"If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?" - Codependency and Complex Trauma - Part 1/10

so tonight i want to start a new series i mentioned it to you two weeks ago on codependency so here's my thing for it if you leave me can i come with you um which is codependency in a nutshell if i leave you can i come if you leave me can i come with you um i've been teaching codependency for 15 years now and if you know me i'm always learning and every time i teach it in workshops i get new insights and questions get asked that take me in a little different direction and so

this series is going to be kind of a blend of some of the older stuff that i've taught but a lot of the newer stuff that i've put together over the last couple years and it's probably gonna be an eight to ten week series just because there's so much material that i wanna cover and so let me just say a couple introductory things codependency is a term that has become overworked and so a lot of people hear it and they just tune it out because they think they know what it means and it's kind of

gained its own baggage and and a lot of people really don't understand it and that's part of why i want to do this series but secondly if you were to come to react on any given week there would not be a week that would pass where codependency wouldn't come up it is one of the most talked about things in recovery it is one of the questions i get most frequently by clients in recovery and so what i have seen is an extremely important topic not just because i get asked about it a lot but what

i have found over the years is a lot of people come into finding freedom and react and they think that drugs and alcohol is their main addiction but what i have learned is that probably an addiction to a person is probably a greater addiction and that is a codependency thing and what i have found is if they don't deal with that that will keep them not only messed up in their personal life and in their relationships but that will keep taking them to relapse to drugs and alcohol and i would say that probably the greatest

cause of relapse that i have seen is codependent relationships it does so much damage and it is one of the hardest things to deal with because it plays off of natural human needs relationships love belonging and so when people come into recovery and they're lonely and they're hurting and they're broken they long for a relationship and usually end up in a romantic one that is codependent and it just makes life worse for them and leads to a relapse and so it is in my mind one of the most important topics for people to face in

their recovery if they have a chance of making it in recovery but also if they want to have a healthy life and to have healthy relationships and to have their kids grow up seeing mom or dad getting healthy not just keeping the old crisis cycle happening over and over again which does a lot of damage to them the next thing that is important for me in explaining this is there's lots of teaching about codependency that's out there but i don't think you can really understand codependency till you understand complex trauma do you really realize that

everybody basically that is codependent has complex trauma and so it is one of the main symptoms that come out of complex trauma and so you need to understand the complex trauma piece if you ever hope to deal with the codependency piece in your life and so that's why i want to look at this topic but i want to look at it from the perspective of complex trauma so that you'll more clearly see the issues that need to change and be dealt with if you ever hope to really deal with the codependency piece what you're probably

going to find is that this is going to get really heavy for you at times and there's going to be times where you're going to say i am so screwed up i just want to end it now there's no hope for me because you're gonna see some of your relationships put into words and you're gonna wonder if i've been following you around and had a video camera on your relationships for the last 20 years because you're going to think i'm going to post your picture on the screen up here as an example of codependency that's

how personal this will get for you but then it's going to get painful because you're going to see the damage that's done to your kids as well but i don't want to just take you to a painful realizations i want this to turn into tools so you can heal and develop healthy relationships so let me start by just helping you get an intro to the topic tonight and i just want to show how codependency comes out of complex trauma so complex trauma in my mind the greatest piece of damage that it does is in a

person's sense of their identity so it does in a child who is neglected and abused and abandoned they think the reason dad is neglecting me or abusing me is because there's something wrong with me and they draw conclusions about their identity that i must not be good enough i must not be lovable otherwise dad wouldn't abuse me or neglect me or abandon me and so complex trauma produces this core identity called shame and that is what does the greatest amount of damage in my mind when it comes to understanding complex trauma now take a child

with shame thinking it's all my fault and then put them in a situation where they're trying to survive and stay safe and what comes out of that is it makes a healthy relationship impossible so complex trauma takes the possibility of healthy relationships and it makes it impossible because of shame and because of being in survival mode and so anybody coming on a complex trauma knows how to have a kind of relationship but it's not a healthy one and that is where the damage happens and so what comes out of that is they go into relationships

but they don't know how to make them healthy and they only get wounded over and over again so the very thing they're trying to do is is keep safe they are now actually producing the opposite they're setting up relationships where they keep getting hurt and that is to me part of the huge negative effect of complex trauma as it spreads beyond the person into relationships okay let me begin with a basic definition and this isn't mine i'm just taking it kind of from a textbook point and then i'm going to over the next weeks just

start coming at it from all kinds of different angles and if you know me you know we're going to come at it from at least 20 different angles in order to get a better and better understanding of this thing called codependency so a basic definition says a codependent relationship involves one poor person supporting or trying to solve the other person's problems so it's all about people trying to solve each other's problems meet their needs mainly their self-esteem needs and their emotional needs okay that's part one part two what that means then is that one person

or both person but mainly one person becomes ends up becoming an enabler of the other person's unhealthy behavior so you're trying to support them but what you're supporting is them being immature and irresponsible and you're cleaning up their mess after them trying to solve their problems and fix them but you're giving them permission to never grow up and so you end up with relationships that are much like a parent and a child and they drive you crazy and so you are supporting unhealthy behaviors not healthy behaviors and then what happens with that is the enabler

becomes totally occupied with solving the other person's problems and trying to meet their needs that they totally lose track of their own needs and they are living without their own needs being met and they don't even know how to meet their own needs so they're dying inside trying to give life to somebody else who doesn't want life and that is the disaster that comes out of codependency gradually so what you're going to see is codependency is like addiction it gradually gets worse and worse and worse and those in it get sicker and sicker and sicker

so the longer you stay in a codependent relationship the worse you get the worse they get and the sicker you both get and everybody around you and so that is the basic definition so i say there's a couple things about addiction that therefore are involved with codependency number one codependency can be you're addicted to a person so they're your crack pipe they're the person that you are saying make me feel alive solve all my pain problems solve all my emptiness give me life i am you're my crack pipe and you become addicted to them so

like the addiction even when it gets to the point that you know your crack pipe is no longer giving you positive experiences but is only making your life a living hell you can't let go and the same is true in codependency this person is becoming more and more toxic and destroying you but can you get rid of them uh uh you're addicted to them and so that is the first part second part it's it's also you're addicted to an unhealthy way of relating even a destructive way of relating so it's an addiction to a relationship

style that isn't healthy and that's what we're going to be developing over time but here's what i want you to see if you look at the necessary ingredients for a healthy relationship honesty trust respect you don't find those in codependency so the very thing necessary the very ingredients necessary for a healthy relationship what happens in a codependent relationship you're trying to have a healthy relationship without those ingredients and it's impossible but people will keep trying the third thing that i think is a great summary statement is codependency is how a shame-based person approaches relationships and

that's what i want to develop now in helping you get the core explanation and understanding of what codependency is so let me take you back to a simple definition of complex trauma that you may never have thought of before complex trauma always happens in a situation usually home where the person with the most power is a narcissist and they make it all about them so they want everything to go the way they want to go they want everybody to respond to their needs to their emotions to their wants and they want everybody's life to revolve

around them that's what creates complex trauma because now that person who's the narcissist abuses the people that don't do stuff that they want it neglects people because it's all preoccupied with its own needs and it abandons people to pursue its own selfish pursuits so complex prom trauma always takes place with a narcissist in power what we're going to see next week and i'm actually going to give you a test is co-dependent relationships usually always have a narcissist and that is the the thing that makes up a codependent relationship so then what happens when a child

is has a dad who's a narcissist dad is all about his own needs and when the kid has a need what does dad say to the kid quit being so selfish and he makes the child feel bad for having a need he makes the child feel guilty for having a need so now the child feels shame because dad's abusing them and not giving them attention and they conclude it must be my fault i must not be lovable i must not be good enough and then dad says you're selfish for having needs so that's a double

whammy so far that comes out of that narcissist one way to look at an a definition of what is shame it is the dis ease of self and what that means is you're not comfortable in your own skin you don't like yourself you're uneasy with who you are and as a result of that you don't have any positive feelings about yourself so many of you can go back in your mind to childhood and remember many days sitting on the swing or in your room feeling no positive feelings to yourself hating yourself feeling unlovable not valuable

the shame piece okay so the child then is going their brain is going i don't want to stay in these painful feelings what do i need to do to fix it so here's what you have to understand next the brain doesn't go i need to fix my inside because it's concluded my inside is bad so where is the solution going to come from i don't have any positive feelings about myself so the only way i can feel good about myself is if others have positive feelings towards me and then i'll piggyback on their positive feelings

towards me there is where codependency begins you are looking outside yourself to make yourself feel better as a way to deal with your shame without dealing with it internally this solution will never work but that is the belief behind all of codependency so let me develop that further so then what the the child says is this how do i prove that i'm lovable how do i convince myself that i'm lovable well i just have to be in a relationship with somebody and that proves that they want to be in relationship with me which proves i

must be valuable and lovable so therefore to prove i'm lovable i got to be in a relationship all the time because if i'm not in a relationship that proves nobody wants me and that therefore proves that i'm not lovable so now i have to be in a relationship and some of you understand that i've had many clients who when they know a relationship's about to die they don't end until they got somebody else waiting and then they end this one and move right into the next because they can't be alone because being alone proves to

them their greatest fear that they are unlovable so then the next thing is now you're in a relationship so how do i get them to see value in me i have to solve their problems i have to help them so now you go into a relationship as either a helper who's going to be a hero and rescue somebody and then when you rescue them they're going to go oh i adore you i love you you're so wonderful and you're getting all kinds of positive validation and you go this is the perfect solution to my shame

problem or you go to i'm so needy i got so many problems i'm never gonna take responsibility for myself please rescue me and you get all these knights and shining armor come swooping in and give you all this attention and rescue you and go this is fantastic i'm going to be a needy aholic for the rest of my life because i get attention why should i ever move off the pity pot because i get all this attention this is a solution so now what you see is you've got a helper and a needy person as

the basis of a relationship so that's where codependency begins okay now we go further so you're now you got this person in a relationship you go i got to be happy all the time because if i'm sad they might get tired of me and leave me if i ever get angry at them they might go screw you and be gone or if i let them in to see the real me they go who are you screwed up i'm gone so i gotta put this perfect mask of being happy all the time that's the only way

they will keep loving me so you realize what you just did you went from being a human to being a one emotion person who's a fake because that's what you think you need to get positive attention you think if you're real you will never get positive validation but then you go further in your thinking and that is not only do i have to be happy i got to keep them happy because if they ever get disappointed or angry at me they might leave me or if they're ever sad they might just get depressed with their

relationship and leave me so the only way they're going to keep giving me positive validation is if i'm happy but i got to keep them happy so what does that mean i can't be happy unless they're happy my happiness now depends on them being happy so therefore my priority now is i'm going to take responsible for their emotional world and if they got a problem i'll fix it for them just so they'll stay happy if they're angry i'll calm them down and fix everything up just so they're happy so now they don't have to grow

up at all they can stay an angry immature kid but i will fix all their problems just so they're happy so they keep giving me positive attention that's the only way i can solve this and so now you got somebody sitting around saying do this for me i'm mad at you and the other person's running around fixing everything so they stay happy the room got really quiet so i think maybe we're hitting home the next thing that then happens is if i'm going to keep them happy i better develop a radar system that is alert

to their every mood so that the minute they're walked no i don't don't even wait till they walk in the door i can tell by the way they drive down the driveway what kind of mood they're in and i can tell by the way they shut the door what kind of mood they're in so i'm gonna have this radar that is more aware of their world than on my world i'm gonna have a radar that that knows their every emotion and that can even maybe read their mind once in a while but i don't have

a clue what i feel or think i'm plugged into them so now my identity is a reflection of theirs so i'm no longer a person i'm just a reflection of them you're following what's happening here as this progresses now what will happen if you have a child who says dad's a selfish jerk i'm not going to go running whenever he gets angry and you're the enabler who's got to keep dad happy what are you going to do now you're going to beat your kid up and say quit being so selfish and you're going to say

you've got to keep dad happy and you're training your child to be codependent and you're punishing them for trying to be real and so what happens in those families is that the enabler isn't just trying to keep dad happy it's making all the kids cooperate with the program and that is what does a bunch of damage as well okay now you got to go to the next thing so in order to keep them happy all the time that means i have to be willing to sacrifice all my needs and all my desires because they don't

matter anymore all that matters is their desires if they're going to keep happy so i will sacrifice my needs and i'll put them on the shelf and what happens then is if i feel a need and express a need i feel guilty for expressing a need and i train myself to feel guilty for having needs so i sacrificed that but then this son in the center of the universe the narcissist he demands more of your attention and he says i can't be convinced that you love me unless you have no friends and no family so

i'm going to start cutting out your friends and your family and your activities so i'm the only person in your world and you want to know what you do you go ahead with it and you sacrifice all of that as well and then he's going to say you should put up with my anger i'm just having a bad day you should put up with me hitting you you probably deserved it and now you keep moving the line in the sand to tolerate more and more to sacrifice your values and your morals more and more now

you start lying for them you start covering for them you're breaking your own moral conduct to keep them happy so you are getting sicker and sicker to accommodate their growing narcissism and then what you can see comes out all of this is the narcissist is the superior and you are definitely inferior they look down on you they see you as a servant they don't even treat you with respect but they demand respect from you so there is a dynamic relationship change where there's no longer equals here this is a relationship of a superior narcissist and

an inferior person beyond that a healthy relationship over time both parties make sacrifices about 50 of the time both parties one person gets their kind of what they want to do one day the other person another day and it balances out to about 50 percent so if you were to go to bermuda with kim and i there were some days kim did what i wanted there's other days i did what she wanted because that's just what you do but not in a codependent relationship now one person gets their way 100 of the time and the

other person gets their way zero percent of the time and that is not healthy but there's always within the codependent hope that they will change and you stay in it and stay in it okay that's a lot of heavy stuff and i'm i just want to keep going very quickly um so a child wasn't taught in complex trauma how to meet their own needs in a healthy way that's number one so i'm just adding now to how complex trauma affects children and sets them up for codependency so they weren't taught how to meet their own

needs okay their parents didn't meet their needs so their own needs are something they're very out of touch with and they don't have a clue how to be aware of them or how to meet them all they know is how to set them aside and meet somebody else's needs next thing complex trauma is all about a child feeling unsafe and alone nobody having their back nobody protecting them so what happens is in order to stay safe physically you have to squash all the things that are necessary for a healthy relationship to stay safe physically you

don't talk you don't feel you don't trust you don't do the things necessary for a healthy relationship so complex trauma the need for safety squashes healthy out of a child now in adult life you come into relationships and you don't know how to do healthy you still operate by don't trust don't talk be dishonest lie all of those things are there so the very strategies necessary to survive as a child make healthy relationships impossible so here's an important summary for you codependency develops in a mo an emotionally abusive environment with a narcissist being abusive and

it develops in an emotionally dishonest environment because the enabler is never going to get honest about how things really are and so a child is growing up in an environment that is emotionally abusive and emotionally dishonest so how are they going to learn to be emotionally honest and emotionally healthy they didn't have that taught to them so they set that aside in their life so here's a quote that i love soul wounds so again emotional wounds are what take place in an emotionally abusive environment soul wounds do not heal if ignored and what i want

you to understand with that is a lot of people coming out of complex trauma say why deal with that that's in the past and what this is saying is you can ignore those wounds but it's still going to mess up your relationships today so soul wounds do not heal if you ignore them they they continue to shape and govern our emotions our self-image our ways of interacting in relationship long beyond the childhood in which they were received shamed as damaged far beyond the original dysfunction because it is damaged the wounded souls unintentionally continue to perpetrate

on themselves it is a kind of soul murder what it's saying is this if you don't deal with your soul wounds guess what you're going to get in relationships and you're going to wound yourself and you're going to murder your own soul and in other words what it is saying is complex trauma you develop a system that lets you survive physically but it murders your soul you're physically alive soul dead that's what comes out of complex trauma and so when you go into a relationship physically alive soul dead it's impossible not just to have a

healthy relationship but it's impossible not to wound each other and yourself further and you do even further damage so somebody has said codependency is the dance of wounded souls and i think that says it very well another person has said codependency is using relationships today to try and meet emotional needs not met in childhood i said to the clients this week what many of you will probably find is you're going to wake up a morning and you say i think i married my mom or i think i married my dad because i'm still looking for

them to validate me and meet my needs today and i married somebody that was like them without realizing it hoping they would solve my soul wounds and they won't they will just make it worse so an attempt to heal one's shame by ignoring your internal world and focusing on finding mr perfect does not work but that's what soul or that's what codependency is all about trying to do so that's just a taste of codependency for the christian part one of the things that we've been really building on for you realize it's a year ago that

we started at riverwood here so we've been working at this for about a year but we've been really focusing on what does it mean never relationship god what does it mean to trust god what's this living by faith in god and part of the challenge for people coming out of complex trauma is for many of them they were experienced spiritual abuse and so to them god's not a trustworthy person and so one of the things i decided i was going to do for a couple weeks is some of the issues that people have when it

comes to trusting god partly because of distortions they've received from other christians and it just gets me really upset and often i'll break into rants that some of you will find amusing others it gets me in trouble but i get really upset with a lot of the damage that churches and christians have done as far as how they've explained god to people so tonight what i want to do is talk about probably the most common distortion people get through a church environment and that is that god is an angry god and you will get verses

about god's anger or god's wrath and that is used to prove that this god is an angry god and therefore you should fear him because of his anger do you realize that what that does is it makes church like a dysfunctional complex trauma family how do you did how do you motivate children in a complex trauma family you put fear into them how do you motivate children in a healthy family you put love into them how does it work within a church when you want to get people to follow god you put fear into them

and that makes it a sick place and so that has done so much damage that i want to talk about that because it leads to the next thing and that is you need to be afraid i grew up hearing oh be careful little hands what you do because there's a father up above looking down in peace and love well i didn't hear there's a father up above looking down in peace and love i heard there's a father up above and if he's looking down and if you do something bad you better watch out because he

could just bring out his baseball bat and just smack you really good on just because you pissed him off that day and so that was this god with an unpredictable anger who lashed out in judgment at times on a whim and that was the environment that i suspect some of you were raised in i say to people all the time that i would guess based on what i do here in manitoba that probably 25 of the people i work with have been given a picture of god like that and that is spiritual abuse because now

what does that narcissist dad do he says here's a bible verse that says you better do what i'm telling you to do or else god's not not am i going to judge you god's going to judge you so now i got god on my side so you better be afraid and that creates complex trauma so here's the first thing you you need to understand when you read through the bible what you're going to find is there's two types of god's anger that are talked about so let me back you up and give you this if

you don't know me i went to church even before i was born when i was in my mom's womb i i went to church minimum of five times a week ever since i was a newborn so i was raised in church and i was raised in kind of the normal christian teachings of western society i bought into all of that until i became very ill and i went into a deep depression that lasted almost 10 years and all of a sudden all of those things that i was taught didn't work and so i had to

back away from the christianity that i was raised with and go most of that i don't believe anymore doesn't work i need to find out what works and that caused me to re-read the bible through the eyes of pain and the eyes of depression and the eyes of unresolved physical problems and all of a sudden the bible took on a whole new meaning to me because i saw it through the eyes that the original recipients of the bible read it from do you realize that the bible wasn't written for people in comfortable places it was

written for for people who were in pain and as you read it all of a sudden everything you see differently and one of the first things i began to see was we've misunderstood god's anger and we've used god's anger in an abusive way that god never designed so per the first part of god's anger is what i call passive anger so here's how it works sometimes when it says god is angry at people it doesn't mean he's up there saying oh i just want to get them what it means is this when he designed life

he says i am going to create life so that if you live within the boundaries of love in a healthy design you're going to get positive consequences you're gonna experience positive emotions positive relationships and many blessings if you step outside of those boundaries and start to lie and start to be abusive guess what you're going to get pain now that's the first way of describing god's anger is nothing more than the natural consequences that god built into unloving actions so god's not up in heaven doing anything he just built it into how life is designed

now think about it further why did god put painful consequences if you step outside of love is it so you go oh god you're a mean god no i say oh i need to get back inside of healthy because if i stay outside of here it's going to be pain and it's going to become hell on earth but if i get back inside of healthy i'll get back to joy and blessing so actually negative consequences that feel like god is angry are actually god loving you saying i don't want you out here because it'll destroy

you i want to make this super uncomfortable so you'll come back to what i designed so all of that pain comes out of a loving heart so that's not even anger that's a loving god trying to stop people from destroying themselves so that's the first thing you need to understand so if you now read through the bible and you read every time you see god's anger guess what you're going to see most of the time it's nothing more than painful consequences that are built into life now let me take that further in romans 1 there's

a passage that says people step step outside of god's design and they basically said we're not going to submit to god surrender to god we want to be our own boss so we're going to do it our way we think god's rules are designed to take the fun out of life we think fun is outside of god's design so we're going to go out there and they did that and they got pain but instead of going back to the inside it says they hardened their heart and they got more rebellious and many of you understand

that and so they said we're going to go even further outside of god's design because we think there'll be happiness there and so it says god gave them up he says i don't want you to do that i'm trying to bring you back through painful consequences you're hardening your heart so i'll let you go i'll let you go like a parent would a rebellious child and says you're not gonna learn from me telling you or giving you consequences okay go ahead and you're gonna find out it's not like you thought it's gonna be and so

god gives them up to their own will i'll give you what you want even though i know it will destroy you because you won't listen to what i say is best for you so that is not a god who's angry saying i'm going to punish you it's a god who has a breaking heart it's a god who is saying don't do this but the only way you're going to learn your way doesn't work is the pain has to get so bad that you finally stop and say maybe i'm not the smartest person in the world

and that's the only way some of us learn and you know all about that so that is not an angry god that is a loving god but painful consequences sometimes feel like anger and so that's why it's called that the second thing is there are just a few occasions in the bible where god moved in active judgment and he wiped out some people okay so just give you there's two things i want you to understand with that the first is so if let's say my wife had terrible cancer and she went in yesterday and the

surgeon said you know what i should probably cut all of that out but i'm going to be nice i don't want to cause her any pain so i'll just i'll just put a band-aid over top of it that's not a loving doctor a loving doctor would do radical surgery and so the times when you see god wipe out people he's wiping out a cancer that would destroy the earth okay that's part one part two when you see the times and i'm gonna give you the three examples when god did wipe it out what you find

it was the last thing he wanted to do and he only did it when nobody else would listen when every single person hardened their heart so in second peter 3 it says this the lord is not slow in keeping his promise instead he is patient with you not wanting anyone to perish in other words the last thing god wants to do is judge that is what he will avoid as long as possible he wants everybody to come back inside a healthy so that is the heart desire of god so that's important because god's not up

there saying i'm so mad i can't wait to beat somebody up god is up there saying the last thing i want to do is judge a person what more could i try to help bring them back and so he will try all kinds of different things to bring them back okay so let me give you example number one genesis 6 noah and the flood okay so basically the story goes god said to noah build an ark get two of all the animals because i'm going to wipe out the world why because everybody is living eat

drink and be merry what does that mean they're only living to indulge every selfish desire they have they are no longer loving their this world has become unsafe and destructive because everybody is totally self-centered and so i have to cut out this cancer but then he says this i don't want to so there's a very interesting thing i don't know if you remember from sunday school but we used to get the oldest person in the bible was one of the quizzes and it's a guy by the name of methuselah and you you that'll be on

the test methuselah but he lived to be 969 years old so that was the oldest guy that ever lived you all know what methuselah's name means when he dies it will come and if you go through this story there's a genealogy and and what you find is you go through it the year methuselah died the flood came when he dies it will come but that's interesting to me because he was the oldest guy that ever lived and so it's like this saying i don't want to god's saying i don't want to judge the world yet

you know what i'm going to let methuselah live another year the next year i just don't want to judge them yet i want to give them another chance i'll let them live another year and they lived another year and another year and what that what you see in that is god is doing everything to present prevent having to judge people he's giving every possible chance the next time it happens is in genesis 19 the story of sodding sodom and gomorrah where fire said came down from heaven i've been to where sodom gomorrah was there was

a huge volcanic eruption which would have been the fire from heaven that wiped out the entire city kind of like a pompeii and so it's not actually even god doing stuff it's an a natural disaster that just happened to work at that time to wipe out that that messed up people but what is important is this in genesis 19 god comes to abraham and he says i i gotta cut out the cancer of sodom and gomorrah and so it says this the lord said to abraham the outcry against sodom and gomorrah is so great their

sin so grievous that i'm going to come down and see if what they have done is bad as the outcry that has reached me then abraham says this he starts to argue with god and it's important to understand that god's okay if we argue with him okay as long as we listen but he says will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked so what he's thinking and fearing is you're going to destroy that but there's going to be all kinds of people still that want to follow you would you come down and wipe out

all these people and i get bothered at times when people say jesus is coming back tomorrow and and he's going to do do this judgment i go really there's so many people still that i see with open hearts that just haven't heard yet i don't see him up there ready to come and do that but that's abraham's concern so he says will you spare the people if there's 50 good people still left and god says no if there's 50 people left i will spare the whole place then it says okay how about 45. and god

says no i won't judge it okay how about 40. and they go in this argument how about 30 how about 20 how about 10 and god said if there's 10 people i will not wipe this out so what he is saying is there's not even one well there was one lot but that's all so i am only wiping it out because there's nobody left with an open heart if there was anybody left with an open heart more than that lot i would give them another chance and so what you see is that the judgment doesn't

come until everybody within that culture has closed their heart to god and they are no longer open to being to god at all and then the final one very quickly in genesis 15 israel comes out of egypt we've talked about and they're going to this land that god has promised and what god says is i'm going to have you go into that land and engage in battle and you're going to wipe out a lot of people in battle okay so here's the logic behind it know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be

strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there so israel were slaves in egypt for 400 years in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here why are you taking them out of here putting them for 400 years in a foreign culture in a protected bubble he says this because the amorite's wickedness has not reached its full measure what he is saying is they're bad right now and if i let you live amongst them they'd corrupt you so i'm going to take you out to protect you but

the reason i'm doing that is i don't want to judge them right away because i want to keep giving them a chance well how long are you going to keep giving the chance 400 years wow that's a lot of patience and so god doesn't wipe that out until he gives him 400 extra years of chance and he puts his people in slavery to take them away from all of that corruption and then he brings them back so those three examples what you begin to realize is we don't have this angry god who's always his temper's

flaring we don't have a god who's quick to judge people and wipe them out we get the exact opposite picture in the bible and that is so important for people who have received spiritual abuse to understand so god gives these people tons and tons of warnings and lots of time so let me quickly what does god do to try to get people's attention he gives you a conscience so you tell a line that bugs you like crazy and then he gives parents and their design is to help keep you in healthy complex trauma they don't

do that very well then he gives you a government called police and all of that who are supposed to try and make laws that help you stay and healthy and know that it's painful to go outside of healthy cultures get that all messed up too and then there's the natural consequences outside of that all of those four things are designed by god to get people's attention that it's pays to be inside a healthy okay so that's what he does and then he doesn't judge until he gives them every possible opportunity jesus when he came on

the scene the whole mindset of the religion was of an angry god and so they lived in fear of this angry god that you had to be careful that you made enough sacrifices to keep them happy and if you ever broke a rule you had to run and make a couple sacrifices to get him to not judge you and jesus comes on the scene and basically as you read through his teaching through these eyes that i've given you tonight you begin to see that what he was doing is saying i want to give you a

whole new understanding of god he is not this angry god and he tells the story of the prodigal son and it's a son who does this he says dad give me my inheritance now and dads didn't give their inheritance to their children till they die and what he was saying is dad i wish you were dead and then it says he goes to a foreign country and he does the exact opposite of what his dad stood for so in other words he flipped his dad the bird and he says i want nothing to do with

you i'm going to do everything i can to break your heart and do it outside of your design now the jews listening to that would think that father is going to be so angry at that son he would never forgive him never allow him to come back because he's going to punish him and he's going to punish him big time and jesus that's not what happened and so he goes out of his way so you have to understand in that time it was a shame-based culture and what that meant was you a man especially an

older man never did anything in public that would mess up his image you always carried yourself very circumspectly so that meant an older man would never run he would never hug somebody in public never kiss somebody in public because you had to look good and so when this man whose sons trashed him and done the exact opposite and wished he was dead when he sees him coming up the road guess what he does he runs he hugs him and he kisses him and then he throws a party for him and what he is saying to

the people is this is the exact opposite god of what you were taught and that is what i want you to hear is if you got that other god get rid of that that's what jesus was about was to destroy that old view of god that is part of a complex trauma spiritual abuse world and begin to understand that god's anger is totally a different thing and the god is a loving god and a forgiving god