Helping to heal your child’s “Heart Hurts”

My 8 year is daughter is just the most precious thing around!

(I know you guys would probably argue that your kids are . . . but I’m sorry . . . this child has that market cornered!)  🙂

We adopted Wendy from Guatemala almost 5 years ago (hard to believe it’s been that long!).  (One day I might write a book about the experience – but for now – you can go through the posts chronologically to get a gist of what it was like.  That was the 1st blog that got me hooked into this thing called blogging!).   She is such a joy and carries the love and heart of God like no other kid I know!  She “just knows” things about God, His Love, His Truth and more . . . and once told me “Mom – I think I knew God when I was in my Mommy’s belly.”  I think she did!

Anyways .  .  .

Sibling Fights or a Deeper Issue?

Yesterday morning, she came into my room while I was blogging – and like a typical 8 year old, she was upset, mad, frustrated and wanting me to “fix” the problem she was having with her sister.

Evidently her 12-year old sister was banging a skateboard into the chair Wendy was sitting in, and despite repeated requests to stop it – she continued.  Now Wendy was storming mad into my room – hoping I would jump to her rescue, punish her sister, and make it all better.

Well, in years past – that’s just what I would do (and occasionally get “sucked” into doing and responding that way still sometimes . . . when I’m lazy and just want the issue to be “over”) – it’s what I grew up with and the only parenting response I knew.

But that response would not have truly resolved the problem – the reason Wendy came into my room, trusting me to help her . . .

Why not?  What was the real “problem”?

Heart Hurts: Seeds of hurt and “evil plants”

I am currently taking the Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM) training (or we sometimes call it Listening Prayer) – as I’ve seen great breakthrough in the lives of so many people around me (my parents, neighbor, friends and even myself!) where they had struggled to get breakthrough before.

Even before taking this training, I had been using similar principles and techniques to help some of my kids heal their “Heart Hurts” (this is what we call it and how I describe it to my kiddos) when they encountered something that hurt or upset them.  I won’t go into everything right now – but I did want to share what happened with Wendy yesterday morning.

So – instead of jumping up to rescue her, to go put the “beat down” on her big sister . . . I pressed into and inquired of the hurt that was going on inside of Wendy’s heart.

1. Feel the Feelings/emotion

After asking a few questions about how she felt (getting in touch with her emotion/feeling – which started off as anger, but went to something deeper as I asked several questions) I saw the pain on her face her turn from frowning and mad to sadness with tears streaming down her face.

I talked with her for a little bit about how we can have feelings come up (ie – we are “triggered”) because of something that happened to us in the past, and asked if her if she was willing to find the 1st memory where she felt these kinds of feelings before (because she had said she has felt them in the past).

2. Follow the emotion back to a memory

We talked about how our emotions come from things we believe (even if “we don’t know it in our mind” – consciously).  For example:  If a snake crawled by the feet of 2 people – one might feel happy and excited because they loved snakes and used to have them as pets, but the other person might be afraid of snakes because  they got bit by one.  One believes they are harmless and fun, the other believes they are dangerous and painful . . . and the emotions will follow suit.

* The emotion is the bridge back to the belief.

* We live our lives based on beliefs and emotions.

3. Discover what you believe is true about you (your identity)

We also discussed hurtful or bad experiences in our life – and how something can happen that is true – it really happened (ie – someone didn’t listen to me when I was trying to tell them something) . . . BUT how sneaky, tricky and evil Satan is when he gets in there and turns that true event and hurt, into a lie that we believe about ourselves (ie – No one ever listens to you – because you are not important, you are all alone, you are not loved, etc.).

* Anger originates in truth but perpetuates through lies.

She agreed to find a memory – and went to a memory from a few years ago – again where her sister was not listening to her request to stop something.

We uncovered the “lie” that her heart was believing in the midst of that pain/emotion – that felt very true to her (The progression went: No one ever listens to me – I’m invisible – No one cares about me – I am not loved – I am not special).

4. Ask Jesus/God what He says about it

And then we asked Jesus (God, Holy Spirit) to come and show Wendy the truth – what HE has to say (His perspective) about it all.

Almost instantly she knew what He said.

W -“He said I’m like a flower . . . I see like a flower blooming.”

L – “And what does that mean to you?  What is He saying to you?”

W – “Well . . . you know how plants give life [oxygen] to people.  I’m like that flower – blooming, and giving life to people on earth – that as I bloom, it’s helping people.”

L – “Anything else?  What else does a flower do? What is Jesus saying?”

W – “It is pretty and makes people happy!”

L – “That’s wonderful Wendy.  How does that make you feel?”

W – “Good.  Happy!”

5. Check for healing/transformation

I then asked her to close her eyes and go back into/look at that memory she had of her and her older sister . . . to “feel around” and see if the hurt and pain was still there.

INSTANTLY a HUGE smile came across her face.

L – “What’s up?  How does it feel – the same or different?”

W – “Well, when I think about that memory, it doesn’t hurt anymore – and in fact, it feels good and makes me want to smile and laugh!”

WOW!!  WOW!!  WOW!!!  Can you say – Wow?!!  Isn’t God awesome?!

I asked her about the present situation with her sister, and if it still hurt – and she said no (still with a smile on her face!).

Rescue – or heal and transform?

No need for me to rescue her and “punish” her sister (though – I did talk with her later about honor, love and respect – our 3 big values and virtues here that we try to live by).  No need for the cycle to continue – for Wendy to react right away in hurt and pain if someone doesn’t listen to her.  She was healed and a transformation had taken place!

Out of the mouth of babes . . .

But that wasn’t the end of our discussion and time together!  Wendy shocked me with her evaluation and understanding of it all!

Seeds of hurt and “evil plants”

W – “So mom . . . I see it like this.  That hurt is like a seed . . . you know – like the seeds we talked about with the root of bitterness? It starts off really small, but then grows into a big plant.”

L – “Yes – that’s right.”

W – “Well, seeds need things to grow and turn into plants.  They need sunshine and water.  But these seeds, they need darkness to grow.  And the water . . . well, it’s like when more bad things happen to you that are like the first thing that happened.  It causes the seed to grow into a plant.”

L – “Wow.  That is so right Wendy.  What can we call those plants – those “lie” plants?”

W – “Evil plants!”

L – 🙂  “Yes – that’s a good name – because that’s what they are – evil (and from the evil one).  And they affect how we react to things in life – just as if a plant had grown in our heart and grew so much that it affected our whole body.”

How she processes hurts

She went on to talk about how she usually processes hurts (this also amazed me – and the understanding of what she was doing and how it affected her.  I don’t know if some adults are in touch with this reality).

W – “When I get hurt, I usually will just try to push it down and cover it up, and pretend like it’s not there.  But then something else will happen, and I’ll get hurt again – and will just add that hurt on top of the other hurt I covered up.  And that keeps happening over and over – until I have too much in me.”

L – “That’s right Wendy.  A lot of people do that.  It’s like if I had a big trashcan – and the hurts are like yucky trash!  If I don’t get healing for it right away, I will try to shove it down deep and cover it up with the lid . . . but when someone comes along and hurts me again – it opens up that trashcan, and stinks – and I add some more trash on top of it and shut the lid.  After awhile – if someone just came near me, near my trashcan – they will be able to smell the stink because there is so much junk in there!” (we talked about some people we know who we can see all the pain, hurt and anger just by looking at them.)

Forgiving yourself & Letting go

We ended our discussion talking about what to do when you’ve hurt someone else, have apologized, but they are still reacting badly to you – which then makes you feel even more bad for what you did.  Wendy talked about how she has a hard time forgiving herself when she makes mistakes like this.

L – “Wendy . . you know that Jesus died for your sins, right?”

W – “Yes.”

L – “Well – that includes any mistakes (sins) you do – like the ones with your friends.  Right?”

{silence}

L – “It’s like this . . . Let’s say that I bought you a ton of clothes, toys and other good things you like (this is forgiveness, grace, mercy, salvation, etc).  I paid for them and even have the receipt.  There is nothing you have to do other than accept them from me.  But let’s say that you feel bad that you didn’t pay for this one shirt . . . so you grab it from me and head to the cashier saying ‘I need to pay for this.  I can’t just get it for free.  I didn’t pay for it.  I’m going to the cashier to pay for it.’  . . . . Would that be very smart – or a silly thing to do?”

W – (smiling) “Silly.”

L – “Yes – that’s right.  And let’s say that you get to the cashier and he says that you have to not only pay for it today, but keep paying for it every day you want to wear it.  That would be really silly – wouldn’t it?”

W – “Yes.”

L – “Well – that is what it’s like when we don’t forgive ourselves and hold onto the guilt and pain we feel for what we did wrong.  But – We can accept God’s forgiveness, and still love our friends in return – even blessing them (in prayers and actions).  We are not responsible for their actions and reactions (remember – you can only control you, and they can only control themselves)- as they might have their own seeds of hurt, roots of bitterness, and evil lying plants inside of them that they are dealing with.”

W – “What if we want to help them though?  What if we don’t want them to shove things down or still be mad?” {Boy this girl has such a heart of gold!!!}

L – “We can try to help – but if they don’t want our help – we can’t force them to let us.  BUT – we can pray for them – put them into God’s big capable hands (because He loves them more than us and can take care of them better than us) and throw a ton of blessings their way . . . and maybe that will knock out some of the bad feelings they are having towards you . . . like a bowling ball and pins!”

W – (giggling!)  “Oh – a bowling ball of God!”

L – 🙂  “Sounds good to me! And then there’s space for new, good pins to be placed there!”

There was more that we talked about – but you get the gist.

You can help your children heal

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to share this with you – to encourage you that you CAN help to heal your child’s “Heart Hurts”.

Take the time to see, hear and find out what the “real problem” is.  Because once that is healed – just like a sickness, when you heal the infection – the “symptomatic problems” will start to disappear!  YAY!  🙂

AND – another bonus . . . you’ve just saved you and/or your child hundreds or thousands of dollars in future counseling fees, heartache or problems with relationships, jobs, self-esteem and more!

You are setting your child up for true success in every area of their life!

What has helped you in dealing with your children’s heart hurts?

Leave me a comment below – letting me know what you think of this, if it’s something you have tried, would love to try, or if something else has worked wonders with your own kids!  I truly want to know!

As a mom – I really want to see my kids get healing NOW for the things they encounter (especially in the moment it happens) so that they do not need to be hampered, hindered, live with hurt, anger, lies, roots of bitterness, etc – that can all affect all areas of their lives as teens and into adulthood.

Wouldn’t it have been great to have had that opportunity when you were a kid?  I know it would have saved me a lot of heartache and issues (and $$) over the years!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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