A small
summary of the Book by E. James Wilder
Joy is the birthright of the followers of
Jesus and the deepest desire of the human brain.
"I am coming to you now, but I say
these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full
measure of My joy within them" John 17: 13NLT
We are designed for a joyful identity.
Anything less and we become unhappy people.
We do not have to develop an appetite in
others for joy, joy is what everyone wants!!
Ed’s story:
Despite my training, what I did not realize
was that I was still missing a very important joyful foundation for my
life, identity, relationships and ministry.
First, while joyful, "we're glad to be
together" experiences, seem to happen spontaneously, I had no idea how to
intentionally grow joy personally or grow joyful bonds with my wife and
daughter.
Second, I was missing significant
"return to joy skills." While I was motivated by compassion, I still
had no idea how to stay relationally connected or repair relational ruptures
when bad things happened, especially when failure or intense negative emotions
were involved.
The old voices of contempt, humiliation
and shame followed me as an adult and made it hard to have much grace or
mercy for my own mistakes.
Third, I was still strongly motivated by
the need to perform and excel to avoid shame. What I discovered was that
the message to perform and not fail was stronger than my relational connections
to joy.
Finally, my training helped me learn to
help hurting people spot their wounds, problems and denial. This meant that I
was more skilled at helping them discover the negative than I was at helping
them rebuild an identity focused on life-giving joy.
I was unable to give others what I did not
have personally.
I finally came to a point at which I was
desperate for something new. I realized that most of the work I did in churches
and in secular environments with addicts and trauma was not producing the kind
of results I hoped to see. Broken relationships, divorce, loneliness, jail,
prison, AIDS and death were the fruit of relapse for too many precious lives
for which I cared deeply. I knew the training, programs, techniques and
strategies most of us used were not as effective as we wanted. I was also
desperate for something that would bring joy to my own life and allow me to
fully and deeply express the compassionate
heart for the hurting that Jesus had given me.
I experienced a significant disability as
the result of a chronic, painful and incurable disease, and I lost my marriage.
For years I was unable to work until, on a missionary trip to Spain, God
healed me enough so that I no longer needed to use a wheelchair. It was
then that I met Maritza and soon after I heard Jim Wilder teach the Life
Model[2]
explaining joy and describing the effects of both joy and trauma on the brain.
I knew I had finally found the piece that had been missing from my life and
from addiction and trauma recovery. Joy was powerful and could be learned,
practiced and applied relationally to help hurting people heal from the
devastation of broken relationships, addictions and trauma. My mind felt like
it was exploding with new possibilities, ideas and designs for support groups
and treatment.
More importantly, when Maritza and I were
married, we committed to build strong joy bonds together as a foundation for
our lives.
We became intentional about practicing joy
together. I was delighted to finally learn the "return to joy
together" skills I had been missing. I discovered that as my identity
was rooted in joy, my compassion and ministry stopped killing me. Joyful
skills entered our lives and family as we shared the message of joyful recovery
with others. It was exactly this joyful recovery that had brought me to the
worst neighborhood in Brazil.
What is a joyful identity?
The signature of real joy is the sparkle in
someone's eye when they see us that makes their face light up. This is exactly
what Ed felt when his mom looked at him with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.
Joy is what he felt when he wrestled with his dad. Joy is children jumping up
and down when their dad or mom comes home from work or when they see their
grandmother. Joy is a woman running to her husband returning from war. Joy is
children playing, tumbling and giggling together. Joy is the smile we cannot
help but share. Joy is so special that God offers joy as His reward rather
than candy, jewelry, good looks, popularity, whiter smiles or faster internet
access.
There is a good reason why God promises joy
more often than He promises eternal life! Jesus lists joy as the reason for His
teaching in John 17: 13NLT, "I am coming to you now, but
I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the
full measure of my joy within them" .
Jesus also says joy is the reward for a
godly life in Luke 6:23a NLT, "Rejoice in that day
and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven".
A quick look at how our brain develops
gives us a hint of why God
rewards us with joy. Joyful interactions
with our mothers, those who feed us, fathers, and other primary caregivers
shape the structure, chemistry and function of the brain. The foundation of
joy that is built in our first year of life profoundly influences our
identity and relationships throughout our lifespan. Without joy as a
foundation, many of the God-given capacities we receive at birth will not
develop, not become strong and will not be retained. The capacities and
chemistry that we use as infants become the dominant systems for our brains. If
we start our life in fear we will feel anxious about almost everything. But
the brain is biased toward joy. Joy is our most powerful desire, and we are
designed to seek joyful interactions automatically from birth. If we cannot
find joy we may try hard to bury our desire, but we can never escape joy's
power. God built us this way.
Joy makes us grow strong, loving
relationships with other people. We love as a response to joy. Joy stimulates
the growth of the identity region of our brains. We grow the strongest and most
stable identity from those who show us joy.
Joy is a high-energy state for the brain. 'The practice of joy builds brain strength
and the capacity to engage life with energy, creativity and endurance. In
fact, the capacity for the brain to engage every intense or difficult aspect
of life develops out of joy. High-joy people are very resilient. High-joy
communities are energetic and productive even in hard times. When we are
empowered by joy, we are able to suffer, withstand pain and still maintain
intact relationships with other people. Without joy, we view problems as
"win or lose" situations, and solve problems by choosing the option
that causes us the least amount of pain, usually at the expense of others.
With joy, we are empowered to find creative, mutually satisfying solutions for
problems, and love to create simply because we can. Dancing, gardening,
feasting, celebrating, playing and other endless good things bubble up from joy
...
Joy is the excitement around the exchange
of everything that is good for life. A short description of the biology of joy will find
that infants respond with joy to being fed, held, and stroked. Pleasant smells,
being kept at just the right temperature, smiles and warm voice tone bring joy.
Babies respond with joy to being fed good things. This joy at being fed is
designed to bond the baby and the feeder together. We will see later that when
anything goes amiss we will become bonded to the food instead of the feeder
and food becomes a joy substitute, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
By delighting
in relationships we create belonging around ourselves.
"Creating
belonging" means that we continually create a joyful place for others to
belong with us. When we create belonging, our joy extends an invitation for others
to grow joy together with us. Joyful belonging grows relationships, seeks
others and builds when others smile back. Creating belonging is the best
indicator of maturity at any age. When we create belonging around us, we are
growing a network of joyful relationships. Our "herd" (group) is
connected and empowered by joy and seeks to invite others to share joy with us.
There are basically 3 different kinds of people: Predators, protectors, and possums that
may be a part of our hurd.
Protector: A protector is one who helps others to
maintain their relational identities under pressure. (Not to be confused with a benevolent predator who attacks enemies
but not in his or her own group.)
Protectors have
strong joyful identities
that welcome others with joy and have tender hearts toward weakness. Protectors
do not exploit weaknesses but instead help vulnerable herd members grow in joy.
Protectors do not enable dysfunctional behavior but quickly protect the weak.
When our herd has high-joy, the members tend to develop strong protector
skills.
Predator: Someone who monitors weaknesses looking
for a way to gain a personal advantage. All people have a predatory system
inside their brain which develops with little to
no training. Without training in relational skills and formation of secure
bonds, everyone turns out predatory. Predator personality traits
propagate easily and with little to no training.
Predators are the primary fear-based
identities in the herd. Predators discover the weaknesses and
vulnerabilities of others and exploit them. Predators use weaknesses to obtain
or retain dominance in the food chain. Predators fiercely guard their positions
and will hurt others in the herd if threatened. Predators also do their best to
hide their weaknesses and appear strong to assure their positions. Predators
are the most common product of low-joy herds.
Possum: Someone who thinks like a predator but
does not want to act like a predator and lacks the skills to be a gentle
protector. Avoiding attack becomes a possums’ central preoccupation,
motivation, and even identity.
Possums are the second fear and
anxiety-based identity found in low-joy herds. Possums do not occupy
positions of dominance in the herd, and their identity is based primarily on avoiding
being exploited by predators. Possums have usually been hurt in
relationships and will do most anything to avoid being hurt again. Possums
hide, avoid, minimize, withdraw and conceal their weaknesses as much as
possible. Unfortunately for possums, their low-joy environment creates
weaknesses and vulnerabilities that are impossible to conceal. Predators on
the prowl are likely to spot and exploit these vulnerabilities, leaving possums
feeling ashamed, used and even more fearful.
In high-joy environments, protectors
welcome others to their herd with joyful belonging. When protectors are rare
it is a sign that our herd has low joy levels. When predators are plentiful
and the possums are hiding, we can be sure that joy is low and headed lower.
Understanding joy, grace and shalom
It is important to notice that joy, grace
and shalom are all members of one family. Joy is not the same thing as her
sister Grace or her sister Shalom. Because the members of this family are so
closely related, it is easy to be confused about who they are. Understanding
this little biblical family helps us make sense of Bible teaching about joy,
grace and shalom (peace).
In the Greek language of the New Testament,
Joy and Grace are two forms of the same word. Grace is the third declension
form and Joy is the first declension form. Joy is
the response to Grace. Since most of us have not heard the word
Grace except in the definition "unmerited favor," we can miss the
connection. The best translation of Grace into English these days is not the
old word "favor" but the word "special." Grace is therefore
being really, really special to someone. "Unmerited" means
"without having to work for it" so we are very, very special to someone
without having to work for it. This is exactly what a baby receives from a
loving family, total delight that the baby is very special just the way she or
he is. No work by baby is required for smiles, coos, giggles, feeding and Joy.
Joy is the response to being the really special one. These two go together,
being very special without earning it and total Joy. God cares deeply about
Joy. Joy is our response to God's Grace.
In the Psalms we find that God expects our
response to God's Grace to be high-energy Joy!
While Joy is high energy, Joy's sister
Shalom is quiet and low energy. We
are all rather weak and cannot sustain a
high-energy state for long.
God has so wired the brain that every experience of Joy calls for a time of
rest to follow. It is an endless cycle: high-energy Joy followed by low-energy
Shalom. One cannot live without the other. Remember how it feels to have wound
up children in the room? We soon want a bit of quiet and rest. Shalom is that
powerful rest that comes when we know everything is right. There is nothing to
worry about. We are in the arms of one who loves us and he or she is in our
arms. God offers Shalom as a reward for faithfulness almost every time Joy is
mentioned. We find Shalom and Joy together in scripture as often as they are
in the brain. We need to know that while they are always together, they are
not the same. Huge errors in reading the scriptures come from mistaking one for
the other.
How does weakness become essential to my
joyful identity?
The best way to build my joyful identity
comes by developing a tender heart toward weakness. This tender and joyful
response comes from seeing
weakness as an opportunity to care.
Ed says, One of the greatest gifts I received
from my parents was seeing their compassion. I watched my Mom care for her aunt
who was paralyzed and mentally impaired from a stroke. Mom was the only family
member who visited her weekly, brought her presents and cared for her. Mom
happily included me in these visits. My grandmother came to live with us while
convalescing so my mom could help her. I remember the pain and compassion in my
Dad's voice at dinner when he talked about the poor in Haiti. Having come to
the US from Haiti in the 1940's, Dad knew how hard life could he. My dad could
also fix just about anything. I remember him going out in the evening to help
our neighbors or the parish priests by fixing a broken washing machine or
television. Mom also volunteered at church and the rectory. I saw compassion in
action as my parents took practical responsibility to help others. I learned to
see people, lives and culture through eyes of compassion. I learned that I had
a personal responsibility and the power to make a difference.
Tenderness
is not just an attitude toward weakness in others but a response to our own
weakness as well. Why should we have a tender response toward weakness? Think
about what we will find next to weakness. Future generations always arise out
of young, weak and vulnerable babies. Babies are weak but consider the joy
they bring! Heavy loads of fruit weaken branches so they need support. Every
area of growth first appears in weakness and vulnerability! Beauty is delicate
and fragile. When we pick parts of plants for our vases we choose flowers, some
of the weakest parts, thinking they are delicate and beautiful. Healthy
cultures treasure wonderful, old people.
Pat is approaching 80 years old and
accomplishes more than men half his age. His tenderness towards weakness ~as an
incredible blessing after Ed's major back surgery. Noticing"that Ed was
not around, Pat asked Maritza, "Is there anything practical I can do to
help you?" Maritza realized that she and Ed were running low on firewood.
Pat smiled and immediately said, "I have some firewood. What size do you
need it?" Maritza told him and he said he would deliver it soon.
A few days later, Pat arrived, wearing a
huge smile, and asked where to put the wood. To make things easier for Pat,
Maritza and Ed just told him to drop the load in the driveway and they would
stack it. Instead, Pat said that he would stack the entire load by himself, and
pretty soon, there was a stack of firewood ready for the stove. Pat's joy,
smile and tender heart ' towards Ed's weakness were joyful blessings.
Joy levels build around people who respond
warmly to weakness. Anticipating a comforting response to our weakness lets us
find help quickly. Problems do not get out of hand when weak people feel safe
to seek help.
This anticipation of joy creates
adaptability. Since shame is the opposite of joy, when we fear being
shamed for our weakness we hide our problems.
Being vulnerable with shame helped Debbie
stop a predatory pattern in her family. In her pastoral counseling with Ed,
Debbie confided that her husband physically abused her. His physical and verbal
abuse often occurred in front of their children. She felt fearful, overwhelmed
and very ashamed. Ed and Debbie discussed different options available to her,
but because her husband was not abusing the children, she chose the possum
response of doing nothing.
One day Debbie came to Ed with tears in her
eyes when, for the first time, her teenage son hit and pushed her, just like
his father did. Her face was downcast, full of shame and sorrow. Debbie's worst
nightmare had come true. She had tried to protect her children from the effects
of the abuse, but the predatory pattern had now passed on to her son. Now, she
did not know what to do.
As Ed felt her distress, he shared her
sorrow and shame. Ed told Debbie how glad he was that she had shown her
weakness. Slowly, Debbie was able to start asking Ed about her options, and as
they brainstormed together, she became determined to take action. The next time
Ed saw her, Debbie was smiling. She had followed up with a local domestic violence
program. After her work at the women's program, Debbie told both her husband
and son that she would never again tolerate abuse in any form. She would call
the police, pursue legal action and leave. She also invited them to join her in
recovery. Debbie pursued her own recovery and never again reported a single
incident of abuse. By risking shame and exposing her weakness, Debbie received
a tender response, and with the help of many strong people, she was able to
stop her predators. Change happens quickly where the weak and strong are
together. The response to a weakness will determine if that change is for the
better
or for the worse.
Care for weakness propagates protector
identities. As joy levels drop,
a culture turns toward decay and begins
producing predators instead of protectors. In the absence of the transmission
of joyful protector skills, everyone comes out a predator or a possum.
If weakness is bad we will hide our
weaknesses and punish those who
show their weakness. Worse yet, we hide
from God. The weak and the strong become enemies. The strong exploit the weak
to keep them weak, and the weak try to make the strong weaker when they can.
Revenge becomes popular. Much violence is fueled
by revenge.
Responses to weakness separate our the
predators from the protectors. Both predators and protectors watch for
weakness. For predators it is time to pounce, for protectors it is time to
rest. For predators, weakness others is time to "get something," and
for protectors it is time to “grow joy”. As predator patterns begin to define our
identities, corporate culture and national norms, we are socialized to despise
weakness. Joy drops around the strong. Taking advantage of weaknesses
will make the strong fear and despised, as well as admired and glorified. The
new "hope" becomes looking sexy so predators will propagate with us
or help us become the top predator. The thrill of the hunt replaces joy.
What protectors do with weakness to build
joy
Protectors respond to weakness and create
joy in at least three ways.
First, protectors amplify every little bit
of joy they find instead of amplifying the problems and upsets. In this way,
low-joy starts to become high-joy.
Second, protectors notice when people are
tired and let them rest. Weakness shows up as fatigue, overwhelm and getting
tired. Protectors encourage the weak to go a bit farther and then let them rest
until joy returns. This cycle of effort and rest builds trust and peace. We
call this ability "shalom." Shalom respects the weakness in others
and matches the work to what they can do.
The third way protectors respond to weakness
is by sharing the distress caused by weakness, even when the protector induced
the distress. The result is a bond that pain cannot break, and the relationship
stays stronger than the problem. We call this ability "returning to
joy" after something has gone wrong. Even when weakness results in failure
or pain, it will not keep the weak and the strong apart.
The really good news is that no matter
where we start, we can acquire
new joyful skills and bonds, as well as
strengthen joy bonds that we already have. We can expand our capacity for joy
and spread our joy to others. Now we take a look at the kinds of bonds and
relationships that can help
us grow joy safely.
Growing joy with God: One of the places some of us start growing
joy is
in our relationship with Jesus, who loves
to share His joy, shalom, delight and life with us. Jesus has excellent joyful
and gentle protector skills, and He is always glad to be with us. Because Jesus
was fully human when He walked in low-joy Galilee 2,000 years ago, He
completely understands the kinds of struggles each one of us has with joy. He
knows what it feels like to be alone, deserted and rejected. He fully
understands our failures and weaknesses and is ready to interact with us.
God actually thinks our relationship with
Him is bigger and more important than our shortcomings, rebellion and
deformities. He places a
higher value on relationship, and restoring relationship with us, than He does
on the problems we have. God knows that relationship with Him is the basis for
overcoming our sins, transgressions and iniquities.
Jesus asks us to enter into relationship
with Him by admitting our failures and malfunctions to Him. This way, we agree
with Jesus that we have fallen short of His design for our lives. Sin means
that we are not fully reaching God's design and purpose. In other words, sin is
a malfunction. Jesus promises that if we agree with Him about our malfunctions,
He will restore us as we bond together in joy. He is faithful and just to forgive,
cleanse and restore our joyful connection with Him. The cross makes all of this
possible. Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves, and moved the
problem of our malfunctions out of the way so that we could know His love, joy
and delight! This is great news, because it means we can grow joy in our
relationship with God.
Two-way joy bonds: People who are married or have a strong
bond with
a family member or a close friend are
uniquely positioned to begin growing joy. Two-way bonds are the relationships
where we can look deeply into someone's eyes, know what they are thinking and
feel, "you are mine and I am yours." Two-way bond relationships are
so exclusive they are fertile ground for powerful joy bonds.
Unfortunately, the powerful nature of
two-way bonds also makes them very susceptible to exploitation of
predators.
Self-justification is the single most
destructive threat to joy.
Strong self-justification is the largest
threat to a joyful, multigenerational environment. To understand this threat
we need to know the relationship between joy and anti-joy in the brain. As our
brains are wired, we respond with joy amplification to anyone who is glad to be
with us. When someone is not glad to be with us, we feel the anti-joy emotion
of shame. Healthy shame is how we learn from our mistakes that produce
low-joy around us. As strange as it seems, little doses of healthy shame
help us protect the joy in everyone around us and keep a high-joy environment.
For example, in Shelia's classroom, she often has to correct students. One' day
as she was teaching, and her students were taking notes, she observed Henry,
who had his head buried in a book. She gently and privately asked Henry if he
were keeping up with the note taking, since the information was critical to his
understanding of Julius Caesar. Henry responded with a flushed face and a quick
apology. He then closed the novel he was reading and began writing. Henry's
sense of shame was not one where he suffered humiliation, but it was a kind reminder
to return to the task at hand.
Some people who do not have the gentle
protector skill of learning from healthy shame will reject all shame messages.
In order to reject all shame messages, it is necessary to justify oneself and
make everything someone else's fault. "You had it coming. No, you are the
one who is insensitive. You are supposed to be a teacher. You should know
better. You always want to be right. I would not react this way if you didn't
... " On and on the self-justification goes. The Bible calls this problem
being "stiff-necked" because when people accept healthy shame they
hang their heads and those who justify themselves "stiff-neck" the
situation. The current term is narcissism. One cannot tell narcissists that
they have a problem or the narcissist will react like a predator and bite.
Instead of showing shame, narcissists justify themselves. This self-justification
destroys joy. In order to avoid the healthy shame message, a narcissist
must pounce on a weakness in the other person. What follows is not a tender
response to weakness, but the narcissist will justify the pouncing in many
ways. By self-justification, the narcissist avoids learning an important lesson
about how to grow joy around him or herself.
Self-justification is a form of trying to
be strong and "have nothing wrong with me." Like all
pseudo-strengths, refusing healthy shame kills joy, stops growth and destroys
communities. Destruction will happen whether the self-justified, stiff-necked
person is one of the weak or strong members of the community. We will look at
examples of narcissistic leaders, but narcissistic followers destroy
communities just as effectively. To stay in the t-Zone, the whole community
needs to show a tender response to the weakness in others and learn from
healthy shame messages about the things that do not bring joy.
Narcissists prey upon the weaknesses and
vulnerabilities of others while concealing their own weaknesses. The late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a predatory
narcissist who raped girls and boys using them as sex slaves. He seemed to
prefer school girls and told his victims he was now their father, brother and
lover effectively trying to destroy their multigenerational bonds. We have no
shortage of narcissists who take the helm of governments, schools, churches,
businesses and families, though most go unnoticed.
In many cases, the narcissistic leader is
rewarded while the weak bear the brunt of the cruelty. If predators do not
freely receive power, they use manipulation, charisma, promises, even force to
grab what they want.
BEEPS: In ministry settings, workaholic is often seen as an
asset rather than a serious joy deficit. Alcohol, sex, especially internet
pornography, and food are BEEPS that can be concealed.
The systems we create as predators are
deeply rooted in the abuse of power. We kill joy by compromising the
entire mission of our family, church, school or community. Joyful relationships
and forgiveness are overshadowed by our raw use of selfish power and ambition.
As powerful narcissists and predators, we justify ourselves as we pursue our
own agenda while using others to achieve our goals. We use the mission to
ignore relationships. We decorate our mission with the language of the Bible,
educational goals, test scores and core values concealing how relationships
have become secondary, leaving others strangely miserable and confused.
Our BEEPS, abuse of power and exploitation
will be exposed when stress levels are high enough. Exposure brings disrepute
to the mission of the entire group. Marriage failures, addictions, improper
sexual relationships, lawsuits, inability to resolve relational conflicts and
other scandals damage the mission we have cherished. People deemed "guilty
by association" are discredited even though they were not part of the
predatory system. There is no need to describe the many high-profile
leaders, parents, pastors, teachers and mission organizations that have failed
under self-justified leaders. As predators we kill joy.
What possums do with weakness that kills
joy
On the surface, it would seem that the
greatest possum needs would be healing, restoration and protection. As possums,
we have a knee-jerk reaction to weakness. Despite a true need for healing,
these knee-jerk reactions undermine the possibility of “I’m glad to be with you" relationships.
Possums want control: As possums, although we play dead we still
want power and control. While we lack overt power, we use whatever control we
can find to avoid being eaten and to recover from attacks. Our control is
disguised but pain-driven.
As possums we become highly toxic through
our pain-driven attempts at control. Our brains are natural amplifiers of
emotions, and when they are not loaded with joy, they amplify distress. We vent
our pain, frustration and betrayal to others. When we gain control, we use it
on children or other vulnerable people. Sadly, as possum parents our children
often bear the brunt of our control, frustration and anger. As possum teachers,
who have worked for years in fear-based and performance-driven school systems,
we may find that the only place to wield power and control is over the children
in our classroom. Whenever we use manipulation and guilt to playoff the
sympathies of others, we become toxic. Problems become much larger than
relationships.
Our possum demands for attention, healing
and relationship overwhelm others who might otherwise be glad to be with us.
This emotional intensity and neediness makes it unlikely that we will find the
joyful, healing connections we crave. And, because we do not realize we are
overwhelming others, our emotional neediness, clingy dependency and relational
desperation is more than other people can handle. Our intensity kills joy.
Problems become more toxic when we combine
our possum-weakness with a "victim mentality." With a victim mentality we see ourselves
as permanent casualties in life with little power to do anything but suffer. As
possums with this view of the world we see ourselves as permanent and perpetual
victims. We lose our joy-starting potential.
Possums often use rejection to kill joy: Having our weakness used against us reveals
the power of rejection. By junior high school, most children learn how to gain
power over others. Once we begin to fear rejection, we are likely to use
rejection to gain power. We use rejection to protect ourselves and gain
distance from threatening people. We are prone to reject the people who could
cause us attachment pain which are the very people we like. We kill joy when we
create rejection instead of belonging around ourselves.
Possums confuse playing dead with joy: As possums we lower joy by mistaking the
lack of pain with joy and shalom. Perhaps' dad or mom was in a good mood and
did not beat me today. Maybe the people at school just ignored me and did not
do anything to tease or humiliate me. However, escaping attack is not the same
as the joy we feel when someone is glad to be with us.
Possums can have BEEPS: Possum life can be quite painful. As pain
increases, so do our chances of developing strong attachments to BEEPS. Because
we tend to have weaker coping skills than predators, our use of BEEPS is
noticed quickly by predators. Our BEEPS will be used against us. These
predatory responses and our use of BEEPS kill joy.
Every culture dislikes weakness, so do the
weak
As soon as pointing out weakness helps us
gain the upper hand, it seems almost everyone is willing to participate. Here
is a way to win, to motivate, to get revenge, to distract and escape, or to
"level the playing field.”
Religious beliefs suppress certain skills and parenting fads
often shift whole groups of children. When everyone around us has the same
cards missing, we never guess our identity could be otherwise. When we are the
only ones who seem to be missing skills we entertain deep doubts about our
value.
The identity transfer process shapes the
brain's relational circuits and functions responsible for developing our
identity. Any errors or missing components of identity will disrupt the
function of our brain's relational circuits so we no longer understand our
identities and relationships the way God intended. The restoration of the
function of our relational circuits is accomplished by learning to perceive
God and interact with others.
God's joyful presence restores our
identities
Many of our abilities are never developed
because no one activated them. One of the brain benefits of our spiritual and
religious life is to activate parts of our identity that would otherwise get
lost. All major religions do this in differing ways. All major religions
promote belonging. Confucian philosophy heavily stresses multigenerational
community, respect, loyalty and care for the values of the past. Buddhists
practice quieting skills. Islam and Judaism activate and restore group skills.
As the world's largest religion,
Christianity has the greatest potential to restore joyful identity together
with a history of not doing so. The sheer number of Christians is a force that
should not be wasted. Combine the numbers with Jesus' statement that high-joy
is the reason for His teaching, and we find over two billion people with a
mandate to be joy starters. Joyful, sustainable recovery suits the Christian
mission.
Jesus expected people to bond with Him in
high-joy ways and spread the joy of a joyful God. Joy was the reward.
Christians were to lavish joy on all around them especially their low-joy
enemies.
What happened to our joyful identity?
Many Christians and their children have
noticed that the things of God do not move them, leave them flat and even lower
their joy. For about the last 400 years the church has tried to restore
Christian character through education, right beliefs and right choices. This
would be similar to trying to restore my children to speaking Norwegian by setting
standards for speaking Norwegian and explaining these rules carefully to my
family. You should speak without an accent. You should use proper vocabulary.
You should have correct grammar. You should answer quickly when addressed by
others. You should explain yourself clearly and truthfully at all times. I
think we all can understand those rules. However, does that make us a Norwegian
speaking family?
In the same way, Christians have worked for
hundreds of years to perfect exactly what we should believe and the standards
we should meet with our lives only to find that few other Christians agreed
with them, and no one could actually live up to the standards. Christians have
applied several explanations to this failure: 1) more faith
is required than what we have, 2) God makes
the change through a filling of the Spirit we still lack, 3) we must discipline
ourselves in greater obedience to God, 4) we are hopelessly sinful and fallen
and only God's mercy will save us in the end, so we can only repent as
regularly as possible and 5) Bible standards are nice ideals with little
practical application other than to direct our dreams and hopes. We have
painted pictures of Good Samaritans helping the poor and tried to improve our
attitudes about the people begging money on freeway on-ramps. While we know we
should love our enemies, we look at them with fear and are relieved when they
go away or get defeated. Because of the lack of real character change, many
simply leave the church. Many who stayed in the church struggle with low joy
while others are phony or unpleasant.
By the time I was eighteen I was so sure
that Christianity was not working for me that I briefly threw it all out. I had
developed a nice Christian mask to hide behind, and it was actually the mask
that started me toward God because I was afraid to stop pretending. Soon the
pressure of trying to act Christian without believing it really began to
bother me so I decided to do something I had never done. Instead of acting like
everyone around me, I would read the New Testament and only do what it said
there. If there was a God it should work and if not I would escape when I
could. As I read through the New Testament three things showed up over and
over. First, interact with God about everything. Second, do nothing from fear.
Third, love people deeply. I had said many prayers but never interacted with
God that I could remember. I did everything from fear. What I feared most was
loving people.
This was not going to go smoothly as my
actual life was nothing like what I was reading, but it all hinged on whether I
could interact with God about everything. In my mind the question was whether
God would interact with me at all. I began by talking out loud toward the
ceiling like I would with a person and then stopping to listen and notice what
came to my mind. I was both surprised and skeptical as things popped into my mind. I noticed that certain thoughts did not
make sense at first but then became profound and created shalom as things fit
together in ways I had never thought before. Indeed these changes made me less
fearful and more willing to love people deeply.
It was right at this time that I met Kitty
and we did not like each other at first. Let me say, she really did not like my
mask and I often still carried it around. I likewise did not like her mask.
Since I was getting dose to people to test what I was reading about loving
people, I also talked with God about my experiences with the woman. It was also
the 60s and love meant "if you love me you will sleep with me." One day
the thought came to me that this "test of love" was more a case of
fear as many of the women were sleeping with boyfriends because they were
afraid of losing them otherwise. As Kitty and I became more serious, I told her
that if I ever tried to sleep with her before marriage it would be the proof
she needed that I loved my desires more than her. My interactions with God were
producing signs of a gentle protector in me. Although I was very Iowan human
examples, when I would interact with God and get God's thoughts about people,
my responses to others began to change. God was building something into me that
would become stronger every time I practiced with others. I was becoming a
person I had never seen, but the closer I got to people, the more painfully obvious
it became that many relational skills were missing.
I took the class at the university. It was
hard but I passed. What helped me succeed was watching and learning from
the example of stronger students I happened to meet. These students could manage
their shame states, although I did not understand at the time what they knew
that I did not. Their joyful examples gave me strength in my areas of weakness.
I found adults to care, listen and attune with me about my struggles. Tender
responses helped me feel seen and validated so I no longer felt alone. People
told me stories about times they felt shame and showed me how they could rest
in the middle of their upset, even finding joy. I learned to quiet my big
feelings. Over time I acquired both of my missing gentle protector skills,
which gave my brain the training required for successful recovery. I even
discovered Immanuel was with me during painful shame moments growing up. To
this day it still surprises me that I have absolutely no problems speaking in
front of people and groups. Shame is merely a bump in the road compared to the
endless pothole it used to be, which caused me to relationally "bottom
out." I feel shalom instead of panic when I encounter shame and recover
much faster than ever before. Now I actively train my two sons how to feel
shame and recover to joy so they do not have to experience the years of anguish
that I endured. Having two boys under the age of three gives me a lot of
opportunities to practice the skills so they learn each one. I find it ironic
that my only challenge with public speaking these days involves keeping my
talks within the time frame allotted, as my tendency is to run over!
How joyful brain skills shape my relational
identity
Joy is a mutual-mind state. A mutual state
is created, developed and sustained by two minds being securely connected to
each other in spite of the emotions at play. In a mutual mind state we feel so
deeply understood that our mind allows the other mind to tell us who we really
are, resulting in a settled sense of security. Creating a joyful identity
requires ongoing practice.
Joy is our natural state; it creates our identity; it is the basis
for bonding and joy is what gives us our strength. Joy strength develops
through an actual brain structure that is formed and grown in loving
relationships. Joyful bonds create our ability to act like our true selves when
we must face pain. The strength of our brain's joy structures sets the limits
on how much we can stand before we start into a trauma breakdown. But it is not
simply a matter of strength, our endurance is also a matter of skill. If
someone
Now let us see if we can tie together a
whole series of things we have learned. First, we are all born weak and
unskilled into families that have some skills but not others. Every time there
has been some kind of trauma to our ancestors, there is a corresponding
likelihood that gentle protector skills were lost. Each time skills were lost,
we were left with more of our predator brain structure exposed. Because it
requires less skill and training, the predatory brain will propagate every time
protector skills are lost. As predators increase, our cultures fail to respond
tenderly to weakness and joy levels drop.
What protectors do with weakness to
propagate joy skills
Protectors generally approach others by
showing them a weakness first.
They do it so smoothly that most people
never notice simply because protectors are so fearless and unconcerned about
their weakness. At the same time, protectors keep the attention on the other
person. For example, when Jesus approached the Samaritan woman at the well, as
a powerful man who could change her life, the woman met a hungry and thirsty
traveler who needed the water the woman could provide. We have all watched
powerful leaders sit down to listen saying, "1 need help understanding
something. I wonder if you could explain ... " and they present their need
to understand, exposing that they do not know everything they need to know. The
weaker member has something of value to contribute.
Protectors also invite others to give shame
messages about why they
might not be so glad to be together. "Tell me what you don't like about
me, this situation or what I control," opens the door once trust has been
started. Some predators also use this strategy to eliminate discontent so there
is often fear in telling a strong person what we do not like. This is why the
transparency of the protector is crucial to any progress. Gentle protectors are
known for their transparency. Protectors present themselves in vulnerable ways
that expose weaknesses they could just as easily kept hidden.
Protectors speak about the importance of
the relationship and group
identity more than they speak about problems. Let's say Camp Crabtree has a
problem with the cooks. A protector will start with something like, "We
are the cooks who determine how appreciative these campers will feel when they
think back on Camp Crabtree," and after telling them the problem say,
"we are the kind of people who care about these things." We have
called this a relational sandwich. At the center of protection is remembering
that we protect relationships from problems that steal our joy and shalom.
The returning to joy skill involves six
different emotions
We may recall that the brain is wired for
six unpleasant emotions that we will amplify or avoid if we do not know how to
ride them back to joy.
These emotions are sad, afraid, angry, ashamed, disgusted and hopeless.
The skill of "returning
to joy" must be practiced with each of the six emotions individually.
Without learning to return to joy, everyone is dangerous when they are upset.
Some will pounce and some will withdraw but both cause damage. The best we can
do without this skill is warn the people we love. “Don’t make me upset!” and
“Don’t go there!” A gentle protector knows how to return to joy and will
tenderly help others if one or both of them have any of the six emotions. If we
use sadness as an example, when a gentle protector sees someone who is sad, he
or she will want to come close, understand, validate and comfort the sad
person. The protector will feel an active pull inside to draw close even if the
protector is also sad.
Anger is a more difficult member of the six emotions.
Still, a gentle protector who knows how to ride anger back to joy will see
someone who is angry and want to come close,
understand, validate and comfort the angry person. This would be
true even if the protector was angry. If we do not know how to return to joy
from anger, this example will not make any sense. Inside we will feel that we
should get away from angry people or keep others away when we are angry because
anger leads to hurt not joy. For the untrained brain this fear is valid.
Without training, anger will lead us to propagate predator and possum patterns
rather than joy. It is not uncommon for people to find their mind refuses to
believe that anger can be anything but dangerous.
Someone who has learned the return to joy
skills will be able to maintain a keen interest in seeing the other person the
way God sees him or her, reaching shalom and experiencing God's presence during
the anger. The protector will feel like a resource and value the relationship
while actively engaging with the angry person. However, if the angry person
does not recover relational circuit operation, protectors will also take action
to prevent and reduce harm to everyone if possible. This is like dealing with
an out of control driver. Being careful does not mean we must be afraid of
cars, only that there are times to get out of harm's way and times to become
safer drivers.
Among the six unpleasant emotions is one
called shame. Shame is anti-joy. Shame is what we feel when people are
not glad to be with us. Shame is pain warning us when we do not act like
ourselves. We do not have joy when someone fails to be their real self. Let us
say someone starts to speak to us in a nasty way. We are disgusted and they
feel shame which teaches them that their true self was not speaking. We can
have joy helping them find their true self again because, with Immanuel's help,
we can still see who they really are.
Toxic shame is a failure to see someone’s true
self. We tell them lies about who they really are, "You are a total
liar." We mistake their malfunction for their identity. Toxic shame also
develops when we give appropriate shame but prevent return to joy for longer
than a minute. We quickly become weak without joy, and to keep someone from
returning to joy for more than one minute, is not a gentle and tender response
to their weakness. Many people withhold joy and relationship to create attachment
pain so they can get their way and stay in control. This is a predatory
response and not tenderness to the weaknesses of others.
As we have learned, people who refuse to
receive shame are called narcissists, or in the language of scripture,
"stiff-necked" because they refuse to show shame. Most narcissists
use their anger and contempt for weakness to control the people around them.
Narcissists want to be treated as though they always bring joy even though they
do not. Any group that cannot return to joy from shame will eventually be
destroyed by a narcissist.
Many cultures have developed from low-joy
roots where shame was something to avoid rather than a road back to joy. In
these cultures few people have the skill of returning to joy from shame. Just
for fun, let us say we came from a shame-avoidance culture. No one we know
would even guess there is a skill we can use to return to joy from shame. Our
whole culture works very hard to avoid shame. We often use the fear of shame to
control behavior in others as well as ourselves. Avoiding shame now powers
much of life and shapes our values. It will be a delicate job raising joy
levels and still protecting the values in our culture.
What do we mistake for return to joy
People who disconnect emotionally look as
though they are handling things relatively well so it is easy to mistake
disengaging for return to joy. An absence of distress on the outside does not
mean someone knows how to return to joy from their upsetting emotions. People
with dismissive attachment patterns think everything is fine as they isolate
in the cloud and various hobbies. "Settle down! Quit overreacting!"
they will say to make the distress someone else's problem. Once distress is
past or bearable again, they come up for air and interact. When dismissive
individuals interact with protectors who have return to joy skills, there is a
delightful discovery that emotions will not smother or swallow them. They no
longer need to avoid or minimize distress, rather, they learn to share emotions
and return to joy.
Taking care of other people and smiling is
also not the same as returning to joy from distress. Trying to appear happy is
not the same as returning to joy. Pressing other people to help us feel better
is not returning to joy. Protectors who use the gentle protector skills can
disarm the fear that drives a false self Protectors help those who are
accustomed to using other people to help them feel better return to joy, rather
than appear happy ..
Fear of rocking the boat to make sure no
one gets mad IS not returning to joy. Individuals who are afraid will placate,
people-please and work diligently to ensure the relational boat does not tip
over lest someone falls into the waters of distress. Fearing upset leads to
stuffing emotions and hiding what we really feel. On the outside this looks
like strength and stability. Joyful people who quickly return to joy from
distress do not fear distress or upset because it does not last. Interaction
and training from a protector who has the return to joy skills brings strength
and trust. The protector is consistency, emotional availability and non-anxious
presence creates the sturdy bond to grow new skills.
Returning to joy
Since joy means being glad to be together
then returning to joy is what we need when something goes wrong at home, school
and in church. Once someone is upset with us we need to know how to restore the
relationship back to joy so we can solve the problem together.
Returning to joy at church
There is one last chance to return to joy
if our family and school did not teach us and that is at church. Jesus said,
"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you,
and that your joy may be full" John 15:11NKJV. Surely if
there is any place in the world that builds JOY and knows the ways back to joy
it will be the church and its people. Joy starts here with Jesus, His mission
and all His followers. In fact, we would be right to guess that the main point
of this book is to remind the 2.2 billion Christians in the world that joy
starts with us. Christians are the largest religious group and almost one
third of the world's population. If all Christians were joy starters, we would
only have to reach two people each to have the whole world full of joy. Joy is the birthright of the followers of Jesus and the
deepest desire of the human brain.
Joy should catch fire if we could learn to
1) build joy, 2) return to joy when something goes wrong and 3) see others the
way that God sees them. These are just three of the nineteen brain skills we
develop through the Life Model[3].
Interactive presence of God: Interactive moments and memories with God
involve those times when we are aware of both God and ourselves. Contrast this
with many religious experiences where people are aware of what they consider
God and are not aware of themselves. Interactive moments with God involve
unexpected thoughts, pictures, ideas, words and awareness that change us.
During interactive moments, we are not trying to imagine what God would say,
do or be like. When carried to completion, genuine interaction results in a
relational sense of understanding, shalom and love from God. A moment of
interactive presence is not to be confused with knowing God is there, believing
in God, loving God, study of scripture or prayer, although these may be part of
the moment.
[2] The LIFE Model is, as its name implies, a model for life,
from conception to death. It is an idealized model, that is to say, it proposes
what life should be like, as supposed to merely describing what life on earth
generally produces. In short, the LIFE model proposes that in order to
thrive people need five things: 1. A place to belong. 2. To both receive
and give life. 3. The capacity to recover from malfunctions. 4. Maturation. 5.
To stay true to their identities.
[3] Immanuel approach: This term (also called
the Immanuel process) was created by Charlotte and Karl Lehman, M.D. to
describe a counseling prayer method designed to resolve many forms of emotional
distress linked to incompletely processed experiences. Key to the Immanuel
process are the beliefs that 1) God is always with us, 2) God actively
interacts with people about their lives, 3) connecting with God should come
before focusing on an upsetting experience and 4) that full processing of an
experience requires both the upset and the relationship with God to be active
in the mind at the same time. More can be discovered in the many DVDs and
websites by the Lehmans, kclehman.com, immanuelapproach.com and
oursmartingyourself.org. The book Outsmarting Yourself by Dr. Lehman is an
excellent resource on the Immanuel process approach.
Immanuel experience: The expansion of the
Immanuel Approach outside of the therapeutic experience was carried on
spontaneously by a variety of people who first went through the Immanuel
approach in counseling. The Immanuel experience of being aware of God's
interactive presence proved to be helpful in building joy, keeping shalom
during the day, providing guidance, improving relationships as well as dealing
with upsets. While first described in retrospect by Dr. Karl Lehman, the
Immanuel experience was developed into a self-propagating format by Dr. Jim
Wilder who added a story telling conclusion to the experience. Telling the
Immanuel story improves our ability to incorporate the changes we experience
and propagate the Immanuel Lifestyle to others.