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Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
This is Lysa TerKeurst, and you're listening to Therapy & Theology. Before we get into today's conversation, I'd like to thank the American Association of Christian Counselors for sponsoring Season 7 of Therapy & Theology. I love the work that my friends and I get to do through this podcast that allows for therapeutic wisdom and deep theological insights to be accessible to anyone from anywhere.
But we're really only able to scratch the surface. I know there are thousands of individual needs represented in our listeners as they navigate their own life and relationships, and that's why I always love recommending the American Association of Christian Counselors. They know asking for help is hard, but finding help shouldn't be. They created the Mental Health Coach training program to equip you to know how to respond when a friend comes to you for help. Featuring some of the world's leading mental health and ministry leaders, this online video-based Mental Health Coach training program teaches you how to talk through the tough issues like what we talk about here on Therapy & Theology and how to respond to them. Visit Mentalhealthcoach.org to learn how you can sign up for their Mental Health Coach program, or visit the link in the show notes to learn more.
I want to start today's episode in a different way than what we normally do. I want to read you the introduction from, or at least part of the introduction from, my new book, I Want to Trust You, but I Don't.
"I want to trust you, but I don't. I want to believe that you have my best interests in mind, just like I do for you. I want to believe you don't have hidden agendas, motivations that are completely self-serving, or something going on behind the scenes that I would be crushed by if I knew about it. I want to believe the good feelings I have when you're being kind to me will still feel good a month from now. A year from now. I want to believe you've told me the whole story and that I won't make discoveries later that make me cry and feel the brutal weight of regret. I want to believe I won't lie in bed sobbing over the red flags I missed or chose not to pay attention to.
I want to believe I can count on you. I want to believe your love is real and your care is genuine. I want to believe I'll feel wise and not stupid for trusting you. I want to believe I'm safe with you and that you really are my person. I want to believe I'll be okay if I trust you. But I'm scared. I'm afraid the risks are just too high. My heart says I love you, but my fear says it's not safe. And fear has the louder voice right now. So, I want to trust you, but I don't."
Joel, as you and I studied the topic of trust in vertical relationships between us and God but also with relationships human to human, we found something from a theological standpoint that I think is really important for us to remember.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
We do want trust in our human-to-human relationships, but we can't attach the full hope that we have of safety and our future and even stability in our relationships ... we can't attach it to finding other humans who will never break our trust because the reality is all relationships carry with it a bit of risk because we're having relationships with humans.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, I think that's so true. I remember as we were working on the theological core for I Want to Trust You, but I Don't, one of the things that really stuck out to me is the intentionality of the biblical text, especially in the Hebrew Bible from Genesis through Malachi to use precise words for specific situations. And so, I know everybody knows this, but I'm just going to say it just for the sake of saying it, our Bibles were not written in English. It's a funny thing but also just important for us to recognize.
Jim Cress:
I grew up with people who believed it was the King James version ... just a program note.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Thank you.
Jim Cress:
That was the original Bible [inaudible].
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, the Old Testament's written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. And with that, one of the fascinating things when we're researching and setting the concept of trust, we want to do a biblical word study around this, and so basically what you do is you take the English word and then you're trying to reverse engineer, and you're trying to look at all the Hebrew words that are connecting to that English word. One of the fascinating things, Lysa, was the realization that the Hebrew word batah ... I know you're going to ask me, Joel, spell that for everybody.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I actually know how to spell —
Jim Cress:
Oh, wow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Only because we've studied it for so long.
Joel Muddamalle:
OK, I want you to do it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But I'm going to have you do it just in case.
Joel Muddamalle:
Ah, man. OK.
Jim Cress:
She'll spell-check you; don't worry.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Batah.
Joel Muddamalle:
Batah. You could say it really well too. And you read your book, and you said the Hebrew words in the book as well.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yes. Without me having to call you —
Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
— and say, “Can you please pronounce this before I read the audiobook?”
Jim Cress:
I'm so proud of you, Lysa. That's amazing.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK.
Joel Muddamalle:
And so batah-
Lysa TerKeurst:
We can take a chance on me spelling it if you want to.
Joel Muddamalle:
I want to do it. I do. I feel like —
Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm super —
Joel Muddamalle:
This is part of trust. I feel like this is a real-life example of trust.
Jim Cress:
Not rehearsed, by the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm super nervous, and I may totally mess this up.
Joel Muddamalle:
OK. Let's go.
Lysa TerKeurst:
B-A-T-A-H.
Joel Muddamalle:
Batah, yes. Got it. So proud of you.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That was stressful. That was so off script.
Joel Muddamalle:
But you did such a great job.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Thank you.
Joel Muddamalle:
OK, so batah has an object. So all of the words ... so the question is trust. What is the object of trust? Well, throughout the Hebrew Bible, when the object of trust, batah, is God, that word is always painted in a positive picture. We're being conditioned and trained to recognize every time we're thinking about trust in God, the outcome is good, it's fruitful, [and] it's flourishing. These things are going to be positive. Interestingly, every time the object of batah is humankind or objects even, things, possessions, money, anything like that, it is overwhelmingly cast in a negative way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Wow.
Joel Muddamalle:
And so when we begin to just think through how does God want us to consider trust and experience it, the goal is always that we put our full faith and trust in God. So that, and I think this is an important part, so that when our trust in other humans is fractured or compromised or broken, we won't be broken. We are not going to be shattered because we have something underneath it that's actually holding everything else together.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I remember writing in the book: broken trust can be life-altering, but it doesn't have to be life-ruining.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Jim Cress:
That's good.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I think the purpose of I Want to Trust You, but I Don't is not to give people a formula so that they can be in human relationships that are perfect, because there is no perfection found in human-to-human relationships. You can improve; you can get better. You can learn how to repair broken trust. You can even learn how to set your relationship up for success so that the trust can thrive —
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But there's never going to be a stability created within a human-to-human relationship that is perfect. Therefore, the promise of the book is that we need to learn to create an inner stability to be able to withstand the storms that will come, and they will come.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And it's not just that we have the tools that we need, but we have a foundation to know there is one who will never break trust with us, and that is God. Now to say all of that, it gets a little complicated because sometimes, is it OK if I make an honest confession?
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, please.
Lysa TerKeurst:
You good with confession time?
Jim Cress:
Oh, I love confession time.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Let's go.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. We talked in the previous episode about betrayal and the last layer of betrayal; we went through six layers of betrayal. The last layer was how could God have seen this happening and He didn't stop it. And so some of the deepest betrayal I've ever felt is a misunderstanding of what God allows. And so while I say when I direct my trust toward God, He provides a stability; it has to be a faith in God that even when I see things that don't make sense or I don't see what I think God should be doing, I have to trust that God is trustworthy. I have to trust that God is good even when I don't understand what He allows sometimes.
And I wrote this question in my journal recently, and I am profoundly challenged by it now every single day, and it's this: How might my life look different if I really believed in the goodness of God, therefore the trustworthiness of God? And so I find that very fascinating, and I think it directly links to the amount of hope that we have in our life, in our relationships, and just in our life in general. And I think for me, one of the outcomes of having trust that was broken in very significant human-to-human relationships is that I quietly started to quit on hope.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. One of the things that I think is so fascinating, Lysa, about all of that is this passage of Scripture in Luke 24, especially as it relates to what happens when we feel like God is the one who has broken trust with us? We feel like God has let us down in this area. And what I love about the Bible is that the Bible does not hide any of these emotions, any of these realities. In Luke 24, I think the people of Israel actually believe that they have been let down by God. They've put all of their belief systems in the fact that Jesus was going to be the long-awaited promised Messiah who's going to liberate and redeem them from the oppression of Rome. This is what Luke 24:21 says; it's these two men that are, literally, this is amazing, they are in a state of confusion, but they're simultaneously walking with the risen Christ, which is just an interesting thought.
But in verse 21, they say this, but we were hoping — well, what are they hoping? — we were hoping that Jesus was the one who was about to redeem Israel. And I think that maybe one of the things that we could do is we could replace that word for hope and say that's synonymous with trust. And this is just the biblical principle here. Whatever is the subject of our hope has to have substance. If we put our hope in a subject that does not have substance, we're left with hopelessness.
So we can rephrase it. What is the subject of our trust? If we put all of our trust in a subject that does not have substance, we'll have broken trust. And it will impact us in a negative way. I think the thing that —
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, let me say something too that I think is fascinating about this: Sometimes we will determine or try to make the determination whether or not God is trustworthy if we're looking for immediate relief for our greatest concern.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yes.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Sometimes I think it's like, OK, God, I will know for sure You're trustworthy if You give me immediate relief for my greatest concern right now. And the people then wanted immediate relief for their greatest concern, which was basically they wanted a human king to come in and make sure that Rome no longer could be the oppressors, no longer could make these big sweeping laws that crippled the people and that threatened not only their livelihood but even their sense of safety.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so they wanted immediate relief for their greatest concern.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And when that didn't happen, when Jesus didn't come as the king physically that would overthrow Rome in that moment, then they started to doubt the trustworthiness of God.
Joel Muddamalle:
One of the things I love about these conversations is it's almost like the three of us at some points ... it's like we're anticipating the very next thing that we're going to, and that's so perfect because I think what I would love for us to maybe do, and maybe you can do this while you're just processing through this episode, is what this puts on display is that often when we say we trust in someone or we trust in something, that trust simultaneously comes with conditions. So it's a trust but only if and it's A, B, C and D.
Jim Cress:
Very linear. Yeah.
Joel Muddamalle:
And so then something that lacks trust or breaks trust is ... actually it's because of our issues. It's because of our conditions that we've placed and theologically, biblically, what I'm just trying to point us to is that the conditions aren't necessarily bad in the human-to-human relationships. We're going to talk about them —
Lysa TerKeurst:
They're sometimes necessary.
Joel Muddamalle:
They're actually sometimes most often incredibly necessary, right?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yes.
Joel Muddamalle:
However, when it comes to God, when it comes to the perfect matchless King of heaven and earth, we have to be very careful that we don't put our human conditions on the infinite and only batah, trustworthy, one who is God. And sometimes I think if we're feeling, God's let us down, God has betrayed us, God is right. It might be a good inventory to say, “Oh, in all honesty, in my human flesh, I have conditioned my trust with God based off of A, B, C and D.” And almost write those things down and then lay [them] in front of the Lord, maybe call a close friend of yours who you all pray together and say, “Hey, these are some things I'm honestly struggling with. I don't want to have these as the conditions that I'm going to trust in God because God is going to surpass all of my needs in the way that I need them, not necessarily in the way that I want them.”
And so again, human-to-human relationships are different. We want to be careful that we don't conflate a human-to-human versus a human-to-God relationship. But in the same way, we have to also be careful. We don't put conditions on God that is actually going to derail our faith and mess with the way that we see how life is actually unfolding for us.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I am very careful to always acknowledge that there's a big difference between wise trust and blind trust.
Jim Cress:
Yeah, that's good.
Lysa TerKeurst:
With God, putting our trust in God is always wise trust. It's never blind trust. Even if we can't see, we can know exactly who God is, and we can trust that He has His every thought pointed toward ultimate good. And God is not freaked out by the ups and downs of life. God is not panicked that a human could possibly override His good will. No human is more powerful than God. And so when it comes to God, even though sometimes we say we have to have faith, that doesn't equate to blind trust because trust placed in God is always wise trust. Now with humans, we have to be very careful. We always want to have wise trust, not blind trust.
So, Jim, I would love for you to make a comment because I know you counsel so many people who have been in situations that they now have trust issues because of what they walked through. And also when I say trust issues, I'm not saying like, ugh, you have trust issues like it's a bad smell or a bad disease. I'm saying, “Of course, we have trust issues.” If what you said is true, and it is, that whenever in the Bible the object of trust is another human or possessions or status, then disappointment is always right in that mix. So I just think, Of course, we have trust issues. I read some statistics, we've talked about them before, that the average American lies four times a day.
Jim Cress:
We did a podcast on that.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's right.
Jim Cress:
I thought it was a lot more than that for Joel. No, we tested each other, remember, right here?
Lysa TerKeurst:
This is true.
Joel Muddamalle:
My feelings are hurt.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know.
Jim Cress:
I'm sorry. I would like to repair that with you right now.
Joel Muddamalle:
There's a rip we need to repair.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Absolutely.
Jim Cress:
We came up with a lot though, didn't ... I remember the podcast. We were like, holy cow, we were —
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so that's a lot of deception that we're having to —
Jim Cress:
Yeah. Totally.
Lysa TerKeurst:
— wade through every day. And it's not that it's always big betrayals.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's like if I say I'm going to do something and then I forget or I don't get around to it, that's also a form of broken trust because you didn't do what you said you were going to do and I was counting on you to do it. And so that can create that disappointment. If that's a repeated pattern over time, that disappointment does grow into a form of trust issues. And of course it could also be like infidelity, which we've talked about a lot on the show. That's what I walked through, and experiencing that can make you not only skeptical of the person that you had that major breach of trust with, but it can make you skeptical of all people. And so I know when people come into your office, you are dealing [with] trust issues. So comment about wise trust versus blind trust.
Jim Cress:
Well, some of the things you were just alluding to ... I talk often about a person's motive may not be to really break trust, like I forgot to follow through, but their modus operandi, the method of operating, still is a breach of trust. If back here on one level, there has been a massive breach of trust, including in childhood or before you were in relationship with that person, there's this post-traumatic stress reality that someone says, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you” ... like financial infidelity. Not a big one even, but a small one. “I forgot to tell you that I spent money on this, or I said I would do this, and I didn't follow through.” Betrayal is betrayal. Now we want to basically right size it, but a person could think, like Shakespeare, Me thinks thou dost protest too much. And often it is, no, you had major breach of trust back here. So sometimes the minor can post-traumatic-stress-wise take me right back to where it is. And the person says, “I just did this.” You're not knowing that person's story. Now in the idea of —
Lysa TerKeurst:
So in other words, minor can feel very major —
Jim Cress:
To the person, him or herself.
Lysa TerKeurst:
If it validates a narrative that we've been carrying of maybe unhealed trauma from our past or unresolved issues, that we have a narrative going like: Don't count on people because if you count on people, you're going to be disappointed. And so this person's actions that may seem small, if they validate that narrative, it adds to a much greater picture and makes the betrayal seem even more significant.
Jim Cress:
And seems and feels the person who might have betrayed in maybe a minor way, I don't know, can say, “Wow, aren't you overreacting?” I don't even believe, just so you know, I don't believe in the word “overreacting.” It is, I am ... What is overreacting? I'm reacting. Of course, we want to learn to respond and not react. Nonetheless, when trust is broken at some level inside — we've said often; I don't want to say this too much, but if it's hysterical, it's historical. So inside, most people that come into my office, most people I encounter anywhere, have not done their story work. I don't need to go dig in into stats for that. I can tell you my experience. They've never taken from birth till yesterday and sat with a good friend or I would argue a therapist and to sit down and say, “I want to explore the facts and the impact of my story.”
So most couples that are coming together, the more intimate the relationship, the tighter the rules need to be. The more severe and strict the rules need to be like in a marriage. If it's not, it's what I call a mirage. It's not a marriage. So with that is ... I come in and if someone has betrayed me at some level with what's going on. I sit with couples all the time, and I'll say, “Well how do you think that impacted her with what you did?” Or him. And then maybe, “Do you know each other's stories?” And they don't. So that they get to know each other's stories, and I say, “Do you see that that might've hit the seven-year-old wound in her from her daddy?” Naming, not blaming. And people don't even know; they're bumping into stuff and don’t even know what they're bumping into.
So I want, as you've heard me say, people to be curious, not furious, and to say, “OK, I'm not sure what happened here. I didn't follow through. Tell me more.” What's this “autopsy” word we've used? Everybody listening or watching today can do that and say, “OK, I don't want to respond or react here. Tell me more about why this feels so big to you. I really am here to listen.”
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, so confession time. I always like confession time.
Jim Cress:
Sure, I like it too.
Lysa TerKeurst:
You and I did an exercise in your office. It was called the trauma egg, where I went through my story and I basically took a big piece of poster board, drew an egg shape, which is what you told me to do, divided it up into little compartments. And then any time I felt rejected as a child or maybe sexually abused or abandoned, or I don't know what the other qualifications were; I can't remember —
Jim Cress:
Any of them.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Any of those ... traumatized in any way, whether it was little or whether it was big, I was to draw a little stick figurine —
Jim Cress:
Little picture of it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
A little picture of that pain that was caused in my childhood.
Jim Cress:
And you know that as an author, they teach: show; don't tell. So we use that in therapy to say anything you can tell me, why don't you show me? Draw a picture of it that activates a different part of the brain and the soul, even the body getting engaged. You go, “Yeah, I'm standing at the casket or the moving truck or the abuse scene.” We don't re-traumatize people, but drawing those pictures ... it's called emotional literacy. We're like, “Oh yeah, I feel things by drawing the picture.”
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so then I took all those little pictures that I had drawn on this poster board, and I stood in front of you, and you just said, “Just tell me about these pictures. What happened here? What happened here?” And I went in order, and I went through ... I remember thinking mainly you were just wanting to know more about my past, but actually you were listening for something. You were listening for a thread of commonality that wove throughout those stories from my past that would be feeding a narrative that now is a very, very sensitive spot. And I call it my shame script. And what I discovered is throughout the story, I kept reiterating this shame script that I filter so much through. So when other people behave in a certain way, I filter it through this shame script. And my shame script is: Don't inconvenience other people. You are a pain in the butt. Don't ask other people to do things for you. It's just better if you do it yourself because you don't want to seem like you're asking too much of other people.
Jim Cress:
And if we get into that old Enneagram 9 thing that we've talked about with you and Enneagram 9, whether people like the Enneagram or not, they fall asleep often to their own needs. They merge with another person. And underneath it, which you said, “Really, Jim?” ... there's often anger underneath that. So inside me, I'm literally losing my identity. And yet you've said, well, that you're a rule follower. When you did that exercise, you pushed back first. I'll never forget. But really, you want me to do this? And that's been a trait with you that I love, that you'll push back, which I love because I trust you more when you do it. You're like [inaudible], and then you do it A-plus-plus. You did it marvelously, but inside there was a sense of almost, make no waves; don't disturb anything. Keep everything like that.
And then if crisis hits you when you have behaved well, you are the most integrous person I know, really. I've seen you through your whole journey that I've known you. And then somebody or some people or situations are not in integrity, that'll shake someone's entire system because your operating system is: I follow the rules in a good way, and I have integrity. That's where a lot of people think tuning in can sit there and say, “That's one of the hardest things for me because no, I was never going to be unfaithful.” And they're not being arrogant, like your book on humility; they're not being fake. They're saying, “I really do. I keep my end of the bargain in this intimate relationship” ... often a marriage. And that one, especially when something happens here where there's a breach in confidentiality, a breach in trust at any level, it literally is a 9/11 for this person because it's like their operating system that's like a Mac versus a PC and you're trying ... It just doesn't compute.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So let me tell you how this plays out for me. So let's say I actually get up the courage in a relationship to ask somebody to do something for me. This takes a lot, and I don't want to inconvenience them, and they assure me, “No, I care about you; I want to do this.” But then they don't do it. And so then I follow up like, “Hey, did you remember to blah, blah, blah?” And they'll go, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get to that. I promise, I promise.” So what's happening in my brain is: If they do this, this will show me that their care for me is real. And if they don't do this, then I'm going to start having trust issues.
Jim Cress:
OK. Why is that not true for a moment?
Lysa TerKeurst:
What do you mean?
Jim Cress:
Being a person who betrayed his wife in pornography ... that's in my story years ago; 20 years sober from that now. But there's a sense that if a person ... I could go really far afield by talking about ADHD, which I also have, but sometimes in the moment because of dopamine, I'm like, “I promise I'm really going to follow through with this.” Many of us have done that in relationships. So I'm not really trying to lie. I don't follow through. Paper remembers what the mind forgets. I don't set an alarm on the phone. Now I will know what time the ball game's on tonight, right?
Lysa TerKeurst:
You will not forget that.
Jim Cress:
Or some other binge-watching episode thing I'm doing. There are things that are important to me because those things, you’ve got to listen, it fires dopamine in the brain. That's that chemical that's like, yes, hyperfocused. So if I don't do that inside, along the way I may not, and again, no excuses, may not mean to betray you. And I say, “Sir, or Ma'am, did this person, your spouse, feel betrayed nonetheless?” And I want to see does it stop us? Romans even implies our sin should shut our mouths. Stop and say, tell me more. Versus when words are many, sin is not far away. That's Bible. And to say, “You know what? I’ve just got to be honest with you. I did not follow through.”
Lysa TerKeurst:
But it gave you that, you were saying, that dopamine hit when you're like, “Yes, I'm here for you —”
Jim Cress:
And I'm not lying. I mean it in the moment. I really plan, but dopamine's only going to ... You can't live on dopamine highs.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Right. And then what happens to me inside is the next time I go to ask you to do something —
Jim Cress:
What do you do?
Lysa TerKeurst:
It feels risky to me.
Jim Cress:
It will be risky.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And then I start to think, I don't know if I can count on you or not. And then if you don't follow through on that one, then quickly it becomes, I really can't count on you. And then it turns into I don't think I can trust you.
Jim Cress:
Can I autopsy that real quick? I'm not trying to play therapist here, although I can a little bit. The first one you gave out was, this is important, “I don't know if I can trust you.” Everything in communication's a statement or a question; you can find no middle ground. If you do, show me. It's either a statement or a question. So when you did that first one about 35 seconds ago, and you said, “I don't know if I can trust you.” If you autopsy that, would it be true that you leaned a tipping point more toward I actually don't think I can trust you because of what you did last time, or are you still vague there?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I think, I always try to remind myself there's a big difference between a mistake and a pattern.
Jim Cress:
Good.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so a mistake is something we all make, and we should give grace for mistakes. The problem is when that mistake starts to get repeated, then it starts to become a pattern.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And if I'm sensing that this is going to be a pattern in my life, then the breach of trust happens, and then trust issues come in. It was like, “Oh no, this is the start of something big.” It was something small, but it is turning into something big because I want to know I can count on my person. I want to know that if you say you're going to do something, you're going to do it. I want to know that if you say a statement ... that it's true, I can count on it. I can count on you.
Jim Cress:
Your operating system, all kidding aside, we know this sitting with her, is that I would set my clock by you. If you say you're going to do something, I could not conjure up a category that you wouldn't follow through. Could you? You've spent hours with her. Do you find if Lysa says, “Hey, I'm going to come through” that, do you feel like, I bet she won't?
Joel Muddamalle:
Nope.
Jim Cress:
Yeah. So what I'm saying is that.
Joel Muddamalle:
I'm like —
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's a lot of pressure, guys.
Joel Muddamalle:
No, I really —
Jim Cress:
Your operating system is that, and I think it's for a lot of people that are practical, and then when someone's on a different, it's like without you even knowing it, like, but I follow through.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, well then here's my secondary shame script. I would never do that to you. That's my secondary. It's like I can't —
Jim Cress:
Is that true though? Is it largely true that you would never do that?
Lysa TerKeurst:
In my brain, I think it is —
Jim Cress:
Well that is in experience too.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Now I'm just prone to making mistakes as —
Joel Muddamalle:
For sure.
Lysa TerKeurst:
— anybody else, but I try really hard not to let mistakes become patterns, and so that's when I can get into trouble. So to break down, just to land the plane here on trust issues, for me, and I think for most people, trust is made up of safety and connection.
Jim Cress:
No doubt.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I want safety in a relationship, which means I know you are who you say you are. You're going to do what you say you're going to do. You're going to tell me the truth. You're going to be honest. That, in other words, you're not a risky person. This isn't a risky relationship. I'm not on the verge of getting hurt all the time. I also want connection. That's like the fun part of a relationship. I love you; you love me. It's good feelings. We have a good time together, all of that. Now, what can happen when we get our trust broken is we tend to take one of those to an extreme. So either we're so desperate to keep the relationship that we minimize our own need for safety and we ignore the red flags; we know what's going on, and we just go, “Well, I'd rather dance with the devil I know than dance with the devil I don't know.”
Jim Cress:
There's rationalization. You notice the seesaw with her hands too. That's such a bipolar thing.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So it's like I want this relationship, and I will minimize my own need for safety. That's one extreme. The other extreme is, oh, I am going to prioritize safety so much that I do not want to take any risk. And so I diminish the connection in that relationship down to just the very, very bare minimum because the more connection, the more risk, and I want safety. The goal when we identify that we are struggling with trust issues, and I want to say most of us rightfully so, the goal is to bring those two things back into equilibrium. We want safe connections. That's what we really want. And as I polled some of my friends on social media and I was asking them: What makes trust feel risky to you? These are some of their answers: the possibility of getting hurt again; wondering if the other person could potentially not be who I think they are; and fearing future betrayals, rejections or disappointments by this person.
Jim Cress:
I call that last one, pre-traumatic stress. We all know post-traumatic stress, but pre-traumatic stress is: I just bet something bad is going to happen. It's that catastrophic thinking that can happen.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so I want to say, obviously we all have a form of trust issues, and it's not something to just label ourselves with, but it is something to be aware of. We have trust issues; usually there are reasons we have trust issues. And so getting into another relationship is not automatically going to fix that.
Jim Cress:
Many have tried.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Many have tried.
Jim Cress:
Looking for an external solution to their internal problem.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And even working on repairing trust within a relationship is not automatically going to fix the issues. I think there's a deeper thing that we have to examine. And for me, like we've talked about, examining those shame scripts and being aware it's not just what happens to me —
Jim Cress:
Right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
— it's the narrative that forms because of what happens to me.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yes.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so addressing the internal narrative for me was the first big step on working on the trust issues. And the good news about that is it didn't require anybody else to do anything, and it gave me a sense of control. I can do something about these trust issues without requiring anybody else to do anything. Now, we are going to talk about in the next episode what do we need to repair trust in a relationship? But in this first episode right here that we're talking about trust issues it’s absolutely crucial that we understand that internal dialogue is going to really determine whether or not we can move forward from here.
Shae:
Friend, whether you've ever said I have trust issues out loud or not, I hope today's conversation enlightened you to the truth that trust really is the oxygen of all human relationships. As I've been processing this, I keep coming back to this sentence that I've heard Lysa say: “Not one of us gets to live this life unmarked by hurt. So not one of us gets to live this life without trust issues.” I hope that brings you some encouragement and comfort as you listen today. Friend, you're not a trust failure. We are all on our own journey here.
Before you go, I want to make sure you know about a couple of things. First, there is a free resource by Lysa TerKeurst that I want to make sure you know about, and it's called “When the Person Who Hurt You Got Away With It: 3 Days to Moving Forward.” You can visit the link in our show notes to download your copy.
Next, you know we're talking all about trust on this season of the podcast. So if you're enjoying these conversations, you're going to absolutely love Lysa's new book. It's called I Want to Trust You, but I Don't: Moving Forward When You're Skeptical of Others, Afraid of What God Will Allow, and Doubtful of Your Own Discernment. You can get your copy from the P31 Bookstore by visiting the link in our show notes.
Lastly, I just want to thank our friends at the American Association of Christian Counselors for sponsoring today's episode. Check out our show notes to learn more about them. I am loving these episodes so far, aren't y'all? Be sure to come back next week for Episode 3 of this series with Lysa, Counselor Jim Cress and Dr. Joel Muddamalle. Therapy & Theology is brought to you by Proverbs 31 Ministries, where we believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it changes everything.