I’m burdened by the hypocrisy of the “Christian” church.
I can’t believe I’ve played a part in this nonsense… This hate.
Church…we’ve messed up. Big time.
I’m kind of done with this “Christian” nonsense. Pray for my soul.
Honest. Kind. Shine.
Tag: blog
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This is abhorrent. #guilty Actually, ask yourself if anyone feels loved by you. Change my mind. Burn every copy of love&respect 🤮 Submit submit submit and God will bless you with an asshole for a husband who can’t even find the ketchup on the front door. Also, was told by my pastor and “Christian” therapist that they were angry with me for trying to feel loved. Fuck purity Sounds a bit narcissistic I didn’t write this. I don’t like those words at the end but you should seriously think about if and how your beliefs are hurting you and other people. People should not be able to love better than God. Yeah, this one’s tough for me too. No caption needed. Other than *note: WITHOUT STRINGS ATTACHED #yep The hypocrisy is as THICK as their skulls… Y’all. I don’t even understand this logic Or this logic I’m actually okay being kept awake. I’m sorry. Cherry picking should be left for actual cherries We’ve really messed up. Well, does it? 🎤 I try to remember to talk to my unpleasant emotions like I would a little toddler. What do you need? How can I help? No virtue. Read it again with me. I seriously do not even understand how one could think they should be in office. 😬 Sick. -
As you’ve probably gathered, I am in the midst of a pretty intense battle of sorts. I am trying to move through it slowly and carefully. Armoring up, assessing, planning, fortifying, defending, and attacking when/if necessary. This approach has not been one that has come naturally to me. Ten years ago I was forced to reconsider how I move through life and deal with adversity. The pruning process was SO painful. It was one of the most beautiful and most painful times of my life. Do most people experience something like this in their late 20s? It was INTENSE for me…but I’m also an intense person, so maybe the intensity needs to match the personality? I probably fought it with intensity too… A battle of wills 😬
When I was a child, I acted like a child. (1 Corinthians 13:11).
Not everyone has the same growth rate. There are lots of different reasons for this and as an adult, I have worked hard to adopt a less childish way of viewing all the facets, including the process of growth. I’m moving away from judging and condemning other adults’ growth rate and instead moving inward- evaluating my own growth needs and process and focusing that attention, energy, and reflection on myself. I’m not great at this, admittedly.
When we turn 18 in America the overarching message and ‘charge’ is “now you’re an adult’. The practicality of this transition is not always clear, linear, and does not always happen in an orderly fashion. This was especially the case for me. I did adult things while I was still a child. I got married, I moved into a house with my husband, had bills and work and responsibilities. We had two children before I turned 30. Was I legally an adult? Yes. Was my body an adult body? Yes. Was I emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally an adult? Not always… not even most of the time. We’re multifaceted people and many of my facets were cracked or covered in mud. Not blaming or shaming…it’s just facts…and these facts had/have consequences.
I think this is true for every 18-29+ year old in one facet or more. Are there any 25 year old people out there feeling like they have it all figured out?
So, here’s what I think happened. How this stronghold got its grip…
I aspire to be a faithful woman of God; to rest in His presence and trust that He will fight for me but to also to step into my Power and act and fight when I’m supposed to. Sometimes this feels like a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ process. Sometimes it feels like I’m leveling up every hour.
I know I will never be done growing and my resting place is knowing that if I remain teachable, open, honest, still, and humble that eventually God will reveal my path- whether to act or be still or some wonky version of both at the same time. My cognitive distortions cloud my discernment, that’s for sure.
I have messed up. A LOT. I fight when I’m supposed to rest, I rest when I’m supposed to act. I ignore when I’m supposed to listen…
On the spectrum of what I think is peace and justice, I tend to lean into the panic end of the spectrum and less into the avoidance end of the spectrum. I could be wrong about the Peace/Justice spectrum, but I think it looks like this….
Panic < Action << Peace & Justice>> “Thoughts & Prayers” > Avoidance
I don’t know if a bell curve applies here but if it does, it would indicate that at least 50% of the time, on any issue, we should be resting in Peace and fighting for Justice? I’m not really sure how this breaks down, admittedly. Maybe there’s more than one spectrum going on here.
Anywho, my confession is that I tend to panic before I avoid. I also tend to act before I offer “thoughts and prayers”. I believe my propensity for action is one of my God given strengths. Unfortunately, as easy as it is for a thoughts and prayers kind of person to become avoidant or complacent, I too can move into panic and flailing, without much difficulty.
Obviously if I could will myself to hit the 50% mark 100% of the time, I totally would! My panic definitely seems to trigger those who avoid… and I think the opposite is true too. I think we can learn from each other and I want to. I’m ready to become more well-rounded (in demeanor, not physical shape haha)
I believe there is beauty to be found here, of course after I’m done flailing and having a temper tantrum 😅 I’m frustrated with myself because no matter how hard I try and beg and pray and plead, I am still plagued by this idiosyncrasy. It’s a thorn in my side. It drives people I love absolutely bonkers and I think ultimately pushes them to a place of anxiety and avoidance… leaving me to panic, alone.
As God pulled me into this unique state of suffering, pruning, whatever this now 7-weeks-of-spiritual-battle is, I have been asking Him to reveal to me what He is trying to teach me, change in me…. I know this is the process of leveling up but man…. I’m growing tired of the crash and burn.
Jesus promises that his ‘yoke’ is light and easy. I’m totally down for taking up any kind of yoke that is light and easy! Yes, please!!!
What am I doing wrong?
I’ve had a suspicion for a while that there may be something more going on here.
I grew up in a charismatic church. I was surrounded by teaching that focused on spiritual warfare and how to bind up and cast out demons and strongholds. I believe there may be a stronghold in or over my life and that might be why this problem keeps popping up all over the place. I am not avoidant, I’m introspective and introjective, so I try to stay on top of things like this. I don’t want to be the reason for my own suffering.
In the past 7 weeks, this stronghold seems to become more and more….strong.
I believe the stronghold might be anger…. Anger, contempt, unforgiveness, misunderstanding. There’s probably more and I would welcome other’s thoughts on this matter. I would also welcome a gentle naming or calling out of how you see me participating/strengthening this stronghold. I am very aware that my own anger, unforgiveness, misaligned introjections, pride, arrogance, and contempt plays a huge part in the strength of this stronghold. It is hard for me to consider different perspectives because I am so internally focused and have SO MANY THOUGHTS. Obviously, I don’t want to be this way. I want to see the truth and participate actively and willingly in this necessary growth. I want to be a sage, a calm meek soul….but that’s just not me haha….
This is me…. “these weirdos” lol
Another reason I’m writing and sharing is because I can’t hold other’s perspectives while I am full of mine. There doesn’t seem to be a deep enough well for all my thoughts, feelings, and pain. I’m really trying. Please trust that I have rebuked, surrendered, laid down my life, taken up my cross, forsaken myself, honored myself– I have tried every approach I could think of, learned, and was told to try. NOTHING WORKS! So, I’m trying this (public blog) because it’s what feels right for me. And, honestly, it’s working. Today anyway 🙂 It will probably change tomorrow cuz God likes to keep me on my toes. 😅
The point: I would love it if fellow believers could join me in praying that the Holy Spirit reveals this stronghold and resolution to me so I can cast it out in Jesus name and be done with this love and life and growth killer once and for all!!!
A few nights ago Bryce anointed me with oil and we prayed that the stronghold would be released in Jesus name. I am actually feeling a little lighter which is just positively AMAZING.
Would you be willing to join me in asking God to reveal the strongholds in and around my life and join me in binding them up and casting them out? I have been feeling the weight of captivity for too long. I’m weary. I want peace and joy and love and reconciliation.
Thank you ❤
Honest. Kind. Shine.
How to Break Strongholds and Keep them Broken!
https://www.victorious.org/pub/breaking-strongholds-141
1. AUTHORITY — Every believer has the right to use the authority of Jesus’ name to bind and take authority over Satan’s activities. “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house” (Mark 3:27). Issue a spoken command to the devil that he is bound and he must leave the stronghold! Exercising authority in the name of Jesus will expel the Devil’s influence. “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues…” (Mark 16:17).
2. INTERCESSION — Come together with other believers to pray and intercede against strongholds until you get results. There is intensified power in the gathering of more believers. Prayer with fasting intensifies faith, and faith will break strongholds. “Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast him out? …However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:19,21).
3. DISPLACEMENT — Establish the presence of God. Where Satan has been commanded to leave, fill it up with God’s presence. Where the presence of the Lord is, the Devil isn’t! Satan doesn’t want to hang around where people are lifting up Jesus in worship, in singing and prayer. The presence of the Lord displaces the Devil. “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14).
4. RESISTANCE — Submit yourselves and draw close to God. The Bible says this is how we resist Satan and he will flee. The Devil runs from submitted, yielded Christians who pray, fast, worship and humble themselves to follow and obey God’s Word. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
5. OCCUPATION — Give no place or vacancy to the Devil. With Satan departed, fill the void with God. Let righteousness be the standard rule and behavior. Provide no pocket of rebellion, corruption or immorality in which Satan can find refuge to rebuild his influence or strength. The scripture says to not “give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27).
6. FORTIFICATION — Clothe yourself with God’s armor. Take upon you daily, the full array of God’s spiritual equipment that you may maintain battle-ready status. With the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit (God’s Word) and the other links of armor (Eph. 6:13-17), you will be ready to resist any satanic assault, and will be ready to engage the strongholds in others. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
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Today is a good day.
I am making one of my favorite treks across Pennsylvania today. Returning to one of my first homes… I made this drive hundreds of times in my youth. Today’s drive is extra special because it’s nearing the end of August and the sun, the air, just everything is reminding me that September is coming.
September. So much more than just being my birthday month, which I love my freaking birthday so much. Birthday, yes… but September just always seemed like it was finally time for life to be just be about me.
Someday soon I’m going to talk about the deeper why of why sharing my thoughts publicly has been really hard for me to do up until this point. For today though, this platform is my way of taking up space. This is my way of belonging to myself. This is my way of telling myself and the world that I matter, my voice matters, I’m owning my story so it doesn’t own me.
September has always been the month that I got to have at least one day that was about me. When you grow up with someone who robs every good moment with their selfishness and narcissism… It just… Sucks.
I suppose, if you know you know, you know? Ya know? Last September on my birthday we were at Magic Kingdom at Disney world. There was a rainbow over Disney that morning. It was an absolutely perfect day. A dream come true.
My mom and Grammy hand sewed the dress and shirt for me and my husband. I used fabric paint to paint the design. I was able to sneak them into the luggage and surprise my husband with them 🙂. Best. Day. Ever. Not all that long ago I wouldn’t allow myself to have good things. I would deprive myself of things that I needed like new shoes, underwear, food… And then I would overindulge in other areas of my life to try to achieve what I now know is homeostasis. I’ll circle back around to this another time… But does anybody understand this? I would love to hear your story, too.
Today is a good day because I’m going to visit one of my first and best college friends. She and our little golden circle is responsible for helping me to grow into a human. This drive feels like I’m going home 🙂
Stay golden ❤️ I’m in a really vulnerable place right now. I am making big mistakes, choices that have the potential to destroy things that I really love and that I really want. In a way, it’s kind of like going to college and moving into your dorm room with people you don’t know and having to figure out life and learn a whole bunch of life shit and smart shit. It’s all compressed into a few short weeks before you move on to more classes with more information that you have to cram into your brain. This growth… it’s like I’m stretch Armstrong and you’re attaching my hands to your bicycle and my feet to your skateboard and my older and younger brothers are using me to ride and pull each other.
Did anybody ever stretch an Armstrong so far that he busted open? I’ve busted open a few times since June 27th… I’m sorry if you were on the receiving end of that explosion.
I’ve decided that I just need to keep growing. I need to dive head first into the wisdom and practices that I know to be true and helpful. Return to the basics. Prayer, meditation, Brene Brown lol.
So here’s the gift that I have for the world today… I’m sharing the hard-earned wisdom of our future’s revered Emotions sage genius of our time. She will be talked about in the same way we talk about Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Jesus, Einstein, Plato. She’s the one who always brings me back to myself, reminds me to be awkward, brave, and kind. She gave me permission and taught me how to own my story. She taught me that if I want to belong I first have to belong to myself. ❤️
Me and mini me ❤️
Darling, you belong here.❤️❤️❤️ Enjoy ❤️❤️❤️
Honest. Kind. Shine.
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This blog thingy is interesting. I already have posts scheduled out to Sunday but this one feels like it needs to come out today. It’s becoming more and more clear to me what is actually going on with me and while I started this blog to tell my big secret, it’s also helping me peel back all the layers of this onion. Or cake…or parfait…everyone loves parfaits.
I sure hope someone gets my jokes and movie quotes…
Last night my husband and I went out for ice cream. The kids are at my in-laws, my request, or plea, rather, and so we’ve had a few very wide open days to talk, run and grab lunch, basically do whatever we want. It’s …. nice? It’s interesting… that’s for sure.
So we went for ice cream and while we were out I was unpacking all kinds of emotional shit. Which brought me to this statement: “Have I talked to you about my thoughts about work?” He replied with a statement indicating that I indeed had not caught him up on the latest developments of my work related thoughts.
Earlier in the day I was listening to the most recent episode of Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things Podcast. At the end of the podcast someone suggested to make a list of all the things you feel like you have to do. Then go down through the list and ask yourself, “Do I want to do this?” “Do I really have to do this?” Because I process super fast and really without consciously thinking I am, I suppose I got there, at least to one thing that I don’t want to do and I don’t have to do. It at least got me to the point where I was prompted to bring it up to my life partner.
It’s not that cut and dry, though. Being a therapist, for me anyway, comes with a greater joy and responsibility than just going to work for a paycheck. I’m not punching a time clock, I don’t hang out at a water cooler. I can’t waste hours playing mahjong or do any of my work mindlessly. I’m not judging those of you who are able to do any of this! I’ve had jobs like this too. Of course not every moment is wasting time away! But in nearly every job I’ve had, even other human services jobs, in an average 8 hour day there are plenty of opportunities to veg, space out, be careless, mindless, absent.
Not as a private practice, self pay, therapist. I am IN IT. ALL THE TIME. I’m not complaining. I LOVE my job. It’s more than just a job though. It’s a lifestyle. I have to be a certain kind of person, with certain ‘levels’ of growth and mindset, and personal/other insight to be one that is pursued and respected in my field. I’m in private practice which means all of my clients come to me either through word of mouth or through Psychology Today. If I’m a shitty therapist, that news is going to travel fast. As it should.
So those questions, what do you have to do and what do you want to do are very very layered and nuanced for me.
Do I have to work? Yes….and no…
Do I want to work? Yes….and no…
Maybe most people feel this way about their jobs. But unlike me, if I’m not in a good spot mentally, emotionally, spiritually– it’s unethical for me to work. It doesn’t matter how much I want to, how much I “need” the money, how guilty I feel for not working and all the ripple effects that causes. If at my core I know that I can’t hold safe space for my clients, for whatever reason, I can’t work. It’s unsafe, unethical, dangerous, irresponsible. I know other people have jobs where this is the case. Surgeons, forklift operators… There’s lots of us who have jobs where we have to be on our A game nearly 100% of the time. When you work for a company, there’s built in bs time. BS meetings, lunch breaks, scheduled time between meetings, meetings that you can totally skip out on if you have a headache or the poops. When you work for a company, you get paid for those often unplanned 20-40 minute “need-to-collect-myself” moments.
If this happens to me as a therapist, in my current work situation, which I do not plan to or want to change, I have to cancel a full session or push through. Sometimes we push through. My therapist was feeling sick the other day- she pushed through. She also asked crappy questions and judged me- which I know wasn’t intended, of course. Still happened.
The problem with being a therapist is that to do a good job and feel good afterward we have to be damn near perfect. And there’s no such thing as perfect. So we hope and pray for clients who remember our humanity and give us lots of grace…but we can’t expect this! All my clients pay out of pocket. Can you imagine paying a painter to paint your ceiling and he’s having a shitty day and splatters paint everywhere? Would you hire him to come back? Would you refer him to your friends? NO! Most people, especially these days, would be really pissed. We don’t live in a culture that encourages grace.
Nor do I want to expect or need a lot of grace.
So… this is what asking myself, “what do I want, what do I need” has led me to. So MANY PEOPLE do not have the ‘luxury’? ability? to do what I NEED to do, right now. I can’t put it off anymore. I need to take time to heal.
I am a therapist but I am also a trauma survivor. My trauma messaging, triggers, and nervous system responses run deep and wide. The Secret revealed to me that while I thought I’ve been dealing and healing the past 10+ years… I wasn’t …. not completely. And not enough for me to ethically and safely practice therapy.
Our world does not make it easy to do trauma recovery. As a trauma informed therapist, a passionate trauma-healing focused friend, believer, mother, etc etc etc, I have come to realize that this burden of trauma that I carry in my body, that we all carry in one way or another (think 2020), is just a lot. We are all crumbling.
It doesn’t really matter how much I want to work. It doesn’t really matter if I need to. I can’t.
I’m grateful that God has orchestrated my life and circumstances in such a way that l am actually able to do the trauma and emotional healing work right now that I have not been able to do my whole life. I’ve tried. I’ve been open and conscious and aware of my triggers and how the messaging shows up in most areas of my life. I’ve been in some kind of therapy consistently for the past 10 years. I’ve done lots of work around codependency, PTSD, self-love, and spirituality. I’ve basically devoted every moment of my life over the past 10 years to becoming a better human. But my secret revealed to me that there are deep deep parts of me that are still reacting and if I don’t heal it, I will fuck up. I can’t do that. I won’t do that to myself or to anyone else.
I need to heal.
I’m grateful for this very public platform. I don’t care who reads or doesn’t read. I know God will put it in the hands of those who need to hear it. Pray with me that he will reveal it to those who need permission to take the space they need to heal.
Thanks for reading ❤️
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:8,9,16-18
Honest. Kind. Shine.
Keturah Mae Shine 