Imagine you are a bird in a cage, and you’ve been told you belong there. You are safe there. As long as you stay there, you will always have food to eat. The cage protects you from cats and dogs. Once in a while, your owner lets you out to fly around for a while, but when you poop on the floor, the owner puts you back in the cage where you can poop freely without worrying about making any mistakes. So many mistakes can be made outside the cage.
One day a mouse comes along and tells you there is no lock on the cage, and you are free to go whenever you wish. You can stay where it is safe and familiar, but you don’t have to. How does this make you feel?
Do you feel scared? Resentful? Because after all, even though you longed to fly free, you didn’t have to worry about making any choices about that. The choices were made for you before when you believed you had no choices of your own. But now that you know the door is not locked, it seems you have a choice, and that feels big and overwhelming. It feels like too much responsibility. If you did leave, how would you get food? How would you protect yourself from wild animals? You wonder if you are capable of these big responsibilities. You have very little experience.
Maybe your owner is right?
Maybe this mouse is lying?
You feel uneasy and suspicious and upset and unhappy.
And yet, part of you is curious about what lies beyond your cage. When you look out the window, you can see other birds flying free. Your owner always said they were in perpetual danger and often starved, but they seem so happy in their freedom.
Your owner said beware of appearances and beware of believing lies, so you beware.
Am I capable of making my own choices?
I believe you are. I believe God has given you, as an adult woman, the power and responsibility to steward and lead your one human life on earth. I believe when we give that responsibility to someone else and allow them to make important choices for us, our growth is stunted.
But if you’re anything like me, you may have been raised to believe, in your very core, that your heart is deceitful above all else, and that other people in authority over you have hearts that are not deceitful, so you should let them decide for you.
When we are programmed this way by the people around us who may have a vested interest in making sure we are controllable and programmable rather than autonomous adults, we may be afraid of what might happen if we take control of our own lives.
There may likely be risk involved. Risk of losing our relationships. Risk of losing the approval of others. Risk of failing on our own.
Growing up into our God-given adulthood involves risk, uncomfortable feelings, and faith. Faith that if we fly out of our man-made cage, God is there with us, no matter what happens.
We make decisions for ourselves every single day, anyway, whether we want to admit it or not. The following is a quote from my book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage:
We may decide to maintain peace in our marriage by not rocking the boat, going along with whatever our spouse decides for us, and refusing to vulnerably engage on a deeper level out of fear of being attacked.
We may decide not to push against emotional and spiritual abuse because we want the marriage to work out no matter what the cost to our spiritual, emotional, and physical health. We may choose to go with the flow out of fear our spouse will hurt us even more deeply than we’ve already been hurt. Maybe we’re afraid if we make an effort to change, our religious community will reject and shame us. But the first step in creating change in our lives is to acknowledge that we do have choices, we do make choices, and they are our own choices.
There are many reasons we choose to keep things status quo, and sometimes these reasons are good ones. Sometimes we have very little choice, especially when children are involved. But often, we have more choices than we are willing to admit, and we may not be aware of our ability to change in small increments, slowly rewiring our brains, learning new skills in how to relate to abusive people and groups, and awakening to our own value as daughters of God. Change almost never occurs overnight. More often, it takes place quietly in the small, imperceptible things we alter slightly every single day. This is the kind of change I’d like to challenge you to pursue. In this way, over the period of one year, five years, and ten years, you will change the entire course of your life.
In order to make these kinds of changes, you may need to think a little differently than you have in the past.
I’ve been mentoring Christian women for over seven years now, helping them create these critical mind shifts so they can deprogram from destructive systems of thought that oppress women and children and keep them, like trapped birds, in gilded cages.
Until that bird changes her mind about the cage and the great outdoors—until she knows the truth—she will forever stay stuck. Not because she wants to. But because humans only make changes when their brain changes. The Bible calls this “renewing the mind” in Romans 12:2. The New Living translation puts it this way:
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. THEN you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Are you ready to change the way you think?
If you would like to work with me and hundreds of other women on your own thinking so that you can feel differently and begin to make movements toward being the leader of your own life, as God intended, learn more HERE.
Here are four important truths emotional abuse survivors have told me they had to learn in order to start making some pivotal changes in their lives
1. You are an adult, and adults do not need permission to be the leader of their own life.
You may have been taught that because you’re a female, your authority is responsible for you, but that’s not true. As an adult, whether male or female, God has made YOU responsible for you, and guess what? You are capable! God has equipped you with a mind and body to make healthy choices and steward that mind and body well. Your anatomy doesn’t change that.
Exercise: Sit down and think about yourself five years from now. Who is that version of yourself? What are her values? What does she believe about her life? How does she feel about her life? How does she spend her time? Make a list of ten things (big or small) that would need to change in order to evolve into that next version of yourself. What kinds of books and mentors will you surround yourself with to support you in your quest to become that person?
2. Failure is your friend, not your foe.
Christian women are often afraid they will make a mistake and lose the love and support of their partner, kids, church, or even their Creator. But consider that God promises that nothing can separate us from God’s love.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 38-39
Not even failure. When our faith informs us and equips us and strengthens us with the knowledge and understanding that we are loved with an unstoppable love, we are then free to choose a path without letting fear get in the way. (I John 4:18)
Someone once told me that painful and/or uncomfortable emotions are the currency of transformation. I think about that every time I make a decision for my future that will involve being uncomfortable for a while.
Exercise: Think of a time in your life when you failed, and it ended up being the catalyst for growth and change in your life. How did that failure shape you into the person you are today?
(I teach a course on failure inside of the Flying Higher program for divorced Christian women.)
A Parable About a Little Girl
I will sometimes use stories to help the women who are in my private forum when they feel confused or stuck on something that they have struggled with for many years. Here’s one example:
Once upon a time, there was a precious little girl taking an exploration vacation with her daddy in a beautiful national park. There were so many things to explore! The daddy let his daughter go wherever she wanted to go in the park. Each day she chose to go a different direction, and she explored meadows, woods, pathways, and sometimes went off the pathways to discover other interesting things like beaver dams and hollowed out logs and animal nests.
Sometimes she would trip and fall. Ouch! She would scrape her knee or hurt her wrist. Once she got a branch in her eye, and it stung all day. Her daddy would give her a hug and reassure her that he was always right there. Not to take her out of the park. Not to prevent her from falling. But to comfort her when her explorations and exploits led to accidents.
Each day her wanderings could take a million different directions. And each microchoice led to more choices within that path of her choosing. Every moment of every day of exploring—another million options available to her. She was free to choose, and each micro-choice led her on a completely new path.
Her daddy never screamed at her to stop. To be afraid. To scold her for exploring something dangerous. To go where he wanted her to go (he already knew every inch of that park.) He knew that no matter where she wandered or explored, and no matter what mishaps she got herself into or accidentally fell into, at the end of the day, he would bring her Home where she would be safe and held.
That was the plan all along. A daddy. A daughter. A life in a world to explore. A bazillion choices all open to her.
And at the end of her adventures, both good and bad, a Home.
It’s true that survivors who have taken back control of their own adult lives have lost the love and acceptance of their spouses, older children, and religious communities. But consider that when people only love you because you do what they dictate, that’s not authentic, Christ-saturated love. That is control and manipulation.
That is a pretend love offered in exchange for your life.
Hopefully, there will be a few people in your life who love you no matter what. People who have a mighty faith in a mighty God and will eagerly support you as you learn to take personal control and come into the fullness of your adult identity as God intended.
3. Forks in the road are not either good or bad. They are simply different paths.
Sometimes it’s two equally viable options. And guess what: if nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, then you can rest assured He will walk with you on either path.
So many Christians stand at the crossroads wavering in doubt and fear. This isn’t gospel freedom. If an abuse victim has the opportunity to make a choice to stay or get out, she gets to decide which path to take for her own life.
Both of those paths will be dark and painful for a while. But it isn’t the responsibility or personal business of others to decide what is best for her and her children. As Christians, our role in the lives of others is a supporting role. A loving role. A “let me sit in the messy darkness with you so you’re not alone” role.
We do not have an “I’m going to take it upon myself to be the boss and judge of you” role. That’s not the gospel, and that’s not Christian love or community.
4. Make decisions based on reality, not wishful thinking.
If you’ve been living in an emotionally abusive relationship for ten years and nothing has changed, your best prediction of how life will be in ten more years is that it will be the same—except for what you choose to do about it today.
It’s tempting to believe a miracle could happen, and God could change your abuser. Could that happen? It isn’t outside the realm of possibility, but it is statistically rare because, first of all, abuse is deeply rooted in ideology and entitled attitudes toward women, and secondly, abusers don’t believe they have a problem that needs changing.
Of course God can do anything. He can make pink unicorns fly across rainbows. But He doesn’t choose to control people. He invites but never coerces.
And neither should we.
Your best bet when choosing what to do regarding your abusive relationship is to make decisions based on reality rather than wishful thinking.
Learning how to make decisions for your life is a messy and meandering journey, especially if you’ve been steeped in the toxic belief that you are like a child or just a dumb, easily misled female. One of the first steps to getting started on this journey toward confident adulthood is knowing who you really are.
Because your abuser has it all wrong.
If you are new to my work, I’d love to send you the first chapter of my book, Is it Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, and the first chapter of the companion workbook for free. Just hop on my mailing list HERE.
And if you’re itching to learn more, for the past six years I’ve been creating a brand new podcast episode every single week on the Flying Free podcast. Women tell me they binge-listen when they first discover it because it offers so much support, practical education, and encouragement. There are over 280 episodes to dive into. Learn more about the Flying Free podcast, and subscribe in your favorite podcast app.
And finally, if you are ready to REALLY pull out all the stops and go all in with me and hundreds of other Christian women just like you, check out my affordable and transformational program, the Flying Free Sisterhood.
Don’t let the price fool you into thinking the program is a flimsy little thing. I give my clients a ribeye dinner for the price of a White Castle hamburger, and I do this because I’m on a mission to help as many women as possible.
I hope you will be one of them.
XOXO,
Natalie
