Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Brian Shaul, David Allen
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00089A
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00:11 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery, I'm Cheri your
00:13 host and today we're going to talk about some of the core 00:16 issues of trust, how to gain that again, 00:18 how to reconnect with people. 00:20 I have a couple friends with me they're going to share 00:23 their testimonies and it is amazing you have to join us 00:25 today, come on into the café. 00:56 Hello, you know this last year or so we have been 01:00 traveling a ton and well I guess we've been traveling a 01:04 ton since we started this whole journey with recovery. 01:08 We've been to Russia and Australia and New Zealand. 01:11 I want to say hi to all our friends out there, I know 01:14 that you are watching, I know you are working in your 01:18 own recovery and this season is just so exciting for me. 01:22 Talking about the underlying issues, like for a while 01:26 I talked about my issues being heroin and all that 01:29 stuff not realizing what my core issues were. 01:33 I never learned how to trust anyone, to love anyone. 01:37 I never let people in and never really went into anybody 01:40 else's life because I just didn't know how to do that. 01:43 I was so damaged in those areas and today it is going to 01:46 be exciting to cover those. 01:47 But before we start I would like to, there are people 01:50 saying Cheri I couldn't even imagine you doing a program 01:53 like this because you are so flaky, and they are right. 01:55 It is unbelievable, I am. 01:57 I want to show you how they keep me in line here so I want 02:02 to bring up our floor director, Ben will you come up? 02:06 Just to get a visual of who you are. 02:12 So if I get out of line too much they just arrest me. 02:16 I just get in trouble and then I know you are an 02:21 incredible floor director for one. 02:23 I just have to say you have blessed us, but on the side 02:26 you're a police officer. - yes. 02:29 So what is really funny about that to me is that this is 02:32 the first time I've seen you in uniform and we 02:34 worked together for years. - yes, yes! 02:37 So I'm just going to be saying yes, yes to you on 02:39 everything now, thanks. 02:42 Today's program we are going to be talking about those 02:45 core issues, those underlying issues. 02:47 What is really funny when I show you the floor director 02:51 is that he really keeps things moving in a certain way. 02:54 But you know what? Are underlying issues keep things 02:58 moving in a certain way and if they are negative that is 03:02 the direction we are going to move in. 03:03 If they are positive, if they are true, if they are 03:07 healing, oh man we get our life. 03:09 So I want to introduce you first of all to Brian. 03:13 Brian, the first time I heard of you it was during a 03:17 group somebody was running called bulletproof. 03:20 I love that, I mean I love that even with that kind of 03:24 visual with Ben up here, emotionally bullet proof that's 03:28 really what we want to look at today. 03:29 But first of all, excuse me, tell us who you are? 03:34 Where you come from, let's talk about who you are and 03:37 where you come from before we get into your ministry. 03:40 Well I'm Brian Shaul, I'm from Alaska. 03:44 We live about three quarters of a mile from Sarah Palin 03:48 so - no really - really - that's funny! 03:51 During the presidential stuff we always knew she was in 03:55 town all the important cars would come and park there. 03:59 All the secret police and stuff, they would block off the lake 04:02 so that no planes could land on her lake where 04:05 they fly out and stuff. 04:06 That's funny, and I can see you going out and cutting down 04:09 a tree. - yeah, yeah. 04:14 I grew up in Alaska, ya grew up and we had 04:17 a cabin out in the bush of Alaska and we would ride snow 04:20 machines out to because there's no roads out to it. 04:23 So that is kind of where it came from and I had a great 04:25 childhood growing up. 04:27 I'm jealous? Yeah, well those who didn't get 04:30 a great childhood should be jealous. 04:33 It is a platform we can build off for the rest of our 04:36 life, yeah it is a very important thing. 04:39 So I can just see you in a safe environment and parents 04:44 that love you. - yeah it was great. 04:47 As a teenager, I was about 18 and I had a head injury. 04:51 - what happened? I got hit with a softball just plain 04:55 softball no big deal, but I went into the hospital and I 04:59 was unconscious for two days and I woke up a different 05:03 person and I woke up with anger management problems. 05:06 A different person and back 20 years ago or longer than that 05:12 it was not as common for people to get treatment for it. 05:17 I think for a lot of people, I think me included, until 05:22 I start working in the nursing field is you don't realize 05:26 what happens with head injuries and your impulse 05:29 control and who you are, there is such a change. 05:32 They did a major study of a guy one time that got hit 05:35 through the eye with one of these spikes, he was working on 05:41 the railroad and he came out of that injury. 05:44 They said this guy was a church guy, a nice family Guy, 05:48 and he came out cussing and swearing, partying and left 05:52 his wife and went drinking and the personality change was huge. 05:56 What you are talking about is that I was different, 06:00 not just kind of different? I was a different kid. 06:04 What I noticed is that couldn't, one memory I have 06:08 during that time was that I was trying to dial our phone 06:10 to call my mom, she was working. 06:11 I needed something and I couldn't find it and I tried 06:15 to dial the phone for a half an hour. 06:17 I remember just crying, crying, and crying because I 06:19 couldn't even dial a phone and thinking to myself I 06:22 have got to hide the fact I'm not smart anymore. 06:24 - wow so instead of a talking freely with people you just 06:28 that shame came over you and all that? 06:30 Shame came in and I tried to be as normal as most possible. 06:33 Which worked for about six months or so until the 06:37 frustration and anger just started coming out. 06:40 Plus head injuries are very influence able and so if you 06:44 hear something is an average person you sort it out and say 06:49 no that is not right. 06:50 But when you have a head injury you become very gullible. 06:53 Right! Almost naive, you don't filter information 06:56 the same. - everything is in the moment to you. 07:00 Exactly, exactly so as I became angry, but good friends 07:03 that I had who were really positive people tended not to 07:06 want to hang out with me and didn't want to be around me 07:10 anymore so I tended to gravitate to the angry kids that had 07:13 the hard childhoods, that had a reason to be angry. 07:18 And so I started drifting in that direction and by the 07:22 time a year or so had gone by I was really in a bad place. 07:26 And you fit in? I fit in with them yeah. 07:29 And they accepted me, the good kids that had it going on 07:33 they were ashamed of me, including the girl I wanted to 07:37 marry, she wasn't comfortable with me anymore. 07:40 I wouldn't have been either, she knew me really well 07:44 before the head injury and she could tell 07:45 something had really changed. 07:47 What's really sad is that you are right, there is a certain 07:50 time that people would not have guessed that there was 07:54 a correlation with this injury. 07:57 I had been hiding it for six months, nobody understood 08:01 the change and because I was able, in a sense they did, 08:04 in fact I didn't really under stand truly what had happened 08:08 until I met my wife, and my wife said have you had a head 08:12 injury? I said no, not that I can remember. 08:15 - oh, so you didn't even put it together? 08:18 I didn't even put it together until years and years later 08:21 when I met my wife and she had worked in neural surgery 08:24 trauma in the hospital and she asked my mom. 08:28 Has he ever had a head injury, she said which time? 08:31 So is really interesting to me is that I am thinking a lot 08:34 of couples are sitting there watching this program and the 08:37 wife turns around and says have you had a head injury? 08:39 Is that the whole thing? - yeah probably! 08:43 I'm sorry. So we are laughing about this, but it changed 08:49 everything, and not only for one or two weeks it turned 08:55 the course of your life in a different direction. 08:57 And the kids I was hanging with were listening to a lot 09:01 of heavy metal music and I got into the satanistic music 09:06 that promotes Satan and within a year or so I truly 09:11 believe Satan was bigger than God. 09:12 It was, it was, I really became a very different person. 09:17 When you say that, because a lot of people aren't going to 09:22 realize what you are saying, it is that you are saying 09:26 to even the devil himself is that I want you in my life. 09:29 Oh yeah, I felt like having the devil, having the 09:34 influences - having control. - yeah and I had a demon 09:40 I called Yohon and he told me what to do. 09:42 That was safe for me because I couldn't make decisions on my 09:46 own after the head injury so for me it was a very safe 09:48 thing to have this friend that would help me make 09:51 decisions and when I realized where I was going I ended 09:56 up cutting two fingers off with a table saw because of 10:00 my head injury and not paying attention. 10:02 I was in the hospital and they were going to amputate, 10:06 in fact they put me under and said they were going to 10:10 amputate these two fingers. 10:11 I said well God, my life isn't worth anything to me anymore, 10:14 I'll give it to You. 10:15 Now that I've come to it because at that point I couldn't 10:19 do school, I couldn't do any thing, the only thing I did was 10:23 carpentry and with a head injury there is no chance of me 10:26 ever doing anything with school. 10:28 Without my hands I couldn't do carpentry and so that was the 10:34 end of my life as productive, me being productive. 10:39 Let me just ask you because a lot of folks that go in the 10:42 direction that you went into, because we are talking about 10:45 addictions and where it drives us, or leads us. 10:49 Is I fit in with this crowd, but now I fit in with this 10:53 really hard core alternative music, now I fit into even this 10:57 kind of satanistic group and now for some reason I want 11:02 to pull back. And the devil doesn't let us pull back. 11:06 True, I had my parents my older brother, my older brother 11:11 in the book I wrote Matthew is that he dies and leaves 11:16 a diary for the main character in the book. 11:18 My dad and my older brother, my older brother's name is 11:22 Matthew and I named the character that because my older 11:25 brother was so instrumental in me coming back. 11:28 And my dad was a carpenter and so Matthew is kind of a 11:31 combination of my dad and my older brother in the book. 11:33 The characters dad in the book is a psychologist. 11:41 The reason I did that is because psychology didn't help me. 11:44 I wanted to make the villain a psychologist. 11:48 I went through psychologists - with a head injury you 11:53 are asking someone to think and I can't think. 11:56 And he basically told me when I finally got to the, they said 12:00 well your conscious brain doesn't work like it used to and 12:04 so your going to be begging groceries, you are going to be 12:06 doing something like that for the rest of your life and 12:09 you are going to have anger management problems. 12:11 That is what they told me. 12:12 - and that is just the way it is. 12:13 And that is where they left me and to be extremely smart 12:18 and then all of a sudden one day as a sophomore in high 12:22 school, my mom was driving me to the University of 12:26 Washington Library to do research on aerodynamics because 12:29 I wanted to be an engineer that developed airplanes. 12:33 Specialty airplanes, that is what I wanted to do from 12:38 as long as I can remember so for me that was taken away. 12:42 I went from being extremely smart I had about a six minute 12:46 conscious thought process, I tested close to the genius range 12:50 in a lot of different areas and then one day boom. 12:53 I was ignorant, I couldn't even think. 12:59 So I understood what it was like to be very smart and I 13:03 understood what it's like - to not be able to dial the 13:06 phone? - exactly not to be able to dial phone. 13:08 The neat thing about that is that you tend to be around 13:13 these people that were not a good influence, 13:15 but my parents and my older brother stayed with me the 13:18 whole time. And to you parents out there I can't tell 13:22 you how much, how important it is to stick with your kids 13:25 even when they are going through something you do not 13:28 understand. - because we always assume that it's a 13:30 behavioral thing when sometimes like in your case 13:33 it was a physical thing, I have been injured. 13:36 But we make assumptions and allow - it is funny, 13:40 a parent came in, a person in the church, a respected person 13:45 came in and they didn't know I was listening. 13:47 They just tore my parents up one side and down the other. 13:51 Basically said you guys are bad parents and I came out 13:55 and I remember, I don't remember well because of my head 14:00 injury, but I like how dare you. 14:03 God was the perfect parent and He lost a third of the 14:06 Angels, hello! Now these people are coming to my parents 14:10 after they had done a very good job of raising me and 14:13 something had happened and I had gone bad, by that time 14:17 I had gone bad as far society and stuff is concerned. 14:20 They were telling my parents it was their fault? 14:24 It made me very angry, but I was angry about everything 14:27 else too. - so that was easy, I could play that real 14:32 easy, so you are saying you always had a lifeline with 14:36 your parents and your brother. 14:38 My mom was amazing and my older brother was amazing. 14:43 So now that turnaround what did that look like and how 14:47 did that start to happen in your life? 14:49 Well it look like me going to the Pastor and telling him 14:51 I had problems with demons. 14:52 I had demons I was struggling with. 14:55 Because when you tried to come out what happened? 14:56 Because demonic stuff, and I wish I could say that really 15:00 loud where people that are playing in that arena, when you 15:04 get done playing it is not as easy. 15:07 - you just don't back out of it. - you don't back out 15:09 of it and when someone says in a gang activity I'm going 15:12 to get jumped in a gang and do all this stuff and when I'm done 15:14 I'm going to come out. 15:16 The gang does not let you out. 15:17 And when you talk about a spiritual gang it is even more 15:21 so because that spirit stuff can follow you around no 15:24 matter where you are at, even in your most quiet times. 15:27 So how did you start to back out and what did that look like? 15:31 Well basically, I want to tell it accurately and it is 15:35 hard for me to remember details, especially about that 15:38 part of my life. 15:39 - you don't have to be accurate you're talking to me. 15:43 I'll just kind of weave through that, I'm sorry. 15:46 Well basically I took a baseball bat and punched all the 15:49 windows out of my house and wrote a whole bunch of 15:51 satanic stuff on the walls and got arrested. 15:54 They came in - it's almost like a helter-skelter thing 16:00 I just lost it. - yeah well I look back and I understand 16:05 the anger I had, and I understand where the anger was 16:09 coming, it was from frustration from not being able to 16:13 express myself and my dad was an authority figure. 16:16 The funny thing when we have a lot of anger and stuff 16:20 we react towards the authority figures and so I was angry 16:24 at my dad and was showing my dad how angry I was. 16:28 I look back - all the rebellion really gets, you usually 16:31 hit a family member or something or somebody that you 16:35 love, spouse. - yeah and so at that point in time they 16:39 were going to put me in jail for 3 year because they thought 16:42 I was going to kill my dad because of some of the stuff 16:45 and they weren't going to let me out. 16:47 But the Pastor came in and said hey this is a good kid, 16:50 this guy has never done anything wrong and he sat down 16:53 with me and worked through the demon issues with me at 16:56 that point in time and it was a struggle for years. 16:58 It's really tough, I mean it's really tough when we feel 17:02 we are such an enlightened society that when somebody 17:06 mentions demons we just want to say ahh I want to stay 17:11 away from that, but even within my church, the Adventist 17:15 church that Ellen White talked about rebuking demons and 17:19 that thing and it's not like there are demons behind every 17:24 bush, but there is a reality and there is a devil and demonic 17:28 activity and there is all that stuff. 17:30 When you come against it there is nothing else to do but 17:34 to say in Jesus name. 17:36 Oh yeah, and I notice that after I started working to 17:41 come out of that world, I noticed that my anger was 17:45 the gateway for Satan to come into my life. 17:47 I realized, - you had totally opened the door, gave 17:50 him some room. - oh yeah, after I gave my life to the 17:55 Lord, which I was very immature and when I did I didn't 17:59 understand what I was doing, but I was hopeless and 18:04 I had given up and I was ready to die. 18:06 I mean if I could have committed suicide at that point. 18:09 If I could have commit suicide at that point in time 18:16 I probably really would have. 18:17 Why I didn't, God had a plan for my life and He kept 18:21 me from doing that but later on as I worked with people 18:25 who were in that place I could definitely understand 18:29 why they were there. 18:30 You wouldn't shame them, of course you feel like this 18:34 but you will get through it. 18:35 Yeah, yeah - exactly. 18:36 At one point of time when I was doing a lot of ministry 18:40 I had 17 calls where it was like my daughter is going to 18:43 commit suicide and here's the phone. 18:45 I'm like oh thanks, but the Lord works through it and 18:49 the Holy Spirit is amazing and we were able to work 18:53 each one of those situations. 18:54 So now you are at a point in your own life where you are 18:58 bringing that, you are bringing yourself back to God. 19:01 We do know nobody was there for me, nobody understood my 19:04 problem and it took me six years to really study the 19:08 Bible and really look at psychology. 19:11 I studied psychology too because I wanted to understand 19:15 and I found about 20% of physiology fit with what the 19:19 Bible was teaching and the rest I had to set aside. 19:22 It took me about six years to go through that process for 19:27 myself and the way I got into sharing this with other 19:31 people was I had a close friend who had gotten raped. 19:35 She had all the same exact problems that I had for 19:40 my physical head injury, but I knew it was 19:42 from her emotional trama. 19:44 So I started teaching her these tools that I have learned 19:47 over the last six years and she recovered very quickly 19:51 from that and she gave me credit for helping her recover 19:55 from that, and I was like wow. 19:56 Now what tools, because during those six years what did 19:59 that look like? Because I am still at the point where 20:02 you are just coming out if you know what I mean. 20:05 So basically when I came and gave my life back to the 20:10 Lord I was a wreck and I didn't have tools to deal with life. 20:16 I couldn't interact with people, I was angry all the 20:18 time and I wasn't comfortable with people. 20:22 Some of us, especially were talking on this whole season 20:26 on personal inventory and four step. 20:28 Some of us we need specific tools, what exactly do I think 20:33 about it and so you are saying I'm in that place. 20:36 With a head injury I needed a very simple step-by-step 20:40 process and I'm sure one existed out there but I couldn't 20:43 find it so for me, especially after I helped that girl 20:47 come through the process I realize that this step-by-step 20:51 process needed to be developed. 20:53 I dedicated my life at that point to refining a process 20:56 to helping people deal with emotional trauma or physical 21:00 trauma or a lot of people deal with post-traumatic stress. 21:04 So let's talk about what tools you developed and how 21:08 that look in your own walk. In your own journey. 21:12 First of all when we have been heard we don't trust. 21:16 So basically I had to learn to trust all over again. 21:19 So that was the first tool that I had to develop for 21:23 myself. - and we talked about that even at the beginning 21:26 of the programs I didn't trust anyone. 21:28 So whether it is a head injury or an addiction or a 21:31 dysfunction or abuse, that is one of the big items. 21:35 Who do you trust? 21:37 The second concept that I found for myself that was 21:40 critical was the 3, 12, and 70. 21:43 As I was studying Christ's life and studying psychology 21:47 and studying all of these books it took me forever 21:49 because I read at about a third grade reading level. 21:53 Those that know me know it is painfully agonizing for me 21:57 to read, but I didn't have any options. 22:00 I needed to study this out. 22:01 So when Christ was here on earth He had three intimate 22:05 close friends, He had 12 disciples that were close 22:08 friends but not nearly as intimate as Peter, James, and 22:11 John and then He had the 70 that went out ahead of Him 22:14 to the cities and talked about him to prepare people. 22:17 What I found in my life is that I needed those three 22:20 intimate friends that I could trust. 22:23 If I trusted the wrong people, if I brought the wrong 22:25 people - you know wait I have to tell you because it is 22:28 really funny and I love the way God lead you in this 22:31 because people, I'll just mention myself for myself in 22:35 recovery when I knew that God said I want you to develop 22:38 those intimate relationships, my palms sweat. 22:41 Because we don't know how to do that, so trust is a big 22:44 issue but when you say now I specifically want you to 22:47 get those three people, develop those kinds of friendships 22:51 you're saying keep it simple. 22:54 For me it was three friends, and the reason for three, 22:58 I've struggled, I said one, it's hard to have one. 23:03 And I said why did Christ give us an example of three? 23:06 But you know what? One person can't meet all of your 23:09 needs, Christ can, and for six years I depended on Christ. 23:13 I developed a very intimate relationship with Christ 23:16 and He can meet your needs. 23:18 To tell an addict oh go built a relationship with Christ, 23:23 hello they need that bridge and we need to be that bridge 23:27 for them, but for me I had to develop those three intimate 23:31 friends because one person couldn't deal with all my 23:34 trauma, one person could not deal with all of my stress. 23:37 When one person got overwhelmed with who I was 23:41 - call the next one. - call next one and I laugh about 23:45 that now but we need three friends because one time one 23:48 day your friend may be having a down day too. 23:52 So we really need that 3, 12 and 70. 23:55 Then the next step that I found, I found a text. 23:59 Let me just go for the 12, join a group somewhere, 24:02 get into a Bible study or whatever. 24:03 The 70 is just your interest, the Church body, 24:07 or whatever, so you really can picture that. 24:10 I even did a crochet group for the 12 if you know what 24:13 I mean so it is being able to know that if I'm going to 24:17 specifically work on something I need to keep it simple 24:21 but make sure you do it. It will change your life. 24:24 My three very sacred, to illustrate the reason for the 12 24:29 I think part of it is that I had a great team in Alaska. 24:34 Pastor Tim is a good friend of mine and in the book 24:37 you will see Pastor Tim is the hero. 24:39 That is on purpose too, to honor him and the part 24:42 he played in my life. 24:44 Jeanette is really, another person, really but in their 24:49 life they had something happen and Janet really was 24:53 a counselor friend of mine and we talked shop a lot and 24:58 she retired, well she didn't want to talk shop anymore. 25:01 She wanted to talk about grandkids and so that's great, 25:05 that's wonderful but all of a sudden she didn't fit into 25:08 my three anymore and then Pastor Tim's wife got cancer 25:11 and he had to take the full load of ministry for both of 25:14 them because she was a Pastor as well. 25:16 And then I lost another friend at that same time. 25:19 I lost my three within a month. 25:22 But however in recovery one of the things you learn in 25:25 recovery is that those three are magical but the three 25:29 you develop and you can develop additional. 25:32 I had a healthy 12, I was able to reach out to some of 25:36 those 12 and was able to develop another three very 25:40 quickly, if I didn't have that 12 I might have been years 25:45 before I could have had three trusting friends. 25:47 That is an illustration of where the process of the 3, 12 25:53 and 70, some times things happen. - things happen and 25:57 it is nobody's fault, it is not a rejection thing. 26:01 It is going to hit all those buttons but know that as 26:05 people move and things happen in their life just develop it again 26:10 and do the next thing. And I love what you said. 26:14 As I said step-by-step, you have to have as an addict 26:17 or somebody with a dramatic brain injury, or as somebody 26:20 who has gone through post traumatic stress you have to 26:24 keep it simple and 3, 12 and 70 is helpful. 26:27 - what is the next one? - the next one is, 26:29 the truth will set you free. - oh yeah! 26:32 And what I found here - well you know for a lot of us 26:34 we don't even know what the truth is. 26:35 We just lie and manipulate. 26:38 Why did we teach trust first? Why do we teach 3, 12, 70 26:43 next? And now we teach about understanding the truth. 26:47 Because when you have a healthy three that you can trust 26:52 I'll guarantee you will have three ways of finding the truth. 26:55 Because they will tell you the truth. 26:57 And the Bible is our source of truth. 27:00 When we start talking about our pain, I have had even 27:04 recently, I have had people said Brian that is not 27:09 how it was, I'm like oh, ouch. 27:12 Then they took me through and showed me the truth about 27:16 this pain that I had and that I had caused it. 27:19 That person I was blaming for the pain maybe wasn't 27:24 responsible and so as I took responsibility for that 27:28 pain then I was able to find healing in that little 27:32 aspect of my life that I hadn't found it. 27:34 In recovery what is a gift for people to do is give you 27:38 correct perspective of what actually happened. 27:41 And for some of us - we need to be free, it needs to be 27:44 close intimate friends that can give you the right 27:46 perspective. - exactly because if we have a Pastor 27:48 who we have seen speak in front of a church and come up 27:51 and tell us honestly the truth that everybody can see, 27:54 we may not be ready to hear it. 27:58 Our friends, those close intimate friends they can take 28:02 us to that truth slowly, step by step and help us come 28:06 into that truth in a more reasonable way. 28:09 Awesome, we're going to take a break because I know you 28:12 brought in a partner, David Allen with you in ministry so 28:15 I am going to bring him up and tell us who he is and then 28:19 I would like both of us or all of us to come up here and 28:22 bring it to a close. 28:23 So we will see you again because I love what you had to 28:27 say about trust, there is developing those relationships, 28:31 there is really getting honest with yourself and that 28:35 truth and if we start doing that stuff as our recovery 28:38 becomes not easy, but definitely easier. 28:42 We will be right back, stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17