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Ryan Casey Waller is a Writer, Speaker, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Listen in to our conversation with Ryan as he unpacks the hidden effects of trauma, and how mentor relationships can play a significant part in the healing of emotional wounds.
Show Notes
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WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
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SHOW NOTES
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. My name is Zach Garza and this is my intro voice. I'm here today with father Ryan Casey Waller Esquire.
Speaker 2:Isn't that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we've got our main man, Ryan, here today and we're gonna talk about mental health and mentoring. Why I wanted to have you on the podcast is because whenever we mentor, we we go after kids from hard places. Right? And whenever we use the term kids from hard places, we're talking about kids who have experienced trauma.
Speaker 2:And so I'm just really excited excited about going deeper into that issue. Can you just share with us what is trauma, and what are some of the effects that we might see in some of the kids whom we mentor? You know, the word trauma is one of those words that's
Speaker 4:scary for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:You hear is one of those words that's scary for a lot of people. You hear the word trauma, and we instantly think of something extreme. Right? I think for most of us, because we hear so much about post traumatic stress think of, like, war. Right?
Speaker 3:So soldiers go into battle, and they experience extreme violence. And that is what we think of as a trauma. Mhmm. Right? Or someone is in a terrible car accident.
Speaker 3:Right? And we think of trauma. And I think some of that comes from our understanding of, like, medical trauma. We can understand, like, the body can suffer, like, trauma, like a broken arm and there's trauma, and then we see what the body, you know, needs to do. But I think part of what needs to happen in this discussion is a backing away from understanding trauma as only those more extreme examples.
Speaker 3:And really thinking about trauma as anything that's happened in a person's life for which in that moment it felt for them to be intolerable. Mhmm. Okay? So if we think about trauma from that perspective, it opens the discussion and it opens the lens for what can be included in trauma to be much larger. And so in that way, as we think about trauma, all of us can can think about our own lives.
Speaker 3:Right? We can go back into our own history, and we can think about times in which we felt what we would describe as intolerable emotions. And so what I mean by that is a time when you felt something and you just really wanted that feeling to stop. Okay? So that could be a situation in which you felt rejected, perhaps, by a parent.
Speaker 3:Right? Or you felt, ignored even by a friend, or you felt belittled by someone who loves you or a stranger. I mean, what whatever it can be, and you have to really slow down and think about that. And what we discover
Speaker 4:is that when we think
Speaker 3:about trauma from that perspective is that all of us do suffer trauma. Like, you don't get out of this life without going through some trauma. Now is it true that some of us experience trauma that's far more severe than others? Absolutely. There's gradations here, right, of what we go through.
Speaker 3:But trauma in its essence is something that we felt like was intolerable in the moment. The reason that's important is because if we experience something that we felt like was intolerable, it leaves an indelible mark upon us. Right? It's impossible just to to pretend as though it didn't happen. Right?
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:What we experience in life marks us in ways. And when we have trauma, we get marked in such a way that we're gonna have to process that trauma. We're gonna have to face that trauma if we don't wanna have the effects of that trauma hang around and continue to negatively affect us for the rest of our lives. Right. So when you're talking about mentoring kids who come from hard places, is that how you describe it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. One of the things to consider there is that a lot of those kiddos are going to have experienced a diverse range of of of trauma. Right. Right? And it could be things that, you know, you've never even thought about.
Speaker 3:You know, for a lot of people, if you're in the position to to mentor, you know, think about this. I've never lived a day in my life where I wasn't absolutely certain I was gonna have 3 meals. Never even crossed my mind that that would be a concern. There are kiddos in this town for whom that is a reality each and every day hoping that they're gonna get maybe even just one good meal. Right?
Speaker 3:You do that long enough, that creates trauma. Right? This idea that there's a scarcity of food, and I might not to I might not get fed. I might go to bed hungry. Right?
Speaker 3:That's a trauma that probably isn't gonna cross your mind if that's not something that you've had to experience, that you've even had to consider as a possibility in your life. Right? There's the obvious traumas. Right? We know that there's, you know, if a kid comes up in a in a violent household, even if they're not physically abused themselves, but they see violence, that's going to create a trauma.
Speaker 3:There's a trauma if you're going to school each and every day, and you're surrounded by other kids who seem to have all the resources they need, but you don't have those resources and you're not sure where they're going to come from, that's gonna create a trauma. That's gonna that's gonna mark you in a particular way that you're gonna have to deal with. And then, of course, there's more extreme trauma. Right? You know, some kids are are straight up abused.
Speaker 3:Right? Or they're in situations where they're in households where, drugs and alcohol are are being abused, or they themselves are being exposed and using drugs and alcohol at a really young age, and that's creating trauma. And so, it can be all kinds of things. And what mentors need to consider when they enter into these situations is that these kiddos have not just experienced that and so then that's a fact about their life. What they need to understand is it's not only a fact about their life, but it's a fact that is affecting their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I know here we use the term there's always a reason why. Right? There's always a reason why a child is acting the way that he's acting. And we also say that there's no such thing as a bad kid, but there is such thing as a hurt kid.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's kinda what it is that we see it. Like, there's kids who we mentor who they're coming from families that are broken. They're coming from environments where there are needs that are not being met. Sometimes there's just straight up abuse, whether it's physical or mental or anything like that. Just our kids are coming from environments, in some cases, that we have never really even had to fathom.
Speaker 2:Can you just kinda share with us if a mentor has a child that that they're spending time with, that they're building a relationship with, how can we help them deal with these deal with these traumas?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think one of the saddest parts about situations like this is that a lot of kiddos carry around these traumas and these pains. And if they've not had older adults in their lives really tending to them and looking out for them, then most likely they've never been given the opportunity to open up about them. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So in
Speaker 3:other words, they've probably never had anyone sit down and ask them how they're feeling. Right? They've probably never had anyone say, tell me about your pain. And not just ask the question, but then sit there and genuinely listen. Right?
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Create the space. You know, what we know, at least from a mental health perspective, is that there are all kinds of modalities of treatments for how we help people get better. But the grade a standard for people moving from illness to health is talk therapy. Right?
Speaker 3:So we know that simply processing what's going on in our lives is tremendously helpful. Now that's not to say that mentors have to come in and assume the, status of a professional counselor. Right? That's that's terrifying and that's scary. Right?
Speaker 3:That's gonna make everyone who's considering mentoring run away because that's like that. Yeah. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:You don't have to do that. In fact, please please don't do that. Yeah. You'll probably make it worse. What you can do, though, is you can ask and you can listen.
Speaker 4:Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 3:You can ask and and you and you can listen. You can hold space for somebody. Mhmm. Because that's gonna do something really, really critical for a kid. Because a lot of kids who experience trauma, not only do they hold it inside, and so then that's gonna create all kinds of other, you know, complex problems for them.
Speaker 3:But if they haven't had anyone asked, then they implicitly have been told that nobody really cares. Right? Because that's what that means. Right?
Speaker 2:Well and so often in this I mean, basically, what we're doing is we're taking things that have happened to a kid that are stuck in the darkness. Right? And that's where the enemy loves to be. And he's telling lies there, and he's condemning there, and there's guilt, and there's shame, and there's condemnation. And yet here a mentor, and he is giving this kid an opportunity to bring it into the light.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Right? Yeah. That's so powerful.
Speaker 3:It's so powerful. You have the opportunity. I'm a sacramental Christian. Right? So that's my perspective.
Speaker 3:I I think that God uses, this beautiful creation, right, to make spiritual truths known. Right? Take things that are immaterial, things that are, unseen and makes them seen. One of the ways we can, as Christians, and particularly as mentors, right, really be the presence, really be the hands and the feet of Jesus is by asking these questions. We want these kids to know that God cares.
Speaker 3:Right? That they have a heavenly father who really cares what has happened to them and cares enough that he wants to know the details of it. Because he wants to come alongside and be in that suffering with them. That is what the mentor can do. And you think about it.
Speaker 3:It's it's it's very, very similar. Right? To to if you think about what Jesus offers, like, nowhere in our religion, right, does Jesus say, look. You know, come to me, and what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take away and I'm gonna remove all of your suffering. Now does does he do that, and are there examples of that, throughout scripture and throughout the history of Christendom and in our lives?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Absolutely. And praise God, he he absolutely does that. Is it a guarantee? No.
Speaker 3:The guarantee, the thing that he promises is to come into our suffering Mhmm. And to stay with us in our suffering, and in fact, suffer alongside of us. There's a reason we have a cross right at the center of our religion, and we leave it there. That says to the world that we have a god who not only understands our is not afraid of our suffering. And there is no suffering in this world that he won't enter into and stay with us.
Speaker 3:We will not be alone in our suffering. And so what a mentor can do is take that truth and really in this very sacramental way, make it a reality by sitting down with a kid and doing that for them. Right? In God's love, saying, I want to know about your life. And I may not have a solution here today.
Speaker 3:I may not have a quick fix for this today. But what I will do, but I can guarantee you, is that you won't have to be alone in it.
Speaker 2:It's so good, Ryan. I mean, it is not good for man to be alone. Right? And yet so often with these kids who we mentor I mean, man, there's a kid who I was spending time with yesterday. This kid's in foster care.
Speaker 2:And he's been through things that I can't even imagine. And he's just been taken away from his family. He's been put into the foster care system, and I'm just sitting there with him. And every time I see him, I see my son. And, man, I just can't I just can't imagine what this kid's going through, and he's 10 years old.
Speaker 2:And I can't fix that. I can't go into the past and take away all the hurts that have been happening to this kid. But what I can do is exactly what you're talking about, and I can say, I'm here for you, man. Yeah. Because Jesus says, I'll be with you.
Speaker 2:Jesus doesn't promise to to erase all the hard things that have happened to our these kids who we mentor or to us. But what he does says is, I'll be there. And for those of us who follow Jesus and for those of us who are called to mentor, we get the opportunity to do the same thing to where Jesus can minister through us as we continue to just show up.
Speaker 3:Just show up.
Speaker 2:And it's okay to not have the answers. Just showing up.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Man. There's so much that you just said that that's so good there. That last point about saying it's okay to not have the answers, I think for a lot of men, that is very, very difficult. Right?
Speaker 3:And this is a stereotype, but we have this natural predisposition to be fixers. Right? Mhmm. So a lot of times, when someone kind of presents to us a problem, our minds immediately go, how do I how do I fix it? Right?
Speaker 3:How do how do I solve it? And I think a lot of men and that's a good thing. Right? That that that's a that can be it's a strength. Right?
Speaker 3:I think of of masculine nature. But I think that that keeps a lot of men from mentoring because they think, I don't know how to fix those kinds of situations. That's scary to me. That's gonna make me feel incompetent, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna stay away from that. And what we're saying is you don't need that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Just show up. I mean, when you're talking about that foster kid, I couldn't help but think. My my own mother grew up in poverty, and she was, essentially, passed around, from from relative to relative until she was 12 years old. So the first 12 years of her life, she would say she was not sure that anyone in this world actually loved her.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Until her aunt said enough is enough. You're mine. That's what we have the power to do in Christ's love with one another is to look at each other and say, you're mine. We're in this together. I got a buddy who, he's an addiction psychiatrist.
Speaker 3:So this guy is like a top level man. Went to Johns Hopkins. Like, did the whole deal. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And he works with, really, like, pretty severely, ill patients. People that are often deep in the throes of addiction and then also have comorbidity with, another mental disorder. Right? So imagine somebody that's, has schizophrenia and is and is also abusing
Speaker 4:opioids. Right? But complicated situations.
Speaker 3:And I was talking with him recently, and he And I was talking with him recently and he said, Do you know that if I can just get a patient to join some kind of community, half of the battle is finished? I was like, What are you talking about? He's like, oh, yeah. Like, if I can take someone who is really hurting, who has these, like, seriously complex mental issues and addiction and get them to be a part of a community with other human beings, the chances of success at that point skyrocket. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Now think about that. This guy is a scientist, right, of the highest level. He's got access to all of the the medical resources, all of the latest resource research, and he is saying most of the issue here is human connection.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:I mean, if that doesn't fire you up and that doesn't empower you and embolden you as a mentor to say, I can go and make a huge difference just by showing up
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:And helping create community for another person, then I don't know what else is. He's gonna do it.
Speaker 2:Well, in in that sounds a whole lot like family.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It
Speaker 2:does. Because God has got a family.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. Oh, and that's huge. And let me say something to that. Something that a lot of folks don't quite understand, and this is particularly true of depression, but it cuts across the board with most mental illness. And this is why it's so dangerous.
Speaker 3:When a person starts to feel really down, the thing that they need the most is connection. Right? Mhmm. So they need connection not only with their loved ones, but they need connection with their support groups. And what they need is connection with their doctors, and they need connection across the board.
Speaker 3:The number one thing their brain will tell them to do is isolate. It will tell them the thing that makes the most sense is to cut everyone off. And that's what they will do, and their situation will progressively get worse. And so this is why I think, again, this is so important. What we know from a scientific perspective and what we know from our Christian faith, they're both saying the same thing.
Speaker 3:Right? As Christians, we understand that's exactly what the enemy is gonna try to do. Right?
Speaker 4:It's gonna
Speaker 3:try to break us apart, get us off alone because the enemy knows that that is the only thing that God in the creation narrative says isn't good is that man is alone. Right. Right? So we know from the get go that we are this communal creature, that we are designed to be in communion with God and with one another. So the enemy will try to break that up.
Speaker 3:And now what we know through science is the same thing. When things run amok in our brain, it forces us in the same direction, isolation, which is the opposite of what we need.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's powerful, man. And just like, if you're tuning in right now, I just want you to know that you can mentor, like, seriously. Like
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to be well versed in the bible or spiritual stuff. You've just gotta have a heart to show up. Yeah. And, man, the lord can use you in so many different ways if you just say yes.
Speaker 2:Let's take it back to that kid who is experiencing trauma. Right? I wanna ask you 2 things. Okay? The first thing is how do you create an environment to where it is safe for the child to process things that he's never shared with anyone else?
Speaker 2:Tell me what it takes to get there. And then once you're there, tell me how how to make them feel safe as they share hard things.
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So there was a psychotherapist way back in the day named Carl Rogers, and he posited that the most powerful thing a therapist could do would be to show up and display what he called unconditional positive regard. And what he meant by that was a therapist needed to sit down with a human being and be prepared for whatever it is that they were gonna bring to the table and to accept it in that moment without judgment and without commentary. Mhmm. Okay?
Speaker 3:So here's how that can work in This is actually a really, really difficult thing to do. I mean, just take just take any kind of regular situation that you're in. You're having coffee with a friend. You're out to dinner with your wife and another couple. And really think about it.
Speaker 3:Anytime anyone is saying something, they're talking about sports, they're talking about politics, you're formulating an opinion. You have a judgment, and you probably wanna share it. Right? Before they're even finished talking, you're probably thinking about how you want to respond. Right?
Speaker 3:Even if it's just, like, for fun. It's not necessarily like you're arguing about something, but you're constantly interpreting what they're saying through your own lens and your own perspective, and then you're wanting to offer feedback. What a kid needs if they are going to open up their inner life, their interior life, man, is they have to know that the person they're going to share this with is not going to judge them. They will not tell you what's actually going on if they're gonna get judged in that moment. Now hear me.
Speaker 3:That that is not to say that then forever and ever, no matter what you hear, you're just gonna, like, take it and never have anything to say. That that that's not what I'm saying. I think that's where people wanna rush and say, well, that doesn't make any sense. No. No.
Speaker 3:No. No. No. Remember, this is basic level stuff. If you you've got someone who's got a deep pain that's deep inside of them.
Speaker 3:If they're not in a safe space, they're not gonna talk about it. And the only way to make the space safe in those initial conversations is to remove judgement. It simply can't be there. So again, it's back to that. You create the space, and you say, you can share this with me, and I'm gonna hold it.
Speaker 3:And I'm not gonna judge you. So you're not gonna offer feedback. You're you're not gonna color it with any kind of commentary. You're just going to accept it. You're just going to hold it with them because what you're doing in that moment, if you don't provide any sort of judgment on it, you're now allowing that person to not have to hold it by themselves.
Speaker 3:Now it's being held by another person. Yeah. And that feels really different. That's empowering. Right?
Speaker 3:So if you can if you can do that, right, if you'll actually do that, what that will do is it will create trust. Because now they know I've got another person that I can go and I can open up to. So all the pain that I have inside of myself, I don't have to just hold it myself. I've got someone else who's willing to hold it with me. And once that safe place has been created, once you have that trust, in therapy, we call it this therapeutic relationship.
Speaker 3:And we'd say that's more important than anything else that comes after the fact. Once that's established, now all new possibilities are opened up. Because if you can then be consistent with that and you can continue to show up, then probably what's gonna happen at a certain point is you're gonna be able to give feedback. They're gonna actually wanna know what you think, right, about it. But that comes later.
Speaker 3:That comes later. It's it's like if any of the mentors that are listening, if they've had any experience going to any kind of, recovery group, right, any kind of especially, most 12 step programs, they don't allow what's called crosstalk. So unlike bible studies, right, if you're if you're a Christian, you're in a lot of bible studies, you've experienced where, you know, you're reading something and somebody shares something, and then somebody immediately across the room wants to, like, basically show you how, like, you were about what you just said, you know, or or, like, whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and we get into all that. What you find in recovery groups and why they're so powerful is that they don't allow that cross talk. So in other words, whatever topic is being discussed, somebody shares something about their life and nobody comments, they'll comment. And because people know that nobody's gonna comment, they're honest. And when they're honest, they get to process.
Speaker 3:And the truth of their heart comes out. And doing that over time is transformative. And if there is a situation where there's comments in other kinds of recovery groups, what they often do and this is could be really helpful for mentors. Right? As you develop as you as you build that therapeutic relationship, is only talk in terms of I.
Speaker 3:Okay? So so say a kid tells you that their dad, you know, comes around a couple times a year. That's it. Shows up for a couple weeks, makes a bunch of promises, and then bolts. Right?
Speaker 3:That's a, like, pretty, like, typical scenario. Right? Inc inconsistent debt. Yeah. Instead of, like, trying to talk about that kid's dad, can you talk about your own pain?
Speaker 3:You can say, you know, I imagine that hurts a lot. I can imagine that that would make it hard for me to trust people if my if someone that I love did that to me. That would be really difficult. Right? Talk about in terms of your own feelings versus what they should be feeling or what they should do or what that means because it's not threatening in that way.
Speaker 3:Now you're not pointing the finger. You're not trying to be prescriptive. You're just being empathetic.
Speaker 2:Well and I'm a big believer that vulnerability begets vulnerability. Authenticity begets authenticity. And it's almost like whenever you are saying, man, that if that happened to me, that would really hurt. It's almost like you're giving this kid permission to feel.
Speaker 3:100%. 100%. You're validating Yeah. Their emotion.
Speaker 2:Right? And it's almost like kids will do this. Kids will share a little bit, and they'll watch how you respond. And then based on your response, they'll either shut that door or they'll kick it wide open. Totally.
Speaker 2:Your response is either going to help them share more. And sometimes when they start sharing, man, they start sharing. Mhmm. And you learn so much. But if they feel judged, if they feel condemned, if they feel like you're turning into the advice monster.
Speaker 2:Right? And then they're gonna shut that door real quick.
Speaker 3:They're gonna shut the door.
Speaker 2:And they're gonna save themselves for a period. I tried, and it didn't work. So I'm gonna not do that again.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a bad idea. Right? And they get spectitude.
Speaker 3:I love you say the advice monster. I because I I just think we continually need to return to this theme of people are so afraid to mentor because they don't know what to say. Right? They know what to do. Like, we're calling it the advice monster for a reason.
Speaker 3:It's a bad idea. Right? Because, like, you don't actually know what what the kid needs. Like, you I'm sure you have some good advice on something. Right?
Speaker 3:But whatever. What you're wanting to do in in mentoring is you're not trying to take a kid and make them into the kid that you want them to be. Right? What what we're wanting to do, I think, ideally, is help a a young person understand who it is that they truly are in God. And so then they can discover that true identity, right, that they're a beloved child of God Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And then grow out from there and grow into the person for whom God created them to be. It's not our job to sort of come along and say, oh my gosh. This kid got dealt a bad hand. Let me try and scoop them out and give them a better hand somehow. Right?
Speaker 3:And transform them into what I
Speaker 4:think would what I think would be success for them.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yeah. I think would be success for them. Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 3:No. No. What we want is for them to be able to blossom into whom
Speaker 4:God created them to be.
Speaker 3:And so that doesn't that doesn't look like you scaffolding and coming up with a a plan their lives. It it looks like coming alongside of them and allowing them to see who they are and to know who they are in in God. And then, yeah, later on down the line, there might be practical helpful things we can do. But sort of like forecasting or sort of like prefabricating what we think it ought to be is just not what mentorship is about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Can can you just kinda talk about trauma and identity Mhmm. And just why that is so important, and kinda how the enemy gets a foothold there, and that can do some real damage for a long, long time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It can do damage for a long time. I mean, just start again from the mentor's perspective. All of us struggle with identity. Yeah. It doesn't stop.
Speaker 3:Right? We we constantly or at least I do again, speaking in terms of I. I constantly struggle with not connecting my identity to my experiences. Right? So, like, when I fail at something, the struggle is to not feel like a failure.
Speaker 3:When I'm succeeding at something, it's to not, like, identify myself as a a success. Right? We we get attached to all these different kinds of identities and labels, because it's a it's a natural human thing to do. Because what a label does for identity is it creates a semblance of of of safety. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's it's a false sense of safety, because identities, any identity outside of our our core identity or what a lot of, like, the perennial thinkers described as our true self, right, which which as Christians we would would say is our is our soul. Right? Who we are made in the image of God, which we can talk about here more in a minute. Anything else, is is false because we can lose it. Right?
Speaker 3:So if you create your identity as a successful businessman, well, the second you're not a successful businessman, you're an identity crisis. Right? Mhmm. Even for good things. If you if you if you, establish your identity as a faithful husband and a devoted father, well, what happens when you mess that up?
Speaker 3:You're in identity crisis. Right? All these things can create identity crisis. So we're we're constantly seeking identity. Where identity really comes into play with mentoring is that what we know developmentally, human beings, when they're in the adolescent range, which is where most of these minties are gonna be.
Speaker 3:Right? They're adolescents. The main thing they're trying to think about, the main thing they're trying to figure out, what their brain is doing is trying to establish an identity.
Speaker 4:And you can see this just by casually observing kids.
Speaker 3:This is why they try out new casually observing kids. This is why they try out new identities all of the time. Right? Wait. Wait.
Speaker 3:So so this is why in 4th grade,
Speaker 2:I was a I was an athlete in 5th grade. I was a rapper. In 6th grade, I was a skater in 7th grade. I was yeah.
Speaker 3:You're putting on, right, you're putting on these different costumes or masks, so to speak, to figure out which one feels best. Yeah. Because you're seeking that sense of safety. And there is safety in being able to say, okay. Well, this is who I this is who I am.
Speaker 3:Right? I'm an athlete. Alright. What that does is it gives me a sense of purpose. It gives me a tribe to belong to.
Speaker 3:It gives me recognition in the community. Like, it's really, really important. And and so what we know is that that that that's what adolescents are doing. That's why it's critical if at that if at that stage in the game, we can get at the true identity, the true self, the one that cannot be taken away. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The one that's gonna stick by when the others fade or we evolve through them because that is what happens in life. Right? We change. We go through different life development stages. Like, you don't get to stay an athlete forever.
Speaker 3:You're not always gonna be the smartest kid in the class. You gotta move on to the next class. Right? Mhmm. That those are always constantly changing.
Speaker 3:So if we can hone in on the fact that a kid is a beloved child of God and that's never going to change and there's nothing they can do to earn that and there's nothing they can do to strip that away, that is on offer for them forever, that is a foundation upon which a life can be built. Right. It's more difficult with trauma because it's like you gotta clear away a lot of stuff. Right? I mean, it's one thing to have experienced to not make the baseball team and feel like you're not a good athlete.
Speaker 3:It's another thing to have been told that you're stupid. It's another thing to have been told that you're not worthy of love. It's another thing to have been shown that people really think you're not worthy of love by physically hurting you when they should be protecting you. That's where the showing up as a mentor gets real because you can tell a person all day long, you're loved by God. God loves you.
Speaker 3:You're special. You're made in the image of God. But if a person is not able to take that from an intellectual understanding and know that in the core of who they are, then it's not gonna make a real difference. And I'm convinced the only way that a lot of these kids who've experienced trauma are ever gonna really know that is if they see that love of God embodied in another person who is willing to show up consistently and make it known. Right.
Speaker 3:Because you're having to counteract in what, in many cases, is years of them being told the opposite. Mhmm. I am not Pollyanna about this. It's not easy in a lot of these situations, especially for those who have been abused. Right?
Speaker 3:There is, in many cases, a rewiring of the brain that has to happen Yeah. In cases of severe trauma.
Speaker 2:And just I mean, there are so many ways that society can label you. Especially I mean, we've talked about this before on this podcast about, you know, in some mentoring relationships, it's a person who seemingly come from one side of the town coming and serving a kid from the completely opposite side of the town. Yeah. So you're dealing with stereotypes and race, stereotypes and socioeconomic status, stereotypes in cultures, and just there's so many ways for the enemy to label you as something that society defines for you. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And those are things that we have to battle and sometimes we don't even know that we're battling them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I think this is where humility is an overlooked virtue and has to has to be at the core of this kind of work. I don't think that authentic relationships really happen between 2 people that are coming from radically different let's just be honest. I think if you've got a guy if you got a white guy coming from Highland Park to mentor a black kid from the east side of Dallas.
Speaker 3:And that mentor doesn't truly believe that there's a shared humanity between
Speaker 4:these two people. Right? That that they
Speaker 3:are both of them are just children of God, equally loved by God. That they're far more actually in common than they are different. I'm not sure an authentic relationship can be built there. I mean, I think we have to take seriously the writing of Paul when he says, like, in Christ, there is no Jew. There is no Greek.
Speaker 3:There is no male. There is no female. There is no slave. There is no free. We are one.
Speaker 3:That's the easiest thing to give lip service to. We can do that all day long and not believe it. And I think what happens in in mentoring relationships is that mentees can smell that a mile away. They feel like they're a project or, you know, it's kind of a transactional thing or you're only gonna get so far. There's some help.
Speaker 3:There can be some help there. But if they really can feel that the person showing up is showing up as a human being, totally respects them as a human being, and identifies with them, and sees them as far more of the same than different, now you're talking about now now you're opening up possibilities. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:But
Speaker 3:that requires humility and that requires all of us to not get obsessed with these labels. We cannot think of ourselves 1st and foremost as a success or a banker or whatever it is that we have. This is where I I really you know, I think Jesus nailed it when he's like, don't seek to be called teacher. Right? Don't seek these titles.
Speaker 3:There's one teacher. Rest of us are students. As Christians, man, we gotta live into that. That's how we genuinely can behave as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And again, I don't wanna be simplistic about it. I understand that this is a very difficult thing to do. Human beings are so tribal, and I just I can't stand it, but it but it's true. Right? And we categorize one another, and we create these caste systems in our minds even when we won't admit it.
Speaker 3:We're doing it with these unconscious biases. If we can seek to see one another as God sees us, beloved children. Right? Without distinction. And something powerful can happen there.
Speaker 2:Can you just share just how your personal walk with the lord and how your relationship with Jesus just why that is so fundamental in your role as a mentor?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, it's such a good question. I I used to believe that it was possible to give things away that you don't have.
Speaker 4:Right?
Speaker 3:That you could kinda be expert on something and and offer it, but not really know it yourself. And that may be true in some circumstances. Not in what I would call helping professions or genuine authentic relationships. It's just not true. I think one of the, the best pieces of advice I ever got from another priest, he said, if you don't spend time with Jesus, the people you're trying to lead will realize that really fast and they won't follow you.
Speaker 3:And what I think he he meant by that was that if we haven't accepted the love of Christ in our own lives, if we haven't taken that love and really allowed it to manifest in ourselves and allowed ourselves to be seen as Christ sees us, us, I don't think it's possible to go out and see other people as Christ sees them. You know, early on in Christianity, there was always this understanding that if you wanted to know God, you had to know yourself. Right? Augustine said it. Later, Calvin said it.
Speaker 3:And a big chunk of what's happened in, say, the past 500 years is that we've dropped off this notion that knowing ourselves is really important. We just need to kinda know some doctrinal things about God, and then and then we know enough. It's not the case. This is a this is a head and a heart matter. We gotta spend time with Christ.
Speaker 3:We gotta know Christ. Not know about Christ. We gotta know Christ. We wanna experience Christ's love and then share that love with other people. The way that I think about it really for me, I was asked one time this was in the ordination process to be a priest.
Speaker 3:They said, what does it mean for Jesus to be your lord and and your savior? And I said, no. You know? Because that's something we say kind of flitantly. Right?
Speaker 3:My lord and savior. I said, well, Jesus is my lord, and that I submit to Jesus. Right? I'm not the master of my own shit. Right?
Speaker 3:So I bow my head, and I say there's an authority that is above me, and that is is Jesus Christ. So I submit to that authority and to that headship. But he's my savior, not just in that I think he will and does rescue me eternally, but he rescues me each and every single day. I take Jesus seriously at Pentecost when he said, I'm taken off, but I'm leaving my spirit with you. You have access to the spirit.
Speaker 3:And you can continue this work, and you can have access to this power whenever you want. I genuinely believe God doesn't go away. When I was in a really dark place, I said to my wife, have access to the Holy Spirit all of the time. The only question is whether or not we allow ourselves to be aware of it, whether we wanna spend time in that spirit, be open to that spirit, allow that spirit to fill our hearts. That's totally up to us.
Speaker 3:It is on offer 247. And so I've discovered that in my life, I can't mentor someone. I can't disciple someone. I'm not helpful really to anyone unless I'm relatively spiritually healthy. I can offer tips and tricks and whatever.
Speaker 3:But when Jesus Christ when I'm allowing and that's what it is. You said, off air that the Holy Spirit's a gentleman. Right?
Speaker 4:That Holy Spirit doesn't force, himself
Speaker 3:on anyone. It's so true. Force himself on anyone. It's so true. So when I allow when I, accept the invitation that's always on offer, and the love of Christ is really present in my life, well, then then I can go into situations that I fear and enter into relationships where I'm not sure that I can be of help, but I have a deep and abiding peace
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:That God's gonna do something with it. And so my relationship with God is is is absolutely central. That's the that's the power source. And without it, I just can't do much because I'm not living into my true self.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Man, this has been really good, Ryan. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:And, man, if you're out there today and you are listening to this podcast, I just want you to know that you have what it takes to mentor. And as long as you're trying your best to follow Jesus, and as long as you are showing up in the life of this kid day in and day out, the lord can use you to transform lives. And so I just think what an incredible opportunity we have to be like Jesus and say, hey. I will be with you, and I will enter into your life. I will enter into what's happened to you, and I will go through it with you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because I love you and because you're worth it.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:If people wanna get a hold of you, Ryan, tell them how to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm online, Facebook and Instagram. Ryan Casey Waller, you can find me. I also manage a Facebook page called Christians and Mental Health. And on that page, we try to do a lot to help break down the stigma of some of these issues, in the Christian community.
Speaker 3:And I also use that page to sort of post just relevant articles of things that are happening. So if this is something you kinda wanna know more about, you can go there. And then, I'm gonna be in private practice here pretty soon, in Dallas.
Speaker 4:So you'll be
Speaker 2:able to find me. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Everything that we talked about will be on the show notes. So if you guys wanna learn more, hit that up.
Speaker 2:And until next time, if you didn't take anything away from this podcast, just know this, you can mentor.
Speaker 3:You can mentor.
Speaker 2:See you all next time.