[Music] welcome everyone mark dejesus and melissa dejesus in the house welcome to the healing and freedom journey you know it good good to have you here hon it's going to be great so we have been in a series and we're going to continue this for a while lord willing and the creek don't rise to have discussions surrounding healing family brokenness and the brokenness that's in your life and your journey and recognizing how it's impacted you letting god be involved in that journey of restoring healing maturing bringing change and when you see it as a journey it's a whole different perspective versus like i gotta get something quickly fixed well today what we're going to get into is a a another half of healing parental wounds we've talked about the father wound we'll continue to talk about that we will always talk about that we will always talk about that because these are these are necessary subjects that we need a lot of explanation needs a lot of insight needs a lot of understanding because a lot of where the attacks on our life infiltrate in the developmental years of our life and and and we we don't recognize them until later in life that okay i got some stuff i've got to work through so if you feel like you're in your 30s 40s 50s 60s and you're you're you're recognizing something that's that's good see it as a good thing because it takes as long as it takes to recognize the wounds that we carry yeah you don't really usually recognize in your 20s right you think you say 20s i don't think right i did i don't think i say 30s i don't think i did 30s is the like beginner yeah when you're in your 20s if you are that smart in your 20s and you are like i get it yeah it goes to you yeah when you're in your 20s you think you're invincible and or you think you have it figured out right that's true that's true so the the the first aspect that we always want to emphasize is the healing of father wounds understanding the heart of the father and if you have a hard time relating to god as a father there's there's a healing work of of the father image that needs to take place in your life in journey where we're going to go today and just give some conversation and we'll just kind of let the conversation flow where it needs to is this very tricky area of dealing with mother wounds and i'll share a story of an example but i'm going to use it in reverse illustration of what was normally used and we've used this story quite often back especially in the early days of us teaching about the father heart and the love of the father is the story i think focus on the family was was one that promoted it for a while about uh in prisons they have this idea of for mother's day having um opportunities for the inmates to give to send out free mother's day cards and the story was true story they it was like an overflow yeah you know mass response of of inmates i sent my my mom a card and they were like on her mama yes exactly and so it was like we're gonna this is such a great idea why don't the next thought they have is why don't we do this on father's day and we'll give the inmates opportunities to send father's day cards well father's day came around the card opportunity came around and it was crickets there's nothing happening no one not one signed up for it and that's that's a great illustration for understanding how rampant the father wound is to the point that the father's it's become socially acceptable it's become almost a very casual overlooking thing now that many fathers they're such a mass of fathers not emotionally being involved they might be home but they're not emotionally involved or they're just they're abandoning their families we just kind of get used to that culturally yeah we've accepted that fathers just aren't there well that's just my dad you know whatever correct so it takes it takes time and awareness to to wrestle sorry he's with his other fans yeah there's a lot of stuff like that going on and but when we look at this story there's something i want to bring out too is that it's tricky for many people to recognize mother wounds and that story kind of illustrates that and i'm not saying they shouldn't have sent their mother's cards certainly of course you know father's day mother's day cards it's not that's not the point the point is that the mother wound often hides under the radar of our awareness because we have this trickle-down effect where the enemy has attacked the men in our homes which then has a flow to the mothers and their ability to do something that's very very important and it's the word nurture that's that's the key word here and so there's a lot of guilt that comes into play when recognizing your mother wounds because you're like well she tried her best she did this you did that and the thing that i want to emphasize right up front to people uh two things i'd like to share and then we'll kind of figure out where we're gonna go with this one is that you can work through healing wounds it doesn't mean your parent was a hundred percent evil it doesn't mean you're disrespecting them there's a lot of like when i work with people there's a lot of i feel bad there's a lot of sense of like i don't want to make my parents look bad by recognizing woundedness and we tend to look at things in a black and white kind of way like they're either all bad or they were all great and it's like it's it's a mixture and the second thing i want to say is that some people write to me and they're like i have this problem and i can't really see is it my father wound is it my mother what is it i don't really know and they're digging right they're like they're like digging feverishly at times obsessing to try to find and the way woundedness works is you you you know you know you you become aware of it when you need to and the thing that we want to encourage is openness and awareness of your heart of recognizing the battles you face have history to them history and your family have history in your generations and when we're talking about the mother wound the key word we're talking about here is nurture because that's really the main issue of this all about and we live in a we live in a world where people are manifesting an inability to express and experience nurture yeah it's a huge problem and i think too going back to what you were saying is you know in relation to the prison cards and all those things there is an element that we've become okay with because mothers have just physically been there what a low bar too right well the mother just didn't leave she at least stayed which um what a low bar even we've set for that too yeah we've accepted that fathers leave but we're like well she did her best she beat us and screamed at us and was absent spiritually and emotionally but she stayed right and and and so as i'm listening to you share there's an aspect where people feel like taking that in then we're blaming accusing uh attacking that's not what healing is either no it's not like being judgmental but it is recognizing okay hey it's honorable you had to work two jobs you worked your hardest but you weren't able to be present and dad was out of the picture or not there or he was distracted or he was a workaholic and so it's recognizing the factors but there's an importance for you to be able to heal and see what happened and and and see it for what it is so that god can begin to be more present in those areas right yes does that make sense 100 because i think this is what i bump into is people feel like working through parental wounds is dishonoring and it's like no seeing seeing it for what it for what it is because nurtures um something incredibly powerful and i thought what i do is is reflect on an article i posted let's see a couple years ago 2020 i posted it out about healing your mother wounds it kind of outlines it and i'm going to put a link to it so that you can you can go we're not going to like cover everything in this article but it just lays out simple questions that you can process through because the um the the the central word is the word nurture which speaks of like if i was to explain nurture it's it's how you deal with tough times how you deal with how you're doing how you deal with moods how you deal with comforting yourself how you deal with stress in life right nurture is like the power word it really is it teaches you it equips you you know the bible talks about the nurture and admonition you're training them in nurture so it's relational it's i'm gonna walk you through this i'm gonna sit down with you i'm gonna show you i'm gonna talk you through and i i think there's so much that we realized that our families just didn't have the equipping to go this is really important and we got to like make room and make time for this and and brokenness has gotten in the way and so anyways the whole nurture word what do you what do you want to if you wanted to convey to people the power of nurture what would you want to what would you want someone to understand if you were trying to like summarize it i would say to most people because i myself spent years going what's wrong with me why can't i settle why can i make a decision why can't i this why can't i that it was it's a big word to look at and explore in your life of where this was absent or where it was present i would encourage people to tune into that word and look at it over the landscape of your life if you are the kind of person too that is like really struggling on how to even land on what's wrong with me i can't get there's all these things that you just can't settle in that word is going to be super important for you to understand if you look where you didn't have it if you look at anxiety struggles if you look at mood issues right nurture is the um the power that balances out this up and down that we all go through right we have our ups and downs in life it's never just it's never just the same it's it's normal right you have your joyous moments you have moments that are tough and challenging nurture is like the stabilizer nurture um makes room for celebration nurture um helps helps when when things get down that it's down and it is what it is but you go through it you learn you come out of it those kind of things we have to pay attention to addictions i was just going to say when anyone in in years history um addictions and ocd i go tell me about your mama right right and and and and the the equipping of nurture right of like recognizing okay um i didn't get equipped in that so therefore you recognize it you gotta learn because otherwise getting lost in addictions getting lost in obsessions we're distracted we're not dealing with the wound right we're numbing out on an addiction to try to numb our to try to cope with pain we are obsessing over a subject we think we need to fix meanwhile there's a nurture wound that really needs to connect us to like you're okay you're you're okay you're loved right now right and that's that is most of you most of us never heard that growing up right and it's okay to recognize that it is it's okay it is and i think that it it it often sits in plain view where we don't see it and i can sit down with someone it's very obvious to me let's nurture things there it's not obvious to them and that's okay and i think that um again awareness god i i want to be aware of where woundedness has affected my life and again you don't have to like force like you're digging for gold it's something that will show up to you where the light bulb comes on and you begin to start seeing but what we feel our job is is to bring an emphasis of awareness of this is important this is very very important and we've found in our work the the father wound is everybody yep and the mother wound was trickier it was trickier like it was hard enough to get people to understand and it still is it still is people are avoiding the father issue like crazy but wherever that avoidance level is the mother's word we're just in a we're just in a sea of avoiding yeah you know that's very true and and especially if you grew up in a christian home he's like well they didn't you know we did they took me to sunday school to we're like playing dodge ball with with like because if i say anything it's disrespectful i'm dishonoring my parents and i'm a bad person and it's like no it's it's if if we're going to be carriers of a new lineage in our generation we have to recognize what was not given because then we've that's where we got to learn and where i see so much in people's lives it's an immediate thing in session work and and emails and there's this immense lack of nurture and it signals we need to learn how to how to nurture ourselves how to receive the comfort of the holy spirit he's a comforter he's a nurturer he reminds us and most you know christians i'm talking to these days see the holy spirit as as an accuser as a um as a guilt-ridden toxic shamer as a um boy we really need renewal yeah in these areas yeah i think too what becomes very hard is i a lot of people have grown up in an environment where let's just say the dad was you know he has some major issues the mother stayed took care of everything a lot of moms will vocalize vocalizing heir of her victimhood and put that on the children too right so it becomes a story that's told in the family of everything that was done to her right and there are two you know your mom picked him sure your mom picked him and had kids with him sure you know so we're not hearing mom say i'm so sorry that i like i'm so sorry that right this is the life that you you don't hear moms take responsibility most of the time you hear moms who are vocalizing their victimhood in families and children are taking that in you know they're taking that in that that's it becomes a very twisted thing that the mom does herself put on the family and she can like use the kids almost as a like as like a counseling avenue where it it to be and then she's also correct a lot of moms do trying to work out you know her pain and stuff like that right yeah it's there's there's a lot to navigate in this there's um there's and there's a whole spectrum of what this looks like and i think i think what we want to do is let let awareness rise to the surface of like you you come to these points where go that wasn't healthy that wasn't healthy and i didn't know it was health wasn't healthy i didn't know like her giving me the silent treatment wasn't healthy right or you know or her not saying sorry her not humbling herself her not showing kindness her like that wasn't good even though dad was gone it wasn't good how she acted either even though he you know for sure for sure right so um the the the name of the post is uh healing your mother wounds you go to martyasus.com healing your mother wounds and we got it up here on the screen for those of you watching the video version of this and i'll just i'll just read the top part and then we can kind of glance through some of these some of these questions how you respond to the struggles of life or recover from difficult challenges has a lot to do with how well you're able to experience nurture and how you practice nurture has a lot to do with relationship you had with your mother so what comes to the surface of your heart when you consider your relationship with your mom and i think that's a great place to start when you think about your relationship with your mom we can tend to jump to something like quick and and that's fine whether it's good or bad but let yourself without instant judgment without um like skirting away from it allow yourself to like just understand for most people this question can be tricky feel like a betrayal against her to even ask yourself so this can make identifying mother wounds very challenging addressing mother issues for some can feel dishonoring or disrespectful especially because most most mothers carried an excessive spiritual and emotional burden in the home and many people recognize that but mother wounds are present for a large percentage of people nonetheless so then i walk through it like a whole series of questions here that are good to just are just good for consideration and not that everyone needs to be interrogated it's more like just allowing yourself to let it bubble to the surface the first one being was your mother a safe source of nurture in your life teaching you how to process pain and recover from emotional challenges and i think most people could just plant that question for a while yeah because um a lot of times she's in pain so she's not present not really available and there's times where especially in in in christian homes we go right to the like the biblical prescription well the bible says with it there's a lot of that um i had a lot of that growing up there's like this very quick to to bring about the the thing you should do or thing you should be doing and it doesn't make room for oh you're feeling that what are you feeling how is that going let's sit and talk about that and understand that and so that's how you get equipped to process pain it's not nurture is not like let me tell you what to do it's really like understanding being there creating a safe space to just talk and share giving your child the room to to try to articulate and helping them to get their own emotional language and saying okay well do you feel like this do you feel like this that's that's like a perfect opportunity when you're young for your mom to sit down and say okay right is this what it feels like because when i was your age and relate to them yeah the biggest thing i look like our kids are always like wow you felt that way you went through that what was it like for you right your kids will kids will when you get that thing flowing kids will ask they want to be asked right it's so true like they look with like big eyeballs like really you yeah yeah now you know it was like in this way but i get it and i i don't a lot of us don't have a lot of room where that that took place for example you ever have one of those moments where we all have them to an extent where you just kind of like burst at the seams and you just start crying right something just you know you can't take it anymore you're just overwhelmed and you just start crying and there's this little bit of like you didn't solve anything but this is a little bit of like you feel a little just a hair even just a hair better sometimes a lot better just sometimes just a little bit better and all you did was just cry right nurture uh because in those moments of pain and struggle we don't need things fixed we think we do what we need is we need to be understood we need to be seen i see your pain there's the word i need to be seen i need to be seen and for many of my sisters in christ out there this is very in both father and mother wounds is that i don't feel seen and that wound will carry you into so many areas of dysfunction or just looking for love in all the wrong places or pressure or perfectionism or performance or whatever it will just want to wreak havoc in your life and in your journey and so we only started with the first question right [Laughter] so there's there's questions like emotional availability now in order for me as a parent to be available to you as my child i have to a value that space to i have to have emotional room in my heart that when those times come and they arrive we're there and i there's such a battle and war over parents to distract you to get you lost in busyness that when your kids are going through things you're unavailable because let this is like the honest i'll be the it's inconvenient like abby always wants to talk when i'm doing the dishes yeah oh always or when i am so tired and i right it's time for bed and it's like wait right and it's okay now there's times that we go you gotta go to bed or this time okay so don't get don't think for a second that we're just like floating in this just like perfect availability but there is a compass of like i'm tired but let's talk what's what's going on and then we may go in and then we'll we'll carry on with this a little bit more tomorrow it's a lot of like making space and making room as a dad i feel that like busy do things got projects work for i don't want to put words in your mouth but as a mom busy of what's going on in administration and work you're doing with me and and and and stuff around the house and things that are that are happening right that you got all these things you get you get like a tunnel vision and want to pull you into that right but we just we realize how important the nurture the admonition the bible talks about of how important it is to it it's our we're the references for their life that when they go through a hard time how are they going to approach it because being being um being parents that are somewhat healthy because no there's no perfect parent but being somewhat healthy you want to at least put some ammunition in your in your children's um you know military spiritual war bell they feel like they have something to draw from right that they're not just aimlessly going up against things but it's it's not found in preaching at them it's not found in sending them off to youth group youth camp or away to someone else away someone's office for an hour when you don't know what anyone's saying to them right to another counselor to another thing none of that is not shaming you if you've done it it's not nothing that no that's wrong no that's wrong it's great but that's not the the core is is mom and dad that's the that's the thing we want to raise up is people understanding the own your own wound in your life that your parents voice was the most important voice or lack thereof in your journey and then to equip you as you become parents that it's never too late even if you have grown adult children to sit across from them and say i know i maybe have not heard in the past but i want i want to do that now it's never too late to do that that you still can be a very important voice a healing voice in your children's lives right even if you don't have all the answers that's right and there's many moms that are um you know listening to these materials taking it in and you also need to be kind to your own journey right you want to be an effective mom but you're very hard on yourself and that's something to be aware of too is that this this journey is not being a perfect parent we're going to prevent every single thing you know and create a perfect bubble although we'd love to that would be amazing wouldn't it just to have a little bubble world and we're gonna keep you in that bubble it's awesome it'd be awesome but um to be kind to your own journey because there are many moms too that recognize oh i i see that and i'm available i want to talk through that i understand and i am sorry and i'm super proud of those people because it's it's going to change the tide and then there's moms that are doing that and but their kids are lost in their brokenness right and um we we have to you have to focus on your healing journey just continue in that because there is uh you know moms that are like i'm working through this i'm apologizing i'm working through right i don't see anybody right you know say that again that they don't maybe see the results right right or their or their kids are not you know having it right now and don't let that take you out though and just being prayerful being watchful give give your children to god especially your adult children give giving them over to god and and and having a humble heart and a graciousness i think is is important because in other words you can get lost in like we know what we get lost in is the rejection from our children well they don't want to talk to me no they're testing you to stay in the game they're not subconsciously going i'm going to test mom right now and i'm going to reject her and i'm going to reject dad right but there is that inner core of wanting to be pursued this is where that's being set when they're young right are you going to mom and dad going to pursue me in a loving and honest and true way even if i reject them yeah that's all being tested when they're young right yeah so did that happen to you when maybe you were snarky to your mother and she was like fine i'm not going to talk to you then right now then mom goes into rejection mode right right yeah and it's like it all requires i feel like it all requires wisdom right to know like where are you feeding a rejection that's making you withdraw are you trying too hard you know it takes wisdom kind of just takes wisdom to know where you're where you're at in the journey yeah it's true um where was i um well i think you know the thing that sticks out to me too we found a lot is like even the self-care how we uh that one's huge this this one this one here right here in the middle about about just simple basic care um for you for the daily you know body care uh just just having moments of of space for yourself in your journey you know that this is a this is a nurture thing if i had a dollar for every woman especially when we were pastoring you know people met with that have told me that their mother never discussed their menstrual cycle with them and never prepared them right right right huge that's a and that's a major transition major transition season that you need that the most they learn stuff from their friends and you know their friends taught them about right sanitary but like all the things they learn by just talking to friends right right did um did she communicate that she was proud of you but you were her dearly loved child did she display outward signs of affection did you feel special you know in her sight how did you feel like you were just an annoyance you know so then i move into recalling memories of you know difficult things was she harsh difficult to please did she give you the silent treatment for for punishment right most people probably say yes to both of those things confusing to interact with you walk away like kind of spinning you know there's a lot of like people interacting with family and then they walk away spinning but the um the the take home that's really important to consider is the equipping did she equip you that is a big aspect of like really understanding how we cultivate because right now we have an increase uh uh whether it's an increase or it's it's been there now just more identifying it there's just growing growing addictions growing mental health battles growing like i have anxiety it can't stop depression that just or mood issues or obsessiveness nurture comes in like like it's like that picture of like jesus speaking to the storm and the storm calming peace be still like that's what i'm talking about when i'm talking about nurture it has this effect to just peace you're okay and we um we are lacking this in such a massive way and i'm praying that we'll understand that we've you know we've not been we've not been equipped in this and our symptoms show and i put a big list here on the page you can go through it yourself know inability to deal with stress coping mechanisms grieving um you know all these all these things are basically the things i work with on a daily basis and and i'm working through in my own life and we're working through in our own life right um what would you say in this in this this is a loaded question where would you say in this list is the one that you brought out in your healing journey of like okay this is a signal i need to grow and nurture the most the inability the number one inability to deal with stress right well and relationship confusion right i was like a hot mess with being close to people i have a hard time well i wrote this article but it's like i i feel the same way you feel uh obsessiveness hold on i don't know i could switch the number once yeah yeah i'm like uh the inability to do what's wrong wait it's um all of them listen i want people you know we've mentioned this before um you know my own mother watches our broadcasts you know um so sometimes it's hard because there are things you go you know you want to bring them out and whatever and i never want to shame her ever sure um our families can at times um whether we know tune in or not to sometimes i don't know if they're tuning in you know um but her and i do you know and it's taken time and years of being able to on my end even share and say okay you know know when to share and when to go you know what i just got to work through this about her i don't have to tell her everything i think she did wrong with me either and you know it's been a it's been a very like up and down thing of how you work that out with your mom too um because we're not encouraging either to go okay mom sit down because i have figured this out and i'm gonna give it all to you yeah you know don't recommend that i don't recommend that and don't you know there's a beautiful timing that the holy spirit will give you and sometimes you you don't recognize that timing and you jump too soon but um all of us you know even if you had a great mom and a great dad nobody's perfect and i always think in it then if you're struggling with something it's good to tune in and go okay they weren't perfect in everything there was something that i wasn't equipped in i'm struggling with something now you know yep and and when we talk about like how to one day lord will and creek don't rise there is a book i see for you and i yes we've talked about this right now and the word nurture is is across the title yeah um that's down the road that's down the road so you know don't write me about it right now it's in the hopper and it's marinating right it'll be down the road but um the people often go well how and how do i heal and our first response is sometimes go to your mom and talk to her and it's like nah don't do that don't do that i don't recommend that at all go to someone who you could process with a little bit and say this makes sense like and that's where counseling or therapy or whatever can help bring that to life but it's it's really about recognition letting god bring to recognition and bringing to awareness so you don't get lost and why am i so stupid why can't i get through these problems what's a matter with me we live in this like very deep shaming self-hating world and it moves into a lot of areas and you know what it does when we like live in that shame we live in that self hey we live in that we perfectionism we're chasing things we're trying to fix ourselves we never grieve and so as you recognize there's a grieving process you go through or god just wants to be a healing presence in your life but when i'm chase if i'm chasing addictions or chasing obsessiveness or chasing this i don't have the space to go okay that's that's an area of woundedness i'm trying to live out of that needs healing right now and that moves into a whole bunch of areas trauma and complex trauma and i would say to what makes this very difficult is most of us are walking through this while while also keeping relationship with parents yeah and and being and being parents too and being parents right uh which is a boatload it's a lot of fun everybody this is good because this is all this interesting setup because when you become a parent there are these moments you look at your children your brokenness rises up to the surface because where they are what they're going through creates a mirror to you and this is god's loving way of going i'm going to heal this i want to heal this in your life you know and um the stress or the why do we get so anxious over our kids there there are things that we're seeing we're we're we're struggling with because of our history and it's a time for correct god to heal us i've noticed that many times and um where even certain things like for instance for example abby have something that she's going through and i'm like why am i why am i so torn up about torn up about this this isn't about her and then as i let that come to the surface like oh it's another area for god to heal right i've also made the state often made the statement especially with her is i don't want her to have to go through what i did right right and so i'm so grateful for the way that you and i talk about things because there is a part two where abby's gonna have her own thing because we're healing as we're raising our children too we're not perfect parents right and at the core of it when i settle and rest and give myself the slack too it's like you know what the best thing i can do is equip her that's right and give her the safety that if she's like mom i'm struggling with something yep yeah she has she has the safety to come to me and talk it out at the end of the day i'm like okay if i fail at everything else that's my goal yeah not to solve it all and remove it all from her so she has no pain no suffering can't do that right but what can i do i could start crying oh my gosh well if you if you if you want to take some some next steps we do have we do have a lot of materials that deal with um nurture like some um some episodes and that we talk about it and again this is kind of another one that we're we're bringing up but in the heart healing journey there's aspects where we get into the father wound mother wound and there's an online course it it it's the heart healing journey has the the online course was split into volume one and volume two there's just so much i i broke down and and i put it into bite-sized pieces there's even in volume one at the end of it there's um healing prayers of healing father wounds healing mother wounds i think that those are some important things to process through and and even revisit them you know from time to time but of course you can always go to mark asus.com there's a topic section at the top where you can go there and click on and and look through certain topics that as you're navigating the healing journey you can um have some resources that can support your life and support what you're going through you can always send questions too as well too mark mark dejesus we do try to look through and and see what could be good material for future questions to address no i was actually going to say um in a lot of the comments that i see people are asking hey have you talked about this and that um and i was just gonna recommend we have people go to your website go to the topic search a keyword because right it's probably there's probably an article or a corresponding video to go with it yep yep with more with more to arrive you know in the days ahead so we pray this is a blessing to your life and your journey and thanks hun for talking today appreciate that this was good this was helpful and i pray was helpful for all those of you that are watching and listening enjoy lord willing creek don't rise we'll try to see what's next in in the hopper and we look forward to bringing you more insights if this if this episode was a blessing to your life in your journey go to mark dejesus.com click on the donate button give a one-time donation or become a regular supporter and we look forward to more great things next time and until then thank you everyone we're out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] you