Tommy Carreras - Why Do I Have To Deal With My Past?

Show Notes

Tommy Carreras - Why Do I Have To Deal With My Past? by Browncroft Community Church

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Peter Englert: Welcome to the Why God Why Podcast. This is Peter Englert. I am here with our fantastic producer, Nathan Yoder. We are dealing with a question that we actually polled you and you came back with, and the question is, why do I have to deal with my past?

Peter Englert: And I am here with Tommy Carreras. He is going to share a little bit more about himself, but he's leading an organization called Unstuck. And so we're really looking forward to this question, because I'm sure that all of us to some degree are dealing with it.

Peter Englert: Tommy, welcome to Why God Why, brought to you by Browncroft Community Church, responding to the questions you don't feel comfortable asking in church. What an introduction.

Tommy Carreras: It is. Thank you for having me, Peter, this is so much fun. And I have been a big fan of your podcast from afar, mainly because of that exact topic.

Tommy Carreras: The topic is brilliant because don't we wish also church was the place where you could ask all the questions that you don't feel comfortable asking in church.

Tommy Carreras: But the best part is, even though that's your tagline, that's the kind of church you guys are too. And I love that because that's how we should be. So big fan, glad to be here.

Peter Englert: Tommy. I love it. Well, there's a specific reason why we threw this question out to our listeners to vote on.

Peter Englert: Why don't you tell your story of how you landed today and how you've really developed a passion around this organization, Unstuck, but also addictions and mental health in the past?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah. So a little bit of my story. Growing up I grew up in a sort of offshoot Christian church. Now, I've realized it wasn't maybe necessarily in line with mainline faith tenants, but we were semi involved, not really.

Tommy Carreras: So I learned some of the basics that God probably is love, probably is somewhere, and probably doesn't hate me. So it was helpful. It was better than a really damaging message.

Tommy Carreras: But at the same time, I didn't really get much to it and didn't really see much of it happening in real life and above all else, I didn't really care.

Tommy Carreras: And part of that was being a kid. And part of that was there wasn't much to care about. It was this spiritual thing out there somewhere.

Tommy Carreras: And when I died, I got to float on a cloud happy somewhere, and that wasn't the most compelling vision for my childhood life, if you could imagine.

Tommy Carreras: But I liked to be philosophical too and ask annoying questions and that didn't seem to fit in very well. And so I just stopped.

Tommy Carreras: And the Christians I knew were really boring and I didn't love that, out of touch, and all of them were way holier than me and they made that very clear.

Tommy Carreras: And so really all throughout high school, same way. Got more and more distant from any of that. Not that I was ever very close, but got more distant.

Tommy Carreras: And so life right after junior year of high school went to crap, completely. Realized that I was probably a terrible person. Family was falling apart and lost all my friends, just sort of all at the same time.

Tommy Carreras: And a lot of people's story is something similar, it was this culminating just crash moment. And I figured the best way out of that was to date the best girl that I could find, somebody that was wonderful and clearly had her life together.

Tommy Carreras: So I tried that and she turned me down flat a few times and I was like, "That feels strange." Because I could tell she liked me. She told me, "Hey, I like you. No, I don't want to date you because we're not in the same place in our relationship with God."

Tommy Carreras: I'm like, "I don't know what that means. I don't know what that is." Maybe if somebody told me I would have one, I don't know, which there's evangelism right there, right? How was I supposed to know what it was?

Tommy Carreras: And she said, "Well, you can go to church and find out." And had another good friend invite me to what is actually her dad's church. He was a pastor. So just aim for the pastor's daughter, right? That's the best way to fix your life.

Tommy Carreras: But I started going to church, found Jesus, found friends, people that cared about me, even though they knew that I wasn't anywhere close to, not just not perfect, but I was a hot mess and they loved me and they took me in, didn't care about any of that.

Tommy Carreras: And then I started dating her and we're married and have two kids, but the main reason we wanted to start what we started and also the main reason we wanted to help people not be so stuck anymore is that I have spent my life stuck in different things.

Tommy Carreras: And it's just been the theme of my life over and over. It was like I was just trading. I traded all of these things before Jesus, for these other things that I was stuck by or stuck in post Jesus.

Tommy Carreras: And some of them were clear holdovers, right? I thought that you come up out of the water and you're like, "Hey, all the stuff stayed in the water." Turns out it didn't and it just came right out of the water with me.

Tommy Carreras: And I was sold that message so many times too, "If you just lean in and have faith." What does that mean though? I do, but it's not working, it's just not working.

Tommy Carreras: And so when I went into ministry at some point, it was nine years ago now, I went into ministry to figure out if that was what I wanted to do with my life.

Tommy Carreras: And I realized that that was the question that everyone was asking. Not what's true, what's good. Not even what's best. But what works? I have a problem and I need something that works.

Tommy Carreras: And so often we were trying desperately as a church to offer not just what's true because we care about what's true as Christians.

Tommy Carreras: But the people coming in through the doors on a Sunday, sometimes still drunk, right? Or still guilty or still something with all the stuff from the outside still on them, right? And with all this shame thinking, "I wonder if the lightning bolt's going to hit me or not, or the building's going to fall down."

Tommy Carreras: How often did I hear that one? It was a lot. People walking in weren't thinking like, "Well, what's true. I really want to know." They were thinking, "What's going to get me out of this muddy dark hole that I live my life in."

Tommy Carreras: And as I went through time in ministry, I kept realizing that I was trying to give them that, trying to help them not be so stuck. And I could give them hope and a vision of what was possible.

Tommy Carreras: I could give them true things but so often I saw myself falling short because I couldn't actually help them get unstuck. They had to get unstuck.

Tommy Carreras: And that was it. And I didn't know what my part was, but I knew that I was supposed to have a part. And I knew that I couldn't just offer prayer and I couldn't just offer making them feel better.

Tommy Carreras: Because that usually felt really good for me. And they felt good until they went and realized they were still in the hole. They just didn't realize it. Or I could tell them to fix their theology or thinking and that wasn't that great either.

Tommy Carreras: And so it was really around that time a few years ago that I realized I need something else. I need real tools and I need a different perspective to be able to offer people something more and offer myself something more.

Tommy Carreras: Because even though it all looks different, I'm still insecure, I'm still unmotivated at times. I have a tendency to focus on my image instead of my real authentic health, all of those things were still true, they just looked different.

Tommy Carreras: And that was what needed to change. It's like, "I don't want to look better. I want to actually be better and different." And it didn't seem like most of the things out there were actually helping me with that.

Tommy Carreras: And I didn't feel like I had anything to give to other people too. If you felt that way also, you're a pastor, you run into that same thing feeling like, am I really helping or am I not?

Peter Englert: No, I struggle with that question a lot. And we've articulated that on the podcast too. The people who I'm meeting with aren't asking the question, "Is Christianity true?" They're asking, "Does it work?"

Peter Englert: But one thing about your story that I want to back up, because I thought it was fairly powerful, take us back to that junior year of high school.

Peter Englert: You said, "I lost some friends." As you feel comfortable, what were you going through that really pushed you to ask some of the deeper questions that you had?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah, that's a great question. And it fits very well because, I won't give all the details, but the only way I've figured out how to describe it is, I walked into my house, summer before senior of high school, and felt like, this is the best way I can put it, so I'm sorry.

Tommy Carreras: Felt like I was a dog walking into my house late at night with my tail between my legs, because I pooped on the carpet again and I knew I wasn't supposed to.

Tommy Carreras: I didn't actually poop on the carpet to be clear, it's a metaphor, but I felt like I had done it again. I knew better. I said I wasn't going to do it. They trained me not to. And I did it again.

Tommy Carreras: And I just walked in thinking like, "I got nothing. I have no answers for why I did this again. Why I'm here still? I don't want to be here. I don't like being here. I don't think it's good to be here. I'm motivated to not be here. And I'm here again."

Tommy Carreras: So what do I do with that? And it was that utter, not hopelessness, it was pretty close, but helplessness. I feel absolutely incapable.

Tommy Carreras: I need outside help and the outside help wasn't Jesus. Like I said first, it was a girl, just wasn't the answer either to be very clear, but I knew I needed outside of help.

Tommy Carreras: And that was the biggest moment that shifted, because I had a moment similar to that a month or so before that, but the answer was I'm serious this time.

Tommy Carreras: Just like how often have we all said that? But 17 year old me was like, "This is it, man. I've never been serious before and I'm serious. That'll do it." Turns out that wasn't the answer.

Peter Englert: So you don't have to get-

Tommy Carreras: But that was the moment.

Peter Englert: You don't have to get super specific, but it sounds like you were pointing to some sort of addiction or was it depression or was it anxiety?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah, no, it was something that I now realize was something I was addicted to. Yeah. And it was fascinating because I didn't have that language then, I don't even always recommend that language. I don't think it's necessary language.

Tommy Carreras: But the point was that I kept doing something or things that were bad for me that I didn't want to do and I just did them anyway.

Tommy Carreras: And if that's not the definition of addiction, then I don't know what is. And once I realized that and admitted, this just so happens the first step in the 12 steps, is admit that you're powerless over your addiction.

Tommy Carreras: The moment I recognize I'm powerless to change this, I keep hurting people and myself, no matter how serious I am or no matter how good of a plan I have. Because that was true, whether I liked it or not, I just had to do something about it.

Tommy Carreras: But it was once I admitted it and just was honest about it. I felt shame around it. It was an appropriate level of shame, right? It was like, "This is bad. It's okay to recognize this is bad." But it wasn't shame.

Tommy Carreras: It was like honesty, "I can't do it. I can't fix it. I can't change it and this is bad." Those are all true things. And so I like to think of it, and I still like to think of it, as a sense of more radical honesty than anything else.

Tommy Carreras: And if I'm honest, I do stuff that's stupid. And I do stuff that hurts me and it hurts other people, even though I don't want to. And sometimes I like it.

Tommy Carreras: So as if I'm on board with that, then we can go somewhere and do something. But if I'm not willing to admit that I'm never going to move and I'm never going to change.

Peter Englert: So something that I'm appreciating about this story, and this is why I think it's important for us to talk about this. So the question we're dealing with, why do I have to deal with my past?

Peter Englert: You talk about that really dark day your junior year of high school, and then you become a worship pastor and then you meet people that stuff doesn't work.

Peter Englert: And so how would you respond to someone that says, "Jesus saved me, who cares about my past?" Because it seems even in this conversation, you have a healthy wrestling and healthy understanding that, yeah, Jesus might save you, but that doesn't devoid what happened to you in the past or all that you've got.

Peter Englert: How do you walk through that with people and even yourself?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah. So what's interesting is I think a lot of times it's easy to say or maybe we've heard, "My mess becomes my message," or something along those lines.

Tommy Carreras: And I think that's absolutely true, but we often look at the past as now the story I tell to talk about how good God is and that's not wrong in any way, shape or form, so it's not wrong.

Tommy Carreras: But it can't be just that, right? Because if it's just the story then is that it? It's just for other people and it's just done and in the books and there was this legal transaction and I get that there's this idea that we're justified by faith and our slate is wiped clean, and we are forgiven completely.

Tommy Carreras: And there's no more condemnation for those in Christ. All of those things are true. All of those things are true. And I believe that it is true in an eternal, heavenly, cosmological sense, right? It is just boom. Done.

Tommy Carreras: That's what Jesus did on the cross. He took the penalty, the condemnation and the weight of our sin. So I believe that that's true.

Tommy Carreras: But at the same time, is that really it? Why don't I do things better now? Why do I still feel all of these same feelings that I did before? Why is there so much holdover and what do I think happens to all that stuff? Do I think that God does a magic trick and, poof, washes it away?

Tommy Carreras: And I think that I actually thought that for a while. And I think a lot of us want to think that because it feels better and sometimes it can feel maybe like we're doing God a disservice by still thinking that there's something to deal with in the past.

Tommy Carreras: Maybe I'm talking down the effectiveness of salvation or God's grace if I say, "Yeah, but I still got issues." And I don't think that could be further from the truth, right?

Tommy Carreras: Because God isn't looking for me to validate his sovereignty, goodness, grace, or power. He doesn't need my help with that. He just is all of those things, imperfection. And he doesn't need me to prove that for him, right?

Tommy Carreras: Also, what do we think he's asking of us? If it's to just be these perfect little people running around, then why didn't he just take over when he did? Why was he born into obscurity?

Tommy Carreras: I grew up as an average person for 30 years in obscurity, where we have one story about his life when he was 12. Why was he Jewish in an oppressed people group during the height of one of the greatest, most powerful civilizations of all time?

Tommy Carreras: If he wanted to be the perfect person, and I believe he was sinless, but if he wanted to be this perfect Alexander The Great, Caesar, he would've just taken over and he would've won the war. And he would've said, "Everybody come be like me."

Tommy Carreras: But what he wanted to do is validate this human experience and say, "It's okay to just be human too." And then he died our death and he dealt with the junk and then he came back to life and invited us into that.

Tommy Carreras: And so what he shows us is he doesn't solve the problem from on high. He gets into the mess and then he doesn't even come and just fix it all in the mess. He comes and experiences the whole mess, right?

Tommy Carreras: He becomes this, from Hebrews, great high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses because he's experienced every form of human weakness.

Tommy Carreras: Not because he was weak, but because he was human and he felt angry and he felt sad and he felt betrayed and he felt forsaken and he felt lost. He felt confused.

Tommy Carreras: And he felt all of these things because that's what it is to feel human. And then he went into all of our pain, died the death that not just we deserved in this retribution vengeance sense, but died the death we're all headed for because he knows that the only path to actual resurrection is through the darkness of our lives and that's the model.

Tommy Carreras: And so in that way, it just feels like we don't have to protect God's image by just trying to live in the present and live in the goodness and say, "Yeah, but God's good. So I'm fine."

Tommy Carreras: It's not true though. And what would really show God's goodness is being honest and not only saying, "Yeah, I feel this way right now, but also I got a bunch of stuff and a bunch of issues that are unresolved and I have to deal with them."

Tommy Carreras: And that is a much more, I think, appropriate view of what grace is. Grace is God's willingness to come sit in the mud with us and lead us out gently, not throw us an instruction manual and say, "Here's how to get out of the mud and wash yourself up so you can come represent me better."

Tommy Carreras: That's just not how he works. And so that's my theological take on it is we don't have to protect God's image anymore. We have to accept his gift of actual presence in our darkest moments.

Tommy Carreras: Read a Psalm, right? David and all the psalmists are not afraid to say how awful everything is. And they also are not afraid to say, "And I believe that God's in here with it, even if I don't feel it."

Tommy Carreras: And so holding that just massive tension, one in each hand, both of those things can be true. I think that's the way that we honor how good God is and show how good God is, that he's showing that he's willing to walk through all of that junk with us.

Peter Englert: I think it's a beautiful description of the gospel that you just gave right there. I want to come back to our listeners because I think about this question and I think that this will help even understand Jesus a little bit better is we all have varying degrees of not wanting to deal with our past.

Peter Englert: So as I was getting ready for this episode, I think there's a person that's very aware of their past and not afraid to bring it up, but they're not dealing with it.

Peter Englert: We have another person that's a little bit more forward thinking with their past or forward thinking with their life and they don't even acknowledge the past. And then you got everybody in between.

Peter Englert: So when you think about someone's relationship with the past and whether they're dealing with it, and no one fully deals with their past.

Peter Englert: So I think I have some fair grounding to say that, but what are some attributes you see of someone, hey, they're really dealing with their past in a healthy way to the extent of, hey, these are telltale signs that you're still dealing with your past in an unhelpful way.

Tommy Carreras: Hmm. That's a great question. So what's interesting too is that first person you brought up, somebody that knows everything that's happened to them, but is still stuck in that, stuck in the past.

Tommy Carreras: It's really true. Self-awareness is not the answer. It's a stop on the path to the answer because self awareness makes you usually more depressed and more anxious because you're aware of how jacked up everything is. It's not a good feeling.

Tommy Carreras: And so just knowing what's wrong doesn't actually fix anything, you just know what's wrong. And then besides that, not admitting the past, not talking about what's happened, and not being willing to draw a line, it's just inaccurate in every way. Couldn't be further from the truth.

Tommy Carreras: It's not a theological question. That's not how the world universe or human body works. And so it's not okay. And I think this will help us get to this understanding of what it looks like to deal with the past in a healthy way, by talking about how our brains and bodies actually look at the past, right?

Tommy Carreras: So our brains are prediction machines, basically in a lot of ways. Most parts of the brain are unconscious and at least non-rational. They don't think or experience time and logic in the way that this part of our brain does.

Tommy Carreras: That front left above the eyebrows is one 15% ish part of the brain that's like, "Hey, I understand the law of consequence and cause and effect and I can think into the future."

Tommy Carreras: Most of the brain doesn't do that, right? And so that part of the brain too, is the slowest, and it moves at the speed of words basically. And it's last in processing.

Tommy Carreras: And so all of this evidence from the past, when we talk about the brain as a prediction machine, it uses evidence and experience from the past, information about the present moment, and then makes a prediction about the best course of action for the future.

Tommy Carreras: And it's usually the least harmful option, right? So the quickest reactions I have, especially moments of high stress or pain or danger, are always going to be to keep me safe in the least harmful way possible.

Tommy Carreras: That's not a good picture of a great life, right? I want to make sure I don't die in the least damaging way possible. I don't want to break everything while I go. But it doesn't sound like a great life, right?

Tommy Carreras: That's not wisdom. That's not joy. That's not anything like that. But that's what we're doing because we are not present moment people.

Tommy Carreras: We are people that are experiencing this present moment but the only reason I am who I am is because of all the things that have happened up until this moment.

Tommy Carreras: And so my experience of the present moment is built on my understanding of the world that's been building since I was in the womb.

Tommy Carreras: And that is how the brain works. It's sort of this base programming idea and all of it's for the sake of staying in some sense of control and having some sense of balance, not too good, not too bad, just middle road.

Tommy Carreras: That's the default position of the brain and the default goal. And that's not a bad thing. But, again, it doesn't make for a great life.

Tommy Carreras: But to navigate this ridiculously complex and dangerous world, we have to develop this sort of sense of base programming in the brains.

Tommy Carreras: And it's this idea of neurological beliefs. So when we talk about beliefs in this realm, it's not, I believe in freedom of speech. I believe that Jesus is one part of the Trinity, and this is how the Trinity works.

Tommy Carreras: That's great. Those are intellectual thinking beliefs, and they're fine and good, but our entire brain has a sense of belief that is not at all like that.

Tommy Carreras: It's based purely on experience and tied to emotion. It is all unconscious and it's mostly and primarily for the sake of protection.

Tommy Carreras: It's this idea that I need to stay alive first and foremost. And to do that, I have to develop rules of life, unconscious rules of life that say, "That's bad and that's good."

Peter Englert: Hmm.

Tommy Carreras: And if it's not doing that, it's not doing its job, right? And so that safety part is huge. So what's keeping me safe is one of the biggest questions that these beliefs are built on.

Tommy Carreras: And those beliefs, because they're not running at the speed of words, right? They're not in the left front part of the brain, they're in something called the limbic system primarily and brain is really complex.

Tommy Carreras: So not everything is always exactly. The beliefs are all around the brain, but this emotional memory idea is actually part of something called the limbic system. And it's our survival system and the amygdala, it's one of the main sources of some of our strongest emotions.

Tommy Carreras: And so this limbic system, this emotional memory, records painful experiences or dangerous experiences all throughout our lives, starting in the womb which is mind blowing, starting from day one or day negative, whatever.

Tommy Carreras: But the limbic system is understanding the world and building base programming that says, "When this happens, then this happens."

Tommy Carreras: When this over here happens, when I cry, somebody comes in and helps me and smiles. I should cry more when I need something because somebody will help me and smile.

Tommy Carreras: Those are all the things I need. I need to stay alive and I need joy from my caregiver. Literally those are the two things that a baby needs, right? Joy and food.

Tommy Carreras: But what happens if I cry and somebody shows up and they give me the food, but man, they clearly don't like it, right? All of this actual facial recognition, circuitry and joy circuitry built into the brain. And a baby can tell, not the nuances of my face and emotion, oh, it must be having a bad day. I could tell they're trying, but it's none of that.

Tommy Carreras: It's like, do you love me or do you hate me? That's the question a baby's asking. Do you find joy in me? Are you glad to be helping me? Or am I disgusting to you?

Tommy Carreras: Joy and disgust are two of the primary circuits in the brain and they're there instantly when we are born. And so all of our beliefs start to be built on this idea of, am I a joy bringer for people or do I make people disgusted?

Tommy Carreras: Which, if you're a parent, you just freak out when you hear that. I freak out. I'm like, "Did I smile every moment for my children?" Most of them, yeah.

Tommy Carreras: But that's what our beliefs are built on. And then we just keep going. We keep building those beliefs and gathering evidence for this idea.

Tommy Carreras: And then what do I do if I know that when I cry, somebody either doesn't find joy in me or worse, maybe hurts me or maybe just nothing happens.

Tommy Carreras: Well, what do I do is I stop crying or I cry louder, right? Or I do all these things. And you talk about even attention seeking kids.

Tommy Carreras: That's because we need attention. Kids don't seek attention because they want it because they're despicable, they seek it because they need it.

Tommy Carreras: And so do we. And so all of our beliefs, our whole lives are built on this idea that I desire safety and joy and commitment and loyalty from other people and love. I just desire to be loved.

Tommy Carreras: And that's what all these beliefs are built on and how I protect myself from the pain or the dangerous situations that I encounter, or the pain of unmet needs.

Tommy Carreras: Those are going to cement in my life, in my behaviors, in my emotional states. And that emotional memory system is going to tag that situation and that emotion of fear of abandonment or conflict or relational tension or sadness and grief.

Tommy Carreras: It's going to tag that emotion with this dangerous memory and say, "Well, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that." And it's just not going to do that. And so then I cope in all of these ways to avoid all of those feelings.

Peter Englert: Let me throw a case study to you if that's okay?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah.

Peter Englert: I think this might be helpful for our listeners. Say, I'm a guy in my 20s, I've been really focused on my career. So I start dating a few women and the relationships are mostly positive. I get to a point in those relationships where I feel like my girlfriend is asking more from me than I'm willing to give.

Peter Englert: So everything from settle down, let's have a family, and I'm healthily acknowledging, hey, I'm really caring about my career here. I want to stay together but if you're asking for this not past a timeline.

Peter Englert: Let's say I'm with my current girlfriend right now and for some reason it just hits me, I really love this girl. So obviously this isn't me, this isn't you, you're married.

Peter Englert: And I'm at this point where it's like I really want this to work but I also realize in my past this is where I've broken up. Now I have to work through it.

Peter Englert: What questions, what things are going through your mind as you hear this? When you think about this person that they're finally making this switch, but they also have these years of emotions and it's like, "Oh man, it's the same movie with a different person."

Tommy Carreras: Yeah.

Peter Englert: What would you be asking? What would you be saying to them?

Tommy Carreras: Yeah. The biggest question I think we can ask is why? And just relentlessly ask that question until you get to the bottom of something.

Tommy Carreras: And there's a lot of ways that we can make sure we're asking the right kind of why question. We know when we get to the bottom and that's sort of what we've worked on with Done with Stuck and the roadmap we created for navigating these situations.

Tommy Carreras: That's the question we're trying to ask, why do I do this? Why does this keep happening? What got me here? But if we relentlessly ask why, we start asking questions like, well, yeah, yeah, why do I do that? What have I done? And why would I do that?

Tommy Carreras: Well, I do that because I feel this way. Well, that's interesting. Why would I feel that way? I don't know why I would feel that way. Well, when maybe. When have I felt that way before? Well, I felt that way then. Well, I felt that way then too.

Tommy Carreras: And you track back this emotion through your life and go, "Oh, huh. Well, I've always responded the same way, but also if I keep tracking it back, I come to a sort of first case instance. Oh, that was the first time I thought that, felt that, did that."

Tommy Carreras: Well, what happened then? Why was that so bad? Well, it was probably because it was a moment of deep relational pain that wasn't okay.

Tommy Carreras: And even if it wasn't huge or bad, it taught me something. Well, interesting, what did it teach me? Well, it taught me that when I'm vulnerable with somebody it goes badly. When I get too close, I get burned. When I show that I'm capable, people love me.

Tommy Carreras: And we start to track back all the way to the belief that was encoded, right? What's written in the base programming. Is it when I'm vulnerable, I get slammed?

Tommy Carreras: Well, guess what you're not going to do? Be vulnerable. When you're tied to one person, they cheat on you. What if that was what you saw when you were four and your parents split up? When do you think that taught you?

Tommy Carreras: Well, nothing's forever. Well, why would I lock into forever? Right? And so when you start looking at your own life as evidence and all your behaviors and all your emotions as evidence of what you believe down at the heart level, which is an actual place in your brain, right?

Tommy Carreras: It's not your heart, it's your heart somewhere in there. When you look at it at that level and stop moralizing everything too and stop saying, "I do that because I'm sinful."

Tommy Carreras: Well, yeah. Explain that. Sinful. I do sinful things. We explain it more. Well, why do you do the sinful thing? Well, I do this because I feel this way and I feel this way because I believe this thing.

Tommy Carreras: And if we can get down to the beliefs, then we get to finally the place that God says that he wants to show up anyway, right?

Tommy Carreras: In Ezekiel 36, he says, "I want to take out your heart of stone and put a heart of flesh in." Jesus says that all of the words we speak are coming from the overflow of our heart.

Tommy Carreras: If God wants to take over our hearts and take up residence in the center, in the core of us, not fix what we look like on the outside, that was what he condemned in the Pharisees, calling them whitewashed tombs. You are dead on the inside, but man, you're beautiful on the outside.

Tommy Carreras: But so what? And so that's where he wants to go with us. And so when we keep asking questions, we usually find a pattern of events in our lives, a pattern of pain in our life, or a pattern of moments or specific really large moments too.

Tommy Carreras: That's what trauma does to us. But any moments in which we've suffered alone and learned that the world is a dangerous place and we've tied it to an action of ours or a feeling of ours, then we are going to naturally keep doing that and living it out until it's resolved.

Tommy Carreras: And until we can actually do something with that and have a new belief in its place. We can't just stop believing something. We have to believe the opposite instead of that dangerous corrupted belief.

Tommy Carreras: We have to believe something true instead. We can't just, "Well, I just don't believe that anymore." Well, yes, you do. It's nice that you said it, but yes you do. Because yes, we always do.

Tommy Carreras: And I've got 31 years of belief formation under my belt, including when my brain was still growing physically in size, right?

Tommy Carreras: Though most of our beliefs come from even the environment from our first two years of life in so many ways. And so that's a lot to conquer and Jesus is in for that.

Tommy Carreras: He's like, "You're going to do this the rest of your life. I'm going to reshape, reformat and rewrite your heart for the rest of your life. That's what I signed up for."

Tommy Carreras: And he looks at us and goes like, "Is that what you signed up for? Because that's what we're doing. I'm going to make you into a human that is kind, good, lovely, and trustworthy. And we're going to do that a day at a time till you're dead."

Tommy Carreras: And that's what it looks like. And so that process is something we do over and over. It's not a one time transactional process.

Peter Englert: Hmm. Well, so I love how you took that very specific situation and then you made it general to the rest of our listeners.

Peter Englert: Let's get real here. Maybe you and I will both answer these questions. What do you think the biggest lie from your past that you've had to overcome?

Tommy Carreras: Me personally?

Peter Englert: Yes.

Tommy Carreras: Yeah. This is really easy because I think about it all the time. It is that I'm worthy of attention when I'm doing something well.

Tommy Carreras: One of the things that we want to help people do, and one of the things that I figured out in a week of intensive counseling at a wonderful place called the Blessing Ranch, if you're a pastor and need a week of intensive counseling, go there. That saved my life.

Tommy Carreras: And so that week was the time that I realized that that was the corrupted belief inside of me. That I'm worthy of attention when I'm doing something well.

Tommy Carreras: And I didn't have a traumatic childhood. I had loving parents that tried really hard. They started following Jesus around the same time I did. They have their fair share of pain and failures and all of those things.

Tommy Carreras: And that's fine, but I wasn't abused. I wasn't neglected. And yet I had a damaging, painful and hideously untrue, corrupted belief that drove everything that I did.

Tommy Carreras: And drove me to burnout and drove me to ruin relationships and totally not understand myself, my limits, my boundaries or the fact that it was okay when I wanted to take a nap.

Tommy Carreras: Because why would I ever take a nap? Why would I ever slow down? Why would I ever show anybody any sort of weakness when I believe that it is true about the world that only people who are doing something well are worthy of attention?

Tommy Carreras: There's just no way I would do anything different except do things well. It's why I quit everything that I wasn't great at in my whole life.

Tommy Carreras: I wasn't good enough at baseball so I didn't play baseball. I waited until I found a sport that I was better than other people at and I played that one.

Tommy Carreras: And that's how it plays out. And I'm not going to tell you how I'm really doing. I'm going to tell you the last thing I did that was interesting or good.

Tommy Carreras: I'm not going to tell you that I wasted yesterday. I'm going to tell you about two days ago when I crushed it, right? When you say, "How are you doing?" Well, two days ago, I was great. And I'm going to tell you that.

Tommy Carreras: But if you only know that part of me, then you don't know me. And if I wear a mask, everybody loves the mask, but nobody loves me.

Tommy Carreras: And so that's what corrupted beliefs do to us. And that's what that one did to me. And there are others and there are really specific things.

Tommy Carreras: I think that a lot of the ones that come closest to home that are the most corrupted down at the core are about my identity and self worth and value, right?

Tommy Carreras: If I believe something about me, it's usually then also tied to what I believe about God. And so A.W Tozer said, "What I believe about God is the most important thing about me."

Tommy Carreras: And I think that's true. I think it usually plays out though in my belief about myself, right? That statement of mine, of I believe that I'm only worthy of attention if I'm doing something well. That's a statement about God too.

Tommy Carreras: It's that I must perform for God so that he loves me. And what's interesting is something true about God, and also true about me, was the thing that flipped it.

Tommy Carreras: Because the thing that started to change, started to, didn't heal it but started to heal that corrupted belief was a moment between me and God, because that's where the healing always begins.

Tommy Carreras: It's not just, I think of myself differently. I can't give myself the gift of value or attention. Attention is specifically a gift from other people. Joy is a gift from other people.

Tommy Carreras: It is me being worthy of somebody else's interest. I can't do that. I have to wait for that for other people and make sure I'm not destroying it and blocking it and ruining it.

Tommy Carreras: So there's a big part that I play, but that's why healing starts with God. It continues with people every time and it has to. But it also has to start with God because he's willing to do that for us first. That's what's so good about him.

Tommy Carreras: When we don't deserve it and we didn't earn it he's still willing to give us those things that we need. Not fix us because he's annoyed that we're broken, but fill us because he knows that we're empty. Repair us because he knows that we're broken and heal us because he knows that we're hurting.

Tommy Carreras: And so that's what he's willing to do for us. But the moment that changed my belief, for example, was wildly specific because that's also how good God is.

Tommy Carreras: I was sitting reading in that counseling house, that week of intensive counseling. And it's day two or something. And she tells me, "Hey, go spend some time in the Bible and just ask God to show up, see what happens."

Tommy Carreras: And I was like, "Yeah, this is going to go great. I'm feeling awesome. Really want to go have my quiet time." Right? So it was cynical day. Okay. It was a bad day.

Tommy Carreras: And so I go and I'm sitting in this room and I'm reading the Bible and I'm like, do that cool thing where you flip open to a page and something happens. And it's like, whatever.

Tommy Carreras: So I flip open to a page and I read something I'm like, "That's dumb. That doesn't make any sense. It's a dumb page." I'm like, "Oh, well, that's interesting. I never heard that. What is that? That's weird."

Tommy Carreras: And I look at the reference and it was some other thing, I'm like, "Okay, I'll follow the reference." And I flip open to another thing and I'm like, "Well, that's interesting. That's a weird word, why is that in there? Well, that's funny. That word is also in that verse." I'm like, "Oh, go to that verse."

Tommy Carreras: And then I read something I'm like, "Huh. Well, that was really specific about my life and situation. Wasn't the healing moment, but that's interesting. Huh? I wonder if something's here."

Tommy Carreras: And then I thought, "When was the last time I felt that way or thought about that?" And I remembered Psalm 18. And the last time I had thought about that verse and was like, "I wonder if something's there for me."

Tommy Carreras: And I flipped a Psalm 18 and I read it and what flooded back to me, which was fascinating, was a moment from the past. And it was 10 years earlier, that was the verse, and there was a verse I'll say in a second from Psalm 18 that radically changed my perspective 10 years before.

Tommy Carreras: It was like the first moment. It was like the down payment on this moment that God made in a healing moment that I had in a very wounded place in a very dark time. That was the verse that showed up.

Tommy Carreras: And I was like, "Well, that's cool." But then I kept reading, and this is what happened, this is right after I had identified I'm worthy of attention if I'm doing something well.

Tommy Carreras: And then I read, read, read, and Psalm 18's really funny because it's like God shows up like a dragon basically. David says, "I'm going to die and everything's awful. And I called to God in his throne and his temple. And I was in the depths of despair and he heard my call and heard my cry."

Tommy Carreras: And then it's this whole massive page long description of God coming like a dragon on the clouds and destroying things with fire and thunderstorms and earthquakes.

Tommy Carreras: And it's super epic. It's awesome. But then he comes with this cadence in the middle and he says, "He rescued me because he delighted in me."

Tommy Carreras: And I stopped dead in my tracks. And I said, "That is the opposite of I'm worthy of attention when I'm doing something well."

Tommy Carreras: Because if I wrote that verse with my corrupted belief, it would be he rescued me and then delighted in me. He cleaned me up and then I was presentable to him. And instead it was, he delighted in me so he rescued me and it flipped it on its head.

Tommy Carreras: And it wasn't like if somebody just said, "Hey, read this verse." If it was a week before, it would've meant nothing at all. I would've been like, "Yeah, that's cool."

Tommy Carreras: But in this moment of my deep pain, where I was engaging with the beliefs of my heart, based on the evidence from my past and all of the things and all the pain that was unmetabolized and un dealt with and unaddressed.

Tommy Carreras: It was in that space of deep pain that he said, "Now I can put something there in its place because it's open, you unsealed the corridor," right? "You unsealed the dungeon. You let me in, and now I'm going to put something true there instead."

Tommy Carreras: And that was the beginning of that healing process for me. And I realized that's what I have to chase after. I have to chase after that true thing in my relationship with God and my relationship with other people.

Tommy Carreras: I have to see the way that they delight in me, not when I'm doing things well. I have to see the way that I'm worthy of their attention, even when I mess up.

Tommy Carreras: That means I have to give people my vulnerability. I have to give people my mess. People that I trust so that they can show me that they love me in the middle of it.

Tommy Carreras: That will rewrite the belief, give me new evidence over and over so that my heart and my base programming can say, "When you're vulnerable, you're rewarded with love."

Tommy Carreras: And that's the thing that rewrites the past. But we have to actually go there before we can experience the healing.

Peter Englert: Wow. This episode went by really, really fast. So Tommy, thanks so much. So we're-

Tommy Carreras: Wow. Yeah, it did.

Peter Englert: So we actually are going to close with the question that we ask everybody. So we ask this question, what does Jesus have to say about my past?

Peter Englert: And whatever heresy that I bring up, you'll get to clean up however I respond. So does that sound good?

Tommy Carreras: Perfect. That sounds excellent.

Peter Englert: Yeah. I've been thinking about this as we relate to this podcast. We talked a lot about the writers of the Bible. So whether it's Peter or Paul.

Peter Englert: And as you read the letters that they wrote in the New Testament called a Epistles, it just seems like they have a decent handle on their past.

Peter Englert: And I'm thinking specifically of Paul he writes, "I was a hypocrite, I was a Pharisee, I was against Jesus." And that doesn't negate his belief of the verses that you've been forgiven in your sins are as far as from the east from the west.

Peter Englert: That doesn't negate those, but there's actually far more complexity in their belief of being human and their past. And they're far more aware.

Peter Englert: And I wonder, as you said, if that's the power of grace that it's hard to be aware. It's hard to be self-aware. But in those moments of acute awareness of where God has brought you, you can receive grace because you can just see it and you haven't rewritten it in a revisionist history form.

Peter Englert: What you've done is you've allowed Jesus to enter those places. So, as I knock my mic over, I would probably say that I think the writers of scripture and I think Jesus are far more aware and far more open to seeing their past through the lens of the present and future through grace. So that's what I'd say.

Tommy Carreras: Mm-hmm. I think that's exactly right. I think that the past me is still me and the past me is the basis of who I am at this moment.

Tommy Carreras: And so I want God, who is outside of time, also this is a funny, weird realization that I had, this idea that God is in my past present and future, right?

Tommy Carreras: He's outside of time. We're the ones who experience time as this linear thing. And I'm in this one moment, but all I remember, my life is just memory.

Tommy Carreras: And so that means that I am my past. And so if God wants to love me, he has to accept all of me and he did. But the challenge is that I don't often love me because I want to love present me.

Tommy Carreras: And especially I really love future me, future me is going to be awesome and so I really love that version of me. And I think that there's no way that I will be future version of me until I reconcile what past me was.

Peter Englert: Mm.

Tommy Carreras: And past me is just me. And so until I can be honest, what is unidentified and unaddressed is unforgiven and that doesn't mean in the cosmic sense of that is still on the balance sheet because I'm not talking about that.

Tommy Carreras: I'm talking about I haven't forgiven me as well and as thoroughly as Jesus has. I haven't repented of all the things I've done. Jesus has forgiven me for more than I've repented of.

Tommy Carreras: And the idea though, is that the more that I do those things, the more that I recognize, it's just the more of me that I'm uncovering. And it's the more of me that I'm allowing God to love.

Tommy Carreras: I used to say this whenever we do baptism events and baptize all these people. It was this great moment because I got to look at them and say, "You have all of Jesus that you will ever have."

Tommy Carreras: And what I mean by that is he's not holding back from you at all. There's nothing he has more to give you because you have access to all of him.

Tommy Carreras: The rest of your life is a process of giving more of yourself to him because you can't unlock more of him. You can't get to tier two or premium level membership or a list rewards or a companion pass. You can't get to any of those things because there's no more that he has to gift to you. He's given himself fully to you.

Tommy Carreras: All that we have to do is give more of ourselves to him. And that means delving into my past so that I can hand it to him, so that he can love me.

Tommy Carreras: And that's a beautiful thing. Not because it's something he needs from us. It's because it's something he wants for us. It's a gift that he wants to give us. And it's a grace that he wants to provide us.

Tommy Carreras: And so that also has a massive effect on our relationships as well, because we do the same thing with other people's relationships.

Tommy Carreras: The way I saw a person before, because of something that happened, is now how the way that I see them. That prediction machine. It happens with God and it happens with people. They did this therefore they will do this again.

Tommy Carreras: And that never ends up going well. And so unless we identify honestly what other people did to us too, that's part of this process, right?

Tommy Carreras: It's not just thinking back through my own sin throughout my whole life. It's what's happened to me. Where have I lost things that I actually needed? Where did I not have the love, the joy, the support, the care that would've actually done something for me and would've changed something?

Tommy Carreras: Those moments are really important because we actually like to forgive people. We have to be incredibly honest, brutally honest about what they did to us, what we lost, what they took from us.

Tommy Carreras: Because the process works the same way, whether it's about my past, a relationship or something with God. If it remains unstated, unidentified and unaddressed, it remains unforgiven, unrepented of or unresolved.

Tommy Carreras: The only way past it is through it and that works on all of those levels. And so that's what God wants for us. He wants us to be whole people and not think that past me sucks and future me is great. And that's all just me.

Tommy Carreras: And I think that he wants to love all of us and that's the hope. And that's why we have to deal with our past.

Peter Englert: Thank you so much. Tommy, where can people find you? And yeah, go ahead.

Tommy Carreras: Yeah. So what we just are about to finish, and by the time you're listening to this hopefully this will be out and ready, what we want to do is create sort of a reliable roadmap for people to be able to navigate through this process, but based on any situation.

Tommy Carreras: So it wasn't based on a specific behavior or emotion. It was just, how do I engage with the past but also with the issues of my present and even the anxiety about the future?

Tommy Carreras: How do I create this reliable roadmap to figure out what's wrong at the bottom of things, right? And so it's that process that I walked through.

Tommy Carreras: It's what are my behaviors telling me? What are they a cry for help about? What needs are going unmet? And what am I trying to accomplish with them?

Tommy Carreras: When I look at them as evidence, what emotional states are driving those behaviors and where have those emotions been tagged with these dangerous memories, painful memories in the past?

Tommy Carreras: And how do those things tell me what I've learned to believe and how I approach the world and myself and God because of those beliefs?

Tommy Carreras: And then when I can do all that, how do I repair what's broken? And we walk through some of those tools of how to repair things with God and then with other people.

Tommy Carreras: And that's about to be out. So it's donewithstuck.com. And actually if you go to donewithstuck.com/whygodwhy we've got one sheet, one of the main things that I think anchors us in the past is forgiveness of others. It's one of the main repair tools that we walk through, but it's also one of the most accessible.

Tommy Carreras: And so many of us have people that we want to forgive, but can't, don't feel like we can forget. And then you hear a verse about, well, God forgets all our sins, so I'm supposed to forget but I don't think that's possible.

Tommy Carreras: And it is just confusing. And you don't want to get walked on again. So if you go to donewithstuck.com/whygodwhy we've got a forgiveness worksheet. It's like one of the tools you can start walking through, a way to delve into the past in sort of a tiptoe way.

Tommy Carreras: But then that course, the Done with Stuck roadmap we call it, is hopefully going to be out by the time we're listening to this and you'll get some information on that if you head there as well.

Tommy Carreras: You can go through this process and start navigating through your current and past struggles with this reliable roadmap that'll teach you what's going on inside of you and then where to go with it and what to do.

Peter Englert: Well, hey, thank you so much. Make sure you go check that out. Don't forget the best place to hear this episode and to find out more is to subscribe to our [e-mail].

Peter Englert: Tommy, thanks for joining us and we hope you all have a great day.