Participants:
Series Code: TDYL
Program Code: TDYL250013A
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00:02 I want to spend my life.
00:09 Mending broken, 00:14 I want to spend my life. 00:35 I want to spend my life. 00:41 Mending broken, 00:46 I want to spend my life. 01:04 Hello, I'm Shelly Quinn. 01:06 I'm J.D. 01:07 Quinn. 01:12 We're going to have a lively time tonight because our 01:18 special guest. 01:19 So let me go ahead and introduce her without ado. 01:24 This is someone, if you've been watching 3ABN for years, you've 01:28 seen her on 3ABN. 01:30 Over 20 years she's been on 3ABN. 01:33 And just my dear, dear friend, I love you dearly, Cherie 01:38 Peters, who is an author, a speaker, and the host of 01:44 Celebrating Life, Enrique. 01:47 Healing Beyond Trauma. 01:48 Healing, Celebrating Life, Healing Beyond Trauma. 01:51 And that is a brand new program. 01:53 And so I've got to say thank you for the introduction 01:55 because you know I love you both. 01:57 Amen. 01:57 And it feels like family. 01:59 I feel like every time I come back I get to just hang out 02:01 with family. 02:02 And so it is a blessing. 02:03 I'm so glad to be here. 02:05 Your series Celebrating Life and Recovery was incredibly 02:09 popular and we did many seasons of that. 02:12 We're going to come back and get just a Reader's Digest 02:15 version of Cherie's life and how the Lord led her into this 02:21 ministry. 02:26 and tell you what tonight's program is going to be about. 02:30 The scripture is Hebrews 11 and it's at verse 25. 02:36 It says that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the 02:41 people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of 02:47 sin. 02:52 talking about is dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter and 02:58 it has to do with the pain and the pleasure side of the brain. 03:04 It's a chemical in the brain. 03:06 God created us to experience reward, the pleasure and pain 03:12 and they're both beneficial to us. 03:15 But this chemical, God wants to keep it in homeostasis, a 03:21 balanced state and this is interesting. 03:24 I've been talking with a dear friend who's going for her 03:28 master's in trauma recovery and she just keeps telling me about 03:33 all of these studies that they've been doing that show 03:38 that this neurotransmitter, dopamine, is activated through 03:44 spiritual exercises like praying and reading the Word 03:50 and drawing near to God and meditation. 03:53 So it activates the reward system of the brain and 03:57 increases dopamine that stays at a level that isn't going to 04:03 excite the body to crash, I'll put it that way. 04:07 But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. 04:10 I just want you to stay tuned because this is going to be a 04:15 program that we're going to see how addicted our world is to 04:21 dopamine. 04:28 and the Drive to Numb, Healing in a World Drowning in 04:34 Dopamine. 04:35 Whoa, that's a long title, but that tells you what's coming 04:39 up. 04:39 I can just dumb it down. 04:41 This is good stuff that you're going to be hearing. 04:45 This is PhD stuff that's bringing it down so that we 04:50 understand. 04:52 So this is going to be a special program. 04:53 It will be. 04:55 And everybody loves music and we love our pastor, John 04:59 Lomacane. 05:23 Be still and know that he is God. 05:32 Be still and know that he is holy. 05:40 Be still, O rest, O soul of mine. 05:45 Bow before the Prince of Peace. 05:49 Let the noise and clamor cease. 05:56 Be still and know that he is God. 06:04 Be still and know that he is faithful. 06:12 Consider all that he has done. 06:18 Stand in awe and be amazed. 06:21 And know that he will never change. 06:28 Be still. 06:35 Be still and know that he is God. 06:42 Be still. 06:47 And know that he is God. 06:51 Be still. 06:55 And know that he is God. 06:59 Be still. 07:04 Be speechless. 07:08 Be still and know that he is God. 07:17 Be still and know he is our Father. 07:26 Come rest your head upon his breast. 07:31 Listen to the rhythm of his unfailing heart of love. 07:39 Beating for his little ones, calling each of us to come. 07:51 Be still. 08:00 Be still. 08:19 That's touching, very, very touching. 08:22 It's beautiful and it is so true. 08:24 Sheree, let's just kick this off. 08:26 Tell us about the trauma in your life that brought you into 08:33 ministry of celebrating life and recovery and celebrating 08:37 life, and that is Healing Beyond Trauma, which is a new 08:41 series that will be coming up soon. 08:43 You know what's interesting, whenever I think about that is 08:47 that I was raised by a mother who, when she had me, I was her 08:54 second child, she was a kid, and my dad was an abuser, so my 08:58 dad was a perpetrator, and so my mom was crashing, she didn't 09:05 know how to love any of us, especially me as her second 09:09 child, and I was born into that, so I didn't get touched, 09:14 held, barely, I don't even think that she was responsible 09:17 for, like, feeding any of that stuff. 09:20 I remember just not being loved at all, and when other kids 09:23 came along, because my mom had five kids before she was in her 09:26 early twenties, I was the second. 09:28 She says 15, the dates add up to about 14 years old in my 09:34 mind, but she was young. 09:35 So I was born, and she just didn't know how to love. 09:39 She was being abused by my dad. 09:42 She was a kid. 09:43 She was already married. 09:44 She had five kids, like I said, before she was of age at all, 09:48 and so I grew up just desperately wanting to be 09:50 loved. 09:54 like, sometimes standing when I was three or so, standing in 09:57 front of a mirror and saying, like, what is wrong with me 10:00 that she can't touch me? 10:02 And I would have given anything just for her to touch my face. 10:06 Like, I just wanted to sit next to her and feel her, and the 10:10 other kids would run up to her, and she would not have a 10:12 problem. 10:17 hang on me? 10:17 I mean, like, I just remember that. 10:20 I remember probably the time that I felt like my life 10:24 changed is I was six years old. 10:26 We were watching a movie, and the TVs were on the floor at 10:30 the time, and we were watching a movie, and I shouldn't have 10:33 been watching it. 10:35 everybody. 10:37 It was called The Bad Seed, and I remember watching this movie 10:40 thinking, I was scared. 10:41 I knew she was going to kill someone else, and she was a 10:44 little blonde kid, and she was just killing everybody. 10:48 And so somebody got a medal at her school, and she thought she 10:52 should have got the medal, so she killed him and got the 10:54 medal. 10:59 the landlord died that night, and she got the parakeet. 11:01 So I mean, it was like this was a horrendous movie. 11:04 And towards the end of the movie, the mother was going to 11:07 kill the little girl and then commit suicide. 11:09 And my mom simply said to me, I was petrified watching this 11:14 movie, and my mom said, You're the bad seed. 11:17 And I remember being six, and I remember thinking, that's why 11:21 you don't love me. 11:22 And I believed it so much that I then went into hiding. 11:28 Like, I didn't want anyone to know that I was actually just a 11:31 bad seed. 11:32 And so I kind of hid that. 11:33 I ended up getting moved to Canada to live with an aunt. 11:40 I tried to commit suicide a number of times. 11:43 I ended up homeless by the age of 13. 11:46 And everything kind of changed. 11:47 But even in the back of my mind, I always knew that I was 11:51 a bad seed. 11:51 And I always ran from that. 11:53 I didn't want anyone to know. 11:54 I ran from that. 11:56 I tried to hide. 11:57 The first time I did drugs, I felt like I could survive. 12:00 And I just stayed high for the next 10 years. 12:05 And on the streets of Los Angeles is where I ended up. 12:09 There was probably 80,000 kids like me. 12:11 So I wasn't the only runaway or the only homeless kid on the 12:15 streets of L.A. 12:16 But I always felt desperately broken, desperately broken. 12:24 And so when I was 23, I was done. 12:28 I was tired. 12:29 I had seen, you know, I was kidnapped by bikers at one 12:32 point. 12:36 for new members. 12:38 I mean, all of that kind of stuff. 12:39 Because living on the street as a kid, you are funneled into 12:42 industries that are very dark. 12:44 So I saw all of the darker parts of, I think, humanity. 12:49 And by the time I was 23, I was just done. 12:51 Like, I don't want to do this anymore. 12:53 And a guy came over to put a gun to my head and he said, I'm 12:56 going to blow your head off. 12:58 He thought I stole money from him and nobody steals from me. 13:01 And I was so grateful. 13:02 Like, I just remember feeling so grateful because I haven't 13:05 been successful at killing myself. 13:08 And so I just thought, you know, pull the trigger. 13:12 Thank you. 13:12 Like, pull the trigger. 13:13 And then I realized he was just trying to scare me. 13:16 And I've said this a lot of times, but I wanted to scream. 13:19 My next breath scares me. 13:21 I don't want to be here. 13:22 I don't want to do this anymore. 13:23 I don't belong here. 13:25 I am not good. 13:26 And so I just remember just wanting him to pull the 13:29 trigger. 13:29 And he didn't. 13:33 money. 13:37 I don't know how to do life. 13:39 I don't know how. 13:41 I don't belong anywhere. 13:42 I had, you know, 42 warrants for my arrest. 13:45 I lived in a drug house. 13:46 I was strung out on heroin by that time. 13:49 When I got kidnapped by the motorcycle gang, I got hit in 13:52 the mouth and, you know, a couple of teeth missing. 13:54 I mean, it was just a really horribly dark time. 13:58 And so I thought I need to go somewhere where somebody will 14:02 say, you know, they love me. 14:05 I mean, and this sounds crazy, but my heart's cry was I wanted 14:09 someone to say, I'm sorry and I love you. 14:13 So I went back to my mom's house. 14:15 I don't know why, but I went back to my mom's house and 14:19 everything was kind of the normal thing. 14:21 My dad was then moved out. 14:23 My mom had a boyfriend there and everything was normal. 14:27 It was dark. 14:28 The house is dirty. 14:31 And I remember walking in and everybody saying, well, how are 14:35 you doing? 14:40 But I said, it's verbal camouflage. 14:44 You're screaming. 14:45 Your heart is screaming on the inside, but you have to smile 14:49 and put forward. 14:50 I wanted to throw myself in front of a train. 14:52 I literally and to sit through, I just remember sitting there 14:57 as long as I could. 14:58 And then I said nothing had changed. 15:00 And I said, you know, I got to go. 15:02 And I got ready to leave. 15:04 And my mom said that she had something for me and she went 15:08 in the bedroom and got a Manila envelope and she handed it to 15:11 me. 15:14 with you. 15:18 saw you. 15:18 And my mom's life is horrendous. 15:21 Right. 15:24 And she said, yes. 15:26 I said, what are you taking in school? 15:27 And she said social work. 15:29 And I wanted to scream like, are you kidding me? 15:32 Social work? 15:33 You're going to teach another kid how to be loved? 15:36 I mean, I was my whole inside. 15:38 I remember feeling furious like I didn't say anything because 15:43 in those days we didn't talk back to our parents. 15:46 But you know what? 15:48 I understood every crime where somebody gets stabbed like 300 15:52 times. 15:58 And all I said was good luck with that. 16:00 And I walked away, went back to the drug house, wanted to kill 16:04 myself, looking for something to use. 16:06 And I had just done a major drug deal that that's where 16:10 this guy thought I sold his money. 16:12 And I just did a major drug deal and I didn't have enough 16:15 drugs that would kill me. 16:16 And I thought, what am I going to do? 16:18 And I didn't have anything like I'm not a cutter. 16:21 I don't like pain. 16:23 In fact, when I was eight years old, I tried to kill myself. 16:25 I jumped off the roof of my house and put a mattress down 16:28 so I wouldn't get hurt. 16:29 I mean, like, I just don't do this well. 16:32 And so I was looking for anything and I found some 16:35 syringes and I was going to pump air into my veins until my 16:39 heart exploded. 16:40 I don't know why, but that's what I was going to do. 16:43 And I turned around and I had thrown the manila envelope on 16:47 the bed. 16:51 I thought nobody has ever loved me. 16:53 I mean, I've not been loved. 16:54 My dad is a molester. 16:56 I've been molested since I was three months old. 16:58 So I don't know a mother or a father. 17:00 And now I'm on the streets being used by perpetrators, by 17:04 being used by people in industries that use kids. 17:07 And so I'm looking at this thing and I just want to rip it 17:10 into my hands bleed. 17:11 I'm so angry, like I don't want to just rip it in half. 17:14 I'm just so angry and I go over and I pick it up and I feel 17:19 God's presence for the first time ever. 17:21 And even to this day when I think about that for the first 17:24 time ever, somebody said, How did you know it was God? 17:26 I don't know. 17:28 I wasn't raised a Christian. 17:29 I don't have that kind of background, but I felt loved 17:32 and at peace for the first time. 17:36 And I just thought, what is going on? 17:38 And I felt like the Holy Spirit said, not a voice, but the Holy 17:41 Spirit said, open the envelope. 17:43 And I opened it and took it out. 17:45 I could barely read. 17:47 I wasn't a proficient reader, but I went through it the best 17:50 I could. 17:54 My mom had an abusive background. 17:58 She was passed on to aunties while her mom was, I hate to 18:02 say partying, but that's what she was doing. 18:04 And then her mom got pregnant and moved her to the United 18:06 States from Canada. 18:08 And, you know, her whole life was uprooted and talked about 18:11 that, talked about meeting my father. 18:13 Who was a perpetrator and was abusive to her. 18:16 And then my stepfather, who was an alcoholic and smoked weed. 18:20 And so it talked about all that stuff. 18:22 And on the third page, I turned to the third page and before I 18:27 turned, I remember thinking, I wish she would have told me 18:30 this because I would have told her I love her. 18:32 I would have told her it's okay. 18:35 But I turned to the third page and she said, the only reason I 18:38 survived any of this, I took my anger and hatred on my second 18:41 child and I ruined her life. 18:43 And I couldn't hardly breathe. 18:45 I've been screaming my whole life. 18:47 What is wrong with me? 18:49 And God said it was never about you. 18:51 And I felt like I heard him clearly say it was never about 18:54 you. 18:58 And I just cried. 19:00 I thought not even God can help me. 19:03 Like, look at me. 19:04 I am not loved. 19:05 I'm in my mind, the bad seed. 19:08 And I'm thinking, God can't do this. 19:12 God can't do anything. 19:13 I have all these warrants. 19:14 I'm living in a drug house. 19:15 I can barely read. 19:16 And what he said is, I said, look at me. 19:19 And I remember in my mind saying, look at me. 19:21 And he's like, can I show you who I see when I look at you? 19:25 And I thought I was afraid because what if he sees 19:28 something darker than what I see? 19:30 And what he showed me is who I am the day after resurrection. 19:34 Wow. 19:35 Not the day I pull a needle out of my arm. 19:36 Not the day that I figure out how to be good. 19:39 The day after resurrection, I am loved with an everlasting 19:43 love. 19:49 and beauty of the image he showed me, even though I 19:51 couldn't see the whole thing. 19:53 I just felt like I couldn't see the whole thing. 19:55 But I saw innocence and beauty. 19:57 And that's where he said, I'll get you home. 19:59 And so not I'll get you clean. 20:01 I'll get you home. 20:03 He never said, I will love you if you stop lying. 20:05 I will love you if you stop using drugs. 20:07 I will love you if you... 20:09 He didn't say any of that. 20:10 He said, I love you and I will get you home. 20:13 And that was life-changing for me. 20:15 And when we're talking about even this whole thing on 20:19 trauma, when we're talking about that, I remember having 20:24 to figure out where I'm going to go now. 20:27 Because I mean, my whole life until that point has been 20:31 trauma. 20:33 Even what I saw on the streets, what happened to me on the 20:36 streets, what happened to me at home, like all of it has been 20:39 trauma. 20:40 And so now God is saying, trust me. 20:43 And even when he says that, like, trust what? 20:46 Like, are you kidding me? 20:47 I don't trust anybody. 20:49 I don't even know how to trust. 20:51 I have never. 20:52 And I don't think even when I say it now, I don't think 20:55 people can imagine what it feels like to never be loved, 21:00 ever be loved. 21:01 And that's what I felt like. 21:04 I didn't have anything to bring to the table. 21:07 And I called the people I knew, which were drug addicts and 21:10 prostitutes and club owners. 21:13 I mean, I didn't know any normal people. 21:15 And I said, I need to go somewhere to do recovery. 21:18 And so some guy said, I called my sister and she said, you can 21:22 go to her house. 21:23 Well, I get to her house, which was seven, eight hours away 21:26 from Los Angeles. 21:27 It was Placerville, California, drive all the way there. 21:30 I don't take any drugs, right? 21:32 I just because I think God didn't say I want you to stop 21:35 doing drugs. 21:35 He never said that. 21:37 But when he said, I love you, I wanted to stop doing 21:39 everything. 21:40 I wanted to be the image that he showed me. 21:44 I wanted to be innocent and beautiful. 21:47 And I just wanted to be all that. 21:49 So I didn't take anything with me. 21:51 I get to her house and I'm going to withdraw. 21:53 I was like, crazy. 21:54 I can't even I can't even tell you. 21:56 I can't imagine even like I didn't know what to say. 22:01 I'm at the door. 22:02 She says, I love you. 22:03 Come on in. 22:04 I'm just thinking you don't even know me. 22:07 How do you say you love me? 22:09 My mama doesn't even love me. 22:10 And I remember just being so angry that I just didn't know 22:15 how to act. 22:15 And I'm going to withdraw. 22:17 And she was getting ready for the Sabbath. 22:21 Does that mean she's getting ready for the Sabbath? 22:23 And I'm asking her like, do you have any coffee? 22:27 Do you have any tea? 22:28 Do you have any anything? 22:29 And she says, I have lentils. 22:32 And I remember just thinking, that looks terrible. 22:36 Who wants that? 22:38 And then she even said, do you want some water? 22:40 And I said, I just can't stomach water. 22:44 Like, you know, she's really kind. 22:46 She says, do you drink alcohol? 22:47 And I think, yeah. 22:49 And she says, did it take you a while to get used to the taste 22:51 of that? 22:52 And I said, yes. 22:53 And she said, water's like that. 22:55 You'll get used to it. 22:56 And I remember she said, I'm a vegan vegetarian. 23:00 And I thought, am I in hell? 23:03 Because is this where you go when you misbehave your entire 23:06 life? 23:08 And I remember just thinking that this is crazy. 23:13 But to this day, I know that God put me in the safest place 23:17 I could be in. 23:18 To do withdraws, to have somebody that says, here's some 23:21 water. 23:22 Here's some cantaloupe. 23:23 Go take a shower and shower the drugs off your skin. 23:26 It was the most amazing journey to say that there's a God that 23:31 sees me and will literally walk me into everything from that 23:36 point on. 23:41 he said, can I fix your teeth? 23:44 Right? 23:49 And I said, I don't have insurance. 23:51 I know that was a shock to him. 23:54 I don't have insurance. 23:55 I don't have anything. 23:56 And he said, I know, I know. 23:57 So he took me in to the dentist's office. 23:59 He was a dentist and literally said that your face is rotted. 24:06 Like not my teeth are rotted. 24:08 Because when you do a lot of drugs and when you got 24:11 malnutrition and we haven't taken care of yourself, your 24:13 teeth rot from the bone down. 24:15 I mean, it literally is not something you're going to see 24:17 on the outside for a while. 24:19 And so what he said is, I don't know how many I can save. 24:22 I don't know what I can do. 24:23 I'm 23 years old at this time and I wanted to sweep. 24:27 And he said, I will do whatever I can. 24:31 When he said that, I said, can I watch? 24:35 And he said, it's going to be intense. 24:37 Like I'm going to have to cut on the inside of your gums all 24:40 the way across and literally kind of scrape the bone. 24:43 And I thought, I just wanted to see everything that God was 24:46 going to do. 24:47 Because I was so, how does God do that? 24:50 I know people hear stories like this. 24:52 But when you're nothing and God says, let me get your teeth 24:58 fixed and a place to live and a place to do recovery, it is 25:02 unbelievably mind blowing. 25:04 And so he said, yes. 25:05 And so he sets up. 25:06 He's got this whole big balloon thing over my mouth and he's 25:10 getting ready to do the surgery. 25:11 And I've got a mirror right there that he set up so I could 25:13 watch. 25:15 And I remember watching and then all of a sudden I thought, 25:18 that's my face and I almost passed out. 25:22 But you know, all of those things, every step from the 25:26 time that I met God to the next day, to the next day, to the 25:30 next day, I felt like I had a father that said, I can't wait. 25:35 I can't wait to love you. 25:37 I can't wait to show you this. 25:38 I can't wait to help you with this. 25:42 So I think that that was amazing to me to come out of 25:46 all of that trauma and meet God. 25:50 Unfortunately, what I think happened, even I did the 25:53 recovery. 25:54 I worked with Donna. 25:55 She taught me. 25:57 Soon as she realized that I was trusting her, she went like 26:00 this and a Bible slid out of her sleeve. 26:03 We're in the middle of Bible study. 26:04 I don't know how you guys do that, but it was like pretty 26:07 slick, you know? 26:08 And so she's like teaching me the Bible and I'm thinking that 26:11 is a funniest thing. 26:13 And from that, she literally says, now you got to go find 26:16 your church, right? 26:17 A church. 26:25 thought they were saying was don't talk about any of this. 26:29 All you have to do is pray and God will fix everything. 26:32 So don't deal with your trauma. 26:34 Don't talk about it. 26:36 Pray harder and all of those things. 26:39 And I did that for years and years and years. 26:42 And I got some recovery. 26:44 I mean, I got blessed. 26:46 I changed lives. 26:47 I went back to school and got a nursing degree and all of that 26:50 kind of stuff was amazing. 26:53 But I think we can't tell people that. 26:56 We can't be afraid of our trauma and our grief. 27:01 Grief will not be denied. 27:03 And when people try to tell others just don't think about 27:08 it, you've just got to forgive and forget and all of this. 27:14 We don't forgive and forget because if we forgot, we'd 27:17 never learn by experience. 27:19 They said the body keeps score. 27:21 Yes, it does. 27:21 And that I think is an incredible thing. 27:23 But this is just to tell you how much I didn't deal with any 27:27 of this is that I like working with Special Olympics and I 27:32 work with neurodiverse kids at times and that kind of thing. 27:35 So I'm working with this girl Hope and this was not too long 27:38 ago, a few years ago. 27:40 And I'm working with her and I take her to a hot air balloon 27:44 festival. 27:44 She is amazing. 27:47 She's a savant as far as artwork goes. 27:50 But in her head, I don't know what age she is or what she 27:52 understands. 27:53 But she loves me and I love her. 27:55 So we go to see these hot air balloons and there's like a 27:59 million people there. 28:00 I mean, it's a huge festival. 28:02 And on the way out, I knew she's going to get lost and if 28:05 she gets lost, she's going to panic. 28:08 It's confusing. 28:09 So I said to her, hold my jacket. 28:12 And she held it. 28:14 And then I started to walk away and she let go. 28:16 And I did that a number of times, realized that's not 28:18 going to work. 28:19 So I said, can I hold your jacket? 28:21 And we did that a few times and that wasn't going to work. 28:24 And so I said, oh, have you ever skipped with someone 28:28 before? 28:29 And she said, no. 28:30 And I said, when you skip, you hold hands and it's so fun. 28:33 Let's skip all the way out. 28:35 And so she just grabbed my hand and we laughed and sang and 28:38 skipped all the way out like probably a half a mile out of 28:41 this park across the street. 28:43 Now we're going to wait for our Uber ride, right? 28:46 Because I didn't bring my car. 28:47 It was too much traffic. 28:49 And so I let go of her hand and all of a sudden she says, Miss 28:54 Cherie? 28:55 And I said, what? 28:56 And she said, can we still hold hands? 28:57 And I said, oh, yes. 28:59 And so we held hands and just laughed. 29:01 And I took her home and got my car and I went home. 29:05 And in the middle of the night, like 3.30 in the morning, 4 o 29:09 'clock in the morning, I woke up and I'm sobbing. 29:12 I mean, I am sobbing. 29:14 And I said, I'm not a crier. 29:15 So I'm like, God, what's up? 29:17 I mean, sobbing where your pillow is wet kind of thing. 29:20 And I heard the Holy Spirit said, nobody held your hand 29:24 ever. 29:26 And I just cried because I thought I never realized the 29:30 pain of that is those intimate moments that some people get. 29:34 I just have never gotten. 29:36 And I've never gotten as an adult because people don't 29:38 think you need it, right? 29:39 I mean, you just don't. 29:41 But I just wept and wept. 29:44 And I remember God saying, don't be afraid to weep. 29:48 There's more dopamine in tears than there is in laughter. 29:52 And like I found out later in research, but tears and grief 29:56 and the work that we do when we just admit that maybe that 30:01 grief needs to be shared or needs to be cried out or needs 30:05 to be acknowledged. 30:07 And I think acknowledging that was so healing for me. 30:10 I can't wait for your series. 30:12 I have to tell you, first of all, every time I hear you 30:16 talk, even though I've heard your story so many times, I 30:20 always there's something a little different that I pick 30:22 up. 30:23 I just want you to know. 30:24 I mean, I know I came from a dysfunctional background, but I 30:28 can't imagine what you went through. 30:31 I really can't. 30:33 Let me take just this one second real quick, and then 30:35 let's pick up here. 30:37 This is a live program. 30:39 And what information this is. 30:42 I mean, this brings tears to our eyes. 30:43 But we are taking questions. 30:46 So if something's catching your attention here, please send 30:48 those questions in. 30:50 It's live at 3ABN.TV. 30:54 Once again, live at 3ABN.TV. 30:57 Or if you'd like to send them in, it's 618-228-3975. 31:05 I hate to break that moment. 31:06 And send it in even if you just want to say hi. 31:08 Because we are family. 31:10 That's exactly right. 31:12 But what I wanted to say was, I'm sorry that you went through 31:17 that. 31:18 I am. 31:19 I mean, it's just, and I love you. 31:22 I do want you to know I love you so much. 31:25 I do know that. 31:27 And it's something that we could spend the whole two hours 31:30 talking about your life story. 31:32 Hold on though, JD, I don't want to miss you, because I 31:36 have felt loved and accepted by you since the day we met. 31:39 And so just know there are people in my life that even 31:42 though we don't remember the depth of our pain sometimes, 31:46 that the realness of our relationship is there. 31:49 So thank you for that. 31:50 And I think that ditto is a real word. 31:53 And I'm saying ditto, ditto, ditto. 31:55 Thank you. 31:56 Thank you. 31:57 So let's talk about trauma and how does trauma affect the 32:07 brain with, you know, God created us in such an amazing 32:11 way with these brain chemicals. 32:13 But particularly, let's talk about dopamine. 32:16 Well, let me first, there's a graphic that we have that I'd 32:19 like to bring up. 32:20 And that's just all the things that we chase. 32:23 So when I became a Christian and when I literally started to 32:27 come into my relationship with God, I started chasing 32:30 everything. 32:34 the trauma background. 32:36 But I chase. 32:40 To numb the pain. 32:40 And that's the dopamine. 32:42 And so the dopamine, let me make sure we're saying this 32:46 right. 32:52 dopamine. 32:53 You feel a reward. 32:54 You feel pleasure. 32:56 But then there's that crash. 32:58 So people are chasing after something to numb the pain. 33:01 But even in the U.S. 33:03 and the U.K. 33:08 medications that increase their dopamine, right? 33:11 One in six. 33:12 I mean, that's huge worldwide. 33:15 And so we're chasing dopamine. 33:18 So with the Prozax and the different drugs that we have, 33:21 that increases our dopamine, let's say, by 6-10 percent, 33:25 right? 33:26 We get into a drug like amphetamines. 33:29 It increases our dopamine by a thousand percent, right? 33:33 So we've got these drugs that do a little bit. 33:35 And then we've got these drugs here that will increase it by 33:39 tons, right? 33:40 And so that if I'm lacking dopamine because of abuse or 33:44 trauma or childhood stuff or neglect, and I find something 33:48 that's going to increase my dopamine by a thousand percent, 33:50 I will kill you rather than give it up, right? 33:54 So because I feel so deficient and I found something that 33:59 works, the first time I took a drug when I was 12 years old 34:02 and I didn't feel like killing myself, it was like a miracle 34:05 to me. 34:08 this drug for the rest of my life. 34:11 So I chased after whatever stopped the pain, whatever 34:14 actually numbed that. 34:17 And some people chase after sex, some people gambling, some 34:21 people religion, some people chase after whatever. 34:27 Alcohol, you know, we'll chase after whatever works because 34:29 what increases your dopamine may not increase mine, but 34:33 that's what we're looking for is that hit. 34:35 Some people get a hit from their likes on Facebook, I mean 34:41 scrolling, so that would be a dopamine thing. 34:44 So are you saying that most of us are addicted? 34:46 Yeah, in this world, from the 60s or 70s on, when marketers 34:53 realized that dopamine was really a driving force for a 34:57 lot of us, dopamine became currency. 35:01 So now marketers, especially online stuff, especially like 35:05 when I can't stop scrolling, when I can't stop watching 35:08 YouTube stuff, when I can't stop gaming, there are people 35:12 that get paid big bucks to make sure that I get those hits 35:16 because they know that that hit is so addictive that a rat will 35:20 die rather than not get his dopamine fix. 35:24 So I mean, when they found that out, they started using 35:27 dopamine in all kinds of ways and so now we're chasing 35:31 dopamine, not realizing that we're just not made to be 35:36 flooded. 35:36 We are drowning in dopamine. 35:38 We literally are going for the next fix and the next fix and 35:41 the next fix because I don't want to be alone with myself. 35:44 I don't want to have those thoughts. 35:46 I don't want to deal with the sadness of not having my hand 35:49 held. 35:54 feel them, I will chase this over here and this never works. 35:58 It never works for a lot of different reasons. 36:01 So really when we're sitting here thinking, well, it 36:04 doesn't, and I don't even know what I'm talking about here. 36:07 I want to clarify that, but some people you'd think that 36:10 methamphetamines would be the worst thing you could take. 36:14 That's not necessarily the thing at all because we're 36:17 dealing with this dopamine, which is a natural product that 36:21 we're finding a weak area in our makeup. 36:26 So it's not just drugs per se. 36:30 I mean, this could be our lifestyle. 36:33 As we go through, we're going to find out that they are a 36:36 temporary pleasure like Moses. 36:38 Even when you said that what we're finding out is that you 36:43 talk about we live in a world that has a lot of trauma in it, 36:48 but instead of learning how to deal with that trauma in a 36:51 healthy way, we are marketed to. 36:54 We get another gallon of ice cream. 36:57 We go buy some outfit. 36:59 We take a couple shots of tequila. 37:02 I fall in love with somebody on Tinder. 37:04 You know what I mean? 37:09 chase, and I'm chasing it because I am dealing with 37:14 whatever, whatever, whatever trauma. 37:16 Okay, so some people... 37:19 The whole reason that we wanted to do this new series with 37:24 Cherie, most of the world, this is a saying, treat everybody as 37:31 if their heart is breaking because it probably is. 37:34 Most people are dealing or not dealing with their trauma, and 37:43 we wanted to make... 37:46 We want to become not just trauma aware, but trauma 37:51 responsive because we do a lot of things wrong in the church 37:55 for people who are in trauma. 37:59 Talk to us, explain the fine trauma and what it does to the 38:03 brain. 38:05 There's complex trauma, and that's childhood stuff that 38:09 I've talked about in my own life, and that's where it's a 38:12 constant, a constant thing like a drip, that you're getting 38:17 abused in a number of different ways. 38:19 I have... 38:20 I thought I had... 38:23 I think God has healed this, but I had a chaotic, chaotic 38:27 attachment disorder, meaning that as a kid, I would try to 38:30 fix it doing this, and it didn't work, so I would do 38:33 this, and do this, and do this, so that was very chaotic in the 38:36 way I would respond to trauma, and so I think that that kind 38:40 of complex PTSD or complex trauma is that constant trauma 38:45 that some kids experience. 38:47 Then there's just that trauma that is just a sudden thing. 38:51 You get in a car accident or there's a natural disaster, and 38:54 so those traumas, it's once, it's sudden, and I don't want 38:58 to discount it that it's not constant because trauma is 39:00 trauma, and then you get into traumas where you are, you are 39:06 almost viciously attacked in some way, and your life 39:11 changes, so those, there's so many different things. 39:14 Politically, I think we are traumatized as a nation, not 39:17 because any one side, and I don't want to get into that at 39:20 all, but I mean, we're living, we're constantly, if you turn 39:24 on the news, or if you turn on, you know, there's a meteor, 39:27 right, that's coming to the Earth, or, you know, so, you 39:29 know, there's all... 39:30 whiplash, you know, there's something new every night. 39:32 You just get whiplash, and so it's really a sense of, we're 39:39 getting hit in so many different ways, and so anything 39:41 that actually takes us from that trauma is going to be 39:45 rewarding, right, and so anything, I could take some 39:49 sugar, I can take a good strawberry shortcake, I could 39:52 take a gallon of ice cream, I could take a drug, I can, you 39:56 know what I mean, it's like anything that gives us that 39:59 break, I can get online in school, I can get a like, I can 40:03 do a game. 40:05 You know what I mean is that we have access to things in a way 40:09 that we've not had access. 40:10 This is a whole different time, worldwide, we've never been 40:14 here. 40:17 available. 40:19 Everything's available, and boy, Sodom and Gomorrah just 40:22 came to my mind, you know, I don't know what it was like 40:26 then, maybe everything was available, but I mean, this is 40:33 very complex. 40:35 Even in Dopamine Nation, which is a book that I love, but in 40:38 that book, it talks about drowning in dopamine, that we 40:42 are drowning in dopamine, but unfortunately, can I just show 40:45 you something? 40:46 Unfortunately, our bodies don't respond well to that, so I'm 40:50 going to show it to you by just an example. 40:52 So this is a scale, and our bodies, God made us in such an 40:56 amazing way, and so our body says, dopamine is good, it's 41:00 how we were made, and it's how we really are motivated to get 41:04 up and go to work. 41:06 And dopamine is a good thing. 41:07 It's a good thing. 41:08 So let's say that I do something, and I say, oh man, 41:12 that is good, and I get a little dopamine, so I'm going 41:15 to do it again. 41:17 Oh wait, so your body says, oops, wait a minute, because 41:20 your body has to have, your body has a natural balance, so 41:24 the dopamine coming out here, your body says, oh too much, so 41:29 I'd like to balance over here, and what balance is over here 41:32 is discomfort or pain, right? 41:34 And we're afraid of that. 41:36 We don't want to deal with pain or discomfort, but your body 41:38 says, there's too much here, so I would like to balance, and so 41:42 somebody, this one author that I love said, it's like little 41:46 gremlins want to get on this side and just balance it out 41:49 for you a little bit, and so that doesn't balance. 41:52 You get a little bit more, when you get through withdraws with 41:55 a drug, like if I do too much drugs and my body gets 41:58 inundated with dopamine, what your brain does is that you 42:01 have synapses like here and the dopamine goes across these 42:04 synapses, right? 42:05 And your brain has receptors that will take the dopamine 42:09 here and take it through your body. 42:12 Your body sucks in those receptors if you get too much. 42:16 Wow. 42:20 that area waiting to be sucked in, but it cannot be anymore 42:23 because your body says it's too much, so you start going 42:27 through a natural withdrawal, doesn't feel comfortable, and 42:30 so you start watching the scales, just not balance, and 42:33 so the scales go right here, but the scales don't go even 42:37 when this happens. 42:38 The scale goes to the same extent that the pleasure went, 42:42 so your pain or your discomfort, your withdraws, 42:46 your agitation, your irritability actually comes up 42:50 more, and so it lasts that way for a little bit, and then 42:54 those gremlins literally start to jump off, let me get one at 43:00 a time, so they jump off, and it becomes balanced, so your 43:03 body naturally goes back into balance. 43:07 It doesn't happen if you do the dopamine naturally, that 43:11 doesn't happen, but if you do it artificially, Okay, so hang 43:17 on just a second, so that's what these studies are showing 43:19 that God created us. 43:22 You know, pain is not a bad thing. 43:23 I remember when my sister broke her leg, and she was up and 43:28 around on it, and she came from a drug background, and she got 43:33 out of drugs, but prescription meds, she had a tendency to 43:38 abuse, and so she was taking these pain pills, and she's up 43:44 doing everything, and I'm going, you know, pain is a gift 43:48 from God to let us know what needs to be changed in our 43:52 life, or what we shouldn't be doing it. 43:54 Sometimes we're so afraid of pain. 43:56 We're so afraid of that, and even when I had to look at the 44:01 pain of not being loved or not having my hand held, is God, I 44:05 believe, held me during that moment where I had to look at 44:08 that, and he said, don't be afraid of that, and he actually 44:11 brought a scripture from the Bible that says, don't back 44:13 away from pain or tribulation too fast, because it develops 44:17 character. 44:19 There's dopamine in our tears as much as in our laughter, so 44:22 I mean, literally, we are made to feel both, but if we always 44:26 run from insight or pain or grief, we will never have these 44:30 scales balanced, that one is not good and one is not bad. 44:33 It feels better to laugh than it does to cry at times, but 44:38 they're both good for us. 44:39 They're both necessary for us. 44:42 So the way I'm looking at this, it's kind of like when you are 44:46 doing something to get rid of the pain, it's like you're 44:50 stepping on the accelerator, your dopamine is through the 44:54 roof, but as soon as you let your foot up, it's like you're 44:57 a tank that just stops and then you've got this imbalance. 45:02 You've got to dive. 45:03 Okay, but that doesn't happen with the Lord, the way he 45:07 intended for us to be is staying in homeostasis to stay 45:12 level. 45:15 crashes, which is amazing. 45:17 I think it's an amazing quote that you had in here from Dr. 45:22 Limke. 45:29 we can never recover from her trauma. 45:32 And what's really crazy, we run from everything. 45:35 We run from aging. 45:36 We run from trauma. 45:38 We run from the pain of a loss of a job. 45:42 We run from all that. 45:46 as possible, which is fine, but do it in a way that you 45:50 acknowledge. 45:51 Like I had to acknowledge the sadness of what I didn't get. 45:57 And when I started doing my own grief work, I was amazed at the 46:01 healing of that and the sense of being in my own skin, like 46:04 all of a sudden knowing that I'm in my own skin and I don't 46:07 have to hide. 46:09 When I was seeing a therapist and she said, I told her the 46:12 bad seed story and I started weeping. 46:14 And she said, you believe that still, don't you? 46:17 And I thought, you know, I do. 46:20 And she said, it's a lie. 46:22 You know, like I can't even understand. 46:25 Like she looked at me as an adult woman, knowing what I do 46:28 in my life, knowing how my life has been. 46:31 And she's like, she was shocked. 46:33 You still believe that. 46:34 But I had to look at the sadness of hearing that from my 46:38 mom at six years old. 46:40 That six-year-old shut off, didn't grow, literally got 46:46 wounded to the point where I hid for until I was 33, when I 46:50 finally dealt with that. 46:51 So I think that that we're so afraid of pain and sometimes 46:54 we're so young and vulnerable. 46:56 We don't even know how to deal with it. 46:59 But, you know, God says, I promise you, I will walk you 47:02 through the valley. 47:04 Yeah, Psalm 23, Amen. 47:05 And even with mine is that, you know, I'll walk you through the 47:09 shadow of death and you fear no evil, all of that kind of 47:12 stuff. 47:15 me all the days of my life. 47:17 And I would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 47:19 So, like, even as I'm dealing with some pretty horrendous 47:22 things, is God is showing me more and more who I am and more 47:26 and more of the grief work that needs to be done. 47:30 And I avoided grief work like the plague, like just didn't 47:35 understand how we're made, didn't understand that that you 47:40 can't, you can't not look at the sadnesses of your life and 47:44 the sadnesses of your life are not going to kill you. 47:47 Get with somebody that you love, get with somebody that 47:50 can take you to God, get with somebody that has survived 47:54 something that you disrespect how they did it and say out 47:58 loud, this is what I'm dealing with. 48:00 And I promise you, when that happens, if I get to get with 48:03 somebody or somebody gets with me, I just feel like God is 48:07 able to then walk us out of that valley into a place where 48:11 we are in our own skin and we can be, yeah. 48:16 So let me share this real quick. 48:20 Enoch walked with God. 48:23 So I would imagine the scales were quite level right there. 48:28 Amen. 48:32 beginning? 48:36 looked at Moses and the fact that he didn't get to go to the 48:39 promised land and all that stuff and I felt bad for him. 48:41 But he got to minister to Jesus when he was going through that. 48:46 And I thought, did he know? 48:47 He got to be resurrected. 48:49 He got to be resurrected and right there with Jesus. 48:52 And I thought, did he know at the time where God said, I'm 48:55 sorry, but I can't take you here. 48:56 He had no idea that God was going to use him to comfort 49:01 Christ. 49:02 And I thought, man, I have to just trust God that even when 49:06 I'm dealing with trauma, I have a God that has my best 49:11 interests in his heart always. 49:14 So let me ask this question because we're getting only 49:18 eight minutes left. 49:21 If somebody is watching and they've been through some 49:24 trauma and you know, sometimes trauma, the body keeps a score 49:30 and it's the story of epigenetics that when you are 49:34 going through trauma, it doesn't change your DNA, but it 49:39 changes your gene expression. 49:41 So think of your genes here and they're going through trauma 49:44 and they've got this red flag up and it can be passed down. 49:48 It's just amazing that it can be passed down from generation 49:52 to generation. 49:54 But there are people out there. 49:57 What are some of the symptoms of being dopamine deficient? 50:05 If there's somebody that's watching and we're going to 50:09 talk about how to increase this, but what are some of the 50:13 symptoms? 50:14 What's really interesting is that for me, the biggest 50:18 symptom that I had is when I emotionally dysregulated. 50:22 So like all of a sudden I would get triggered and my 50:25 handwriting changes. 50:26 My skin feels numb. 50:29 I feel like I've got brain fog. 50:31 There's all of this stuff that I feel like totally detached. 50:36 So trauma sometimes will make you feel like you're not able 50:41 to connect with the things around you or the people around 50:43 you. 50:43 Some people feel agitated. 50:45 They feel angry. 50:46 All of a sudden their emotions are all over the place and 50:49 that's a trauma response or a trigger. 50:52 Some folks are depressed. 50:55 They're taking anti-depressants which cause you to be numb 51:00 anyway. 51:00 So now you're numb with sexually. 51:02 It interferes with all of that. 51:04 And so some of the things that we do to help ourselves 51:07 actually cause more trauma. 51:08 That trauma, depending on who you are, really changes. 51:12 And when you talk about epigenetics and gene expression 51:16 that it's almost like when I emotionally dysregulate 51:21 literally I can write something and I think that my handwriting 51:24 is different. 51:25 Like I feel like that has changed. 51:27 And so a lot of things change but that's how your mind is 51:31 actually now talking to itself is that you're not able to make 51:35 sense. 51:36 Somebody may feel like they did that on purpose. 51:40 You're just trying to make me feel bad and they have no idea 51:43 your trauma. 51:47 Right. 51:50 it's like when I go into that trauma response all of the 51:53 stuff from my childhood comes up. 51:55 I'm not loved. 51:55 I'll never be loved. 51:57 This is sad. 51:58 I'm gonna... 52:01 seed. 52:05 up the world isn't safe. 52:08 I'm not safe. 52:10 Men are not safe. 52:11 Women are not safe. 52:13 I mean whatever you tell yourself all of those lies will 52:16 then start coming up in a trauma response. 52:18 So what happens when somebody says just pray harder. 52:22 You know that is so sad because then you think I'm not praying 52:26 hard enough. 52:26 I'm not a good Christian. 52:28 Maybe I never was a Christian. 52:29 So all of it just confuses everything and I think when God 52:33 says please come sit with me just come sit with a while and 52:37 the song that we heard at the beginning be still be still and 52:40 know that I am God. 52:46 each other in our trauma that is going to bring us to a place 52:49 of recovery. 52:51 And I would just want to remind people right now we're getting 52:54 ready to get up close to taking a break. 52:57 We are taking questions. 52:59 This is a live program. 53:00 So if you'd like to submit a question or a comment live at 53:05 3ABN.TV or by phone 618-228 -3975. 53:13 Anyway. 53:17 therapist off and on through the years but until I found 53:21 somebody that allowed me to process my grief work there's a 53:25 lot of sadness of what I didn't get and I had to say that out 53:29 loud to someone and I had to like even with what you did 53:32 Shelley just a little while ago your eyes were filled with 53:34 tears and you said I'm sorry. 53:36 Something about that is healing to somebody in trauma just not 53:41 even an explanation I can't make it right but just that I'm 53:45 sorry and I see you. 53:46 So I think that the grief work was probably the most important 53:49 thing for me even though I did a lot of work along the way. 53:52 So see a therapist talk to somebody when the Bible says 53:56 confess to one another and not our sins in the sense that 54:00 you're doing something even though some of us do sinful 54:03 things in our trauma but he says confess your sins one to 54:06 another pray for each other so that you may be healed. 54:09 There's something about just saying to another human being 54:14 man this hurt this was hard. 54:17 And you know something the worst thing that we can do when 54:21 someone is having a difficult time is to tell them you know 54:26 pull yourself up by the boot act like we understand. 54:30 You know well I know what you're going through I've been 54:32 there before or something. 54:34 None of us nobody knows but God but the good news is God does 54:39 know because it says in Isaiah 63 9 I believe it is that all 54:44 all of our afflictions he is afflicted with he feels all of 54:50 our discomfort and only God really knows. 54:53 So we need to learn as a people as a church as a Christian to 55:00 give people permission and not shame them. 55:05 You know when we tell them oh just pray harder you're shaming 55:09 them. 55:14 are told to go you're just not loving him you know enough you 55:19 got to be a better wife or something and they're living in 55:22 that and God doesn't want you to be in that but I'm so glad 55:27 that you're open about the therapy because that's quite 55:30 needed in cases. 55:32 I was really lucky and found some incredible therapists and 55:35 friends and I don't know and I've said this before but I 55:41 don't know if people at 3ABN realize how important you were 55:45 in my life because I walked in and was accepted. 55:48 I walked in and was given a seat. 55:51 I walked in and somebody said hey sit here and I hadn't had 55:55 that in my life and so the fact that that was so easy and it 55:59 was done I felt in such a real way that even though I didn't 56:04 say out loud man I need that I didn't run over and sit on 56:07 everybody's lap which I wanted to but you know what I mean 56:11 it's like I think that sometimes just loving each 56:14 other and that's what God wants us to do so you said something 56:18 earlier we've only got one minute we're gonna get to this 56:21 and we'll come hold that thought and we'll come back to 56:24 it this is a live program you can send your questions we're 56:28 gonna get into little more of dopamine regulation and what 56:33 you can do for healing, how God can heal you, and you can go to 56:38 him, but send your questions to email or to email them to live 56:44 at 3ABN.tv, that's live at 3ABN .tv, or text at 618-228-3975. 56:54 And before we go out, in case you can't join us for this 57:00 second hour, I wanted to put up Cherise, how you can contact 57:06 her by email, because you may want to invite her to come 57:09 speak at your church or come lead a seminar, and her email 57:14 is truestep, T-R-U-E, truestep, S-T-E-P, true step office at 57:22 gmail.com and that's how you can get in touch with Sheree. 57:27 We're going to come back in just a moment and she's got 57:31 some resources that we carry here at 3ABN that we want to 57:35 tell you about and we're going to get a little deeper into how 57:41 healing can happen through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus. |
Revised 2025-04-18