Fathering Leadership

Understanding that Shame is the Root of Control Issues Leads to Freedom

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Shame is the Root of Control Issues

All of us can move into controlling behaviors when we feel fearful.

This damages our relationships and even stresses our physical and spiritual health. Understanding the shame–control connection leads to freedom from hurt and stress. Let’s consider how it is that shame is the root of many hurtful behaviors.

Shame is the Root of Hurtful Behaviors

The way that families interact will be either honoring or shaming.

Most families are a mix having ways that they interact that are respectful of one another and ways that are shaming. Obviously any aShame is the Root of Control Issuesbuse whether physical, sexual, or emotional is shaming. However, so is the silent treatment, snide remarks, and cutting comments.

A simple test is to look at when you have a disagreement. Does the conversation stay respectful as you talk things out or does it move into hurtful remarks?

Now let’s see that even though shame is the root problem, Sonship Identity is answer.

Sonship Identity

Shaming interaction tears a person down. Shame says I am in some way bad, flawed, inadequate. Respectful interaction comes from a Sonship Identity. builds a person up. It treats the other with dignity and fosters intimacy in relationships. Intimate relationships are the key to self-esteem, confidence, the ability to take initiative, self-discipline, the freedom to try, and much more. This is a huge key because we so often think it is about trying harder or getting motivated enough. Even for overcoming compulsive behaviors, shame is the key.

Shame is the Key Force Behind Compulsive Behavior

All compulsive behavior, whether it’s over-spending, over-eating, substance abuse, or pornography is drivenShame is the Root of Control Issues and maintained by roots of shame. The compulsion is a “fruit” not a “root,” and cutting it off will not solve the problem, it will grow back. We so often think our problem is the “loss of control,” and we assure ourselves we’ll change and not do it again. However, the real problem is the shame and the anxiety it produces. Anxiety needs an antidote and so we turn to some compulsive behavior that provides a temporary numbing experience. All compulsive behavior is about the trance-like state it brings, reducing our anxiety for a little while.

Hope, Steps to Take
Understanding shame dynamics puts a huge tool in your hands. Fighting the “fruit” simply leaves you condemned, with feelings of failure. Getting at the shaming lies you have believed and dismantling your interactions that are not respect-based, brings lasting freedom.

Other steps you can take:

Capacity to Try and Emotional Health

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Capacity to Try and Emotional Health

The capacity to try is an interesting measure of ability for hard work and therefore success. It is also very much tied into emotional health. Capacity is the product of the right environmental foundation and the right development, even as a muscle in the human body is developed. Ultimately it is having a heart of sonship.

I worked with Joe in prayer ministry. He owned a small painting business. He had good current accounts and new ones calling him, yet he found it difficult to get motivated and seize the day. Things fell through the cracks and his family suffered financially. He was so tired of the self-condemnation. He’d tried everything and felt hopeless.Capacity to Try and Emotional Health

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell states that, “Working hard is what successful people do.” Then he presents an interesting study: “Alan Schoenfeld, a math professor at Berkeley, studied average students working through math problems. One student endured twenty-two minutes on a problem and finally found her misconception and solved it. Most students studied asked for the answer after just a few failed attempts. The average student concludes it is too hard to ever solve at the two-minute mark.” (italics mine)

Capacity to try applies to learning all skills. Recently I’ve been into cycling with a group. Some days I can stay with the front of the pack. Yesterday I had trouble staying up with the back of the pack. Do I get discouraged, do I keep practicing?  How long will it take to build up my legs and endurance? In learning Spanish on the mission field, I met missionaries who never grew beyond asking where the bathroom was. They felt foolish speaking incorrectly in front of the locals. Of course, not being willing to make a mistake shuts down all learning. This is true with  growing in emotional health. It too, has a learning curve and requires persistence.

Capacity to Try and Emotional HealthHow long can I go before giving up? “Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. Testing how hard someone is willing to work reveals their capacity at success.” Gladwell (2008)

One of the ways exercise intensity is measured is through heart rate. Willingness to try is an interesting measure of emotional health and capacity for forward movement.

As I worked with Joe, he got in touch with an ambivalence his mother often expressed toward him. It was hard and painful to acknowledge this. But as he worked through it he was able to let go of lies that he lacked value and was powerless. He saw his mom had her own pain and that her ambivalence was not about him.

Many of us struggle with deep-rooted lies of powerlessness from where abuse objectified us repeatedly. The capacity to try comes from having lived in a safe environment where parents were loving, kind, patient, available, and encouraging. A place where it was okay to make a mistake, okay not to know something. There was an atmosphere void of absolute thinking, critical comments, and bigotry. In this environment, the child is supported in his efforts, learns from his failures and experiences the payoff from his work thus developing his “try” muscle. If this is not our foundation, we have to resolve any pain remaining from that lack and build it into our lives by knowing that our Heavenly Father is patient, kind, and enduring with us.

Understanding that the foundation of “willingness to try” is based in the Father’s love gives us a map for success rather than a bullet-point formula.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers. NY: Back Bay Books

How to Get Past Emotional Triggers to Hearing the Heart

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How to Get Past Emotional Triggers to Hearing the Heart.

Learning excellent interpersonal relationship skills is the mark of a Fathering leader.

A woman walks into her husband’s office and he immediately complains that she’s late. She sharply replies that she had to drop the kids off at school. Angered by this, the husband states that she should have planned better so as not to be late.

There was a major 20-year study of marriages where they looked at what skills that successful marriages have that unsuccessful marriages do not. The study unanimously found one skill predominant over every other. That skill was the ability to believe the best of one another even in an argument and not automatically assume that one partner had bad motives or that somebody was wrong.

Most arguments are usuaHow to Get Past Emotional Triggers to Hearing the Heartlly over a difference of opinion, a difference in priority, or a difference in value. So when a couple can hear each others’ heart and keep the conversation safe where each person can say what they’re feeling and what their priority is, a way forward can be found. However, even if we know this skill, many times it breaks down. Especially if we get triggered.

If we get triggered, the chances are not so good that we’ll be able to hear one another’s hearts, so what we often do instead is create drama. Cutting remarks, the silent treatment, some type of drama to avoid feeling something we don’t really want to feel.

A real tool we can use if we notice that the skill is breaking down is to simply ask ourselves the question, “What am I not wanting to feel here? What feeling am I trying to avoid through this drama I’m creating?”  In the case of the example we used at the beginning, it was a feeling of insecurity that the husband was trying to avoid, hence the angry tone and drama he was creating.

Let’s look at this scenario again in a different light:
A woman walks into her husband’s office and he immediately complains that she’s late. She sharply replies that she had to drop the kids off at school. He then tells of his concern as it got later and later, and how he felt insecure and that maybe she didn’t care what was important to him. With this, she calmly replies that she was rushing to get there, but one of the kids had left a book at home so she had to go back to get it, causing her to be late. Upon hearing this explanation, the husband defuses and apologizes for jumping to conclusions and creating drama.

Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministry

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Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministry

We continue this week talking about Strongholds in preparation for our upcoming webinar Foundations for Freedom. This week I’m sharing about patterns.

Spotting a pattern of a repeated struggle in our lives can actually be good news. The very pattern that so frustrates us can point out the solution. Patterns can help us connect bad fruit with the bad root.

So, how do you knoSpotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministryw if you have a pattern of bad fruit? When you seem to hit a wall over and over in your life, running into the same circumstances and situations.

Some people seem to end up with overbearing authority figures in their lives again and again. Others start to do okay financially only to have the bottom fall out on them repeatedly. I’ve ministered to people who get walked on or betrayed time after time, with each episode looking very similar to the one before.

Frank found himself in one bad business partnership after another. His partner would end up finding fault with him, saying he was incompetent and then use that to take his clients. There was a lot of pain here for Frank. He could see where it had happened over and over, even as far back as when he was on high school sports teams.

As Frank held this before the Lord, he was reminded of how his own father had betrayed him, promising things and then not coming through and even telling him he couldn’t do anything right and was “good for nothing.”

Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer MinistryFrank knew his dad had been like this and had even at some level forgiven him. But what he had not seen before was the connection of this root of bitterness to how it was defiling his present-tense relationships. As Frank pulled up these roots, he found a new freedom.

Hebrews 12:15 encourages us to look carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

Seeing these truths puts powerful tools in our hands for freedom.

Keeping My Heart in the Fathers Love

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Keeping My Heart in the Fathers Love

Prov. 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Keeping My Heart in the Fathers Love

Most of us haven’t fully realized that:
1. Walls around our hearts are deadly.
2. Living open-hearted is the key to all good things.

It’s almost acceptable to be in a worry state, and we even show compassion to it. Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan states that we cannot comfort a fearful dog, as that may actually encourage his fear. We must lead him, give him confidence. Maybe there is a principle here for us as well.

Every struggle common to man starts with our hearts going “off-line” for some reason. I may have been triggered by some disappointment or betrayal, or perhaps a loss of some sort. This could have been big or small. Never-the-less, I lose connection with God and it causes me to seek comfort in wrong things, counterfeit affections. All struggle with addictions is rooted here. All issues of self-discipline and initiative lie here. The problem is not in my willpower, my faith, or my strength; it is in the awareness of what is happening in my heart and why. It is a very simple concept, yet a very big deal.

Moving into worry, anxiety, agitation, or impatience are signs my heart is closing. Here are a few more signs:
1. Are the lines at the grocery store or the heavy traffic driving me crazy today?
2. Have I replayed in my head a conversation or situation that pained me, or one that hasn’t even occurred yet?
3. Do I just want to get away from everyone and everything?
4. When others are talking, am I already figuring out what to say before they even finish?

Keeping My Heart in the Fathers LoveKeeping my heart online determines everything, “for everything you do flows from it.” Understanding that we can learn to recognize emotions as they happen, both in ourselves and others, empowers us to respond in positive ways rather than in destructive ways. Living open-hearted in God’s love is the secret ingredient to fulfilling all our dreams. It is where healthy relationships are built, where creativity and initiative flow, and it is the place of rest and belonging where we don’t need false comforts or counterfeit affections.

Best of all, “keeping my heart” is a skill everyone of us can develop. We can learn what to look for, how to grow in our awareness, and learn what to do to get back “on-line.”

 

The PreAbuse Setup

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Building your sonship life skills protect you from abuse.

A powerless feeling comes with finding yourself in one abusive relationship after another. This article will give you the tools mature sons and daughters of God develop to break that pattern.

By Dan Hitz
What makes one person more vulnerable to abusive situations than another?

When emotionally healthy people check out a spiritually abusive church, they don’t stay.  They recognize the dysfunction.  Healthy people put up boundaries which unhealthy people try to violate or outright reject. However, brokenness created in the “pre-abuse setup” produces a susceptibility to further abuse.

Building your sonship life skills protect you from abuseI have a friend who says, “Home is where the outside matches the inside.” It is the reason why a woman who has grown up with an abusive alcoholic father and doesn’t deal with her wounds can find herself married to her second abusive alcoholic husband. The way her husband treated her while dating felt familiar to her “normal” feelings growing up. She may even feel uncomfortable around healthy men – she sees herself way below his level. Those wounded by abuse often fall prey to “learned helplessness.” Those abused when they actually were powerless to stop it, continue to believe that they are helpless victims long after they actually have the resources to overcome.

Pre-abuse factors include past physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect. The atmosphere is familiar, but surely a church must be a safe place. Those who grow up in a dysfunctional family without an appropriate mother or father figure may be used to – or addicted to – chaos. An abusive religious system offers structured chaos. The chaos is ordered around “scriptural” issues which seem to be worth fighting for. Those who are socially isolated are susceptible because they are looking for an accepting community.

His Chapel (not the real name of the church) was our family. We had many brothers and sisters who all believed as we did – who all suffered the same reproach for what we held dear. People outside the system were deemed “unsafe” so we stuck together.  However, we found out later that our relationships were only as strong as our adherence to the system. Abusive systems play off of the members’ guilt and shame. “No one else would accept me like these people if they knew what I struggled with.” I did find much forgiveness and Building your sonship life skills protect you from abuseconfidentiality inside the system, but I also knew that implications could be made if I left.

People with poor life skills lack the interpersonal boundaries and assertiveness necessary to stand strong against abuse. They also fear that they can’t stand on their own. Learned helplessness leaves them vulnerable to the dictates of the system. Along with poor life skills comes poor or no foundation for evaluation of appropriateness. The system offers them so much of what they are looking for, but they lack the ability to perform a mental cost/benefit analysis. “Does the perceived benefit of staying in the system outweigh the emotional toll of performing to system specifications?” is a question that many are unable to adequately answer.

Reconciliation Ministries

Tending the Garden of My Heart: Sonship Emotional Responsibility

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Sonship Emotional Responsibility to tend the garden of your heart promotes growth in your life.

Emotional awareness is a learned skill. Many things can sprout up in our hearts; little foxes can come in and ruin our vineyard. Learning to recognize and be responsible with our emotions is a huge key in spotting them. This is part of having emotional intelligence. Many people have no idea of what is actually happening in their hearts. They are living in “numb-numbville” through counterfeit affections, as Jack Frost would say. God has a better way.

Sonship Emotional ResponsibilityCyndi has a great example: “The other day I felt restless and bored all afternoon. I often took breaks, going to the kitchen and opening the food cabinets looking for a snack; I was checking my email and Facebook repeatedly, just looking for ‘something’ to make the bored feeling go away. Finally, I tried journaling my emotions and telling God what I was feeling. Connecting with God’s presence helped some, however, something was still trying to shut my heart down and make me want to eat junk food. Eventually, I realized it all started when a contractor came by to give us an estimate and the house wasn’t as clean as I would’ve liked. This triggered feelings of failure and insecurity in me. Finding the source then enabled me to give it to God.”

Consider these verses:
Song 1:6, 2:15, 4:12-14… they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept. Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards are in blossom. A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse… Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes…

The heart is like a garden – there are plants that bring forth fruit with wonderful life-giving nutrients but also weeds can pop up unawares. It is our job to know what is happening in the garden of our heart and to keep it well tended.

Every relational conflict, every craving, is connected to our hearts shutting down because of unrecognized emotional triggers. Knowing ourselves – awareness – is the answer to every problem – food, habits, lack of motivation, fear of failure, relational breakdowns…everything. This is the key to learning to work with yourself rather than fight yourself.

Our emotions are there for a reason. Honoring them and working with them rather than fighting and suppressing them makes a huge difference in how we walk out our lives. As the example with Cyndi shows, emotional awareness is a skill that can be developed.

Striving Is About Shame

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Striving Is About Shame and Resolving Shame Brings Wonderful Rest

Christian Devotions can be a time of cooperating with God to move from striving to rest. Years ago I was on a sales call with a friend. We were meeting an executive at a trucking company my friend knew. I was expressing fear: “Do you think he’ll get mad we didn’t call first?” “If he seems too busy, we can just leave some information with his secretary.”

My friend finally said, “It’s not that delicate.” That phrase turned a light on for me. I wasn’t even aware of the fear I was experiencing. I hadn’t realized my stress and lack of rest.

Striving Is About ShameSo often I have been afraid of saying the wrong thing in front of people I considered important. My turmoil would lead to inward striving. This fear made it hard to step out and try things. It’s made it hard to be comfortable in my own skin and simply be at rest.

Striving is about shame, an inner feeling of inferiority; that something is bad, wrong, flawed about me. This shame shows up when I’m trying to do a given thing and I feel it is not okay to make a mistake or fail because if I do, my self-worth is in question. But if I can see these dynamics–how shame leads to fear and striving–then there is hope. God is able to comfort me and love me out of them (I John 4:18–perfect love casts out fear). God really does have a life of rest available for us!

The Simplicity of Prayer Ministry

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Understanding The Simplicity of Prayer Ministry Gives You Clarity to Move Forward

Prayer Ministry is defined in so many ways; everything from godly counsel, to spooky stuff like the healing of memories. But what is it really? What makes it work?

Frank’s boss informed him at the last minute that he will need to stay late as the deadline of a project has just been moved up…again. On the way home from work, his mind was locked onto all the ways he disliked his The Simplicity of Prayer Ministryboss. These negative tapes had been playing in his thought life for over a year. However, through prayer ministry, Frank was able to find complete resolution on this issue.

The Simplicity of Prayer Ministry
Prayer Ministry is so incredibly simple, many times we step right over it thinking, “there has to be more to it than this,” and we add complication. But it really boils down to only three core things. Consider these scenarios:

Anger, Unforgiveness
Not long ago someone on your job was a real jerk to you. Whenever you think about that individual, it drives you nuts. You get angry, or agitated and maybe tense up just at the mention of their name. Finally, with someone you trust, they help you get honest about your feelings and work through forgiveness. That’s Prayer Ministry.

Sorrow, Loss, Regret
Maybe you felt a loss as a really good friend moved away and finally you talk to someone about the pain you are feeling. They help you acknowledge your sorrow and work through letting it go. That’s prayer ministry.

Identity Lies
Perhaps there was a time when a friend rejected you, even demeaned you in front of others. Ever since then you’ve struggled with feelings of rejection, insecurity, and inferiority. Finally, a Christian brother helps you to look back at this event and to ask God about it, and God says you are loved, you are the apple of His eye, and that person’s treatment wasn’t about you anyway; he was only reacting from the hurt in himself. That’s Prayer Ministry.

Prayer Ministry is simply getting honest about our pain, coming to the light with it, and letting God heal it so it doesn’t interfere with our daily walk anymore. As mature Christians, these things can happen naturally as we relate to the Lord day by day. However, there are times when we get stuck and the process stalls. That’s when prayer ministry can really help.

These scenarios are simple. Never-the-less, helping people face these three things–anger, sadness, or lies about their identity–is the crux of Prayer Ministry. We work with individuals who have minor wounding all the way to those with the deepest, most unimaginable abuses, and we see consistent results. The healing always involves going to Jesus with one of these three core issues.

Boundaries for Dignity and Justice

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Boundaries for Dignity and Justice. Learning to walk in boundaries is foundational to growth.

Part of growing in sonship life skills is learning to walk this out even when it is difficult.

Think of that guy at work who is super friendly. He’s always quick to make you laugh, a great conversationalist, makes you feel liked and included. But, he’s often a little late to the office, there are times when he puts some of his workload off on others, and he sometimes doesn’t consider other people’s time boundaries.

What about the demanding boss who expects you to work extra hours without extra pay? He talks down to people and doesn’t use appropriate respect. Everything is always about his vision and the company and never about building people.

Now think of Boundaries for Dignity and JusticeGod being so kind to Israel in bringing them out of Egypt. God protected them, yet they turned to idols. God contracted with them to give them the Promised Land, yet they continually backed out of any responsibility on their end. Instead they used excuses that flowed out of a victim mindset.

Boundaries are not just a nice teaching that worked its way into the Body of Christ to help co-dependent women. Boundaries describe where everyone lives. The lack of boundaries is the lack of dignity and justice.

Dignity and justice are universal human problems, their absence always allows a boundary to be crossed, inducing shame. These dignity/shame dynamics are the central roadblock to growth and fulfillment.

For example, I ministered one time in Nigeria, sharing my story of painful experiences and how God met meBoundaries for Dignity and Justice and brought growth. Many of the pastors came up after the teaching and said, “We’ve never heard anyone share their weaknesses. We only share our strengths.” In their churches, they preached a standard of faith and victory that set the bar high. They themselves couldn’t live up to it, but they would never share that; if they did, people may no longer follow them. Here’s the point. This high standard by the leader made it “not okay” for anyone to live under that. So now, no one can be honest about their shortcomings and therefore no growth or maturing ever takes place.

Facing ways we’ve experienced injustice, attacks on our dignity, impossible standards that employers, churches, or society have communicated to us is the beginning of growth. So often, like the children of Israel, we don’t want to come into the light with our shame issues. However, when we do, they become the very stepping-stones to real growth. By doing this, true change is within reach.

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