S9.15 | Choosing the Hard of Change Over Staying Stuck
In today's episode, Carla delves into the concept that life inherently involves challenges, but we have a choice in which hard we embrace. Drawing from her journey of healing trauma and managing mental illness, as well as insights from her clients, Carla discusses the importance of daily disciplines—rooted in her four pillars of thriving: renewing the mind, moving the body, fueling the body, and resting the body. She emphasizes that while these actions may feel daunting when we're in the depths of depression or anxiety, they are essential for true transformation. Equipped with scriptural encouragement and a blend of neuroscience, Carla passionately guides us through choosing the "good hard" that leads to growth and a fulfilling life in Christ. Tune in and be inspired to make choices that bring joy, peace, and purpose into your life. Let's get started!
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Key Takeaways
Understanding the Types of Hard:
Life offers us two types of hard: the hard of staying stuck and the hard of making positive changes. Both are challenging, but only one leads to growth and fulfillment.
Breaking the Cycle:
By choosing the hard that leads to positive change, we can break free from the cycle of depression, anxiety, and trauma, stepping into a life of joy, peace, and purpose.
Spiritual Strength:
Carla reminds us that God has given us the spirit of self-discipline and strength. Relying on God rather than our own strength is key to overcoming challenges.
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Connect With Carla:
Foundations to Healing—-> https://www.carlaarges.com/renewing-hope
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Check out the blog
Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
TRANSCRIPT
Carla Arges [00:00:08]:
Hey friends, welcome to affirming truths. 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 [00:00:35]:
Hey friends, welcome to this episode of affirming truths. I am your host, Carla Arges, and can we all admit that life can be hard? Can we admit that? But here's the thing. Here's the thing. There is two different types of hard. And I have found in my own journey of healing trauma and walking with mental illness. And I see this in my clients, too, that the hard of doing the right thing can feel harder than the hard of staying stuck. Does that make sense? Not only do I hear this a lot from my clients, but I have lived this out, too, in my own personal journey. When you are in the pit of depression, when you're stuck in the om overwhelm of anxiety or frozen and numbed out from your emotions, it's hard to do the things that would support you, right? There's things that we can do to help, but they feel so hard in the moment.
Carla Arges [00:01:41]:
I have what I call my four pillars of thriving. I've talked about them on the show before. I teach on them in five foundations to healing. There are four activities I have to mindfully do each day to support my mental health and give me the capacity to handle my day. As a quick recap there, renewing the mind, right? So this is my Bible study time where I actively rehearse my affirmations. The second is to move your body. So, intentional exercise, whether walking or weights or anything in between, there's fueling your body, right? Eating in a way that supports mood and honors the way you want to feel. And then lastly, there's resting your body.
Carla Arges [00:02:25]:
And this isn't just nighttime sleep. It's creating a rhythm of rest throughout your day. So these are things that help us maintain stability. But when we are in the pit, when we are stuck in the hardness of depression and anxiety and overwhelm, it can be really hard, right? To do those things. And it's this vicious cycle that happens, right? That the things that help us feel better are hard, so we don't do them. But staying where we are is hard as well, right? The challenges, the things that help us do not come easily. And then we're being led by our emotions, right? We're being led by how we feel, and they can feel impossible to do. When we're led by our emotions, it can feel so hard to do the things that really God is calling us to do.
Carla Arges [00:03:24]:
God calls us to be a steward of our spirit and her mind and our body. But when you're lying face down in bed, I'm. And despair. The last thing you feel like doing or feel capable of even doing is getting up and exercising or making a nutritious meal or focusing on opening your bible. And yet those are the very activities that will help lift us out of the emotional state that's keeping us bound. I often tell my clients that thriving with trauma and mental illness is not a choice between easy and hard. Right? Wouldn't it be so simple if it was like, here's the easy route. Here's the hard route, right? We would obviously pick the easy route.
Carla Arges [00:04:16]:
The challenge is it's not a choice between easy and hard. It's a choice between hard and hard. The heart of change that will lead to a better life, or the heart of staying stuck in emotional and mental and spiritual turmoil, which actually have physical manifestations as well. Both are hard. And so we can't rely on feeling like doing the right things, right, because our feelings will mislead us. Our feelings will deceive us. Our feelings will lead us down the wrong path. We have to get so connected with the reason driving us to get better that we act in discipline.
Carla Arges [00:05:06]:
Right? Why do we want to do the things that are hard that lead to a better life? Well, because in that better life, we have joy and we have peace and we have better relationships, and we have more control over our moods and our emotions. We're flourishing in our spiritual life. Right? The change, the heart of that, comes with this transformed and redeemed and restored life that ultimately is what we want to live. So when we don't feel like doing these things in the moment, we have to be so connected to. Why? Why am I going to get out of bed and go for a walk? Why? Because I want a better life. I don't want to keep living this life. Why am I going to open the Bible and read it today? Because I want to flourish. I want to break free of the bondage of this depression, of this trauma, of this pain.
Carla Arges [00:06:09]:
Now, this is not something we have to do alone. God has given us a spirit of self discipline. We can rest in him and trust him to sustain us. Right? We don't have to do it in our own strength. In fact, if we try to do it in our own strength, we'll fail. We need God. We need him to stand in the gap. Now, sometimes I get asked, if both are hard, why does the heart of staying the same seem to come more easily? Right? Like, when we're in the pit, why is it feel easier to just lie in bed and waste the day away, even though we know it's hard? It's hard living that way.
Carla Arges [00:06:57]:
It feels easier in the moment. And we can find answers to this question and really understanding how our brain works. This is why I love bringing scripture and science together and looking at neuroscience and looking how our brain works. We use both scripture and science in my world to overcome and break free and heal. You see, our brains are designed to keep us safe. Our brains are constantly working to avoid hard things. Our brains like to stay with what is familiar and in and of itself, that's not a bad thing, right? We want our brains to keep us walking on a sidewalk rather than stepping into traffic, right? We want our brains to keep us safe. The problem is our brains don't differentiate the good hard from the danger.
Carla Arges [00:07:55]:
Right? If it feels hard, the brain's like, that's hard. That's going to take energy. I need to self preserve and conserve my energy. I need to stick with what's familiar. I need to stick with what's comfortable. I cannot do that, right? In this way, our brains work against us. So while it's hard to stay living in apathy and depression and anxiety, for many of us, it's familiar. And because it's familiar, it's something we've grown accustomed to.
Carla Arges [00:08:27]:
So even though it doesn't feel good to live that way, our brain tricks us into believing it's safer than the unknown of change. It's safer than having to face the emotions. It's safer than having to go through grief. It's safer than having to figure out what acceptance and forgiveness looks like, it's safer. But God is actually calling us to live an overcoming life. God is not calling us to stay living in our apathy and depression and anxiety just because it's familiar, just because we've grown accustomed to it, just because our brain is afraid of the good hard we have to do. We can't trust our brain in this. We have to trust the word of God, knowing that he will sustain us and support us to do the hard thing of healing, of change and growth.
Carla Arges [00:09:39]:
And there's so many scriptures that tell us that God will be with us and that it's important that we do these things. Isaiah twelve two says, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid for the Lord. God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. I will not be afraid of the unknown change. I will not be afraid to face the emotions. I will not be afraid of going through the grief that comes with trauma and mental illness, because God will be my strength. Isaiah 40 29 says, he gives power to the fate and to him who has no might.
Carla Arges [00:10:24]:
He increases strength. We know that in our weakness, God's strength is made manifest, but it's not made manifest in our decision to stay broken and bound. Right? God's blessing and strength comes when we align our choices to his will, and his will is for us to overcome. So if we choose the hard of staying the same, there's no blessing there. There's no blessing there. The blessing comes when we say, okay, God, it's going to be hard. I can't do it on my own, but I'm going to face this. I'm going to change.
Carla Arges [00:11:12]:
I'm going to grow. I'm going to do the hard work of stewarding my spirit in my mind and my soul and my body. Well, I want to be a good steward of this. I want to walk in obedience. And we know that in Philippians 413 it says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That means I can walk through hard times, growing and healing, knowing that it's Christ at work in me that's going to bring it about. Galatians six nine says, and let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. Doing good is not just doing good for others.
Carla Arges [00:12:01]:
Doing good also means what is good for us. How can I steward myself well so that I can step into what God is calling me to do? Right? Last week we talked about how God wants to redeem our story. God wants to redeem our story. God wants us to walk in our purpose and the dream over his life. But guess what? That is going to be hard. We have to choose the hard of that. Second Timothy one seven says, for God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power and love and self control. In other translations it says of self discipline.
Carla Arges [00:12:49]:
God is giving us the spirit of self control to be able to say, while the enemy wants to keep me down, while my trauma wants to keep me in bed, while my mental illness wants to keep me stuck. I have self discipline through the spirit of God working in me to say no. I choose. I choose to steward my life well. I choose to surrender my pain to God and allow him to work it out for my good. I choose to get up and do the hard work of renewing my mind, of moving my body, eating well, of resting, of taking those steps of faith to redeem my story and work in my purpose. God wants you to choose the good hard. There's a hard that will keep you stuck in the same cycle over and over and over again, or there is a hard that will break you free from that and allow you to live an overcoming, bold, thriving life in Christ.
Carla Arges [00:14:02]:
What are you going to choose? And not just choose intellectually, what are you going to show up and start putting into action? And start putting into action? We're going to touch on some of these things and redeem your story where we look at how trauma has held us back and we are going to take bold steps of faith doing the hard work to start coming into our purpose. Redeem your story starts September 17 and there's still an opportunity to get involved in this small community of women that I'm going to take through an incredible twelve weeks. You can learn more in the link in the show notes and I really encourage you to book a discovery call with me to find out how redeem your story may be the good hard thing that you need to do to get out of your apathy, to get out of your own way and allow God to move in your life. The affirming truth I have for you today is I will do the hard work of healing and growing and I want to take you to ephesians 515 16 for our verse. It says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Look carefully at how you walk. How are you walking? Are you walking as the unwise who are allowing their feelings to do the decision making? Are you walking like the unwise who is allowing their brains to keep them from the good hard of change? Or are you going to choose to be as the wise and take those steps of faith towards the good hard work that brings transformation, that brings restoration, that brings purpose and calling into your life. Make the best use of your time.
Carla Arges [00:16:21]:
The days are evil and God is calling us to be a light in these evil days. And you cannot be a light in these evil days if you are choosing the heart of staying the same in the dark. And so I really want to encourage you today that God has more for you and he will equip you to do it. It's not in your own strength. If you say, Carla, I don't have the strength, I'm not capable, that may very well be true. But it's not in your strength or your ability that this will happen. It's in surrendering to Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to move you through the process. All right.
Carla Arges [00:17:09]:
I will do the hard work of healing and growing. Let that be your heart's commitment as we go into the last four months of this year. I'll talk to you later, friends. Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but if we're not, come find me on Instagram, arlaarges or at a Fermi truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye, friends.