Ever feel like your kid, spouse or maybe yourself is stuck in an endless feedback loop? Unable to stop making the same mistake like being defensive, reacting or escaping motivation issues?
If so, this is for you!
When our kids, spouse, marriage or ourselves experience repeated issues it is frustrating and discouraging. We’ve tried to help them change but nothing seems to work. When we feel this way it’s easy to have it boil over or lead to retreat into binge watching or other escapes. Only adding to the ups and downs that occur in our families when we don’t understand why we/they can’t seem to stop, learn, or change.
It’s natural for us to feel frustration, become reactive and discouraged with our loved ones, who just can’t seem to change. But the focus is on the wrong thing. We think “Why don’t they just stop?” And “This is SO counter productive!” But we’re missing what’s underneath their repeated issue.
Why do I see it differently? Because I’ve helped so many kids and spouses experience victory over repeated issues. Often we believe the other person does not care or isn’t trying to change. But through my professional experience I can tell you your kid or spouse are just as frustrated as you are (really!).
They have tried to stop and change.
And fallen short.
over and over again.
This is the reason they are so defensive, retreating or overreacting when we apply pressure, remind them or seek to motivate them to change. They can’t figure out what to do, and feel so guilty because they know they should stop and have tried but can’t! They are sick of it and our displeasure, frustration or reminders are like pins and needles jabbing them.
So what’s the real issue? Why can’t they just stop?
Deep within their subconscious mind 95% of their thoughts and emotions roil in the dark.
altering the way they see themselves, their relationships, and causing them to seek to protect themselves from those that want to help them the most. So they defend their brokenness because it hurts too much when it is pointed out. Psychology has proven only 5% of thoughts and emotions reside above the line of consciousness.
So when our kids, spouse or ourselves encounter the same things…
Over
And
OVER again…
… Despite reading books, listening to podcasts, or (if applicable) reading the Bible, getting an accountability partner, etc, etc, etc. and nothing really changes…
It’s because you’re focusing on the conscious 5% of thoughts and emotions, which gets us only 5% of the way to solving our problems.
…Which is why I was only 5% of the way to real healing and freedom.
To help our kids, spouse or ourselves we have to stop focusing on the issue because it is a symptom – not the problem. We must learn to target the roots in the subconscious rather than the issues we hate.
I have found this to be painfully true in my life. No matter how hard I tried, was really hard on myself, or how much accountability I had, I found myself in this very place:
Unable to see the changes I wanted and needed to see in my life for my organization to be successful.
I was stuck.
…And seeing the same pattern over and over.
It was getting in the way of what God had called me to do.
The reason? in spite of my being hard on myself and working so hard…
…No one can change what they are not aware of when it’s buried in the 95% of unconscious thought and emotion!
In fact, repeated efforts to experience victory over an issue that fail or fall short can actually make things worse! This is what I experienced in my life and with the I organization I started in 2005.
Back in 2005, I started a nonprofit after what I still believe to be a clear call from God while sitting in my office at Phoenix seminary. How do I know it was a call? Funny you should ask.
That’s pretty easy to identify. Every time I get a Call I first find every avenue I can to argue and avoid it. Whether that was joining staff with Cru, or starting the Youth Transition Network, I found many reasons to indicate I was not the right person, that it was a bad idea, or that I would fail.
Why fail? because I had just lost my company to the Dot Com bubble burst and September 11th. That failure struck a deep chord within my unconsciousness, playing me like a talented musician stroking the strings of a fine guitar.
In this case the strings were my unconscious negative core beliefs from childhood.
Fast forward a few years and I’ve assembled a national coalition of denominations and youth ministries seeking to understand and prevent kids from struggling and crashing and burning when they leave home for college or career. The statistics were not good: Only 30% of people who start college actually get their degree.
When I was forced to shut down the coalition due to lack of follow through from my partners in the coalition stemming from their internal politics and needs and the response to this decision by these men I looked up to and who I thought were friends it crushed me once more. Just like when my company failed.
These back-to-back self-perceived failures mixed with some deep wounds from my childhood and my fathers desertion of family due to a hidden 12 year affair years before had a powerful, toxic effect deep down on my unconscious thoughts and feelings.
After separating from my mom my father played games for over two years before finally divorcing her, deeply wounding my mom. His guilt actually got so bad he thought about committing suicide, but his psychologist helped him escape that guilt in a very unhealthy way. Helping my dad feel better about himself without making things right with anyone in the family.
Ultimately culminating in my dad chasing me out of our home while accusing me of never loving him, using examples from my childhood to prove I never cared about him, despite my pleas to the contrary.
Do you think that might have had an effect on my subconscious psyche??!
Losing dad, the person I was closest to in my family, was a fatal blow, when mixed with the loss of the company and coalition…… But on the outside no one would have known, because I kept myself busy. Working hard and escaping the pain that sealed off deep within me.
Let me tell you, when you lose the person you’re closest to in the family, and Then a company, and THEN a national coalition…
The weight is unbearable.
Even worse is society’s prescription, put best in the words of this Steve Winwood song:
Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride/
Ain’t nothing gonna slow me down/
Oh no I got to keep on moving…
Which is just what I did. How did my body handle not facing the pain? By escaping deep into what I call self-protect mode.
I slipped into a physiological state of self protection that left me riddled with self doubt and mistrust. Chronically negative and unable to seek help from others.
For years, stuffed pain hammered my unconscious core beliefs preventing me from being able to move the organization forward because these traits would slip out of me at the most inopportune times no matter how hard I tried, prayed or worked to change.
They reared their head at pivotal times, in pivotal ways. Undermining key meetings, opportunities and relationships. This only added to the skill of the musician playing the chords of my negative core beliefs deep within my unconscious.
When you add to this the knowledge that I was trapped in an abusive marriage and was a significant victim of domestic violence it’s a wonder I was able to continue at all and get as much figured out and done as was accomplished.
It’s no wonder I grew hard on the outside, seeking to protect myself from people, failure, and even constructive input, which became too painful to process due to all the pain stuffed below consciousness…
You see, I would go to meetings, and pray for the negativity and hurt to remain behind the wall and it seemed to work a fair amount of the time, given coping mechanisms I had been taught by one of the many counselors I turned to for help. Yet under pressure or facing even the smallest amount of criticism would cause it to slip out at the most inconvenient moments, having a very clear (to me) adverse impact on the very people I needed to encourage that could put wind in the sails of what God called me to. I so badly wanted to help more kids and families and I kept getting in the way.
Ironically, (and so, so frustratingly) I was able to help these kids and families due to all I was learning trying to fix the very issues that were holding me back from being able to help many more!
This is how powerful the unconscious mind is. Its impact on our thoughts, feelings, perspective, decisions and relationships cannot be overstated.
The impacts upon my life, work and relationships were far reaching. Far more than I could have ever imagined until finally finding someone I could trust who could help me, using very similar methods to what I used with kids and marriage and families, but with me!
It took 14 months, but after digging up the unconscious core beliefs, wounds and pain and experiencing healing through multiple modes the change was just magically there. Not through being hard on myself, reading and accountability. It just was!
I call this organic or inside-out change.
The good news is if your kid, your spouse or you are encountering a frustrating trait, responses, anxiety, addictions or motivation issues, there are answers that really work.
I only wish I had found and experienced them before I unknowingly harmed the relationships that could have made the ministry flourish years earlier.
Today, the non-profit, Revive Family, serves families who need our mentoring and healing process, providing scholarships and free services to those in need. We also have a for-profit, One Rule Home, that is flourishing and funding the non-profit. One Rule Home helps parents prevent the issues from ever forming within their young kids, and to help parents turn things around by targeting the roots that exist in their older kids. So for me…. things have never been better… I am enjoying life for the first time in 40 years!
Why should you dig up the stuff below the line?
When 95% of our thoughts and emotions are below our consciousness we don’t know why we make the same mistakes over and over or why our kids and spouse just can’t stop. This is the answer!
When we encounter repeated issues it can damage our self-confidence, harm our motivation, lead to broken relationships and even damage our faith. This is the reason self-help books and even counseling can make things worse. We are told these things will work and the coping mechanism will make a difference but they don’t free us from within. Leading to shortcomings and repeated failures under pressure or when it matters most, leading to questioning:
“Why can’t I change? There must be something wrong with me?”
Or
“God…. Does he care? Why doesn’t he answer my prayers?
If your kid, spouse or yourself are doing the same things, and don’t seem to learn or change and are growing defensive or reactive this is the reason why.
They, like you, do not understand why they can’t stop and this frustration and the associated pain and sense of failure are simply making it worse which is why repeated lectures, pressure, reminders or even consequences do not and cannot work.
The unconscious is where the problem lies and we have not been trained how to target it. Instead we are told to whack away at the surface issues and behaviors that we witness which makes us the musician playing the strings of our families or our own unconscious mind and negative core beliefs!
If you want to learn how to target the roots and desire to find freedom for your kids, marriage family or self, please schedule a call. We have some exciting things starting in just a couple of weeks for parents and our mentoring and healing process is literally cleaning out the unconscious muck in such a powerful and healing way you won’t recognize yourself, your kid or your spouse in as little as 7 to 10 months!
