Understanding Enmeshment's Impact On Our Faith & Relationships

EPISODE 115 | UNDERSTANDING ENMESHMENT'S IMPACT ON OUR FAITH & RELATIONSHIPS

[00:00:00] This sense that I have to save everyone also reflects that I had no security in who God was. I knew intellectually that He's God and He's all powerful and that His love is never ending. But there were many times in my journey when I really struggled to let go.

[00:00:21] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me.

[00:00:58] UNDERSTANDING ENMESHMENT AND ATTACHMENT STYLES
Hello. Hello. Good morning. Good morning from Singapore. So, yesterday on my Instagram Live, I shared a few stories about enmeshment. Okay, so, I think I shared links to a couple of articles about different signs that you may have, you may actually be in an enmeshed family system, right.

[00:01:22] So, I know that followers of my account are not necessarily all very familiar with psychological terms like enmeshment or attachment styles. Although, it is part of my objective to get more of you familiar with this. So, I've shared this before. My perspective, or, you know, the path that I've taken, it began from me seeking to know and love God better, desiring to come closer to Christ, and really desiring to learn to love better, right?

[00:01:57] So, that was where I was coming from. And in the past, I didn't know many, many of these things that I talk about right now that I refer to in the literature on, let's say, inner child healing or, you know, internal family system or enmeshment, for example. But I have found, as I have made this interior journey, that as I learned more about these things, they have really, really helped me understand myself better, understand my context better.

[00:02:30] Okay, and I just want to take a moment before I really go into talking about enmeshment and how enmeshment, okay - a situation where you live in or you grew up in an enmeshed family, how that could actually impact the way you relate to others. I just want to take a moment and say that more than we realize our specific condition, okay, so, we're not just part of like a generic universal human condition.

[00:03:00] Often we say, well, you know there's sin, there's brokenness, like in general, right? And so, that's why so many people and so many systems as well, fall short of the perfection that we feel. Although we believe Christ is calling us to it. Now, I'm a little hesitant using the word perfection because of what that word connotes.

[00:03:23] And what that word means for a lot of us who struggle with perfectionism, okay? But let's say we know we are called to more and we're called to love well and we're called to become more fully alive and more fully human and to help one another become more fully alive and more fully human, right? We struggle with that because we know that we are in a fallen world, that there are you know, where we say brokenness in the human condition.

[00:03:49] But apart from that being true generally and universally, in a very specific, unique way, you and I, individually, suffer from some kind of brokenness, some kind of condition, okay, that handicaps us or prevents us from thriving, from becoming more fully alive, more fully human, from being able to love God and receive his love more deeply.

[00:04:19] Our condition, there's a specific condition to each of us that makes it harder for us to love our neighbour, to love ourselves. Now, this practical component, makes a huge difference in how we are able to try and, you know, in our attempts to live out the gospel, how we can succeed or fail and not just how we succeed and fail, but how we even accompany ourselves.

[00:04:46] You know, how so many of us, we struggle to have compassion for ourselves when we fall short or we struggle to have compassion for others when they really fall short. Understanding our specific condition, so to speak what ails us, how we need healing, that can make us a lot more, in some sense I would say, a lot more strategic in knowing what steps we need to take to become more whole and more able to love, right?

[00:05:22] If you, like me, primarily just really long to be able to be more fully who you are, as God created you and more able to love and receive love, then, and if you've been trying this for a while, if you've been striving in this journey for a while, you may realize that what we learn about faith and spirituality, they can kind of like give us a compass, they can kind of, they can show us where we're meant to head towards. 

[00:05:52] But the church, in terms of teaching us how to pray and spirituality and even telling us, for example, what the meaning of family and marriage is supposed, you know, is meant to be, do not give us the equipment to meet ourselves and others where we are. That needs to come from someplace else, okay?

[00:06:16] And I actually believe that it's meant to be that way, that God uses the whole of creation. He blesses, you know, He provides through so many different means within creation, through human knowledge and wisdom and innovation and creation and the sciences, for example. And we are called to be wise and prudent stewards and to use all these resources with discernment. But there are many things that can help us in this journey.

[00:06:44] THE MESSIAH COMPLEXS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Right, so, what I'm going to talk about, enmeshment and how it can manifest in having a messiah complex. Okay, so, we may know, or we hear this term often, right? A messiah complex or the saviour complex is often used to refer to someone who kind of takes it upon him or herself to save everyone.

[00:07:05] When we use this term, often it is in a negative context, right? We kind of say, oh, so-and-so has a messiah complex, you know? He's trying to save everyone; she's trying to save everyone. But perhaps you may also identify or have become aware that you have an issue with a saviour complex or a messiah complex.

[00:07:26] I'm going to be the first to say that that's me. That was me long before I could recognize that that was an issue with me, right. But even when I began to notice that, yes, I kind of like have a messiah complex, I need to like save everyone. Just telling myself that I'm not supposed to try and save everyone didn't help me.

[00:07:48] Stop acting, stop kind of like acting out, trying to over function and help everyone who is in trouble, right? So, this sharing, today's sharing, is just going to be giving you a practical glimpse into how someone, if you happen to grow up in a very enmeshed family, may find it hard to not fall into it, like a messiah complex.

[00:08:13] Okay, so, I’m going to try and show the link for you. This will probably resonate most with those of you who do share some of these conditions as I did, okay? Because there's many complex reasons why we may feel a compulsion to want to help other people to over function to do for others what actually is not ours to do. But I'm just going to share from this perspective and before I go on, I just want to make a caveat to say I am not making any definitive or authoritative argument about the causes of Messiah Complex.

[00:08:47] I'm not even really defining what Messiah Complex is other than what I just described, okay, which can have many causes. I am sharing from my own experience and observation, how those with enmeshment issues or enmeshment trauma in our families can often struggle with the messiah complex.

[00:09:06] MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH THE MESSIAH COMPLEX
All right, so, just briefly, I'm going to just start off with describing some of the experiences of what the messiah complex might feel like for someone who has it.

[00:09:18] Okay, I'm going to share from my personal experience, and then the consequences of having-so called like this compulsion to save and help everyone around us, maybe especially our family members or those that are close to us. Okay, so, what that personal costs and consequences to that, and as well as the consequences to how we live out our faith, okay. How it impacts our marriages, our family and our community.

[00:09:45] So, I'm not going to go into too much detail in the last point, just kind of make a hand wave there. So, enmeshment, if you're not familiar with it, just very generally, is a form of dysfunction in the family system where there are very, very poor boundaries between individuals or members in the family. So, when there is this great lack of boundary, there is an over dependence, in a sense, between the members, whether it's emotionally, right, or even in decision making and all that. It's almost as if we don't have our own identity apart from being part of this larger whole.

[00:10:24] Okay, so, if we're talking about in the context of a family, individuals in a meshed family, they often may not know who they are apart from being how they are as a family. So, they're very clear in a sense of what the family stands for and stands against. There may be very clear values or ways things are done by the family. And everyone or all the members in the family, more or less ascribe to this the same set of values.

[00:10:56] Same way that things are done, maybe even in some more extreme cases, you know, they see the same doctor, you know, subscribe to the same philosophy, for example, maybe even political leanings. It's almost like this is how I know who I am by my membership to the family, to this larger whole, right? And for someone who grows up in this kind of a system, you may not know anything else.

[00:11:24] So, this may be normal. But you may begin to experience as you get older, as you go into adulthood, that, you know, you realize that you don't really know who you are. That's one of the possible signs that, you know, you have enmeshment in your family, context in your family system, right? So, enmeshment trauma can lead to different kinds of insecure attachment styles.

[00:11:47] I will share from my own experience, which is primarily that of an anxious, ambivalent, insecure attachment style. Okay, so, an anxious, ambivalent, insecure attachment style it's a bit kind of codependent. And it's one quite common, I think, a form of insecure attachment that is formed by being in an enmeshed family system.

[00:12:08] So, how does this contribute to having a messiah complex? Now there are many traits of being enmeshed. There are many possible symptoms and signs of being enmeshed, right? But I'm just going to talk quite specifically in this sharing about how it leads to us over functioning to try and help and save everyone having some kind of like a messiah complex, right?

[00:12:28] So, one trait of being in an enmeshed family is that we can feel a great personal sense of responsibility for the emotions of other people because in the first place, when you are in an enmeshed system, we have very, very porous boundaries, right? Like there may even be no boundaries at all. So much so, that is almost like you can feel somebody else's emotions as if it was your own.

[00:12:59] Okay, I used to think growing up that I was just very empathetic. That I was just, you know, no, it's because I have so much empathy, I can feel other people's pain. I'm not saying that's not true at all, but what I didn't realize was that in some sense, because I have no boundaries, no emotional boundaries, I also often couldn't differentiate between someone else's emotions and my own.

[00:13:26] And because I can feel somebody else's emotions so strongly, especially if it's someone that was important to me like a close friend or a family member, I felt like it was my responsibility to help make that person feel better or to change that person's conditions, help that person in some way so that they don't suffer emotionally.

[00:13:50] Okay, so, when I was a kid, even when I was in primary school and secondary school, I always seemed to have a radar for other young people, like my peers, who were in trouble or having some kind of emotional suffering in their lives. And whether or not they came looking for me, I often went looking for them, offering help, offering to lend a listening ear.

[00:14:19] I wanted to help them feel better. Even for those who may not be aware, or do not wish to talk about what was going on at home, what was causing them their difficult or turbulent emotions, I felt like I had to help. No, I saw that as a good thing too. I saw that as being Christ-like. I saw that as being generous.

[00:14:43] I was taught from a very early age to be helpful, right? To help others, that there are a few things as good as helping others. I never realized that it had become a compulsion on my part to help others. It was almost like if I wasn't a helper, I had no value and worth of my own, right? So, because I could feel their emotions so clearly, I wanted to help in whatever way I can.

[00:15:11] What I never realized was that there was that compulsion because it had to be my responsibility. Now as I became more aware, more self-aware and began my interior journey, at some point, I knew and I understood that many of these things were not my personal responsibility. Sometimes, I'm not directly involved in the situation at all.

[00:15:35] I may be part of a larger system, for example, maybe in the same school, or in the same workplace, but someone in another department could be being unfairly treated, for example, and even in terms of, you know, professionally or - I have no responsibility to solve the issues that are causing emotional distress, let's say, to another person in another department.

[00:15:59] But I felt really stressed, like I'm a terrible person unless I lend help some way. Somehow, you know, and I would try to find resources or keep checking in on that person. Again, I just thought that all this was being caring and to some extent. I mean, it is. But you see, the trick is, it's not just the behaviour, but what's going on inside of us, right?

[00:16:25] When we talk about the interior journey, we need to be aware of what's the state that's coming or that's happening inside of us. If you remember, I often talk about the three layers of life. On the outermost layer are the environment and the situations and the context in which we relate to one another.

[00:16:42] That's where we act. But underneath the outermost layer, there's the inner layer of our own emotions, our thoughts, our feelings, right? And then at the innermost core is, well, our inner core, our core identity. And so, what's happening in what I'm describing for me is that at the level of my core identity, I didn't know who I was apart from being part of a larger family you know.

[00:17:10] So, it could be my, whether it's my family of origin or being Catholic. So, for me, that's another way that gave me my identity and I'm always trying to hang on to. So, what does it mean to be Catholic, to be a disciple? That tells me who I am. That actually doesn't tell me who I am. It's still way too generic, right?

[00:17:25] But because I understood that being Catholic and being a disciple meant laying down my life, and because I grew up in a very enmeshed system, I interpreted laying down my life in a way that had no boundaries. So, I didn't understand, when I was over functioning, that what I was doing was not emotionally healthy and that it may not even be what Jesus meant when He said to lay down our life. 

[00:17:54] Because we all interpret it through the lens that we have, what it means to lay down our life. And I'll go as far as to say that often even the priest who preached the homilies, the way they speak about the values. And how they speak about our faith and about God, they do it through their lens and their perspective, right? So, there are many layers of possible distortions coming from the people who speak to us or preach to us, and then also coming from ourselves, how we hear and how we interpret what we hear and what we read, right?

[00:18:32] So, for me, being a very enmeshed person, so to speak, for me, laying down my life meant I had to help and save whoever I could. And I would feel so guilty if I did, I felt I didn't have the capacity to, I would over function and really, even with over functioning, I couldn't possibly help anyone, everyone.

[00:18:54] And I would feel like I let God down. I let people down. And I would often bring this to confession in the past when I was younger, talking about who I couldn't help or and I would always frame it in confession as, I wasn't loving enough. I wasn't loving enough, right? So, because for me, growing up in an enmeshed system family system, I thought to love meant I had to help everyone feel better.

[00:19:25] If they had any issue or any struggle, I had to help them find a solution. If I didn't do that, I was not being loving enough. So, even when I began to realize that that's not how I'm called to love, and I tried not to over function and try and save everyone, that's when I realized that I couldn't just stop.

[00:19:47] Right, so, earlier in the journey, I wasn't even aware that that's not what I'm meant to do. And then, at some point, I realized that that's not what I'm meant to do, that's not even what God is calling me to do. I don't need to over function that way and try and save everyone. So, I tried not to do it and then I realized I can't help but do it.

[00:20:06] You hear that difference? It's like I have a compulsion, I realized, coming from inside me to help, to over function, and to do what is not even really mine to do. I need to care-take, I need to rescue. That compulsion, that instinct was not easy to control. Okay, so, at that time I still thought like it's a matter of control.

[00:20:28] I realize now, it isn't. A lot of this isn't about us trying to wrest control of, you know, our compulsions. Healing is very different from trying to control, but I think many of us on this journey will recognize these landmarks, right? So, from unawareness to awareness, and then trying to control what you think you shouldn't be doing.

[00:20:47] In this case, I was trying to control my compulsion to over function and then really not succeeding in controlling that compulsion and feeling really bad about myself, for example. And then I begin, but this helplessness, being stuck between where I want to go and realizing that there's such compulsion in me that's making it very hard for me to be free to go where I want to go, to follow Christ.

[00:21:13] That helplessness was what I think brought me into a deeper prayer life, a deeper sense of surrender, right? Because a lot of times, this prayer life that we talk about, especially the contemplative prayer life, being with God, it's not a matter of doing, it's not a matter of saying. It's not a matter of trying or striving, but just allowing ourselves to be fully present become more fully present to the reality that is within us and become present to how God is loving us in this very uncomfortable reality.

[00:21:50] So, I was experiencing at that time or learning to experience God loving me in my stuckness of not being able to keep myself from over functioning, right? And the thing is also, part of the experience of believing that to love others is to save them and help them no matter what, it meant that I was also a very judgmental person towards others. Because if other people had better boundaries, or maybe, you know, just for whatever reason, if they are not dropping everything or they're not responding quickly enough with enough passion, empathy to someone who's in pain, trouble, I just thought that they were unfeeling, uncaring, and you know, that that's a shortcoming because I had a very narrow lens to look at what it meant to be loving, right.

[00:22:46] Okay, so, that was the kind of the description of how it feels to wrestle with this kind of messiah complex. So, that was the experiences, right?

[00:22:57] So, now, I'm going to talk a bit about the personal consequences, the personal consequences of living like that. Okay, the personal consequences of having an enmeshed identity, coming out from a very enmeshed kind of system, and this compulsion of needing to save others. 

[00:23:21] So, the first thing, the first consequence, I think it's very clear, is burning out. Because when I was much younger, life was simpler. I didn't have that many responsibilities. The people within my sphere of influence were fewer. But even then, even then, I didn't realize I was already over functioning because I felt personally responsible for the state of my parents’ marriage. Now, that for me, is a huge, huge one.

[00:23:49] And I never knew until my early adulthood, like my young adulthood, I've never heard before then, that it wasn't my responsibility to ensure that my parents' marriage was a happy one to ensure that the family, my family, remained together, that everyone was happy somehow. I had already internalized it within myself, since I was a little girl, I needed to do whatever I had to do or should do to try and keep the peace and to try and help, right?

[00:24:21] It never occurred to me and no one told me that wasn't mine to do. That was never my duty or responsibility as a child to do. In fact, it was encouraged. And later on, when I realized and tried to exercise some boundaries, there was actually pushback, right, that's part of the reality of an enmeshed family system.

[00:24:48] So, I always took on a lot and sometimes I'll get so caught up helping someone else that I would even abandon my own responsibilities. There was a time in my 20s when I was a graduate student and I was so caught up in helping a few friends that were several years younger than me with their personal and family issues and their sense of, you know - I felt like they were struggling with their studies, they were struggling with what I perceive to be self-esteem issues. And I spent so much energy, effort, and time in helping them, I neglected my own studies, right?

[00:25:29] And I neglected my own studies, also because I suppose at that time it wasn't something I was very motivated to do. But I just got so drawn in, into trying to save these other people, these friends that I didn't realize I wasn't making a life for myself.

[00:25:45] And amazingly, I believed that was what Christ was asking of me because I was helping other people, right. Then later on, when I was working in the parish and I was in youth and young adult work, having a messiah complex or this compulsion to save anyone who is in trouble, who is in pain and to help them not make mistakes, because that's how I saw my role.

[00:26:13] Okay, that's how I was brought up to somehow. There was so much anxiety about making mistakes. There was so much anxiety that if you made a wrong step, then you might regret it for the rest of your life. I live life kind of like always walking on eggshells, so afraid that I might do something wrong.

[00:26:29] What I never realized was that when then I became a mentor and I was in youth work and young adult work, I carried that fear and anxiety in my mentoring and helping of these young people. I felt that I was personally responsible for their decisions, because I was the mentor, I was the youth worker, etc.

[00:26:49] I felt and believed that I was personally responsible even for their dating life. And now, on hindsight, I just think it's actually really quite hilarious, right? But it was dead serious to me then. I really thought like, you know, if they don't date the right person or they don't realize they're not considering things properly enough before they enter their relationships, then it's going to be a bad relationship or they're going to enter a bad marriage.

[00:27:17] And that all that somehow is going to be on me. Cognitively, I maybe didn't make that link, but I felt like I had to prevent them from making like any error that could lead to all these consequences. It was a foreign concept to me that everyone has our own path to God and that it's okay even if we make mistakes and fumble and even if we make grave mistakes, maybe that's part of our path to God.

[00:27:47] You see, so, this sense that I have to save everyone also reflects that I had no security in who God was. I knew intellectually that He's God and He's all powerful and that His love is never ending. But there were many times in my journey when I really struggled to let go of a young person, a younger person that I cared for and I really felt like they were, you know, they were making a mistake and that I needed to intervene, but that was really causing like real tension.

[00:28:18] And I knew, I knew I needed to let go, but I couldn't. So, that's again, that compulsion, right? That compulsion to hang on to them, the need to keep them from making a mistake. But often times, I think one of the saving grace is because I bring this to prayer with the Lord. So, often I would hear God ask me, "Ann, do you believe I know what they need better than you?"

[00:28:43] And of course I would think, yes, the answer is yes. And God will often ask me, do you believe that I love these people or this person more than you? You do more than you love. And I know intellectually that that's true, right? And of course, God, You love this person more than I love this person.

[00:29:01] And You know better than I do, what they need. And yet, I can't let go. I couldn't let go. It was so hard to let go. Sometimes, to the point of actually damaging that relationship and you know, in a sense, then I'm forced to let go because the relationship gets broken. And that has been one of the patterns of brokenness in my own life.

[00:29:22] And I used to be so, you know, so clueless. It was so frustrating and so hurtful to not know what is it that I did? Why does this keep happening? And is there something wrong with me? So, until I learned about enmeshment and insecure attachment styles, I really couldn't put a name to what was going on in my own life.

[00:29:46] Right, so, in a sense, there was something that was broken about the way I was relating to others. It isn't that something was wrong with me, but I've been part of an enmeshed system, for example, in today's example, and the only way I know how to love is through enmeshment, which is actually very emotionally unhealthy, which then would naturally cause brokenness and broken relationships.

[00:30:06] And what I found, because I'm somebody with an anxious, ambivalent, kind of insecure attachment - when I meet someone else who also has a similar kind of co-dependency tendency, the unhealthy dynamics that we have is, you know, we can get really, really enmeshed, right? As in, we can get very fused, and I lose sight of who I am, they may lose sight of who they are.

[00:30:28] That can lead to all kinds of problems, like in all kinds of issues. But when I encounter somebody who is avoidantly attached. So, there's another kind of insecure attachment. In my life, I think a lot of the saving graces have been the times that I meet somebody who is avoidantly attached and who then, because someone with an avoidant style of attachment, they are very against and very afraid of being smothered.

[00:30:52] Okay, so, they are very afraid of being enmeshed. Maybe they grew up, maybe they themselves grew up in an environment where there was some enmeshment or some family members that were, had this tendency towards being enmeshed. And so, they make very, very solid and very clear boundaries. So, one of my turning points you know, into searching for help, seeking help to understand myself and which led me to understand family dynamics and even like the enmeshment style of family dynamics, for example was someone who I believe have the avoidance insecure attachment style. 

[00:31:26] Basically, was ready to break off our friendship even though it really saddened him because we did care for each other and he valued this friendship, but he didn't know what else to do because I was. Basically, like really overstepping my boundaries.

[00:31:39] I had no idea and he didn't know how to communicate it to me, right. So, but through God's grace, we actually had a conversation that he actually did not plan to have, but we ended up having a conversation. And he told me how violated he actually felt, like how much he felt I was violating his boundaries.

[00:31:54] And I was horrified because that was already at a time when I was consciously trying very hard not to overreach my boundaries. So, that was when I realized I really have no ability to know where the boundaries are meant to be. And I have no ability to exercise it. You know that feeling? It's not that I don't want to do it. I can't. I don't know how. 

[00:32:19] That's when I realized I really needed help. Not only because I was in full time pastoral ministry, but just as a person, how can I love healthily? I mean, I was married already at that time and we had struggles as well, right? Because we bring our insecure attachment styles, our dysfunctions from a family of origin into our marriages as well.

[00:32:41] And it terrified me that I can't see when I'm overstepping boundaries. And I can't know when other people are overstepping into my rightful space and I should stand up for myself. And I don't even realize that I should and I can't even when I wanted to. So, burnout happened very quickly when I was in church ministry, full time church ministry, because of all the over functioning and over rescuing and care taking. And then also, of course, the tensions in the relationships that resulted, because I was over functioning because I was trying to, you know, be the messiah.

[00:33:21] Clearly, it stepped on a lot of people's toes, and even though they may not be able to articulate or understand what was wrong, you know, there was pushback and there was reaction, right? And one big reason is, especially in the context of being in full time ministry and in youth and young adult work, because I was the older adult and I was a leader. And even with other adults sometimes, in a spiritual context and within the church, I had some level of influence and leadership. Without realizing. 

[00:33:49] I realized that I feel a sense of entitlement to tell people what they should do in their own lives because I believed I was helping them. I believed I was saving them. I believed that I knew better than them. I was absolutely sincere.

[00:34:01] I used to do this a lot to my younger brother. I have a brother; I have a younger brother who's four years younger than me. And growing up, it was a very rocky relationship. It's not that we didn't have love for one another, but I think I was like a second mother to him, especially in the years that we lived abroad together without our parents.

[00:34:20] And because for me, I had this sense - which I also inherited - I realized it's part of my larger family system. Okay, it is in the extended family as well. So, I know. I know it's part of something bigger than myself, but it formed me. That's what I learned, that's what I learned as normal, and it's this, what I'm doing or you know, let's say is overstepping my boundaries, telling you how you should lead your life, who you should date, or who you shouldn't date, or how you should date, all that kind of thing.

[00:34:49] I feel like I am entitled to do so because I'm doing this for your own good. I feel like I'm entitled to do so because you know, I believe this is what God wants. It's so, it's very scary, right? When we think of it, it leads to all kinds of issues. But when you're in it, when I was in it, I really couldn't see what was wrong with it, okay? Because that's how I understood love to be. That's what I knew to be love. So, I had a sense of entitlement. I would tell people things that is not in my place and role to tell them.

[00:35:19] But I even believed that I was responsible to do that. If I didn't do that, then I would be a bad sister, bad whatever, okay, like a bad leader, bad mentor. And so, if you want to talk about consequences other than burning out from over functioning and having a string of - there's broken relationships that were very, very painful in my life because these were always people that I cared a lot for.

[00:35:44] You know, it's almost like the more I loved them, the more I would try to save them and the more I would screw things up. That was, that's a very painful pattern in my life. And then also for myself, another consequence is that I sometimes found it hard to make proper, good spiritual discernment because I was not free.

[00:36:07] Inside me, there was so much compulsion, right? So, wrestling with the effects of my enmeshment actually led me to recognize how unfree I was. And on hindsight, that was a huge blessing. It was what led me to be willing to, in a sense, do whatever needs to be done so that I can become more free, right.

[00:36:30] Ultimately, that was also what led me into therapy to realize that spiritual direction itself, regular confession itself, was not enough. You know, and that's what led me to avail myself to even more resources. Okay, so, those were the personal consequences, you know for me sharing in terms of like coming from an enmeshed system and how that impacted me.

[00:36:53] Okay, so, the final point, the final segment of today's sharing, right, is on how this impacts the living out of our faith.

[00:37:04] THE IMPACT OF ENMESHMENT ON FAITH AND RELATIONSHIPS
When we are enmeshed and we have, this compulsion to always save others and help others, and we don't realize that, or we can't help ourselves to do that, what are the implications for our faith, for living out our faith, and especially, I would say, in our marriages, our family, and our communities?

[00:37:22] First, the first point - I have kind of three points in this section. First point is, we become obstacles in other people's journey towards God. This point took me so long to recognize, so long to recognize because I always believed that I was helping them draw closer to God, right? It wasn't, it's usually only when it's kind of like too late, when so much damage has been done to our relationship.

[00:37:47] Sometimes to even the group, right? Could be the family, the larger family or the community, for example, that I wonder how did we arrive here? You know, like how did I get to this place? Where now, there's more anger, more resentment, more hurt and sometimes, I've pushed someone further away from God because so often when I try to help people, right, it's kind of like in the name of this is what God wants, or this is what I believe the faith is asking us to do. You know, it's virtue.

[00:38:18] So, when we, because I want to focus it more on "I" - I don't want to point a finger at others. But in my observation, I see this happen a lot in faith communities among my fellow peers, who often also go into ministry or full-time ministry. I think there's a kind of like a pattern, right?

[00:38:34] Those of us who have this wound want to help others. And we think it's a very noble call that we're answering a call to help others, but we have no idea when we are actually making things worse instead of making things better. So, when we interfere with what should really be between someone else and God - God, who is so much more patient than I am, God, who is so much more allowing than I am - it's almost like I will not allow the person that I care about or other people to make any mistake because like, it's like avoid all sin or all temptation, you know? It's like all occasions of sin it's actually just an easy use of that term. It isn't like that at all.

[00:39:14] It's actually coming from a place of compulsion. Whereas, as I experienced God journeying with me - okay, so, it's not what I see God do with other people is as I experienced God journeying with me when I was completely helpless and I realized that I can't get myself to that level of so-called perfection that I believed God wanted me to have, I realized like I got really wrong.

[00:39:36] I really pegged God wrong. He has so much more patience, so much more resources, that He's often very okay with me kind of like learning from trial and error. He's not afraid of me making mistakes. So, as I realized God is so much more allowing than I experienced my own childhood to be, not just, you know, both in terms of my family, as well as maybe schooling, my experiences.

[00:40:08] That God was not like the adult figures in my life when I was growing up. That He has a way of letting me discover who He is and who I am through everything that I was doing, including the mistakes that I was making. That was when I began to realize that I was really harming others when I tried so hard to save them from making mistakes, right?

[00:40:33] Because I realized that those mistakes are often kind of like the opportunities that allow them to encounter God in a much deeper way. Okay, so, the first implication in terms of faith, whether it's within our families or in our faith communities, when we are enmeshed and when we have this tendency to try and rescue others, we actually get in other people's way.

[00:40:57] Okay, we step into their path with God so we can actually make their path harder and make it longer than it has to be. Two, second point, second implication. We, who do this, or who struggle with this, we forget that we are creatures and we try to take God's place, right? And that's a form of idolatry.

[00:41:20] In a sense, worshiping some, in a sense, even like ourself, acting subconsciously, definitely, in a sense of, as if we had to take God's place to save the world and to save the people that we love. That's not helpful at all. That gives us an incredible sense of burden. And if you look at instances in your own life or in maybe other people that you know in your life who are in positions of leadership, when they are so overburdened by their responsibility and they take themselves so seriously that it's almost like they are living and acting as if they have to save the world.

[00:42:00] I'm not saying that it has to do with enmeshment necessarily, but usually what's going on is it's almost like they've forgotten that they're creatures, right? We have forgotten that we are creatures and we try to take on God's role. The only way we can relax and ease ourselves, you know, into taking up Christ's yoke, which He says is easy and His burden, which is light, is to always, always be in the place of remembering that we are a creature.

[00:42:30] And God is God, you know? And He's in control. And that's such a comforting thing to know that we are not and that we don't have to be. So, that's the second point of the implications on faith. And the third one, you know, what are the implications, the third implication on being enmeshed and having this Messiah complex is we neglect our own journey.

[00:42:53] We neglect the one journey that is actually important for us to focus our energy and attention on. When we are so hung up about saving other people and helping other people, we see a lot of the needs around us that we feel we have to meet. And we are absolutely blind to what God is asking us to take, like the step that God is asking us to take.

[00:43:23] Right, so we're not doing any favours to anyone and we're not doing any Favors for ourselves. So, yeah.

[00:43:33] THE JOURNEY TOWARDS HEALING AND WHOLENESS
So, really, if you are still wondering, I know. I know a lot of you who are probably even watching my videos and following my account already believe that psychology and emotional health and all this has a real impact on faith and how we live our faith.

[00:43:49] But for most people, this is a very fuzzy connection. All right, and I personally know there are many people in the larger church who are disciples of Christ who are still kind of dubious as to, you know, how big a role does psychology have to play in faith. You know, it's more about catechesis and spirituality and prayer.

[00:44:10] And I mean, all those are important, but like I said, when we are unaware of the specific human condition that we are in, we receive everything, we learn everything in the state that we are in, we will often distort, misinterpret what it means to live our faith, and then the way that we live our faith can actually distort other people's experience of God, image of God.

[00:44:37] That's not a good thing, is it? Right, so, but one thing that's true is, I would believe that even those who are not quite convinced yet that maybe our experiences in our family of origin, or let's say psychology in general, has that much impact on faith, usually can identify the symptoms of when things go wrong.

[00:44:57] Right, so, I think a lot of people will agree that having this compulsion to save people or having some kind of like a saviour complex is not a good thing. Something has gone wrong, right? Something's not quite right. But without the lens on understanding of trauma or let's say psychology enmeshment, for example, in what we're talking about today. Even if we recognize that there's something wrong, we're not able to offer a solution that works.

[00:45:26] We're not able to suggest, in a sense, a method of remedy of how do we get from where we are to where we need to go, right? That there are areas that maybe we need healing ourselves. When we're completely unaware of that, we can sometimes make things worse without realizing. Okay, so, I'm going to end my side of the sharing.

[00:45:49] As usual, questions are welcome, if there are any.

[00:45:51] THE IMPORTANCE OF ALIGNMENT AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING
So, my husband was just telling me this morning that in the past, when he ran - and if he ran a bit longer like maybe five kilometres or so - he would get this pain in one of his knees, right? And he's aware because he's gone to a chiropractor before, he's sought other kind of help for his knee before.

[00:46:10] That is because he's out of alignment, okay? So, his gait, his stride is out of alignment. And usually, for example, when he goes to a chiropractor or whatever, when he gets realigned, when his spine, you know, his pelvis and everything, when they're aligned, then the pain goes away.

[00:46:26] Interesting, right? Because when we're not aligned, the pressure that is applied in his body causes that pain. So, recently, because of that stretching massager that that we bought, which I mentioned prior to this it actually does a pretty good job of aligning, realigning us at the end of the day.

[00:46:45] Okay, so, he's been telling everyone about it because one very important impact for him is that he doesn't feel that pain when he runs anymore and he doesn't have to go and see a chiropractor anymore, right. He realizes that that means that he's in better alignment. Like this this little equipment helps him to realign his spine at the end of the day after long hours of sitting. After he goes to the gym or he goes for exercise, you know, he also does that, you know, like a 10-minute session on this thing and it realigns him back.

[00:47:18] And then he's not sore after the run. He's not sore the next morning. So, alignment in that sense is important. And if he was misaligned, the more he runs or the more he puts stress on his body, the greater the pain there will be, right? So, I mean, I'm talking about this because when we have issues that we don't realize that we have, for example, coming from an enmeshed family system and we don't have a sense of who we are, and we haven't healed.

[00:47:44] And we have all these compulsions that we need to help other people. We don't have a sense of boundaries. It's like all this is us being out of alignment. When we try to help others, when we try to love, from what we understand is loving, which is actually a misaligned perspective of loving, we will cause pain.

[00:48:06] We can't help but cause pain to ourselves and to others, right? And if we didn't understand the reason why, like before, my husband knew that was because his spine was not in alignment, his pelvis was not in alignment. He never knew why he would always have this knee pain after he ran, and it's so frustrating. And if he hadn't learned how to fix it, I think sooner or later it's going to be a much bigger problem for him, for his knee as well, right?

[00:48:28] So, I hope that more of us will understand why there is value in learning more about what it means to be human, about our own families of origin, what we have inherited, the dynamics that we have inherited, what we may have always grown up to think that is normal, may not be so, right?

[00:48:52] And we often cannot see ourselves. But if we can realize, we can look at our lives and we see a string of broken relationships or we can see our marriage maybe falling apart or our relationship with our in laws falling apart or at work. Whatever it is, it's not just always about the other person, right? It's not just about the other person. If that pattern follows us, there is something in our life that we need alignment for. So, that's today's sharing.

[00:49:23] You're welcome for the sharing. This is a big topic and there are so many different ways we can talk about it. So, today I thought I'll just focus on the link between Enmeshment and Messiah Complex, at least in my experience. And I hope that for those of you also who are watching on replay, something here landed for you and may give you some perspective, and even better yet, maybe give you an aha moment as to maybe why you struggle with something that you're struggling with.

[00:49:54] Okay, you're saying, I think what I get most caught up in is the shame from looking back. As in the shame from looking back at how badly you did in the past. I can understand that. I think this is probably - I don't share very often about my failures, the broken relationships that I have or that I had, or the times that I really felt like I screwed up in even in my role as a youth minister, as a youth worker.

[00:50:23] You know, that in sometimes you can say maybe I'm more critical than other people. Like other, like general other people, not people that felt impact of being harmed by me, you know? They would be mad, right? But other people generally would often probably think like, yeah, it's normal you know, to have some pushback and all that.

[00:50:40] Of course, I mean, we can never have hundred, you know, please everybody and we will make mistakes. But I knew, in a sense, it was on me to, I don't know - on me to learn how to love better. I think it really started from that. Because I really desire to love better, right? I mean, that's why you feel so much shame when we feel like, why is it that we love so poorly in the past?

[00:51:03] We can love hard. That's the thing that most people don't understand. We can love very hard. We can love very passionately. there can be a lot of effort in the loving and we can love very poorly. That was my experience in the past because I didn't realize I was misaligned. So, if it's still the shame that you're struggling with, you know, I think it's the sit with God more, with these experiences because He's so like I said, He's so forgiving. He's so understanding.

[00:51:33] It was experiencing His understanding that I learned to understand myself. Like, you know, it was experiencing His compassion that helped me to have more compassion for myself. And a big part of it is learning about all these things that we're talking about, right? Don't you find that when you learn what enmeshment trauma is and then if you recognize that that's exactly what was happening your family in a sense, what chance did you have?

[00:51:54] How can you expect yourself to turn out differently when that's all you knew? So, when I began to see the truth of my family system - and it's still hard because sometimes it feels like a betrayal and disloyal to acknowledge that there was so much harm happening within the family. But that is truth and the truth sets you free. And when you see that, then you can understand why you turn out the way you did and why you make the mistakes that you did and maybe why you continue to make the mistakes that you do there, especially the parts where there's a pattern, right?

[00:52:27] Yeah. So, continue to sit with God's compassion for you, you know, and I really believe that's why, you know, we often, we say that only God alone can judge because who else can see into the depth of our history, of what all the little things that added up to our actions today, right? Yeah, so Hey

[00:52:57] And we're just about to end this Live, but I'm so glad, so glad for those of you who managed to pop in for a bit and I really invite even if you are watching this on replay, if you have any questions or any follow up, you know, on experiences of enmeshment in living out our faith, I mean, please feel free to share with me.

[00:53:18] I really appreciate it when I get a, you know, sometimes some of you slide into my DMs and share specific instance in which something that I talked about or something that I wrote about helped you make a connection between mental health or your own emotional struggles and faith. Because that's really, that's the connection that so many of us lack. We may be putting a lot of effort into growing our faith and that we may be putting a lot of effort into trying to learn about mental health, and we may even be talking about mental health in faith context, but the connection is not being made because integration is where the connection has to be made.

[00:53:54] Okay, so, today's sharing, what I gave today was really an example of how the family of origin trauma or dysfunction that we grew up in can, without us realizing, affect the way we live our faith. And while we really think that we are following Christ and we're doing what He's asking of us, we are actually harming ourselves and others, that love is disordered.

[00:54:16] So, I'm not saying that we're culpable. It's not intentional, right? It's not like we are intending to hurt people, but we all are meant to thrive, and we can only thrive when we can love well, not just love strongly or love hard, right? But love well. So really, here's praying for more, more authenticity and more integration so that we can experience what it's like to be more fully human and to thrive.

[00:54:46] I really look forward to being able to talk about issues in a way that connects with our real life. Yeah, okay, so, thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you guys another time, in another live. Bye!

[00:54:59] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

If you like what you hear on this podcast, would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me as well as be updated on my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!