Ann Maree
Today, we really want to emphasize how to listen to this story prior to hearing some of the details. We’re doing a lot of prep work prior to that story release, which will be April 8. So I’ve asked our board member and resident licensed counselor and therapist, Julia Fillnow to help me, help you, the listener, be wise in how, or if you even listen to Carya and her experience. And so every, every story, for sure, but I think also every expert contributor I begin the episode with this lengthy and involved disclaimer, if you will, about the season. 

And we definitely recommend that only mature audiences tune in. This is not a series for young ears to hear. We also advise caution and discretion for those who have been abused are survivors, victims and might be triggered. The story has a potential to trigger because it includes childhood sexual abuse, rape and sex trafficking, but also satanic, cultish and ritualistic abuse. And so in line with what we’re doing today, we’re going to occasionally insert a break in some of the segments of the story so that you could come up for air and breathe one of the techniques we’ll be talking about, not a technique, it’s actually a life, life giving skill. But then at other times, we will offer the opportunity to skip over some of the subject matter. 

Again in all the intros, I also say to listen again to this podcast in particular, so that you can remind yourself of some of the ways in which you can be healthy in listening to our story this year. And that’s also because I’ve asked her to use the details that she thinks would be helpful, not just for us to hear, but for her to talk about. It is her story, and it is part of her healing process to be able to share it with us. 

We’ve been careful. We’ve used a lot of Julia’s wisdom on this as well, and not producing something that would be offensive— Not just offensive, it is going to be offensive in some ways. We’re not being sensationalistic with the story, or we’re trying not to, but that meant that the storyteller had some freedom with the details, and that’s where we’re trying to put some parameters for protection. Just a reminder, again, this is in the intro for every episode that it will be hard to listen to, and yet, living it was, is, as you can imagine, just even more difficult. And we bear witness, and we’ll talk about that some as we listen. One of our staff members, as she was listening, said that although it was difficult and it haunted her, she said she’d do anything for Carya, and I just thought that was such a welcome and honorable posture for a listener who herself, like I said, was haunted. 

So we do— you might wonder why then even tell this story, and we have several reasons. I’ll say some now and a few at the end, but one is to help our audience understand significantly how to know good from evil, but then also how to have compassion and exhibit empathy and then acquire the ability to minister to people like Carya and or people whose experience may not be as concentrated as hers was, but the patterns and similarities exist. 

So again, difficult as this might be to hear— I’m going to quote Therapy in a Nutshell that’ll be in our show notes, often. But listen to what she says about difficult subject matter. She said “there’s a false dialectic. It’s this idea that if the outside situation is stressful, I must feel stress.” And she wants to challenge this. “Can you do a stressful thing without being stressed? Let’s experiment with this. When we believe a situation is what causes our stress response, we create helplessness around our stress levels. There is another way to think about it. We can train our minds and our bodies to separate the situation from the response, learning to have a calm nervous system even in intense situations, is a skill that you can develop. It’s called relaxed vigilance.” So in discussing some of the ways we could help our audience, you have you wrote in our notes, Julia that listening and presence are spiritual practices, and when I hear those words, I don’t think hyper stress. I do think relaxed vigilance. So can you help us understand more about that?

Julia
Yeah, I think anybody can be a witness to observable facts and what we know to be true, and that’s just what we call a witness. But when we talk about bearing witness, bearing witness, it’s a term that implies a gospel approach and a deep spiritual approach to relationship. So to bear something literally means to support the weight of something to hold up or to hold in mind. So as we’re bearing witness to somebody’s stories, we’re entering in and we are affirming what they’re feeling. We’re validating what they’re feeling. We’re holding in mind their emotions and their stress. And it does take a lot of practice to be able to sit in that place without taking on their feelings, taking on their emotions, because actually, then we’re not going to be very helpful. That will just get unfolded and end their story. I think one of the things that I would want to impress upon people is that there’s something here for all of us, there’s a particular role, there’s a particular task, there’s a particular assignment. So it’s important for us to understand what our task and what our assignment is as we listen to other people’s stories, or as we listen to Carya’s stories. Is it to understand? Is it to gain more awareness of particular subject matter, is it to become better equipped to be a caregiver, to be an advocate, to be a counselor, to become a better shepherd in the church? And we all hold very different roles, so it’s also important for us to know what role do we hold in the hearing of another story.

Ann Maree
So if I’m a caregiver in the church, a lay counselor, a pastor, what am I listening for? What types of things am I listening for? I mean, in other kinds of abuses, I would say I’m you’re listening for patterns that might be the same here. It might be true in this case too, but what other thoughts come to mind about what a caregiver might be listening for in her story?

Julia
One of the first things that I think of is the impact for her personally, whether it is the impact on her mind, the impact on her body, the impact on her spirituality, the impact on her relationships and in her interactions with the church community. I’m wanting to know more about that. And if I’m a caregiver in the church, I’m listening for how I can rightfully enter into that space without forcing my way. I never want to come towards somebody like Carya, and say, just tell me all of it. It’s helpful to have some kind of boundaries and safe parameters around how you’re hearing a story. So for our podcast, we’re getting her narrative as she’s worked through her story with you over time. In the church, if we’re caregiving, if we’re shepherding, the story comes out in bits and pieces, and it’s real non linear, very circular, fragmented. So it’s also important to notice that too, that a story doesn’t come with particular like it’s not packaged very well. So I mean, you probably might notice too in your interactions with women in the church and your interactions as an advocate, it feels like a slow drip of the story over time. And so it’s important also to be aware that, as you’re a caregiver in the church, you lean into patience and perseverance and question asking curiosity. Curiosity will always lead you in the right direction, and it’s what I like to call like a magical word.

Ann Maree
Very much so and so if they’re listening to Carya’s story, maybe they’re taking notes about certain, I don’t know, implications of what happened that maybe Carya brought up to her, like taking notes of ways in which it impacted, Carya’s thinking, you know, when she talks about perhaps the dynamics of ritualistic abuse or even cultish abuse, you know, you’re tuning your ear. I guess is what it is, in my opinion. Oh yes, yeah. And perseverance being a good thing. And actually, just let me reiterate, this is really helpful. I didn’t even think of it. Of course, Julia did that. This is a very packaged story. It took us a year to write and record and fine tune, and you will not get that from somebody coming to you with this particular problem, or any of the problems that are similar, like Julia said, they’re they’re going to come with parts of it, perhaps not in order. And so it’s really key when you’re listening to Carya, now to take notes of some of the very descriptive ways that she talked about how things impacted her, or how they happened, so that you can identify those things too, and so that’s the caregiver.

Julia
Yeah, and we do have to earn the right to hear somebody’s story, and I never want to assume or presume that there’s trust there. So if somebody is sharing more about their past family situation with me, I am immediately thanking them for sharing with me as soon as possible, just so they know that I’m in it and I want to hear and again, trust is built over time, so how I interact with them one on one is either going to erode trust or build trust. Just because they’re coming to me, I should not presume that I have full trust.

Ann Maree
Yes, that does take time. Okay, so let’s now assume, because it does happen often, that there’s a victim or a survivor of a similar or same type of abuse. How do they take care of themselves? I’m going to ask it differently. How do they take care of themselves while they’re listening to this?

Julia
You need to be aware of what’s going on for you, and oftentimes that comes up in your body. Noticing where you feel stress, where you feel tension, where you feel maybe embarrassment or your own sense of shame, nervousness, those sorts of things. Our self awareness, the self awareness part of our brain is actually tied to other awareness. So the more we can be aware of what we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, the more we can start to be curious about what other people are feeling and what other people are thinking too. 

We’re so used to going throughout our days carrying stress and tension and the layering stress on stress, on stress, on stress, and at the end of the day, that’s usually when we feel it, because that’s when we stop. The more we can notice what’s going on in our bodies throughout the day, the more control we have over loosening that stress, and tension. So simple practices like muscle relaxation. I usually notice where I carry stress and tension when I’m driving, because usually I’m going from one task to another, so it’s just a natural transition time and driving brings out stress and tension.

Ann Maree
Really?! Not here! 

Julia
So I just have a practice of relaxing all of my muscle groups to the best of my ability while I’m driving or if I’m sitting at home. Another practice is just deep breathing. So as you’re listening to somebody’s story, and you see the person maybe carrying the burden of their story in their body, you can begin to notice also what’s happening in your body, and to begin to relax your muscles, and even invite them to do that too. If you’re seeing that their breathing becomes heavier or their voice changes. It sounds like their voice gets higher because the vocal cords are stressed intense like mine are now with asthma, and invite those breaks into the conversation so that you can pause and you can breathe and you can join them.

Ann Maree
Let’s shift gears now from the human listener to more on the bearing witness. You’ve said bearing witness is holy ground, and so how does that look when it’s God who’s bearing witness, or Christ when He walked on the earth, or even the Holy Spirit? Tell us more about that. 

Julia
Yeah, and I say that it’s holy ground because we are reflecting the image of God to the person we’re listening to or face to face with. And also in their story, they are reflecting the image of God right back to us. We both bear the signature of God in our relationship with one another, thinking about God and how He bears witness. It’s all over scripture, but I’m thinking particularly in the Old Testament, where He hears the cries of His people. When God bears witness, He does four things, He sees, He hears, He knows, and He responds. So. In Exodus, chapter 2, verses 24 through 25 it says that God heard the groaning of Israel when they were in Egypt. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. So there was an intimate knowing. And then in Exodus 3:7-8, it says that God has seen the affliction of His people, and He has heard their cry, and He has come down to deliver them. In that last phrase you hear the response of God. So it’s not just that He sees the facts of what’s happening to His people, but He’s compelled, through compassion, to move in to help and to deliver them. You see that on a systemic level with His people, the nation of Israel. But then another example would be Hagar in the wilderness, where He comes down on a personal level and in response to God coming to her and seeing her plight, what she has been through, Hagar’s response was that He is the God who sees me, and so we are called to do the same for others, and others are called to do the same for us, and in that sense, hearing somebody’s story, caring, caring for them is a deeply spiritual practice where we reflect the image of God.

Ann Maree
You make it sound beautiful too. It is a beautiful thing, right? Yes. And so this, I believe, I think you would say, is what we are also called to do. Move forward to the New Testament. Now, obviously, tell me more about that.

Julia
Yeah, the embodiment of God. He, Jesus knew people’s stories, and came close, we have stories of Christ going out of His way, often choosing a seemingly roundabout kind of route to sit down and have a conversation with a woman. He used His voice and His body to draw a line in the sand to protect a woman from mockers and accusers, and He also did not preach strictly from the temple to try to preserve any kind of institution. He confronted the institution and went directly to the people to preach. So Jesus, the full embodiment of God, came down. He saw people, He heard people, He knew people, and He acted. He responded, and obviously, the Holy Spirit we know in Scripture bears testimony about the truth, and the Holy Spirit, I think, has a unique role in comforting and connecting people and giving assurance to us when things look particularly bleak. There’s also the presence in Scripture of the call to us to write down our testimonies and write down the stories of what God has done in our lives, what we have seen Him do, what we have experienced Him do, and how we know Him.

Ann Maree
Right? So. Christ went out of His way to do what you’re talking about, which we’re calling, bearing witness, and then His whole person was involved in the endeavor. It wasn’t just words, spoken, taught. He met the person, physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, both sides of the brain, right? And then also we could reiterate the Exodus 3:7 and 8 passage. He came down to deliver us, right? And so just to emphasize, to hear deliver us in our stories, actually, so that our stories are a tool of redemption, just as the stories in Scripture identify His redemption and transformative, which is what we’re about on the Safe to Hope podcast, and when we have a storyteller, that is a prerequisite is that we are talking about God’s redemptive thread throughout and so even in our goal in the podcast, also, it’s a tool for care— looking for God. It’s not to say, and please don’t hear us say this at all. It’s not to say we erase our story or minimize it. Certainly not going to do that with this year’s storyteller. It is just to say that God has told us he will always be with us, and so we’re just looking for him. Where is he?

Julia
That’s right, and we aren’t called to deliver people. We need to know our role. God delivers people. We participate and we bear witness to what He’s done. 

Ann Maree
Yeah, good point keeping staying in our lane in multiple ways. And so I love that too, about writing it down, because that’s so that’s a healing thing too, and that’s why, even when I’m suggesting as a caregiver that you write some of this story patterns, at least down, they are revelations of something that might be of use to you in your caregiving. You can always put it on your phone too. Don’t have to just write it. Let’s talk practically speaking. Ecclesiastes 10:9 says that whoever quarries stones might get injured by them. And we are most definitely quarrying, most definitely stones. And so we have all been very aware this last year at Help[H]er, that there’s the potential for just a lot of injury, both in the hearing and also in the Revelation. And there’s always the possibility that, you know, we don’t do everything right either, and nobody does. We’re not anymore perfect just because we’re listening to stories, and so there are pieces of harm, mistakes that we’ve made, and that does continue to happen, even in a very scripted podcast like this. And to be honest, it may happen with the listening, the hearing over the next year, we hope not, and we have tried to get as many pieces in place, so that doesn’t happen. 

But on that note, for the storyteller, some of the questions that we wanted to ask, maybe not directly of her, but of ourselves when we were listening, how would we receive her story as the first listener— the first like the line of fire, of hearing that story, what would be important to either say or write back to her? What were some of the things that we could do? And I know we turn the comments off on our social media, and you really don’t get this opportunity, but let’s say, for instance, that you again are in the presence of somebody with a very similar story, or something like it— an abuse story with similar patterns. How will you receive that story? I think thinking ahead of time, just a very wise practice. And then there are naysayers. Oh, my goodness, there are naysayers. And there’s a lot of even very public right now— words being spoken about this type of abuse, and the tendency is to think it’s made up, which is just crazy. I think. 

Julia
So sad. That’s one of the reasons people don’t come forward. They see that and they anticipate it, and at the same time, because of the harm they’ve endured, they doubt themselves and they doubt their story. So you’re adding doubt upon doubt and burden upon burden. And if you have a platform, you have a responsibility, in my mind, to create a safe place, not to cut people off, not to shut them down, but to be open to ask questions to your point, about the beautiful word curiosity, to engage with curiosity, because that shows humility. It shows an openness to learn. It shows willingness versus arrogance, versus pride, and sometimes working with evil, not against evil.

Ann Maree
Yes, very good point. And then not that we can protect but what if our storyteller’s story is rejected somehow— for us, publicly, for you, if it’s a in person— maybe you believe the person who’s in front of you telling them the story that they’re telling, but others don’t. And so what kind of things can you do? What kind of posture can you take? What kind of people can you surround yourself with? What kind of words, what kind of even thinking through Scripture, not that you’re going to, you know, Band Aid Scripture, a situation. We’ve used Scripture in our podcast to help the audience even recognize that God does not hold back from telling these very difficult stories. So if we’re accused of sensationalism, Scripture doesn’t instruct us to sugar coat or not tell so, you know, that’s just an example of what we did, what we are trying to do. And then, because of the internet age, because of what we’re doing here on a podcast, this lives forever, even if we were to right, even if we were to delete the season somehow, some way, it could be accessed somewhere. And so what are the types of things— Think, think through this for yourself as a listener, as somebody that’s bearing witness. How will you protect or care for the storyteller when this is out there and they have made themselves even more vulnerable by being public anyway, I don’t necessarily have answers for all of those questions, but I just wonder if those are questions that could be helpful for audience to consider, both in listening to this story and to the ones that are coming to them in their local context.

Julia
Do you have any particular fears about how her story would or would not be received?

Ann Maree
Oh, for sure, absolutely for sure. And we brought it up in the series. You won’t hear that until much later, but some of the very public things that have debunked her type of story before. I’m not going to use the language because I don’t want to give it away. I mean, that was a that was a precursor to this story. It was, it happened long ago, and it kind of, I can’t think of a better way of saying it, but it kind of washed society of the potential that something like this could happen, which just —i t blows my mind, because of our particular denominational bent In thinking that human beings are totally depraved, and why wouldn’t we start That’s right, yeah, why wouldn’t we start imagining, and I don’t mean this as a pastime, but in the sense of, could it be in the realm of possibility that this much evil could exist if we have a doctrine of total depravity, and if not, please explain that to me, and please help me understand. And so we are still actually, without even having released story one, we are still sitting kind of on the edge of our seats, wondering where are the naysayers going to come from, where’s the disbelief going to come from? What’s it going to look like, and how are we going to handle it?

Julia
Well, you give you bring a good point that we talk a lot about total depravity when it’s convenient, and we also talk a lot about faith when it’s convenient. And when we hear somebody’s journey that is not our journey, it requires us to have faith. It’s an act of faith to lean in and to believe them. So we need to hold both of those things, both total depravity and faith and belief. 

Ann Maree
I think the jury’s out on a lot of answers to those questions, so honestly, until we actually get through the season, but they’re questions that we want to ask our audience to to ask themselves with us. And then for the listener, injury when we were— that’s a kind of sub topic that we’re talking about here— whoever quarries stones may be injured by them. And I think these are questions that you’ll need to be asking yourself again prior to listening. These are some of the questions that Julia and I and Carya actually talked about in the last episode. Julia had asked me some questions about the experience of hearing the storyteller and working with her, and some of the things that came up for me. So take it for what it’s worth, but these are just some of my experiential kind of questions that I wish I’d asked first. So this isn’t one of them, but this is a bigger question, I think, and that is for your for our listeners, what will you do with this information? We have heard it over and over and over again. The victims fear that we will do nothing with it, that it will just fall flat, or worse, that it will serve to feed the enabling of this abuse or other abuses. I think that complicity is actually the same thing.

Julia
It is. 

Ann Maree
You heard it and you turned a blind eye to it. We hear this often from our advocacy work. We hear it from the storytellers. We’re going to hear it from the experts, when they say, what are the things that you can do to help and what doesn’t help? So keep that at the top of your list is, what are you going to do with this information? 

And of course, how are you going to respond? I don’t have these abuses, any of these abuses in my background, and yet, I found that I had to respond to triggers, to things that were brought up in me that I just didn’t expect. And I’ll get to some of those questions too. And so if you know yourself, and you actually have had some of the experiences that Carya will be describing, do you know how you’re going to respond that could set the pace for you for what you do, like next, if you listen further, if you take advantage of the jump ahead breaks in the story, or if you just decide that this isn’t the right time for you to listen. So very important. How will you respond? 

How will you continue to think about what you heard? We’ve already used this word in that our one of our staff members had brought up that she was haunted after listening, and I would agree. In one way, listening to Carya, and working with her over and over and over, I almost was more calloused as time went on and it became more just, you know, get the facts me and kind of thought process, But I also think that was my way of disassociating in such a way that it didn’t harm, because the first time I heard it, it was harmful, but then afterwards, I was able to just sit and listen and process from a more factual perspective. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. To tell you the truth, my counselor will ask the question is that, is that a bad thing?

Julia
Not necessarily. 

Ann Maree
You may have to take longer than a year to listen to this story for that reason. You know, if it does haunt you, and what would be some? I don’t know if this fair to ask, but what would be some of the indications that It’s haunting you in a negative way?

Julia
It’s so normal to have some intrusive thoughts, to feel like you’re carrying it into your day, if that continues for a significant amount of time, and if that intensity increases, those are some signs that you need to process with somebody or do something different in order to to release that— what you’re carrying. I also think there comes a point in time when you’re you’re doing this work, and you’re sitting with story upon story upon story, and it begins to affect your worldview— how you see other people, how you see the church, how you see God— and you begin to think of yourself as unsafe, or project those images and those thoughts onto other people. So just noticing when that comes up. I think Diane Langberg has talked before about, you know, going through the airport and seeing, seeing a little girl and her grandfather, and automatically having the thought “he’s a perpetrator.” And that’s what I mean, like when the when the work invades into your life in such a way that there’s an automatic response that everything is unsafe. I think that’s when in our field, in our line of work, we have something called supervision for that very purpose. So I have a supervisor that knows how I work, who I work with, my strengths, my weaknesses. And I can go to him, I can go to her and talk about a particularly hard case. Maybe where I feel stuck, and it’s a place where I can process and it begins to lift the burdens that I do feel, because bearing witness is and can be a very burdensome task. So you do need other outlets where you can kind of process with and we certainly have that in our ministry praying for one another. We had that along the way with Carya story, where we would kind of look at what she had written, and your responses, offered feedback, offered support, and I don’t know how we could do it any other way.

Ann Maree
I agree. Having done it, I couldn’t have done it either way. I would have implemented, actually, more of that if I could. 

Julia
What would you have added? 

Ann Maree
Well, we talked about a prayer team, which we’re still working on right now, to pray for the entire year— how it’s received, how it’s used, how people are helped, hopefully, how the storyteller is helped, protected. Even, is this all that God wants for her? Is there more? How can we help her with that? Lots of questions. Again, I’m really good at developing questions. 

Julia
You’re very good. 

Ann Maree
…not really good at answers.

Julia
I also think, and you mentioned this before, that listening to people’s journeys can touch on your own story, and oftentimes it’s the unhealed stuff that comes up, and if it feels stuck, if it continues to come up, and it sort of puts you in this lock as a caregiver or as a listener that might be a symptom of needing some healing work in that place. And as clinicians, we always use the phrase “you can only take somebody as far as you’ve gone yourself.” So doing your own work is so essential, so essential.

Ann Maree
That was interesting, even again, in the process with the workshops of how I would hear a part of the story and not have any particular triggers or anything, and I would give it to the team that was reading it alongside me, and somebody on the team would— and then later on, when there was a different segment of the story, I would have that problem. And it was good because we could, like you said, we could work off of each other, help each other. And then also that gave us two other things to think about. One, do we tell that part of the story if it’s going to do that? And I think we kind of came down on the same answer. First, well, we probably wrestled a lot, but we came down on the, you know, yes, because that was somebody’s personal, like you just said, that was their personal un probably processed hurt harm that they still had to go through healing, and that’s going to happen. It could happen in any way. Could happen in any of the part of the story, not even the ones that we thought were more triggering or more difficult. So you brought up, how would it impact your worldview? How you think of the church? I mean, these are some of the questions that I did wrestle with. My worldview is already mainly in the tank most of the time is just from the work of, you know, constant crises, that’s hard. I’m always I’m always wrestling with my worldview, I think. And you may or may not remember I said this when Julia had a conversation with myself and Carya, and I said, how I think about God was challenged. I am if, well, I hope I’m not as much as I was, but I am still one of the people who just doesn’t believe this kind of evil can actually exist, that there could be these kind of evil people in the world. And then even. More so that they could exist as and appear as normal, right?…in our churches. 

Julia
That’s the most disorienting part. 

Ann Maree
Agreed. 

The mask, the facade, the costume that they wear, which makes you feel utterly alone and isolated, because if you name this person or this thing, nobody’s going to believe you, because they see what’s on the outside.

Ann Maree
They have the pre-packaged version. Yes, which led me back to God. Where are you? Of course. Why would you allow this? And I want to again reiterate that we started with Jesus Is My Captain for this reason. Carya’s journey is astounding in so many ways, but it ended with that particular mindset. Her relationship with the Lord still being strong was so important for us to do because of, you know, even my own, like questioning of God in the whole thing. The church, it’s a hard one, again. Just didn’t know if, I guess I can say it that way, that that kind of evil could exist in the church, even if we were talking about total depravity, I would think, no, the church has got believers.

Julia
It’s the one safe place we have,

Ann Maree
Yeah, well, and yeah, it is. Even though this evil can’t exist under its roof, it’s still, it’s, it is, well, the safety is within the body. That’s right, yeah. Will you lose your faith? That can happen. We hate to see our friends and loved ones suffer. And I guess it’s, it’s a companion question to, how will you think about God? But the, I guess the wrong way to go would be to lose, lose your faith. Wrong. I don’t know. Some people have to walk that journey. 

Julia
And many people who have walked with Carya, and those like her have. I can’t think of many people who haven’t been deconstructing their faith in some shape or form, or deconstructing what they knew the church to be, or who they knew their pastors to be, or the ones in the church who were called to protect them, but who turned out to be the ones who were doing the harm. So there’s also that element of a mass deconstruction where they’re maybe not deconstructing Christianity like their faith with Jesus, but how we know our faith to be in America.

Ann Maree
More like de-churching than deconstructing? And so that question too, how we think about the people in your church? I don’t know the answer. I mean, I know how I feel about the people in my church, but it’s a question. It’s a big question. And I guess, coupled with that, is a book that Jim Wilder, one of our expert contributors, that’ll be on in the future. He wrote a book called Escaping Enemy Mode, and he has also, obviously, we’re using him in our podcast for expert contribution. He has written about these abuses. And so for him to recognize that we fall into this enemy mode readily, and I think you probably can put two and two together about what that means everybody’s either explaining everybody’s either a friend or everybody’s an enemy and an enemy of God. Even if you’re listening to this story, you might wonder that.

Julia
It’s easy when stories are complicated and complex and harmful, for the sense of safety to try to categorize in black and white terms, it sort of gives you more of a sense of control and stability when everything else seems so out of control.

Ann Maree
Right? That lumping and splitting put everybody in a category neatly. And okay, here’s a big question that you want to probably ask sooner than later, what if you do choose to stand up for truth and justice regarding these abuses, and you become the target.

Julia
 If.

Ann Maree
I was just gonna say, “why did I ask that question like that?” So let me ask it differently when you choose… 

Julia
Have you ever been a target? 

Ann Maree
No…[chuckles] and also accused of not speaking truth or doing justice, but more so than just being disbelieved for standing up, but you yourself become the target. You’re the one who’s causing the pain, and you know that’s very real for us here on the podcast this year too, that we just want to get listeners, or we’re doing this for the commercial benefit, or whatever other accusation that could be made for doing this very difficult work this year. We could easily become a target, and that’s nothing compared to I know the many people who, in their very private, personal lives have stood up for friends, loved ones, parents, children, in the local church and had the same issue, and so we do know— I think everybody in the audience is going to know this— that standing up for truth and justice does make you a target.

Julia
Some don’t.

Ann Maree
Do tell.

Julia
I think we can be very naive about that. We can, we can sort of put on our cape and say we’re gonna go champion justice and champion the rights of the marginalized, and then be shocked when all of a sudden the tables turn against us. As advocates and as counselors, though, at Help[H]er, I think all of us have experienced that, and it’s sort of like our baptism into this ministry. 

Ann Maree
It is the education. 

Julia
When you’re telling the truth evil does not like it. There’s always a pushback. Always, I think of Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf is in the mountain with his people, and he’s trying to get them out because the demon’s coming. And he slams his staff on the ground and says, “You shall not pas” because the demon is coming. And he does it again, and he blocks the demon third time, fourth time, and the demon ends up falling into the abyss. But the demon sends his whip and grabs Gandalf and pulls him down. And that’s my that’s sort of my vision, is that when you’re interacting with this evil, evil does not want truth to be exposed. Evil wants to hide. Evil wants to stand behind an image. Evil wants to maintain status quo. Evil wants control. Evil wants power, and when you begin to take that away, just through exposure, there’s going to be some payback, there’s going to be pushback. So it’s important to to know to expect that, because if you don’t know that, and you feel that, or you see that, or it really happens to you in a variety of relationships, and you also have trauma, you’re going to blame yourself, and you’re going to fall victim. So even as helpers to be able to expect that there will be some kind of pushback that evil wants to hide. And the more truth there is, the more pushback you’re going to get. So sometimes, if I’m speaking truth and I’m getting pushback, that’s actually a sign for me that what I’m saying is truer than I actually know it to be.

Ann Maree
So one of the benefits of being through this kind of fire of education together is that we are here for each other, and so one of the answers may even just be knowing a group of people, or just another person who understands this dynamic, who’s been through it, perhaps themselves. I would also suggest that, not that you’re looking for a bear behind every bush, but in our experience this last year, it has come in the most unsuspected ways. I won’t go into details, but yeah, it blindsided us, and then as soon as it blindsided us, I think whoever it was that it was happening to, or if it was more corporately, it was like, “Oh, of course, yeah, there it is.”

Julia
Yeah, which even that the saying, of course, and there it is, is pushing back right.

Ann Maree
Yeah. 

Julia
…pushing back on evil. 

Ann Maree
Yeah. And then you don’t know our storyteller. You don’t know, of course, her personally, probably will never meet her. But what…what kind of things? What steps can you take to protect her? So in conversation, for example, say you’re talking about, “oh, did you listen to the Safe to Hope podcast?” “Oh, my gosh. Can you believe that? They’re crazy,” or whatever, or, and that would be not protecting, by the way. “Did you hear the podcast about Carya? What did you think? Why? Why’d you think that?” Or “what drew you to those conclusions?” Or just again, it’s the curiosity thing. But this is a sister. She is an image bearer and she deserves the dignity that we can afford, whatever that looks like. And then beyond these questions, what other steps can you do to protect yourself? We haven’t even touched on any of the more self care type exercises. Julia actually recorded a self care break for us that we’ll put into the stories that will have more of those types of things. Maybe we can just talk about them at the end. But what else do you have to say, sister?

Julia
You mentioned those who stay neutral earlier, and I think what came to mind for me was that’s often the most painful part is that people do not choose a side, and it’s often the bystanders who cause the most harm and their lack of action. So I think it’s crucial that we do ask questions, that we do lean in, because not responding or throwing accusations back at the victim is the most painful part, and the one thing that victims want justice for. One of my favorite clinicians is Judith Herman, and she talks a lot about this idea in her article, Justice for the Victim. And here’s a quote, “While almost all of the victims expressed a wish for the perpetrator to admit what he had done the perpetrators confession was neither necessary nor sufficient. The validation of bystanders was of equal or greater importance. Many survivors expressed a wish that the perpetrator would confess, mainly because they believe that this is the only evidence that their families or communities would credit. For survivors who had been ostracized by their immediate families, what generally mattered most was validation from those closest to them.” And I just want to repeat that the validation of bystanders was of equal or greater importance than the confession of their perpetrator.

Ann Maree
It’s astounding. I mean, also just goes back to the beginning of our conversation, and the importance of bearing witness, not just for us on a podcast, but in the church in general, in Christian institutions. And then is there anything else, just to kind of wrap things up for us today, Julia, that you’d like to add?

Julia
I think what I would want listeners to walk away from this with is to call out evil and to play the long game. There might be a pressure to fix or to do or to take up a cause—which I’m not going to say, like don’t do— but play the long game. Listen, educate yourself. Talk about this with a group of people. Pray about this, and the Lord’s going to work in you and through you. He’s going to reveal a lot about your own heart and places where He wants to grow you, where He wants to form you, where He wants to heal you. And so where you can and where you’re able lean in, listen, be open, and ask questions.

Ann Maree
That’s good. Well, I am confident that we did not cover everything that could be covered when it comes to self care, I guess during this season. But I do hope that we’ve given you some direction for thinking about how to listen well, and maybe even generated some of your own thinking about things that you might want to consider, considering before you hear our storyteller. Some of the things that Julia has come up with for us in thinking through self care, more practically speaking, as she said earlier, just to notice what’s going on inside your body and check with yourself. Recently, learning on the Therapy in a Nutshell, about practicing relaxation throughout the day, rather than, you know, rushing to the end of the day stressed and then trying to find a way to relax. And I’ve never been able to find a way to relax between, like, five and 8pm before I want to start winding down and going to bed. That’s just not enough time. And so in that way, I’ve been recently just kind of checking in on my body and seeing where am I holding that stress? And Julia said that earlier too, our bodies are what God has given us to alert us to certain things, stress being one of them, and that’s not sinful to think about your body in that way. Recognize your own humanity and limitations, if this season is not for you, it’s not for you. We are not earning money doing this. Our storytellers don’t get paid. There’s no marketing value, and we just offer it as a resource. And if it’s not a resource for you, please set it aside. Back to your body, look for feelings of dysregulation, overwhelmedness and hyper arousal. So give me a definition of dysregulation.

Julia
When your body, you notice changes in your body, such as increased heart rate and increased breathing some people experience like sweaty palms, sense of nervousness, agitation. I think agitation is probably the best word to describe dysregulation. So you’re not at your baseline normal. You either become hyper aroused, so you kind of your body responds as if it’s going to fight or flight. And if it stays at that level for too long, then it’ll go into a freeze response or dissociation response, and so that both going up and going down are signs of dysregulation. 

Ann Maree
Oh, that’s good to know too. Yeah. Overwhelmedness, I don’t think we need a definition for I think that’s pretty self explanatory. Hyper arousal. Anything else you could add?

Julia
Yeah, I mean, hyper arousal is is similar to that sense of agitation where our body is responding to move or to get away from the threat.

Ann Maree
I have a news flash for our audience. It is not sinful to breathe. 

Julia
Do people think it is? 

Ann Maree
Yes. 

Julia
Help me. 

Ann Maree
Breathing as a a tool, a methodology, if you will, is suspect. I think I’ve heard that explanation. 

Julia
I’m confused. 

Ann Maree
I know I know it. Just, let me just say it again. You can breathe. And so let’s say it differently. If we’re dysregulated, overwhelmed or in a state of hyper arousal, our breathing is not right. 

Julia
That’s right. 

Ann Maree
And so paying attention to how you’re breathing, I find myself holding my breath. That’s how I know. And we’ve heard too that if you’ve been traumatized, you don’t breathe right. Period, you just don’t breathe right. Obviously, you can consciously relax your muscles. I’ve heard, start from the bottom up, start with your feet. I usually don’t, usually start with my my forehead. 

Julia
That works too. Top down.

Ann Maree
You can definitely move to a new place. Move to a new position. I found myself in the story process having to leave my office for a time. Maybe it was just to walk to the mailbox or do some laundry or something. I just needed to move away from that place for a time in that position, in my chair. 

Julia
Yeah, it’s compartmentalization, where we don’t let it invade, intrude into our lives, where we have almost visually, a place to put it, to hold it, not that we’re avoiding it, not that we’re running from it. We know we’re going to come back to it, but we have some sense of control and parameters around it. So keeping something like your practice in your office, letting it be there, closing the door, walking away from it. 

Ann Maree
The sensation of drinking a hot or a cold drink helps to reorient holding ice cubes right which if you have sweaty palms, which I do right now, it wouldn’t feel good. I’m dysregulated. It would It would be nice to have ice cube in my hand. So don’t just push through. We’ve said that enough. You have permission to take this slow— this season— slow or not at all. Push the pause button. And then these reminders from Julia, remember the kingdom will prevail. That’s a big one. Walking away from this story to remember the end of the book, right? I did read Revelation at the end of the year, just to refresh my mind about that. And then remember that the gates of hell will not prevail. It feels like sometimes in this season that they are they are not. And remember that while there is suffering, or where there is suffering, God is at work. There is something he is doing still.

Julia
Yeah, because He sees, He hears, He knows, and he responds. 

Ann Maree
Amen. Yep.

So that’s all for today. Next time on the Safe to Hope podcast, we are actually going to begin Carya story. Carya will be the guest, and as we’ve been saying, you the audience, alongside myself and the Help[H]er staff, will bear witness to the darkness she endured, but also we will witness the light that pierced through that darkness. 

I said at the beginning of the podcast, a couple reasons why we are listening to this story, and I would add two more good reasons. First, it it is a reality. These things are happening, and we need to be prepared to understand, but also prepared to respond. And then second, even if we never did encounter a similar situation to the storyteller’s experience, we will see dynamics that are at work whenever people commit any kind of harm, any kind of abuse against someone else. Carya’s story we will tell you over and over, is just a concentrated version of other types of abuse that happen daily. So we will welcome you back on April 8 for Episode 5, the first segment of Carya story, and please remember to come back to this episode 4 often so that you can hear these reminders for how to care for both Carya, and anybody else’s story that you might hear and as well as yourself. Thank you, Julia, for helping me out with this and your insight and your perspective. 

Julia
Thanks for having me.

Ann Maree
Absolutely You.