S8. Bonus 4 | Healing from Trauma and Transforming Family Legacies with Kristen Hallinan
In this bonus episode of Affirming Truth, host Carla Arges talks with Kristen Hallinan, author of Legacy Changer. Kristen shares her journey of healing from a chaotic childhood and the impact it had on her role as a wife and mother. Through therapy and trauma healing, she has learned to set boundaries and prioritize her mental and emotional well-being, creating a positive impact on the generational patterns within her family.
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Key Takeaways
Healing from trauma is a journey:
Kristen discusses how her healing journey was not a quick process, emphasizing that healing is an ongoing journey, and no one is ever fully healed until the other side of heaven.
The importance of creating space for healing:
Kristen emphasizes the need to stabilize and create space for deep story work and healing from trauma. This may include considering medication and finding a trauma-trained counselor.
Embracing common graces:
Kristen challenges the stigma surrounding mental health medication and therapy within the faith community, encouraging individuals to embrace common graces such as medication and trauma therapy.
Connect with Kristen on Instagram at @kristenhallinan and visit her website at kristenhallinan.com to take the "What Is Your Cycle Breaking Superpower?" quiz.
Connect With Carla:
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> carlaagreswellness@gmail.com
Renewing Hope Course —-> https://www.carlaarges.com/renewing-hope
Come hangout on IG with me @carlaarges
Check out the blog
Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
TRANSCRIPT
Carla Arges [00:00:08]:
Hey, friends, welcome to affirming truth. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review. I am so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Carla Arges [00:00:36]:
Hello, affirming truth. Friends. Welcome to this bonus episode. I am so excited about the conversation I'm going to have today. Today we are talking with Kristen Hallinan, the author of Legacy Changer. And if you know me, you know I love talking about breaking generational trauma and really building up our kids to be the kingdom warriors God has created them to be.
Kristen Hallinan [00:01:04]:
So welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation.
Carla Arges [00:01:09]:
Yes. Before we dive in, why don't you give us a little four one one about you? Who is Kristen?
Kristen Hallinan [00:01:17]:
Okay. Kristen has been married for almost 18 years. And we got married right, almost as we were about to graduate college. We hadn't even graduated college yet and had started having babies right away. So we have four kiddos that are six to 16. And I have been working for the last five or six years to heal the messy, chaotic childhood I had and really grow into the mom and wife that I always wanted to be but found myself not being as I was reacting out of all these old hurts and unhealthy habits. And so I am on mission now to help women have the same tools that I have found to be really helpful in my healing journey, so that their stories can look different and their stories can end differently than they started, and they can hand something to their children down that's more beautiful that they're proud of. And so that peace and faith and truth starts permeating all these family lines.
Carla Arges [00:02:30]:
I love that. I think sometimes when we think about leaving a legacy, there's this idea of financial inheritance. But what is so much more important is the spiritual, emotional, mental foundation we give our kids to go out into the world and be world changers. And I have a story similar to yours of growing up in chaos and recognizing that I was passing it down. And I have a very defined moment where I woke up. Did you have a defined moment yourself when you're like, hey, I am passing this down, and I need to draw a line in the sand and say, no more?
Kristen Hallinan [00:03:17]:
Yeah. For me, it came in a couple of different stages. The first one was between our second and third kiddos, we lost a baby. And I was just devastated and not coping well. And so I found myself in therapy for the first time ever. Like anything to do with therapy or healing or mental health was just super shamed in my house growing up. And so I had resisted it for a long time, thinking, that's for weak people, that's for fools just going to get tricked into spending all their money. But I was like, least I'm going to be a fool.
Kristen Hallinan [00:03:52]:
That is going to function. Maybe I'm going to therapy. And so found myself in the counselor's office and then ended up healing faster than I anticipated, grieving that baby, but realized I was there for a lot more because I had a lot of other grieving to do that I hadn't really realized. So that was really, like, the first catalyst for me. And then, let's see, about eight years after that, maybe nine, we had my mom living with us because she needed a place to stay. And her being in such close proximity was really just magnifying the lack of relational health that was already there. But I found myself very codependently tiptoeing around her, trying to make it so that she wouldn't be upset. It was really starting to affect my marriage and my ability to be a mom.
Kristen Hallinan [00:04:50]:
And she was also engaging in a lot of really unhealthy behaviors. That, for example, I was finding her on the floor, passed out every morning, pills everywhere. And if my 18 month old had came in the room and found that instead of me, it could have been devastating. So I locked up her pills in a safe, and that, of course, did not go well. And we were just not able to come to any common ground that was going to be a safe and healthy environment for my kiddos. And so I had to ask her to leave our home, even though she had nowhere to go. And it was devastatingly hard. But I woke up the next morning.
Kristen Hallinan [00:05:37]:
You know when you wake up with just like, a crying hangover and you just feel horrible from all the chaos that took place the night before? I expected to wake up feeling like that, but instead I woke up feeling just free and light hearted and just a peace that could have only come from God. And I just knew that that was the right decision. So that was really the precipice of beginning my true trauma healing journey. When I started going to trauma therapy for the first time and doing a bunch of EMdR and really rewiring my brain to be able to have a different amount of tolerance for just day to day stress in my own life because I was so easily tipped over the edge before. It wasn't fair to my kids and to my husband. And it felt awful to be inside of myself that way. And so it's not been a quick journey. And I always say it's a journey because no one's ever fully healed until the other side of heaven.
Kristen Hallinan [00:06:45]:
We're never arrived. And so it's going to be a journey always. But there has been major transformation.
Carla Arges [00:06:53]:
I love that. Yeah. I always say healing from trauma doesn't mean you stop living with trauma. Just like a physical trauma, there's scar tissue left behind, there's maybe a limb or something. So it's learning about how to live with the memory of that and to function and be whole.
Kristen Hallinan [00:07:17]:
That's good.
Carla Arges [00:07:19]:
Emdr for those of you who don't know, is a type of trauma therapy that use rapid eye movement. I've done the same, but art but very similar gold standard in trauma therapy. How has healing from trauma changed the way you show up as a mom? Because I know oftentimes, as a product of childhood trauma myself, there are our childhood traumas that get triggered in motherhood that we may not, gosh, yes, may not have noticed in the in between, but then being the role of the mother and having kids is very triggering. So how did you manage through that and how do you continue to manage through that?
Kristen Hallinan [00:08:05]:
Such a good question. Being a mom is so triggering. They are loud and they are selfish and they're all the things that can trigger. When you had a parent that was more of an emotional child and you're used to dealing with that and now you're dealing with actual children who it's age appropriate for them to behave this way. It's still so triggering. You're right. The biggest way that I've been transformed as a mom healing from trauma is my ability to play and celebrate. I was operating at such a high baseline before that, any amount of stress easily pushed me over the edge.
Kristen Hallinan [00:08:48]:
And I didn't ever really feel the freedom to just be goofy and play. And the way God created me was pretty goofy. But as a child in a house that was full of chaos and never knew what the emotional temperature of the house was going to be that day, and there was a lot of emotional coldness, like goofy side, didn't really have the freedom to come out. And so now that I've done a lot of healing, I am able to play and be light hearted and to celebrate the kids when they just want to play and be goofy. And be light hearted and not return it with a scold like I used to receive. So that to me, in our day to day has really changed the temperature of our home. Just our ability to be ourselves and embrace it and love it. And we have a lot of quirks in our family.
Kristen Hallinan [00:09:47]:
We have one kiddo with autism and another with adhd and hearing loss. And our family just has a lot of different dynamics. And so the ability for everyone to just be themselves and that that's okay and we appreciate that about each other has been huge.
Carla Arges [00:10:05]:
That's amazing.
Kristen Hallinan [00:10:06]:
Yeah.
Carla Arges [00:10:07]:
So, unfortunately, there's a lot of people that have been a product of childhood trauma, but not everyone goes on to share their story so publicly. What inspired you to take that pain, take that healing, take that journey and create legacy changer?
Kristen Hallinan [00:10:32]:
That question reminds me of a post that you made recently. You said something to the effect of unpopular opinion that it's your responsibility to heal something to the effect of that. And I just came to the realization that no one was going to do this for me. And I couldn't bear the thought of my kids ending up in the same spot as me because I just passed all the trauma on down to them. I so badly wish that someone would have stood up for me and protected me from a lot of the ugliness and spoken words of life over me. I think even a little bit of that could have gone a really long way. And so I just feel fully convinced that my most important mission field is right here in front of me in my home. Because if I can raise four kids that have four very different stories in mine, and then they can heal even more from there, that is going to change not just the family line, but their communities, and then on from there.
Kristen Hallinan [00:11:44]:
It makes a profound impact when families heal and they're watching a marriage that is wildly different than the marriage I watched, hopefully they're going to grow up and have be equipped with a lot of the tools to participate in a marriage in a healthy way and to know that we all mess up. But that's okay. And here's the tools that we use when we do mess up. And so knowing that healing was my responsibility, a lot of people have said to me about their own parents, well, they were doing the best they could, or about mine, like just assuming they were doing the best they could. And I don't know if that's true, and it may or may not be true, but it really doesn't matter if it's true. The hurt that was done to you was done to you. And that's real and valid. And no matter if it was intentional or not, it's your job now to heal.
Kristen Hallinan [00:12:47]:
They can't do that for you. Even if they're in a place of repentance and sorrow and wanting to heal. Nobody can do it for you, and nobody can accept the invitation from God to let your story be redeemed except you.
Carla Arges [00:13:05]:
So what would you say to the woman that is finding themselves in your before? They haven't gotten to your after yet?
Kristen Hallinan [00:13:16]:
Yeah.
Carla Arges [00:13:17]:
How do they navigate that? What's their next right step to take?
Kristen Hallinan [00:13:23]:
I think that depends on the level of chaos that you're currently experiencing. So if you're kind of in emergency mode, like every day is just feeling so hard and you're really at your breaking point, it's time to get yourself into a doctor and maybe talk about some medicines that might be needed and to get yourself the proper counselor, because there's a bunch of different types of counselors who specialize in a bunch of different things. But if it's truly trauma that you've experienced, you have to have somebody who's trauma trained. And so I think those two things. Having the conversation, is medicine appropriate for this? Do I need to create the space in my brain to calm everything down a little bit and so that I have the space to participate in trauma therapy and healing and then finding the right person to heal with? I think depending on if there's a marriage involved, if there's kids involved, how far down are we? Let's get everything calmed down to a state where we can just kind of live day to day and not feel wildly out of control. And then we have enough space to dig into our story and to really start doing story work and figuring out where did I start believing all of these lies about myself? Where did the shame creep in? And what does God say about all these lies that I believe about myself? I think it's first creating enough space for you to be able to do that, because trying to do that deep story work and digging into the lies, and it's not possible if you are living day to day barely functioning right now. And so I would say stabilizing everything first and then equipping yourselves with somebody who's specifically trained for what you need.
Carla Arges [00:15:30]:
I love that you said that, because I'm a big believer in that as well. I think that there's too much stigma around taking medication. Medication puts your brain in the position to do the work.
Kristen Hallinan [00:15:44]:
Yeah.
Carla Arges [00:15:44]:
Right. And there is a lot of stigma in general, but in the faith community. And I don't know if you've come up against this, but I certainly have that there is stigma around therapy and medication and the struggles that come with this. And sometimes the message is you just got to pray more. You just got to read your bible more. You just got to have more faith. How would you encourage the woman that has maybe received those messages and is fearful of that and feels spiritually burdened on top of everything else?
Kristen Hallinan [00:16:27]:
The image that always comes to my mind when I think about this is the old story that most people have probably heard about the man on top of his house when there's a flood and he keeps praying, God, rescue me. And a boat comes by, and he just totally ignores it and keeps praying, God, rescue me. And a second boat comes by and he totally ignores and he just keeps praying. And eventually he drowns. And God, he gets to heaven and God's like, I sent you boats. Why did you not accept the help that I sent you? And to me, that's what medication and trauma therapy is. That is common graces that God has sent us. And sometimes we're too stubborn or just misguided because of things we've been taught to accept the help that he has sent us.
Kristen Hallinan [00:17:20]:
There is nothing unbiblical about taking medicine to heal. And if you were diabetic, no one would shame you for taking insulin.
Carla Arges [00:17:29]:
Exactly.
Kristen Hallinan [00:17:30]:
Yeah. So I think to me, medicine and just medicine in general, not just medicine for mental health, but medicine in general, is a common grace that God has given us. And there is nothing shameful or wrong about taking it. And just because this is medicine for the brain versus a different part of the body, there is nothing wrong with it. And the trauma science now has done such a good job of showing us physical images of what has happened to a brain that has suffered a lot of trauma versus a brain that hasn't. And so for someone that maybe wants to believe this is all in your head or you're being dramatic or you just need to toughen up, this is physical evidence that that's not true, that I've been wounded, physically wounded, in a way that my brain no longer functions the same way as yours, and it needs some help to get back to a healthy spot.
Carla Arges [00:18:29]:
Yes, I love that. And it's true. The brain develops different in kids that have trauma, and the brain changes when it experiences trauma, even as an adult. So it is a brain issue here. The brain is an organ like anything else, and it can fail to function properly just like anything else.
Kristen Hallinan [00:18:53]:
Yeah.
Carla Arges [00:18:54]:
I have one last question for you. You are changing the legacy in the downward stream of your life. But as you shared in the upstream, there is still chaos. How do you maintain the downstream change when the person that is responsible for your trauma is still unhealed? How do you navigate that?
Kristen Hallinan [00:19:23]:
Carl, that is such a good question because I didn't write a book based on, I tied a pretty bow on this situation and like, look it, God made everything perfect. Again, that's not my story, and I think that's probably not most people's story. And so to be able to separate the two and say just because they're not going to participate in healing doesn't mean that I can't. And what it's looked like, practically is a lot of conversations and a lot of boundaries. We have very limited exposure, more limited from my dad than from my mom, but it's limited. And we do a ton of talking on the car ride. We ended up resuming contact with my mom and moving her close to my sister and I in Texas because it was getting a bit hard to manage from far away. So moved her close and we check on her periodically.
Kristen Hallinan [00:20:25]:
And she's not just mentally unwell, she's physically very unwell. And so she does have some very legitimate needs that we feel with boundaries we can participate in. So we just pile the kids in the car and I tell them exactly what to expect. You are going to tell grandma one story about your week and you're going to do one kind thing for her in her house. Take out the trash or whatever it may be. And then we're going to give her a hug and remind her that we love her. And we're going to go and we spend the car ride home unpacking all of the really out of pocket, unhelpful things that she said and maybe how I could have responded better or what's an appropriate thing to say to a person that says to you like that? So we just have a lot of conversations about it and are constantly taking the temperature on how healthy is this for our kids to be exposed to and dialing it back when she's ramping up her behavior, that's just not okay. And then when she decides to participate in a little more healthy way, we increase our visitation a little bit.
Kristen Hallinan [00:21:34]:
But it's a constant taking the temperature of it and figuring out where we should land.
Carla Arges [00:21:42]:
Yeah, it's work. It takes work. There's no easy aspect of healing and maintaining that stability. But staying unwell is worked, too. It's both hard. So you have to pick your hard.
Kristen Hallinan [00:21:57]:
Like what?
Carla Arges [00:21:59]:
Hard brings about the best. Good for your kids. And like you said, it's a ripple effect. It's not just about your kids. It's how it affects further lines, downward and outward in the community. So legacy changer comes out in February. It's just around the corner. Can people preorder it now?
Kristen Hallinan [00:22:21]:
Yeah, you can preorder it wherever you buy books.
Carla Arges [00:22:24]:
Awesome. I am so glad that you wrote this book. I am so glad that you followed God's prompting to share your story and encourage other women to draw their line in the sand, to heal, to change the trajectory of their families. So where can people find you? Where can people connect with you?
Kristen Hallinan [00:22:49]:
Yeah, just Instagram at Kristen Halenan and my website is kristenhalanan.com. If you go on the front page of my website, I have a quiz. It's called what is your cycle breaking superpower? And it helps you identify what are some of the needs that you didn't have met as a kid and how can that actually serve you as a superpower now in your healing process.
Carla Arges [00:23:11]:
I love that.
Kristen Hallinan [00:23:13]:
Yeah.
Carla Arges [00:23:13]:
Everyone make sure you go check that out. I will have her website and her handle and all of that good stuff in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story and sharing your book.
Kristen Hallinan [00:23:28]:
Thank you for having me.
Carla Arges [00:23:33]:
Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but if we're not, come find me on Instagram at Carla Arges or at affirming truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye, friends.