“Low contact is for when things are going badly, but you hope that with boundaries, perhaps a relationship is achievable. No contact is actually a loving response. It is for when you accept that the other person is unwilling or unable to change, and therefore, there is no hope for a healthy relationship because it will never happen. No contact IS biblical, but the Christian response is to come to this conclusion in prayer. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is an excellent help.” What does the Bible say about going no contact?
Scroller, beware: I’m not sure if Christopher West originated this quote or not, but I’ve heard him say on his podcast with his lovely wife Wendy that “The devil doesn’t have his own clay.” I try to use social media, especially Insta, to spread good news. Alas, IG also has a problem with pro-eating disorder accounts.
Catholic Mom’s Louisa Ann Irene Ikena has an inspiring piece for those of us who think that trauma has made our lives shorter and less worth living: 100: My Betty White Decision.
They say every day should be Mother’s Day, right? Well, good, because that means it’s never too late to post Christi Braschler’s Mother’s Day for a Work in Progress. Full disclosure: she mentions my book All Things New.
That said, there’s so much overlap between eating disorders and trauma survival that this article feels at home here, too: The Unacknowledged Trauma Epidemic and the long-term public health repercussions of sexual abuse.
The idea that so many people give up social media for Lent can lead to surprising adventures in ministry.
A letter from Erin to the small but mighty Heard Mentality Community:
Lent 2022 was a time of discovery. I started out with big plans and thought that they were plans directly from the heart of God because there were all sorts of “just in time” signs. The biggest was that I got an email about how people give up social media for Lent the Monday before Ash Wednesday—all right after I had decided to encourage people to give up isolation for Lent—all right after I’d been learning more and more about how to use Google Classroom. So I started Heard Mentality and tried to launch a community on Google Classroom.
I do think it was a direction from God, but it didn’t lead where I assumed it would.
As Lent progressed, I felt more “in the weeds” as we’d say when I was waiting tables: too many orders going through my head, too many plates piled on too many trays for me to reasonably carry, and here I was, trying to promote mental health while playing fast & loose with my own.
Again, it was all a direction from God but not the kind I’d expected.
I found myself without the time I needed to create the content to promote the community to grow the platform to serve the people. I thought that I had a job: create a broad, soft place for people to land once I reached them. Alas, I was getting nowhere fast, and the message I was trying to craft was itself falling by the wayside.
So this brand new Heard Mentality community got neglected.
I went seeking counsel from others in ministry. What should I do? How could I manage my time in creating this place for people to land and still keep my own serenity so that I’d be a useful messenger? The answer repeatedly was that I was just doing way too much. I had a metaphorical counter full of raw pies, their crusts wilting in the frenzied heat of all my activity.
And why would I keep making new pies instead of finishing one, just one, I’d already started?
Because when something is finished, it’s available for criticism.
I was hiding from my critics by not giving anyone anything about which to complain. Now, looking back on this with some self-compassion, I get it. As a developmental trauma survivor, I’ve had to deal with a serious affirmation deficit. Trying to avoid more criticisms against my best efforts? Completely understandable. That said, there aren’t many ways we can actually die from disappointment. As long as I’m surrounding myself with enough people who use the truth for the purpose of showering me with love (building each other up through both positive and difficult feedback) instead of for the purpose of making themselves feel a false-better by making me feel less-than, then I have the emotional support to face whatever disappointment may come my way, whether through content creation failures or just the relational failures that are part of being a fallen human.
It was during Passiontide 2022 that I received some very important messages that gave me the direction I believe I need to move forward and get back to creating things that aren’t just there for criticism but are also there to share God’s healing love with those looking for it:
Niche down
This is something heard often in the content creation world. Don’t make your message too broad. It’s easier to reach and cultivate a small audience who is looking for a specific message than it is to reach everyone with everything in a world as informationally noisy as ours. The smaller the message, the sharper the arrow to hit your target. Etcetera. I thought “I’m on a mission to heal trauma with truth” was a small enough message. Um, given how big the trauma in my own life has been, why would I think that’s a small message!?! I spun my wheels a lot, because I was going in too many directions. Yeah, I picked up a generous bucket of skills along the way (took an SEO class for a possible job for which I didn’t even get an interview, learned Google Classroom for a community that I didn’t have time to build, am picking up Adobe Premier for videos I haven’t been able to produce by my original self-imposed deadline…), but what was it all for if it was spent not getting the results I wanted on the schedule I wanted?
It wasn’t all for nothing.
In my creative pursuits as well as just relationships in general, I’ve been living through the story that says, if I made a mistake, it was a waste of time. However, one day during my social media benchmarking time, I came across a TikTok that I’ve since lost, in which the viewer is encouraged to imagine God whispering to her, “It wasn’t all for nothing.” It wasn’t? I didn’t get that job, but now I know SEO tactics to use to reach more people in my ministry. I learned Google Classroom, but I also learned its limitations so that I can make better informed decisions as to what platforms I want to use in the future for community-building. I still have a lot to learn in Premier, but those are not the last videos I plan to create.
Failure-based disappointment and freeze-based regret are equally painful. One is not less painful than the other.
That said, only the first one of those teaches new skills, especially the skill of resilience.
I’m afraid. Once I have that course out of beta mode, it could flop. All that time & energy & creativity wasted (my trauma will say). Whatever happens, it won’t be all for nothing. This, Heard Mentality, was not all for nothing. I thank you for your sense of adventure in answering this invitation at the start of Lent 2022. If you don’t already, please say in touch either on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Clubhouse, or even good old email.
All those affirmations we’re supposed to use to heal the emotional abuse that’s been poured into our hearts?
Yeah, they sound like 💩.
I am loved.
💩
I am worthy.
💩
I am beautiful.
💩
Why is the negative so much easier to believe than the positive? I don’t know about you, but somewhere along the way, I picked up the message that, “If it’s about me, it’s only true if it’s bad.”
Who taught me that? Who taught you that?
Who can unteach us? If we had the power to unteach ourselves, it would’ve happened by now.
I know Who can unteach us.
Genesis 1:27 tells us we are made in God’s image. So if God is good things, then we are at least an image of good things. Right?
Actually, right. So, not 💩.
We’re using this method of affirmation in Filled With Good (still in beta version as of this posting–get my newsletter so you can sign up once it’s ready for full launch).
How does it work? You fill in the blank and remind yourself of a time you lived out one of the qualities on the list.
I know as Catholics we generally want to be extremely cautious of spiritual practices that involve other gods, however obliquely or well-intentioned it may be. By sharing this article, I’m not promoting yoga, but I’m curious about it–if it’s providing clinically demonstrable healing, is there no way of baptizing it? Another one for the research nerds out there: a recent study on yoga as a therapeutic tool for emotional dysregulation in veterans.
Are you identifying with symptoms of narcissistic abuse but looking back on your life, thinking, “But none of my attachment figures were these big, grandiose show-offs!” Here are 3 ways to spot covert narcissists before they strike.
First up: Holy Week is near. If you still aren’t in the Lenten spirit or have already bombed at every penance you promised, I have opened up a private community on Facebook for people who want to spend their Lenten practice on creating intentional relationships where we can go for support when we are tempted to reach for those things not of God. Get heard at Heard Mentality.
This week’s AV is again all audio and zero visual: Deanna Bartalini did a podcast on GLAD journaling, a tool I’ve been using for a while to help me stay grounded in the good. Give it a listen and maybe give it a try!
First up: if you still aren’t in the Lenten spirit or have already bombed at every penance you promised, I have opened up a private community on Facebook for people who want to spend their Lenten practice on creating intentional relationships where we can go for support when we are tempted to reach for those things not of God. Get heard at Heard Mentality.
“What has made it hard for you to trust God with your whole heart? Can you return to a trusted place to begin healing that fractured trust?” Roxane Salonen has a beautiful peace on trust over at Catholic Mom: Returning to a Trustful Place.
First up: if you still aren’t in the Lenten spirit or have already bombed at every penance you promised, I have opened up a private community on Facebook for people who want to spend their Lenten practice on creating intentional relationships where we can go for support when we are tempted to reach for those things not of God. Get heard at Heard Mentality.
Hypervigilant? Numbed out? “Experiences of childhood maltreatment seem to be linked to an increased early vigilance to emotional social signals and to an attentional avoidance of hostile facial expressions at a later stage of perception. The present results suggest a vigilance-avoidance pattern of attention allocation associated with childhood maltreatment.” You might be interested in reading more from this study on experiences of maltreatment in childhood and attention to facial emotions in healthy young women.
What is Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or C-PTSD?
I think there might be a touch of codependency in this, but there is still a kindness in not rubbing our friends’ noses in our joys: When we unintentionally hurt our friends.
Erin McCole Cupp 