A 4-Step Process to Transform Feeling Out of Control To True Faith

The frustration of not knowing how to protect a weaker or younger person can be overwhelming. Trying to protect them and also trying to put up healthy boundaries for yourself can be a daunting task.

Recently I had a conversation with a mother who is dealing with a separation from a spouse. When there are innocent children involved to try and protect, it can be difficult for some parents to know how to put up healthy boundaries from their unhealthy spouse, and protect the children. Below is an edited excerpt of what I shared in the hopes it gives you encouragement and peace when you are in an uncomfortable situation similar to this:

“It is definitely not an easy path to be with someone who creates such damage, especially in the young and weak, especially when they are yours from God to take care of. Most mothers try to protect the young and are too weak to fully protect. We do our best. God gives us whatever amount of strength to protect them to the amount I suppose He wants. God does not seem to stop harm to us or to those we love fully. I have had to face this type of situation head-on year after year. My conclusion is that God sees from a perspective we don’t. From God’s perspective, because time does not restrain Him, nor power over everything, God seems to see things from an angle of all things will sooner or later be brought to justice, all things will be restored, the broken will be healed.

I lived in survival mode for most of my decades on the earth from trying so hard to protect myself and others from harm. It was made my job when I was a very small child and I carried that job with me into my marriage. My spouse had a different view of what was safe and acceptable than most anyone I have ever met. God allowed me to experience this to totally break me down to nothing. I came to a point where I just had to let go and be ok with dying or letting others die around me OR leave. I chose to stay and believe that God would protect as much as God wanted to, and we would die whenever He decided not to protect. My conclusion was that living anywhere in the world had its risks of being injured or dying so going anywhere would not change this truth. This new conclusion pushed me into true faith for the first time that I am aware of in my late thirties. It was either true faith or losing my mind which I almost did.

God has a plan for the broken. I can’t prove it to anyone, but I am completely sure this is true. I am only completely sure it is true because I choose to believe it completely. It’s the only belief that makes being conscious bearable. If God is not that good that He does not have a plan for the broken, then everything that has ever been created is in serious trouble. I lived for decades fearing if God was really that good. That was hell! I would rather believe He is. This belief brings me hope and peace in the middle of the chaos. We always have faith in some belief we hold that we cannot ‘prove’. We must choose wisely which beliefs we want to have because it shapes our whole experience of life and how we feel about the experiences. God does not take us out of the fire always, but He helps us always in the midst of it.”

Establishing true faith…

The first action for finding solid ground in one’s emotions towards true faith starts in slowing down and gently listening to the beliefs inside you that are creating the instability. REALLY LISTEN to what your insides are saying.If the thoughts don’t make logical sense, listen anyways with patience and compassion. Tip: I find writing them down and just letting it flow works for me, or recording myself while I let my thoughts flow, and then watching the recording back to give me an outside perspective of myself of what is happening on my insides. Whatever you do, capture those thoughts so you can go back to them after letting them out. Those thoughts will reveal beliefs and unhealed fears that are creating emotional instability.
After really listening to yourself, just breathe for a minute/a while and let it be ok to feel whatever you feel. Don’t try to change it right away. It will be completely resistant to change until that part of you feels completely heard and accepted by yourself. You need no one else to do this process except you and God. You will feel a release happen inside you where the majority of the ‘wind’ will dissipate from the intense emotion. When the emotions become less, I have found that usually there is what I call a ‘grace space’ created. This space feels like calmness. The mind goes calmer. The emotions go calm. It feels to me like a bubble of protection that lets me catch my emotional, spiritual, and even physical breath. DO NOT TRY to make this grace space longer or shorter than it lasts on its own. Just be. I personally believe this is where we are spiritually in God’s arms where He is holding us, comforting us, giving us a break, strengthening us, and giving us a safe place to rest for a while. Let God be in control of this space and don’t try to do anything at all. Just enjoy it and rest.
The above phase will slowly turn on its own into feeling like there is new hope, new calm energy, and like a passing of the storm completed. This phase can be a lot of fun because this is where I find God starts giving downloads of ideas and inspirations.They come calmly but sometimes too rapidly if I forget to stay slow and breathe and let it come slowly. These ideas and inspirations can help you see new possibilities of beliefs that are healthier than the ones which upset you in the beginning. Make sure to write down these ‘epiphanies’ because they MUST be used consciously over and over to start tearing down your old subconscious ‘knee-jerking reaction belief’ that got you upset in the first place. Write those new beliefs down and keep that paper with you!
Don’t start going into action until those downloads of ideas and inspirations have been fully received. You know the downloads have finished and it’s time for action when you can start moving forward in peace and slowness, at least inside of yourself. If you start to become hyper in starting to be active by trying to fix things too fast because you like getting things done, you will totally deprive yourself of the chance to FEEL God continue to be with you as you might have felt in the last phase - ‘the grace space’. Go slower and feel the continued directions of God as you move forward. You won’t always get new directions if God thinks what He gave you was enough and you might just feel Him watching and supporting you as you work. (For all those who say they never feel anything from God, I actually think many of you have had at least part of the experience of these cycles somewhere in your history and just did not know what they were. The cycle is similar to the cycle of being a child, having an emotional moment, and being willing to be calmed by someone safe like an adult.)

Keep practicing every day

These four steps, if done correctly, bring a beginning of developing true faith in an area that was in true fear. To keep the growth going takes being aware of the old belief that comes up again to make you feel emotionally upset, and being able to remember that God gave you tools through ideas, new beliefs, and inspirations to do instead. My suggestion to help this process of change to continue is to set an alarm to go off once an hour or once every two hours during the day. When the alarm goes off, look at your piece of paper with new beliefs, ideas, and inspirations on them. Even better is to say them out loud or write them once again and consider them. I even suggest having a friend or many friends you can call or tell over and over this new belief so they can help encourage you when you temporarily fall back into old beliefs and emotional patterns.

Do this process every day. Don’t stop.

It took time to build a subconscious emotional habit and belief system. It will take time and focus to rip out the old and bring in the new. But man! I’m telling you, it’s worth the effort! Doing this process myself over and over, year after year has brought me more and more healing and sustained peace. Sure, new places pop up to deal with. That is a part of growing and learning as a child of God. This will happen for the rest of my life. But I feel better. And the people who I have helped who have really done this have experienced the same change into freedom, more inner peace, and genuine faith!

When you are out of control and cannot save yourself or those who are weaker who you care for, the only answer I know to find peace and healthily deal with the frustration is with this method. May the shalom (peace) of God shine upon you and in you!