SESSION 9 (2023)
LEG 1 (3/27-4/9)
READING
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
Chapter 3: Going Back in Order to Go Forward - Breaking the Power of the Past
Emotionally Healthy Discipleship by Peter Scazzero
Chapter 8: Break the Power of the Past
REFLECTING
Reflect on the following questions regarding the reading, writing in your journal:
Fill in the blanks: What I am beginning to realize about God this week is _______. What I am beginning to realize about myself this week is _______. (EHS-WB, p34)
Describe your rhythm for the daily office (including time of day, location, etc) so far during this session. What is one challenge you have already observed and one change you would like to make in order for this to be a more regular rhythm?
What concerns or fears might you have in looking back at your family of origin to discern unhealthy patterns and themes? Why do you think this is? (EHS-WB, Q3, p43)
Describe the atmosphere of the household you grew up in (from about age 8 to 15) using as many one to two word descriptions as possible (ex: affirming, complaining, critical, approachable, angry, tense, cooperative, competitive, close, distant, fun, series, etc) (EHS-WB, Q2, p42)
The Beaver System Model identifies five different levels of health for a household based on how they understand their boundaries. Which level best describes your experience growing up in your household, and why do you think that is? (EHS, 90-91)
“What happens in one generation often repeats itself in the next.” (EHS, p74) Think about the patterns from your family of origin that have shaped you and impact you to this day. Identify both a positive pattern that you are grateful for as well as a negative pattern you wish to change or grow out of - and describe how each has manifested itself in your adult life and how it impacts your relationship with God and with others. (EHD, p172)
Scazzero provides a list of ten unbiblical family commandments in both Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD, p173) and Spirituality (p78). Identify the three commandments you most recognize in your family of origin. (EHR-WB, Q1, p68) For each of the three commandments you identified, finish the following statement: “What I am beginning to realize is…” (EHR-WB, Q6, p68) For each of the three commandments you identified, provide a list of five messages (such as the three bullet points provided in the examples) or manifestations that you experienced.
PRACTICING
The spiritual practice over the course of this session is to create a genogram of your family of origin. A genogram is a visual tool to help us look at the history and dynamics of our family over multiple generations, typically viewed from our 8-12 year old self. The purpose is to gain a realistic picture of what was healthy and unhealthy in our families of origin so that we can grow, heal, and mature in our true, authentic selves in Christ. (EHR-WB, p63-66)
Given that this will take time to obtain information and think through relationships, this will be broken down into various steps. You may move as quickly or as slowly as you would like over the course of the legs in this session.
STEP 1: Create a family tree going back three generations (to your great grandparents). Include your siblings as well as the siblings of your parents (the aunts and / or uncles they grew up with - their siblings’ spouses are not necessary to include). Feel free to consult your 6th grade family tree project or call your parents ;-)
STEP 2: Gather the following information for as many of your family members as possible:
Names, including nick-names, titles, etc.
Year and location of birth
Year, location, and cause of death (if no longer living)
Education
Work / vocation
Interests / hobbies Place of residence (growing up & today) Any significant illnesses, accidents
Significant happenings in their life (marriages, traumas, awards, changes, conversions, crises, etc.)
Ethnic backgrounds
Religious affiliations
STEP 3: Journal your answers to the following questions Pete asks on p170-171 of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (also included below), thinking back to your family of origin and experiences in your household between ages 8 to 12 (NOTE: These have been amended with additional questions from the reading. Some may be slightly repetitive, however worded differently in hopes of gathering as much information as possible.):
How would you describe each family member (parents, care-takers, grandparents, siblings, etc.) with two or three adjectives?
How would you describe your parents' (or caretakers) and grandparents' marriages?
How was conflict handled in your extended family over two to three generations? Anger? Gender roles?
What were some generational themes (for example, addictions, affairs, losses, abuse, divorce, remarriage, depression, mental illness, miscarriages, abortions, children born out of wedlock, delinquency, learning / school problems, alcohol / drug use, handicaps, job loss, etc.)?
How well did your family do in talking about feelings?
How was sexuality talked or not talked about? What were the implied messages?
Were there any family "secrets" (such as an unwed pregnancy, incest, or financial scandal)?
What was considered "success" in your family?
How was money handled? Spirituality? Relationships with extended family?
How did your family's ethnicity, race, culture shape you?
Were there any heroes or heroines in the family? Scapegoats? "Losers"? Why?
What addictions, if any, existed in the family?
What traumatic losses has your family suffered? For example, sudden death, prolonged illness, stillbirth/miscarriage, bankruptcy, or divorce?
What additional losses or wounds resulted from those traumatic losses? For example, loss of a nurturing childhood, loss of an emotionally available mother or father, loss of trust, etc.?
Disciplinary methods used
Family traditions, rhythms, and rituals
Relationship factors (closeness, distance - physically and relationally, handling of conflict, communication style, gender expectations, etc)
Organizational patterns (authoritarian, flexible, structured, rigid, etc)
STEP 4: Using the symbols in the following chart, return to your family tree and describe possible relational dynamics between family members. (EHR-WB, S1, p64)
STEP 5: Identify any “earthquake events” in your family history. These are large, significant events that send shock waves through your family such as a premature death, abuse, suicide, war, cancer, business collapse, infidelity, or even immigration from another country. Not all earthquake events are necessarily negative. (EHR-WB, S3, p66)
STEP 6: What are one or two insights you have learned regarding how your family has impacted who you are today? (EHR-WB, Q4, p66)
NOTE: For more information, refer to p169-172 in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
NOTE: For an example genogram, refer to p85 in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality - or DOWNLOAD HERE
LEG 2 (4/10-4/23)
READING
Good and. Beautiful and Kind by Rich Villodas
Chapter 3: Hindering Wounds, Holy Wounds - Trauma and the Hope of the World
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
Letters 6-10
Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling by Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel
Introduction
Part 1: The Shattering
REFLECTING
Reflect on the following questions regarding the reading, writing in your journal:
Chapter 1: Something Isn't Right with the World
In chapter 1 we talked about identifying trauma we have forgotten. A common struggle occurs when people recognize that their pain and heartaches are preventing them from feeling prepared to deal with life. But remembering that God is with us everywhere, even in our past heart-ache, we find hope in recalling our stories and find support for facing the trauma weve endured. Before we can engage the neurological and emotional processes, we must look at how our early traumas shape our current responses, and consider some current situations and how they have tended to affect us. When we do this with the proper focus, we can finally stop repeating the past.
Q1: Write about a traumatic event you recall happening to you before the age of 15. Think of it on a scale of 1-10 - with 1 being as incidental as the loss of a bag of marbles and 10 being one of the worst experiences of your life. What did you feel as you wrote down the event and some of the details? When you consider the event, do you see yourself at that age? What are you wearing? What do you see when you imagine your face? After the event occurred, are there pictures of yourself in a family album? I possible, look at those pictures and imagine what you experienced in the aftermath of the event. What are you inclined to say or do with the images in your mind? (CH1, Q5, p220)
Q2: What do others not see about your life that is easy to hide? What is one story about your past, especially your role in your family of origin, that would surprise even close friends? (CH1, Q7, p220)
Q3: Recall a moment when you felt someone's delight. Do the same tor a time when you felt richly honored. Spend a few minutes writing about each experience. When did it occur? Where? Who offered delight? Honor? Who witnessed these moments" How did you fe What was it like a few minutes or hours later? What did you do to lessen the joy? How do you take those moments with you into a “normal" day? (CH1, Q8, p220)
Chapter 2: The Search for Eden
The rooms of our lives offer both joy and sorrow. Early traumas remain largely dormant but shape our perceptions of life and love the stories we tell of ourselves, our roles in our families, and the ways we tend to protect ourselves from harm. Dealing with the trauma sends us scurrying to the fight, flight, or freeze habits we adopt. Facing the shattering of our safety and comfort also leads to fragmentation of the memory, isolation when no help is forthcoming, and numbing as time dulls the pain.
Q4: Though there are myriad sources of trauma, even good, well-meaning parents tend to contribute many. Consider the harm caused by parents. How does that initially make you feel? If you want to dismiss this invitation, why? Examples: "My parents did the best they could." Or, "My parents love Jesus, and I felt loved and protected." (CH2, Q3, p221)
Q5: Trauma fragments, numbs, and isolates us. Consider a recent time of going through a small or large T trauma and write a few sentences about the following three elements:
When I felt anxious or afraid, I was not able to…
When I went numb, I couldn’t access…
When I isolated myself from others, I felt… (CH2, Q6, p222)
Chapter 3: Trauma's Ongoing Cost
We all bypass the clues of our trauma. In Sally's case, she was a warm and generous person, but she was not able to connect. Because of her traumatic memories, her body was prepared for humiliation, pointing to the importance of safety as we consider the ongoing cost of our past traumas. Reading about how Sally's mom devalued her and preferred her older sister, most people can easily empathize, and some can even relate. Feeling torn between parents is a common feeling people recall from childhood, even when parents were otherwise kind and supportive. As helpful as Sally's example is, like her, we all tend to compare our story to stories that are "worse," believing ours don't merit the same sympathy or attention. This is the most common experience we hear, so in this chapter, we focus on the need to face that difficult barrier to deal honestly with the heartache we all experience.
Q6: What are the ways you may minimize or dismiss the harm you suffered as a younger person? What are the ways in which you excuse or deny the harm you experienced from the role you played in your family? Even as you consider those questions, what do you note in your body? What happens in your mind? (CH3, Q1-3, p222-223)
Q7: What are the ways you regularly choose to gain a sense of safety in the presence of current or remembered harm? Do those strategies bring more debris? (CH3, Q4, p223)
Q8: One of the hardest realities to face is the envy of other people with regard to your person, body, gifts, and privileges. What are the internal messages that keep you from seeing others' envy of you?
When you have been envied, what has been the result? Whom do you envy, and what happens in your heart when envy takes root? (CH3, Q7, p223)
LEG 3 (4/24-5/7)
READING
Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling by Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel
Chapter 4: Orphans - A Hunger That Betrays
Chapter 6: Strangers - A Separation That Shames
Chapter 8: Widows - A Grief That Imprisons
Choose the type you most identified with of the even number chapters (orphan, stranger, widow) and read the corresponding odd number chapter. For example, if you chose orphans, then read Chapter 5 - A Priest’s Faith. You will read all three even number chapters in Part 2, but you will only read one odd numbered chapter in Part 2.
Review the attached Faith, Hope, Love Matrix provided by the Allender Center at the Seattle School
NOTE: You will read a total of four chapters in Part 2: The Six Types - the three even numbered chapters (4, 6, 8) and one odd numbered chapter (the one corresponding to the type you most identified with, as explained above). PLEASE reach out to Pastor Ashley if you are unsure.
NOTE: You are more than welcome to read all six chapters in Part 2! This trimming of reading is simply to stay within the 200 page count per session.
REFLECTING
NOTE: Your reflecting questions will be dependent on which type you selected in Part 2. Please note you only need to do ONE of the following sets of questions. There are more reflecting questions for this leg as it is assumed your genogram is complete and there is not another separate spiritual practice for this leg.
If you chose ORPHAN / PRIEST, then reflect on the following questions regarding the reading, writing in your journal:
The ORPHAN type occurs when a person is betrayed - abandoned. Intentional or not, the experience of betrayal creates separation and anxiety, and leads to shame of vulnerability. In a developed orphan mindset, a commitment to control takes root and an adapted false self protects the inner child from pain and further harm. The trauma of betrayal and neglect fragments our ability to reason, to remember, and to plan for the future. The result is difficulty resting, which tends to happen only in exhaustion, and hypervigilance in ordinary life. The assumption of the orphan is that she can get what she needs only if she provides it for herself.
PRIESTS are orphans reunited to community. Their senses are attuned to what can restore our collective humanity and invite us to reconnect and commune with God. This sacred insight and empathy is a vital aspect of our capacity to connect to self, others, and God. We tend to erase stories-those of others and our own. The priest serves the role of the storyteller, holding the collective past and raising ebenezers to inspire people with the significance of people, places, and events. They play the role of ritual healer and from their reunited, reintegrated hearts, often lead others in praise and lament. In priestly care, attunement first bears witness to the crimes committed against the other that have marred the person's glory. Then containment is needed to show a grace bigger than whatever trouble is present. Having overcome their estrangement, priests can respect the suffering and allow both brokenness and beauty without fear, and without the need to be "right" or to be validated.
Too often we think of an orphan only as a child who has lost one or both parents. After reading the chapter, how do you see yourself as an orphan
Betrayal is the trauma that precipitates being orphaned. Write about a traumatic experience you recall of a time you felt betrayal. Think of it on a 1-10 scale with 1 being as incidental as someone cutting in line before you and 10 being one of the worst experiences of your life. What did you feel as you wrote down the events and some of the details? When you consider the person(s) who betrayed you, what is it like to hold them in your sight? If you could say all that you'd want to say, what would be the first sentence? What do you do to protect yourself from being betrayed like that today
Most orphans learn to desire only what they can provide for themselves. How do you communicate to others that you are self-sufficient and don't need anyone?
What would people who know you well say about your need to be in control as you give to others?
How often do you feel exhausted yet feel the pressure to keep going and with a smile on your face? Write out in some detail one example of the need to keep everything together for the sake of others.
What would you have felt if you had asked for help? What did others do to help that you dismissed or refused? When you did ask for or receive help, what did you do with the shame of needing?
How much time do you tend to spend in an interaction with others, watching to see if they are okay (or even happy) with you?
A priest is attuned to stories and collects them, creating rituals to embody and remember the good and the bad to move well into the future. How are you inspired by this role to consider places where you can bring priestly care to your home?
There is a priestly element to everyone's life and home. Take a slow walk around your house with a pad of paper. Go through every room, including your bathrooms, and note every object that reminds you of a good or sad moment. Each of these objects is an ebenezer. How many objects are on your list? Are you surprised by the number? What is the object that brings remembrance of a sad event? A happy event? If there was a fire and you could save only one ebenezer (not based on financial value), what would you keep?
How often do you allow these objects to remind you and teach you?
If the answer is little to none:
i) What keeps you from listening and attending to the glory around you?
ii) What practices could you start to be attuned?iii) Who could you tell the story of the ebenezer who would want to hear and would be curious enough to have at least a thirty-minute discussion? Will you risk doing it?
If the answer is more than a few times a year or quite often:
i) How do you become aware of the need for attunement? Who modeled this for you?
ii) How do you invite others into these stories, or is the experience more solitary?
iii) When do you become aware that you are a storytelling priest?
In what ways do you invite others to enter stories of lament? Praise? If the answer is seldom or never, then consider where you learned to cut off the priestly part of you.
If you chose STRANGER / PROPHET, then reflect on the following questions regarding the reading, writing in your journal:
STRANGERS face the threat of not being seen and thus ignored, or seen and thus mocked. To remain in the in-group requires rejection of the alien and contempt for anyone who is not in the group. The core wound of a stranger is powerlessness. Strangers can easily become cynical and deny their longings while justifying their loneliness. Dissociating offers temporary solace in the face of powerlessness that, in time, ravages the stranger and leaves him susceptible to more abuse and trauma. If the orphan uses self-reliance, the stranger uses defiance. Strangers are boundary breakers, risk-takers who avoid the group by rejecting the customs and mores of the status quo. They can use sarcasm or meanness to get vengeance, which is justice sought as a vigilante. Envy is also a core pattern for strangers. Healing through welcome and containment is the comfort most needed.
A well-developed PROPHET shares loving, truthful insight with the honesty and the freedom of a child. Jesus admonished his disciples to become like uninhibited children who tell the truth, and 1 Corinthians 1:27 in the King James Version says that God "hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." Why would God want to confound the wise? The artful role of the prophet is to be a fool for God, to disrupt and confound, and often by reversing or opposing expectations. However, a prophet's gifts must also include containment to help others remain present and connected as dread and fear arise, and to accept pain without minimizing or demanding it away. A prophet must be patient to hold the truth and wait for signs of movement toward it, understanding the struggle to lament and accept regret. Also, while the priest has the temple and the king has the palace, unsurprisingly, the prophet's place is the wil-derness, anti-Eden. A prophet dwells in the outskirts and calls a spade a spade. So he must read between the lines and see behind the idolatry that masquerades as faithfulness. Prophets use the bad news of calamity to stir dull hearts to awaken. By speaking into the middle ground between denial and devastation, they are often scorned and even hated. Yet their encouragement to grieve, mourn, and wail, and to be humbled enough to face truths preferably ignored, helps restore the truth that we are blind and bound to idols that can't bring solace or meaning like our Savior. By removing what stands against hidden harm, a vision of God's intended glory can emerge. The prophet's hope reestablishes true justice, compelling us to help right the world's wrongs.
A stranger often feels unseen, or seen and judged. Which important people in your life do you feel don't have curiosity or intrigue for you? When and where do you feel ignored or dismissed?
How do you ignore or dismiss others' dismissal? How have you learned to live without attunement? What do you do with your desire to be seen, honored, and welcomed?
When in your past did you feel most like an outsider? How did you cope with feeling foolish and humiliated? What did you do to make your way into the world that didn't want you?
How have you handled experiences of feeling powerless?
The authors talk about the debris of being a stranger. Look at each category and give a number that represents the degree to which you struggle with each piece of debris. For example, if you know that you are susceptible to any addictive behavior and often overeat, or take on new projects and activities at a rate that is not wise, then you would rate yourself a 4, often, or a 5, always. Once you have your number, ask someone who knows you well to answer the questions on your behalf. Talk about the discrepancies in perception.
1 = never 2 = seldom 3 = sometimes 4 = often 5 = alwaysDissociation
Addiction
Sarcasm
Depression
Risk-taking
Boundary breaking
Meanness/vengeance
Envy
Striving to achieve entrance
Consider the ways you break the boundaries of expectations:
In your relationships
In your appearance
In your lifestyle
In your activities
In creativity
The television show Kids Say the Darndest Things features children commenting on topics from life's tough questions to their favorite toys. Their answers are often blatantly truthful and sometimes profound. Why do children tell the truth when adults so often don't? Remember something your child or another child said that shocked you at their level of insight.
Prophets often disrupt the status quo. How inclined are you to disrupt those around you? How much do you seem to enjoy stirring others up?
Truth is often too difficult to accept without considering another's perspective and where it differs. As poet Emily Dickinson writes, "Tell all the truth but tell it slant." Are you more often direct and blunt or reserved and silent? Do you tend to self-justify a lack of loving consideration or a deficit of courageous truth? Read 2 Samuel 12:1-9. How can you better tell the truth like the prophet Nathan?
What do you think it means for how you live as a prophet to know priests have the temple or church, kings and queens have their palace and throne, but prophets dwell in the desert?
A prophet is always a bit "mad" discontent, off-center, and dis-turbed. When does your disruption keep others from the truth? Do you feel anxiety about distancing people, either by your eccentricity or more from your unwanted truth? Has their response caused you to write them off, or are you too afraid of being written off yourself?
A prophet holds grief/lament and joy/celebration in tension. If you are a reluctant prophet, you may be prone to responding to this tension by becoming dogmatic or self-righteous. How does the challenge of being a prophet feel to you most often, and what do you do in response? What does your prophet type require of you to find peace and rest?
Prophets must address their own sin and lack before engaging others' false perspectives. Who can you trust to help you engage the logs in your own eye that come with your unique outlook?
If you chose WIDOW / ROYAL, then reflect on the following questions regarding the reading, writing in your journal:
The lingua franca of the WIDOW is grief. Long after the tears have dried and the clothes have been cleared from the closet, the ache of the widow is the unrelenting memory of what once was but can never be again. Unless a widow is willing to bear the agony of loss, she will abort all future love and fulfillment for a cheaper version that can never rival the original. Trauma fractures trust and degrades desire, leaving us bereft and lonely. We can isolate sufficiently to live dull, flattened, bitter lives that squeeze just enough satisfaction from weekends and periodic vacations to endure. But such life is afforded little solace and ultimately big shame. Widows are also susceptible to abuse and delusional thinking; the real threat of blocked grief can lead to false pride and boasting in widows who won't mourn. A warring spirit can lead to real wars and a hatred of power. Idols that soothe and bring temporary power can overwhelm reason until the core wound is attended to and healed.
Being a KING or QUEEN means being singled out to lead and experiencing a measure of separation as a result. On this side of Eden, the queen/king finds order in the midst of chaos, creates boundaries, holds back the pressure to allow the prophet and priest to orient others toward faith and hope, and provides a definite but diplomatic "yes" or "no" to settle the air of the larger collective. A royal leader enables and creates flourishing and will stand confidently in the face of the storm to keep the ship afloat. The power of kings and queens can bring great damage if not deeply connected to their higher power. Healed widows/widowers always have the hearts of queens/kings. Their attunement is always toward reconnection and repair. Their weighty responsibility is a calling that never dissipates but is supported by the love and loyalty of their communities. Patience is also needed for planting seeds while anticipating weeds, predators, and storms. As heroes, queens and kings must find their essential worth deeper than criticism or acclaim. Good queens and kings can become evil queens and kings who must be stopped. They must learn to hold the tensions of grief and hope, love and despair, faith and fear. Like Hagar, queens and kings are prone to oversimplifying, ignoring cost, and denying the weight of decision on themselves and others. Because this pain breeds further isolation and loneliness, often a retreat from public life is required.
A widow or widower need not have explicitly lost a spouse for their grief to overwhelm. Where do you see your widow experience arising, if not the death of a spouse? Does this perspective enable you to see some patterns about your life that you hadn't named before?
As painful as it is to acknowledge and renter the rooms that hold grief, doing so is necessary to be a good king or queen. What rooms or events--literal and figurative-might you need to first enter and sit in to begin to acknowledge and feel the grief you prefer to avoid? What arises that's difficult, or overwhelming, for you to allow out? When you consider what has been lost that can never be recovered, how can you better let yourself mourn? In what ways do you cut off grief prematurely? How does misplaced grief distract or consume you?
All the questions just posed require someone with whom you can talk. Who will listen? Who is a royal friend who will listen without glib responses? Pray and ask God what former orphan can hold holy space for deeper, unnamed griefs that feel too difficult to enter on our own.
If you can't think of anyone who will listen, what is keeping you from finding a certified therapist (theallendercenter.org provides local list-ings)? What justifications do you use (cost, distance, time, stigma)?
It is too easy for a widow/widower to live an honorable, good, but small life. Small is not defined by the task but by the level of gift being exercised and offered. For example, making cookies for a homeless shelter is not small. Spending most of the day playing golf or tending to little more than one's stock portfolio is wickedly small. When we use our kingly/queenly gifts for nothing more than our own comfort and distraction, we are living a small life. Look over a normal day's activities and address these two questions:
Where am I living large with my gifts?
Where am I living small?
A widow/widower struggles with letting desire grow after loss. How are you growing desire in the areas where you have been burned by loss? What is the risk involved in desire? How do you justify not taking more risks?
Look at your worship, family, work, friendships, and anywhere else you spend a good portion of your time, and address these questions:
Where am I exercising my gifts as a king/queen?
Where am I refusing to participate in my role as king/ queen?
What costs are involved in each area?
Where can I help others exercise their gifts to rise, rest, and reign?
Where am I unfairly being reduced or inhibited?
How can you create space for better attunement to what is not yet seen or spoken? Pray specifically about any changes you need to make to better fulfill your role as a king/queen. Then take action.
Do you currently feel discouraged or empowered by the inevitable weight a king/queen bears to lead? How do you cope with being envied, disliked, unappreciated? How do you address the loneliness and isolation? What do you do with the disappointment in yourself and in others?
Do you find it easier to do what needs to be done than to delegate? Explore a memory for lessons you have learned about this aspect of leading.
How does your widow wound metastasize into bitterness and/or keep you from opening your heart and trusting others?
How have you witnessed a misuse of power to ignore others' feelings or desires, or to make them feel less or disempowered? How do you think this impacts your leadership?
Kings and queens "rule" well only when they are humbled and willing to be brought low. How do you resist being brought low? How do you invite others to see and name your faults? In what ways can you improve your own vulnerability to strengthen your impact?
Who has provided you with a taste of attunement? Containment? Repair of rupture? How do you offer those in your world these gifts? Where are you strongest? Where are you weakest?
PUBLISHED: Sunday, March 19th, at 7:37PM
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 23, at 6:53PM - Added new Step 2 and updated Step 3 with additional genogram information in Leg 1. Added Faith, Hope, Love Matrix to Leg 3.