Surviving The Holidays with the Toxic Family part 2

Narrator: Welcome to Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self, the place where you can get real answers to tough questions. Jesus promised you abundant life but poor choices and dark forces stand in your way. It is time to learn how to overcome the obstacles that keep you out of your promised land. Knowledge of God will pave the path for you to walk in His blessing.

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Dr. Ray: Hello and welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad you're with me today. This is a very important show. Gonna be talking about surviving the holidays with your dysfunctional, toxic, and lovable family. This show is sponsored by my dear friend, Dr. Jess Youngblood and Premier Family Care. He's got three locations, Arab, Alabama, Guntersville, Alabama, and Blountsville. If you're in North Alabama, he's the best doctor there is and I'm very grateful for him.

I want to talk to you in the show about something that's very near and dear to my heart. Maybe dear is not a good word but my family was so dysfunctional we used to say we can put the fun in dysfunction. And so the dysfunction to me was never more evident than when we all gathered together for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Now listen, I love my family, I love my friends, but what happens with the dysfunctional family is the dysfunctional family can really trigger harmful emotions. It can make you feel pretty bad about yourself and so this show’s about overcoming that and having peace despite what's going on around you, and being able to enjoy Christmas. You know, growing up Christmas was the– was a blast. It was just fun. Matter of fact, my family was dysfunctional but I didn't know. It was normal for me. That's all I'd ever experienced. So I want you to enjoy the holidays, I want you to be at peace despite what's going on around you. Just a quick word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank You for this show. I thank You, Father, for the opportunity to, to give a message of hope and a message of healing to anybody listening. I pray, Holy Spirit, that You would speak through me, Father, and open up the ears and hearts of those listening to receive your healing words. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

So healing is what it's all about. I've always had a heart– I want to see people living in peace and living in abundance. And you know, my passion has always been get into your promised land, become and do what you're created to do. That's where your peace and your fulfillment is. But we are around a lot of assignments and unfortunately, many times those closest to us become our spiritual enemies. Now I don't mean that they’re our actual enemies, but many times those closest to us hurt us the most and, and Satan will use those closest to us to cause us the most emotional pain. Now, you know, I don't want to say, “Oh your family's demonically oppressed, and everybody's been used by the devil,” I just know that the most emotional, hurtful, most incredible painful moments of my life have come through my family, friends, people closest to me and if I was the devil, that's the exact tactic I would use against a Christian. I would use people close to them. And so, our family can be dysfunctional, and sometimes our family can trigger us and, and cause us to, to have emotions surface and memory surface that we don't want to deal with. And so instead of really enjoying the holidays and enjoying being around people, we are reminded of things that we don't want to be reminded of. Or maybe, maybe you're listening to me. Maybe you're ignored or maybe you're unrecognized.

You remember the story I've talked about in a couple of podcasts about Jesus when He goes to Nazareth and they didn't recognize Him they said “Isn't this the Carpenter’s son? Isn’t this Mary's son?” And, “We know this guy.” And because He was so unrecognizable in His own hometown, He was not able to do any miracles among them. And I, I just keep thinking how painful that must have been for Jesus to go back to Nazareth. Here He is, the Son of God come to save the world, and He's not recognized by his own family and friends. And you know, that's what happens with us. So many times we go to these family events and we're not recognized and they don't understand us. You see, when you're a Christian and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you are not of this world. And many times you are not recognizable to those around you. I've talked many times about schemes. A scheme is a systematic plan that Satan uses to hurt you. The bible talks about uh, in Corinthians, “We're not ignorant of Satan's schemes,” okay? In Ephesians, we are to overcome the schemes of the enemy. I think that's Ephesians chapter six. And so, one of the schemes is to hurt you, invalidate you, cause you to doubt yourself, even through those closest to you. And it's a very painful, painful scheme. 

To me, you know, I'm just real. To me what's very painful is when I go to visit my family and friends. Some of my family, a lot of my family, they’re clueless. They don't know who I am, they don't know what I do. And I try to share with them uh, some stories because in, in my ministry that God has entrusted me to, I've had some amazing things happen. I mean, I've seen miracles and signs and wonders and been able to minister in uh, overseas, in Indonesia and the Philippines and Guatemala and Europe and Spain and all over the place. And I've seen– spoken in churches all around the country and seen all kinds of incredible stuff, and most of the time my family is not even interested. They could care less. If I want to talk to somebody who's interested, I have to talk to a fellow believer. Someone who, who who is filled with the Spirit. Now again, I, I love my family and, and I care for my family but it hurts me because they're not really interested in who I am. Now, they want to talk about things. They can talk about sports and football and basketball and talk about something that happened at their work but they're not really interested in me. And if I'm not careful, I can take that personal and it can bring up a lot of bad memories. In other words, sometimes your family and your friends are the gre– even though you love them and they love you, but they can be also a weapon used against you to invalidate you or cause you pain, especially during the holidays.

Now what do you do when you're around dysfunctional family members? Now again, I'm not trying to disparage anybody's family, your parents, or your uncles, your cousins, your sisters, or your brothers. You know, my seminary professor years ago told me that in his opinion, most people are doing the best they can with what they know. And you know, your family is probably doing the best they can with what they know. However, they can be dysfunctional and my family was very dysfunctional. So what I had to, to learn was I had to learn some tips. One of the things I learned was I am not responsible or accountable for other people's feelings or actions. In other words, and this is a very hard statement which I've mentioned before, is that what other people think about me is none of my business. And how can I say that? Because it hurts me. Well, the reason it's none of my business is that God holds everyone accountable for their own thoughts and their own opinions and their own actions. So I'm not accountable or responsible for what somebody else thinks, that's their choice. And what, what somebody else says or how somebody else acts, that is their choice. Therefore, what I do in my spirit is I allow them the freedom to think, the freedom to have their opinion, their freedom to make choices and I do not receive it upon me because it is their stuff, not my stuff. And if it's ugly, it is their garbage, not my garbage. And when I get this clear in my mind that this, these opinions and these actions, even if maybe sometimes the most painful action is no action– Sometimes with my family, the most painful thing is not what they say to me is what they don't say to me. Like, “Hey, Ray, how are you doing? Hey, Ray, tell me about what's going on.” Almost never ever, ever am I asked that question. And so that can be very painful. But when I realize and I get this straight in my mind, You know what? I am not responsible for their actions, lack of action, their feelings, and their words, then what that allows me to do is that gives me freedom to love them and have compassion on them. So what I can do is I can literally feel sorry for them, that they're not considerate. I can feel sorry for them that they don't have empathy, or feel sorry for them that maybe they're just not basically polite. Maybe they're a poor conversationalist and that attitude of compassion makes me free to love them and then I'm not being triggered and I'm not taking what they're saying so personally. 

I hope this is making sense to you. It's, it's really you know, it's really about boundaries. Again, what other people think of you is none of your business. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't affect you but listening to me right now, what you think is your business, what you say is your business, what you believe is your business, what you don't do is your business, what you do is your business. And so we have to get this straight in our mind and allow people the freedom to be who they are, okay?

So it– what it does is it's not that it doesn't affect me but it allows me to not be impacted so severely by their lack of words or by their inattention or whatever they're doing or saying where years ago, I would get triggered and I would start having these feelings come up and I would get upset and I would just want to run out the door. Now, it's like, you know, this is my family, they're dysfunctional, I'm really sorry they think the way they think, I'm really sad. It saddens me that they're not able to take an interest in me personally, that's very sad but you know, I'm okay and I love them just as they are, unconditionally. But I do not take– it's not that I don't care what they think, it's just that I do not take responsibility or ownership of their thoughts, actions or lack of actions. And I have one family member - to give you an example, and I'm not going to call them out. But um, I actually decided to track it, to, to track it and uh, after about 10 years of conversations, literally t- and I don't know how I was able to track this but I just thought it was very interesting. After 10 years of conversations, I noticed one trend in all our phone conversations or personal interactions. They never one time– not one time in a 10-year period, did they ever say the words, “Hey, how are you doing?” Never. And that was painful for me and I, I almost like, “Gosh, do you think they will ever ask me how I'm doing?” Because the conversations were always about what was going on with them. So to me, a normal conversation goes like this: You're talking to someone, you say, “Hey, how are you doing?” And they'll tell you a little bit about what's going on, this is healthy, and then they turn around, “Well, tell me about what's happening with you. How are you doing?” And there's a mutual caring and a mutual concern.

In a healthy family, there is mutual appreciation and concern. You want to know what's happening, how the other people are feeling. And they want to know what's going on with you and how you're feeling. And then in a healthy family, you get excited and you you care about what's happening with your family and they care and they're excited about what's going on with you. But when that doesn't happen, you can have feelings of neglect, you can have feelings of frustration, you can have feelings of feeling unloved, unappreciated. And maybe I'm being a little sensitive here because… You know, to me, if you've listened to my podcast, I talk a lot about schemes of the enemy. And a scheme is a plan for your destruction. And what a scheme does is it repeats itself throughout your life. Well, one of the schemes against me that– a message that hit me over and over and over, it would come through family and friends and coaches and teachers. Everywhere I turned around, employees, was, “Ray, you do not matter.” And so when I would go to my dysfunctional family during Christmas and not one person would say, “Hey, what's going on with you? Tell me about what's happening with you…wow, that's incredible,” not one person. It could be a room of 30 people. Sometimes we have Thanksgiving dinners with 30 people. Not one person. Now, I would go up to people, “Hey, tell me how you doing. What's going on?” Never, ever, ever would they ever ask what's going on with me, which I always thought that was strange, and it was kind of painful. Not that I needed the attention, but everybody wants to feel recognized and appreciated by those that you care about. That's just normal human behavior. 

But what I'm saying is when you realize that “Hey, that's sad…” Like me with my family. You know what, it's very sad that they can only talk about themselves. It's very sad that they don't take an interest in me, it's very sad that they don't understand the ministry or what God is doing because there's great things I could share with them. That's sad. I can pray for them, love them, and have compassion on them. At the same time, I'm taking care of myself. So the two questions I’m beginning to ask myself is this: is, “Ray, what do you need?” and “Ray, what do you want?” Now just saying that, it sounds selfish. But as I said before my friend - I did in a previous episode of Pam Goucher, she's an LCSW, been counseling for 30-some-odd years. Amazing, amazing Christian lady. And she, she pointed out to me that self-care is not selfish. So self-care is not selfish and God expects you to care for yourself. Jesus said “How can you take…” the um, “...the speck…” in another, “...in your brother's eye? First remove the log out of your own eye.” So when I care for myself and my emotional health, my mental health, my physical health, I'm actually– not only does it benefit me but it will benefit the people around me.

As a minister, I was always self-sacrificing. You know, caring for other people, worried about other people's needs, what– other people's wants. Trying to be there for people, trying to counsel them, pray for them, talk to them, be there for them. And in that process, I was ignoring myself. And in the toxic family and in the holidays, it's important that you care for yourself and you, you ask yourself what do you want? And what do you need? These are two important questions. It seems hard as a Christian because it's supposed to be all about what do they need and what do they want? That's what's important. But what's really important is what do you need and what do you want? Because you're responsible for that and you're not going to get it necessarily; probably not from your dysfunctional family. So maybe you need to limit your exposure, maybe you need to cut Christmas a little short because your family is, is triggering you. Maybe you need to, you know, withdraw, step outside a little bit, get some fresh air. Maybe you don't need to please them and meet their expectations and do only what they want. Maybe what you want is also important. That's not a maybe, that's actually a truth. What you need and what you want is important and it is valuable to God.

When you're in a unhealthy situation, it's very important to get the focus off those around you and get the focus on yourself, not in a selfish way but in a way of self-care. Make sure that you understand their words and their thoughts and if it's toxic, that poison is not your poison; that's their poison. Pray for them. Their hurtful words are not– they don't belong to you. That's their words. Pray for them. Their opinion does not belong to you, that's their opinion. Pray for them, have compassion on them, and that'll give you peace. One of the things you can do, the bible says release your burdens to the Lord. Cast your burdens upon the Lord. And so you can literally cast this burden of your family unto the Lord. This is what you can do, and it would be very, very helpful. As you cast these burdens upon God, you can literally release your family to God. And it's not I forget about you, I don't care about you. It's, it goes like this: Lord, I– my family has hurt me. But Lord, I love them. Lord, I give them to You for Your care and for Your healing. I release them to You, Lord. And I trust You, Father, with my family because I know You love them and I know You can care for them and I know You can heal them, Father, in Jesus’ name.

That releasing is actually a very loving thing to do. Many people that I've counseled think, Well, if I just release them, that means I don't care about them. No, when you release someone to the Lord, it means you do care about them. You care about them so much you're going to trust God for them and you're going to trust God to care for them, which is going to have a lot of great repercussions or great, great results. So here's my, here's my bottom line. We all have dysfunctional family members and you may have a perfectly healthy, normal family. That's wonderful, praise God for that. But if you're like a lot of people, the holidays brings out the level of dysfunction in our families to the surface and it can be a very painful, stressful time. Number two, take care of yourself. If you need to escape a little bit, that's okay. If you need to withdraw, that's okay. If you need to step outside, get uh, fresh air, whatever you need, that's okay. Do not take ownership of other people's ideas, thoughts, and behavior, even if they're directing it toward you. And remember those– that's their words, that's their opinion. One saying that I've used for years, it's an old cliche, when somebody has this negative uh, feeling toward me, I will literally say “I am so sorry you feel that way.” “I am…” that's it, “I'm sorry you feel that way.” That's literally saying I'm not receiving it. You can keep it. 

So know this that um… I know many people listen to the show, they're Christians. You're Spirit-filled, you have sacrificed yourself for years to care for the needs of other people. God expects us to care for ourself. God expects us to take care of our own mental and emotional and spiritual health. And in doing that, not only do we benefit, but it also benefits those around us. So self-care is not selfish. Self-care is exactly what God expects us to do. And it may be the most important thing you can do in the holidays, surviving a dysfunctional family situation. And Lord knows you've got to love them. I appreciate you listening to my show and hey, I do have a special offer for you. No this, is not an infomercial, this is just honest truth. if you can go to my website, I'm president of International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org. icmcollege.org. It's a Holy Spirit-filled, online college. We train Christian counselors, we train prophets, we train ministers, we train pastors. But I have a lot of courses that are really good, so if you make a donation to our scholarship fund at our website, icmcollege.org, the bottom of the page, of $35 or more, I will send you a course. I will send you a college course. This course I'm sending out right now is called Counseling Victims to Freedom. It's a six-lesson course, uh, it's six one-hour lessons with notes and everything, uh, called Counseling Victims to Freedom. It covers a lot of cool stuff. In other words, you can take a college online course for 35 bucks, okay? Donate it to our scholarship fund. I love you very much, I appreciate you– don't forget to rate, review, you know, download, do all the good stuff. That helps us continue this show. I appreciate you. God bless you. This is Dr. Ray Self.

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This is Dr. Ray Self. Thank you very much for listening to my show. If this show has been a blessing to you and if the Holy Spirit so leads you, I would appreciate you becoming a partner with me so we can reach more people with the truth that will set them free. You can do this very easily by going to patreon.com/selftalkicm. That is patreon.com/icm. I appreciate you very much listening. Don't forget to check out my book, Hear His Voice, be His Voice, available on amazon.com. Don't forget to follow my show and download every episode, it really helps. God bless you.