The root system of a tree truly amazes me. A seed is planted and roots spring forth and find their way deeper and deeper into the ground, looking for a system of nutrients and water.
As the roots settle and begin taking in the nutrients, and the water from the environment, those nutrients are used to help the tree grow. Then water cycles nutrients throughout the tree to maintain it throughout its life.
If you’ve ever seen a tree’s branches and fruit appearing malnourished or producing no fruit, you can be assured the problem can be traced to the roots and what those roots are cycling to the rest of the tree.
We are designed a lot like trees. Our behaviors, attitudes and actions are the fruit. if we don’t like the fruit we are producing, it’s important to look at the branches of our thoughts.
When our thoughts keep us stuck, it’s often a result of bad roots. to be truly set free, we need God to help us dig up the roots. Once we know that we are firmly planted in Him, there is nothing we can’t do with Him!
In early childhood the “roots” of our brains are developing – all based on the nutrients of the environment that surround us. Some of what our roots soaked up was good and produced good fruit in us.
Some of what our roots soaked up was not so good, and this resulted in the production of fear, anxiety, depression, sadness, anger, bitterness, and so much more.
Our roots … our thoughts … have a way of getting us stuck at times.
But we don’t have to stay that way. We have to allow God to dig up the roots that aren’t producing what is needed and allow him to repair those roots so we can truly be set free.
Once we know that we are firmly planted in Him, there is nothing we can’t do with Him!
Check out today’s Mimika TV episode Digging up Roots.
TRANSCRIPT
Digging up Roots
Welcome to the Unstick Your Mind podcast on Mimika TV. Get ready to get unstuck, align with your true purpose, and unlock your God-given potential. For me, what I find as well is that, as I’ve gone back to school and I’m actually going through a neuroscience coaching program right now, and I’m like, talk about mind blown. I get excited, because I realize how amazing God made the brain. And then how the world has missed this part about, we got a brain and then we have emotions and we think that and the spirit is separate, but it’s all in one. And the thing is, our soul, which is our mind, our will and our emotions doesn’t have an expiry date. We might say right now, as a 45 year old woman, I’ve forgiven whoever hurt me back then.
But that five year old or that 10 year old, or that 18 year old who got hurt back then is still in Groundhog’s Day, because we never really, unless we release it, those emotions, we can cover them up. We can pretend they’re not there. We can try refocus. We can either pick a vice, which is performance, perfection, drugs, alcohol, food, whatever. And eventually, we try to mask the symptoms, but you know what happens with a tree that you can cut the fruit? The fruit will keep growing unless we deal with the root. And what I do with my clients in my coaching, as well as uncovering what those roots are. It’s like talking about getting rid of the junk in the trunk, that sometimes you’re like, we don’t recognize what they are because they’re so deep seated. And they’re part in our brain that it’s created almost like a part of our personality, that we think that’s who we are, like always feeling down or feeling shame for, probably have made decisions through your life based on that hidden shadow that’s been lurking in the background.
Like for me, my biggest issue was rejection, like always feeling rejected from my father, rejected from my friends and I got physically bullied. So, all of that took a while. And at 30, I was like, I can’t believe I’m still dealing with this issue. But the problem is, well, not that it’s a problem, the good news is that with the Lord, we can literally take it off. If you think of yourself in the spirit, how we’re all carrying on every time we have a hurt or we take on this cloak, like a cloak of shame, a cloak of perfectionism. The more layers you put on, the heavier it is, and it’s exhausting. If you ever try to go hiking and you have too much stuff in your backpack, it’s like every time someone’s thrown a rock at you of criticism or pain or judgment, what we do as humans is we pick them up and put them in a backpack and we take them with us.
As opposed to saying, “Okay, God, this is where they are, I’m not taking this on. I’m going to leave it at your feet and dump the rock, lighten my load, and allow you to come and clean out the closet so that I can move on.” But a lot of us aren’t taught these skills. We are taught that, oh, well maybe there’s something wrong with you and maybe you need this or that. And I believe in behavioral therapy, but there comes a point that where there are issues in our lives that are from a deeper spiritual perspective. Even going back to my story with my son, I’d realized that even though I was trying to deal with what I was seeing in his anxiety, the Lord showed me, he says, “He’s a carbon copy of you.” And was I like, “What do you mean? I don’t have this issues.”
Digging up Roots
He’s like, “It’s sad to break it to you, but his anxiety is a mirror of your anxiety.” So, I had realized, in order to help my son regulate his anxiety, I had to get myself together. I had to realize that I had an issue with always dealing with being on the edge and always living on adrenaline. I was on the point of adrenal fatigue, which I didn’t know, because I’m terrible at reading the signs. I hate going to the doctor, so I’m a terrible patient. But I’d realized I was no help to myself or anyone else if I couldn’t take care of me. And he said, “It’s time for you to be well.” And I was like, as we start to take off the layers and go through this process, there were lots of very many painful invitations to allow the Holy Spirit to work.
And sometimes, you have to let the thought marinate, like, okay, I’m taking off this old cloak. Now I’m going to put on this new cloak of loved and perfection and accepted. It feels a little weird. It’s like getting shoes, they don’t fit you quite yet when you first take them on. We need to get used to wearing it, and almost marinate in the thought. And sometimes like, okay, I’m loved. And the Lord says, “No, I need you to write out these scriptures and recite them.” And I’d have them on my mirror, and I’d be like, “I’m loved, I’m heard, and I’m forgiven.” And he’s like, “No, say it again.” I’m like, “I’m loved.” No, he’s coaching me through it. And I was like, “This is so lame. Why are you making me do of this?”
And eventually I was like, I can understand why, because now that I studied the brain, I realize that you need to have layers of, keep pushing yourself through that perfection, overriding the old habits. I always bring it back to my skating, that I can’t be good at what I want to be at, unless I fall down, I get up again, I fall down, I get up again. I just do it again and again and again, and eventually you just start to rewire your brain. Because if you think of your brain as the pathways that you’ve created this path, that it’s so easy to go down the shame and blame road, now we want to move off of that, get them onto the acceptance road. It’s a little rough at first. We need to get used to that.
So, as much energy as you put in the shame and blame, we now need to put in love and acceptance. So, every time your brain wants to go back to, oh, well this is comfortable because that’s what we are, which is often what I found with people who can’t be helped, is if they don’t want to be helped. We have to be aware we have a problem in the first place and say, “Okay, God, I invite you in,” because God’s a gentleman. He’s never going to push his way, he’s never insist, and that’s why sometimes people ask, they’ll say, “Well, why hasn’t God fixed this problem?” I’m like, “Well, he hasn’t been invited to do so.” He doesn’t crash parties, he’s not like that.
Digging up Roots
He could’ve done it with Adam and Eve and save us a whole lot of hassle, seriously. I was like, “God, why couldn’t you just fix it? Really, really?” Just tell him what not to do. Hello, all of us screaming or we’re looking at the story, right? So, I realized that he is a gentleman. He has to be invited to the party, and he’s not going to override that. Even if you say you’ve dealt with something or maybe there’s stuff in your trunk that hasn’t been dealt with, he knows it needs to be dealt with, but he’s waiting for you to come to that position to say, “Okay, God, it’s time. It’s time to be healed. It’s time to let go. It’s time to rewire my brain, reposition myself in the kingdom, understand who I am and realize where he’s taking me and not to fight the process.”
Because just like, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that story of the teacup. I think Joyce Meyers talks about it, where he’s molding the clay and the clay is like, “Oh this is painful.” Start knocking down and getting in position, gets it into a shape of a teacup and then puts it in the firing kiln. And you know how hot you have to fire anything. It’s screaming, it’s shouting, “Get me out of here, get me out of here.” And he says, “Not yet.” And then he takes it out and then he paints it and he says, “What is this stinky stuff you’re putting on me? This is gross. This is horrible. Saved me, saved me.” And he says, “Nope, back in the fire you go. Not yet. Not yet. You can cry all you like, I’m not done with you yet.”
But then once we’re done with the furnace, he holds up a mirror and says, “Look at how pretty you are now.” And you’re like, “Oh, I’m fancy, look at that. I like the way I look now,” but it isn’t without the pain. And I think our society has got so used to avoiding pain, avoiding discomfort and not leaning into uncomfortable things. Because this modern society has trained us to think that everything’s got to be fun and everything’s got to be cool, and everything’s got to be happy, that if I’m not being happy, I’m must either pop a pill, eat something, go on a vacation or get an app for it. And that’s not how life works. That’s not how our brains and our bodies function. We have to allow ourselves the seasonal time of going through the hard stuff, pushing through the pain. Just like when we go to the gym, building muscle, pushing against the weights, getting stronger, because at the end of the day, we will come out stronger, fitter, and far more efficient to do what God plans us to do.
Well, opportunities are often disguised as hard work. And people are, especially in our society, everything’s the easy fix, where everyone’s going to rescue someone else. And the whole apathy towards showing up and doing work is sad because of the world we’re living in. But I could tell you now, that if you can position yourself to be somebody who’s working now in the dark, maybe not everyone else gets to see it, God knows. We’re in this training situation because the world is going to need, what do you have? That if you can think of this as bootcamp training, we just need to suck it up, put on our big girl panties and say, “Okay, God, let’s get to work. I’m done with this trying to force and asking for questions.”
And I was in that situation to be like, “God, why didn’t you show me the way?” And he’s like, “Why didn’t you do the last thing I told you to do?” And I’m like, “What? What do you mean? No, what are we doing? Give me the vision.” And he’s like, “You need to go back and do what I told you to do.” As parents, we know we’re not going to let our kids get away with something unless they’ve done the last thing. It’s about faithfulness too, because he knows you can’t skip ahead. But what I know is, he’s definitely on the move. He’s definitely calling women to use their voices and whatever gifts and talents you have in any way. I think this is our opportunity. While the rest of the world is snoozing and complaining, we can get ourselves in training and refined and cleaned out because there’s work to do, and more of us are needed.
Digging up Roots
So, the more that we could start to take others under our wing and mentor, help. And that’s why I’ve totally changed my whole mission, my focus, my business. And I do mindset coaching for Christian women, and I find, to me, it’s so much more fulfilling than helping some business make millions of dollars with their marketing. And to me, I’m like, “That’s what God’s in, the business of souls, saving souls and helping people.” To me, that is the most transformational work we can do with ourselves, is so we can be useful to God. So, we’ve got work to do. Time to roll up our sleeves.
Are you ready to change your brain, to change your life? Discover how to break limiting beliefs, stop self-sabotage, and unlock your full potential by rewiring your brain using neuroscience coaching and faith-based principles. Come and join my coaching program, Unstick Your Mind, today.
Come and join my coaching program Unstick Your Mind today!
