Abuse and Neglect

Emotional Healing Is Possible For You Today

June 12, 2022 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

God won’t always grant you more money or heal your body. But the Holy Spirit is always ready to provide emotional healing.

Are you being serious, Matt? I’ve been suffering for years. I don’t believe it. God doesn’t care about my pain. Does He?

Yes, I am serious. The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to guide believers into the truth. If you think about it, that’s the definition of emotional healing. You have a personal guide who can help you become intimately acquainted with God’s truth. Healing is more than learning facts, it’s an emotional experience of the truth.

The only caveat is that you must ask for and seek healing using biblical principles. Transformation is highly desirable, but not necessarily guaranteed (without effort on your part) or easily obtained. You have to really want it.

If you want this valuable transformation, you need to pursue it with Faith, Boldness, Persistence, and Humility.

Emotional Healing Requires Faith

Faith allows the believer to see spiritually. If you are going to approach God, it needs to be with a clear view of who God is. You need the ability to trust God and stay focused on His character!

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6 ESV

If you struggle with believing God cares about you and wants you to thrive, then your first task is to ask God for the faith to see Him clearly.

Emotional Healing Requires Boldness

Boldness in this case means you seek without any kind of pretending or bashfulness. You must approach God with authenticity. You speak clearly. You tell it like it is!

In [Christ Jesus our Lord] we have boldness and access [to God] with confidence through our faith in him.
Ephesians 3:12 ESV

If you are afraid to approach God with what is on your heart, seek out another believer or a counselor who can help you develop boldness.

Emotional Healing Requires Persistence

God’s treasures are not left in the open for all to find. Only those people who really want to find the secrets to life will find them. To find them requires persistence. Do you understand the value of what you are seeking?

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
Matthew 13:44 ESV

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.
Proverbs 8:17 ESV

If you are tired and want to give up before you reach your goal, ask God for the energy to continue your pursuit.

Emotional Healing Requires Humility

If you want help, you must first prepare your heart to receive help. Desperation is a form of humility that God desires from us. God, you are my only hope! What I want is important and you are the only one who can supply my need.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1 ESV

In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
Psalm 10:4 ESV

Emotional Healing is the subject of an experiential course I’ve developed. To heal emotionally requires that you are willing to:

Understand what your heart needs and doesn’t need.
Learn healthy ways to manage your pain.
Remember uncomfortable experiences.
Confront negative beliefs with the truth of who God is and who you are.
Feel and express your emotions.
Stop avoiding pain in ways that do more harm than good.
Emphasize seeking God and bringing your pain to Him.

While I’m putting the finishing touches on Emotional Healing, it’s available for a substantial discount. From now until Independence Day (July 4, 2022), you can purchase it for $44 instead of $100. Today could be the day you declare independence from the lies that lower your self-worth.

The first lesson is available to preview without any obligation. Also, this post is based on one of the exercises in the course.

Image from Pexels

Decision-Making Made Clear and Confident

March 13, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Decision-making is challenging to the degree people are reluctant to make use of a worldview. In this context, a worldview is a set of prioritized values (convictions) that you can use to evaluate opportunities.

Making a decision requires discriminating between alternatives. To discriminate means to judge one opportunity as better than another. People who don’t like to be judgmental can therefore struggle to make decisions. For everything elevated as more valuable, there must be something else devalued. People who like to people-please can be reluctant to make a decision when no option will leave everyone happy.

You can become confused when you have too many options and no way to either emphasize the best ones as superior or eliminate the worst ones. You have two alternatives to make this decision-making easier. First, by choosing the best option, you don’t have to declare any option as bad (a more positive approach). Second, by rejecting the worse option, you can completely eliminate it from consideration (a more negative approach). Different personalities might prefer one alternative over the other.

Decision-Making with Spiritual Discernment

You can formulate your worldview with spiritual discernment. God is good. The devil is evil. Worldviews simplify decision-making options into right or wrong. Racism and other unhealthy discrimination result from choosing other categories for evaluation. Instead of good or evil, people choose false dichotomies like black or white, conservative or liberal, male or female, native or foreign. These are false dichotomies because, for example, while a person can only be born male or female, sex doesn’t determine if a person is right.

When a person refuses to believe God is 100% good and all other options are 100% evil, they must choose their own categories for evaluation. The problem with this is that people will then evaluate based on past experience (prejudice) rather than God’s standard of truth (objective right and wrong).

What do you base your worldview on?

Decision-Making with Personality

Almost all decision-making can benefit from spiritual discernment. Even a simple decision about what kind of car to buy can have moral implications. You might have plenty of money, but should you buy the most expensive car you can afford or should you buy the less expensive one and use the difference to help someone?

You might prefer to eat at one restaurant but your friend prefers another. Your preference isn’t right or wrong, but what you end up choosing could be, if your selfishness harms your friend. This situation requires a balance between following what you want and doing no harm to your friend. The more mature a person is, the more they can put aside (temporarily) what they want (or believe) in order to care for another person. Loving others takes precedence over having life go your way all the time.

In a three-legged race, two people are tied together, so they must run at the same speed or else they will come apart or fall down. If one person attempts to run faster than the other, just because they are a better athlete, that person achieves nothing. Members of a team all win or all lose together. Running faster means little if doing so will injure your partner’s leg. Is winning a race worth more than a person’s health?

The context of Romans 14 is eating food that has been sacrificed to idols, but the basic principle applies.

Don’t let your appetite destroy what God has done. All foods are fit to eat, but it is wrong to cause problems for others by what you eat. It is best not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that causes problems for other followers of the Lord. What you believe about these things should be kept between you and God. You are fortunate, if your actions don’t make you have doubts. But if you do have doubts about what you eat, you are going against your beliefs. And you know that is wrong, because anything you do against your beliefs is sin.
Romans 14:20-23 CEV

Decision-Making with Freedom

You are free to choose whatever you want, as long as you don’t go against your convictions and you don’t lead someone else to go against their convictions. God says such actions would be wrong because they are destructive.

God wants you to develop your worldview, which includes your preferences, convictions, and spiritual discernment. With a well-defined worldview, decision-making can be a positive, pleasant experience.

I have two points of clarification before I finish. Personal boundaries can possibly be in tension with the consideration of others. I’m not going to go into detail here, but Paul has written plenty about following what is right and confronting what is wrong. So, in Romans 14, when Paul suggests we should deny ourselves what we want it is for the sake of preserving the conscience of a fellow believer who is genuinely distressed about the practice of their faith. Otherwise, this would be abusive to the person who lacked faith. He is not saying anyone should submit their God-given ability to make healthy personal choices to a bully. This would be allowing someone to abuse you.

Consider too that emotional immaturity is similar to a lack of faith. Those who are more mature must bear with those who can’t yet help themselves. Again, this doesn’t mean you give in to their every desire, but that you treat them with patience and understanding to minimize creating unnecessary distress for them.

As an exercise, make a list of areas where you need extra understanding because you are insecure and another list where you are confident. How does it feel to be in each position?

Read about boundaries and being assertive.
Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay

Rejection Is Like A Painful Death

January 9, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

What has been your experience with rejection? I see it as the most painful experience. But God has overcome it with the power of His acceptance.

I recently watched the movie, Saving Private Ryan, again. In one scene a German and American soldier are wrestling for survival. The American pulls out a knife, but the German manages to use the knife against him. The American pushes against the German’s arm to prevent the knife from cutting into his chest, but slowly the knife moves deeper until the American dies.

In managing pain, it’s usually easier to face and get it over with quickly. A slow and painful death is bad enough. To face the humiliation of defeat and also endure excruciating torment is the worst. But isn’t this is exactly what Jesus faced on the cross? He was without personal guilt, but in carrying the weight of sin, He must have experienced the shame of our guilt.

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 NIV

To die at the hands of another person is a physical rejection. To wither away because of another person’s critical words is an emotional rejection.

Rejection Is a Lie From the Devil

The devil wants you to feel cut off from God. He doesn’t have the ability to sever your connection with God. The best he can do is deceive you into believing God has rejected you.

When you experience emotional rejection, there is nothing true about it. It’s not valid. If you struggle with self-doubt, you become susceptible to believing the lie is valid. You might feel horrible as if it were true. This happens when you focus on the negatives rather than on God. It often leads to God-doubt such as, “God doesn’t love me” or “I’m too defective for God to love me.”

Jesus’s sacrifice saves you from destruction. He rescued you from the darkness–including its lies and shame.

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Colossians 1:13-14 NLT

Because of this, no matter what you’ve done, you do not have to endure any shameful rejection. Don’t do that to yourself. You can graciously accept God’s discipline but you can reject the devil’s rejection.

God Accepts You as a Friend

Do you realize that God is for you? Because of Jesus’s death, you are blameless and without a single fault.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.
Colossians 1:21-23 NLT

Because God has removed your sin and guilt, you have His complete acceptance. Others may reject you, but God will not reject you any longer. God wants you to cling to this truth. You are a member of His family. You are God’s friend.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15 ESV

To fully heal from rejection, you must not avoid it. Only by feeling it can you realize how false it is. The process involves staring down the lie until it is no more. Facing the lie with the truth weakens it. Even though it can be absurdly painful, the lie will die, leaving you with freedom because of Christ.

Take some time to remember when you have felt most rejected. Allow the truth of God’s acceptance to wash away the lie.

Overcome Resistance To Complete Your Training

October 2, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

In order to complete a transformative journey, you first need to overcome your resistance to asking for help. This post describes step 1 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Often, life must become unmanageable or unbearable in some way before a person will be willing to seek help. There is a saying, “Only when the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of changing, will someone make the effort to change.”

You can let your pain build until it reaches such a critical level that you suffer a catastrophic breakdown. If you want to avoid this and move forward in your life, don’t make the following three mistakes.

Mistake #1: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Ignoring Problems

When a person is in denial they will attempt to cope with their problems so they can remain self-sufficient. Coping attempts to minimize the pain instead of eliminate the pain. Most people think of a problem as a negative event, but a lack of a positive event can also be a problem.

In Star Wars, Luke’s problem was more than the fact that he wasn’t happy as a farmer. He also wasn’t happy because he wasn’t able to pursue using his gifts for an even greater good. Helping his aunt and uncle was good, but helping to destroy the death star was far better.

There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death.
Proverbs 14:12 NLT

Are you on a path that seems good, but it is really leading you nowhere?

Mistake #2: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Clinging to Selfish Goals

When a person believes lies (such as “I’m worthless”), they lack the insight to look beyond their own circumstances. A person who clings to their selfish goals will fail to overcome problems and will experience painful loss.

Luke wants to fight the empire but he can’t see past his obligation to help his uncle. He does what seems right until fate brings serious trouble to his doorstep.

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
Proverbs 22:3 NLT

Are you pressing ahead just because you want to or because it seems to be the safest route, despite some sense of looming consequences?

Mistake #3: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Refusing Help

The foolish person will refuse help even while they are suffering. Fear can stop many a dream from becoming reality.

Luke knows the rebels need help defeating the empire. Obi-Wan asks Luke to join him and offers to train him. Luke isn’t ready yet to leave home. He uses the excuse that he can’t get involved because he has work to do.

Fools think they know what is best,
but a sensible person listens to advice.
Proverbs 12:15 CEV

But when he finds that the empire is looking for his droids, he realizes that his aunt and uncle are in danger. Only when he is faced with their death does he have nothing left to prevent him from accepting Obi-Wan’s offer.

This logic might look like I’m saying that a young adult should always put their own ambitions ahead of their parent’s counsel. There might be more times that it is prudent to follow your parents. But in this case, the parents are the ones holding their child back from what is better–meaning what is better for God’s kingdom.

If you love your father or mother or even your sons and daughters more than me, you are not fit to be my disciples.
Matthew 10:37 CEV

So then, consider if there is anything you are refusing to do that would benefit God’s kingdom more than what you are already doing. What help do you need to overcome your resistance and make it happen? Who has already been offering their help? Ask God for wisdom and understanding so you can see your best path forward without serious consequences, if possible.

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Emotions Are Never Sinful

June 6, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Emotions can reveal sin but they never stand alone as the source of sin. Emotions can lead someone to desire to sin but there is nothing wrong with feeling them. Emotions are messengers. You’ve heard the phrase, “don’t shoot the messenger,” right? A messenger can bring good or bad news, and you should welcome both, as long as the message contains no lies.

Emotions Are To The Heart As An Instrument Panel Is To The Plane

A pilot needs to know the plane’s altitude, airspeed, and direction. The pilot could look out the window to gauge these values, but the plane’s instrument panel, if it is working correctly, will be more accurate. Knowing that your plane is 400 feet off the ground, traveling at 200 MPH, and pointed toward the ground wouldn’t be good news, but it would certainly be helpful to know.

Emotions Are To The Heart As Smoke Is To Fire

Emotions are a byproduct of the heart. Your heart (the core of your life) is the source of all your emotions. Your emotions provide a window into the condition of your heart.

Smoke depends on burning material. Without fire, there would be no smoke. It’s possible to observe or collect smoke only when material burns. Smoke is a byproduct of burning material.

Your heart is the source of your emotions like fire is the source of smoke. Emotions come from your heart to bring you a message. If your heart is well, your emotions will be too. But if your heart is sick, you will feel negative emotions (unless you work to suppress them).

Jesus talked about false laws (such as ceremonial washing) that cannot defile us. He made a point that evils deeds start in the heart.

Peter replied, “What did you mean when you talked about the things that make people unclean?”Jesus then said: Don’t any of you know what I am talking about by now? Don’t you know that the food you put into your mouth goes into your stomach and then out of your body? But the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart. And they are what make you unfit to worship God. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, vulgar deeds, stealing, telling lies, and insulting others. These are what make you unclean. Eating without washing your hands will not make you unfit to worship God.
Matthew 15:15-20 CEV

Will And Behavior Can Be Sinful But Never Emotions

Emotions indicate the status of your heart. The “bad news” you receive from your heart can be painful. But it’s only what you decide (with your will) to do (your behavior) with the pain that can be sinful.

The choices you make, whether in your heart, mind, or body, can be sinful. You can hold onto bitterness (heart) without acting on it. You can think vengeful thoughts (mind) without acting on them. You can strike someone with the intent to harm (body). All three of these are sins, but what about feeling angry? Is it sinful?

If you hold onto anger it becomes sinful but the original impulse is only a neutral indicator. What will you do with your anger? Welcome your angry feeling so you can better understand the condition of your heart.

Thinking of anger (or other emotions) as sinful can lead to suppressing it instead of understanding and addressing it. The reasoning goes like this: Anger is sinful. I’m angry. I need to get rid of the anger. I’ll ignore it. Now that I don’t feel angry, I’m no longer sinful. While this avoids a sinful outburst for the moment, unless the source issue of the heart is addressed, the anger will surface at a later time and likely cause even greater destruction.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23 NIV

To guard your heart try this reasoning: Anger is an indicator. I’m angry. I want to understand what is happening in my heart. I know when I address the pain in my heart, I won’t feel angry anymore.

More thoughts on feelings by Matt. And, some more.
Emotions are a gauge, not a guide.
Is anger sinful?
Picture colored by Matt!

Labels Like Gaslighting Harm More Than Help

March 28, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Labels can promote better communication. But, they can also sow seeds of dissension. How and when should you use the power of labels?

How Labels Help

Labels are shortcuts. I could ask you for a dark red fruit that grows on trees. Because there is more than one type, I’d need to be more specific. I’d like the kind that is more tart than sweet. Instead of having to describe all the details, I could have simply said I would like some cherries.

Without labels, communication would be cumbersome at best. But, labels only help when we can agree on what the label is referring to. Maybe there are several varieties of cherries. But a cherry is a cherry, not an apple.

Shortcuts are most effective when all involved parties have a shared experience. What if we drove to a cherry farm and picked and ate cherries from the same tree? We’d probably have the same idea in mind when we use the word cherries.

What happens if there is no shared experience or the experience is so complicated that it frequently generates a unique experience? If, at the fruit farm, we ate two different species of cherries, one of which ripens faster than the other, we’d probably be thinking different things when we use the word cherries.

How Labels Harm

Labels such as gaslighting or narcissism have become quite popular recently. They definitely describe a complicated experience that can be easily misunderstood. In this case, I suggest you avoid the words and stick to the descriptions.

Gaslighting is a form of verbal abuse. Here is a definition from wikipedia:

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment. It may evoke changes in them such as cognitive dissonance or low self-esteem, rendering the victim additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction and disinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Not only does gaslighting sound complicated, it also sounds evil–like a tactic the devil uses to cause believers to doubt their faith in Jesus Christ. When used intentionally as a weapon, it is abusive. Note also the phrase “covertly sows.” This means the gaslighter tries to be sneaky. They don’t want the other person to catch on to what they are doing. It’s premeditated.

My problem with using terms like gaslighting is that they are sometimes thrown around too casually by people engaging in black-and-white thinking. Some things are all-or-nothing and some have gradations. A woman is either pregnant or she’s not. However, a communication technique might only look like gaslighting and not qualify as abuse.

The so-called gasligher might have no intentions to manipulate or abuse. What if they are only attempting to describe their own perspective? During communication both people have a need to be heard. The person who labels others (as a gaslighter, narcissist, or other popular terms) might be the one participating in verbal abuse. It can become a way to avoid responsibility. It can be easy to label someone, thereby casting blame on them and correspondingly away from self.

Instead of using these labels which can be judgmental (calling someone guilty when you are not an unbiased judge), I suggest returning to the basics of communication. Instead of saying “you are gaslighting me,” focus on revealing your experience with something like, “I feel discouraged when you talk to me that way. I believe I am correct but I’m open to being convinced otherwise.” Leave some room that everyone involved can contribute to the problem.

I am not trying to explain away real abuse. One-sided communication does happen. What I’ve been suggesting only works when both people approach conflict resolution in good faith. The challenge is discerning between a plain-old-ignorant person (someone having a bad day or someone who lacks understanding) and an evil person (someone who is being intentionally destructive).

The good news is a little bit of discernment goes a long way if you have good boundaries. Being confident and knowing who God made you to be will protect you from both the naive person and the evil fool. Keep in mind though that sometimes these two qualities, along with some of the best qualities, can all show up in the same person.

You cannot fool God, so don’t make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant. If you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 CEV