Past Trauma, Deep Healing: 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 materials should I use?”

Dave: Yes, we’ve led hundreds of groups; and you’ve 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. You go to FamilyLife.com/shop, and it’s 25 percent off.

Ann: 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: Thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behavior. If I’m starting to control things—overcontrol—“Okay, everybody needs to do this or that; or else, we’re not going to be safe,” or “…somebody’s going to get hurt,”—going into my anxious spiel—“Okay, what’s going on here? I’m feeling anxious—this is a signal—God wants me to respond to this anxiety. How do I respond best?—when I believe truth.”

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—

Dave and Ann: —Today.

Dave: Here we [were]—I was 22; you were 19—we were sitting at the Weekend to Remember®, FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember marriage getaway, two weeks before our wedding.

Debra Fileta is with us—a counselor, a therapist, a podcaster, an author, a speaker; you’re everything— a mom.

Ann: —mother/mom; yes, wife.

Dave: I just want to ask you, Debra, as we get into this: we were sitting there—and the whole weekend, we sat there, thinking, “We don’t need this!”—we were so naïve. Because if you had been able to do a scan of these two people, Dave and Ann, sitting there, you, as a therapist, would have said, “These two are going to struggle,”—sexual abuse in her background; two alcoholic parents in my background, divorce, adultery—we were bringing all of that into our marriage, and we had no idea. We thought, “If you follow Jesus, it’s all buried in the past; it’s all covered up.”

Ann: “He’s healed us.”

Dave: “He heals you, and you just move right into your new life and your new future.”

Ann: “And now, you can help everyone else.”

Dave: Yes! You deal with people, all the time, who: “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

Debra: Right; let me just affirm: “Jesus did heal you; He did.”

Dave: He is healing us.

Ann: He healed; He took away all of our sin.

Debra: Even then, you were healed. It’s just that healing happens in layers. There are layers—“Okay, next level,” “…next level,”—until we get to heaven.

Some of us, though, are stuck in that superficial healing—where we’ve healed a couple of things—we’ve healed our soul, right? We know we’re going to heaven, but there are more layers that God is inviting us to. Sometimes, it takes marriage to blow up in our face, or another relationship, or a life problem, or an addiction, or depression and anxiety for us to realize: “Oh, I’ve got more healing to do.”

Ann: That’s a good way to say it.

I remember, when we were in seminary, and we were taking classes to learn how to counsel people—

Dave: This was three years later [from sitting at the Weekend to Remember].

Ann: —three years later. We did our family tree; we got into all of our own personal past. It was the first time that I started dealing with any of the sexual abuse. I really thought—and I would cry every night as I started going back into the past of what had happened and realizations—but I really thought, “Okay, Lord, thank You! Thank You for healing me.”

And then, a couple of years later, something new popped up. And then, when we had kids, another area popped up. I remember thinking, “I thought You healed me.” But I felt God nudge into me, through His Holy Spirit, saying, “Ann, I’m giving you—I love you so much—and you’re going to see areas that need to be healed along the way. Don’t push back on that; I am healing you. I’m healing you, but isn’t it kind of Me to not just bombard you?” I thought, “Do it all at once!”

But we get, as we talked about yesterday, sore spots. When I was parenting: “Oh, that triggered me,” or “That hurt me.” It was almost God’s loving hand, saying, “That’s because I want you to look deeper into this new area.”

If you haven’t listened to the last two days with Debra Fileta, go back and listen; because we’ve gone deep, and it’s been great and beautiful. We’re talking about her book, Reset. The subtitle is Powerful Habits to Own Your Thoughts, Understand Your Feelings, and Change Your Life.

We’ve been saying, “We all have these areas that we think, ‘I want to change; I want to change; I want to change,’ but we feel stuck.” That’s where we’ve been the last few days.

Dave: Let’s talk today about childhood wounds.

Debra: Let’s do it.

Dave: You have a whole chapter about it.

Debra: It’s interesting: we’ve kind of gone on a journey. We’ve progressed through each episode. The first episode, we talked about these behaviors on the outside: “Why do we do what we do?” “Why do we struggle with these external behaviors in our personal life?” or “…in our marriage?”; right?

The second time, we talked about these sore spots; and how the reason we do what we do is because we’ve got these wounds. It’s not actually about the fact that Dave didn’t squeeze the sponge out. [Laughter] It’s not actually about the fact that Dave is going out tonight, and he ends up being late, and Ann feels upset. Underneath that is a sore spot [for Ann]: “I feel unseen”; underneath that is a sore spot of [Dave]: “I don’t feel good enough, so I have to go do all this stuff.”

That’s a wonderful layer to get to: “Here’s what’s really going on; here are my real vulnerabilities…” But then, the deepest layer is: “Where do they come from? Where do they come from? Where do these sore spots come from, so that I can begin facing them and healing them?”

Many times, these sore spots are actually coming from things we picked up along the way. Where do these belief systems that lead to these thoughts come from?—from our childhood, our childhood. It’s funny—because I think that talking about your inner child feels so un-Christian for some people [Laughter]—“‘Inner child,’ sounds like Freud.”

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Freud, yes.

Debra: But there is so much power and truth to realizing that God wants to heal every part of us. God doesn’t see you as a 36-year-old Ann. [Laughter] I’m guessing that’s your age.

Ann: Yes, of course, that’s what it is.

Dave: I’m 38.

Debra: Exactly. [Laughter] He sees you in every stage of development, because God stands outside of time: He sees your six-year-old self, your sixteen-year-old self, your sixty-year-old self. Can you imagine that?—He sees me in all of those stages.

Jesus views us with compassion, and He [says], “I want to help you heal. You didn’t get the chance to heal your eight-year-old self; you didn’t know any better, Dave,” “You didn’t know any better, Ann, in the middle of sexual abuse; but now, I want to help you go back and heal.” When we do, it changes everything.

Dave: I’m sad that I didn’t start that journey until I was 50. You know what I mean? It’s like I just drove, and drove, and drove hard. I had the athlete’s mentality, thinking, “Your childhood; it’s in the past.

Debra: Right.

Dave: “’The old is gone; the new is come [2 Corinthians 5:17, paraphrased]”; not understanding everything you just said. The journey I started in my 50s probably was: “Oh, my goodness; I’ve got to go back there. I’ve got to understand, and try and see, how I am shaped today by those wounds.” It was life-changing; it was a healing to do it. I said to my counselor, I was sitting there, “I should have done this in my 30s.” He looked at me, and said, “You’re doing it now. Let’s go!”

Debra: I think we don’t know better—and not only that—I do think, unknowingly sometimes, Christian culture keeps us from going there; because we want to believe that Jesus can heal it all. He can, but it’s like He wants to invite us on this journey with Him.

In that chapter in Reset, one of the things I have you do is: I say, “If you could imagine your childhood self today, out of a place of woundedness—maybe, your most broken, afraid child—what’s that child living inside of you, who has a tendency to come out and try to take control?” For me, it’s that little eight-year-old anxious girl, who says, “I’ve got to control this; I’ve got to control this.”

I would like to ask—and I would like to ask those, who are listening—“What is that childhood version that comes out in you?”

Dave: You mean now.

Debra: “If you could pinpoint your most vulnerable place, as a child, how old would you be?” and “What thoughts, and beliefs, and fears were you struggling with in that season?”

Ann: I know what mine is: it would be control, as well; because with abuse/with sexual abuse, things are done to you. I didn’t use my voice to protect myself. Now, I think I become more controlling. I control the situations I’m in so that I won’t be hurt. Especially, I saw it as a high schooler. I had a lot of boyfriends; but I also knew that I was going to control the situation, and control them; because I wasn’t going to have another man control me.

Debra: Right.

Ann: I hurt them: I used my sexuality to tempt them—but I controlled everything—what I said, what I did. I did not let them get close to me, because I had a wall of protection on me.

Debra: You watched that play out. When you think about that hurt child, what stage and age comes to mind for you?

Ann: Starting at four.

Debra: Wow! So you think of this little four-, five-, six-year-old girl.

Ann: We had one of our sons with us this last week. I asked him, “What are the areas that were hard for you, with me as your mom?” He is so kind; he is super kind and loving.

Dave: And he’s done the work,—

Ann: He’s done the work.

Dave: —so he understands what we’re asking.

Ann: He said, “Mom, you were just intense.” I think that intensity was that control piece.

Debra: One hundred percent.

Ann: Yes.

Debra: One hundred percent. It’s amazing, we don’t even realize [it]. The thing about it is it’s not like that child disappears once and for all; we need to have compassion. When that little eight-year-old girl comes up, every now and again—she doesn’t come up as much anymore—because now, that I’ve healed her, I am a Holy Spirit-filled adult woman of God with power and control, right?

Ann: What took you to those feelings that you had as an eight-year-old?

Debra: I would say anxiety coming up: “Why do I feel so anxious?” “Why am I on high alert about things that aren’t that crazy?—it’s not life-threatening.” High alert, for example, when I would travel—to leave my kids, [thinking about] all the bad things that could happen—it was like this little girl was afraid all these bad things could happen: “What could happen?” “Could the house burn down?” “Could somebody choke?” “Could this happen?”

I was that way as a little kid; because I’d seen things happen around me that were dangerous, unsafe. That little girl would come back up, and I could give in to that; and hype up my nervous system and be anxious. I remember one time it got so bad that I thought, “I’m quitting ministry. I’m not even going to do this anymore; I am done”; because there was so much emotional turmoil until I healed more.

Ann: Yes, take us through that. What did that look like then?

Debra: Thank God being a counselor is so convenient. [Laughter] It is so convenient to your personal life. Most of us, who have been healed, become counselors; because we think: “How can we not share this? How can we not help people?”

Dave: Right.

Debra: But to recognize: “This is a signal: ‘Okay; what’s going on here?’ ‘I’m feeling anxious.’ ‘Is this real? Is this rooted in my trauma?’ ‘Yes, it’s not rooted in truth,’”—and to really learn to slow down my nervous system response, and cling to truth, and heal that little girl through counseling—through different seasons of counseling that I went through myself, an inner work that I have done; the Lord has walked me through so much of my own journey.

Now, that little girl doesn’t come out much anymore. I can keep her in her cute little: “I love you; I appreciate you; I have compassion for you, but you don’t rule what I say, do, don’t do anymore.”

Ann: I don’t know if you’ve done this, too, Debra—but when she does flair back up [with] a sore spot or a trigger, is what we’ve been talking about, especially yesterday—then, with that flair/if she flairs up, give us your little—now, that you’ve done the work; you’ve done the healing—if she flairs up, what do you do right then?

Debra: I remember the formula that: “Thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behavior.” If I’m starting to control things—over control—“Okay, everybody needs to do this or that; or else, we’re not going to be safe,” or “…somebody’s going to get hurt,”—going into my anxious spiel—“Okay, what’s going on here? I’m feeling anxious—this is a signal—God wants me to respond to this anxiety. How do I respond best?—when I believe truth. ‘Lord, You’re in control. Lord, my life is in Your hands; Lord, my kids’ lives are in Your hands. You have been with me.’ I cling to the truth of God’s Word.”

Ann: You remind yourself in God’s Word.

Debra: Constantly, the truth of God’s Word is my plumb line versus my trauma. Here’s where it gets tricky for me: Trauma can get perpetuated. You know that little eight-year-old girl, who is afraid something bad is going to happen? Guess what? Later, in my adult life, something bad did happen; I went through a traumatic miscarriage, where I almost lost my life. I was hemorrhaging, minutes away from dying, and had to get rushed into emergency surgery. I was all alone. It's like the enemy takes that belief—“Something bad can happen,”—[and says], “See! Something bad will happen. You’ve got to be on high alert; you’ve got to be in control.”

Trauma upon trauma upon trauma almost solidifies some of these unhealthy belief systems that we have; and then, leads us to this very anxious, scared place. God did not intend for us to land there; that was not His path for our life. We just followed the wrong beliefs systems, based on trauma.

This is why it’s so simple—whether you are a counselor, a pastor, a prisoner; somewhere in between—we can all fall into these things if we’re not aware and continuously asking the Lord to search our hearts and help us do the work.

Ann: Don’t you love—I love that the Holy Spirit, that Jesus, the Father is always with us—we can talk to Him anytime. [For me], it’s usually in the night, when something will come up, and I can’t sleep because I’m worrying about it. I’m trying to think, “How can I fix this?” or “…control this?”

Debra: Yes.

Ann: I love Philippians 4:6: “Don’t be anxious about anything…”—I have to visually see myself in front of Jesus— “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything in prayer and supplication let your requests be made know to God.” I tell Him: “Lord, this is what I’m feeling. This is what I’m afraid of; these are my greatest fears.” Then it says, “Then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.”

I don’t know about you but that—and I visually then see myself handing Him all of the things that I’m trying to control/that I’m scared of: my kids, the future—I actually see Jesus in my mind, because I’m very visual; I see Him take it. Then I take a big breath and I can go to sleep; you know? But that has become a practice that takes some self-control.

Debra: That’s why this book is 31 practices: “We have to practice.” After the childhood practice, I guide you through another practice to help you look for patterns: “What are some of the patterns that you’ve struggled with?” Then we go through the next step, where we actually write out the trauma thoughts; and then, we write out truth thoughts. It’s a little bit of work at a time.

But I’m still curious—

Ann: Me, too. I was going to ask Dave, too.

Dave: Wait, wait, wait!

Debra: —what your—

Dave: How did it all of a sudden come back to me? [Laughter]

Ann: We had to get back to Dave.

Dave: You’re curious about what?

Ann: —your little boy.

Debra: We never got to your answer. When you think of your childhood wounds, and your wounding as a kid, what age comes up, what stage?

Dave: For me, seven years old was when my dad left. I had two older brothers and a sister, but [they were] ten years older.

Ann: [They were] 10, 12, and 14 years older.

Dave: I was sort of the little boy, and I had a little brother. Long story short is we moved—my mom, myself, and my little brother—to Ohio from New Jersey because that’s where her parents were. Of course, I didn’t understand then; but she needed help. She was a single mom, now, in the ‘60s when there weren’t a lot of single moms.

A couple of months after the move, my brother died of leukemia—

Ann: His brother was five and a half.

Debra: Wow!—your younger brother.

Dave: —my little brother. So Dad was gone; we were in another state. I didn’t know anybody. I think my trauma is: “I avoid pain at all cost.”

Debra: That’s a lot of pain to deal with at once; so your body starts putting that all on mute, “I don’t really want to deal with this.”

Dave: My mom even said, “Every year”—he died in October around Halloween—“Every October, for five years, I got really sick.” I couldn’t get out of bed with throat, ear and things; they said, “Every year—it was like the day he died—you had this physical thing.”

Debra: You did.

Dave: Yes, I did.

Ann: But Debra, nobody ever talked about it—

Dave: —never.

Ann: —ever.

Debra: Think about that—

Dave: —never talked about it.

Debra: —that inability—and not because you weren’t able, but because nobody taught you to express everything that was going on inside of you: how you feel, all your fears—abandonment—“He [Dad] left; and now, he [little brother] left.” You don’t even have help processing all of that. It’s all getting stored in your body. It probably peaked around the heaviest grief season; so your body said, “Okay, if you’re not going to deal with this, I’m going to have to deal with it; and we’re just going to be down for the count for a couple of days.”

Dave: Right; Mom [portrayed]: “You’re not allowed to talk about it”; she never talked about it.

Debra: Maybe, that seven-year-old’s belief system—if your little child is thinking, “I am not safe,”—your little child is probably thinking, “I don’t have the luxury; I don’t have the permission to process what I feel. I don’t have the permission.”

Dave: Yes, yes.

Debra: You lived with that theme for many, many years.

Dave: I think I projected it, too: “I don’t want you to process either.”

Debra: “If I don’t have permission,…” And you think, “That’s not what we do.”

Dave: “You just suck it up and go. Life will work”; you don’t even think about the pain.

Anyway, it’s not about us; but I think there’s—you know better than any of us—there are so many people who have similar stories.

Debra: This is helpful to people; because sometimes, people don’t know: “How does this apply to me?”

Dave: Right; right.

Debra: Hearing other people map it out—"Oh, your little anxious girl,” “Your little shame-filled girl,” “Your little boy, who feels like he doesn’t have permission to feel,”—this helps people; because then, they can recognize that inside of themselves; and maybe, see the patterns that are coming up as they are living their life and doing things they don’t want to do!

Ann: Yes.

Dave: “How do we get out of this?” Because this is what I see happen, so often, is—instead of looking in the mirror, and saying, “Okay; I’ve got emotional sore spots/triggers; let’s deal with it,”—I think what we do in marriage is, we say,—

Debra: —“You…”

Ann: —“You…”

Dave: —“You’ve got to change,” “If she’ll change, then we’ll be good.”

Debra: Right.

Dave: “If he’ll change then we’re good.”

Debra: —which is ironic, because that’s the thing we have the least amount of control over.

Dave: I know; isn’t it?

Ann: Exactly.

Debra: That’s like gambling; I can’t trust that you’re going to change.

Ann: Right!

Debra: “I have power over the ingredients that I am bringing to the table. If I change my ingredients, it has the power to change the whole recipe; so that’s all that I can do, and that’s what I’m going to do fully and see what happens. And I’m going to trust God with your portion.”

Ann: That’s good.

Debra: That doesn’t mean we don’t say what we need. It doesn’t mean we don’t share when we’re hurt and be vulnerable, but realizing that the deep healing work that we’re responsible for is ours.

Ann: One of the things I’m wondering if we could do, as an assignment for everyone listening, is one of the things Dave and I did: we did a timeline of our lives.

Debra: I love that. I will talk you through how to do that in Reset, as well, in the beginning.

Ann: Oh, good; good.

Debra: And find it makes some patterns.

Ann: Give us a little application: “How could we do that?” We have 30 seconds.

Debra: Yes.

Ann: “How could we do that?”

Shelby: Okay, Debra is going to walk us through how to make a timeline for personal lasting change in just a second. But first, I’m Shelby Abbott; and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson, with Debra Fileta, on FamilyLife Today.

Debra has written a book called Reset. The subtitle is Powerful Habits to Own Your Thoughts, Understand Your Feelings, and Change Your Life. Sounds like something that you might need? It sounds like something that I definitely need. You can get your copy by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com in the show notes. Or feel free to call us at 800-358-6329; you can give us a call at that number to request your copy. Again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

As you’re getting ready for small groups coming up in the fall—I know we’re still in the middle of August, but fall is right around the corner—we wanted to let you know that all of our FamilyLife workbooks are now 25 percent off for the month of August. You can go to the show notes at FamlilyLifeToday.com, look around, and pick out what will be best for you. But all our FamilyLife workbooks are 25 percent off until the end of this month.

Okay, here’s Debra to walk us through developing our own personal timeline that we might see lasting change in our lives.

Debra: Think about the most significant things that have impacted you in your life—specifically, sore spots—like things that made you feel inadequate. Whatever your sore spot is—anxiety, control, depression—feeling like: “I’m not good enough.” Look through your life: “What are the difficult experiences that maybe affirmed that unhealthy belief?—'You are unseen,’ ‘You are unloved,’ ‘You’ll never amount to anything.’ What are the things that affirmed that belief? And start writing them down; and even journalling through them: ‘Why did that affirm that belief?’”

Start thinking outside of the box: “What does God’s truth want to speak into that belief system?" Again, if we want to change our behavior, it’s thoughts that begin to change; and then, they change our feelings; and then, those changed feelings begin to change what we do on the outside.

Ann: That’s so good.

Dave: Thank you; it’s been awesome.

Ann: Debra, this has been so good. I hope everybody will read this book—and all of your books, honestly—thank you for all you’re doing.

Debra: Thank you for having me.

Dave: You’re coming back for the next one.

Debra: I can’t wait; I can’t wait.

Shelby: Alright; coming up tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson are going to be talking with Rachel Faulkner Brown about blending families after a huge loss and dealing with grief. That’s tomorrow; we hope you will 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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