Huh

... sometimes we...

Uh, well, if there's a lot of shame attached to a memory, people have trouble seeing Jesus because He can't be there because it was so bad, um, is the mentality.

So you have to kinda ask shame to step aside.

But it's, it's challenging for people sometimes to look around, like, "This, I'm just gonna look around and see where Jesus is," and I tell them to look behind them.

A lot of times Jesus is behind them, next to them, or they'll, they'll tell me where He is.

And it's really fascinating to watch the impact on a person in the middle of a really hard memory to encounter that Jesus is and was there with them.

Um, why didn't Jesus intervene, and why did, why didn't He allow that child to go through that?

I know it's not.

Being willing to be aware of the fact there's something going on in you.

The most common thing is for a person to point the finger at the other in the relationship.

And if you just fix this, if you just work on this thing, then everything will be fine.

And making them responsible for whatever's going on.

Sometimes in situations, the one spouse will be nagging the other to like, you know, come on, talk to me, deal with this, come forward, let's talk about this.

And the one that's withdrawing will be pointing the finger.

Tell us how that works to heal the memories.

I'm going to present this as not a chronic situation, but when it pops up, dealing with it as it pops up.

Yeah.

So that message I'm hearing you say is that you feel abandoned and maybe by friends kind of rejected.

Could be.

Is that where you kind of land? I'm just, you know.

We're doing a hypothetical.

I realize this is you.

Yeah.

Is this for individuals and also couples?

Yeah, anybody can benefit from it.

It's just another approach to how we handle stuff that's deeply hurting inside of us.

And the idea, it was developed by Terry Hargraves, I think out of some...

University in California.

And the idea is that when we have coping mechanisms, they are coming out of some pain message inside of us.

So, if we can develop an understanding of what that pain message is, we can move from a coping style of life into living from truth, not a pain message, and a choice of action.

I'm trying to get my arms around that.

know what it is, but How do we, I really mean this, I really want to know, is there a way to figure that out?

There is, actually.

When we're stuck in blame or judgment of another, it's really pointing to our own, another way of languaging this, it's our own inward mindset.

We're really kind of swirling around our own island of ourselves, and if we can be aware of that, Because what happens the minute we judge somebody else, this is out of another kind of approach, but anyway, when we judge someone else, we are actually objectifying the other person.

We're making them more of an object than a person.

And the minute we objectify another, our heart is not at peace, but at war with them, which is language from the Arbinger Institute, which is incredibly amazing, deep stuff.

But so when we do that, we're not seeing a person, we're seeing an object.

how old do you think I

Is there anything that this is even loosely connected to?

It is connected to going back to childhood and connecting with things that have gone wrong or hurts that have been established long term.

When it was developed, it came out of the idea of family systems, which we've heard of family systems.

Every family we grew up with grows up with their system of how things are done or not done.

They're either healthy or unhealthy family systems.

And it was applied into the idea, well, is there something like that going on inside of a person? And once that idea came about through Richard Schwartz, it just like bloomed into this amazing opportunity to help people deal with things in a way that was a new approach.

And I guess it's in a way we always talk language in this way.

What are your thoughts? I hear it all the time.

IFS, let's, let's, um, define it for anybody that hasn't heard exactly what it is.

Yeah.

Well, it's st- it's the idea...

Well, it stands for in- internal family systems, and the idea is that we all deal with stuff on the inside that kinda can lead and direct our lives.

Um, and in internal family systems these are called parts, and they can be emotional places within us, and they pop up and take over when we're not aware, if we're not aware of what's going on in the inside of us.

And so the idea is to become more aware of what's happening on the inside so that you don't blow up at a meeting when you don't need to, so you don't go out and drink a bunch or eat a half gallon of ice cream to try to make yourself feel b- better, because those are all driven by something on the inside of you.

And so it's, it's a system to try to help you become more aware of what's happening on the inside of it so they can begin to get to know those places and help those areas on the inside that are actually protecting little kid places on the inside, actually protecting those places, come back to understand how things are going, how things really are.

Hmm.

... what so- when somebody says that, if they're actually saying that they didn't wanna say they were fully angry, but it was just a part of them, or do you think that maybe subconsciously we are actually referring to there's a part within us that was angry?

Yeah, it's hard to tell, right? I think that there's a difference between just feeling an emotion or being flooded by that emotion or actually blending with that emotion, which is what IFS language talks about.

And so you can be flooded, but if you get to the point of being blended, then all of you is having only one experience, and that's where you see somebody getting wholly, um, totally hijacked, um, like amygdala hijacked, so there's like panicked, um, really filled with anxiety kind of place.

But, but if you...

But that's why you have to catch things early [laughs] 'cause otherwise we go with them.

We go with those feelings, with that this is true.

And some people, uh, some clients have had a lot of trouble, um, with the idea of speaking to that emotion and telling it to, you know, step aside, stop flooding me, because they feel like then they're denying the feeling that's so valid and so real to them, and they don't wanna deny their emotions.

Some- sometimes I am, I just-

Was it Match?

Yes, he was.

I think that's right.

Wow.

Anyway, this other Peter Marshall, not that Peter Marshall, this other Brian Scheimer is also, but I'm not a Bob Sledcoast.

I keep getting stuff about him.

He's in Florida.

Um, is that an okay way to look at things or should you just, you know, the finality of like they're gone and that's, that's, that's the reality.

Now, can we give just a broad example of what somebody might be going through and why they might be going through it as it connects to something from their past?

Interesting.

I had a woman come to me when I was still in the pastoral ministry.

She was one of the people sent from outside the church.

I had that happen many, many, many times.

And she walked in my office, and I was a United Methodist pastor, and She walked in and she said, could you tell me what's a good Assembly of God woman doing at United Methodist Pastor for healing? And I said, I have no idea.

But as we worked together and started exploring, what I discovered was she could not speak up for herself in any situations.

at their