John Murphy:

This is the Rockhouse Center Podcast and I'm John Murphy.

Beth Murphy:

I'm Beth Murphy and we're going to be talking today about how to help, how to help other people effectively in a way that will really promote change and really do what we want to do when we see that they're stuck in some downward spiral in life.

John Murphy:

Right, there's a tremendous amount of frustration on the part of people who want to try to help people they care about, they know about, or maybe even help a stranger. But people commonly also find it very frustrating that they come in and they're giving it their best and they're just not able to make a difference in that person's life.

Beth Murphy:

Last week we talked about why can't they just stop it? And this really actually continues that and connects. If you happen to have listened to that one, you think about more obvious things like the person that you really care about, who's drinking too much and it's causing them a problem, or they're eating too much or not enough and that's self-destructive, or they're doing risky things, driving recklessly or having a promiscuous lifestyle. Or maybe they're stuck in fears or depression. Any of those things that can be things that we're concerned about, and there are common patterns of how we really culturally, we all tend to try to help those people, and commonly it just doesn't work.

John Murphy:

The core reason why it doesn't work is because as well intended as it is, the focus is commonly on the thing that's going to do the least to actually create change, and that's focusing on the behavior. If all I do is sit there and hold people accountable and talk to them about their behavior and that they need to stop it and they are hurting themselves and give them 1000 great reasons to stop their behavior, that is really the reason why it is that there's not a breakthrough is because the focusing on the behavior doesn't actually deal with the root cause.

Beth Murphy:

So if the person is obviously drinking in a way that's causing them all kinds of life problems. And we want to monitor that, tell them they need to stop it and why they need to stop it. And deal with all the obvious intellectual head-oriented things that would make it make more sense, make their life make more sense, then what we find is that they tend to go underground and create a hidden lifestyle because they've determined what they think they need. Their head knows what the problem is, but their heart is driving their behavior and they intend to do it. And our trying to talk them out of it is not only fruitless, it may actually make the problem intensify.

John Murphy:

You hear people talk about accountability relationships. and how that I'm trying to work on my problem, I've found someone to have an accountability relationship with. And that usually is described as if I ever do the thing that I'm supposed to stop doing, that I contact the person, or if I'm thinking about doing it, I contact the person. And what usually that turns into is the person just kind of becoming a morality cop, someone that they feel like they've got to report into all the time, the one that's always busting them if they do the behavior again. And of course, because it doesn't actually bring an answer and nobody's dealing with the root cause of it. It's like you were saying, another version of going underground is really just saying lying and deception. And we certainly have had examples of clients have been so dogged about their behavior that they just basically stop talking about it, don't admit they're doing it, and move into more of a deception strategy of life just because they can't take being beat up anymore about this behavior, which they can't bring it under control. And being reminded that they have this problem is in no way helping them. As a matter of fact, what it's doing is making it worse. It's actually increasing the level of suffering and shame they have around the behavior, which they know they need to stop doing. So, it's not a newsflash to come and tell somebody, you know you need to stop drinking, you're going to kill yourself. Right? Everybody knows that. But the question is, how do we help and get beyond this morality cop looking at the behavior and just trying to talk people out of it? It's another aspect of the same approach, is trying to logically put people through the progression of, if you do these things, these things will happen, so therefore you should stop doing these things.Tthat has been tried. There are not enough numbers in the planet to count the number of times that has been tried in dealing with someone's behavior. And there's one number that tells you the answer to that and how often it works, and that number is 0. That does not work. You cannot talk someone out of behavior by just getting them to think differently. Even though there are many aspects of psychology where they feel like if they can talk someone into a new set of beliefs, then they'll behave differently. Well, theoretically, that's true, but the problem is, the conversation is very superficial and it's in the head. It's not down in the heart and the thing that's actually driving the behavior and why the behavior is present.

Beth Murphy:

The particular behavior does sometimes change, but typically it changes to a different dependency. And so because the heart issue hasn't been addressed. And so that's where the zero effectiveness.

John Murphy:

Or the change happens for a very short time.

Beth Murphy:

Now, an important connection on this whole thing of how frustrating it is to try to speak to somebody's logic, that applies in all kinds of things. So we want to broaden this out. It's not just to that one particular kind of example. So we're seeing a significant increase just in recent weeks at Rockhouse Center with clients reporting either themselves or loved ones having irrational fears or intensified fears because of natural disasters or contagious diseases, the things of the fallen world, and as they happen to be on the increase in our immediate world, it's also triggering things like the intensified fears of flying or end times.

John Murphy:

Being in crowds.

Beth Murphy:

Being in crowds, yes, claustrophobia, all those sorts of things, panic-oriented behaviors, deep-seated fears, or depression that's just spiraling downward. gain, putting someone in a position to try to help that person and trying to speak to the logic. And then that can lead to just being crazy, frustrating for the person who's trying to say something that we all know is true, like your likelihood of having an accident and being injured or dying is much greater in a car than it is in a plane. But that's not making any difference for the person who's having the panic attack.

John Murphy:

And I feel certain that every time a person has been told that, it's made no difference.

Beth Murphy:

Because it's, again, it's back to the same thing that we're talking about here, which is that it's an attempt to deal with the person's mind and their logic. They can have all the information in the world, but that's not what's driving the anxiety or the depression. It's not what's driving the medicating behavior that they feel like they are depending on to make their life work. It's not addressing the root problem.

John Murphy:

You know, it's interesting because we observe the behavior is irrational, but we try to make a rational argument to talk them out of it. There is something much deeper that's going on.

Beth Murphy:

So what we want to do is be able to connect with a person's heart and essentially kind of like make an alliance with their heart so that we can be invited in, so to speak, to be able to actually help them because they want help. Regardless of what they're saying, even if they're denying that their drinking or their eating is really not a problem, or I was terribly anxious, but I've been over it for two weeks, so I'm good. I don't need to talk about my problem. Any of those, deep inside, they want help. And so what we want to do is be able to create an alliance with them so that their heart recognizes that there is some real help available.

John Murphy:

Yeah, their heart wants out of the problem. There's no question about it. And one of the interesting things about it is that we do all have the answer, which is basically to point people towards a faith-based God relationship solution. That's really where the answer is. And actually, we go back for a moment to the accountability relationships. Those relationships can be effective if they hold people accountable to go to God to deal with what is going on inside of their heart. So, we do have an answer. But the problem is, is that if we go after it from that, basically what you're saying, if we go after it from the behavior perspective and try to come up with an alliance there, to make change, that's not going to work. Because it's the source of the real drivers where the behavior's coming from, we have to make sure that we can have access to what it is that's actually causing the behavior, which is something that's coming from the heart. So we've got to be allowed in. If we do the behavior thing, then we're just basically creating a barrier that is going to make it hard for them to be open to what we have to say. So, we've got to get at the answer, and the answer is going to be through some sort of alliance with the heart.

Beth Murphy:

So what we want to share with you today is kind of the overview concepts of how we develop an alliance with our clients at Rockhouse Center, not that we're commissioning you to go out and try to be a biblical counselor, but in relationships with people, there are just a couple of foundational concepts that are the basis of what works to connect in a way that people can receive help, where you don't have to be trained to be a counselor, But it's the connection that you can grab and take, because it's the connection to their heart that's going to open them up to receive what you have to offer.

John Murphy:

Yeah, so the first thing that we can connect with the heart is that the heart wants out of the way this feels. The heart wants out of the condition of life that they are in. One of the things that we want to do in talking to people is expressing the desire to help them get their life back, to help them restore their heart or maybe bring their heart to a place of peace for the first time. Their heart is going to resonate with you. They're going to align with you with that objective. And so that's the first piece. And then the next piece is what it is that they are involved in. From the perspective of the alcoholic, where you come and talk to an alcoholic about talking them out of drinking and just put any addiction in there, but we'll call it alcoholism for now. If you're trying to talk them out of that, you have to understand that there is a reason why that alcohol is in their life. And like we said, you can't talk them out of it. So, it's very important for us when we're addressing someone who's in that situation, that they understand that we are not here to take away their alcohol. That's not our purpose. They've become dependent on that. That's the way they are coping with life and handling the way life feels to them. And we have to let them know that we're not here to take that away from them. We are here to try to bring them an answer that will allow them to gain control over it so they can get control back, get the control of their desire back instead of having desire that has basically metastasized into addiction. We're trying to help them recognize that we are not here to take the alcohol way, we would like to help bring you a solution which would give you control of that back so it's not running your life and you're not subservient to it, which is where an addict is when they're in their addiction.

Beth Murphy:

So the big picture of what happens over time is people come to Rock House Center as a client and they've got some self-defeating or self-destructive behavior that they're clinging to in a way that gets labeled as an addiction or whatever ‘ism’ it's called, is that over time, their dependency on God increases and their dependency on the thing decreases. As the torment in their heart decreases, and they don't need to medicate the torment in their heart so much, they just gradually lose interest in the medicating behavior. But that's not going to happen by yanking the medicating behavior away from them. That will end up resulting in, or even the threat of it feels like, well, just feels like a threat, that you're going to take away the thing I've grown to believe that I desperately need to make my life work. Again, off that strategy and onto the strategy that helping them see that that's not working for them, that what they would like is control of their own life back rather than the thing that is controlling and running their life.

John Murphy:

Yes, so we're not going to ever propose, I'm going to take away the thing you're dependent on and ask you to go just be in pain. Because we know this is used to deal with the way life feels to you. So, if I come to you and I'm just here to try to talk you out of it, then you're here to try talking me out of my medicine, but you're not going to fix me. You're going to leave me hurting. That's a lost proposition to begin with.

Beth Murphy:

So, the next really important principle here is we want to validate why they got where they are. Every person who's landed in whatever sort of behavior or emotion that they're stuck in, they're got for legitimate reasons. They didn't start out that way. They were not born that way in their lives. The story of their life led them down many trails, and they ultimately were not able to trust God for their peace, their assurance about life, their sense of value, worth, purpose in life, and that they can trust God for His unconditional love. They long ago took control, and their control track has led them down certain avenues. And what we want to help them understand is just that if we had their life, we could have landed the same place that they have. It's not like they are morally inferior or they have some damaged character that's uniquely so. Anybody else could have landed where they landed given their life. And so the fact that they chose to depend on something is really important to deal with their shame because the shame is just overwhelming them. In behaviors that they've chosen, or commonly even in out-of-control emotions, anxiety or depression, that they feel like they “should,” be able to stop. They “should,” I've been a Christian for such and such number of years, or I am whatever, I'm a certain age, and by now I ought to be able to deal with this, or I'm a capable, responsible person, I ought to get a grip on my depression and just stop it. You know, that whole feeling that people can have about themselves, I ought to be able to stop this. And so, then that fuels shame. So, what we want to do is validate that we understand how they got there and take shame off the table.

John Murphy:

Most everyone who is in this situation of life are here because there is a low self-worth issue here. The foundational piece is they have very low self-worth and that has come as a result of the story of their life and because of the decisions that they've made. There's even more shame because of the addictions they've got and the consequences of those addictions in their life. Or it may be that back to the airplane thing, somebody has not been able to go on trips or going on trips has become a huge issue and they're still very embarrassed even at this stage of life that they are not able to take the flight without worrying about like most people don't. All of those things are interpreted to them as things that reduce their sense of worth, their value, their broken, their defective. All those kinds of things. And the thing that we want to be able to make sure that we help them sense from us is that we will never judge them and that there's no shame here. We're not going to be adding shame in our approach. Our approach is to do nothing more than to say, I validate the basic need, the legitimate need you're trying to fill. And if I had lived your life, like you were saying, if I had lived your life, the potential is that I would have chosen exactly the same thing or maybe something worse. You would be surprised how at how that lands when working with clients. When you get that message in, there usually is a significant sense of relief.

Beth Murphy:

Oh, they can just have loud sighs or put their head down on the desk because no one has ever said that to them. They have lived their life. ashamed of themselves because of the track they took. Even if they've outwardly defended their track and said there was nothing wrong with it inwardly, they feel terrible for where they've landed in the thing that's troubling them. And they're embarrassed and ashamed. And it's just an enormous relief to realize that, no, it's very understandable. We understand how you got there. We just want to help you get out.

John Murphy:

Yes. So those are the three basic ways in which we need to, the messaging we need to approach with people and we're trying to help them. Number one is that we want to help you get your life back in control so that the consequences of what you're in can stop and you can be restored. The next level down is we're not going to take away the thing that you're dependent on today. We want to work with you to help you get to where you're back in control of that thing and then it comes back into balance in your life. And then the third thing is we're not going to bring shame. We're not going to ever beat you up. As a matter of fact, what you're going to hear from us is that if we lived your life, we might have been in the exact same condition that you are. So, we're not coming with judgment. And what you're doing there is you're building an alliance with the heart of the person. Those are heart-deep heart-level issues. Those are not intellectual issues. Those are heart issues. Once you have done this, now you've got trust established. Now they can say, okay, this person's not going to beat me up. They're going to take me to where the real problem is. They're on the same page that I am. It's more obvious in the addiction world where people are really struggling to buy into the process of getting free of addiction because of these three things have not been established in the conversation.

Beth Murphy:

It occurs to me that it also might be helpful for us to mention a couple of big concepts on the things where people are trying to help someone and it's not about an addictive behavior. Maybe it's about the emotions, like the fear of flying, the panic, the anxiety, the fear of end times, fear of my salvation. And I'll just say.

John Murphy:

Or people who, street ragers, people who just go crazy in the car. I mean, a lot of people have embarrassment about that and other people have told them, you just need to stop it. And it's a little, it's a lesser of a self-destructive behavior potentially, but it's exactly the same dynamic. And it can even be things like video games. I mean, someone can make an addictive, self-destructive, bad life decision about things which are very neutral as well. But it's just become, you know, like there's so many obsessions that people are into. So that's one in which my obsession controls my life and it's causing me to suffer. It's consuming my life. It's creating conflict with other people. There's a bad outcome. Gambling would be an example where there's someone, if someone were caught into obsessive levels of gambling and they lost all their money, that would be a place where you'd want to intervene. But if you don't have these three principles in place, then you're not going to be successful in doing that. So yes, to your point, there are so many things that apply to these three principles. And it can be, I just can't stop the depression, I can't stop the anxiety, I can't stop the fear, I can't stop the rage, I can't stop the eating, whatever it is.

Beth Murphy:

So, what we've seen at Rock House Center is that people who are stuck in panic, the whole fear of flying. Actually, that fear is commonly connected to a fear of their salvation. What if this plane goes down and I haven't done these certain rituals that I have been taught that I've got to do, or I've just somehow believed that I've got to do? I haven't forgiven everybody right up to the very last second of my life. or I've had some sinful thought or I've done some bad thing. So they're not understanding that being covered by the righteousness of Christ and that it's not a works endeavor, that they're not all about being rejudged and rejudged with their every single sin. Or their fear of salvation can come because they've grown up in a very performance-oriented environment and they've kind of smeared that understanding onto God and don't feel like they've been “a good Christian.” Again, they're not understanding that they're covered by the righteousness of Christ and that it has nothing to do with their behavior. They didn't earn it. They didn't get there by their own personal righteousness. But there's so much of that in the Christian culture that leads to anxiety and panic at the thought of something suddenly ending their life. End times, plane crash, and just a complete misunderstanding of what the end times is all about. The things that are promised for the unbeliever, fearing that that's going to come upon them as a believer, and then fearing that they're not a believer, again, because of a performance-based understanding of salvation.

John Murphy:

So you're not just going to walk up to somebody and tell them to stop behaving that way, stop thinking that way, stop being afraid. I think another piece of what sort of positions us well to be able to go at it with these three foundational principles of how to build an alliance with someone to help them has to do with where we're coming from too.

Beth Murphy:

Absolutely.

John Murphy:

I think it's really critical to recognize that we I want to approach people in an authentic love perspective, which is that I'm here to help you and I value you and I want to help you get through this, but I am in no way dependent on you getting better. I'm not here to save you because I've got a desire to make you better because it makes me feel better when you're better. It makes me feel better when I solve people's problems. I want to be the white knight in this situation. Of course, another version of that is that I can't feel better until you're better. So now I've got to control you into feeling better and stopping the behavior because the behavior is what's bringing anxiety into my world. So, when we go in and approach these folks from a perspective of dependency, then it's going to be really hard for us not to get caught up in our own sense of wanting to just get them to quit. And it's going to be harder for us to take the focus off of the behavior which is having its immediate impact on you and to go upstream to the heart issue. So, loving authentically is loving without any dependence of getting any need to get anything in return. So, being able to do that, and that's a sort of a place that we need to check in with God on and ask Him, where am I in this? How dependent am I on this person's behavior from my sense of peace and well-being about life? And if you discover that you are fairly dependent or even to any degree dependent on someone else's life to be the basis of your life, feeling okay, then you have a dependency on that person. Well, if they're out of control, then that makes you out of control, or it makes the way life feels out of control, I guess is a better way to say it. So, there's a time to talk to God and make sure that we have this authentic love approach and not a dependent love approach, because it will make it just that much harder for us to develop that alliance with their heart.

Beth Murphy:

A simple way to test that in yourself is if you would fill in the blank with, My life would be okay if______. And if the if is, ‘If so-and-so would get over their problem, their anxiety, their drinking.’ Or I can't be peaceful unless, fill in the blank, changes, then that's an indication that we're being motivated to fix them or control them so that I can feel better. And of course, sure, if you love them and they're in a really bad place, of course you'd feel better if they got better. But if it's at the extent where I can't be peaceful in life, me and God, I can't be peaceful in my own life until this person's life is fixed, then that's the clue that we just need to surrender that to the Lord, that place in our own heart, like you were saying. He can help give you the peace that you need and not have your sense of value, worth, and assurance about life riding on whether or not they get fixed. Then that just drives us to control and basically disenables us to have a healing alliance, so to speak, an alliance with their heart, because people on the other end of that can smell it 1000 miles away. They can always sense when we're trying to control them or fix them, and it just puts their barrier up. They can't receive.

John Murphy:

So, the question we have to come to next would be, what do we do once we've developed the alliance? And once we've worked on our heart to make sure that our approach is as cleaned up as we can be and our imperfect best, what is it we're trying to accomplish? All self-destructive behavior and all of these kinds of things that are out of control is that there is a foundational thing going on inside of people, and it's because something's missing, and that has to do with some sort of basic need and peace and assurance about life is missing. And therefore, to some degree, God is missing in their life. The people that have a tremendous amount of control, which is basically how we got here, is that they're trying to manage the way they feel inside through their own strength, through their own program, process, through their own control. They've selected things that they think help them feel better inside.

Beth Murphy:

Their Strategy.

John Murphy:

Yes, their strategy. And so, we know that if someone's been in this level of activity, fairly intense activity, and controlling to this degree that there is a foundational sense of loss of peace, loss of assurance about life, uncertainty about their own worth. They're missing the fulfillment of divine needs which God has put in them, stated in Ecclesiastes 3:11, that must be filled by God. So, the most important thing that we can do is to love them as unconditionally and have them feel that we value them because the foundational issue they're going to have is self-worth in every case. and to also point them towards God and assure them and to speak the truth of God's character into their life, that He does love them absolutely, perfectly, unconditionally, for eternity. His plan is your best plan. He is trustworthy. Unconditional love and trustworthy message to people who are in this place. These people are looking for the answer to the way they feel, and that is the answer, is that if they could have someone, if they could connect with God in a way in which they trusted Him and they understood how much he loved him and they were able to rest in that, would be the beginning of healing their heart up. So,once we've gone through these stages of our three principles of how you approach making sure our heart is right, then where you take them is going to be to God. And that's why I was saying earlier that accountability relationship that's worthwhile, which I don't think I've seen too many. I've heard of a lot of accountability relationships in small groups, men's groups, women's groups, whatever, individual one-on-one accountability things. always seems to turn into, I'm watching you. Report in. I'm kind of being your morality cop. Those things don't work. They just don't. But what does work is that if you can hold someone accountable to start talking to God. So you lost your peace. So, you drove 150 miles an hour here. So, you had seven drinks the last time you were out. What was going on in your heart? Let's talk about that. I'm sorry to hear that you suffered the consequence of whatever that behavior was. I don't care about that. I want to know why you were in so much pain that you had to go there. And the answer to that person's pain is going to be in a relationship with the Lord. And that's where we need to hold them accountable to go, is to point them to the source of the pain and to God is the answer.

Beth Murphy:

As you were talking, I was remembering too the importance of unwittingly representing the voice of the accuser in our role where we're trying to help someone, which would be we want to avoid reminding them of the consequences of their behavior. So, it's our spouse or our child maybe, and they've lost their license, or they had a wreck, or they had a DUI as a result of driving too fast or driving drunk, or they missed going to a friend's wedding because they were so terrified about flying. And so, reminding them of the consequence is again, going at the opposite of where we want to get. So that's why what you just said was so important about you hear the consequence, you kind of partner with them and being sorry for them that they had that consequence, but we're going to park that. We're going to take the focus off of that, where they already have shame residing, and get back to the why. And so it's especially important with parents and certainly with a spouse, because the spouse or the child is so much looking for their loved one to accept them and love them and not reject them because of their bad decision or the wrong thing they've done, or they've done this thing for the 50th time. But just to, again, partner with them and the desire for healing their heart. It makes all the difference in the world.

John Murphy:

It's important to recognize that when someone wakes up in the morning and chooses the behavior, or if they're caught into the emotion they can't control, it's not because they have made this rational decision to be in that place. There are a couple of prayers that would be very helpful, I think, pretty much with anyone who is trying to enter into this healing alliance or this partnership with someone they care about to bring healing. I think the two kinds of prayers that would be most helpful, one would be that authentic love prayer, is to but basically replace any dependency we might have on this person for the way their life feels and just ask God to remove that and to replace all of their assurance about life from God Himself. And then I think a prayer to bring God into the thing that they're struggling with.

Beth Murphy:

How about I do the first one? So, this will be a prayer for the person who's listening and wants to help someone else. And if you're listening and you want to pray this prayer and repeat, then you would just fill in the name of the person that you want to help when I give you that opportunity. And I'll give you some time to repeat after me. So, we'll just jump in and do this prayer. Dear Lord, you know how much I want to help, fill in the blank with your loved one's name. It's grieved me to watch them suffer and I've tried everything I know to do and nothing's worked. I want to go at this with the cleanest heart I can have and depend on you as the one who's going to bring them healing. So Heavenly Father, please remove from me any dependency on my own control or my own strategy to fix them I can't fix them and I repent of any endeavor that I've made to try to fix them or control them and I ask Lord that you would remove a dependency from my heart that makes me feel like my life can't go well unless I do fix them. I lay all that down at the foot of your cross and submit the truth that you're the healer. You're the one who loves them unconditionally beyond anything I could dare to ask or imagine. I ask Lord that you would forgive me for my control and my dependency on control. and fill my heart with your authentic love. I want to be able to help them and love them out of the overflow of your authentic love. So I submit my heart and my will to you and ask that you help me help them through your love. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

John Murphy:

That's a great prayer for getting our hearts right before we move into these situations of trying to help people get a breakthrough. And so when that opportunity comes for you and you're ready to draw someone into connecting them to God about this problem, then here's a prayer you can lead them through. Heavenly Father, I've come to the end of myself in trying to get back control over my life through my medicating behavior. I need you and invite you to invade my heart with the truth of how much you love me and how trustworthy you are. Father, I open my heart for you to cause my heart to trust you to fill the deepest needs of my self-worth and assurance about life. Father, I reject the lie that my medicating behavior or the thing I am medicating on will ever solve the emptiness that I have inside. Lord, please lead me by your Spirit to someone or someplace that can help me heal my heart so that I can have peace in my life by trusting you and you alone. Lord, please give me the supernatural desire to please you that will overwhelm my desire for the pull toward the medicating of the pain of my emptiness and fear on anything in the world. I pray this in the name of your son, Jesus.

Beth Murphy:

I thought came to mind to me to just add on to another thought on that prayer. So again, for the person you're trying to help. Dear Lord, I repent of agreeing with any lie about my life or about you, about your character, or any lie that says that I cannot trust you to be fully known and fully loved and therefore have peace in my life. I ask that you print the truth of your character and your love on my heart so that I can open my heart to trust you and receive your love. I thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

John Murphy:

Thank you for being a part of our podcast today.

Beth Murphy:

We'll be talking with you again soon. Bye-bye.