. And going into these situations so incredibly sensitive, I think prayed up, right? And also just recognizing that
Alex (21:22.837)
Hmm. Yes.
Brenda (21:30.834)
We're not going to always do it right. We're not going to always have the right words. We're not going to always understand their body. not going to always.
you know, all the things we've talked about. We may not always have it together, but we, again, I don't want us to be so scared away from entering into this work because it is a work of growth and it is a work that we do everything we can to be equipped and prepared, but then we also recognize that there is a wonderful counselor that is in that room with us and the Holy Spirit is there to guide us, to lead us, and to allow us to be humble enough to say when we've blown it.
Alex (22:06.239)
Right. And just that example of confessing versus disclosing, I had to learn from a very particular case. And so it is the spirit of God who's active in that room. But it's also what we always say the spirit of God and the people of God. When I realized what had happened in this case, I was able to pick up the phone and call my friend who's an expert in clergy sexual abuse. Right. And she begins immediately to point
Brenda (22:22.013)
Yeah.
Brenda (22:32.488)
Yep.
Alex (22:36.353)
out the know kind of the top three or four or five pitfalls and that was one of them and so I was able to go back to the person who disclosed to me and say hey listen I want to make sure we're clear like I need to be better with my language because this is really what happened here and so yes it's being humble enough to reach out to
Brenda (22:41.085)
Hmm.
Alex (22:59.313)
other people who have expertise in specific areas of trauma and to be willing to admit when we got it wrong and we can change. so, yeah, I definitely don't want to convey that we can be equally equipped in all areas of trauma, but I absolutely want to convey that we can find the equipping we need when we need it.
Brenda (23:22.556)
Absolutely. And I think that is actually such a relief because there's no way that we're going to be an expert in everything. And that's why we are the body of Christ.
Alex (23:28.511)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (23:33.217)
Mm -mm.
Alex (23:37.376)
Right.
Brenda (23:39.176)
If I'm a hand, there's all the rest of the body that I can call out to, right? And so, yeah, it's just a beautiful opportunity to work in sync with other people's gifting and other people's expertise within the body of Christ.
Alex (23:43.009)
Mm
Alex (23:55.508)
So this brings us to what are some kind of big categories that help us to walk with others in trauma recovery. And we're going to talk about
bringing awareness, bringing safety, bringing empowerment, and bringing an orientation. And we're gonna kind of break each one of those down of how we walk with others in trauma recovery. When we talk about bringing awareness, we're really talking about bringing appropriate tools and frameworks to the topic of trauma. And I think that means, first of all, knowing how deep suffering and trauma impact people long -term, both body and soul. like, if you say, you've already said that, yeah.
and we're gonna keep saying yes, we have to understand the impact of trauma on people, body and soul. And we also have to understand how the other person may become emotionally dysregulated when engaging their own story. As we talked in the last episode, they may go into hyper arousal or hypo arousal. And we have to be able to recognize when that's happening literally in the room with us so that we can help someone stay regulated.
while they're talking about their trauma story.
Brenda (25:09.802)
And that's something, again, we're gonna really unpack and give some tools and some ideas as we move forward. One thing we've also talked a lot about, and you know, Alex, repetition is just good for us. We just learn through repetition, so if some of this does sound repetitious, it's supposed to be. At some point, maybe it'll stick. But part of the awareness is the awareness of our own story of suffering and trauma and our journey of healing, too.
Alex (25:26.443)
Yes.
Brenda (25:39.74)
often, and I can think of a particular counselor that I worked with who has significant trauma in his past. And it's interesting because it really did shape, you would think in a positive way, but he'd never dealt with it. And so there was just a lot of sticking band -aids. There was a lot of not wanting to really call things what they were. There was some minimizing. There was some confusion. And so much of it was because he had not dealt with his own trauma. And he had significant
Alex (26:04.043)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (26:09.724)
trauma in his life and we talk about you can't give away what you don't have.
Alex (26:14.582)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (26:16.611)
We don't all have, we talk about the big T and little T traumas, we don't all have big T traumas, but we all have little T traumas. And those are significant parts of our own stories that Jesus has come to heal. And so we can give, we can give away, like once we understand how Christ has come to us and met us in our experience, then we will have more confidence to help other people. And I know this is, boy, this has been a biggie in my own
Alex (26:31.115)
Hmm.
Brenda (26:46.544)
I just think, you know, for 12 years I walked through a significant suffering story with one of my children, touched on so many parts of my life, touched on so many parts of my family, and I just, see it as being key. The amount of pain, the amount of trauma, you know, all the things that came with that has been really key in allowing me and working through that, not just having the trauma, but having worked through it.
Alex (27:03.349)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (27:16.524)
having worked through those suffering parts of my story, inviting Jesus in, inviting other people in, seeing the Lord do the work, all the doubts, all the things we're going to talk about has definitely put me in a much different position to walk with other people.
Alex (27:16.736)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (27:29.053)
Mm -hmm. That's a great testimony.
And I think just to add to that, maybe even rephrasing it, but we have to be on guard that memories and emotions that may come up in us can often collide with what we're hearing and dysregulate us, right? We want to be really aware of the other person being dysregulated. But even when we've had healing in our own trauma stories, there can be things that we hear that will trigger us, that will bring up old pain, old
Brenda (27:47.595)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (28:02.757)
emotions, old memories, and so I think what we have to do is not pretend that that's not happening, but to be aware of that and find ways and places for us to tend to that may not be able to be tended to right in that moment as we're tending to another person, but we do have to be able to pull back and tend to that at another time so that we're able to stay with the person.
Brenda (28:26.469)
you
Alex (28:27.179)
So those are all awarenesses that we bring, but we also want to bring safety. One of the first things that we're encouraged to do when we are trying to help someone in trauma recovery is establish safety for them. And we want to bring safety as we bring a safe presence so that they're no longer alone in their pain and we bring a safe witness. There's just such beauty and there's such healing and there's great impact to being a witness to someone's story of
to be listening and to be present in their pain and part of that safety is them knowing that the stories that they tell you are going to be kept safely. They're going to be kept in confidence that you're being trusted with something sacred and that you treat the story as something that needs to be protected.
Brenda (29:21.821)
I don't think we can really stress that enough, know, in a professional environment our ethics bind us, but our ethics shouldn't be...
Our work ethic shouldn't be, what am I trying to say? Our Christian ethic should be the ethic that drives everything. And so just because you're not a professional doesn't mean that you shouldn't hold to a biblical ethic to hold people's stories and to not talk about them to other people. And when we talk about team or if you're in a bind and this goes to know your limits and that you're limited, right? That that's part of what we need to understand is that we're not going to be safe if we don't understand our limits.
Alex (29:36.351)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (29:53.856)
Hmm.
Alex (29:57.856)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (30:00.154)
And so that's when we have an opportunity maybe to tell the person like, hey, could we invite somebody else in? Or hey, I'd love to, I'm really kind of, maybe I want to minister to you well, I don't want to hurt you, I feel like I could use some more help. Would it be okay if I spoke to somebody who knows more than I do? I won't give your name, I won't give any details of what's going on, but I really want to walk with you well. So there are some times that
Alex (30:21.599)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (30:30.617)
We may feel like we would like to talk to somebody else to get more input and there may be some ways to do that for that purpose. But for the purposes of, you know, just talking to be talking, that's going to be very, very damaging. Most people who have experienced significant trauma.
Alex (30:35.425)
Hmm.
Alex (30:39.125)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (30:53.617)
you know, that's going to be big issue for them. Are you trustworthy? Are you trustworthy? And then I just think our personal spiritual growth, really body and soul, but you know, are we growing in the Word? Are we in tune with the Spirit? Are we involved with other relationships?
Alex (30:57.003)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (31:19.366)
other loving and compassionate people are involved in our lives, even ministering to us. And there's nothing that's going to replace in this whole skill or knowledge or case wisdom our own personal spiritual formation. Because you could have all the skill and knowledge and all of that in the world, but you know, it's, this is, this is not so much something weird.
Alex (31:32.352)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (31:41.906)
It is a service, but we want that service to somebody to grow out of that transformation that we are actually growing in kindness and compassion and patience for people who are suffering.
Alex (31:46.485)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (31:51.615)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, and then I think the last thing is kind of a little bit of a segue into the empowerment that part of being creating safety for a person is we let the trauma survivor be our teacher. And Diane Lager talks about this. She says, tell me who you are. Show me how I can help. And by that, we mean not that they come maybe with with the knowledge and even the skill to do things like regulate their body, but we let them be our teacher and that we let them set the pace.
We let them tell us where we're very in tune to where they are emotionally and what they can handle. And so we're challenged that part of being safe is that we go at their pace. go, someone said go low and go slow. That trauma causes people to feel very small, to feel very fragile.
Brenda (32:38.772)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (32:44.523)
feel very finite. And so to enter in, we have to become small with them. We have to become slow. We have to become gentle. And so I think it's Diane Langberg who also says, if we attempt to enter into the life of someone who is reduced, limited or altered by their suffering, we must reduce ourselves as well. That is in fact why we are quiet in a hospital room. For those suffering trauma, fewer words, quiet voices, patience and pausing so they are not overwhelmed
Brenda (32:52.662)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (33:14.547)
is vital to our entering in said we do not bring further harm. I just love the picture she creates there that we're not forcing our agenda on somebody, but we are going at the pace that they can keep up with or like we're adjusting our pace to walk with them. And that that goes a long way in that safe presence is knowing that we're not behind them pushing them, but we're beside them walking with them.
Brenda (33:18.88)
Mm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (33:45.334)
Alex, do you think that there is a certain temperament of a person and a certain maybe spiritual gifting that lends itself better to trauma counseling than others?
Alex (34:00.097)
I'm sure there is, but just, you know, if we all have the spirit in us and we can develop the fruits of the spirit, then we all have the ability to develop the characteristics. But I'm sure that there is a certain gifting that comes more naturally to some than others. Because there is a long, slow game to trauma recovery.
Brenda (34:24.409)
Well, and the reason I ask that is very personal. Because I see myself more as like a paramedic, like at the 911 call and I'm springing into action and I'm making this decision and that decision and, you know, working fast. And so I will just have to say that sometimes working in kind of the long game with trauma recovery can be really hard for me. I just, I tend to be a fast and it's good for me. Don't get me wrong. Like it is good for me to slow down and do the work.
Alex (34:27.007)
Mm
Alex (34:31.403)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (34:46.092)
Mm
Brenda (34:54.442)
myself because I have to work in myself first to go slow to go low to go all the things my natural bent is just kind of fast and furious I love the I don't love initial trauma that sounds terrible but but there is something about ministering in that capacity that I feel like maybe Eileen more gifting my gifting is more in that my temperament is better suited for that so I just say that to say you know to your point all of us regardless of your temperament or your spiritual gift I think somebody gifted
Alex (35:13.205)
Mm -hmm. -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (35:24.327)
in mercy might be naturally better at this than somebody gifted, let's say, in a more prophetic gift, which would be telling the truth in black and white. You know, somebody who's just straightforward like that. But all of us, yeah, I think it's a good point that with the Spirit of God. And so it's just a way that the Lord can use again to sharpen us and to make us more like Christ, where maybe we are lacking in our own temperament or where we're lacking in our own gifting.
Alex (35:25.238)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (35:33.42)
Mm.
Mm
Alex (35:50.086)
Mm -hmm.
Well, the last thing or no, the third thing is empowerment. So we're going to bring certain awarenesses and we're going to try to establish safety and then where people have felt powerless, we want to bring a sense of powerless. We want to give them a voice in an agency and that goes along with what we just said about letting them establish the pace. When we're pushing our agenda, we are very subtly taking agency away, but we also want to give people specific choices. We want to, we don't want to push them into places
in their story that they don't want to talk about. And so we want to give them the ability to choose where choice has been taken away and the very agency that God's given them and created them in his image to have has been taken away. So we want to restore that sense of agency and that can be hard because sometimes people who've experienced great trauma have trouble making decisions. We talked about that before. That frontal lobe has been offline and
dangerous situations and they may struggle with making decisions and we can be tempted to take those decisions away from them and just make it for them and create a structure for them or create the program for them. I think it's really important again to slow our pace down and help them in the process of making their own decisions. That might mean that we set up for them the choices that are open to them and the potential consequences of those choices.
Brenda (37:20.292)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (37:22.865)
and help them to decide, wrestle through that with them, because it can be hard for them when they say, you need to make a decision about this and they don't even know what their options are. We might want to show them what the possibilities are, but we do need to, as much as we can, give them the ability to choose or set the course.
Brenda (37:46.124)
And when you see this happen, it is so beautiful. Just think about the particularly the number of women coming out of abusive relationships that I've seen whose personhood was really taken away. They were told what to think. They were told what to believe. They were told what they wanted. They were told how to feel. They were told what decisions to make. And when they get out from under that and they begin to take back that personhood, and how does God want me to think? What does God want me to want?
Alex (37:48.906)
Mm
Alex (37:58.945)
Mm
Alex (38:13.078)
Mm
Brenda (38:14.432)
What does God want me to do? And begin to walk that out. Like you really see, like in empowerment, you really see a dead person come alive or a damaged person get healed. Like it is so noticeable and really so beautiful.
Alex (38:23.073)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and I do want to say that, I mean, one day I hope we will do a podcast series on abuse because there some very specific considerations when someone's in active abuse. But I think this particularly, this empowerment issue can be particularly hard in the church because in the church we have pushed people into places like, you need to go to your elders and you need to tell them this, or you need to do this and this and this as the steps for forgiveness.
and we're pushing into that place of taking agency away when we do this. I'm not saying there aren't time, there isn't a time and a space for those conversations to be had, but we have to be really sensitive to the fact that even if something, even if, this one's really hard, but even if something as critical as someone being in a physically unsafe environment, we have to be very, very careful about taking away the person's agency and making the decision for them like you need to move out of your home.
We need to walk with them very gently and very carefully in that with them in that and here again is where if we haven't walked in those specific cases of things like domestic violence and abuse then we need to bring in experts who know how to handle that carefully and give the person the agency they need and Address all the considerations of what it means to flee a dangerous situation. So there's a lot to that
Brenda (39:55.731)
Yeah, and just one thought on that is a personal example of failure, but I was counseling a lady one time and I did just that, Alex. I told her that she should immediately get out and it was a very complicated situation. Culturally, it was complicated. I mean, there were so many complications and she went and saw her attorney and basically came back to me and said, my attorney thinks you're really stupid and you're saying stupid things. And I was like, huh. And then I had to consider and I thought, you know what, I really actually don't know what I'm talking about here.
Alex (40:04.384)
Mm.
Alex (40:25.156)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (40:25.665)
I'm just thinking like, this is what I would do. And so again, it just helps to, yeah, we need to be careful. It makes us think. It just makes us think like what we say can be damaging to people and we need to be really careful and damaging for our witness to boot. Like, you know, that lawyer's never sending any of their people to me after that. Now I've grown a lot since then and I would handle that situation much differently. But I just also want to say is like, if you're going to walk a journey with people,
Alex (40:40.494)
Mm -hmm
Alex (40:46.2)
Ryan.
Brenda (40:55.645)
going to mess up. I just want to keep coming back to that too. And it's not shameful to mess up. It's shameful if you don't change and you keep messing up because you don't take the time or you don't have the humility to go figure out why you're messing up and how to do things differently. That's shameful.
Alex (40:56.6)
You are going to mess up.
Alex (41:10.232)
Right. Mm hmm. Well said.
Okay, the last thing we would say to bring to walking with others and trauma recovery is to bring an orientation of growing and trusting God and his means. And we're just going to barely touch on this right now because we we're going to cover it in future podcasts. We've covered it in past podcasts where we've talked about things like lament and process journaling and grief. But we absolutely believe that we need to bring our own sense
of trusting God and His means and to be able to at the appropriate time and place bring that into the conversation. And again at the appropriate time and place if we hit some of these topics too hard too fast we can be taking that agency away again we can be pushing our own agenda but we we do need to rest in who God is and the way He does things as we sit with someone and we need to know how to bring that into the conversation with them. And we're going to unpack that over the next
three podcasts we're going to talk about what does it mean to bring someone back into a sense of safety in their body, a sense of safety in their relationship with God and with others. That'll be our next Vee Podcast.
Brenda (42:25.973)
Mm -hmm, and I was just thinking about kind of the subtitle to our podcast, know conversational counseling an invitation to comfort and change and I really think as we're talking about All of these things and helping people where we're just always giving an invitation It's God's invitation made through us an appeal and invitation made through us Through hopefully somebody who is showing care love concern skill knowledge all of those things to be able to connect hurting people with
Alex (42:34.234)
Mm.
Alex (42:41.241)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (42:55.966)
an incredible, comforting, and loving father.
Alex (42:58.478)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (42:59.7)
So Alex, let me ask you this then. You know, I think we, we also have to think about the difference in handling immediately trauma versus past trauma because there are some of these components are the same, but how they play out are different. And I know for me personally, it is actually, I don't feel so panicked when I think about dealing with somebody in past trauma, but when it's current trauma, like this trauma just happened this weekend and I get the call on Monday, that, automatically puts me into fight flight.
Alex (43:08.993)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (43:13.626)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (43:29.945)
Right. So speak a little bit into the difference there between how we're going to handle immediate trauma versus past trauma and some of the things we just discussed.
Alex (43:38.254)
Yeah, so even with our example of like somebody in current domestic violence, a really unsafe situation physically and emotionally, psychologically, that being aware in that case might mean that we have to find someone else to walk with her long term, but we might have to find someone to walk with her in the short term. In your example, we might have to find the right lawyer. We might have to find the right domestic shelter. We might have to find the right means within the civil government.
to help her before we can even think about walking with her long term in the aftermath of the trauma. Or it might mean recognizing if we're specifically triggered by someone's story and we don't, you know, we can't sit in that story with them finding the right person to sit in that. So being aware may look completely different in that it's bringing awareness to who are the right people to surround her if it's acute happening right now.
kind of trauma. And then establishing safety again might be getting someone to a place where they're going to be believed, where they're with the right authorities, and it might look different than just creating a safe environment for her to explore the story and might mean real physical safety and what does that look like. Giving empowerment might be different in terms of if the trauma isn't acute, we might really be talking about
somebody whose nervous system is completely in hyper vigilance and so we have to be really sensitive about what they're ready to tackle and what they're willing to talk about decisions that they're able to make at that time. We might even have to be as sensitive as like who do you want in the room? Like if we have to go talk to a lawyer, can you see a male lawyer? Is that going to be triggering to you? Do you want other people along with you? If we have to get a law enforcement
Who do you want to go with you? So there can be some real empowering of very specific choices that have to, decisions that have to be made very quickly, but can still give her some sense of empower. Where do you want to sit when you disclose this story to the next person that you need to tell? It's just small ways that we can give empowerment. And then orientation to God may mean that we actually hold that in our
Alex (46:08.939)
The way that we orient them to God is that we become His hands and feet. We become agents of caring for them and we display the love of Christ more in what we're doing than what we're saying at that point, recognizing that if we're going to walk with them long term in unpacking this, we're going to be able to say more as more trust is gained and as danger goes down.
Brenda (46:32.9)
Alex, that's so good, and I think two of the areas that...
we're going to see, unfortunately, and deal with if we're rubbing up against people a lot is domestic abuse. But I think the other is sexual abuse. And I would love for you to take this same, these same four principles and walk us through somebody who comes to us who has just maybe been date raped or has been attacked, assaulted and raped. We know that just the the number of women who are violated and men as well, but women in particularly the number
Alex (46:46.501)
Mm
Brenda (47:07.483)
numbers are terrible. They're going up. And so I just I think we're hitting on two topics that we're going to deal with a lot. Somebody's in a terrible marriage where they're experiencing trauma and then where somebody has been sexually violated. Could you could you walk us through that with those four?
Alex (47:14.212)
Mm
Alex (47:23.182)
Yes, so again, in the aftermath of a rape, we're going to have to bring a real awareness of how this touches on any of our own trauma or our own story. And then we're to have to bring a great awareness to what the resources that are available for the victim are. we're going to have to establish safety by making sure that she is not going back into a situation where this could happen again, or where the perpetrator has access to her. And that's often going to mean calling in a
other people, whether that's law enforcement, could be medical attention that she needs immediately, but we're going to have to think through the other resources that we need to connect her to, to help establish safety and to give care to her physical body as well as her emotions. And then again, even as we do that, we want to be empowering her as much as possible to not have to disclose to people that's outside of her comfort zone or outside of, it's going to be outside of her comfort zone, outside of what she's
able to do at that time. And this is a really tricky tension. I'm not going to pretend it's not because there are such limitations on disclosure and things like that. And so we have to be really careful that we don't take someone's story and we become the one who's disclosing it, but that we encourage the victim to be able to share and walk through the scenarios of what that what disclosure would look like, who they need to go to creating support teams and things around.
them to enable them to be able to disclose. And then our orientation again to the victim is going to be our orientation to God and his means is going to be much more the way we orient ourselves and we care for them much more than giving platitudes or scriptural platitudes or verses that everything's going to work out okay that they can't hear right then. But what they need to experience is the love of Jesus who met people
Brenda (49:13.642)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (49:22.986)
where they are and we can become his hands and feet in the way we care for them with our presence and with our actions knowing that there will come a time down the road where we're able to speak more clearly into their pain.
Brenda (49:36.36)
Hmm. Well, those are, I know just snapshots, but I think that's just a real helpful framework to think about awareness, safety, empowerment, and then orientation.
so, you know, I was thinking kind of one of those little signs, particularly the immediate aftermath where you have like something over something else. so faith over fear, whatever. But I was thinking like care over words. And of course, we can use comforting words. But I think so often what I'm realizing as I'm doing counseling training is so many people want to know what to say and they want to know what to say. It's like, like we get into counseling training and say, well, what are we going to say? What Bible verses? Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? And it's like halfway through.
Alex (50:05.2)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (50:14.744)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (50:20.207)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (50:22.673)
then we start talking about what are you going to say? Because in the mid in the beginning we're talking about what is God saying to you. We're talking about how do you care for people? How do you show up for people? We have the show up, shut up deal. Somebody just came into my house. it's my husband is a good thing. This has been my day of interruption has been hilarious. We're almost done. OK.
Alex (50:25.15)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (50:28.911)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (50:54.144)
I just think about our one episode, you know, show up, shut up, speak up. It'd be a great, great one just to go back to and think about. So...
Alex (50:58.266)
Hmm?
Alex (51:03.416)
And just to say, just to sum up what we're talking about there.
they are branded between acute trauma and long, you know, walking with someone in the aftermath of their story. I think that show up, shut up, speak up is definitely a paradigm to hold onto. And I think the other paradigm to really hold onto is that we can't do it all. We aren't meant to do it all. We are not meant to be the experts, experts of it all. And, and not only is there no shame in recognizing that you need help, like there's just such great wisdom and it's actually pretty imperative.
that if somebody is in acute trauma danger dangerous situations or has just been victimized we have to involve other people. It's not like you can't handle this it's like no there are actually other areas of expertise that we have to call in because we are unable either as professional counselors or lay people walking alongside we cannot do it all for someone who's coming out of a acutely dangerous situation so yeah I just want to keep
saying that over and over again because I think there's a sense that we all have that we, you know, we need to be, if we're equipped, we need to be able to handle everything when actually if we're equipped, then we, what the best thing we can do is know the people that we need to reach out to in those situations.
Brenda (52:22.859)
Hmm.
I think you make a great point having a resource list. And we're talking about other professionals. You've mentioned medical professionals. You've mentioned law enforcement. You've mentioned legal, like an attorney. There's other professionals that oftentimes we need to bring into these situations. And so to have a relationship, I think about child support, child protective services is a huge one. So I think this is a really good point that we have to make. It's not just professional counselors.
Alex (52:26.937)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (52:44.575)
Child Protective Start. how many times? Yes.
Brenda (52:54.513)
that we may need to look like, but just professionals, people that are skilled and knowledgeable in their particular area of work that are going to actually bring better care and more care and appropriate care to the person we're ministering to.
Alex (53:09.04)
And let's say one word about something like Child Protective Services or for us it's DHR, Department of Human Resources. What they're so great about and what I've learned over the past 10 years that I just love is that there are cases and there are considerations that I truly don't know what to do. I either don't know what the law is, I don't know who, which resource to reach out to. I'm thinking it's a very specific case.
Brenda (53:15.693)
Department of Human Services.
Alex (53:39.514)
The great thing about these agencies is they are not sitting there judging you. They are welcoming your phone call to be able to resource you. That's what they do. And so I've called many times saying, hey, is this reportable? There are some things that make this really difficult. And sometimes I'm told, yes, you need to do this, this, and this right away. And sometimes I'm no. And sometimes I'm told, let me check with my supervisor because it's so complicated that the person on the phone doesn't know. It's just so comforting to know that we don't
Brenda (54:06.436)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (54:08.924)
sit in a place where we have to make these decisions alone that these agencies actually exist to help connect us to the right area and to know the law better than we do.
Brenda (54:14.499)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (54:19.556)
Yeah, that's a great point. Well, Alex, I hope this has just been a good first step in.
Helping our listeners understand what it takes to walk with others through trauma recovery. I think we're not even halfway through with the series, so there's a long way to go. But we want to take the next three episodes. We're really going to talk about this three -pronged approach to dealing with your own trauma or dealing with someone else, helping somebody else through trauma recovery. We're going to be talking about what it looks like to be safe in your body and then safe in relationships and then safe
in God. And I think we will just hopefully be able to bring a lot more of the practical tools and more case wisdom. And I would just say maybe there's a listener out there who has some questions. We would love for you to get on our social media sites and maybe we've said something you would like more information about or more clarity on and we would love to to be able to do that. We always try to clarify more than confuse but we know that that doesn't always happen.
But at any rate, we just really pray that this is an area that Christians will not be intimidated by, but also not be ignorant, and that we can become the kind of ministers of the gospel that can humbly and yet boldly
Alex (55:48.922)
Hmm.
Brenda (55:49.742)
walk in to the hardest of human sufferings because we are actually confident and competent to do that for the comfort of people and for the glory of Christ.