How to Change…And Make it Stick! Debra Fileta

Dave: Hey, before we get started today, let's talk small groups.

Ann: Yes, because everyone at this time of year starts thinking, “What small group material should I use?”

Dave: Yes, we've led hundreds of groups; and you have got to have great material. FamilyLife® has you covered. We have great, great material: the Art of Marriage®, Vertical Marriage®—you name it, we’ve got it—and it's on sale the month of August. Go to FamilyLife.com/shop, and it's 25 percent off.

Ann: And let me just say, “Thank you,”—to all the small group leaders—"You are making a difference; keep going!”

Dave: Again, that’s FamilyLife.com/shop and get 25 percent off right now.

Debra: We have all these behaviors we want to change; we have all these places where we say we're stuck. But then, what we're just doing is putting Band-Aids® on the peripheral. We're doing external work without doing internal healing. And guess what? That doesn't take you very far.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: I would guess every person who has ever lived has asked this question—do you know what question it is?—

Ann: No.

Dave: —“How can I change? I want to change my life,” or “I want to change this area of my life. I want to stop doing…” “I want to start doing…” At some point, I think
100 percent of us have asked that question [concerning]: “I want to change.”

Ann: Does the narcissist think it? [Laughter]

Dave: I hope you're not saying I'm a narcissist.

Ann: No, I'm not saying you at all. [Laughter] But I think you're right—I don't know if it's 100 percent—but most of us, at least.

Dave: You’re supposed to agree with me;—

Ann: Sorry. [Laughter]

Dave: —I’m your partner. [Laughter]

Ann: Sorry; but we do think, “Oh, I'm so frustrated. I want to change this, but I can't get out of it.” So I think that this is definitely an area that we want to change.

Dave: Well, the good news is: today we're going to find out how we change. We've got the woman in the studio. Don't you think Debra is the person?

Ann: Debra Fileta is with us; and Debra, we love you. I love you!

Debra: I love you, too!

Ann: I feel like what you're writing/what you're doing is resonating with so many people. As we've had you on before, everything that you're talking about and writing is what we need to hear, especially today; because you're really getting into these areas that we need healing in.

Debra: Yes, we're going into deep territory. [Laughter]

Ann: Yes!

Debra: But we're going to make it easy.

Dave: Well, this is what you do: you're a counselor; you’re a podcaster; you’re a speaker; you're an author; you're a home school mom of four kids. Seriously, how do you do all of what you do?

Debra: I pace myself; I don't do it all at the same time—try to set a lot of boundaries—I honestly have to work to practice what I preach. Can you imagine if I was living unhealthy behind the scenes and trying to get people healthy?

Ann: I think a lot of people do that, but you don't; you have a lot of character. I think it’s the same when we do so many marriage conversation, and conferences, and speaking—it changes us—you have to walk it.

Debra: You do.

Dave: We're going to talk a little bit about Reset, your book. I'm guessing that title—I'd love to know how you even came up with that title—but the subtitle is: Powerful Habits to Own Your Thoughts, Understand Your Feelings, and Change Your Life. So there it is: Change Your Life. I'm picking this book up.

Ann: Right.

Dave: Seriously, if I'm in an airport bookstore, and I see this, I'm going to be [thinking], “I need to reset.” Is that what the whole idea of the title was: “It's time to reset”?

Debra: Yes, absolutely: “Hit the reset button. It's time to do things differently and to do them better.”

It's funny: I would say it kind of started with this story of my car in college. I had this lemon of a car.

Dave: I laughed out loud when I read this story.

Ann: —Me, too! [Laughter] I did, too, when we read it. [Laughter]

Dave: —It was like, “I had no idea.”

Debra: It was a Jetta, a Volkswagen Jetta; it was green. I gave her a name—I loved this car—my first car when I turned 16. But then, I take it to college; and things start going crazy. The car starts breaking down on me: the windows rolled down suddenly; the alarm would just start to blare; or the windshield wipers would just go on a sunny day. It was—

Ann: It was like a possessed car.

Debra: —it was a lemon. [Laughter] It was possessed.

And one day before finals, I'm running out to my car. I'm kind of late. I'm putting in the key, and I pull out the key; and the whole entire lock cylinder comes out. [Laughter] I'm holding it on my key, [wondering], “What am I going to do with this?”

Ann: This is when I laughed. [Laughter]

Debra: The windows roll down; the alarm starts to blare, and I'm [thinking], “I have got to get to my final.” [Laughter] I just jump in the car. It's really cold outside, because it's winter. I'm, literally, driving in a winter coat with the windows rolled down and the alarm blaring—

Ann: In Pennsylvania?

Debra: —in Virginia. The alarm is blaring, [Laughter] and I drive to my final; I'm [thinking], “What am I going to do here?”

But think about that hot mess and how many times we feel like a hot mess in life. How many people, listening, have gotten to that point? Some of us are a little bit more
Type A, and we shove it all inside; and we're a hot mess on the inside. But a lot of us are a hot mess on the outside—you just see it—and you're [wondering], “What do I do with this?” Well, we try to fix the hot mess exterior: I could have muffled the alarm; I could have taped the windows with duct tape [or] pulled off the windshield wipers—just done the external work to get the car to a better place.

But you didn't actually fix it: unless you go under the hood; unless you see what's going on underneath the surface of your life. That's truly the whole point of Reset: we have all these behaviors we want to change; we have all these places where we say we're stuck. But then, what we're just doing is putting Band-Aids on the peripheral. We're doing the external work without doing internal healing. And guess what? That doesn't take you very far.

Ann: That’s good.

Dave: What was wrong with the car? [Laughter]

Debra: Well, I have this friend of mine, this guy. When you bring a guy in [Laughter]—and it’s someone who you have interest in—you just let them do whatever.

Ann: Oh, but he’s not a mechanic, you're saying?

Debra: He’s not a mechanic! “What am I doing?” [Laughter] I let this guy work on my car; he put in a stereo and crossed the wires.

Dave: Oh.

Debra: So there were all kinds of wires crossed underneath the surface there.

Ann: Ooh, and that's a great metaphor, too.

Debra: Yes; people come into our life—like that guy who doesn't know what he's doing—and they cross our wires. Trauma can often begin to become our template that we live out of instead of truth.

Ann: Did you have any in your life?—that you had some wires crossed and you thought,—

Dave: Oh, look! I like it! Ann’s being your counselor.

Debra: I know; now, you’re being my counselor. [Laughter]

Dave: Here we go; let's go!

Debra: Oh, I'm not used to this.

Dave: She does this to me all the time. [Laughter]

Debra: The tables have turned.

Ann: You've done this with us a lot.

Debra: I know; it's like payback time.

Ann: I know; yes.

Debra: Definitely—because nobody goes through life uninterrupted on your journey with God—nobody. The enemy is constantly trying to come in and cross our wires, using very traumatic experiences—big “T” Trauma, but also little “t” trauma—beliefs that you hold onto without even realizing it.

I grew up—my grandfather was an evangelist, an incredible man of God—worked really hard: traveled Egypt, sharing the gospel in a Muslim country.

Ann: Wow!

Debra: So my dad is very gospel-focused; but also, a hard worker. My parents were immigrants; they came to the United States. And you know what they did when they came?—they worked really hard because they had to. But watching that, as a child, you start to download messages that weren't intended to be there. The message was: “If you work really hard, you will be loved; you will succeed. You have to work really hard for God.”

Do you see how those subtle things can cause our wires to get crossed? And all of a sudden now, I'm—an eight-, nine-, ten-year-old— who thinks so much of my value comes from what I do—

Ann: —your performance.

Debra: —my performance, working really hard.

And guess what? Eventually, in grad school, I hit a place of burnout—depression; waking up, struggling; unmotivated—not realizing my crossed wires underneath the surface. If I'm frank, some of it was chemical-crossed wires from hormones and changes in hormones underneath the surface. I think that's legitimate—and we have to understand that part of it, too—but also crossed wires in my belief systems.

When you put them all together—what's going on inside of your body; what's going on outside of you—and you put them all together, you can find yourself stuck.

Ann: And then, what happens is that affects every other area of your life. If you never look into that, it affects your marriage; it affects the way you parent.

Debra: Exactly.

Ann: It affects everything. That's why I love that you're passionate about this, because you're wanting to fix the crossed wires—or I should say—“Jesus can help us fix those crossed wires to bring healing, and that healing can go into every area of our lives.”

Debra: Yes, absolutely. I think the problem in our world—and even in our churches—we often talk about the exterior more than the interior:

[“Church”]: “Break free from sin,” “Stop looking at porn.”

[Member]: “Okay, but how? How do I do that if I'm so drawn to it?” You're drawn to it, because of your internal trauma: your inability to regulate your emotions.

[“Church”]: “Stop smoking,” “Stop getting drunk,” “Stop getting angry at your children,” “Stop eating so much.”

[Member]: “Okay, but how?”

This is why these conversations are so important, because so many Christians are stuck—they have Jesus; they are filled with the Spirit of God—but they have never learned how to allow the Spirit of God to bring healing into their inner world. That's where transformation begins.

Ann: Oh, you just hit all those hot topics. Everybody's [thinking], “Ooh, you hit me in one of those.”

You start out with this whole pause idea; talk about that.

Debra: I would say the first chapter—so Reset is 31 small bite-sized chapters—you probably noticed: they're two to three pages.

Ann: Yes.

Debra: But it's kind of annoying, I think, that you open the book—you're ready; the introduction kind of pumps you up: “It's time to change,” “It's time to heal,”—and then, Chapter One is:—

Dave: —"Pause.”

Debra: —[speaking slowly] “Pause.” [Laughter]

Dave: “Let’s stop for a moment.”

Debra: [Reader’s thinking], ”Wait a second; I’m ready to go!”

Dave: "I’m in the car; let’s drive!”

Debra: “Yes, let’s do this!”

Ann: Yes; why did you start there?

Debra: Well, because this is a book that is going to establish habits that help you heal, not just quick fixes: “So let's actually look at our life and find out: ‘Do I have the space to heal?’ ‘Do I have the bandwidth to heal?’ Because if you don't have the space to do the work, then how do you expect anything to change?”

We live in such a noise-saturated world; we don't actually have time to sit and think. This is why counseling is so beneficial: for some people, it's the first time they've ever given themselves an hour to process—

Ann: Yes.

Debra: —what's going on in their inner world. Think about that: if you don't have time to stop and hear what God is saying to you—and not only that—you might think you want to change something; and then you meet with God, and He's [saying], “No, I want you to start [here] first; there's something I'm doing that's different than that.”

Ann: You can relate to that, as a mom with four. I think about moms—who are working; they're homeschooling, maybe; they've got four, two/however many kids—you feel like you don't have time for anything for yourself, let alone going into this inner-healing kind of idea or reset.

Debra: Yes, absolutely.

Ann: So should they wait?

Debra: Well, we can make excuses. I'm a mom of four, but my priority needs to be my health; because if I am not healthy, I am parenting out of that place. You do better by making yourself a priority in the sense of: “I need to be healthy. I need to be healed so that I don't parent out of that place [of unhealth].”

Dave: It's interesting: I was studying your book this week. Before we came in this morning, I picked it up; and I don't know why I ended up on this page.

Debra: Yes.

Dave: It's just what you're saying—it's actually Chapter 30, and I read this this morning—“There's something I need you to hear: sometimes, we do more to feel less.” And I [thought], “This is my life”; [Laughter] I really did.

Ann: That's right.

Dave: You know; you've had us on [your podcast]—

Debra: That’s a good line, Dave.

Dave: —and you were like put me on the couch, and said, “Hey, Dave, let's talk about your trauma,”—but sometimes,—

Ann: That’s what our counselor friend told you.

Dave: —we do more to feel less.

Debra: Right.

Dave: You even talk in this chapter about distractions and cell phones, and how much we're distracted; and we're not focused. Guess what? I don't think, in my entire adult life, since the cell phone has been a part of my life, I've gone a day without a cell phone.

Debra: Right, absolutely.

Dave: I drove in today and I forgot my cell phone! [Laughter]

Debra: Today, literally?

Dave: I was [wondering],”‘Where’s my phone?—

Ann: —today; this morning.

Dave: —“Where’s my phone?” “Where’s my phone?—

Debra: This is prophetic.

Dave: —"Oh, my goodness! It's back in the house.” And I'm like, “I can't function without my phone; we have got to go back.” I'm [thinking],—

Ann: But you—

Dave: —“I’m going to do a day without a phone.”

Ann: I was kind of amazed—

Debra: Wow!

Ann: —that he didn't turn around. I thought, “Oh, we're going to turn around.”

Debra: I'm so impressed.

Ann: I know!

Debra: And I feel like this goes so well with this idea:—

Dave: Yes; that’s why I brought it up!

Debra: —“What does it look like to stop and pause for a moment, and be more in tune to your inner world?”—because we do [keep busy]. Why are we so busy?—oftentimes, we want to be busy because, the second we stop, we feel things that we don't want to feel.

But what we're not realizing is those feelings are not a punishment; those feelings are a signal. God is saying, “Pay attention to what you feel and respond to it.” It's like: “Warning!” “Warning!” “Warning!”—that's what the feeling is.

If we don't ever quiet ourselves to feel the feelings—and then, underneath that, to get to the root of some of those thoughts—the formula I want you to keep in your mind:

If the question is: “How do I change? How do I get unstuck?”
Here's the answer—one sentence—“Realize that your thoughts lead to your feelings, and your feelings lead to your behavior.”

If there's a behavior you want to change, you back up and you start to isolate:

“When do I feel that feeling?” “What feeling is it that causes me to do that behavior?”—"When I'm stressed, I go to the fridge; I go to the pantry.”

Then back up a little: “What causes me to be stressed?” It's a belief; it's a thought that: “This is too much,” “I can't do this; I'm overwhelmed,” “I'm not enough; I'm not good enough for this.”

If you don't isolate those thoughts—and begin unpacking them, and aligning them with the template of truth versus the template of trauma—you're going to continue to feel stuck.

Ann: I think every listener, right now, should just take a minute and pause right now,—

Dave: —"Pause.”

Ann: —and consider: “What is the area”—I feel like it's a hiding place—"Where do you go to hide?”

Debra: Yes.

Ann: Mine tends to be food. When I get stressed, I go straight to the refrigerator. I think we all have our little areas that we go to. “So what is yours?”

Could resentment be one? Do we get stuck on a person, who maybe,—do you think that could happen?

Debra: I would say resentment is the feeling: “I feel resentful.”

Ann: Okay; that makes sense.

Debra: “And then, what do you do when you feel resentful?—do you withdraw and isolate?” That would be the behavior: “I'm going to just be done; I'm done. I'm going to go to my room,” “I'm going to walk out of this house. I'm going to hop in the car and drive around, and who knows when I'm going to come back; because I feel resentful.” The behavior would be isolation and withdrawal.

Dave: When you were saying that, Debra, I was thinking, “One of the things I do is I do activity:—

Debra: You just do more.

Dave: “I just run: I go play a game; I go workout; I go ride the motorcycle—whatever. It's just like, ‘I'm going to go do something,’—usually, productive stuff.”

When I sat down with a counselor a few years ago—I was going through a hard time in our vocational life: leaving our church—it didn't go as easy as I thought and pretty messy. He said to me, at the end of our first session: “This is your homework assignment—answer this question—‘What are you running from?’”

I, literally, laughed out loud. I [asked], “What do you mean: ‘What am I running from?’” He said, “You don't see this?” I [said], “See what?” He said—he's got my whole life on the board—“Look at your life. You're so busy, because you're running.’” I said to him—Debra, you’ll love this—I [said], “Well, you're the counselor—you know—just tell me.” [Laughter]

Debra: “You tell me.”

Dave: I knew he knew.

Debra: Right.

Dave: He [said], “No, you have to find this out.” I came home and told Ann, because she was waiting at the door: “How did it go?! How did it go?!” I [said], “He wants me to figure out: ‘What am I running from?’” She's like, ”Duh! I've been trying to tell you this for—

Ann: I didn't say, “Duh,” though. [Laughter]

Dave: Well, it was just that we've had this conversation for decades,—

Debra: Right.

Dave: —and it was what you're [Debra] saying: it was: “I don't want to pause; I want to do more to feel less. I don't have to feel the feelings. I'll just keep getting productive; and people will [say],’Hey! [clap, clap] Way to go!’ And I don't have to go to that dark place, where I [think], ‘Okay; I'm not dealing with this trauma.’”

Today's not about me; but I think a lot of people can relate to what I do. They may do something different—but they're running from that feeling that leads them back to that thought.

Debra: And that's why it can be tricky to figure this stuff out, because some of the out-working doesn't look bad.

Dave: Right, right.

Debra: It doesn't look toxic.

Ann: It looks successful.

Debra: It looks successful: you're a workaholic; you have massive ministry, and you're running on all cylinders—“But what's going on inside?”

Dave: And people applaud it.

Debra: Yes; people applaud it; they don't know what's going on inside.

Dave: Right.

Debra: I think the key here is: “What is this rooted in?”

Ann: Yes.

Debra: “What is this rooted in?”

Dave: How do you get to the root?

Ann: Well, wait, wait! That's going too far. I want to hear the beginning. First step: give us the first step, right now. You already said it. Repeat it again so that we can think, “Okay, here's what I'm going to do.”

Debra: The formula is:—

Dave and Ann: —"Thoughts—

Debra: —“Thoughts —

Dave: —"lead to feelings,—

Debra: —"lead to feelings,—

Dave: —"lead to behavior.”

Debra: —"which then lead to your behaviors.”

Dave: Yes.

Debra: “So what is the underlying feeling? And then, what’s the thought that’s before that?”

For you, for example,—

Dave: Here we go; I knew we were going to get to counseling me. [Laughter]

Debra: I know, right? You're the easy one, though, Dave—you are courageous; you are direct—“What is the feeling that you're uncomfortable with feeling?”

Dave: “I want to be valuable.”

Debra: So you're feeling—you're not feeling valued—you're feeling—

Dave: “Not seen.”

Debra: —unworthy; unseen.

Dave: “Not productive, and I know I can go do things I'm good at.”

Debra: So let's say Ann says something like, “Dave, why didn't you do this when you were supposed to do it?” All of a sudden—

Ann: “Why didn't you squeeze the water out of the sponge this morning?”

Dave: Yes, she said that this morning. [Laughter]

Debra: And all of a sudden, you're [thinking], “I feel unvaluable and unseen.”

Dave: I said, “Let’s go work.” [Laughter]

Debra: “I feel unappreciated”; and then you tell her, “Well, here's why I did it…” Then, instead of really coming to her, and saying, “Hey, I'm starting to feel these feelings; I could use some appreciation/some validation. Some of this stuff may be coming from my past.” Sitting down and having that conversation would lead to deeper intimacy.

But then, it's like, “You know what? I won't do it again, Ann. [Laughter] Thanks for mentioning it. I'm out; I'm going to go bike a couple miles”; right? It's like the underlying feeling was not comfortable. And then if we back up, what's the thought that was there?—“I'm not good enough; I'll never be good enough.” Where does that come from?—that comes from trauma!

Now, a three-mile bike ride, in and of itself; there's nothing wrong with that.

Dave: Right.

Debra: But you see—and I hope people, who are listening, start to see—“Wait a second; I can actually do good things out of an unhealthy place.” What's the problem with that?—the problem is that you will eventually break. You will not be able to do these good things for a long time. If they're rooted in unhealthy things, you’re not going to be able to sustain that pace.

That's why pastors of gigantic successful churches—

Dave: I was just going to ask that.

Debra: —burn out, break down, moral failure. That's why people, up and leave, with what you thought was a happy marriage on the outside. That's why things happen, and people finally break; because external behavior is not going to sustain you if it's not rooted in the internal.

Dave: How do you convince—I'm thinking there are guys who; and maybe, women think the same way—but I know, for me, I grew up as an athlete in locker rooms, where they just tell you, ”Tough it out,”—

Debra: I know: “Push through.”

Dave: —“Suck it up.”

Debra: The military—I have a lot of vets who come in—here’s the thing: you don't have to convince them—life will; that's the unfortunate part. You will get to a point, where you break down; and then, you've got a face: “How do I prevent this from happening? How do I get healthy so that I can move forward into a healthy place?” Some people might feel convicted right away, and say, “I want to heal.” But other people: they're sign/their signal has to get so loud that they break.

Ann: Because we're dealing with this—we're coming off of a really busy ministry season—the thing that's happened, now that our kids are gone, is that Dave grabs me to go with him on all of these things. [Laughter] I told him I feel like he's running as fast as he can; and I have a hold of his belt loop, and my feet are off the ground, as he's pulling me alongside.

See, we’ll have to talk to Debra at lunch about: “How we get off of that cycle?”—because I don’t know what that looks like. Do you know what I mean?

Dave: Yes, and I just wonder if we should talk on air; because I bet you there are people feeling the same way—in either backwards or—

Ann: —that may be—

Dave: —one of the spouses is running harder, maybe even parenting in a different way, and the other feels like, “I'm not with you on this, and I'm feeling dragged.”

Ann: —or “I can't keep up with you at this pace.”

Dave: Can you talk about that tomorrow?

Debra: Yes, let's do it; let's do it! [Laughter]

Dave: You're smiling, like, “I’ve got a lot to tell you.” [Laughter] Is that what you were thinking?

Debra: No; I just love how willing the two of you always are to [say], “Okay, let's figure this out on air; let's just do it.” [Laughter] I had you guys on air on my podcast recently for a full-blown counseling session, so I think this is going to be Part Two.

Ann: I like it.

Debra: We’re going to dig in a little bit deeper.

Ann: I like it.

Dave: Okay.

Shelby: Wow! Okay; I'm looking forward to tomorrow, [when] we get to hear more from both the Wilsons and Debra Fileta; so make sure you join us then. I know you're looking forward to it as much as I am.

In the meantime, I'm Shelby Abbott; and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with—yes, that's right—Debra Fileta, on FamilyLife Today. Debra's written a book called Reset: Powerful Habits to Own Your Thoughts, Understand Your Feelings, and Change Your Life. Sound like something you want to pick up? It sounds like something I'd love to read. You can get your copy, right now, by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com in the show notes. Or you could feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

And as you're getting ready for small groups coming up in the fall—I know it's kind of hard to think about that, being that it is August—but the fall is just around the corner. We wanted to let you know that all of our FamilyLife workbooks are 25 percent off this month. You can go to the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com to look around and pick out what will be best for you; because all our workbooks, again, are 25 percent off during this month.

Now, coming up tomorrow, Debra Fileta is back to talk about the necessity of ongoing support—practical steps and community engagement—in order to see lasting change. That's tomorrow; we hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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