S10.04 | Discovering Safe Community: A Key to Comprehensive Healing in Christ
In today's episode, Carla dives deep into the essential topic of healing within the context of community.
While self-care and individual efforts are vital, Carla explores how safe community plays a crucial role in our healing journey, especially for those dealing with trauma and mental illness.
Drawing from scripture and personal experiences, she highlights four key benefits of community: connection, emotional support, a judgment-free space to expel shame, and valuable insights from others.
Join Carla as she encourages you to seek out and engage in safe community spaces in 2025 to foster deeper healing and transformation.
Did you know that Carla is a Christian Mental Health coach?
See if working with her is what you need in your current season.
Book a discovery call today!
Key Takeaways
The Importance of Community in Healing:
Healing is not just an individual endeavor. While self-care has its place, it's incomplete without the support of a safe community.
Four Benefits of a Safe Community:
Connection & Reduced Loneliness
: Being among others with shared struggles dissolves isolation and fosters a sense of belonging.
Emotional Support
: Just like marathon runners need cheerleaders, those healing from trauma need emotional encouragers.
Judgment-Free Environment to Expel Shame
: Safe communities provide a space to confront and expel shame, promoting healing.
Insights & Learning from Others
: Engaging with others brings new perspectives and wisdom that enhance personal growth.
Using the Shield of Faith:
Referencing Ephesians 6:16, Carla reminds listeners to take up the shield of faith in all circumstances. Faith acts as our defense against Satan's attacks, allowing us to extinguish all flaming darts of the evil one.
Ready to break free from overwhelm and step into the abundant life God has for you? 🌿✨ My Spring 2025 Group Coaching with Retreat is your chance to heal, grow, and thrive in a Christ-centered community. 🙏💖 Together, we’ll uncover the lies holding you back, rewrite your story with God’s truth, and create a path to lasting transformation. 🕊️✨ Spots are limited—learn more here!
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Connect With Carla:
Foundations to Healing—-> https://www.carlaarges.com/foundations-of-healing
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> Book a FREE Discovery call
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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.
Carla Arges [00:00:20]:
My hope is that you will leave.
Carla Arges [00:00:21]:
Each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Carla Arges [00:00:27]:
And it would mean the world to.
Carla Arges [00:00:28]:
Me if you would leave a review. I am so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Carla Arges [00:00:36]:
Good morning, friends. Welcome to this episode of Affirming Truth. I'm so glad that you've chosen to join me. Today we're going to talk about healing. If you follow along with this podcast, if you follow along on Instagram, you know that my heart and my mission is to help women heal from trauma, thrive with their mental illness, all while rooting themselves and their identity deeper in Christ. And when we talk about healing, we often talk about the person's individual responsibility and ownership to pursue healing, which is correct. And we often talk about the things that individuals can do to foster their healing. And I certainly have provided tons of tips and resources on how to do do that.
Carla Arges [00:01:36]:
But this whole movement of self care that is widespread in the world today, which isn't wrong, but it's incomplete, and I want you to have a complete picture of what healing requires. It's the same as if we only look at healing from a spiritual standpoint. When we approach trauma and mental illness solely from the spiritual standpoint, we miss out on deep healing that needs to happen in the mind and in the body, right? God created us mind, body, spirit, and we really have to address how all three are impacted. We can't neglect one over the other and expect to have a healing that transcends all three. And the great thing is when you work on all three, the transformation that happens reaches far out in your life in terms of breadth, but also far out in your life in terms of depth. And the generational breaking off of trauma and pain that you are doing, as well as the generational blessing and healing that you are creating now. Like I said, self care and doing the self stuff in terms of healing is important. When you look at my four pillars of thriving, which are essential, they're all things that are done as an individual.
Carla Arges [00:03:12]:
Your individual time with God, your individual movement, your individual rest and your individual nutrition. And those are such important pillars. But again, I want you to have a complete picture of what healing entails. And we cannot fully heal in our trauma and we cannot fully thrive in our mental illness without safe community. Without safe community. And the key Word here is safe. I know for many of us, myself included, we have been in unsafe communities where there has been injury and damage and hurt and misunderstanding. But to fully heal, we need safe community.
Carla Arges [00:04:07]:
You know, we are made in the image of a triune God. God in and of himself is a community, a community of the Father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And as image bearers, we are made for healthy community. In Galatians 6:2, it says, Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ. To carry each other's burdens means that we are coming alongside each other in safe community. And there's really four things that safe community brings to our healing that you simply cannot replicate on your own. You just can't. And I want to talk to you a little bit about those today and really encourage you as you look to this year, because we're still in January, there's a whole lot of year ahead of us.
Carla Arges [00:05:04]:
To really ask yourself, where can I find Safe community in 2025 to support my healing, to support my growth, to support the transformation I want to bring to myself and to my family into the generational legacy I to leave behind? And so keep that in the back of your mind, keep that on your heart to pray over. As we go through these four key areas that community brings healing in a way the self can't. And the first way community allows us to heal our trauma and to heal from our mental illness and learn to thrive with them is it connects us with others who are struggling and helps us feel less alone. There is something about being seen and heard and known that is healing to the soul. And there is something about being isolated in your pain that magnifies it by bringing on loneliness and the sense that you are an island unto yourself and no one can understand what you're going through. And the enemy loves to manipulate that. But when we are in safe community among others who are here to heal and grow and become the women God designed them to be for the kingdom, to become the mothers and the wives that they were meant to be. When we find that connection, we start to heal from the loneliness that the enemy wants to trick us into believing exists in our pain.
Carla Arges [00:06:58]:
The enemy likes to isolate us in our suffering, to bring more suffering on it. And when we're isolated in our suffering, it tends to pull us more away from God as well. So coming together in community helps. You know, it says in Matthew 18:20, for where two or three gather in my name, I am with them now. We know that God never leaves us or forsakes us. We know that he is with us when we are on his own. On our own. That verse is not meant to say that God only shows up in community, but there's a special way that God shows up in community, right? I don't know if you've ever noticed the way God shows up in your private worship, which is incredible.
Carla Arges [00:07:50]:
But there's another way that God shows up in corporate worship that is equally incredible, but different. And so really, to get the beauty of both, you have to initiate and participate in both. And the same goes for our healing of trauma. There is self work to be done, but then there's community work to be done. And God shows up in both spaces, but in different powerful ways. The second reason why the community healing is different than self care or the healing that we do on our own is that it provides emotional support. Listen, you know as well as I do that healing is a roller coaster. There are ups, there are downs, there's two, two steps forward, a step back.
Carla Arges [00:08:44]:
It is not a straight line, right? Healing takes time and intention and perseverance. And how much easier is it to persevere when you have that emotional support? I mean, I envision a marathon runner, two different marathon runners showing up for the race. One that has an army of cheering cheerleaders behind them and one that shows up on their own. And when you hit that 25 mile and it is hard and everything is aching in you and everything wants to give up, I can imagine that the marathon runner that has the support screaming for them, calling out their name, encouraging them, gets a boost of energy, a boost of motivation to finish that final hard mile that the marathon runner on their own, have to manufacture on their own. And that's harder and that's more difficult. So to heal and to have that emotional support to carry you through that 25th mile of your healing journey is so important, it is invaluable. The third reason community provides healing that you just can't get in on your own is that it creates a judgment free space to share and expel shame. I cannot tell you the number of women that I work through, work with in this space that carry so much shame.
Carla Arges [00:10:25]:
And I, going through this process, carried so much shame, so much shame. There's so much shame that comes with trauma. There's so much shame that comes with mental illness. But shame is not of God. And shame grows in the dark. Shame infests us and poisoneth us in the dark. Shame isolates us. Shame keeps us from God.
Carla Arges [00:10:55]:
Shame Keeps us from people. Shame slowly, slowly kills the soul. And when we are able to bring light to the shame, we take away its power. And being able to bring light to the shame and safe community is a powerful way to rid yourself of shame. It's a powerful way to allow God to minister to you in incredible ways. We know that in Christ there is no condemnation, but the enemy will try to shame you with lies, with half truths, with throwing your past in your face. Shame cannot live in the light. And safe community is a perfect spot to bring it to light.
Carla Arges [00:11:54]:
The fourth reason why healing and community is so powerful and provides a much more complete aspect to healing than doing it on your own is that we gain insight from others. We gain insight from others. I know that I learn better in a group. I've been part of groups in, you know, learning how to start a business. I've been part of Bible study groups that I don't lead, which is always so good for me to be fed and not just always facilitate and lead others. And the insights I get from other people when we do Bible study together versus when I do Bible study on my own are incredible. The insights I get when I, when I'm in a group conversation about business or motherhood or you know, being a wife, the insights I get from other people are incredible. And oftentimes God can speak to us through other people.
Carla Arges [00:12:56]:
You know, the best ideas are not usually done in solitude. The best ideas are usually done in collaboration. And so there's so much insight we can gain from others. So much insight. I love this verse in Ecclesiastes 4, 9, 10. It says two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, right? How beautiful of a picture of that, of linking arms with women in community. Safe community to address the trauma and the pain and the wounding.
Carla Arges [00:13:40]:
Right? We heal more completely when we add community care to our self care. You know, as you pray this year for God to lead you into safe community, I want to share an opportunity with you that I'm creating a safe community. In the spring, I'm launching a six week group coaching program that ends with a two night retreat. Now this is a small group of only 10 women and we are going to create safe community and we are going to heal wounds. And I have full confidence that the Holy Spirit is going to show up and do incredible things. And this two night retreat is just going to be a time for incredible breakthroughs. Breaking the bondage of trauma, breaking the bondage of lies from the enemy, breaking the bondage of the grip that maybe shame or unforgiveness has on us. This is going to be an incredible community space to heal.
Carla Arges [00:14:52]:
I'm going to put the link in the show notes on where you can find find more details and more information about it. The group coaching kicks off in April which is spring, a perfect time for renewal, and ends with the two night retreat in May. All the dates are on the website and really pray over this. Is this a place where God is calling you into community to heal? Is this the place where God is saying, yeah, it's time, it's time. I want to leave you with this affirming truth, which is more a declaration actually. I want you to declare over yourself this year a promise that I want you to make to yourself this year and it's I will seek safe community in 2025. I will seek safe community in 2025. We read in Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 and let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works.
Carla Arges [00:15:55]:
Not like neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. Now I know the context here was to meet in congregation, not to forsake the bringing together of the saints, to yes, encourage each other and praise the Lord. But this applies too to the saints to come together in our healing. This applies too for the saints to come together and bear each other's burdens and encourage each other on their journey. And so I really want to encourage you to pray for God to open the door for safe community. And I also want you to pray for the courage, the courage to interact in safe community. I know for myself putting my hand up and stepping into community is scary. It's scary.
Carla Arges [00:16:48]:
You have to be vulnerable. Stepping in community risks rejection. And guys, I have borderline personality. You know how rejection sends sensitive. I am so huge. So I get that it's scary. But I do not want you to allow fear to stop the healing that God has for you. So pray for the courage to step through the door that God's going to open for you for safe community in 2025.
Carla Arges [00:17:21]:
I'll talk to you next time.
Carla Arges [00:17:29]:
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 Firming Truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye friends.